Dax Shepard
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Susan Morrison (on Lorne Michaels)
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Susan Morrison (on Lorne Michaels)
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Armchair Expert
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Susan Morrison (on Lorne Michaels)
Stay tuned for the fact check. It's where the party's at.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Susan Morrison (on Lorne Michaels)
Yeah, we are. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
So what was the historical context from which the super loom arose? What percentage of the world was occupied with the production of textiles and stuff? How significant of an industry was it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah. He's got a damn good eye for what's going to actually. Work and be desirable by people. His several books, Masters of Scale, Blitzscaling, The Alliance, The Startup of You. His new book, which is out on the 28th, is Super Agency. What could possibly go right with our AI future? And he wrote that with Greg Beto. So I want to give a shout out to Greg. This was really, really fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, it's hard at that moment to predict that, okay, at this point, only 2% of the population is buying a new garment a year because the price is so expensive because it is hand done. They're not forecasting, well, those jobs go away, but now all of a sudden everyone's buying clothes. There'll be clothing shops. There'll be all these different things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It could, in fact, explode exponentially versus this little pocket we're trying to protect. Yes. What did the telegram do?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Right. Seatbelts, safety glass, airbags. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Oh, yeah, yeah. I just watched Little Women a couple of days ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Hand stitching the binding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
We're just going through the history first. The one in the book that I had never stopped to think about, obviously, I grew up in the era of it, is the telephone. Because we're pointing out different things. There's a lot of concerns with AI. One is jobs. One is how is it going to mold culture? What's it going to do to inform me? All these kind of things. But of course, there's a lot of
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Kind of more societal, interpersonal things. And I didn't realize that when the phone debuted, people thought it was going to destroy civil society because you would no longer go to someone's house to visit them. Right. That it would completely get rid of any kind of interpersonal in-person, which is kind of the same thing we're yelling about right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I had no idea that there was an uproar about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Right. Opposite outcome as they feared. All right. The camera, the radio, the automobile.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And it led me to design a van.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I've got to add, Martin Luther did succeed in raising literacy rates from like 3% to 95%. And in the process of learning to read, that cognitive ability did displace some of our other abilities. It did permanently change the structure of our brain, interestingly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I don't know how everyone else is feeling about their thinking. Your thinking seems fine. No, I have to shoot down four bad ideas before I ever get to a good idea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That I'm in love with with AI. That's really cool. Anyways, love Reid Hoffman. This was really, really fun. Please enjoy Reid Hoffman. We are supported by Mint Mobile. It's time to leave your overpriced wireless plans jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages. Get huge savings with Mint Mobile. They're offering any three-month plan for only 15 bucks a month, even their unlimited plan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And so it's like, oh shit. Makes music better than I can and does a lot of things better than I can do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That's a derivative of agent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Let's put a bow on the kind of employment fear. So what are current unemployment rates versus in the past throughout any of these huge technological revolutions?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It's like yelling at your VCR because the tape won't come out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I guess the unemployment. Point I was hoping to make was I listed seven of these that were going to end all employment. And I think currently our unemployment rate is about as low as it's ever been. Historically. Yes. So in spite of all these things, once it's flushed out and we get through the rocky part of it, our unemployment tends to go down and down and down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Or for me who loves to drive, that you would get in a car with a stranger and have them take you across town while you're drunk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
We're all doing it. We were trained, now no longer. Yeah, it's wild. You have a couple of good quotes in the book. One of them I wrote down that I like was, you'll never get the future you want simply by prohibiting the future you don't want. I think that's like a good admission to make right out of the gates. You're not going to get anywhere by just throwing darts at it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Not, no, no, you can't change. Yeah, start delineating what the thing is you want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It's happening. There's no version where America sits this out. Yes. So forget it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Okay, so I think the first AI product that hit our doorstep in a way that people understood was chat GPT. How was it different and how successful is it and why?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It was a tweet to announce it, right? It wasn't like a press conference. They didn't anticipate any of that happening. All of a sudden, it was like, oh, my God. So what did it do that you think captivated people?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You learn. By the way, you could train it on me. You could go like, what would Dax Shepard's counterargument be? And I might be able to create it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You can do it from any perspective in the automotive industry, basically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
How would an ad agency sell this new thing? Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You enlisted the Ozempic argument. Yeah. It is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You want that to still be a valuable skill.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You look like a convict.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I literally did that with my mom at Christmas. This is me having to get grandma's phone out and show her the icon for podcasts and show her how to get there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
So Reed, one of my curiosities is if you give it the same prompt. So I've consumed some AI stuff that I find incredible. There's a dude who makes these mashup songs. So one that I loved is he said, do Metallica as Yacht Rock. And it came out with a song that was truly a banger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It's a great fucking song. My question is, if he put in that identical prompt over and over again, it wouldn't always spit out that song or would it? Would it come up with a new song every time?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Does time and space intervene? Like you could ask in front of mom, show me Monet's current take on blank. And then three weeks later, you do it. Would you get the same images?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I want it to be different because, again, if it's going to be something that extends my agency, I don't want everyone else to have the exact. It's very easy to make a difference.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Wow. Just let that swirl as you give me the answer to something unrelated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It seems to me from the outside like it was a bit of a shocker. And I'm curious where these other monoliths were at in this. Like where was Google? Where was Microsoft? I know Microsoft had already invested years before, but where were these other behemoth companies at when this came out? Because I think the big shocker, and I could be wrong, is that Google has really nothing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I guess it just seems like a shocker that the holder of all the info we're using in some way wasn't at the forefront of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, you keep saying super agency, but the full title is super agency. What could possibly go right with our AI future? Is there any device in the works to check the work of the AI?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
The most comical case I've heard in the news of this is the lawyer that wrote his debrief and had AI do it. And it cited law cases and the argument that didn't exist. And by some miracle, the judge detected that. Yes. Which I wouldn't have expected a judge actually went and looked at all these references, but did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
There's an example of this person really had a lot of confidence in this thing and put it in front of a fucking judge. Yes. And the judge was like, there's no Peterson versus Delaware.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I think he just got humiliated in the news.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
We need to call the AI Walter Cronkite. We got to go back to our last trusted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That's a new look. They said 2025 is convict. That's right. Convict's a new black. Returning guests today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
The moment I was most discouraged by this was in the wake of the Capitol Six.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Surge. Here we are on January 6th. I turned on CNN first because I'm a liberal and the pundits saying the police officers were in cahoots with the Trump administration. I was like, what? The police officers wanted a storm on the Capitol? A, that was not true at all. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Then I went over to Fox and it was like this triumphant kind of, and I was like, well, neither of these perspectives are even approaching reality. Could we merge them and come to truth? I don't know. But that's when I got kind of scared of the whole system.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
In the book, you cite some polls in the worst of the polls was at 15% and the very best was at 35%. Only 15% of Americans in the worst case think that the benefits of AI are bigger than the wins of AI. And in the best case scenario, 35% of Americans think that the benefits will outweigh the risk. Why is it that stark?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Other people are on the road. Well, the joy of a healthy fruit off of a tree versus the potential death of the poisonous one, they're not equal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Right. You reference Orwell's 1984 quite a bit in one of the chapters. So what was Orwell's fear and what happened? And he wrote in 1949, which I found to be interesting, considering what computing power existed then.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
1948? Well, you got an issue with your book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Because 84 was the inversion of it. Maybe he wrote it then. Also, the copy I have says in huge letters, uncorrected copy, so who knows?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, yeah, if you were a leader during that Arab Spring, you certainly didn't think technology was at your assistance. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
What is a network of trust?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, it seems like AI would be the only thing that could handle the sheer volume of that information that exists. Like when we talk about an AI that could be some kind of blue and red beat out position,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
The shoulders of both are Looney Tunes. Yes. Let's go through some of the things that could go right, because I do think there's some really exciting things. So how on earth could child care be impacted by AI?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Or the edibles or the fire starters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, I can envision a version where you have set the parameters of your own personal points of view on parenting. And what you want it to do is to remind you of the best version of yourself in that situation. Because there's many times where I'm overwhelmed and I don't hit my own parameter. You're entitled to your own parameters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
My first curiosity read, and this is a sincere question, what's the longest you are anywhere? Because what I've been able to observe from a distance is you seem to be somewhere else every three days.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
But is there a device that could nudge you into the best version of your own parameters?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
But, Monty, we would put that into our parameters, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You could do that? You could say, I value rip and repair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Right. Because we can learn from it. That's the thing is like any argument you or I can think of in the way you can pick that version of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That goes into the wonderful philosophical Homo Deus, Yuval Harari, are we servicing our experiential self or our narrative self? You also have to be clear what percentage of yourself are you servicing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
All that stuff is a good use of your time and thought, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Like to just... Stumble through life and think about everything after the fact is what we mostly do. It almost forces you to have some intention because you're kind of declaring you have a goal or an objective. Yes. Tax filing and legal advice. This feels very democratizing because I think most people who are struggling, they don't have access to either of those things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
What's it going to do in medicine? We've touched on this a little bit. We were at that conference. The thing that I found to be mind blowing is that to perform the amount of experiments required to get to a FDA phase one trial, the amount of man hours involved, the amount of expenditure where these companies now using that are just running a bazillion different experiments to see what happens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And you're on a lot of boards. Do you have to be in person at those meetings or are those now Zooming?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
How does all that materialize?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Probably on both sides, too. Like the FDA can use this technology to take on such huge a quantity to evaluate. That seems to be one of the huge logger jams in this whole thing. They have a finite capacity to evaluate all this stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It is funny. I, of course, like Monica's email thing, I have a knee-jerk reaction to kids writing term papers. Me too. Essays. Because I fucking killed myself, and it was one of the things I did well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Something I got praised for. I mean, probably got me through. I had other columns that were very low, and that was lifted by that ability. And then another part of me that's realistic goes, yeah, okay, so they're going to write the term paper. It'll be good or bad. They'll have to evaluate it. They'll turn it in. They'll get a grade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
The same skill set will be applied when they go get the job where they're required to write. The bill doesn't ever come due because it's not like anyone's taking that tool away from them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, people were pissed when I no longer had to know how to spell. Now, as a dyslexic, I was like, yeah, finally, I'm not handicapped by this thing. I have a spell check because I'm as smart as you. I just fucking can't do that thing. So I, of course, was a beneficiary of one of these technologies. I no longer suffered from not being able to spell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
A kind of broader question would more be like, will some of these tests of merit just actually go by the wayside? So even like a college admission essay, if at some point everyone you read is a perfect, great essay, the college admission process might go, well, this is no longer really a relevant measure of anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It's that awesome system that everyone should be fighting to uphold.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
But in person this time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
What is the triumph of the private commons?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Being a free rider doesn't take anything from anybody for the first time ever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Okay. Why is innovation safety?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And you're willingly ignoring how many people died in horse-related injuries. Yes, exactly. Which was probably infinitely higher than even these horrific new crashes we were witnessing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah. We just went to Mexico City over the break. And I said, you know, we all want teleporting, but we fucking have it. If you told someone from the 1700s that in the morning I could be in Los Angeles and in the evening I could be eating dinner in Mexico City, that's insane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yes. You're in so many different things. You're a very active investor. You're on the board of all these companies. What's the inspiration to write a book?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Because we tell two different narrative stories. Our current understanding of physics would be a clone would be the other side. Not you. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
We could do two hours in teleporting. So I've said to her, even if the technology ever existed, there are infinite industries incentivized to kill that. Every industry would collapse with teleporting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That might be the one that breaks everything. If you can live on a ranch in Montana, eat dinner at Emily Burger in Manhattan every night, who the fuck's going to pay for the rent in New York? Just go there when you want, and then you can be on your ranch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It's good for humanity, not good for real estate owners. That's why I'm saying the incentives to crush that would be the most astronomical ever. Okay, tell me about America's role and responsibility in an AI future.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
There's obvious reasons we're uniquely positioned for this. A, the technology's largely coming from 300 miles north of here. That seems helpful. We have more capital than anyone to be steering it. Does the democratizing nature of the technology actually threaten America's
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I was going to bring that up. I just got cleared for global entry on the way home. And I'm like, hold up a second. I don't even have to go in my pocket to pull out my passport now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got that so many years ago. Well, he got kind of denied. You probably lived closer to the global entry office you had to drive to. I've taken two kids there. It's four hours of my day to get to LAX and do the whole thing. I was smart enough to do it at the airport when I landed this time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
There might be a new concept too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, you're right. I'm a big contradiction. I'm going to ask you my Yuval Harari pushback. We had him on to discuss his new book. What I love and appreciate about the way he thinks is, which is almost impossible to do in this day and age, he finds a thing to worry about that almost no one else is worrying about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
He focuses on bureaucracies and the power of bureaucracies and how much bureaucracies have shaped our world more than the charismatic leaders in question. Jesus didn't write the Bible. A crew of people edited many, many stories to create the Bible. That's really interesting. What really has lived on is the Bible, not Jesus and bureaucracy. Ultimately, that was bureaucrats that did it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
So that's a fascinating thing to think about. The point that he made that I find myself repeating a lot when this topic comes up at dinner parties is we are organic creatures. We work in cycles. The stock market's open. It's closed. There's a nuclear attack. The market's not open. That's convenient. Our world is built in these cycles and for a reason. His point is... These aren't going to help us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
They're going to run all day long because that's what they do. And they will force us to join them as they run all day long. And the stock market would be an example. If that thing ran 24-7 and you are in that industry, you could tell yourself you're only working.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
yeah so philosophy major what's your philosophical answer to that really rudimentary point well we live in great societies because we have institutions this is one of the problems that i have with all the critics you know government bad universities bad etc etc this morning i was thinking a sector of this country hates the government and what i think is like when i drink water out of my faucet and it doesn't poison me guys that's also the government yes exactly when there's an earthquake in the fucking building you're in doesn't fall down on you that's
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
the government. The fire department. You're focused on the five things they did that were fucked up and conspiratorial, but you're missing the fact that the stoplight worked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
A renovate institutionalist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That's happening a lot now. We're starting to get folks that we had done during COVID. And I got to say, it feels in person like it's the first time we interviewed them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I think if you had to sum up your overall arching opinion is like, guys, give yourself some fucking credit. You've done it. You have the capacity to do it. You're not going to lose your critical focus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
The power loom. Yes. Let's do that. Let's not fuck it up. That's, again, the third bucket I find myself in. We have no option but to try to lead this. Not only no option, it'll be great. If you had to isolate a single promise that you're most excited about, what do you think is going to be the very most impactful?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Oh, no. We were walking around Mexico City and the aforementioned friend who uses his chat GPT all the time, Eric, said, I'm really sincerely curious, how does the medical system work here? You're seeing all these different people and we're in Mexico City. And you imagine that every one of those people had a doctor as good as my doctor. is pretty mind-blowing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And so fucking positive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Innovation of safety. Now, this has nothing to do with your book. I have one nosy curiosity, and then I have you, which I don't regularly get you, and I want your opinion on something completely unrelated. My nosy question is, have you made more money from investing or from exiting the companies you founded? Never asked myself that question. You have to know the answer to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You can all say it in your business.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I'm curious. You come up, Reed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
We're listening to Acquired and we're listening to the story of Meta.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It's not that I think it's wrong to do it, and obviously you manage it. I believe you, though, that you're just more interested in getting in on it and getting it going, and then this result ends up happening. You're not doing podcasting for money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Right. Okay, that was my nosy question. Again, aforementioned Eric Richardson. Shout out, third time. He and I argue all the time about crypto. What do you think about crypto?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It's currently at $100,000 or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, they work their life, they amass this saving, and then these assholes completely devalued everything they've ever done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It's like an elongated pressure test of it, I guess. You're right. And when you're hearing your own argument in print, you somehow can have some objectivity about your argument. That makes total sense in your head. But once you're reading, you're like, that's a little weak. Change that. Yeah, that doesn't work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That's a good answer. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
By something that's stuck around for a long time. Well, U.S. dollars is the post-World War II. As long as they trade oil in it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I just watched a doc about the greatest heist of all time. Right. These two stole seventy two million dollars of Bitcoin in 2017. At the time, it was seventy two million dollars. Its current value is four point five billion dollars. Right. So what was funny? and learning about how they caught the people was this thing I never thought of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
The appeal for so many people of crypto was, yeah, the government has nothing to do with it. It's anonymous. You can't track it. Well, the ledger of it all is accessible and known at all times. Every single Bitcoin is public to everybody. And so you can hold it anonymously, which they did, but... You can't convert it into any good service or property or anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You have to at some point convert it into U.S. dollar. Now, once you do that, you're fucked. You have to present some identification. And so, again, one of the big selling points when you look at it in practice, well, that's not true. It's anonymous so long as you never get a good or service with it. So that whole appeal to me is useless.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
The fact that you can get it stolen and there's no one to call, that sucks. So now we're getting involved via the SEC. So really all that's happening, in my opinion, is you're just more and more funneling it into a currency. So everything it was supposed to be, it doesn't function unless we get it to be an actual currency that our government is going to somehow investigate when it's stolen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It's funny you bring up Yuval because one of my only pushback questions is something when he was here he brought up, which I found to be very compelling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Regulate. Yes. Am I wrong about that? Well, I'm generally positive. Don't come after me, crypto bros. Don't steal our money. They're as bad as Taylor Swift fans.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I'm so scared of them. Please don't come after me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, that's where I'll call myself a hypocrite. I look at the crypto and I go, of all the stories that have been told, this one is the furthest out there. Well, it's newest. It's the newest, but it is not linked to a government, an institution, to any kind of GDP. There's no way to assess its value other than you all agreed on it. Well, I'll admit the U.S. dollar to me is a story I believe in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
So I can admit I'm hypocritical. I go, I believe in one version of the story. This story feels a little out there for me. I can't latch on to this story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Do you want to do it on the show?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Polymessage. Well, if it works on an Android, it'll really work. Yes, exactly. I'm teasing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You want to ask a question? Does it only know your voice? No, no. Everyone's. Okay, let me think of a question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Thank you. Are you aware of the podcast Armchair Expert?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, you saw our friend, fifth time now, Eric. He said, based on my searches, please draw a picture of me or create a picture of me. And it was this huge muscle bone guy at a desk trading stocks because he's been searching peptides on the internet nonstop and he's a stock trader. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
So maybe let's start with because the book starts with Socrates musing on the failings of writing. So tell us about what Socrates thought of writing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
If my favorite movies are Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Thief, Raising Arizona, Flirting with Disaster, what's another movie I might love?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Oh, this leads me to a question I forgot to ask. How does ownership of content it creates work? So I can think of it more in images. Like if I create an image through it, could I copyright that image once it's been created?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yay. I'm going to give you a very specific example. I've written all these scripts. They went unproduced. I think it's called Google Veo 2, maybe. And it created a musician had a song, wanted a video, and it was this crazy cool sequence of a car chase through a post-apocalyptic town. Yep, I saw that too. It's very cool. I mean, it's not there there for me, but it was very, very cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
But it's on path. It's on fucking path. But I was thinking, could I load in one of my unproduced screenplays and make it? And let's say I accomplish that goal. Now I have this movie that came from my screenplay. What can I then do with that? And I guess my thought was, I guess I would put it on YouTube and monetize how many clicks it got.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Could I sell it to a studio if it was completed and worth distribution? Like what would happen if I did end up creating a movie on one of these things with a script I had written? What could I do with that movie?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, like Instagram doesn't then own the image you've uploaded. Yes. Don't try to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You picked a perfect time because I finally saw something that really lit a bulb in my head where I was like, God, if I could see these things I've written come to fruition that I needed a studio to give me the money for, that's a very exciting future for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It would really work with my kind of ADHD-leaning thought speed. Exactly. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, let me see. Cool. Oh, I don't like that. Okay, Reid, this has been so much fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Reid, I adore you. It's always so fun to bump into you anywhere on the planet. And I hope you'll come back with your next great thought.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Please, everyone, check out Super Agency, What Could Possibly Go Right With Our AI Future. All right, thanks, Reid. Awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Two peas in an hour, Monica, I'm actually concerned. Oh. A little scary. That's a lot of peas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Initially that part's scary, but then you get used to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And then it's scary if she goes twice in an hour. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I can challenge, I can question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
She'd be so happy, right? How could she not?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You didn't admit. No, I didn't. It was under duress.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, I'll just say in a forthcoming episode soon, next week.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
We have a guest on who's talking about throwing a birthday party. And I went on and on about how I don't want a birthday party. Half the episode is about how I don't want a birthday party. And we walked out of the garage. From that interview. And I was like, that's weird. Kristen's got a man over in the swimming pool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, I did. I did not notice it was Aaron at first. I was just like, oh, she's got a man over. I saw a little bit of there's a woman in the mix. And I'm like, oh, these are her singing friends. Friends over, yeah. Yeah. So then I come around the hedges and I see my son's here, Sharon Beasley.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
My very first thought, not to get too dark for the cherries, but this is our past. I'm like, the only time Aaron has ever shown up in California without letting me know he was coming was the day I opened my apartment door in Santa Monica and Aaron was standing there and it looked like he had been drugged behind a car for a week and he had been smoking crack for five days.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
In a tiny moment of I think I'm going to die or go get on an airplane and fly to my dad, he got on an airplane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I was already sober for a year maybe at that point. Yeah. I just got a bit of a PTSD. Like, why would Aaron just be here without telling me he's coming?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Oh, good. I mean, I didn't really think that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
But you never know. She might have been like, we got to get Aaron to... An intervention. Oh, God. It wasn't that really deep, as I'm saying. I just had this really weird moment where this has only happened one other time. So Kristen, at that point, had to acknowledge, you're having a surprise party. I've planned a party and I brought Aaron and Ruthie here for the party. And then...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Then I was really excited. Good. Because I didn't have to ask anyone to come. I didn't have to get scared about that. There wasn't a bunch of time for me to worry about who's not going to show up because it was just going to be the next day, which was last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Did you feel so bad for me? Like, what a dum-dum. He's digging himself deeper and deeper.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I'm learning terrible stuff about myself right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
He's going to hit people. He's going to hit the children.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Hey, my son's there, so I'm happy right away. Aaron's here. This is unexpected. I had just seen him a couple of days before in Detroit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
But Aaron's only been here for 10 minutes, but boy, we've already had a very eventful trip. Yep. So yesterday, before the interview and the fact check that was moved up, I said, do you want to go for a ride in the new station? To which Aaron was like, absolutely. So we went for a little rip around town. It was so fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That's a very short sentence. I feel like you're mad. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, I think we had a lot of great. I know we had a lot of great. We did. Eric Lander. That's a phenomenal episode, but it didn't embed itself in my memory. None of the ones that were over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And then I was like, let's quickly, I think we can, before the fact check, we'll get some eggs. So we stopped at Cafe 101. We parallel parked the wagon on the street. We go inside, we sit down, we're there for, I don't know, a minute and a half. And a stranger walks in and he looks at me and goes, white car? And I go, yeah. And he goes, it's on fire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
horrible and i just ptsd oh my god too many fires in this city i sprint out of the restaurant i'm i'm fully expecting it to be engulfed in flames so we sprint outside get to the wagon sure enough there is smoke coming out of the hood pull the hood pins open it up a wiring harness is on fire there's flames i don't know how this worked Did you see this happen? The spit? Yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I just went, I spit as hard as I could at the fire and it went out. It went out. I might have a superpower I didn't know about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I don't know how that works.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, you should get the safety off and everything ready to go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It seems really simple. And then also when you think about it, it seems really hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
She didn't do a good job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Good job. Yeah. Was something on fire in front of her?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Oh. Yeah. And someone was running video. Yeah. And then I'm piecing together because there's now a woman behind the car who I guess was either parking or got in her car. And then what became obvious is she must have got the hotel guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
But I do wonder, had we not just had the fires, if like she would have been so incredibly, she might have saw smoke coming out of her car and be like, eh, it's not my problem.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
But yeah, everyone's on such high alert that I think she immediately went- I think that's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Like ignite. I was then thinking like, oh my God, what if I had set another round of fires in Hollywood?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
People would have been like, that entitled bastard. I know. Why has he got to have these cars that catch on fire?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, when they catch on fire, you can't go breathe anywhere near them as we're now finding out. That's the crazy part.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Or I think. I don't want to be sued. I think there's a release on there as well. If you had read the manual and practiced like a fire extinguisher. It's in the door, though. It's right there. It's what? It's right there in the door, though. Oh, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I thought you were going to bring up his chest hair. That's where I thought this was going.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
The last time you talked about having shaved his chest hair, how sexy he felt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, I was going to add something he couldn't have anticipated, which is there's something that gives validity to a concept or an idea, simply the fact that it made it to print and made it to your newspaper. There's some other magic trick where you kind of over-inflate the information you're reading because it has gone through, you think, some steps. Yes. You wouldn't have even predicted that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Really quick, Aaron, I've never let you feel this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You'll be a very select group. Go ahead and touch that. Be really careful. Give an honest what you think about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Oh, my God. Is that not the softest thing you've ever felt?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
There isn't a blanket made of that? No. So you can make some. I know. You've got to be careful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It sure is. There's no denying it. And you know, now Delta's leg hairs are in here, too. Oh, nice. So we're harvesting from my back and her legs. Oh, family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
At the risk of hurting Aaron's feelings, Aaron has had dense body hair his whole life. He's a man. He's always been a man. I'm not. I've always not been a man. I've always felt like a preteen or a woman next to him. And he's always had a gorgeous Burt Reynolds chest hair since we were 17.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I think it's coarser. Would you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah. I know we're both getting hair now everywhere. It's maddening. But have you noticed, have we already talked about our armpit hair? Have you noticed your armpit hair is like, will be two feet long sometimes?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Same. I now give myself like a haircut in my armpit. Me too. And then I have this very weird, do you have this where it's like, I have it in my mind it's supposed to be some length or else why would it be that long? Sure. Because I'm tempted to just like cut it as close to the skin as possible so I have to do it less. But then I think, aren't you supposed, is it going to be some length?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You know why I had to finally confront it? Other than, like, maybe my kids pointed it out and I was embarrassed, but also... You can't even get your deodorant to the skin anymore because it just clumps up in your hair. And then you have dingleberries in your armpit. And you're like, what the fuck is going on? Why am I a mess like this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, not yet. Not even close. Six months. Okay, great. How about you guys talk about my party? Oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It was a yacht rock theme. It was at my favorite roller skate rink, Moonlight Rollerway. Yep. To name drop, Kimmel made the playlist, as he's made many playlists in the past that I love.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I think that's largely what happened on the Internet is people are reading things and it's in the shape of a New York Times article and has a headline. And you're like, this is news. This is substantial.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And Kristen enlisted him to do that. Tons of blasts from the past. A lot of my Groundlings friends. Just an incredible, perfect group of people. My dad came all the way out from across town. Tom Hanson.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, did you get on both of the meats?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It was damp as a motherfucker. It was like a, what do you call it, cake? Pound cake. Pound cake. Yeah, it was delicious. I was really excited about the Adam Perry Lang of it all because- Most of my friends that were there didn't know about him. And I don't know what their expectations were at a roller skating rink, how good the barbecue was going to be. But he is one of the best barbecue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
He does these pop ups around L.A. and there's fucking lines around the block. Yeah. And he's just there cutting ribs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
She's stuck with it. She goes through little phases. You know, there's no crepes for months and months and months. And then there's crepes 10 days in a row. She cooks them compulsively. I hope there's crepes tomorrow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Oh, you should bring that up. She would love to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, this is quality information because it looks like the information I associate with quality.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
So normally this is Delta's birthday party is here every December. And we always get the rink for two hours. And it's always my commitment to skate as long as possible because it's such a unique opportunity. But the window of this party was 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. And I was like, I don't. Oh, I got to back up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
One other thing that happened, because I didn't know I was having a party, is that day before, I rode the furthest I've ever ridden on my new road bike. I told you, I passed your house a couple different times. Armcherry sent me. I was even paparazzi'd. I didn't know it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, I went everywhere. I was down the L.A. River, down Pass Spoke, then out in Glendale, then back into Silver Lake. So that whole day when I came out and saw him in the pool, I was like, I went too hard. I can barely walk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Then she said, five to ten, we're skating. Then we got five hours of skating. And we're going to skate. We're going to skate hard. And oh, one thing I got to add is people really went for it with the yacht rock theme. Aaron had an incredible outfit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
All white. All white. Hat. Pipe. The pipe really pushed it over. The pipe was great. I don't even know why it makes sense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I can't like, I'm wracking my brain of where I've, some famous image of a captain with a pipe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
But again, I don't even think on love boat that was happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Gillian's Island? Yeah, Gillian's Island. The skipper didn't smoke a pipe. Did like Gorton's Fisherman have a pipe or something? Oh, yeah. But again, that's a yellow rain slicker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I don't think any of them do. And how long had it been since you skated, Aaron?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Shit, I didn't know your old man ripped. Yeah, everyone's going to high five my fucking kids. Hoist you up on their shoulders.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, despite that, you did quite well. And Monica, let me thank you in public. You have sat out the last two skatings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That was so sweet of you. And did it you did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Maybe more. I think more. I would say, yeah. I want to say you had three different sessions, didn't you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And I learned today, earlier today, that you actually had gone out by yourself to do a little trial run like the garage in Tennessee.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I ate shit, though. Let me say that. And by the way, on the way there, I said to Aaron, OK, if you haven't gone in a long time, a prediction for you is you think you're going to be bad. And then you're going to go out there and go, oh, my God, I'm actually quite good. And then you're going to get overconfident. And then that's when the big wreck comes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And I had been skating for a good hour and a half, two hours at this point. I was very loose. I was feeling very confident. And I decided, you know what, as I skate by joy. because she was high-fiving people on the sidelines. I'm like, you know, it's going to be radical, so I'm going to blow by shooting the duck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Oh, did you think I just fell out of nowhere?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
So for people who don't know shooting the duck, you get on one skate and you bend down. I can't even bend down on one leg if I wasn't wearing a skate, especially with the biking from the day before and the two hours of skating. And I got halfway into this commitment and realized I'm going down, and I went downhill. Pretty hard on my hip. Yeah, it scared me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
My first question when I like an opinion should be, oh, do I benefit from this worldview at all? That's an interesting place to start. I think even if we could admit to ourselves, yeah, I have this opinion that sounds logical and sound, but hold on a second. Would I somehow benefit if that were true? And generally, almost all my opinions, yes, in some way or another, I would benefit from them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Luckily, you were on the rink at that moment. I was. And you were right behind me, so you saw the whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Made a loud enough noise that I think everyone looked. I missed it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
the fucking duck bit back i didn't even know that you got up really fast you didn't look hurt that's the goal yeah but i knew you were and then you didn't you hadn't seen you were you hadn't seen fall guy right and so have you seen fall good i did oh what a movie right so good
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
every time this stunt's over they give the thumbs up like i'm good they're not good their back's broken they're like right so then i was like i gave the thumbs up and for the people who had seen it but you hadn't seen it and then i felt compelled to try to explain to you my jokes i was in a good deal of pain and i'd given you the thumbs up and i needed you to know that was enough i was making a joke okay and then you gave the thumbs up and i was like and then you had to come back and tell me what in fact wasn't okay it was not okay um but i kept going um
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I was like, is my hip fractured? Maybe it's fractured. Let's just keep going. There's nothing they can do for that. So you can put a caster on your hip.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
But then it's half. There were very few falls last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
In fact, kind of a shocking few falls because at Delta's party, the first few years, people were going out really bad. People had wrist injuries. It was like 20% of the dads were fucked up the next week.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, she went down pretty hard. I saw that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah. Well, no, so that's a great, as you know, I like getting embarrassed. And when I fell down at the movies, you know, I was laughing hysterically. But the pain was so sharp. Like, I wanted to laugh because it's just embarrassing. I tried to shoot the duck. Joy watched the whole thing. Her friend's watching. She doesn't know me. So there's a new person. At least Joy is my, like, sister. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I've known her for 12 years. It was painful enough that I couldn't actually get to the laughing part. I just got tired. You were smiling pretty big, though. Well, I was performing, yeah. I came out of retirement from acting and put on a real good thing and then gave a thumbs up and only two people got it because I thought everyone saw Fall Guy and they hadn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And then, Kristen, somehow, I haven't even asked her the logistics, but our favorite treat in the world for Michigan is Saunders Bumpy Cake. For people who've never had Saunders bumpy cake, it is a chocolate damp devil's food cake base. And then these huge ribbons of Twinkie filling all covered in a fudge icing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And I fucking went nuts. I had my immune suppressant before the party because I knew we were going to have bumpy cake. And I ate way too much. So I coupled the hip pain with, like, I made myself sick. But then I was like, you must get out and push through all of this. Did another couple hours of skating. It was a great, great party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And as I told you what was really kind of novel about this party, because I've had them in the past, I'm always feeling really guilty. Like Tom Hanson, he drove... 50 miles across town through rush hour traffic to get to the party. And he's older. And then I'm out skating the whole time. And the whole time I'm like, I got to go sit and talk to Tom. He drove all the way here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And then virtually everyone that's showing up, I feel like I should be talking to them for a half hour. And then I had this light bulb moment. I was like, everyone here is a blast to talk to. When I look around, everyone's quite happy talking to whoever. I'm not needed here. I can stop feeling guilty about that. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, I tried to have that moment. I did. I was in the bathroom and I actually even did my mantra for like two minutes. I was like, I really, I really want to. Yeah, have that moment and see that. And then Tom Hanson, who knows me so well, he hugged me and he said, are you able to let any of this love in? And I said, I'm trying real hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
But also, I'm pretty sure everyone's here just because Kristen invited them. If I'm being honest. So silly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That's so unfair to all of us. To you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I don't know. It's still my residual low self-esteem or something. I don't know. It was the funnest party I've ever been to. And there's no fucking booze there. That's saying something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It's like, I don't really remember the people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, my conclusion was I should most trust the opinions I have that I actually don't benefit whatsoever from.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I got to push back a little bit. I guess you're not counting your birthday parties because Aaron's birthday is July 2nd, which becomes a 4th of July Aaron's birthday spectacular. It was often at his dad's farm, and it would be like a three-day party with 50 people camping. Those were fucking awesome. Those were damn good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, yeah. But I'm happy you had a great time. But I fucking had fun, man. I had so much fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
So much fun. And I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I felt very loved.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
What I thought of many times is like this is you'd be hard pressed to find a better group of 40 human beings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Did you have a favorite conversation with anyone?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Oh, okay. That was the most memorable. Was it naughty? It was with Eric. Yeah, it was naughty. Oh, okay. He's so open, though. He's so provocative.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I can't wait to hear that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I was excited about that. I was more looking around, seeing people I love talking to each other and watching you guys chat. I was like, oh yeah, my sisters are chatting. Like, yeah. And she was wearing all day glow yellow, like full. Oh, yeah. She looked amazing. Yeah, neon fishnets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
We came up with my superhero name because we were, of course, talking about spades.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And her friend she was with was black as well. And she's like, this is the upside down world. They play spades. We don't play spades. And then her and I came up with that. My superhero name is The Appropriator. Ah! And my catchphrase is, I'll take it. I see something from your culture. I like, I'll take it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah. Again, if Nate talks at a party, what am I worried about anyone finding someone to talk to? How about you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I phrase it as you're on the board of Microsoft, lead investment round for OpenAI, and you own an AI product. Pi, why would anyone trust you to be critical of AI? Say it! Give an example.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, Ben sent me a text. Like I talked a lot with Aaron Weekly. It was so fun. Yeah, it was great. And that vaccine, of course, probably stole the show. He was the same white outfit Aaron had, but his was short shorts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
What a load off. I think she had heard me say like four times between my birthday and yesterday, I'm so glad I would hate a surprise party and the poor girl had planned a surprise party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah. And that just goes to show I'm known better than I know myself in a lot of domains. Like, yeah, I was delighted. As long as I didn't have to go through any of the anxiety of it all, it was absolutely delightful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I don't think so, but I just, I don't know how you get me to the roller rink. Exactly. I think she would have had to tell. I'm just so annoyingly curious about why would we be doing it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, that's the only thing that had been planned and I had been tricked on is that Panay and Nate and I were supposed to have dinner that night. That was the big plan. And even like on Monday, I asked Kristen, can I go to dinner with Nate and Panay? And she's like, yeah. I'm thinking she must have been laughing her buns off. The plan was coming together perfectly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And then so I was both really excited about the party. And then I was like, oh, man, I was really looking forward. So we just decided we will also go to dinner next week.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I hope. Hope we bring George Kittle with us. Aaron and I decided the best compliment you could give any guy is to say like, oh, I'd love to go to Morton's with that dude. Like if you don't know him, but you've seen him from afar and you go, fuck, I'd love to go to Morton's with that guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
We got to have them all back. Yeah. Talking to you, Barry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Like Dan Campbell. Can you imagine going to fucking Morton's?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Don't stop. You guys wouldn't even have to say it. We'd get there and the food would be on the table. Oh, goodness. What's the equivalent? Is there an equivalent of that for the gals?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Oh, yeah. Shopping. Yeah. Go right to the mall with her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Like, what do you want to do with Ashley and Mary Kate the first time you hang out? Besides tour.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I imagine I would be self-conscious if I were you because I'd be afraid everything I said I liked, you'd worry they didn't think it was good style.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
We don't fuck around like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Just, I took my immune suppressant and I think I have a cold that came back and I think I have a fractured hip, but also just beaming with gratitude. Yeah. I did feel, I felt hungover this morning. In fact, so many times, I don't know if you remember this. Do you remember I got like a really cool sweatsuit for Christmas? Yeah. in a watch and I was at your house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
We were in the backyard and I somehow fell and fucking split my lip like wide open.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
No, when I was like home for Christmas and our Christmas started at a certain time and then we had stayed up till nine in the morning the day before and then so I didn't wake up till five. So I got to Christmas Eve, our big family tradition, quite late and I just had this enormous bloody scab on my mouth from the night before. We had a lot of those.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
So anyways, when I woke up, I was like, I have a headache from eating all the cake. I'm sick and my hip hurts. I feel like I was in here since I was 99 or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I'm clearly way off given that percentage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, very low. A lot of countries have 10% and above.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yes. But he had said, read our guest, no, it was 48, which was clever because 1984 was a flip of 48.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Wow, wow, wow. Aaron, did you watch that Greatest Heist doc on Netflix? Not yet. Okay. Well, in a nutshell, these two incredibly weird people, I don't feel bad saying that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah. So a bit of a clue in their names. And they stole... Stole. I always say stole. That's one of my things. They stole 70... Yeah, there they are. Oh, man. Boy, that photo of him on the left. He might have Stockholm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Oh, it's not... Yeah, you are not happy for either of them. But they stole... $72 million in Bitcoin that they really couldn't unload. So they just held it. By the time they were arrested, it was worth $4.5 billion. So it's the greatest theft in the history of the world. Oh, my God. No, I have not seen this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Now worth $10.8 billion if you had $72 million.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
We have a friend that's a victim of. A victim. That's what I mean. Yeah. Yikes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Which I can only imagine what it's worth now because that was what, five years ago?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I would love to. Well, do you want to put it on the TV because you're so good at that now? Yep. Email me it. Oh, and I'm going to send you one picture after that of a Ted Seeger's poster that I. Well, there's two. There's three, actually, that I really like. Let's see. Oh, I'm going to send four things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Because then I did something for our show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
So for the listener. Yeah. So I want a 15 passenger van for Nashville because I assume we're always going to have so many people staying with us that anytime we go to dinner, we're going to need like tons of seats. So then I was like, well, I want a 15 passenger G van, a Chevy. That is amazing. But I want it to be John Player paint scheme. I want it wide body. I just said like not a ton of things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And it spit this one out. It spit three amazing ones out. Did you say black and gold? Yeah, that's the John Player livery famous paint scheme. Isn't it interesting how they fuck certain things up? Like look at the grill. It's kind of going to say Chevrolet, but it doesn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It's weird. And they're like, there's normal letters on the tires and then weird abstract. And that's the third one. Look at that motherfucker. Can you imagine?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Look, and I'm only noticing now that it's blown up that big. It's got two gas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, he probably knows I'm going to be having my foot in the kitchen the whole time. Okay, now go, Rob, to the other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
It was a cigarette brand that sponsored Formula One and racing, and they have this signature black and gold. Okay, so I said, make a poster for a beer brand named Ted Seeger's in the style of Miami Vice. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And again, what does it say? It doesn't say Miami beer, but it says like Miami. It almost makes you think it's like a Thai beer or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Hieroglyphics. Yeah. Get that Egyptian. Okay. Now, like I said, give me a beer brand, you know, Ted Seeger's. I want a muscle car, a motorcycle, and a muscular horse. I want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
All right. And then I was like, what if a beer brand named Ted Seeger sponsored a hydroplane race boat and it made that? This is incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Did you... I think it's a... I think it's barley or hops.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
All right. And then... Look at this beautiful animal. That's pretty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, a crow with a cherry in its beak. I had to do many to come up with this one. This one took a while.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
What's this? That's your, oh, that was your invite for the party. Oh, I didn't see that. It says, you're rock, rock. Right? Yeah. That's not an H, it's an R. It's Y-R-A-C-H.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
I guess I was more thinking, I've not advocated for many things in my life, but one happened to be gay marriage a long time ago. Well, I certainly don't benefit from that. I don't have a gay best friend that was urging me to get involved who I would then win the love and approval. It was just kind of, Okay, I trust that opinion because I don't really benefit from it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And Captain's questionable. There's, oh, he's got sneakers on. Yeah, he's a jacked crow. No, I hadn't seen that. That's great. Look at that vascularity. Oh, my God. That crow is a fucking animal. How scared is that other crow that's flying in the background? He's probably flying to get the fuck out of there. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That was it. Those are all the facts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
That was a fun AI detour. Yeah. Unless you're listening. I guess that'll all get cut out if you're... I was just thinking if you were listening and you couldn't see any of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Y'all. All right. Love you. Love you. Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Well, right. Yeah. Let's be honest. He did not want to come. Especially when he found out Kristen wasn't here. But anyways, Reid Hoffman's here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
You're right. Gay marriage is a single issue within a larger, just society I want to be a part of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, so there's a lot of perfect, well, they're imperfect, but they're damn near perfect parallels throughout history for this current AI revolution. So I think we should go through a couple of them. We could start with the printing press. What were people's thoughts, fears, concerns? How does it parallel AI?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
And to remind people, Reid Hoffman is a software entrepreneur and an author. He is the co-founder of LinkedIn, also a leading voice in AI. He's one of, if you listen to our favorite podcast. Acquired. He's all over it. He was one of the first meta people. He was the first, you know, he's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Martin Luther said, we have a text. You don't need a bishop and you don't need all these people. All you need is this book. And so the Roman Catholic Church, which was the hegemonic power of the day, was like, this is the end of us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Reid Hoffman Returns (on an optimistic AI)
Yeah, you clearly already are the beneficiary of this thing. You're on the other side of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman. Woo!
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Right. So how do you end up at the FBI? Because I want to get into some of these cases.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Rolled tie is usually sufficient to get her pissed off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And who is he? Scott Payne. Scott Payne is a retired FBI special agent who spent 28 years in law enforcement investigating cases against drug trafficking organizations, human traffickers, outlaw motorcycle clubs, gangs, public corruption, and domestic violence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Okay, so over the years, you've been in over a dozen of these long-term deep undercover situations. Probably my greatest interest up until I was probably 30 was outlaw biker gangs. I was obsessed with the Hells Angels. I've read so many books about them. And you went undercover with the outlaws? Yeah, I'm right there with you. I read them all, too. Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Okay, so the outlaws, for people who don't know, that's real as it gets. It's the Hells Angels and the Outlaws, and those two have always been embroiled in probably the biggest war.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But nearly every time you read about a shootout at a casino, shootout at Bike Week, the Outlaws are involved. Could be, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Okay, that's fair of you. Belushi brought one of his Hells Angels friends out on stage during when they say goodnight. Oh. He also had Fear come on. Belushi did a lot of weird shit, but he got the band Fear to play. He also brought out Hells Angels. He was on an elevator going up in 30 Rock and two outlaws got in the elevator with him. And so we don't want to see that on TV again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
He hated this when I said it, but everywhere you read about him, he is definitely the second or tied with the most famous undercover FBI agent of all time with Donnie Brosco, famous Donnie Brosco. His book is called Codename Pal Horse, How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis. And there's also a podcast that he was on that led to the book, which is also great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
That's like one of his stories. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so tell me that. I respect that. Tell me that process. Because my understanding of it is you got a probie for like a year in most of these clubs, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Because you got to do enough shit to be in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
So if you want to join the Hells Angels, you're going to be a probie for at least a year. You go on all the camping trips.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, you get your ass kicked. You do all the shit work. Hazing. And at the end of this experience, they will vote you in or out. If they vote you out, they keep your bike and your shit and they tell you to get the fuck out of town. If they invite you in, you get the patch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And once you put the patch on, if I'm at a bar and I want to fight at Hell's Angels, I have to say, please take your jacket off. Because if I don't and I try to fight a guy with the patch on, I'm fighting the whole club. Those are the rules. I don't know why I'm saying all this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It's a Canadian broadcast production called White Hot Hate. And the second season is called Pal Horse, on which he participates quite a bit. This was unbelievable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Really quick, how are you doing? Because this is one of my questions later, but we're here. You clearly have to do illegal shit to earn their confidence. How is that sorted?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Now, this is a weird question, but I feel like there must be an answer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You did biker gangs. You did a sheriff's department. You did a bunch of white nationalist stuff, KKK. And this one's got to be the most fun. Right? I thought about it for a second.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, I'm going to get to that. Why would you hope that? The shit Scott had to sit through is maddening. When I'm reading about these dum-dums you got to listen to talk about their conspiracy. I mean, that sounds maddening to me. At least the outlaws, I'm into this. And I would be more afraid to have on my back having messed with the outlaws than I would be these weird cell white nationalists.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Because outlaws, you have tears. You have 60-year-olds, 70-year-olds. This is going to live on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Is that a little more scary?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Everything's going good?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. You had to have become friends in that two years with some folks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Scott is tied as the most famous FBI agent of all time with, yeah, with the Donnie Roscoe. Undercover. Okay, well, you're not going to say that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But Joe Pistone is the very famous, he was Donnie Brosco. And I think that movie did an incredible job of the heartbreak of having gained someone's trust who may love you and you love them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
With the ultimate goal of holding them accountable for something illegal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You think you can compartmentalize. And you can for periods. And then all of a sudden the door's open. You're sitting somewhere and the compartment comes open. I mean, this is what like juggling being an addict is like. Literally Saturday didn't happen. We're erasing that from the books. And three months later, all of a sudden you're immersed in that Saturday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I bet. I bet there's a lot of stuff you'd prefer not to think about again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, hold on. There's something interesting there. Because one, there's just you are who you are. You kind of come out a certain way for sure. But then also there's your childhood. And so mine was if I can control the temperature in this room, I can predict where it's going. I'll feel safer if I have a role in what the temperature in this room is. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And so dad had pretty bad depression. That's actually what brought me to psychology.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But I got to imagine as a young kid whose parents are getting divorced and both are struggling, your dad's really struggling. If you can set the tone in that room, that's preferred.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. But yeah, I think some element of it is looking for safety. In all the many ways that means.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, you're going to kids' birthday parties, I imagine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh, what's already been seized? So they have warehouses. They have these fucking burns down in Texas. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It's heartbreaking. Imagine watching them shoveling Cartier watches into a bonfire. That's not the same thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Now I'm out. I like hanging out and maybe doing drugs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I mean, just think, now everyone's carrying a phone. That thing can just be recorded.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
There's insane stuff out there. There's fucking glasses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I'm so delighted to announce this episode 900 because I'm a bad exaggerator, as you know. I'm actually, no, I'm not even a bad exaggerator. I'm an exaggerator and it doesn't even make sense because it's a marginal exaggeration. The other day I was listening to our show and we had a guest and we were talking about Sedaris and I said, oh yeah, he's been on six times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But really quick also, you have to be playing the game in your head where you're like, okay, so I'm not wired. I am the guy. What's my reaction now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh my God, we're dealing with a woman. My body is an FBI agent. It's a woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And all the gear is in your clothes somehow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, I'm from Michigan and I grew up in a hillbilly area outside of Detroit. And so, yeah, having a big yard is everything. Yeah. You're in South Carolina? No, I'm in Knoxville, Tennessee. Oh, you're in Knoxville. And they built a fucking racetrack between Knoxville and Nashville, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, I did. You would just have to be betting on the notion that they're going to assume they're watching.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And if you don't come out, now they've got a fed murder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, it's also hard to know. You're just modeling these scenarios. What's annoying about some of these docs you watch where the cops come and they're like, he wasn't acting like someone whose wife just died. It's like, how the fuck do you know how someone acts when their wife, like that's bullshit. That's what you saw on TV. That's what you thought of in your head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Nobody knows what anybody does until it's happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Was that the gnarliest if you had to give one a number one?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
She's like, no. And I'm like, all right. Well, that was fucking incredible. People are going to have to buy the book to hear about the KKK. The one I do want to talk about, though. So you wrote this book with Michelle Shepard. Yes. And she's got an incredible podcast. I really urge people to listen to it. It's great. Season two is you. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And she kept hearing him in all this court testimony, but just not knowing who this name was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
This is the guy we've been listening to. And she thought she was going to do one episode of season two with Scott. That's what she was shooting for. And fell in love, as people do with you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
They do a damn good job. It's a really good podcast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Maybe not a reverse. Maybe just pause. Let me get out and look.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
He's basically the guy that just heard there's inbound nukes. Do I hit deploy nukes? That's really what's happened. Yeah. I blow up this two years. What a fucking decision to have to make. Yes. Because many times he has to be your friend. Fuck this case and fuck these guys. We're going in right now. I don't give a fuck. Yep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Okay, so you're from, though, South Carolina. Yeah, born and raised in South Carolina. And did you not want to retire there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I mean, this is what he's got to sit. When I talk about him sitting around having to listen to these guys tell him how the world works, how fucking maddening that would be for me. Pour me another drink. I'd way rather have a lot of scary outlaw biker experiences.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, but it has changed. When I was a kid and I was in the punk scene, there were skinhead Nazis. Yep. They all looked the same. But it's not that now. It's these fucking schlubby, nerdy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Good luck defining that, but yes, continue. Yeah, by the way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Big Easy, what was the dude's name? Big Siege. And his name's Yusef something, as it turns out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
What are plate carriers?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
When you're sitting around talking to these guys, you ever go like, so who's going to do all the work? All this work that none of the white people do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Like the Al-Qaeda videos.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You should call it the crotch if you've got like mountains. The tank. The tank of South Carolina. That's got some charm to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Terrorist principles. Let's get an oversized reaction to something we do. Kill a hundred, scare thousands.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
These heroes, these heroes are the ones in New Zealand. Of the saints. All these assholes, 27 at Walmart, nine at a mosque.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It gets quite scary. If you're viewing them as individual acts of crazy people, you're kind of like, how do we account for crazy people around the world? But when you see, no, these are all related.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You were out of Knoxville office for a lot of your work and then built a life and a house and bought property there, I assume.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
They're trying to figure out who's serious or not. Yeah. Who's going to pull the trigger. How on earth do you delineate?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You know what this reminded me of a little bit in a weird way is domestic abusers. They beat their wife twice. You know, statistically, okay, well, eight times more likely this guy's gonna kill her. When you're in law enforcement and you're just watching the pattern and you're trying to figure out, okay, he's on the road. When are we allowed to intervene? We have to wait till she gets killed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
This is in Malcolm Gladwell's book. This is cracking down on jumping turnstiles on the subway. This is cleaning up graffiti. You take away the opportunity because you never know what's going to happen. And all that stuff. And look, I'm in the middle of all this. But when your environment is sending you signals that no one's looking, people act differently.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Otherwise, they wouldn't be over there. In the shadow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You're being observed. Yeah. Okay, so you do get embedded in that group, and this Canadian who gets outed in Canada goes on the run.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, Antifa started showing up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Do you have to fake your skill set? This is what I was thinking. I did. Because he's a marksman. He can't show up in the training thing. I'm imagining you would be shining a light on yourself if you were as good as you are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
In high school, you're working for your dad, you're playing football, you're lifting weights, you're a musician, right? You're into guitar. So you have your first taste of undercover work in high school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It's very Viking. It reeks of searching for masculinity and validation for masculinity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
They haven't earned it through a job and a career. They haven't earned it through a marriage and protecting their children. They're outcasts. They have been bullied. They can't get a partner. This is the only way in their mind, at least, that they're going to achieve that masculinity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, I like it because there's a noble cause behind it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh, yeah. You just keep raising the purity test. The fundamentalists are on a trajectory to outdo one another's fundamentalists. There is no... You're home safe. You're white. You're this. They keep moving the goalposts. Yeah. All these movements.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And as I was listening, I was like, I know he's been on five times. Why would I have said six? Six isn't better than five.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Let's just add it's his first time ever trying to do this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Any dude wearing weightlifter gloves in high school, we got to keep our eye on them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You'd be shocked at some of the things I would do instead of drink that. Yeah, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
That was my thought when I watched, and I'm not conflating this group with these people, but when I was watching the Capital Six riots, I'm looking at this crowd, You'd be tempted to think there's some kind of monolith ideology there. There's not. Read that sign. That's in contradiction to that sign. There's so much hodgepodge shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Their ideology is not the thing that actually is uniting them or making them similar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But I just think the thread was, I've been excluded from this system, so I hate this system. So to put a pin on this, this did end with 11 arrests.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
That was incredible. You gave us so much time. I had a couple just really rapid-fire questions, just your kind of opinion about some stuff. So have the numbers increased or decreased over the last five decades? And if so, how do you explain the growth or the shrinkage? It seems like it's growing. Is it the internet? Is it the political climate? Is it unemployment? Is it directionless young dudes?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
What would we attribute this to? And has it increased?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Father of one of these bass guys. I was getting so frustrated listening to him talk. He's like, you know, he went through a lot of phases. And she asked, what was it? You know, it was some Nazi stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I knew you would probably have felt very close friendships with some of these people and that that would be heartbreaking. Did you feel bad for these guys? Some of them. I think we grew up in an era too where I saw kids get destroyed. They came in as just kids showing up to school and they got destroyed. That's heartbreaking to me. It worked out for me and it didn't for some people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And I'm not saying I like what their solution to it is, but I also see... So much of this is born out of just a horrendous experience on this planet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Imagine looking at some of these guys and going like, oh, yeah, you're a thousand hugs shy of being here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
To some degree, you most certainly have developed some acute spidey senses where I'm sure you can kind of tell who's capable of that second chance. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And it's an incredible book, Codename Pal Horse, How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis with Michelle. Also, the podcast is fantastic. This has been radical, Scott. I appreciate you having me on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, this is incredible. All right, be well, brother. All right. Peace.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I know this doesn't interest you, but it continues to wow me, and I'm going to keep telling you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, first of all, when's the last time you bought a pound of ground beef?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But you can visualize in your head about how big that is. It's small-ish. Well, I would say it's like this big. It's like the size of a small shoe. You don't like that. You don't like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I think a pound of ground beef is a significant size.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And I weighed myself last night before bed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, you got to. Because I listened to about astrology in the pit yesterday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
So I lose seven pounds in 12 hours, 10 hours. That's a lot. Picture seven pounds of ground beef. I don't want to. That's what you must picture to be impressed by this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
So I'm a 20% exaggerator. But I've been saying we're like, oh, well, I've done 850 of these or whatever. Right. But it actually is 900. 900 today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Where does it go? Well, I know where it goes. It goes in the turlet. But just picture seven pounds of ground beef on that table. And then I go, I'm going to lose that tonight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
How much is air? Oh, I want to tell this. I saw a very cool video. I'm mad I didn't send it to anyone because, you know, the only way... This is how I save videos, really, in my mind. I see a video I like on Instagram and I send it to someone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And then a month later, I'm like, all right, I remember I sent it to that. Because how else would you find it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh, you can? I don't know how to do that. I'll start doing that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Okay. It was Richard Feynman. And you know, people love, all smart people are obsessed with Richard Feynman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Like consistently, it's every smart person's favorite smart person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
He's a physicist and he worked on the Manhattan Project. He could tackle anything. He was just so curious and fun. So I watched this video of him and he said, you know, Have you ever sat and looked at a tree and wondered where does the structure come from? I think it's normal to assume all of that comes out of the ground.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Like the building blocks for a tree and this huge tree trunk and all the leaves, it's like coming out of the ground. And he said, in fact, that is not where it comes from. The tree is built from the air. Because the air has carbon dioxide in it. And the tree, with the help of the sun, it breaks that apart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
The tree and the leaves.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
A little sapling comes up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
There's a seed, then there's a sapling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Then everything that grows above that, 100-foot redwood. Got it. That's not coming from the ground.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, it is a little heady, but it's not metaphysical. So the air is full of carbon dioxide. The tree, with the help of the sun, it breaks apart the carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen, releases oxygen, we breathe the oxygen. It uses that carbon to construct the wood, the tree. Mm-hmm. So the whole structure of it is just taken out of the air by the tree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. Yeah, as are we. We're like carbon life forms.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, that's how it assembles the carbon that it pulls out of the air. It assembles it into that shape.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You gotta let me get to the punchline of this. So that right there is mind-blowing. I think I've always looked at trees and thought all that wood came out of the ground somehow. And he said, sure, there's some minerals and stuff that are coming out of the ground. And then the other thing that's coming out of the ground is the water. Trees are made up a lot of water. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
He said, but the water doesn't come from the ground either. The water comes from the air.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
So the structure of the tree and the water all comes from the air. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
He said, and then when you cut this tree down and you cut it into logs and you put it in the fire and you add fire to it, what it starts doing is rejoining the oxygen and the carbon. And that's the flames you're seeing. And you can think about the flames you're seeing are really just the flames from the sun that have transferred into the flames of this fire. It's all the same thing. Energy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It's pretty rad, isn't it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, and I'm like, I'm so impressed someone figured out why the tree... You just... You might just go, yeah, they're there. I'm not going to overthink it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, I think that's what everyone does. Yeah. Except for Feynman. That's magic. It just comes out of the air. But, like... All that structure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. It's created in the air. And then comes down to the ground. And then comes down to the ground.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Groot is the living proof of this process. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You saw him after you found out about the big.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. He has so many cute pajama outfits. He has a safari outfit. Yeah. He's got every kind of look.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I like hers, though, because it's more scrappy. There's no, like, they don't make these clothes for him. So she's, like, aggregating all these from different sources.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. And when we were in Hawaii, we went into a store and I told them they could each get one thing. And I meant candy, like they could have one candy item. And then Delta decided to trade her candy option for she found a tiny outfit that was supposed to go on some other creature. And then she's like, I think those will fit perfectly on Groot. So we left with an outfit instead of candy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I had been saying I'm jealous of my own kids. Like, I wish I had their childhood. But I think I want to be ultimately Delta's child. I think if she has a child, that child is going to be fretted over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh, we don't want to spoil them. Spare the rod, spoil the child.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But I've already established she doesn't want attention for it. Like Moon Chosen's would have been, she would have come up to me and said, do you know Groot is disabled?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
She's known he's disabled forever. And I just stumbled upon that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yes, she is. And she wanted to know how long you wanted it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. They start doing things you can't do and it's really something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I don't know. I'm in a bit of a crisis state. I mentioned it on the last fact check. And then some pediatrician said, yes, you got to stop talking about your kids. Now, I'm not going to take that to too much credit. Like, just because you're a pediatrician, you have no actual.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You're not a psychologist. Sure. But what's seared into my brain is that I know Howard at one point stopped. And his daughters ended up being very upset at him, I think, that he would talk about them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And so now I tell my kids what I say. Yeah. So it's not like there's any secrecy going on. That's kind of how I've been telling myself. But all to say, yes, I probably need to stop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And then I was like, what do I... I don't have anything else in life to talk about virtually.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. You have a lot of good ones.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I just, you know, there's my free time is what I'm going to draw on. Yeah. Anything that's going to happen to me. Like I went to, I didn't go to Monster Jam by myself. You know, I took my kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
She did. That's right. And so I was just sitting in bed, I think last night going like, I don't think I have. A life. A life. If they're not a part of the conversation, then I have almost nothing to talk about. And I guess it's pretty standard for parents.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh, you went a whole day without talking?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. I mean, I'm almost never not thinking of something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Unless I'm meditating. And in truth, only for half a second, six minutes of the 20.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, I can have six-minute chunks where it's like I have no thoughts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, I meditated in the evening. You're supposed to meditate for my meditation, TM. You're supposed to do morning and then evening before dinner while your stomach's still empty. And I don't do the nighttime one. But I did do it a couple times recently. And I did realize, I almost wonder if I'm prioritizing the wrong one because In the evening, I'm not, my brain isn't nearly as rambunctious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It's like when I wake up, I just have a flurry of like, this is what you got to do. And this is what happened yesterday. Yeah. Valuate my whole life. It's morning. In the evening, I'm kind of like, yeah, whatever we did. We're alive. We did it. And then I can get, in an evening meditation, I can get sometimes like 15 of the 20 minutes are just blissful. No thoughts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You've seen it really for the first time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I should do it, though, because what I want is that 15 minutes of bliss. It is really euphoric when I get it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. And then I wonder, is it just helping, like, the fact that I do it every morning? And is it, you know, is my overall... Calmness? Live wireness diminished a little bit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Uh-huh. Losing my vitality. Losing your will to live. That's kind of happening. So Chris and I went for two days to this conference up north, and I danced. Sure. I love to dance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But I'm a little out of shape dancing, as it turns out. So I was jumping a lot in my dancing. It was Snoop Dogg. Okay. Snoop D-O-double G. And so I was dancing, I was jumping, I was jumping. It was fun. Probably danced for like an hour. Went back to the hotel room and I was walking barefoot in the bathroom in my gnarly comb over toes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
That's what I look like? Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
They were like, uh-uh, you can't do, you can't jump anymore for a half hour.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
My foot was like, oh no, we can't do this. It was, it was gnarled up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
No, yeah. I was just like, are we at the end of, you know, these things are going to start popping up. Can't dance like I used to dance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
We had a 30-year-old guest on yesterday. Did that do anything to you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
There we go. That helps. So you're both 35.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
That's why... Well, when I... I kind of, like, tried to get really specific about what's going on in my meditation when it works. And what I realized is, and this is not novel or proprietary. Everyone knows this. But... The racket is either thinking about the past or thinking about the future.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And really the absence of thoughts is just being in the moment you're in. Yep. Because there's really nothing to think about in the moment you're in. That's what's crazy. Like you're constantly preparing for what's coming or you're processing what already happened. But in the second to second moment, you don't really need to do shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
There's nothing to do or to be afraid of because there's nothing's attacking you. Like, it's just being, I know this is fundamental, but it was just very clear to me. It's like, oh, really? The goal isn't even not thinking. It's just, if I'm not in the future and I'm not in the past, I won't be thinking anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. But I guess I don't know. I read a statistic about this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I won't know the right number, but I want to say it was something like low, but like 20% of people don't have that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
GLP-1, I'm sure it'll fix that too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I don't have an opinion whether you should or shouldn't. All I'll just add is it's dose dependent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But even I know you can be on a little or a lot. You could have zero compulsion to eat food or you could have some. It's variable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Sure. And then also you, I would say more than others needs to consider the muscle loss aspect of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Farmer carries on the way to get my wine. Well, don't make it like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I am. I'm very proud of you. Also, it's my job to tease you. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Because if I can't talk about my daughters and I can't tease you, I really, we need to wrap it up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Who you're in love with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I assumed immediately. He was cast for a reason. Yes, I think he's broadly appealing. Well, yeah, but like... You feel a little bummed that other people...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I would argue you already knew that and that's why he's there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I think it's a continuation of the quarterback.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
He's not the archetype of a quarterback. The quarterbacks now aren't the quarterbacks. They're Timothee Chalamet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
There's, so you say, there's a bunch of people that are at the peak of the pinup world and they're not that anymore. And this guy is in that group. He's a very sought after. That person doesn't cast her love interest willy nilly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I don't think you consciously did that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I think he's a very, very high-value target.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
No, for all the reasons he was in that movie, being sexy and being appealing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It's not an accident that he was chosen to play that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. For at least 10 months.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
He has. And that's not me saying you shouldn't like the person because there's too much competition. That's not what I'm saying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
That's not what I'm saying, but the illusion that you were the only one that liked him is bonkers. That part, I think, is bonkers. Should you pursue him? Are you capable of landing him? Yes. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying he was always a high-value target.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You're telling me you can't have him because now everyone likes him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Right, that's your reality. Your reality is now I can't have him because everyone thinks he's hot. That's the one you just introduced me. So that's the reality you believe in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And I'm arguing your subconscious always knew that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But I think you intuitively know that any male that's the lead in a sexual movie, you know the reality of that. You know that that's a movie star that's been picked for that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, that's great. You don't think you just across the board can say anyone that's a lead of a movie making out with a hot person probably has an appeal everyone agreed on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I know. And so you do know that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. So your subconscious knows that this is an attractive person because they wouldn't have put him in the role.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yes. But in your conscious mind, you thought you were seeing something no one else saw.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And the filmmaker and the co-star all thought that too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, the co-star definitely was in charge of who got cast in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Do you see the point I'm making though? That like you, you had two things happening at once, right? One is, you know, the reality of casting someone in a movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You thought they missed them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Because you've acknowledged there would be a lot of competition for this guy. In your mind, you've accepted that he has a lot of options.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Mm-hmm. And so, and in your mind, then this is where the baggage comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
If there's a lot of competition, I can't have it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But you must acknowledge this very arbitrary thing happened that changed your mind, which is you were going to be as appealing to him as you're going to be to him, period. That's it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You heard other people like him, so you like reverse engineered what now he would. That changed how he would think about you. Well, look— That's the hiccup in your thinking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Radio silence. There was ghosting. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
What I think is the most important part, which is you said, well, he didn't actually like me. And I said, well, no, it doesn't mean that he didn't actually. He actually liked you. He asked for your phone number and he liked you. And then he got to New York and there was someone else there that he also liked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
The whole point of that was to stop your train of thought that, no, I told you he didn't like me. And I was saying that's not proof that he didn't like you. He wouldn't ask for your phone number if he didn't like you. He liked you and he met five other people in the next two weeks that he also liked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
No, if you're in front of... guy at Saturday Night Live party, and he was going to be attracted to you, he'd be attracted to you. Now, are you going to go with him everywhere and make sure no one else is, he's not meeting anyone else? Are you going to lock up in a relationship? Or, you know, like what's going to happen to confront the reality of this person's life?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But just the core thing, does someone like you or not, is really independent, I think, of whether or not a lot of people like them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Or is anybody an option for them? Like for the previous guest we were talking about, I said nobody's an option for him. He's not settling down right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Here's where you and I are different. So I meet Kate Hudson. Kate Hudson has every single option. I think she's just broken up with Owen Wilson. I think she dates professional baseball players after me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I go into it going, she has every option in the world. She's going to have a lot of distractions. She has, the competition is fierce. And she'll like me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. Well, that's different than... Yeah, that's right. That's the big difference, I think, between your and I's approach in the past.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
That's a huge marker. That's a commitment I'll make in public.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, I mean, you need access to somebody, clearly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You need access. You have to be in front of the person you're sure that you can make like you. You have to have access to them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think when you find out that the other person, that everyone likes them, you then say, well, I can't have them. And I go, yes, here's the reality of their life. And I can have them. I can go get them. I just want to determine who I'm pursuing by how many other people like them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And it sounds like you're saying you've made it, that that would be a factor in whether or not you pursued somebody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Right. Yeah. I think that is your fear. And then where you and I differ in our approach to life is, Great, I'll fail. I won't have her. I still don't have her. So I'm risking nothing by trying and failing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
They'll be in the same position I'm already in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Like, for whatever reason, when I do that math, that emboldens me to go, like, there's nothing at risk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And I've gone after a ton of girls that rejected me. And it's just like acting. I want to act. I don't care how many times you reject me. I'm going to keep trying until I can act. Right. You go into it knowing, oh, I'm going to fail 99% of the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But I want the thing so bad. Always deal with the.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Number one, he's a stud.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It's rare I hear someone's whole career, and I think, yeah, I would have also really liked that. That sounds so up my alley. You're acting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You're having to meet groups of people and get them to like you, get them to trust you. You have to be good at moving in different kinds of, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Almost exclusively. Yeah. These organizations are not the winner's club. They're like AA. They're the loser's club.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But we call it the loser's club.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, but to have to listen... To these bozo conspiracy theorists who are racist, like the things they believe. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I'd also hate to see someone kill a goat in front of me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, you get super aware of everything you're doing. You have a level of self-consciousness all of a sudden.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
What's a male goat called? It's not called a ram? I think it's like bull and cow. You know how these names, they're gendered names, but they transcend species borders.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But a bull moose, a bull cow, a bull elephant. They call a lot of female animals cows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh, a buck or a billy goat. Buck, also a male name. Sure. Deer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You know the thing I've noticed goats do that sheep don't tend to do? They love getting on tall rocks. Or they stand. I've had friends who have had pet goats and they just stand on top of their like a dog house that they sleep in. They just are up there. They want to be as high as they can be. Maybe they see predators come in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You don't like that. I think that's a fun part of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Now, let me ask you this. This guest, who I was like, couldn't say yes too fast enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. You know, Aaron had a sheep at his... Well, his dad had a farm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And he had one of all these animals, which is silly. Like, they weren't in the farming business. No one's going to reproduce.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But they had a sheep. They had a goose. They had a duck. They had a pig. And I've told you this. And a turkey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And they'd all walk in a line all day long. And the goose would be in back yelling at all of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
But the sheep, they just love to hit things with their head. They just do it over and over again. So what the sheep would do is if you set the wheelbarrow up, you know how the wheelbarrow has like the long poles that come out that you're holding?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It would just run as fast as it can into the end of that handle and knock over the wheelbarrow. And then we'd set it back up and he would do it again and again. And he loved it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Well, they got to do it to get some ass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, they do. That's how they get ass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
They love it. The sheep are so horny when they see some ramming, some head-on-head collision. Oh, God, I hope Chris doesn't know about it. CTE.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It's CBC. How can the C stand for incorporation?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh, corporation. I thought you said incorporation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh, Broadcasting Corporation. Because you said Broadcasting Corporation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
You didn't hit the G, the ing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Did that sound at all like incorporation?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh, my God. They threw in a third great name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh, I don't want to hear the rest because I can imagine you got hit in a neighborhood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yeah, ignorance is bliss. But it does remind me of one of my favorite I think you should leave sketches. The baby pageant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And the bad boy, Bart Harley Jarvis. And they go, fuck you, Bart Harley Jarvis. They hate that baby. They hate it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And a woman runs on stage with a knife to kill Bart Harley Jarvis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I went and saw Sinner yesterday. Or Sinners?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Sinners in IMAX at CityWalk by myself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It's awesome. It's really awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
There's a sequence in there where they're... kind of incorporating all these different black music traditions. And it's like, you're in, it's a time period movie. It's set in like, I wanna say 1932 or something. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And I don't want to give anything away, but it's just, like, the way it's all blended together and the power of it and recognizing, like, this through line that exists through all this music and this human experience that all these people have shared. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy powerful. Like, I was goosebumps all over my body.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And then... I just had this deep curiosity. I wanted to ask the guy, the theater was mostly black folks and there was a dude next to me. And I was just, I got kind of curious, like, like I'm looking at that. A, I can feel it and sense it. And I've experienced it in, in so that I've experienced that music and it's made me feel ways. And then I was so curious, like, does this young guy,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Do you feel a connection to that? Mm-hmm. Or is he on the outside of it as I am? Because it's, like, historic, and it's from another period, and... I'm sure he feels a connection to it. Yeah, I just was wondering. Like, I wanted to talk to him about that. I wanted to know, like, what is the experience? My hunch is you can... That's all in your... It's your history.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Like, I think that's all in their body in some way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And... I was just, I was very happy for everyone in the movie theater. I'm really happy that this director has the power that he has and that he could tell this story in this way that was just so undeniably authentic and rich and...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Yes. Like it is. And the music was always the reprieve. Like I took a jazz history class in college and it was like those all those blue notes and the things that were developed in the cotton field.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
From this horrific life is like it is deeper than chords. There's something wild going on that has carried through way beyond music.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
That's it. A sinner's review and a Cowboy Carter. I loved him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And an openness and an ownership of his point of view all at the same time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Put it, stitch it together. Yeah, stitch it. All right. Love you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Were you a little bit like, oh, I don't know?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Okay, so you go away to college. You end up majoring in psychology. You get a degree in psychology.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I could have had a double major. Two more classes. Okay. Monica had a double major. I beat her to the punch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I just needed two classes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Oh, really? Just roll into class at Charleston Southern?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
So you end up getting a job as a police officer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
Of course. Sure. This episode is fucking riveting. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
It's funny you bring that up. I was just watching a documentary. You know, there's this story, this guy who had seen a guy beating the shit out of his girlfriend on the side of the road, then called the cops. That guy ended up having killed the woman. But in his statement to the cop, because they're now playing the audio in the documentary, he goes, well, the gentleman was hitting the girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
And where would the gentleman be?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
So how long are you there? And when at that job do you start dabbling in undercover stuff?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
That was just a one-week school. Oh, really?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
What are they telling you in there? Seems like a lot to learn in a week. It is. A lot of role-playing. How to commit to your story. That kind of stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)
I think your heart rate, had you been wearing a monitor, I do think your heart rate would have hit 130 at one point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. We have an unconventional expert today, but when you hear him talk, you will know he is an expert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
They're like smoking cigarettes and they've never smoked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Mine that I'll say in public is I had watched Friday Night Lights.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I loved Lila Garrity. And then all of a sudden on Parenthood, she becomes my love interest. I'm like, I'm going to get to kiss Lila Garrity. I'm going to drop out of character for those moments.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Exactly. You've heard the stories, right, of actors who've really had sex, right? You kind of collect these stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were very bummed out to find we had Halle Berry on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I think he's just a lover of it. You know, like there's haters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
One of my funniest moments with my oldest daughter thus far that has happened in the 12 years is I was like, Thomas Crown Affair. I love that movie. That snappy scene with the bowler hat. She's going to love this. And I showed it to her when she was probably like eight. And we're watching and I'm like, oh, I forgot about this fucking scene on the staircase with Renee Russo and Brosnan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And it's just going on forever. And I'm like, what if she's going to say anything? And then she just goes, do people really do that? And I go, have sex? And she goes, on the staircase. And I go, no, it's actually never happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Oh, I want to add to there's a couple of things you've said in the previous two interviews that really, really stuck with me. That's crazy. I mean, I think about them often.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It was really aspirational. Like somehow we're talking about business managers or this or that. And you said, like, I don't know if they've stolen from me. I mean, I hope they have. Yeah. I hope they have. And I think it's half a joke and actually half insanely aspirational to not be so attached to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
He loves projects. He pops up in things. He just loves the whole world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
things a jet to paris yeah exactly i'm gonna look back you would never do that i could have been jetting this whole time i also have that fear i'm so nuts about it and i'm such a hoarder and then i'm gonna die and i'm gonna be like all i see now is a bunch of trips i could have taken exactly yes that's more of the fear that i live so i was single mom money was tight we were panicked about it you guys weren't fucking rolling in cash not at all but was there no fear around it in the house
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Please enjoy Seth Rogen. Something very specific happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And that's complicated in and of itself. I'll tell you this much. I went into this going like, no, no, you don't give your kids money. It ruins them and they need to be hungry and work and blah, blah, blah. I started feeling a little guilty. It's like, if I didn't get shit when I grew up, that'd be fine. All of our family vacations were in a van eating caramels and we slept in the van.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I unfortunately have given them a lifestyle that they're going to feel like it's too late. Oh, you can't go back from that. It's going to jump off a cliff. And I'm like, well, that wasn't very fair to them. I know exactly. So now what's the ethical thing I do? I don't know. Had I raised them like shit pigs, like I was raised, then I would be like, cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
They didn't. Yeah. You keep the bad house. Yeah. And then when they get out of college and they can't go on vacation, I'm like, yeah, that's normal. But now the realization like you might not travel for 13 years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's harder than I anticipated, which is, well, I worked my whole life so I could fly first class. They're too young. I got to be with them. So what the fuck am I going to do? I'm going to sit back in the exit row next to the toilet? No. That feels unfair to me. It is unfair to you. It's unfair to everybody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I re-listened to the second interview. I want to publicly apologize. I was coming really hard at you about kids, and then I've censored other remarks you've made, and I certainly was a part of the problem.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I never did articulate what I was going for in that. I've never felt you needed to apologize to me, for the record. Well, it was pretty full-court press. The real essence of it was, is I was like, you would be such a fun dad for me. Yeah. Sometimes you see people and you go like, that would be a very fun dad. He has the spirit to be a dad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Ultimately, I think I was just trying to give you a compliment that you would be such a fun dad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I love it. I heard you say something recently and I was like, yeah, yeah, that's fucking ideal for him and I should have shut up. It was in the press recently. Him basically just saying that we're having a great fucking time and I don't feel like I've missed out and everything's groovy. Paraphrasing. Things are good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
This is a random question, but I think maybe because of our guests that came out today, which was Nikki Glaser. And we went through this whole thing where she had made some jokes about me and I was very, very sensitive. Really? Yeah. Yeah. What did you say? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
They missed some shit. They forgot a few things. You know what's weird? That is the only thing that bothers me. I can accept that the stuff got stolen. It's the notion like, well, are they going to come back?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
it was great everything's on the show or out in the world she was gonna make it in the golden globes and i had found out that it was too hard for the golden globes i was like oh no and then during the whole monologue it was just one of those cameras was on us and i was just waiting to have to fake some positive reaction to being shit on
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And then so she didn't tell it there, but then she told on Stern the next morning. But then I purposely didn't want to hear it because I thought I'd made up these fucking jokes that were so mean to me. And I was kind of just devastated. And then I heard the joke. It wasn't bad at all. And I was like, what a waste of my time. Then we had around. We talked about it was so fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
But I think because she was the guest today and I posted and I was just reliving that whole thing. I was curious, are you sensitive? Like I'm so sensitive. Yes, I am sensitive to people making jokes about me for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Oh yeah, I fucked up world relations for a minute. Yeah, geopolitics.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's very easy. They had a good time. Yeah. Things went well. That's what's driving me a little bonkers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's like you're answering the calling to the commitment to comedy. Like in that moment you elevate it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's just like a thing that I know I shouldn't be saying. It's a slippery slope. This is terribly corny, but hurt people hurt people. There is some reality. And we even had fun talking when they get like the bottom line is I'm really sensitive. And because I'm really sensitive and insecure, I'm great at seeing other people's sensitivities and insecurities.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's like you almost have to be a little wounded to even know what to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
All I'm thinking is I'm watching this stuff. This guy has to watch these jokes. He's probably sensitive too. For all of his improprieties, he never really made fun of people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
That's not what his bag was. He wasn't out there shitting on other people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Like the mafia, I'm willing to pay them $500 a month to just stay away. Pay them camera protection. But when I have anxiety, I cut my hair compulsively.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I'm going to really get in front of the mirror, and then I'm going to start trimming my hair. And I got lost in it. And then I thought, I should just glance at them. I'm sure I got 10 minutes left. And I was like, what?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Before we get to the studio, I just want to say I love the boys so much and I love Gen V so much. Oh, that's so nice. How much time does that whole thing take up? I want it to go forever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I would imagine you were taking all of your cultural capital and power at the studio to allow that tone to exist and be that bold. And then once that was achieved and rewarded, you could step away a bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
The reason I love it so much, and Kristen and I will say this all the time, mid-sequence, we're like... I can't believe it's on television. I mean, half the appeal is I can't believe it's on television.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I know. I just, I thought it was going to be three snips as I always do. You just couldn't stop. It was too good. What's your thing that you'll most lose sense of time doing? Is it the pottery? I would say I'm annoyingly conscious of time all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Here's another thing I fucked up. I was like, I have so much time. I'll cut my hair. I'm also going to bring a fan down and I'm going to bring an ashtray for our guests. Oh, it's okay. Are you sure? Yes. Okay, we love that you smoked weed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
That was fun for us, but it did lead us astray.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Well, that's what happened. You did it and we were like, that was great. Nothing happened. And then Wiz Khalifa. Is that his roach?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Yeah. And I was like, hey, feel free to smoke. He probably smokes at a different rate than I do. Exactly. He did five back to back over the course of an hour and a half. And there was a point where I was like, I'm a little lost. And I looked over at Monica and Monica was like this. And I looked at Robin. He wasn't even looking at the board. He was just sitting on his chair hanging out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And I was like, uh-oh. I've hung out with him a few times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
They have like a whole different energy. To defend them for a minute, because that other job is so terrible. They have nothing to do with what gets made.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
But most often, they are handed a movie. Their task was to make everyone in America want to see this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Icon, literally. She's just so fucking perfect and everything. Okay, the episode that I have to imagine you feel proudest of, I can't stop talking about, is episode two. It's called The One-er. That was a tough one. I don't want to give too much away, but I also want to whet people's appetite because it's an incredible accomplishment. The episode's called The One-er.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It starts with you and Ike driving to visit set. We already know people do not want you to visit set. And the stakes couldn't be higher because Sarah Pauly is directing a movie and they're getting a shot at magic hour, which means you have this tiny window of 40 minutes of good light. And then the shot's going to be the camera and it's going to do a one-er. We're never going to cut.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
That man doesn't have anxiety. Who's the Muhammad Ali of it? Of smoking weed? Yeah, like, okay, so you were around him and you're like, oh, boy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It has to be perfect. And you guys decide to visit in that moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And everything has to be done perfectly. Yes. You can't fuck up once. There's no coverage for it. It's a full commitment. The very famous one in Hit and Run. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's probably the second most famous one. But by the way, when you commit to one and it works, the fucking exhilaration beats anything you can do on a set.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
A lot of moving parts. They're very hard. And the show is so menace. Also, they're acknowledging what masturbation a one-er is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I've even heard stories about people having the existing record on the monitor that they're trying to beat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Okay, so what's fucking impossible is the episode is also a winner. In real life. Yeah. The episode itself is a winner about a winner. And then all the things that are being laid out in the episode are just so fucking satisfyingly woven into the conclusion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
But also, not only are they choreographing their own one or which is the episode, but there's also a real life one or happening in the show. It is so mind scrambling. It's an insane accomplishment. Thank you. Because it's not just the one or it's the layers of payoff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Oh, yeah, yeah. It seemed like you had three cuts. Yeah, exactly. There's like three or four cuts total in the whole thing. What you can't tell, they're stitched beautifully. Chris and I, we were even arguing. I'm like, probably there was a hood mount on the car that was somehow easily detached. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. Oh, thank God. I just won one argument.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
We would do visual effects to erase rigging.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Because there's 15 actors in that episode that all have lines. If one person forgets their line nine minutes into a take, it's back to the car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
scene so my question about that episode is did you guys piggyback on when the show was actually no we created our own golden globe that's another episode we shot at four days because we couldn't have that room for very long and we had to load in and load out in the same week but no we threw the golden globe no it's a full golden globe so that shows has to be functioning as a real golden globe show in the background oh yeah we had to
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Well, OK, so another achievement of the show is you have fucking plot. A lot of comedies really don't have plot. They don't have an engine. And these fucking episodes, every one of them are so stressful. The tension is thriving throughout the whole show. And that's because of the oners.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Snoop's the best though. There's no point in that for you though, where you're at all nervous, right? You're just like, okay, here we are. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's like true situational comedy. And then also the score, you have this like chaotic jazz and that's fucking nerving you up to no end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It really is stressful. So driving home the night of the episode, The One-er, did you get a burst of elation? I was pretty happy. You could also watch it the next day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
But again, you have a non-actor in this kind of high stakes situation where she's going to have to hit all of her beats really well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Back up the block. You're breaking shit all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
People rarely all do their job at the same time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Yes. So I think there's a lot of ways you can be a good director.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
He's got a Jew joke he's got to hit you with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And he's just got nine minutes sitting in a chair waiting to fuck up his life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's fun to hear you're afraid of that a little bit. Isn't it like comforting?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
The whole time the characters are actually stressed out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I've said that a few times where I've been so high eating it. I was like, how could this be more powerful than crack and psychedelics? And the duration is very up in the air. It's a real bummer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's a cool way to keep yourself interested after year 30. It's like you've got to do something to wake yourself up a little bit. No, definitely. I'm afraid of the next show you do. Yeah, exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
No, with how intricate it is and how well done it is, any amount of time would not have shocked me. Yeah. Okay. I hope you're able to do this. So the fucking appearances are one after another. Like Martin Scorsese's in it. Steve Buscemi. Ron Howard's in it. Charlize Theron's in it. Zac Efron's in it. Olivia Wilde's in it. Ice Cube's in it. It never stops.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And when I'm watching that, I'm so happy for you. Because to me, that is this crazy reflection of what you've built. You can call Martin Scorsese and he'll show up and do your thing. Call his manager.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I've never met Martin Scorsese before. There's a lot of accomplishments on display. There's the technical accomplishment. There's the writing. There's the life story of you and Evan. But also there's the goodwill. Yes. What you've built goodwill wise. Really, it's all there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And it feels real as a result. There's so many that Kristen said to me mid-episode. Do you ever start feeling offended you're not in something? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And you text me, what if we moved Seth to Thursday? And I said, no, you have bad ideas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
But it's really hard. I had to do a thing with Michael Peña and I didn't figure this out until like two weeks into shooting because we're in every single scene together and I'm directing it. And about two weeks in, it occurred to me He doesn't hear me give myself a note. All he hears is me say something to him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Yeah, you might dissolve your ego and learn some stuff about yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
So like two weeks in, I go, I need you to know after these takes, I go like, that was too slow. I got to speed it up. I give myself notes. And then I come to you. I just want you to know, I don't think I'm doing it perfectly. I'm berating myself. And then I go on to you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
he just missed it you started talking too soon so that's easy to call cut on but i think the thing that would be hard how on earth did you manage when someone did a shitty delivery of a line minute one of a five minute one or did you go like oh i'll just go through to the end or will i just be brave right now and say cut it depends what take it was because also you got to navigate just not bumming people out yes
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Well, this is the most I've ever talked about a show when someone was promoting a show. But I have still a couple more questions. Great. One is the other thing that I became hyper aware of is your own aesthetic, or at least what I think is your aesthetic is really on fire. Every single house we go to is an architectural masterpiece.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And then, of course, for me, I got hyper focused on all the cars. So every episode, Matt Remick is driving a different 60s car. There's an MG, then there's an old Merc, then he's in a 53 Vette. You don't have a car thing, though, do you? I do like old cars.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I don't have like a collection of old cars. Do you have any old cars?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I like those. Oh, I'll add to the complexity. He's driving these old fucking 70-year-old cars that are all stick shifts up, even in the winter episode. Get him in the driveway for real. I'm starting to think he's got his hands full. He's directing this thing. I'm just driving that car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
You're in an irreplaceable car. If you fuck it up, you're down for the day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I fucking worked on that lot for two years and I missed. There's a Frank Lloyd Wright film.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I was beating myself up for having missed that. So that's entirely fabricated. Entirely fake. Thank God. Because I could see where it was positioned.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Yeah, you kind of buy into it. It's like, oh, yeah, I could see that at Sony.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
My favorite thing, I want to say you were doing Stern, where you had smoked a bunch of weed doing Stern, but then you were co-hosting with Hoda? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you got hammered too? Yes, like I've drunk with them very early in the morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I also started adding up your budget as I was watching it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
He doesn't give a fuck. It occurred to me on this interview, Monica. I was like, it's time the next time Seth's here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Yeah, wouldn't want to. Would he be up for that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
But it's also reflective of us personally. Well, yeah, of course I care. Of course I find it interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I know a lot of teams that have split up. We had a therapist actually say to us, we were producing a show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And she looked at us and she said, you guys are in the Beatles. Look what you guys get to do and what you make. Don't break up. Don't fuck it up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
That's really great. Thank you for saying that out loud. Yes, that's true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's interesting because Phineas doesn't have that. Some people have it. He knows damn well what he's doing. Yeah, Evan too. He doesn't care at all. He does get a lot of credit for a lot of stuff. I'm sure he's got a really nice house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Yeah. He'll probably leave his kids some money. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Okay, last question. In the show, you're acknowledging the real context of our industry, which is like movies are harder and harder to get to make money. It's just gotten more stressful. They make less movies, less of them work. The whole thing's terrifying. You perfectly pivoted into TV. And I wonder, do you consciously do that or did it just accidentally happen?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
When I look at a lot of your peers, you somehow went perfectly into doing virtually what you were doing in movies and TV.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Yeah. Now on the other side of all of it. And as much as I lamented the disappearance of all that, and I suffered, I've made movies that didn't work in this fucking era. I also recognize I am so glad the boys isn't a movie. Yeah. So on the other side of it, have you found making TV is just as fun or even more?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I really am envious of that experience. I didn't drink in the morning until I did. And then I had to quit. But there were times throughout the year where you did drink in the morning. Camping, sure. St. Patrick's Day. Wake up, get out of bed. Brunch. Sometimes a good brunch. I love brunch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
But also I'm watching Fall Guy and I'm like, this movie is flawless. It's got everything you would ever want. This thing should make half a billion dollars.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
good well i love it man i'm so glad that i got to see all that's so nice i feel very lucky it comes out on march 26th on apple plus and it's spectacular and this is number three and i can't wait for number four we'll get evan in here yeah we have space you do yes yes tell him there's a seat waiting for him all right well thanks for coming in thanks for having me that was great
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Hi there, this is Hermium Permium. If you like that, you're going to love the fact check with Miss Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Not today, but... Oh, you're getting a boat. By the time this is out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
For the gearhead, I'm going to have my first pontoon boat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's gorgeous. I can't. Monica, the leaps that have been made in the pontoon world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Oh, I got you. I thought you were saying by the time I get it, like I receive it tomorrow. But yes, by the time I got in the market for, yes, there was a huge leap forward. Let me hit you with some of the feech.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Pontoon. I grew up on a pontoon boat. Dave Barton, my sweet stepdad, he had himself a pontoon boat. Two steel pontoons on the bottom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
What would I say? Pontoon. I mean, I don't know what other word to use. If you could picture a kayak.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
But completely sealed and it's stainless steel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Or aluminum. And you have two in the water and then there's a flat deck. So it doesn't have like a hull. It's not made out of fiberglass like a normal boat. It's just got these two pontoons and then a big flat deck on top. They're ideal for maximum passengers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Two martinis and calling it a night. I have that same inflated pride about not having a gambling addiction. Because I'm like, everything I've ever touched, if I like it, I do it too much. But I can gamble. I did it Saturday. Chris and I were in Vegas for like nine hours. I'm like, let's gamble. Did 40 minutes. Very normal. Gambling's one of the worst.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It's an addiction where you're just burning your money, basically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And then I forgot about it. And then you did it anyway.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I bought heroin. There's some escape. Rob, who's your favorite guest? The chef we love. Roy Choi. Oh, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Well, he had gambling addiction and he really shared with us. And I'll say the added fucking burn of that addiction, aside from drugs, is there is this notion you can get even. For me, like day three of a crack run, if I thought, oh, I could smoke two rocks and it'll erase what I did. Go back in time. Yes, it has that promise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I'm in deep shit. I've lost the house, but I could fix it all with this addiction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Seth Rogen is an actor. He's a comedian. He is a filmmaker. He is a martial arts star. Yeah. Remember when he was a kid in Canada, he was all about that karate. Superbad, This Is The End, Knocked Up, Neighbors, Pineapple Express, and a new series that I, it'll be obvious in the episode. Truly, I love this show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I don't gamble constantly. Not even like sitting at a blackjack table and tapping into the Sinatra thing of it all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Yes. So the staircase is going up like an M.C. Escher situation. But again, that was not on the stairs. That was like more leaning over one of the railings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
That's the worst. That was me on cope, to be fully honest with you. Oh, God. Yeah. Everyone's horny and then I can't. Why?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I told you that's when, I mean, there were numerous times where I had to acknowledge what a problem it had become. But yes, there was a moment where I was at a bar and I decided, I told the dude like, oh, get the guy and let's get an eight ball. And there was a girl there that liked me. And I was like, This is something. You would rather do that drug than have sex with this attractive person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And I, previous to that, would have thought there was nothing I would want to do more than have sex with an attractive person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Say what? You're just, you're like grabbing, you're grabbing from everywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
That's not relevant to this conversation. Well, you were on coke. Yes, an excessive amount.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
One of the blessings. There's blessings all around if you keep your eyes open.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
If she remembers me and she's hearing this, thank you so much. What a great memory. No?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
What if you went with a buddy who is kind of good at it and he just was like, you hit a 16.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Right. I don't think murderers, like, that's not how it works with murderers. They're not like, you know what? I'm going to go gambling. If I meet someone who wants to fuck in the stairwell, I might murder them. I don't think that's how it works.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I don't even think murderers are gambling and having fun and getting drunk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
He was in a cast hanging out by cars, acting like he couldn't get his crutches or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
He was playing a victim. And luring people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Okay, we're talking about, no, we're talking about killers. Yeah. And we're talking about roofing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And we're talking about me playing blackjack in Vegas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
You're just saying there could be someone drinking at the blackjack table who's a killer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And then they're using that method to meet people. Yeah. That they'll kill.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Right. And they'll be on all the Vegas cameras with a ton of documentation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And a lot of documentation that they were talking to their victim. It'd be a really dumb serial killer to get their victims in a Vegas casino because it's so filmed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
You want to be out in the woods in a parking lot with a cast on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I think she is. She was really a cool, smart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
But you can imagine how neatly it filed into my whole thing about Anglos, right? Because the only other really time that that had happened in such an aggressive manner was when I was in 10th grade, the aforementioned snowboard trip story with my friend from Manchester. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
No, but it was an English gal. And now I had an Australian gal. And I was like, something's going on with these gals. They're very assertive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Yeah. It funneled nicely into my stereotype. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Okay. So I have heard of three of those 10 movies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Wow. They're so rewarding when you are directing one and everything goes right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Nothing really feels like that. Stunt, like when a stunt goes right, that's a really, like the hardest I've ever celebrated is, was in Chips when my friend drove a Humvee through a motor home and drove it right through the center of it and broke it in half and made it through the other side at full speed as explosions were going off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And I was on the Sixth Street Bridge and I screamed with elation like you can't imagine. That's really hard. Another blessing of my life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I'm listed as a stunt performer for Michael Peña.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I did all the driving in his getaway car scene. That's appropriation. I didn't do brown face. I just went to a tanning, spray tanning and went too far. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Oh God, we love him. I can't wait for number four.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Bye. Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Well, that's kind of my struggle. I was just explaining. Someone else was on the trip who's a big deal. Your struggle. I'm sure I had a book called that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
You could argue it was a powerful book. You can say a lot of things about him. But to say his book was not effective. It was sticky. Oh, my goodness. God. Well, yeah, there's a dude on the trip who really gambles. And I was saying to him, I'm in this nether world where I used to gamble with a thousand dollars in the bank and I would gamble a hundred, which was a tenth of my net worth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
And if I won two hundred, I literally went up 30 percent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It changed my life dramatically that weekend. That's bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
It was pure for four people and nobody else. What are you watching? What shows are you obsessed with? I've been loving Severance. It's amazing. Walk me through the experience of watching it. Do you watch it? Yes. Obsessed. We've seen the whole thing because like your show, we got screened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Oh, it's so impressive. It's so funny and impressive. And the plot is like a freight train. It's called The Studio and it's on Apple TV, March 26th. So please, I couldn't recommend it enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Yeah, like Wes Anderson can have that kind of meticulous world and comedy. He's literally probably the only other person to really do it like that. Do you like Righteous Gemstones?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Well, you saw the pilot, right? Yes. Danny directed the pilot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
All that matters is we're capturing the joke. In the defense of everyone, that was the first full embracing of improv all the time. So you couldn't afford to miss someone's reaction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
What a kiss, right? Oh, yeah. Handsy kiss.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
I was watching with my Evan, Aaron Weekly, since sixth grade. And we were in Texas on someone's couch. We're staying at someone's house. And we decided to watch the show. It had been out for maybe a week or two.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
No, I had been really busy. And I was actually excited because I was now available to watch it. And we were sitting on a couch, a very tiny love seat. And that kiss happened. And I was like. Oh my God, that's the best kiss I've ever seen on television. He goes, has she ever kissed you like that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Seth Rogen Returns Again
Right, so your buddy's making out with you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. And I want to quickly say that our guest is Dr. Blaise Aguirre. Aguirre.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I don't think anyone would be hearing this and not be able to quickly think of someone in their head. I'm going to, yeah, a couple people that I've had this distinct feeling of. I can feel you creating a narrative about me that I'm out to get you. For me, on the other side, it's exhausting. It's a little demoralizing to the experience we've had. I've earned more than this, right? Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Now, it's a spectrum, so there'd probably be a different answer for wherever you're at on this continuum. But are all of their relationships going to follow that pattern or do some trigger it and others don't?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Absolutely. I would imagine there's some also predictable fallout in their professional life and their relationships. Is there a pretty well-worn path that folks suffering from this find themselves on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. And it was incredibly informative. And he has a book out. Again, I've already given away that one copy I read and then I've ordered two more for people I love. I hate myself. Overcome self-loathing and realize why you're wrong about you. Yeah, this is an incredible topic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Do I understand this? This is an offshoot of CBT, yeah?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay, so what causes it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. Which I am, by the way, to my cohort. Most people don't have anaphylactic shock from peanuts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, I think so. And yet another big, crazy endorsement for CBD and dialectical behavioral therapy. Yep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Is it observable in any part of your body or is it a neurochemical thing we would have to measure?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
She outsmarted it. Which would be a skill. That was something you would probably teach in CBT.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
It also overlaps what we would think of trauma response. I'm thinking of, of course, the beginning of Body Keeps the Score and him observing veterans deal with these pretty trivial challenges and have these very outsized reactions. And I myself really relate to that deeply.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, it's pretty amazing stuff. Please enjoy Dr. Blaise Aguera.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I don't think because of a BPD situation, but because of a trauma one where the slightest thing for me becomes life and death pretty quick. So it's very similar. It's interesting how many ways there are to arrive at the same reaction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Aguirre. Dr. Blaise Aguirre. Perfect. Can I start with a question I'm so embarrassed to ask you? Yeah. I've never seen your first name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, you're doing them a kindness and almost helping not confirm their own pattern, which is if you are to just ghost them and leave their life, you actually confirm everything they've been saying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Whereas if you say, I wanted to be a part of this and love you, the intensity for me is very scary. And I am always feeling like I'm going to do something wrong. It gives me a state of anxiety and I just can't handle that personally. I think that's a constant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Great. Wait a second. Did you guys invite me here because this is a session? We always do. We bring in the best experts in the world to try to navigate this partnership. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You could be soft kids gloving at, but you're one person. So what do you really? Yeah. I think we could further articulate devaluing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Could we say, if you notice who you hate... It generally will fall into two categories. They either exhibit a side of yourself you hate about yourself or they've achieved some success in this deficit you think you have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Kind of creating the story to explain the feeling you initially had. Exactly right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay, so the treatment for this, I mean, 5,000 patients, I would imagine I couldn't ask someone better about what the course of action is if someone does want to confront this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Sure. We have to first keep you alive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Why you wanted a Porsche in the first place. Exactly. You're right. You're already driving this fucking thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, I will say I'm generally skeptical of all the modern child raising advice that comes over the transom every 36 hours. But one that I have recently heard that my wife's a big proponent of, which I can't help but agree with. I think anyone who's got kids could relate to this is like the kid does something, they injure themselves and you want to teach them a lesson in
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You go, that's why you don't play with scissors. Right. But part of their brain you want to access is not accessible until you've regulated. Exactly. Like the first order of business has to be let's calm everyone down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Let's return to some kind of homeostasis where this lesson you're going to give them could even be heard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. Is there any part of the treatment that is pharmacological?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
These are kind of the horror stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Got you. How successful is the treatment?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
God, really quick, take that in to know that one in 10 of your patients you'll have to watch die is a very gnarly endeavor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay. So through the course of all this work and the 5,000 patients died, It occurs to you at some point, you're occasionally hearing something, but you're not really focused on it. It's not something that's listed in the DSM that should be addressed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And you basically are led by your patients to start considering self-hatred and self-loathing as a condition that really needs exploration, research. We need to really start considering that this is a component that needs addressing. How do you come to this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Home of the Geary. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I've not been asked that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
There's lots of excerpts of dialogue between you and patients. I don't know why, but I'm blown away with how intelligent some of the patients are and how articulate. And some of them are downright confrontational with you, which I think is so brave and cool. There's something about the dynamic that makes that hard. And one of your patients, a young woman, is like, you're not listening to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I'm not upset with myself in this moment. I hate myself across the board. You need to fucking listen to me and I'm impressed and grateful that someone would have that conviction to push back against you like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You too are also limited by your own experience. So, yes, you've learned from the DSM all these other things and you know how to look for them. But because you yourself can't necessarily relate immediately to a constant state of self-hatred, it's a little inconceivable until it's detailed for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
What does it mean? Because I think a lot of people go like, well, I hate myself often.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Or I feel like a failure sometimes. I'm lazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
This couldn't be proven to you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I would pull my dick out and go, great, you're holding that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Well, you would be an adversary. You would be a threat. You would be someone that's living in certainly a different reality than I am.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Right. So I'm saying I'm worthless and I am toxic. They use often this term toxic. Doesn't matter what proof you present to them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Meaning they're as convicted about that as they would be about their biological sex.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I can't even begin to guess at what industry would have brought your parents to all those locations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. So it's very hard to tackle, it sounds like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And what was the conclusion of those papers or the thesis of those?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay. Each paper ended with weak
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, you're a great candidate. Very misleading, in fact.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
So Jewel wrote a foreword.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And what we learn in that story is that she had an abusive father who was an addict. We've interviewed her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And that at 15, she started considering just moving out and she's starting to confront whether she'll feel better from that and recognizing that he's the bad guy in the story. But even when she's away from him, the bad guy is still there. And this concept of internalizing your abuser, which is fascinating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I mean, she has this beautiful metaphor where she's peeling an orange and she starts to become open to the idea that What she thinks of as herself is actually the peel of the orange. And that peel is there to protect this beautiful fruit inside from all the elements. And that perhaps the trauma is just the peel. And she doesn't actually know who she is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
The nurture is the peel and the nature is this orange inside. And she becomes dedicated to finding the real her. It's so beautiful. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That's so serendipitous. Do you have kind of your own DSM in your head where you would be able to delineate what is average disappointment in oneself versus something that needs this true attention and these tools?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
The world would be better without me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yes, this young woman in your book, when kind of explaining to you why she's so worthless, it's kind of implicit. She's already had the suicide attempt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Her mother is, she knows, worrying about her all day long. The weight of that, I'm causing this person, I love all this distress. And just one thing after another, that's, I'm a burden and this place would be better without me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
So what was your personal breakthrough in treating this? What were the things you started noticing could work?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I guess those were all seaports. I could have put that together. Exactly. So I could imagine this could do a real number on you identity-wise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You can definitely see it as fuel for the BPD.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, that's a big admission.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
There's even incidents where your conclusion could be that, right? Because this woman eventually writes you this letter, which is really inspiring. She's the reason that her parents got divorced. Neither of them needed to tell her that. That could have just been a conclusion she made.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
It's like muscle memory.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You say it. I'm just, I'm going to own it. I'm having a very hard time pronouncing Blaze's last name because it's A-G-U-I-R-R-E. And Wabiwab was nice enough to write it out phonetically for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
The ends justified the means.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You were anchored and tethered to her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That's the thing in AA, which is the other side of the coin of self-aggrandizement is self-pity. That was very helpful for me to police self-pity, which is like, it's just as egomaniacal to think the world is conspiring against you. You're not that important on either end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But nor am I. You don't have the power to make your parents get divorced. You don't have the power to keep them married.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Well, this is the great danger of the DSM that's implicit is inadvertently we're establishing what normal is. And now that there's normal, that's the objective. And then your belief about what normal is, which is not true. Yeah. Yeah, it's all slippery.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay. So once you drive that wedge in there and you get them to accept that they weren't born this way, which I can see on the surface is very powerful. How now do you start nudging them towards considering they could return to that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Do you think it at all gives you a healthy outsider's perspective that you're kind of observant of these places you go? And while there's a different modus operandi here, that's intriguing what's going. Do you think that could be the seeds of why you find your way to psychology and psychiatry?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
She was already so fucking flawed and busted that you would dispose of her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
There's a moment, again, back to this young woman, where, boy, it feels like you take a huge swing. I can't imagine myself doing this, but the outcome was phenomenal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
really interesting which is she had taken time to write you this kind of long letter and it was full of lots of kind things about you and she clearly took a lot of time on it you read it and she is not to a place yet where she has transcended self-hatred and you said this is lovely and i can see you've taken a lot of time on it but i'm afraid i have to reject this
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I like the stolen money analogy you gave her. You can't give someone $100 you stole.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That's rough. I'm so mean to my husband.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, you said to accept this, you hate yourself and you're toxic and you're devoid of love. So this letter is the opposite of that. And for me to accept it would be to accept a lie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yes, because that, particularly not knowing her diagnosis, but if she were BPD, this is ripe to fulfill the narrative that you're not what she thought. Rejecting this thing I spent all this time on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But it did penetrate. I guess you get great at knowing when the time is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I think her making that letter to you was a good flag for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I haven't heard that. That took me a second. So not a highly employable skill set.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
What are some things you feel new in our culture that are compounding this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
There's a very well-funded mechanism out there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I find myself frustrated with those folks and not as compassionate, and I should. Part of me wants to go like, this billboard of this person is not an assault to you. I do discount sometimes that there is varying levels of vulnerability. There's part of me that just wants to go like, yeah, there's also cars that are faster than yours. It's not an assault on you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I can't eliminate all the triggers in the world to satisfy the most triggered among us. It's very defeatist too, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay, this is petty for me to bring up, but you would be the person that I could ask this to. I have said committed suicide on here several times. I've heard in the comments people say I'm not allowed to say that anymore. And you who specializes in suicide. I feel like it's a little bit of... pandering and pageantry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And I actually think it's just for the people who are advocates and not the people who have done it. I think it's like when people say, I can't say drunks and junkies, which is what we call ourselves. Do you have a take on this? What's this move to not say committed suicide?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Because you could say my dad committed cancer. He smoked like three packs a day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That's a great rebuttal. And that's generally the answer for all these things. I know. I'm going to keep saying drunks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
When I think they're protecting themselves and not actually the victim.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But my gut reason I hate it, there's an actual hatred of it, which is you're not owning your shame that someone you love did that. You actually don't want the shame for yourself and fuck you. That's why I have a conviction about it. You're trying to protect your own shame and you shouldn't be feeling shame about this. You're not doing your work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Through all this travel, by the way, obviously you inherited your parents' wanderlust if you've been in all these places.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Well, I'm going to declare right now, I'm happy to drop it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
i'll get with the program you might win something but at what cost people get lost in that message and then you'll be labeled as this one-sided person okay so i don't think i've been reading a book that i wanted to give to more people than this book i immediately thought of some people that i just know are buried under this self-hatred people i love dearly i don't know if it's triggering to receive this
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But I immediately thought of a couple of people I really want to read it because it's heartbreaking when you love someone and you know, they're walking around with this sense of defectiveness and you can't penetrate. But also, I would say this book is a call to other psychologists. So maybe just love to wrap up with what your hopes are for the book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Well, we need to know who to market it to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay, but throughout this whole time, you have held a position for 25 years at McLean Hospital? Yeah, I have. So we've had a great interest in borderline personality disorder. It comes up occasionally and we've yet to have an expert on. And you've written three or four books about borderline.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Like all things, right? It's a spectrum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And the book is a bit of a workbook. You have provided space in the tools section to explore this on your own. Because I think that's the great sadness I have is that so few people have access to someone like you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Well, I think it's an incredible book. I'm so glad you've written it and shined a light on it. And it's probably crazy to you how long you were missing it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, it's a great book. I Hate Myself, Overcome Self-Loathing and Realize Why You're Wrong About You. It's out now. I urge everyone to get it. And I think a lot of people will relate deeply to the feelings that your patients have. Thank you so much, Blaze. First Blaze I've ever met. It was a home run.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
He is. So hopefully we'll form stereotypes about Dax's and Blaze's that'll become self-fulfilling prophecies. All right, well, good luck with everything. Thanks for giving us so much time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I just really shit the bed myself on my time management. Oh, okay. I had got all my workout gear on. I was like, should I ride on my bike today? Sure, always a big question. Big, big question. And I was like, I really need to change this rear inner tube. The nozzle kind of popped off. It's still holding air, but I can't risk it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I'm going to need to repair it. And then just lift. We're going to lift. Got in my outfit. Then I went to, I thought, well, now I have a little extra time. I got to working on the bicycle. I did the tires. A little more challenging then. There's a lot of challenges. So when I finally got it all done, cleaned up the tools, I was like, let's go work out. I looked at my watch, 1240.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
My entire workout had blown by. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
We have the thinnest understanding of what the predictable pattern of someone suffering from that is. And we could be completely wrong because we've fucked up OCD a couple of times. We've stepped in it, our colloquial understanding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
He gets tinkering in the shop. You know, those guys get tinkering in the shop and the time just flies by. Blew right by.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
This cookie boy likes to tinker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
They'll tinker. Your morning was good? Did time get away from you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Kristen just dealt with the exact same thing. She started getting tons and tons of emails and texts from Spectrum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Like, we're going to shut your cable off. Okay. Shut off your internet. Sure. And she's like, I don't even think I signed up for the account. I don't think it's in my name or anything. Now there's a big.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
There's a huge mystery. So very similar. But the whole time she's like, this is all a ploy to get my credit card. Got to be careful. I think they got it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Well, she looked up the actual web address for Spectrum, and it was the right web address.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Still scary. So scary. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That was real, and it was just temporary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yes, very busy, multiple jobs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Line items. Yeah. Yeah. Business speak. And then you're late. You do your P&L and you realize more losses than profits.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
It's not good. It's not a good ROI. I hate all those terms. Then once I learned them, I realized they really are useful. It's annoying in that I'm the person I hate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
It's almost my full arc as a human is becoming fully the person I hated. I did a good prank last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Which is A-E-H-G-E-R-R-E.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay, so as you know, my girlfriend Khaleesi's visiting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
She's seven, Kenny's daughter. I told you about the hike. We had a great hike. We held hands the entire time. I'd love to show you some pictures.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Dax's mom, which is really sad. But I did discover after we talked, she is calling my sister Delta's grandma. Which is great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
She kept saying, is Delta gone with her grandma to the movies? When is she going to be done with her grandma at the movies? So now Titi is grandma, which is so fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
At least it's consistent. So, like, if Kristen's my mom and my sister is Delta's grandma, those are their peers, which they are. Of course. In this weird structure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Oh, no. Yeah. No, she's not going to do that. It's more of an age mix up. So anyways, Khaleesi, Delta, Lincoln, Kristen, Kenny and I went to Cafe 101 last night. We were in a big booth. Khaleesi's so excited. There's older girls. Yeah. Older girls have had enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But I tell them, I try to tell them, you know, if we went somewhere and there's two older girls, you know, it's really tough being a parent in these situations. I know. Because you're really kind of weighing a couple of things. Yeah. I want to teach them to be kind and civil. And also, they're in their house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
So is there an enormous correlation between suicidal ideation or suicide and BPD?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
They have some boundaries. I also want them to have boundaries. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay. Did you advise them to punch Khaleesi? Well...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I was unloading motorcycles and power washing them. And I heard your little voice coming from like the woods.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Well, and you were obscured behind FICA's, like a row of hedges. So you got to watch me react and look stupid for a while.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Protect my family, my property mode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And Khaleesi's so friendly. She wants to talk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Cute and friendly. She really wants to get into it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But then if you saw a little Khaleesi excited to play with him, you'd be like, girls, get over it. I agree. I can play with this cute little girl. I agree. So, yeah, Lincoln's largely spared because of the age gap. I think Delta's more interesting to Khaleesi. Yeah. Anyways, all this to say, we're at dinner and I love talking to her, right? Because I'm just messing with her the whole time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Exactly how I talked to Lincoln and Delta is there because she's family. She's Kenny's. Yes, of course. So she's, Kenny says something she doesn't like. So she starts punching Kenny. She's like, won't stop punching him. He's like, stop punching me. And I go, Khaleesi, I'm going to tell you right now, they throw people out in this restaurant. They have a zero tolerance policy on violence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
He's like, no, they won't. And I go, no, they'll throw you right out of here. And what is great is I've developed, now I had, without this ever in sight, I've developed a really good relationship with the bus boy. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I love the dude. You know, we have a great rapport. So I go, that's it. I'm going to get the manager. So I got up and then luckily he was just standing right around the corner. And I go, oh, perfect. Will you tell that, ask that little girl she's been punching people? And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah. So we come back and now there's an employee of the restaurant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And he goes, have you been punching people? And she, she was busted. Yeah. She was so scared she was about to get thrown out. Oh, no. And then we all started laughing and then she started laughing. It was great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. But I came back with an employee and he got right into it with her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Because you're afraid of getting kicked out of the restaurant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, yeah. There's a lot there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But it did stop the punching.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay, so the other thing she and I have going is we were in the hot tub two nights ago. And she's telling me all these different stories. And she tells me about how mean this gymnastics coach is. And he's real mean. And one girl is going to have her water. And he said, oh, you want some water? And he poured the water on her head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
She's a liar. And I go, I'm going to be honest. I don't believe that story. And she's like, what? What do you mean you don't believe it? And I go, like, I, I, I trust you and I love you. But at the same time, I just, I really can't, I don't think I'm able to believe that story. And it became this whole thing about believing that story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And then later she told me, you know, your eyes turn color when you lie. My grandpa told me that. And I go, yeah, I love your grandpa, Joe. He's one of my buddies, but I, I, I'm afraid I can't believe that story. And she fought me on that for a while. But then in the car on the way to Cafe 101, she was saying, yeah, my grandpa told me your eyes turn color when you lie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
So it's a spectrum disorder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And I don't think I believe it anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That's okay. It's good to be skeptical. You can't believe in fairy tales.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I'll just call her a liar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You can tell kids exactly everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Because sometimes you're in light that makes them look that way. And sometimes you're in light that makes them look the other way. Light is very... Wishy-washy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. All to say your eyes don't turn a different color when you lie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. You already know they were the rarest. Did you need to learn that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Haven't you just met the least amount of people with green eyes?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I mean, I'll answer for you. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yes. You've met way more people with blue and brown eyes than green.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Here we go around. Also, I love browns. Don't listen to her. Daniel Riccardo's brown eyes? I know. Like a saddle wood?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay. So first of all, what is the difference between a mood disorder and a personality disorder?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Blue. That was a dangerous question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Because people take it so personal if you don't know their eye color. Oh, I hear this all the time. This is one of these, I think, trends about how to out guys for, you know, another thing guys are terrible at is like, guys don't know your eye color. This is a test for a guy. Oh. What's your mom's eye color? What's your wife's eye color? Oh, my God. Yeah. So it's real dangerous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
People get very hurt if you don't know what color their eyes are. Do you know what color mine are?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Oh, wow. I don't know how you thought that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Name three people with green eyes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Are we playing it fast and loose? No. Okay. There's solid green.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I said you have green eyes, right? She just goes, I'm so hurt. Lose my number. I think she has blue eyes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay. You're asking me? No, I'm telling you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Okay. So we're up to two.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And- You're currently sitting with two people with blue eyes. So that's already neutralized. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
With the immediate people in your vicinity and all the people in the world, you know, yes, it's even Stevens so far.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You know the kids have blue eyes. They're so prototypical blonde blue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That's where the human is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You can't see very well, though, in your defense. I don't know that you can even see most people's eyes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I would agree with that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Jess has said the nicest thing about my eyes as anyone has ever said. What did he say? He said there's icicles in them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
It's very sweet. You know what color my brother's eyes are, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
He has brown eyes. Go ahead. Test it. You're a bad boyfriend. I'm a much better boyfriend than you are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
He's just going to start crying. He'll get back to you in 30 minutes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, exactly. Who else should you tell you don't, tell me you don't care about me without telling me you don't care about me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. They're not your thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Oh, we're going to finally do the.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Do you want me to read it? I always feel bad. You're always administering the quizzes, and I'm happy to do it if you want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Oh, strongly agree. They seem to have nothing to do with sensitivity. It's interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. I'm not going to go strongly. I'll go to the next one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Strongly agree. Right? Have you ever seen me losing my shit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I just think when the shit's hitting the fan, I'm very calm. Is that not what the question is? You would agree with that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
My car's on fire and I'm like, okay, let's get the hood open. Let's like, there's no, I have no, oh no, there's no, oh no in me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That's true. Even though I can make friends really easy, that's true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
It's really weird. I like to talk to either dead strangers- Or people I know, it's periphery people that people I know know that make me nervous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. Can you understand? That's weird, isn't it, though? But like if I'm at a gas station, I talked like I'm I'm very engaged.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You want to learn about the server or whatever. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to ask the Uber driver where they're from. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But if like the Uber driver, I kind of remember his friends with Callie, I'd be like, oh, fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But, you know, any friend of a friend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, we're supposed to connect. Yeah, I get it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Medium agree. Is that four? Yeah, agree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But I'm not a baddie. No, you're not. Okay. Dr. Blaze is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and an assistant professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is one of the world's foremost experts on borderline personality disorder. We've been dying to get an expert on BPD in here, and we finally have, and it was incredibly interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That's an interesting one. Boy, that's a hard one to be objective about. What do you think?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, I love a daily routine. Strongly agree. Five.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, strongly disagree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I know, but I'm allowed to and no one else is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That's weird. Relax before getting into chores. You don't. I don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I like to keep the motor floored or off. So that's a disagree. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, I don't mind. I like, yeah, I like it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Strongly agree. Strongly agree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Oh, 15. Your mood is- This is like how gross you are, Quiz.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, strongly disagree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Oh, I feel like you have a, what would you give me on that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Also remember where I'm from.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But I have an outcast identity, right? So I think I like, it's easy for me to lock into. I don't know. I'm going to go with neutral. Okay. I think I'm more, I think I'm more empathetic than the average dog from where I'm from. Okay. Yeah. But also, yeah, a lot of times, like I had to definitely become friends with you before I was able to truly understand how hurtful and doing an accent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Well, let me let's. See though, is it that I can't empathize? I mean, I think I understand where they're coming from. I think it's gonna end in defeat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
So I have like a real strong objection that I don't think we're ever gonna get in power again unless people have a reckoning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Oh, no, I'm energized. Strongly disagree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
No. Oh, my God. I hate them. Okay. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And you really enjoyed looking at the paintings. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I like walking around the Getty, but it's like I look at the paintings and I feel like Larry David. Right. I'm like, I'm more annoyed that other people are getting some transcendent experience that I might not be. And I'm like, why? What is?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
We already answered this. No, I don't. I don't. Regs don't. Regs disagree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I mean, what year is this question being asked? Rarely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I used to, but not anymore. Disagree. I'd go disagree. Regs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
So that's already revelatory to me because I thought of it as like a status quo. You're in a state of this disorder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. Five. He almost puked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
No, I'm not at all. That's a strong disagree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Not energized, no. Regs disagree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That's a neutral for me?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah. Okay. Okay, strongly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Well, I'm affected by people's emotions, but you said I'm not empathetic, so I'm gonna have to take that. No, I didn't say that. Let's go regs agree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
That is. I would go neutral.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You already asked that. There should be a question like, do you hate being asked the same question twice? Or rather, it would say you hate being asked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I agree with that, which seems like a contradiction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But I, yes, I keep my room really clean on my side of the thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
They're trying to confuse us. They keep asking the same question, but slightly different than you wonder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And they're trying to catch you being inconsistent. And they're about to catch me. One more time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
We're really trying to piss us off now. You find it easy to. What if at the end it said, did this piss you off? And that's the only question that mattered. And then there's a whole thing. Because you're so sensitive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
A long time later. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
No, Greg's disagree. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
This is crazy. It's getting really crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I like new things, but I don't know that I embrace change all that well. So let's go neutral.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
It's not even an option? Oh, my God. I'm too old to take this quiz?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Well, that's not even as concerning as I thought I was going to say 50 plus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
And then the rest of everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
They're going to ask you for $2.99. Yes! Uh-huh. Oh my. These bastards.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I know, because we filmed a whole segment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
What bastards. I am sensitive. Someone made this test up in their fucking basement.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Oh, that's not confidence inducing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Some of their questions were great. And then on the second time, they were good. And then sometimes on the third time, they were no good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
How much do I owe you for this? Was it $2.99?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Are they going to give you unlimited tests?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
We'll tell you next week. Oh, fuck. Another paywall?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I didn't have anything to do with sensory.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
An ear, nose and throat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Oh, my God. What kind of test was this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Someone's happy right now. Like someone has wanted us to take this test, but we don't know about it. No, it's like an Enneagram test.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
But it won't tell you the name?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Dr. Zamboni, Stanford Brisbane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Now, is narcissism in a state of flux as well?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
You're right. We'll have to find that test and we'll do it when we do the.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Briggs and Stratton test from your book. What was that called? Myers-Briggs. No, from your book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
All right. Goodbye. Are there any facts?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Oh, great. Love you. Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, we had a narcissist expert and she said exactly that. One of the rarest cases to come seek treatment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
understand it correctly from the expert we had on. It's like, you don't suffer from narcissism the way you suffer from some other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, so what are the symptoms of borderline personality disorder?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
love you and it becomes actually the kind of behavior that then creates the self-fulfilling prophecies because like I can't do this anymore yes okay that a little bit matches what my understanding was that you'll find people with BPD will become very quickly infatuated with somebody yeah they'll get very quickly close and heightened and then there will be some period where they've decided you're actually kind of out to get them and then they will flip to a kind of comparable level of hatred and
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I have been trying my best to repeat everything he said. I told my entire family almost this whole interview. You did. Yeah, I found Blaze to be incredibly interesting. Yeah, me too. His primary focus and specialty is he has dealt with 5,000 suicidal patients. And that is a very unique experience for a psychiatrist to have. And so if you want to talk to an expert on this topic, this is the guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
I often say this even with pedophilia, which is like, no one went to the grocery store, looked at the fucking options on the shelf and were like, I'll take that. No one would pick that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Treating them has got to be one of the most precarious because naturally they would probably want to idolize you initially.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
Yeah, the part of your brain that is in charge of executive function is not accessible, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)
They feel also perfectly situated to be love addicts as well. Because this is also a very kind of similar cycle of love addiction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
What information really does, information doesn't necessarily tell us the truth about the world. Information connects a lot of individuals into a network that can do many, many things that isolated people can't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
And to give you an example, if you think for instance about different types of information, if you think about visual information, if you think in terms of images and photographs and paintings, so what is the most common portrait in the world? Who is the most famous face in human history? The answer is Jesus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
Billions and billions of portraits of Jesus have been produced over the last 2000 years. And they've been like everywhere in so many churches and cathedrals and monasteries and private houses and schools and government offices everywhere. And the amazing thing about it, not a single one of them is true. Not a single one is authentic. A hundred percent, not 99%.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
He never sat for a portrait that we know of. We don't know if anybody painted him during or sculpted him during his lifetime. Definitely we have no image from his own lifetime. And also, if you think about, you know, textual descriptions, the Bible doesn't contain a single word, not a sentence, not a single word about how Jesus looked like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
There is a description of his clothes one time, what he wore, not a single description of what he looked like, whether he was tall or short or fat or thin. The color of his skin. Color of his skin, color of his hair, color of his eyes, nothing. Wow. All the portraits, the billions of portraits, they came out of human imagination. And nevertheless, they have been extremely successful
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
And important in connecting billions of people into a network which shares certain values and norms, which can work together to build cathedrals and build hospitals and also go to wars and establish the Inquisition and things like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
Yeah. So whether for good or bad, this has been one of the most powerful networks in human history. Catholicism. Christianity, even more generally. Of course, again, like every network, it can break up into several sub-networks. So there is always this tension between uniting more people together and breaking up into smaller parts. But this is what information does.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
A subset of the information in the world may also tell us the truth about the world. Some information is true, but truth is a very rare and relatively costly kind of information. Most information is not truth. Again, it's fiction, it's fantasy. It's sometimes lies. It's sometimes illusions, delusions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
You know, a key point is that the truth is costly because it requires a special effort to produce truthful information. You need to research. You need to spend time gathering evidence and analyzing it and so forth. Fiction is cheap. Yeah. Draw or write the first thing that comes in your mind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
So going back to networks, the key is that if you manage to connect a lot of individuals into a network like a church or an army or a corporation or a state or anything like that, they can accomplish far, far more than either individuals or a small number of people. And again, this, of course, goes back to sapiens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
This is the key to our success as a species, that we can build these huge networks and
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
Yeah. And so sapiens began to explore this idea that Nexus now goes over history and also the future and looks at it from the viewpoint of these networks. So, okay, if we established that stories create networks and networks are important, let's look at history as the process, not of human actions, but of networks spreading, sometimes collapsing, changing their nature.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
So for instance, a chapter about democracy and dictatorship, which looks at them not as different ethical or ideological systems, but as different types of information networks. How they flow, how they function. Yeah, how information flows. Information flows differently in democracy and dictatorship, and this is what makes them so different.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
In dictatorships, they are centralized information networks. All the information or most of the information flows to just one place where all the decisions are being made. Putin's desk. Yeah, Putin's desk or Xi's desk or whatever. And also, they lack... strong self-correcting mechanisms. The network doesn't contain a mechanism for identifying and correcting the network's own mistakes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
Democracy, in contrast, is a different kind of network. What characterizes it is that information doesn't flow just through a central hub. There is usually a central hub. So in the United States, a lot of information flows to Washington, but most of it doesn't. Probably more to New York.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
Yeah, most of the economic decisions, social decisions, cultural decisions are being taken in New York, in Los Angeles, in lots of other places. A lot of the information never passes through any government office. And you have strong self-correcting mechanisms. If the network makes a mistake, you don't need somebody from outside to intervene.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
The whole point about democracy, that you have these built-in mechanisms to identify and correct its own mistakes. So in democracy, you have this mechanism that every couple of years, people can say, we made a mistake, let's try something else. Of course, the problem, if you have only this, is that it can easily be rigged.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
I mean, the weakness of democracy since ancient times is that you basically give enormous power to one person or one party on condition that they give it back after four years. And what happens if they don't? I mean, they have all this power in their hands. What happens if they use all this power to stay in power, to rig the elections?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
And we've seen it many times in Russia, they have elections every four years. And presumably in the 1990s, when Putin first rose to power, the elections were relatively fair and free. Then he used his power to dismantle and to rig the elections. And you saw the same thing in Venezuela. Chavez originally came to power, as far as we know, in free and fair elections.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
But then Chavez and his successor, Maduro, they used the power to destroy the democratic system and then stay in power.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
Yeah, I mean, Maduro lost big time, but because he appoints all the election officials and all the judges and everything, so he says, no, I won. This just in, I won. So if you only have elections, this is not enough. You need an entire system. This is the famous checks and balances.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Wednesday 2024
And these checks and balances like independent courts and free media and constitution and federal system, these are all basically, if you think about it in terms of information, these are the self-correcting mechanisms.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm David Shepard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And you went back to Manhattan. Yeah. So when did you have an actual routine and what version of magic were you doing at the beginning?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, because they almost come with a script.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, yeah. I think it takes a lot of confidence for you, a young guy, to go, okay, I'm going to do this kind of dry, monotone, not showy, the thing I thought was corny. You're not looking around and seeing that version working.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Can you relate to a flasher? I remember learning that flashers, what the kink is, is seeing the person's face. Do you know that about flashers? No, I don't. Yeah, the flashing isn't like necessarily that they're dying for someone to see their penis. It's more they're into the reaction. That's their kink.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Oh, sure, sure, sure. I've got to earmark that, too. I mean, people went nuts with that box.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I want to do a big thing on it, but yes, that one is called Above the Below. Yeah, Harmony. 44 days in a 7x7x3 plexiglass box.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I want to go through each of those. Yeah. So you started, you didn't have a period where you were trying to do really showy, jokey, any of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
That's right. Yes. And how were you making a living? Like, how does a magician make a living in 1995?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Oh, so restaurants would hire you to walk through the restaurant?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I ask because in L.A., you have the Magic Castle. So people go there and then they might love a magician. And then they know to ask that person to come to a party. I'm just wondering how one, if you're wandering around Manhattan, I guess it's just word of mouth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And that's still card tricks and stuff. We're not doing anything endurance wise yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Okay. So how do you decide to transition from the kind of magic you were doing to doing buried alive?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Okay, so you're in this plastic box under three tons of water for seven days. And is the fasting because my first question, of course, is how do you poop?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Did it start getting attention day one or when did it start getting massive attention?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Was that like day four? Yeah. I think that's when I became aware of you. I would have been 22, and I'm like, what a dude. That hit my radar, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Well, that's the dream. When you hold a helium balloon, your next thought is how many would I have to hold before it lifted me off the ground? That's right. So the next is in 2000, Frozen in Time. This is a fail, but it's a hysterically successful fail, which is you were going to go for 72 hours encasing a block of ice, but you made it 63 hours and 42 minutes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
How hard was it for you to surrender?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
So you didn't have to signal them like, I'm not making it at 72. It was on a schedule.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And that has to be from the temperature because you've spent that much time by yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
You were standing for 35 hours.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Well, now that I have kids, but I might have given up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
My analogy is like I've skydived and it's not scary. Bungee cord is very scary because you can see the ground and you decide to dive at it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
What is happening in the internal narrative? Because this is my assumption is there is a dedication to doing something novel and unique that no one can do. And I'm going to prove it. What is the...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
But again, do you like it because you go like, there's an infinite possibility that I'm discovering? Is there a freedom of, oh, I think I have these limits, but in fact, I have a much more infinite scope. Can you articulate what the joy is?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And you're Neil Padman. And today we have David Blaine, the world-renowned magician and endurance artist. Yeah. You have probably seen one of his specials, Street Magic, Realer Magic, Beyond Magic, The Magic Way. And he has a new series out that is radical called Do Not Attempt on Nat Geo. It's out now and it's mind-blowing. It gave me, my palms and my hands were sweating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I think even to be drawn to magic, you kind of want more out of life. You want life to be... And you want it to have more out there than is just presented to you. You're like starving for more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Often in the case of the Sikhs you do, this is a demonstration to God. It's an offering. So if you're suffering, it's even more... It's also showing that we don't live by the flesh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Because I related to you a ton. Again, I'm projecting, but I'm watching you watch a guy break a bottle on his head. And I can see in your face, you're like, fuck, I don't want to do this. And I'm going to have to do this because I can't not do this now that I know it can be done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It's so fucking disturbing, I want to add. He started with some water bottles and you're like, okay. But then he goes to a fucking square whiskey bottle and I'm like, this is nuts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
So then is it more not about bravery? Is it about intelligence? Are you like, you're smart enough to figure this out. Figure this out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And then I can't get it out. It's like an OCD thing. Yes. Thank you. That's more what we got there. So it's not that deep. It's obsessive compulsion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah. There's an angst until that is solved.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It's never a yes, I did it. That's true. Do you get peace from it? I had this obsession. That's a really good question. I've now done it and now I have peace until I think of the next idea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
The pole one is interesting because I once saw in Australia on a trip an orangutan. They just put telephone poles up for them to play on. And these big orangutans that would just sit at the very top. And they were so peaceful. And it is such a disturbing image. Oh, my God. That thing likes being 60 feet in the air. Right. And it's very memorable and terrifying to a terrestrial creature like us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
But to Monica's question, I think I have a bit of an answer. And which is, again, there's what I always say that I love about the track on a motorcycle. Your mind can't wander. If it thinks of something else for one second, you'll go off. And so my addiction to it is just I go for eight hours. They're 20 minute sessions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And I cobbled together like four hours of being dead present, which is so rare for me. My brain is so fucking busy. Right. So I'm imagining maybe there's also this relief from maybe a noisy brain otherwise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And that can be very pleasurable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Okay, above, below. We got to talk about that one. So as we said, 44 days in a 7x7 plexiglass box, hovering 30 feet in the air. There was a webcam so people could watch the entire time. Yeah. As you already said, you had fasted for that so you don't have to go duty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
As a layperson, my thoughts are, what does it feel like to starve? Because you really go into starvation at that point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I would have dreams of eating certain foods. Yeah. Did you start planning? Because even when I have a flu that lasts like four days and I haven't eaten and I can't eat, I start thinking about McDonald's French fries like day three. And I just start obsessing about when I get to eat those. Did you have a meal planned?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Monica, you can't imagine watching. It's one of the hardest things I've ever watched. It's a mound of glass. Of broken bottles. Like you dumped out a 55-gallon trash can. That much glass. He's walking on it, dancing on it. Then he's up in the air, body slamming on top of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah. Failed. Yes. Yeah, yeah. These are like relapse dreams.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, I just want to frame this. So what was most dangerous about this whole thing was refeeding. I think so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Because if you had gotten out and eaten a pepperoni pizza, you would have died.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Walk me through the refeeding process.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
So that's, I guess, my question. How much of your day were you floating off into the ether of imagination?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
OK, now you say it was exaggerated in the media, but I must know these people did start vandalizing or there are at least a handful of someone through eggs, someone through balloons full of paint. Yeah, that was really cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
He was angry. What do you think those few vandals did? We're reacting to because I have a very strong opinion about what it was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I think there's something in us as a social primate that feels like we need to police how much attention people get. There's just a guy who's getting all this attention and now people are stopping. Also, it was a see-through box. So it was kind of like what you're saying exactly. Was there any women that did this shit? You got to imagine his dudes that were throwing shit. Yeah, for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, so I just think there's this like, whoa, why is this guy getting so much attention? He didn't do X, Y, and Z. You get attention for X, Y, and Z. And why is he getting this attention? And fuck this guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
He was waiting in the house and I was so excited to meet him. Yes. Well, again, that's that other social priming thing is like, I don't like this guy's getting all this attention. Wait, this guy kind of likes me. I'm a part of the attention. Now I'm in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Last thing before full show is Vegas residency for 10 months at Resort World and then now at the Wynn. And I guess I was maybe shocked to read that your very first residency was 2023. Yeah. Were you not tempted to just go grab those bags of cash before?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I mean, I've already learned frustratingly. So you don't seem motivated by money. Not at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Right. And so your residency, you're doing three days a month. Is that right? Because physically you can't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
We're going to go all the way back, though. We're going to go back to Brooklyn. Okay. We're going to go back to mom and dad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
This is where your act sucks. Whereas if you're just doing a bunch of other shit, you could do it 30 times a month.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, he didn't have the type of act that you could do 20 times a month, but he did it 20 times a month.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
They were the toughest of the tough. Seven shows in a row. I was obsessed with Buster Keaton for a long time. Yeah, he grew up as a little kid in vaudeville acts and getting thrown. His family would kick him or put him in a suitcase and chuck him into the audience. Yeah, he was incredible. Oh, what a fucking genius that guy was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Athletically, like he's the first Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan in his best day is just Buster Keaton.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
That very most famous stunt of his that people can picture in their mind, which is the front of the building falling. He's in front of a house he built himself. And then, of course, the last frame is it falls flat. And there's one window open on the second floor of the face of the building, and it falls perfectly around him. And he had like four inches on each side. It's amazing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And half of his crew quit. They were like, we're not sticking around to watch you get flattened by the face of this building. Okay, so the Nat Geo show, it's called David Blaine Do Not Attempt. And I watched India. That's the one you watched? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
By the way, though, that's first when I get the link.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
This is my great curiosity with you young magicians. It's like no one will tell anyone their tricks. How the fuck are you supposed to learn? Yeah. You hound them until they tell you. Or books.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
You got Deepak to pull a string you put in your mouth out of the side of your face.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, so do you feel any compulsion? Like what I like is you're really upfront about generally what's magic and what is an endurance thing or just a pain threshold. But some of your tricks, will you always declare whether they're magic or not?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
So the one I saw where you put a string in your mouth and he pulls it out the side of your face, is that magic?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, what is the thing that is hardest of all the fallout? from these things? What's the thing that you're like, fuck, I kind of wish I didn't do that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Okay, two days ago, he was 18 years old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Well, that's easy because if he's born on January.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I was helped by having a January 2nd birthday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
You were not that fast. Now, they do a lot of impaling, the fakirs. That's kind of their signature, or maybe I'm wrong, but that seemed to be what I saw the most. Putting skewers through the inside of the arm and pushing them out. Popping their eyeballs out with a sword.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, so someone might be inclined to think because you are willing to put these skewers through your own hand that it might be easy for you to watch it. But then watching you, I don't think it is. It was very difficult for me. I got to say what's really fun is these guys are doing this incredible stuff and the guy's jumping into glass and everything and then the bottle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
But David's got like some tricks up his sleeve that even they haven't done. So it's like after all the glass, he's like, hand me a piece of that glass. And then he just starts eating glass. And they're like, whoa, it must be fun. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It's more like watching a gymnast land a crazy trick, I think. You go like, oh, yeah, there's a total technique here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I prefer to try to eat glass than hit myself in the head with that whiskey bottle. I would say don't do either. If you were recommending one over the other, I think you'd agree with me. I don't recommend. I don't recommend either. Can I chew the glass up fine enough?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
But yeah, in my mind, I'm like, yeah, I could grind glass up in my mouth fine enough to where it's back to sand. And then it's so easy to just cut. Slice up your gums.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Maybe I should have told you this at the very beginning. I don't like magic. Monica loves magic. And we have debates about it all the time. And I've gone with her numerous times to see magic. I've even hired a magician for her birthday one time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I put you guys in a category with really great guitar soloists, which is one only can get this skill by being in their bedroom by themselves for very long periods of time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Thought about what the shelf life of your own skill set is. Do you think there'll be a peak and a decline like all trades or no? Is this one impervious to decline? Do you think you're getting better?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It would be a cognitive thing, probably. Not a physical thing. Maybe, yeah. Who knows? What seems interesting is overnight, so many people are attracted to you in this very intense way. That's not anyone else's normal experience like in high school. Fiona Apple, who I'm watching her video over and over again, I know is dating this magician. And I go, wow. That's really funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
She could be with Leonardo DiCaprio. She could be with any movie star. She's with this magician.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Were you even yourself a little shocked with like, oh, wow, I'm dating Fiona Apple?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Oh, you do? She's one person I've never met that I'm still dying to meet. Yeah, she's amazing. I one time heard you on Stern. You've done Stern several times, yeah? Two, maybe. Okay, well, then I've heard both of them. Okay. I've tried in the past to explain it to Monica, and I really can't. But I thought the most fascinating part of the interview is you were talking about being able...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
To convince people you can read their mind. Cold reading, which is just generalizing kind of information. Making high probabilistic guesses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
You look at me and you're like, 50-year-old white guy, but he likes World War II documentaries.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
How did you learn this? I was so fascinated when I was listening to you talk about that. I guess 20 years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
If you're listening and you want to see the magic, that's coming next. And you can go over to YouTube and watch magic tricks with David Blaine and Monica. And maybe me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Well, David Blaine, this was incredible. This really was. This was so fun. You're modern day Houdini and we got to talk to you. Everyone watch Do Not Attempt. I want to say, we talked about how gory it is. It's a fucking awesome show. It's beautifully shot. It's a very, very cool show. I think this is going to be wildly popular.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It's really neat. Yeah, you're looking at someone who has funneled. Thousands of hours into five minutes, eight minutes, nine minutes. And you're like, wow, they just funneled it and refined it and pointed it. And it's very cool to see that. Do you have a favorite episode?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
All right, well, good luck with the show. It's truly great. I can tell you guys spent so much time on it, and it's a pleasure meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Thank you. Yay! Now you guys want to see the real magic?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Hi there, this is Hermium Permium. If you like that, you're going to love the fact check with Miss Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Oh my goodness. After we worked?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I loved taking a subway at six years old in Brooklyn in 82.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
What kind of stuff were they saying?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Uh-huh. And then what does that, though, mean?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Was that the subtext? Or was the subtext like, you know, that's so-and-so. They're a fuck-up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Okay. Because that could... That's a vibe where we're from. Where you'd go, oh, that's Mike. He's a... You know, he's a... Right. He's a lush. He's a... Look the other way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
But I was really glad he said that. Yeah, yeah. But I think it does point out, no one needs to be sympathetic to An addict, they don't need to be sympathetic to anyone famous. They don't need to be sympathetic to someone with means. But I will argue it can be harder for those people to get sober because they don't have the consequences. There's so many consequences that would normally exist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Make you reevaluate. Exactly. And like losing friendships. Well, people with status and means can be pretty, the people won't. Push back. They won't abandon them because they want to be a part of the status. I know. Yeah, places will put up with them because of whatever. And I just, I do wonder sometimes, I worked with a famous, super talented dude who was so fucked up on this movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And I hated him at one point in the movie. And then, you know, he did this fucking thing where he made me laugh so hard. He's so powerful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Still, I can tell when I'm watching you, there are moments in the show where you're interacting with folks and putting on shows. But yeah, you holding a deck of cards to me is like me and a cigarette. I can tell it's just this little safety blanket.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
He made me laugh so fucking hard. He was assigned a cop on set. He had to have a cop with him on set.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And so he was running through this store and the police officer was chasing him and he was screaming, chase me, chase me. I had been just seething about this person for like three weeks. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh my God, this is the fucking police. Funniest thing I've ever seen. And it really disarmed me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And I was like, yeah, good luck to him getting sober because he has a superpower. He can win you back immediately.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I bet you weren't the only one. You do get into your personal stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Addict stuff is very scary to you for good reason.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Should have sounded the alarm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Right. You just can't stop thinking about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It keeps popping up into your head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I don't know why that wheelchair fiasco did remind me of, did you remember we were working in New York and we were at the Carlisle Hotel?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And we would have to walk every day to the parking garage. Yeah. And there was this dude with cerebral palsy. Oh, yeah. And he like, Was shuffling down the street and it was like so heartbreaking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And really bad. And this woman gave him money. And then the woman turned the corner and then he started walking normal. No. And I threw my coffee at him. He threw a fucking coffee at him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
You sick motherfucker. That is so low.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
You'd want to cry when you saw this guy. At the beginning, I'm like, I'm probably going to give this guy a buck. Nope, I'm going the other way. Oh, my God. I'm 23 and I met you deceptively.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I didn't think about it. It is possible. Yeah. That he was just $5 away from a cure. Yeah, you never know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, you got to look at the trade-off. Like, when do I lose money after this person's here?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It's highly regional though. Like you, I've rarely, rarely, rarely have I seen anyone in LA at a bar or a club that is like asleep on a table, throwing up on the dance floor, right? Yeah. That is much more common in Michigan. And I can say also Chicago. Like if you go out in Chicago, you see people like falling through tables and fucking falling out of the- Georgia too. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I think it's really like regionally cultural.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Well, there's only so much you can do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
You just go, if they're on a motorcycle, you go, wear a helmet. Yeah. Dumbass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Ride fast, but ride safe. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah. Yeah, we're on, like, such opposite ends of the spectrum with our comfort level with that stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Just, I think, from exposure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I love all the little adventures you and Jess get into, I gotta say. I really do, because there was like the, there was the episode with someone saying to Anna, someone's so gay. Oh, yeah. And then Jess had to get involved, but he didn't. But he didn't get involved enough. But then he does, but he does.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It's such a fucking funny duo too. You're one feet tall, he's eight feet tall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I think of it as like the cartoon with the really little dog and the big dog that are friends. And the big dog's always, the little dog's picking fights and being mouthy and then the big dog's like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
That's right. I leave the house. It's showtime.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
That is interesting. I'm thinking, of course, of the time I also was putting on a show. Because sometimes you're in and sometimes you're out, right? Sure. Like the time in New York City. What?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah. But remember my suitcase bit in New York, which is probably the most extreme and obnoxious bit I've ever done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And you loved it the whole time. I always had a roll on bag or maybe we even had like recording gear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Because we were going around the city and interviewing people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And any street we were on that had a slight decline, I would let the bag go, and then I would be screaming, my bag, my bag. And I'd be chasing it, but the bag wasn't going very fast. And I would let it, like, go between people. And every single block, I would, like, run and scream, my bag, my bag, my bag, my bag.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And then I would look back at Monica and be like half a block away laughing really hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
But that was really extra. It was. Like if you're just walking down the street and some guy's like, my bag, my bag. And he's chasing a bag that clearly he could catch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, maybe there's more exploration to get like really granular about what, when does it tip for you? What is the exact thing? This is admittedly annoying. Like admittedly annoying. But I think you enjoy this or you don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Like Aaron and I lived for, we would put on, Aaron would put on his baseball pants from sixth grade baseball and a half shirt that had a pony on it that was yellow that Carrie got me. And then I would be in an insane outfit, and we would go to White Castle. It was showtime. Oh, White Castle. And we had, like, a pipe. We had chewing tobacco. We had playing cards. We had a radio. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And we would really just go, let's go be as weird as possible at this White Castle. And we just enjoyed it so much. Gosh. Yeah. I think you do or you don't enjoy that kind of thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Well, you have a child. You can relate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Ah, here we go. Here we go. I think that's what it is. Yes, because you were kind of trying to... I had to. That's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Although, the money, you have to admit, we don't know. I know, you're right. We don't know. But I definitely understand how you were like... I'm just trying to not get fucked with and called out and pointed at.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And you have this freedom to wear sixth grade clothes and a fucking, I would wear the crazy hat that the Chinese people wear when they're picking rice. You know, I got it at a Salvation Army. It was like three feet wide and be smoking a pipe. And I just, it was so fun because from my perspective, There's something really fun about like, oh, here are the rules of life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
But who's to say, what if you're not participating in those rules? And they're not like, it's not like... we're pushing people or anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It's just like, oh, you're supposed to look a certain way. Well, let's see if you don't look that way. It just kind of like wakes you up in a way that I find, I've always found really, Carrie was very much that way. We would go into 7-Elevens and we would have fake fights and stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
We did some stuff that was- That's disturbing. You're right. You're right. We did definitely ruin some people's, but I got to tell you, Monica, I do think I'm objective about this. We amused more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
More people were really laughing at their boots, looking at us, trying to wonder, are these guys like, have they gotten out of a hospital? Are people looking for these too? Why don't they have so much stuff? And we've gotten Aaron got punched over at once.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It's a high wire. When it's working, it's really fun. And I think it's... It's just a huge bonding thing. It's like some expression that like I myself can't go sit at White Castle with the huge hat on and all this stuff and make noises.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I wouldn't. There's like this declaration that like all these people might think I'm crazy, but because you know, and this is for you and Aaron and I's was for each other. There's a very bonding thing about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Like, as long as I have your approval, I'm willing to throw everyone else's away. And again, it's very indulgent and selfish. I get it. I can admit it. But it was also, I do promise it was highly amusing to most people. People thought we were funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I'm going to change gears. But Erin and I have a favorite restaurant. We went to it last night with old friends that happened to be in town from Detroit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
We witnessed many of these outfits. They're fully functional adults with a business now, and it's wonderful. It worked out for everyone. But this happens one in four or five times I eat at this restaurant. Or I eat, I go hard. By the way, I was thinking about what it was this morning, potentially. Did you eat any of the asparagus? Mm-hmm. You did? Okay. I haven't gone yet. Oh, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I also had a huge scoop of Metamucil before we went. Fiber, because I knew I was going to eat a lot of steak. But anyways, about four minutes after we got done eating, I had to pee, and I'm peeing, and I think I have to go sit down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, yeah. So it was, it was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Fast acting to an acting. To the point where I was like, oh, there is listeria on the.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And apparently not because you ate the asparagus as well. Anyways, it's an epic thing. So come back to the table. I don't announce it at that point because our friends that are visiting, they don't know this pattern. I'm guessing Aaron might have put it, but I was very quick. Did you know the first time I went to pee that that had happened? No. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
So then we're sitting there talking, and now we're wrapping it up, and I've paid the bill, and I'm thinking, oh, man, I think I got to go again, but I'll be able to wait until I get home. And I'm like in the middle of a sentence, and I go, I got to honest. That was the one I noticed. Then I really booked it to the bathroom. Thank God the dining room was dead empty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Went back in there, another, wow, this is epic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Thank God. But all to say, I come back to the table. Now we've only got five more minutes. And then we're out the door and we're in the car. And I was like, I pray I make it home. Three. Three.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Or just too much fat. That's such a good meal. It is. It is. Yeah. We both get a ribeye and then we split the lamb chops.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, but sometimes Tonka, sometimes your meal turns into Tonka.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
No, that was your private car. My car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Do not attempt. What's it on? Hulu. Nat Geo. Okay. Hulu? It's on Hulu, too. Yeah, I watched one last night. Oh, you did? Yeah, yeah. Do you watch India? No, I started with the first one where he puts the knife into his nose.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, that's why I waited. Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're supposed to build up to India, but I started with India. Yeah, of course. And it's freaking wild.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Guys jumping onto big piles of broken bottles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Dude, a guy who's breaking this huge whiskey bottle over his head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Wow. It feels like a natural activity to jump on a big mound of broken bottles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I'm abnormally afraid of glass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Now, the really crazy thing he did, and maybe we should talk about it because it's not on video.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
That was, think of a category.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I think that's the craziest one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I don't because, okay, he says like, think of a category, Monica. Okay, great. It could be like food, nature. Now think of a specific thing from that category. Erin, listen to this and tell me this, how on earth this could be done. Okay, think of a... So she... Do you have it? Yes, I have it. Okay. And then how did he start doing the... Oh, he was asking for states that start with vowels.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And he goes like, oh, there's... Oh, we have Ohio. And then he writes on these other vowels. And he wrote down these words. And he wrote down like seven words or whatever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And he's like, I don't know. And then Georgia. Let's put Georgia on there. And then... He goes, is this your thing? And he shows her a list of these seven words or whatever it was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Right. And she said, no. And then he circled the outside thing and he said, does this? And it said gossip.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
She thought television as a category. And then the specific show, Gossip Girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And then what happens when you go to New Jersey? You start a new high school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Out of the millions of TV shows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yes. Basically infinite. Yeah. Every object in the world. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
What? Yeah. And then, you know, there was a card trick, Aaron, where it was like, I wasn't even involved, you know, this one, and it was under my watch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Well, let us not forget that in his Netflix special, was it Netflix? Yeah. You know, Harrison Ford, he tells Harrison Ford to pick an apple up off of the, out of the fucking fruit basket, cut it in half. And when he cuts it in half, the cards folded up in there that he himself had written, Harrison Ford had written his name on. Like, how does that? He got it into the hat? And how do you even get?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Fuck it. Even if he said, I'm going to put your card in this apple and there'll be no evidence of it, I'd go, that can't be done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
That was the trick. And he got it inside of an apple. That would be plenty for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And then Harrison Ford cut the apple and he goes, get the fuck out of my house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah. Monica and I were talking about this, and I think this is a great opportunity to realize that you're racist. Because do you remember how you felt about the IRA?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah. Well, also, you're Irish. Right. And from a very Irish family. Yeah. But weren't you kind of supportive? Always. Yeah. And I was like, isn't that interesting? These are a group of men blowing shit up and killing people when they're brown. I'm like, those are terrorists. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Unfortunately, it's the same thing. And it's just they're white. Yeah. And I think that's the difference.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It felt like the American Revolution. I could relate. It's the same country we revolted from.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, blowing folks up is not great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
But then when you see... You know, Al Qaeda trying to have their own state. Yeah. Their caliphate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
You're like, no, those guys are monsters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
A pear taste? Yeah. Yeah. What's the longest he fasted for?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
He was in a glass box hanging above the Thames in England. And he just didn't eat for 36 days. There's no trick. That's just, he really didn't. He lost half his body weight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, I was going to say, because what your work ended up being is this weird hybrid of magic and then these different endurance challenges. Those are two different things. avenues that you combine very successfully. But the part I'm really interested in is the kind of overcoming the body, quieting the mind, forcing yourself to endure something that you otherwise wouldn't choose to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And you can kill someone by giving them food too fast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Which is crazy. But yeah, you start tasting pear, and we thought, that sounds gross. Yeah, if you hadn't eaten, and I'm expecting some really gross taste, like a metallic taste.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Like you just say, tasting your blood, because your body's eating its blood or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And I set it to the wrong time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Thank God I woke up on my own.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It was great. I fucking crashed hard. Like it was. Because I'm going to skip the sauna and take a 20 minute nap. Uh-huh. And then three hours later.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
This is so great. I text him like, hey, time to go to dinner. And then I started thinking, I wonder if he read that text. And then I come out to the guest house and look at this. Look how his legs are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
His feet are, the bottom of his feet are touching, and he's in, I guess that's a lotus position.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
His hand was in his pants. It's under his pants. And I thought those were his underwear. There's a swimsuit. He had great intentions. And then I said, it was like, well, on the time I tried to wake my Papa Bob up, I was like, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, it's time to go. Aaron, Aaron, it's time to go. And I'm like, oh my God, I got to touch him. I got to touch him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
So then I caressed his knee and that got him away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Thank God. No, but that's what I escalated to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Three hour tour. Little nap before dinner. Did you have a hard time going to sleep last night? No. Oh, good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah, I got home from drop off. I did some like email stuff and I was on my bed and I was going to get changed to go work out. And then I just thought, I have two hours. I'm going to sleep for one of the hours. And then that turned into, I didn't fall asleep for half an hour. And then I slept till 1030. Wow. Yeah, and I just had—I kept laying there going, it's okay if you don't work out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It was shocking. It was insane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It might be related to Honus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And I'm curious if you have a story or a theory on why You needed to demonstrate that was possible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Who doesn't? So I think— Is PBS going to go away?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I don't know what I'll do without Frontline.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah. They would put him in a suitcase and just chuck him into the audience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
You know, he was obviously during the silent picture days. And then no one had ever heard his voice. And then when talkies came around, he was in Sunset Strip or Sunset Boulevard, that famous movie. It was the only time anyone ever heard him talk. And he's in a scene playing Bridge. And he had this crazy low voice that no one was expecting because he was a little guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Yeah. Yeah, they're very memorable, aren't they?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Oh, okay. Well, that was really, really fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
The magic is just straight insane. I know. And so if you're listening, you're going to hear X amount of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
We're going to talk about it. When do you become aware of Houdini and do you go on an immediate rabbit hole and read about him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
And then if you want to see the magic tricks, they'll be on YouTube. Yep. Because they're obviously visual. So please enjoy world-renowned David Blaine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I can see those same images in my head, right? Him with these fucking iron shackles and all that stuff that was very punk rock. And I'm like, okay, that guy's a stud. There's something really cool and dangerous about that guy. And where did it go? And what's the history? Like, was he standard for that day? Or was he an enigma?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
What year was he? What was he operating in the 30s? 1926 is when he died. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
doing these crazy tricks in 1926 underwater tanks class just the way things were made back then they didn't 3d print anything that was good he was risking his life that's true and he was pushing himself yeah if you had said he died at 31 i'd be like yeah it sounds about right with the life he was living yeah i see what you're saying and since he didn't have kids sure yeah
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
It's like, I'm not going to do that. Okay, so Houdini is obviously, I'm sure you're not unique in magicians that were obsessed with him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
But he is the Mick Jagger or the Paul Newman of magicians, right? My favorite movie is Cool Hand Luke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
I mean, this is a guy who just somehow reeked being cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
How long can a fish or a frog live? He would do it in front of the drink and then come out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
So your approach was to introduce yourself, be in front of someone for a minute before the frog came out? No, for hours.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Blaine (magician and mentalist)
We cut everything anybody doesn't want. We have no gotchas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Maus. Hi. Hello. Today we have Dr. Sunita Sawan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
The structure has put them there, not their character. And when you kind of realize that, like, oh, the principal of the school has a title, doesn't mean that he's been vetted as a good person necessarily. There's a real dissonance when you recognize, oh, no, they're humans and who knows. I'm friends with a ton of addict doctors and people will be shocked that doctors are addicts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I'm like, do you think they're different people?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
If you want to have a good night partying, go out with some nurses or some doctors and it's on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So I'm really, really interested in that as well. I'm aware of that experiment. And then, of course, the Stanford prison one is very famous and people are kind of aware of that. But your book starts out in a really wonderful and timely place. And you start by looking at the George Floyd case. And there were elements of this I had no idea. And it's really interesting. Something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So you're not focusing on the asshole that had his knee on his neck. What's far more interesting is there are two rookies there. One guy's on his third day, a black rookie, and then the white rookie is on his fourth day at work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
If we're inclined to judge them, we have the benefit of knowing the outcome of that, which is it resulted in a death. Yes. I think their backstories are really compelling as well. The white cop's grandfather was a homicide detective. His great-grandfather was the chief of police in Minneapolis. The black rookie intentionally joined the police force to help change it from the inside.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You want to talk about the right values and intentions. These two have it in spades.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So you end that description by saying, I'd like to think I would have done differently, but here's the situation I was in that I also would have thought I would have done differently. So talk about going to the hospital with chest pains.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Well, and then there's a really disturbing, not disturbing, actually, it's kind of encouraging that we can figure this out. You can correlate these culturally, there are different fears of power. So then you have this cultural element on top of it, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Let's start by defining defiance. I think that would be most helpful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I like that because, you know, part of the social angst of it all is that we all have a relative amount of codependency as well. We're not prone to hurt people's feelings or call them incompetent or insinuate things. But if it's just about you, when you depersonalize that and detach from that, it's just like, no, no, it's actually just living in accordance with my values.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Really has nothing to do with that person. I like that. That feels liberating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
We are supported by Quince. You know, Kristen's been ordering a ton from Quince.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, you say defiance is the exception and obedience is the rule. So let's talk about the forces at play. What happens neurologically?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I was rewarded for being rebellious. Really? I got lucky in that I have a mother that prized that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, I don't know if now's the time, but we come from a family with a lot of trauma. We've been victimized a lot. My mother's been victimized a lot. I was victimized a lot. So our family was like... fuck this, we're never getting victimized again. We've paid that price and we won't pay it again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, and I told her, you know, they're a sponsor. And she couldn't believe it. Being stylish and comfortable allows you to feel your best, making you ready to tackle anything that comes your way. That's where Quince comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
That was the ethos in the house born out of a lot of victimization, unfortunately, but I do like the result of it all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Way more than the times they were acquiesced.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
It could be harder for some of us than others, but it's also possible for everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You get good chemicals, you get dopamine, the reward center is activated and it does change the format of your brain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You say you might feel anxiety or nervousness or dread, sweaty palms, fast beating heart, not in the stomach. These are all signals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, because I think most people are stuck in a pattern of, so I'm feeling these things. That's my actual cue to push through and ignore and compartmentalize and throw away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Let's go. I wish this thing went to 700. Let's get some memorization going. Okay, I'll know this on his deathbed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I'm going to put on the most exaggerated version of my face.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Can we call that a boundary? Like stating a boundary?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You're saying how you feel about it. You haven't said you're not going to do it. You're just saying, I feel this way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
We are supported by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like you know to check your sunroof first before driving through the car wash. Like you know to put the leash on your dog first before you open the door to go for a walk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Not that I've ever made that mistake and had my dog run outside without me or screamed his name repeatedly over and over and over again until I found him. Or you know to check that the guy who asked you out is an armcherry first before you agree to go on a date with him. Sage advice. Essential. Checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You're in good hands with Allstate. This content is intended for audiences in the U.S. only. Savings vary. Terms apply. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Northbrook, Illinois. We are supported by BetterHelp. The start of the new year brings you 365 blank pages waiting to be filled. What do you want your 2025 story to be? Maybe you're ready for a plot twist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
They're able to offer such affordable prices by partnering directly with top factories, cutting out the cost of the middleman. Then they pass those savings on to us. Indulge in affordable luxury. Go to quince.com slash DAX for 365-day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash DAX to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash DAX.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Or maybe there's a part of your story you've been waiting to revise. Think of therapy as your editorial partner helping you write new chapters and become the author of your own life. I know for me, I want 2025 to be filled with a lack of codependency.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yes. If you want to start your therapy journey in 2025, join BetterHelp's over 5 million users worldwide. BetterHelp is fully online, which helps make therapy affordable and convenient. You'll have access to a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. And you can easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. Write your story with BetterHelp.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Visit BetterHelp.com slash DAX today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash DAX. We are supported by Squarespace. Maybe you've got dreams of turning your hobby into a side hustle this year or finally opening an online store. Maybe you want to share your knowledge with the world and make an online course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
She is an award-winning professor at Cornell University and an expert in organizational psychology. She has a new book out called Defy the Power of No in a World that Demands Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to get started, go to squarespace.com slash DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash DAX to get started today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I need to add some of the stages in is more my direction to be better. I go from tension to act of defiance. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, so that's where my personal willingness to do this is I have two kind of very seminal moments where I didn't defy. And it was both destructive and painful. But beyond the events, the shame and disappointment in myself was so intense for so long. That for me, any other option was worth it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Like I just experienced such a level of regret and shame and in self-flagellation for not getting myself out of a couple different situations that for me, I can immediately go to what that feels like. And so, yeah, this feels uncomfortable, but that feels like a 20. I know what that is. And I can do a very quick cost benefit analysis for me. It's very crystal clear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
It's like I know what that other thing feels like. So it's very easy for me. I guess that's the benefit of those things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And we could probably get in quickly to the biology of that, which is interesting, which is if you anticipate it versus it comes up on you in a flash and you're not prepared, you've not thought this through at all. You don't have an executive game plan. And now you're just scared and frazzled and you're in a part of your brain that doesn't do well with that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So, yeah, the benefit of not being taken off guard is half of the battle, perhaps.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
What's more popular, Monica, for Indian kids, to be a Neil or a Monica?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
If you've been out to a work dinner with a co-worker who has five other times made a sexist joke, pretty good odds that's coming your way again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Can we go back to the forces at play? Because I want to talk about the social one. Of course, I want to interject kind of my anthropological lens onto it. I think it could reduce some of the shame people experience from not being able to rise to that occasion. I think the primary hardwired evolved state we inherited is we are a social primate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Because Neil I'm finding really is, if I'm life or death and I've got to guess what someone's name is, I got to go Neil. It just feels highest percentage. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
300,000 years ago, if you weren't obedient, you got kicked out. And 300,000 years ago, to not be with your group is death. And that's real evolution. That's actually how your brain's still functioning. So give yourself a little bit of a break.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Although it is menial, you know, the person at Starbucks or whatever it is, your body doesn't know that your body thinks to be excluded from my group right now is death. So you have a very over-exaggerated response to what our modern world is. But let's just grant everyone that we're not designed to be dead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
It wouldn't be great to achieve either state exclusively.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
But if you're at home going, I'm a spineless piece of shit. No, you're a social primate. And then you have to kind of transcend some of the stuff that is not useful anymore or that is vestigial and doesn't serve you. I want to maybe acknowledge it's not across the board. It's not totally equal for every group of people. And I think we should acknowledge that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
It's easier for me to be defiant than either of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, I got a double whammy. Like my sister still will fight anybody over nothing. She came from the same culture as I did. So she got that leg up. But then I have also the leg up of being 6'2 and male over nothing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So yeah, the paradox is you're going to need to be defiant more and you're going to be more harshly punished.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
But not to put a silver lining on it, you get all the upside of the extra challenge. So you get a skill set. My trauma gave me something too. So it's negative, but also you have an empathy probably that other people don't have. It's a suite of behaviors and thoughts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
What's the difference between compliance and consent?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I like the word reactive in there as well. It's kind of put on you and you're reacting all of a sudden. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Well, it could be structurally defined. You could be in the military.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I think that's one of the trickier zones. My personal experience with this was my father was dying of small cell carcinoma and it had spread everywhere. And we had done all the treatments and it was clearly towards the end. We knew the time horizon was three months to begin with. And at the very end of this experience, the oncologist comes on to say he'd like to do brain radiation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And I said, is it possible? worse to die of brain cancer than the lung cancer or the bone cancer everywhere it's at. And he said, well, yeah, it can be worse. And I said, okay, it just feels like it's another treatment and we're towards the end and it's going to be one of these cancers that gets them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And then I asked my dad and he had been letting me make all these decisions, but of course I was running them all by him. And I said, do you want to do this brain radiation thing? And he said, I do. And I said, okay, I don't think it's going to, you know, but ultimately
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
it was his cancer and his so I backed away did it the result was nothing positive and it severely impacted his cognition and I'm so resentful at that whole experience now I at least have the distance of he made the decision. I did say I think it's a bad idea. You know, I'm not carrying around a ton about it, but it pissed me off. And again, I think, A, I'm totally up for a confrontation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I'm in the best situation possible for this. Still didn't go my way. But yeah, your average person, there's a doctor telling them this is a good idea. And what are you to do?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Now, here's a great example of where the anticipation is helpful. So like Atul Gawande will advise you have an end of life plan. What do you want to do in this last few months? Do you want to go out with your kids and have ice cream? What's quality of life for you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Because if you just show up and you get bombarded with all this information you don't understand, you're going to react and you don't really know. But that's a good use of an hour of your life to kind of map out what you want that to be at the end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I want a buffet of options that are explained to me and then I want to pick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And overwhelming. Yeah. What's a true yes?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I couldn't help but think of some situations where I felt like I don't know if defiance is productive to the mission. Do we want a battalion of soldiers thinking we should go over the left flank and they think we should go over the right? Are there not some implicit situations where it's like, no?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
But you all were living there when he was five, when the Olympics came through town?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You're not betraying your own ethics in service of this other person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And it's very complicated, right? So you're talking to a guy who's seemingly intelligent and thoughtful, right? And then there's also a dipshit there who shouldn't be doing a ton of thinking. So it's a very complex situation. It's not clean.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I was thinking about something much more benign, which is a movie set. So what is a common conflict between an actor and a director, and both have very legitimate points of view, is the director will go to the actor and say, okay, let's do it again, but this time don't be so sad. And then the actor will say, that's what my character would be in this moment. My character would be this sad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Oh, boy. You travel a lot, even just now before Monica was here. You're saying you're teaching in Utica, is it? Or Syracuse?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And now the director's juggling the entire movie, not the moment, not the scene. If you cry in this scene, your next scene, we need you crying at a 10. For the arc of your character, I need this to not be what is true to you right now because we have to service this broader thing. So that's like a very benign example.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Oh, I think so. If you've dedicated your life to being an actor and you went to Juilliard and your commitment is to tell the truth every time you open your mouth, that's your North Star.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I've added on a set early in my comedic career where you would still make homophobic jokes. That was standard. And I remember getting in a huge fight with one of my directors like, I'm not saying that. There's a 12 year old kid going to watch this who's gay in Michigan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You have some good historic and contemporary kind of examples in the book. Is there any that you would like to share with us that are your favorites?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Those are on opposite ends of the state of New York.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Okay. And your parents, did they immigrated there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
There's something sad and beautiful about it, which is people will do that for their children. Because even before the social primate evolution.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I do too. What's heartbreaking to me is that you can't advocate for yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
That's a tool even. Imagine this is being said to your... Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
One part I like about your book, too, is whether it's explicit or not, you do it by example. It's also a good call to monitor yourself when you're doing it to other people. So you have this example where you want your five-year-old to see the Olympic torch pass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You are a polymath. You've done many, many things. You've studied a lot of things. You've done research in a lot of things. But you were first a medical doctor. That's right. And so tell me, being a kid, when do we get the idea to be a doctor? And what is that experience before you change course?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Apple Card and savings by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City branch. Member FDIC terms and more at applecard.com. We are supported by Skims. You know, I was just in my Skims tank top last night taking a little snooze.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And I wear the tank tops when I go to sleep. I couldn't be happier. Shop Skims Best Intimates, including the Fits Everybody collection and more at Skims.com and Skims stores. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you. Select podcast in the survey and select our show in the drop down menu that follows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Well, yeah, you say it really explicitly and beautifully. You say to be good is for him to do what I want. I want him to sleep through the night. I want him to eat on a schedule. Those are my wants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
What kind of tools other than anticipating is a good one and kind of modeling what you're going to get into? But are there some other things that you could recommend?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Tattooed up, ideally, too much muscle. Let's go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Also, that first question, I think all of us would go like, I know who I am. But then we haven't actually listed it because I remember I got judoed by a therapist like 20 years ago because I was laying out this list of grievances I had about my father. And on this last trip, this happened. He smashed my truck. He did this and that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And I said, you know, at this point, I just don't know that I really need to have a relationship with him. I just don't think I want to do this anymore anymore. And he said, you're totally entitled to make that decision with this list of things you've just given me. But very simply, do you think you're the type of person that doesn't talk to their dad? And I was like, oh, fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I don't think I'm the type of person that wouldn't talk to their dad. That's very incongruous with this thing I want to do. But yeah, in a very simple way, do I think I'm the type of person that doesn't talk to their dad? I don't think I'm that type of person. I don't want to be that type of person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So I guess we're just going to have to do a lot harder work to figure out how I am not that person yet I don't come out on the wrong end of all these interactions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I was telling him this thinking he'll sign off on this and I'm never talking to my dad. I've worked it all out in my head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
No, it was the simplest question I wouldn't have asked myself. So powerful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Oh, OK. Yeah, I guess if you ask me where the derivative of nerd comes from, I have no clue because I was going to say, where does that originate? SWAT. What is that an abbreviation for? Who knows?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
There's so many variables though, as well, because even engineers, they over-index on disagreeability on the personality test, right? So it's like you start with, there's been a filter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yes, and your son, when you tell him to not play his Xbox, he walks right in there and plays his Xbox. It's in your book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Have they ever done versions of this test? So my assumption about the electrocution test is that the participants were probably students?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Oh, I guess you just listed some people that weren't students.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Right. So what I was curious about as we're sitting here talking and learning about it is I wonder if they looked at age. I have some intuition that as you get older and older and older, you're more likely to be more likely to be defiant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You've lived through more stuff. You see the racket. You care a little less. You've achieved your social status. You have cultural capital. You have raised your kids like anecdotally. Talk to some old people. They'll tell you like it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
They're not seventh graders. What's everyone doing? They've somehow transcended that through life experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, I see this book as being enormously helpful for a huge amount of the population.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Well, it's a wonderful book. I so appreciate you coming in. This has been wonderful. Unfortunately, I need a book that says just fucking get with the program. I need like the opposite book, but I still very much appreciate it. And I live and love so many people that have a really hard time with it. And I can see the amount of weight on them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Oh, no kidding. From entering your first intro to biology class to having a patient. How short can that be in England?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, I think what I could do is give a lot more benefit of the doubt to people around me and not assume from my past that everyone's trying to get one over on me. It's all my own baggage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, I have too much. The book is called Defy the Power of No in a World that Demands Yes. I think so many people will be very empowered by this. And I think you make it very simple to follow how you could start advocating for yourself and staying true to your values.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Hi there. This is Hermium Permium. If you like that, you're going to love the fact check with Ms. Monica. Daddy, are you ready? What's going on? You don't know that song, do you, Soul to Soul?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I do, but you don't know the source, do you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Does it ring a bell when I sing it? No. It doesn't, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah. It was hot, and then it disappeared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Keep on moving, don't stop. They had two. Two hits.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Really nice. Really nice. I guess maybe Neo Soul, dance music, 92. Ooh, 92. I was five.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You weren't going out dancing much when you were five?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You may notice I'm feeling a little energized because I just blew past one of my goals and I'm just feeling incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I'm going to back up. I had an issue with my bike that I love. It's so beautiful. The chain got sucked into the sprocket. It bent the sprocket. Now it's having a really hard time. staying in gear so when I ride it and I'm putting a lot of force on it it's hopping gear it's rough okay and I bought it used a while ago and I decided on Sunday perhaps sustainable
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yes. Well, then you'll like where this story goes. So then I was like, okay, I've proven that I'm into this. I need to get a bike with clip-ons and the whole nine and really commit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Looked online. I was going to go to Pasadena. I found a bike store. I was looking at all the options. They looked really funny if you've ever priced a bike. These bikes are imperceptibly the same. One is $15,000 and one is $1,900.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And I'm like, what? I can't see what's different. I mean, presumably one's carbon fiber and all this shit. So I'm looking at it and I'm already going through my game plan. Like I'm going to get there and go, listen, buster. I know you think I'm here to buy an $18,000 bike, but I'm not. I don't care. I just want to be able to change gears.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, I was all fired up to go to battle with a salesman. And then I thought, okay, my friend Jeff McFarlane, who I love. Shout out Jeff McFarlane. He's helped me navigate many things in life. He's not too dissimilar than me. He loves cars. He loves things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Right. I don't have. Whatever. The point is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Thank you so much. I appreciate you defending me to myself. But Jeff competed in Ironman's. Which there's a huge biking portion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Knowing him, I just crossed my mind. I'm like, I bet he has a lot of bikes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Because you have all these different applications, right? Yeah. And also, I know that he is downsized. He is 61 now. He's just been appointed a judge. He has been a lawyer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, I'm so happy for him. So he's going to be an LA superior judge, which is really cool. That's awesome. I'm going to go to the swearing in. But at any rate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I know he's like, he's like, he's getting older. His kids have moved out and he's like, he moved into a smaller place. And then I thought, I wonder if he wants to get rid of bikes. So hit him up. Hey, by any chance, do you have any bikes that you want to get rid of? And he said, as a matter of fact, I do. Come over. So I go over, and I go into his garage, and there's three hanging on the wall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Okay. Is that better or worse? There's pros and cons.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Oh, man. A couple that are like black carbon fiber, and then this one that is like silver and orange. Ooh, flames. Not flames, but still silver and orange. And as I'm looking at them, I'm realizing I'm in the same situation I was with the bike shop, which is I know these are to compete in Ironman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So once I look at him, I go, Jeff, I realize this is a disaster because I was going to spend basically blank on a new bike and I don't want to try to rip you off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And he said... Dude, the bikes are 10 years old. I don't know how else to get rid of them. He's like, I'll give you one for 2,500 bucks, which is what was going to be my budget for it, to be honest. And I was like, okay, well, I'll give you more. The bike was hand built. It's a crazy. He's like, everywhere you go, people are going to want to talk to you about this bike.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
All to say, I have this insanely beautiful hand-built bike. Wow. I don't even want to say what it costs brand new. It was like a $22,000 bicycle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So the thrill I had of getting a bike that expensive that I myself would have never bought. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yes. So I'm so excited about the bike and I come home and now I need to buy the shoes that go into the clip-on pedals. Sure. So I order those. They're coming on Saturday, but I'm too impatient today. I'm like, I wonder if I can ride it with the clip-on pedals, but just with normal shoes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So this morning I went, that's why I asked if we could record a little later.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I had a hunch I might do this. So I went all the way up to the observatory. Then I went on a road that's closed. You can bike on it. up to the Hollywood sign, down the backside of the mountain, into Burbank.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Then all the way through Griffith Park, past the zoo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Then out onto Los Feliz Boulevard, past your house. I looked over as I was pedaling. I mean, that was the end of it. I was like an hour and 45 minutes in at that point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And so I was a little, I looked over. And then I was like, I was in a state by that point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Now I have to because I have this absurdly special bicycle that I got for such a deal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Like it was originally 10 grand or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You think you're making $9,000. Yes. Like when I left, I was like, oh my God, I just made $18,000. Yeah, shopping maps.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you remember when my therapist Mark had said that like often you change to accomplish something. And other times you get something that you have that will force you to grow into it or you'll lose it. And I thought that was interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
OK, so that was really exciting. And then I got back and then I and then I lifted weights. Wow. Because I'm going to Detroit and I have to look as swole as possible. Oh, because that's where all the guys that want to kick my ass live.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I hope so because I'm ready. Oh, my God. I've already had a fantasy because, you know, Kid Rock picked a fight with me one time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Years ago. And he was with two buddies. And I did stand up to him. And then it got kind of mitigated or de-escalated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And I was like, oh, wow, you know, he'll likely be at this game.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
But it did cross my mind. You gotta be ready. Who knows? You bump into Kid Rock, he takes another run at you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yes, this is like Kristen is only green lit. Yeah. I've only got a couple green lights where fighting's okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
It's a bummer, actually, because I love Kid Rock's music, and I wish he wasn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
No, I don't love that one, but he likes Southern Rock, and I grew up loving Southern Rock.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
It's a white dude with long blonde hair and a Trans Am.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
But I think the Lions are bringing people together because Aaron told me that, of course I was talking to Aaron about this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
He knows what, yeah. And he said, oh, yeah, now Kid Rock and Eminem are friends. They've become friends. And I think because of the Lions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And Kid Rock had to say. Eminem's pretty woke. Right. Aaron informed me that they're friends officially and that Kid Rock said, we don't have the same political views, but we have found common ground as friends. Yeah. So I think Lions are bringing people together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I saw on Instagram... I don't even know how I saw this. It was a video of a man meeting a guy in the 7-Eleven parking lot to receive a pizza.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And then the guy opened it up and it was the most gorgeous pizza. And then he took a bite and he's like a pizza reviewer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And he said, yeah, it's the best pizza in LA.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I'll turn you on to them. So I see that. So you have to order through only through Instagram. There's like no number to call. So I DM the guy. The guy is incredibly sweet. He's got a sourdough he uses. And I was like, OK.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
It's very, very, very good. And also the amount of her own story she includes and acknowledges how hard it is for her, I think is always helpful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
If I am ever to eat bread, it is very it's best to eat sourdough because it has the lowest gluten content.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
In fact, I think you can almost make sourdough without any gluten. And it has no brewer's yeast, which is also some people like. It's not gluten insensitive, but he can't have brewer's yeast, which is it's in everything with gluten virtually, but not sourdough. So I was like, OK, I love the idea of meeting in a parking lot and a guy opens his trunk. It's very my drug deals back from the old days.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So I arranged this whole thing. I was supposed to get on Wednesday the night the fires broke out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And mind you, it's at six and I got to drive to Sunland, which for people who don't know, driving to Sunland.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
He's got a dude that works for him that drives a very short distance from wherever he's making them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, they're piping hot. And he tells you to take a bite of, I mean, he wants you to take a bite of a very specific pie. Oh, my God. So I got the four different varieties he makes, and he said, take a bite of the hot piggy immediately.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
It's pepperoni with, I think, a little bit of hot honey. Oh, Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Okay, so this kind of worked out brilliantly. Lincoln had a soccer game in Westlake.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Which is virtually like driving to Santa Barbara. Westlake is very far away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So we left at two, took an hour to get to the game. Yesterday. Then watched the game. I think that's an hour and a half. Get back in the car at 4.30. And now we got to get to Sunland by six, which is not going to be an issue. I think it's only supposed to take an hour and nine minutes. It said on my- Oh!
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Side note, all of Simi Valley didn't have any power. Still. Well, so yes, I thought still, but this morning, not even this morning, seven minutes ago, I was in the shower. My hair is still damp if you don't believe me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I didn't look like you didn't believe me, so I had to show you. Thank you. I was like, God, maybe they actually turned the power off intentionally because it was the last day of the Santa Anas. That would have been smart. So I don't know if they had lost their power or they preemptively turned it off, which would have been very bright.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Couldn't help but notice because it's a strip mall after strip mall. Nothing's open.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Anyways, Lincoln's got to pee. I'm telling you way too much shit. Tried to stop at a Starbucks. Someone blew up both Starbucks bathrooms. Both were inoperable from duty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So it's a whole saga to get to the toilet in this strip mall in Sunland. Then I was getting nervous. Oh my God, we're going to be late. I thought I was going to get there a half hour early. The girls were going to get impatient. I was going to have to put them in an Uber to send them home while I waited for the pizza. But as it turned out, it took so long to find a bathroom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
We rolled in at like 5.59. The appointment was at six.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Six o'clock, guy in a black car pulls up. I get out. Fucking cash. Pay. Get these four pies. Get in the truck. I did exactly as he instructed. First one was- Did you bring your gun? I didn't have my gun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I got to tell you, it was, as I said, it was very reminiscent of the old days in a very good and healthy way. It's like I'm meeting a guy in a parking lot that I don't know. I'm going to pay cash. And then I'm something really good is on the other end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, I'll be there at six. And it was all on text.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
No, I was very nice to the guy. There was another guy there that was also picking up some pies, which is really funny. It's like me, two dudes, me and the drug dealer at the same time. That's funny. Get in the car, open it up right away. It's so beautiful. The pepperonis are so tiny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
They dished in the cooking process and there's oil in them. And there's, I can see the honey and I take a bite and by God, it's fucking so good. Oh, you got a picture of it? Oh, baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I got the girls that pineapple Hawaiian, which was outrageous. I don't even like Hawaiian pizza, but that was my second favorite. We got umami, hot pepper pizza, which was a million peppers, and it was very good. And then the hot piggy, I said umami, and then, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
That's a great question, what's on the upper far right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I should ask him about that because I'm going back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
This looks delicious. So the car ride home is long from Sunland at 6 o'clock on a weekday. Yeah. And I ate. Well, Kristen had two pieces of hot piggy. I ate the remainder. So I ate three quarters of the hot piggy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And then I had a slice of hot pepper and a slice of umami. So I had like a pizza and a half or two pizzas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So when do we get interested in organizational psychology?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
No wonder I tackled that hill today and kept going.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Fuel. Glycogen. So that was really fun. I really liked it. That was a fun experience for the whole family being in that parking lot watching the guy roll in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
A lot of updates. Are you watching Bad Sisters Season 2?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Okay. I guess this is Irish in this context.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I don't think there's any suicide, but continue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Oh, is that hard to find, 100% tangerine juice?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And how many of those will you have? Ice cubes?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yes. I think it makes you just acknowledge there'll be a tomorrow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I will have to account for this decision. Yes. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I'm going to make a small pitch for not zero.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
It's not day zero. Day zero doesn't exist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So day one, this is the date and this is day one. And I'm not going to drink today. This is a one. See, now if you write zero in some weird way, there's almost nothing to lose because if you drink later that night. But when you write one, you're also committing to this is day one of not drinking. Does that make any sense mentally?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Because on this date, I'll have had one day of not drinking, which is true. I didn't drink that day. That's day one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, so you got to make it through the night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
But it's true, so long as you don't drink that night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You're saying I have zero days of sobriety in the morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
What do you want to say? Clean, no drinky poo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I'm listening to We Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong's book. As I told you, I was listening to Men's World over and over again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And then I decided to go and try the first book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Or anyway, it was his first, but the previous bestseller. Oh, it's mind-blowing. Oh, God. It's all about microbes and your micro... Biome? Biome. Thank you. Microbiome. Wow. Your body has so many. It says nine pounds. Did I already tell you this? The average person has nine pounds of microbes in them. And there are many animals that couldn't even exist without the microbes. They would die.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
The microbes perform all these tasks. They've evolved with the microbes, and they themselves can't even exist. Then there's all this weird stuff where they raise these rats completely free of microbes, which is almost impossible, but they're born into a hermetically sealed case.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And they don't ever accumulate any microbes and they can eat however they want and they don't gain any weight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And then they introduce different microbes and then they'll eat way less food and gain way more weight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And then all the health stuff, like there's so much health stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And then talks about, you know, this kind of scary proposition that You're supposed to get all, as we know, all these microbes from your mom's vagina as you come out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And then the other huge source is breast milk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And a third of children in the U.S. are now born cesarean section. So they're not getting the vaginal microbes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And then if they also don't breastfeed, you know, they're... They're ripe for some issues, a lot of allergies and a lot of different things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
That's right, and heroin. Don't forget the heroin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Exactly. If you subtract animal testing- From our history.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I don't think so. I think it's a very fringe group that do not want mice to be tested on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yes. It's kind of preposterous to think you should test on humans instead of mice. I know. They procreate so quickly. Their lifetime is very short anyways, blah, blah, blah. Now, I think it's a sliding scale. I think probably most of us don't want to see chimpanzees tested on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Oh, if we can figure out what microbes would eliminate obesity before you'd ever even need Ozepic. Right. Or would eliminate allergies. Of course we must do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah. I don't think any rational person has that point of view.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
They do. They do. And they're entitled. We have a country that has free speech, so you can think anything you want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, New Yorkers love to do this. It starts with Annie Hall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So a lot of people don't, they distrust that or it's like fake.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
The big thing on the East coast is calling someone fake. It's a huge thing. Remember like in Jeep and Jersey Shore, to be fake was as low as you can get. I don't even hear people in LA ever say that as a pejorative or a put down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Oh, would it be more, okay. Do you think it'd be more accurate to say like insincere? Aren't you really saying like a lot of the hospitality feels obligatory and insincere?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I guess. Fake is a total character assassination. It's like they're fake.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah. We're into health. We're into being positive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
We're into feeling good and eating good and exercise. Yeah. That's true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Exactly. I can't really lock into the why that's frustrating for people. I think like the Woody Allen joke, if I have it remembered correctly, is like in L.A., their definition of culture is the right to turn on red.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
That's not fair to say to the indigenous folks or the Spanish missionaries that were here. But, you know, we don't have New York's deep cultural history.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
But once we got in the mix, boy, we really started shaping it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I think a lot of people are debating whether they're going to leave or not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Well, John Mayer said he's going to say a prayer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
But... Yeah, yeah, this will be my first time doing it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
No one thought the solution was going to come from abroad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Oh, one last thing. Many people in the comments suggested this, and I want to tell them we had already done it. So a lot of people were like, invite Nikki Glaser on. I just want to say we, the second after we had that long talk on the previous fact check, we were like, we should definitely invite her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I just experienced it. Yeah, I was getting blood drawn and the nurse basically told me that the doctor that they work for forced them to get a flu shot and they didn't want it. And I thought, yeah, here's a nurse who is very qualified opinion. It's not like they're ignorant. They've probably made some analysis and probably she would have liked to have said no somehow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I find myself, I don't want to say it's hard because it's not. And again, I'm the beneficiary of having not said no and it haunted me for the rest of my life. So that's like, that's a huge gift for me for the rest of my life. I just don't, you know. And I have so many options.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Like if this person is pressuring me to get this shot, I don't want it. Like I have options. I can go to another doctor. I can't, you know, I, I, I'm gifted with a ton of luxuries. And so, and even me, I'm like, okay, we got to say no. And we got to hold our ground. Like, you know, it's hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Also a good moment to check your own pushiness as a person. You know, like when you're in a position, what people do with their kids all the time. Yeah. I watch kids, people force their kids to do these things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
That really don't have much of a... significant impact on their life. It's how they did it. And they would like it done that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
But, you know, and probably, you know, a lot of people are bosses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And it's very tempting and easy to want to keep pushing. So I think it's also a call to everyone of us who are in charge. When we have that role that we check our own pushiness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I think a lot of people feel this way. And I have felt this way as a parent many times. It's like, You feel like if you let this go, it's going to be a domino effect. And then you'll not have any say in anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
It can be kind of misleading in that moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, like, I just like, I like it there. I would like to live there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And the test subject would be in charge of administering the shock, right? Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
How would you feel about one that was just hot?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, like, of course, if you're incredibly intelligent and have a skill set that would benefit the country, come on in. We want that, clearly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
What about hot? If there was one that was just like, you're a smoke show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Let's keep this place full of gorgeous people. If you're single, that's a great point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Because then that way you could procreate. You could procreate and you could lift.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And just stuck around. Got a job as a professor. Yeah. Then got a work visa.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Right. You can't see. I like the weather, and that's why I'm going.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And we're nervous about it because it sounds very much like a derivative of swastika.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And twat. Yeah. But also we think a swatty potty would be a very cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
For the Brits. For the Brainiac Brits. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Again. Yeah, that's okay. Fuck. Fuck. He's not relevant. The takeaway is what's relevant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And a Cubs. I've already declared I'm not even committed to memory. I'm committed to knowing about the Stanford prison experiment and what the result was. That's important for me to know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And you're not going to try to memorize that, right? No. See, this is interesting. It's very arbitrary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah. If I have to choose whether I know an individual's name or I know a concept, I'm going to definitely favor the concept. Sure. Because that's going to help me process the reality.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Someone's name's not going to help me do anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
It is impressive. Thank you. I am often impressed that you remember someone's name. Actually, more than I'm impressed, I'm just grateful because I'm trying to reference the person and I don't have their name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
So you think that's kind of just a long way to say because they're generally right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I'm glad they put that caveat in. Yeah, me too. I hate for anyone to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
My stepfather. Both stepfathers that were engineers were highly disagreeable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
His job is literally to look for a structural flaw.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Well, yeah, it implies more growth on his end. It's more flattering. We like to think we achieve this thing. Not that we were just born with it. All of us. Your dad's not unique.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, just saying, hang in there. I'm still watching.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Right. Older brothers, you can't trust their opinion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Because they see them as a baby and incompetent and all these things. And all they're really seeing is an age difference, but they don't realize they're seeing an age difference.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I'm going to go along with whatever. I just – I really feel in my heart he's exactly who he was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
He didn't grow up. I mean, he got better at it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
But he was a salesman. He wanted an extra slice of cake. He figured out how, you know, he, he's charming. He got what he needed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You're already at the finish line for that. Can you think of times though you did go along with stuff?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Because you define yourself as being someone that never came to peer pressure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And I just as an ethos, I'd rather have been wrong and I'd rather be the victim of a bad decision So long as it's my decision.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And some people don't feel that way, which is totally fair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And I just do. I would rather, again, if I'm going to die in a car, I better be holding the steering wheel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And also we might just genetically be this way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I hope I didn't make her do anything she didn't want to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
What if I was manipulative and I planned a test?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Don't miss out on trying that coffee. It's the world's best.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
A man made that and brought it here on a bicycle. He rode it 60 miles to bring you this coffee. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
I understand that you're in a class, you learn that. That is intrinsically interesting. I think everyone would be a bit interested in that. But then I also am curious, was there an additional layer for you personally where that is extra interesting?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
What would you do versus what you think you would do?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how you, yeah, some tools to make sure you do what you think you would do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Were you so attracted to her ability to defy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
Can I bring up to speed a little bit on our own personal dynamic? Her other best friend, other than me, is 6'7", redhead. The most assertive, loud. He's openly gay without any fear of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
And then I will fit in that box a bit as well. So there's a fun thing with Monica and I and then Monica and Jess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You're still very good. You're a good girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Sunita Sah (on defiance)
You've transcended for what I know about your school experience and trying to acclimate and blend in and all those things. I don't see you as that way at all, but certainly you did spend a good deal of your life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
She didn't even have high cholesterol?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
That's the last chapter. Okay. We have a lot to talk about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I do need to know, have you watched The Pit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I know someone who qualified for the trial for it, and they immediately got shingles. And it was so bad. Spread through the whole body.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
It is cool. It's a very cool car. It is a bit OJ. In a good way. In a good way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I mean, yeah, should we just all be on it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Well, he was cool before he left.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I didn't know that. If you have diabetes and you're on the drug, you don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
They took a gamble that this would be bigger and it seems like it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, it was an accidental marketing. One of the main things you remember is the Bronco. What do you mean?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Is that why a couple months ago there was that whole study about alcohol causing cancer? Is that because of the inflammation?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, the VEC. We've had him on as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah. I definitely did reach out to you about my weird experience that turned out to be epilepsy. Congratulations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
He doesn't eat hamburgers, but a lot of red meat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, I'm on medication and it's all good. But you said it could be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
You said it could be seizures, but there really isn't any way to know unless it happens again, which is correct.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I do drink out of plastic water bottles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
We haven't been able to scan our kidneys yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Should we be taking all these peptides? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Actually, we can be done now because that is exactly... Hold on one second, though.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, I fully align. Because, okay, here in LA, there's a group of friends, Dax being one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Okay. So are dabbling with these injectable peptides. And I feel that that's very scary. People are on metformin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
There's a bunch of them. There's like a beauty one. There's a copper one. There's a brain one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I know. I like that you're upset because I feel upset. But I also feel, well, if everyone's doing it, then they're all going to look 22.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
But then they did do tests before they became publicly used.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
But then they did. But it could have turned out better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
The point is they did prove that it was good for obesity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
It is a neutral opinion, but they're being used. prematurely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I hope. I'd love to take a beauty peptide every day, but I do want it to be tested thoroughly before I do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Keep us updated on all these studies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
One of the kids in the pod, a boy, said, why do girls only have butts?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
No. No, I think he thought the whole thing was just a big butt on women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
God, it's so weird that we're attracted to these parts. They're objectively so ugly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
All of it. Like the boobs, the penis, the butt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
The aliens. The aliens don't think they're beautiful, probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
But the butt is very strange. Like, we poop out of there. Yeah. And yet it's, like, an erogenous area.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, I got a new outfit yesterday and I'm wearing it today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Maybe what you're noticing is different. Do you think I look different today again?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Okay, Rob, can you guess what it is now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
No. No. I'm wearing concealer. Under eye concealer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, but I wear lipstick every time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
It's kind of... If I only have four seconds, I will just put something on my lips.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
For me. Some people do mascara. That's, like, their big thing. Like, they have to—or their brows, like, have to be done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I mean, if my skin is bad— That's got to—that'll trump lips. Yes. Now, yeah. Yes. But— because of not my not witch, but my regular human esthetician, corrective skincare, Jen. Yeah. I can pretty much go out of the house without any foundation on, but I still like a little lip.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I really liked that you included moon. Astrology.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. I mean, I think you're right. There's not much to do. Yeah. And you can't take it personally, which you aren't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
They're just like, eh, like whatever. I think they just learned to not take any of it very seriously. And there might be some chaos happening around. But they just kind of block it out. And they think about something peaceful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, I mean, it's a ding, ding, ding to the Nick Kroll episode when I was saying, you know, there's just so many dads in chairs at stores. Like, you know, they just go to the store and then they just look for a chair and then they sit there while the girls are out shopping. And then they get up when you're ready to leave.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I think maybe you're in a transition because you wouldn't have been like that before. Like you, I don't think for a long time would have been okay with people being like emotional. You'd be like, get it together. And I think maybe you're transitioning into understanding that's just not a good option.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, and that's hard. It's hard to be, I see you. It's hard to feel like I can't talk or something will erupt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Walking on eggshells is not a good feeling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
You should aim for. For the best version. Now, we're not going to hit it every time. We're not. But if you know, like, gosh, a lot of times I understand that my emotions are causing people to walk on eggshells a lot. Then maybe it's like, I need to try not to. I'm still going to do it. Like, it's not going to be 100%. Yeah. But I should try to be better about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah. And then I do think I will say something. I will say I'm not speaking for all women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Go ahead. Or all. Nope. Or all anyone who's emotional. Yeah. But or in touch with their feelings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Sometimes I'm like. Yeah. It's like, we don't, it's fine. It was a bad day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
And then it's over. They come and go. Yeah, they come, they go. Yeah. It's over. Like, sometimes as the person who has the strong emotions, then it's like, oh, now they're upset because I was upset. It's like, can't it just be done now? Everyone's done. It's done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
But, and to be fair, not to upset you, but sometimes there's walking on eggshells both ways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
To be nice. Well, because we're just talking about the people we know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah. I think more, I mean, for, for all men, um, It's more like there are areas you can't go. Like with you, there are some areas you just can't go with you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
But anyone in my family, there's like, there's some scary areas with you that feel that do feel a little eggshell-y. Like if we're getting into any of these remote topics, like you really have to be really careful about what you say or like you're gone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
And so that's funny as a woman. I'm more scared. Like, that is more scary to me than, like, just strong, like, annoying emotions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. So that's it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah. I'm sure he'll come hang out with you anytime if he's around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
If he's in town. Yeah. Dax and Eric Topol took a picture together. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, really cute. Well, he's awesome. He definitely is more my speed. Yeah. As far as approaches to longevity and taking not as drastic of measures. And I just like him a lot. I used to reach out to him all the time as he brought up for fact checks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I think the truth is I started taking fact checking less seriously.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Like, I was really asking for real. Like, what, from a real expert, what is this? And now I just mainly rely on the internet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Output. So something's got to give. All right. Here we go. Now, he talked about Vioxx being pulled from the market, which he was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, which is incredible. And there's an NPR on this. Oh, there is? Mm-hmm. It's called Merck Pulls. Oh, it's from 2004. Wow. Merck pulls arthritis drug Vioxx from the market. Yeah, so this is when it was happening. Study confirmed earlier concerns that it raises the risk of heart problems, including heart attack and stroke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
It was currently being used by 2 million people worldwide and had been used by more than 84 people around the world. 84 million? 84 million, sorry. Only 84. 84 million. So good for him for sounding the alarm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
It's more of a process of elimination. You said that, well, you said that men got AIDS over 9 to 1.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
In the 80s, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's still quite... The difference. Let me see. In general. This is current, though.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah. In general, men tend to get diagnosed with HIV more frequently than women, though this doesn't necessarily mean they're more at risk. Whatever. We know that. OK. In 2022, men accounted for 81 percent of new HIV diagnoses in the United States compared to 19 percent for women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
It says, whoa, it says, however, women are more susceptible to HIV infection than men and male to female transmission is more likely than female to male.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Women's genital tract is more susceptible to HIV than men's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
That makes sense. But then that is, why can't women, why are women not like giving it to men via their vagina? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Right. But if like, if I got it from a man and then I had sex with another man, I'd be surprised.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
It would only work if a woman's vagina could have sex with the man's butt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I guess the butt, though, it'd be really hard because the butt cheeks, like, to really get in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Okay, I'm happy to give you one. Where did you ride your bike?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
On the verge of tears. In fact, you are about to cry. Seems like maybe we were right the whole time. Where'd you go?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Good job, Mom. I haven't ridden my bike ever. You know I don't know how.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I know. I don't want her to cry more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
They're so hard. They're kind of the hardest workout. They seem too hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
I'll take notes. Take notes. I did send in my proxy. Who, Birdie? No, it's like you have the two-year-old that lives across the street.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
There's like numbers in the letters, in the words.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
We were discussing the play earlier. The two versions of the play. Alice in Wonderland Jr. Alice in Wonderland Jr. We were talking about, because you're, I don't know if you know, you're a professional actress.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yes, and I want to say his approach to longevity is different from a lot of people's approach that we've had on or talk about a lot of optimization. He's actually, I mean, he's like, with a lot of those people, but he has a lot of other opinions about it as well. Divergent. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
And so when you watch the play, what happens? Do you think I feel bad for the kids that are very highly committed or do you not? Definitely not feel bad for them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
That's lovely. Do you feel that way about sports? It's like if the kids are playing sports, is it the same like, oh, they're just like, it's fun and it's a beautiful thing? Or do you think we do more care?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, that's for sure. And I'm sincere about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially at that age. Yeah. Do you feel there's a difference in sports and theater? I am a double Virgo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Oh my God, what a challenge. Yes, I think I take everything very seriously. So when I'm watching anything, I mean, I'm mainly just laughing because it was just so funny. But yeah, so I am evaluating it like, oh no, these people care a lot and these people don't. And if I were them, I'd be like, why can't everyone just get their shit together? And... Do this, you know, care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
And I would feel the same way about sports.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
And publicly, everyone knows about it. It's not even like it's hidden.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah. Yeah, I know. I know, but I do think your way of looking at it is the correct way. I do think that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, everyone's right. It's a way I would like to be doing it, I guess, is the better way of saying it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Okay, bye. We're almost done. Love you guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Okay, let's just wrap this up super quick. There's a fair amount of evidence to say that over 200 grams of protein or an excessive amount can lead to kidney issues and liver issues.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Oh, Medical News Today is where this one is from. But there's a few. There's Harvard, one from Harvard Health, one from University of Missouri School of Medicine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Great. You said there's 13 pounds of microbes in a body. According to this, National Institute of Health, two to six pounds of bacteria in a 200-pound adult body. Because of their small size. But there are 39 trillion. All right. Well, that's it for Eric Topol.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
More gains and he'll have aged reversely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Yeah, he's going to have to reverse his position on protein probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)
Do doctors get paid a lot less there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. We are joined today by Dr. Mary Claire Haver.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And the bearing children process will last them however long you want to say that window is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
30 years? No. So pretty nuts. And maybe now's a fun time. Because I actually want you to explain menopause, but I think now would be a fun time to just talk about men versus women here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Because my father, at the same time that's being published about HRT for women, my dad is being advised to be on testosterone because his level's low and it improves his life. He goes off of antidepressant. It's fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And we're not going to do anything about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And it'll actually increase her bone density.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So, I mean, there's a lot in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You can't underestimate the layers of sexism that exists within the fact that it would take however many years before we would acknowledge, oh yeah, women are really suffering from this. And they have a bunch of symptoms from a bunch of different issues arising from this and better to treat those than to get to the core of what's going on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
That's when you're accelerating your loss of... Bone and muscle. And the eggs, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
She has really, really great videos that will be addressing all these little things that pop up. And also you could go to her website, thepawslife.com, which is a comprehensive approach to menopause education and support. This is awesome. She was rad. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
A million, though. That was a shocker to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Is that in your menstrual discharge? Where are all those eggs at?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I wrote it down. By the time you're.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I bet you have a mix of emotions, validation and depression.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It's combativeness with coworkers. Oh, my God. That's mental health.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Okay, we should have done this at the beginning, but now I'm going to make you do it now. We're unique as an animal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
There was a very predictable role for the grandma. She was passing on all this wisdom, helping with children. Now we have all these things. We have child care and we farm things out to strangers. And this whole role that once served our genetic fitness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Or grandma elephants, they're very involved in the ant system. They're very involved. And I guess too, would I be wrong to say this? I'm assuming childbirth gets more dangerous as you're older.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So that's how we got there. We're kind of unique. As you say, there are a couple of other people, but let's talk about What physically happens during menopause? Let's talk about the endocrine system. What is it? What does it do? And how does it change?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And is testosterone going up in preparation?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It seems it would be evolutionarily advantageous if it upped your testosterone when you were fertile.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Will you wait 39 seconds? Absolutely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Have you ever needed a baseline test prior to any of this for it to be relevant?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, there's quite a big group of data.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I used to work for General Motors and we had a car show there and our ride route ended there and we stayed at a very cool hotel. And each room was like kind of unique. You know the one I'm talking about?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Okay, so 6,000 women reach menopause every single day in the United States. And there are only 2,300 providers certified in menopause medicine. So once this occurs to you and you're going through it and you start getting serious about your own reluctance to go through this, which is a great motivator, how do you approach it? What do you start looking at?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
How do you even begin assembling what becomes the toolkit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, very old. Felt like vampires would stay there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Okay, so as you start focusing on it and kind of pledging to get competent in it and start treating women, are you yourself even shocked with the amount of symptoms? Because I wrote down symptoms and it's about the longest list of symptoms I've ever written.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And you guys moved there. You're from Louisiana.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
One of my mother-in-laws has been dealing with it for the last six months.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
This is a long time coming. Big time. Armcherry's demanded it and we have produced it. We actually leaned on Armcherry's to tell us who their favorite menopause expert was. Yes. And by unanimous, popular.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah. I had it for a minute and I didn't know what to tell people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, wow. What are some other symptoms? Dry skin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Guys, I don't want menopause. This is fucking miserable. Body odor, what's creating body odor?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So when I first got a panel for testosterone, my overall numbers were like fine, not alarming. My free was super low.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I smell like onions. My mouth is dry and I'm happy as a clam.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Wow. And that should be the kind of transition in life where you're like, oh, I made it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So decreased sex drive. I think this is also something that people have just taken for granted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
She's holding up a zero for the listener.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You're old. That's probably what you're thinking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Tell her to anesthetize herself so she can get through it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Is this common for sex to get more painful, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And we love them both. Yeah, we do. Yeah, huge fan. You're one of eight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah. Wow. Where's testosterone in the drive part?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, your clitoris becomes my penis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And the options for testosterone are?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So right there, red flag. Ridiculous, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
They don't slowly dissolve at a predictable rate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Good tip. Okay. So back to, so we can do an injectable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You'll get really hairy wherever you rub it, but that's fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
That's why they couldn't keep their hands off themselves, because restaurant people party a lot and they're horny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I'll say I started on a cream. The only thing I didn't love about the cream is you have this dispensary for it, and you click.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
The amount that comes out per click per day did not seem very consistent to me. It seemed a little all over the map. I much prefer just an injection. You know exactly what you're getting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
On your Instagram, you're a fan of those, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You don't want something in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You have an outsized fear of toxic shock syndrome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
How do you choose obstetrician? Yeah, I want to say obstetrician.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I believe I understand a lot about testosterone and estrogen and estradiol, but I don't know that I know a ton about progesterone. What is it doing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
This is where some of those studies were misleading because they didn't compare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I can say obstetrician, but obstetrics.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Okay, wow. Okay, so we really covered HRT, hormone replacement therapy. I'm so glad you're an advocate for it. I think it's insane that women have been just left out of this. What I have experienced being on hormone therapy, which has made me want to work again, made me want to do my hobbies again, made me mentally, and then my fitness, everything. All the things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I remember Kristen going like, this is bullshit. No. You're right. It is. This is insane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, I'll be clear. The general practitioners tend to still be pretty adverse across the board in my experience, but We have hormone clinics on every 10 feet for men. Most of them don't see women. So all one needs to do is go there. You actually need to police them, I think, is my tip to a man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah. And you don't need to be at 1100. Yeah, I know. I mean, these women are coming in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Because women, what naturally in their thirties would hover around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, additionally, it's almost the wrong medicine for the arousal type that women are, which is like that's great for a man because a man sitting around thinking about wanting to fuck in an hour. And he's like, oh, yeah, I'll do this. Whereas a woman needs to be brought right into arousal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So it's almost like a counterintuitive solution.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Right. So if you just kind of reverse engineer, as I understand, or if you believe Atiyah and I do, the best way to combat osteoporosis... Is to not get osteoporosis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Is to not get it. But your bones respond immediately to muscle and strain. So if you can work out heavy, you're putting a lot of strain on your bones and they will react. They will make themselves stronger. And for you to do a lot of strenuous and high intensity heavy lifting, you're going to benefit from testosterone with your muscles. They're all related.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And all of these four horsemen are metabolic disorders.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Boy, that's so true for my grandparents. The men just collapsed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And the women just struggled for five years and got crankier and more miserable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Okay, so we have diet, and I'm glad you're flagging protein.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Of all the ologies you can do, kinesiology is not on my list.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
There's some real key ones that are super beneficial, particularly for osteoporosis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Hand grip strength's a big indicator.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Right. If you do deadlifts, you will inadvertently get... Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
What part do you think was so rewarding?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So that's exercise, diet. Now, where do GLP-1s fit into this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, I wanted to dial in on it because two of my favorite experiences on earth are the second both of my daughters were born, holding them, looking in their face and going, welcome to earth. Like there is something so crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, because you're taking on a lot of risk of muscle mass loss, which is so important for your osteo. Although there's supposed to be a new one coming out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
She popped up and she fucking delivered. I love her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, it's supposed to reduce the loss of muscle mass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah. Or plague their children with. Protect the last 15 years of their life or 10 years of their life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
As you might expect, my wife, knowing that I was interviewing you, had some specific questions. Are there any ways to predict when onset will be? Kristen heard your mother's sister can be a guide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
That makes sense. Okay, so ethnic is a predictor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But on your mom's side, is she right about that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
She compared it to male pattern baldness, which we know comes from your mom. But I was saying, well, that's because it's on the 45th chromosome and you can only get an X from mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
There's a couple of things happening. A, it was completely understudied, as you pointed out. It's beginning to get studied, but also we're seeing an art. What do you think about the impact of all fours?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I haven't read it. I've been told what it's about from Monica, who loved it. To me, it's like I was prescribed a role I don't want or I want to test or I want to shake up or I want to break because I just prescribed it and now I want to decide. I don't want it anymore. That's so perfectly parallel to, hey, guess what? I don't want to live a third of my life in discomfort.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
To me, it's I've had enough on all the levels.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You're also getting to be a part of the most intimate thing that a couple will share or one of them for us, for sure. Like, oh, my God, we made a thing and it's here. As opposed to a meter maid who has to give people bad news all day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
How do we prevent ourselves from getting to the too late part, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I think a lot of people think of HRT as being what you do after you have all the symptoms. That's the next wave, I think, is preventative.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Why wait till you have all the symptoms?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But there's no other condition that we don't think early detection and treatment is beneficial.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And why? It's like some old vestigial Protestant suffering something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Early in her residency, they'd come to her and say, we got a WW in room 305.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
My mom must have hit menopause at like 35 because she had a hysterectomy. She got the trauma, then the kids with trauma.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
That somehow is, well, I think it's trauma related, but yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Your book's a bestseller, The New Menopause. You have the Mary Claire Wellness Clinic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You have many millions of followers that are interested in this subject. You were the person people wanted to come on the most. Yeah, we turned it over to Americans. Who's your favorite menopause expert? And you were voted on. You were elected.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I don't know. We have a lot of women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Oh, it gets paid for by the donor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Oh, I like that. A little for you, a little for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I'll be whispering that to my girls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I mean, smart for them, too. They have someone in the prime of their career who doesn't want to necessarily take the time at that moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It's ubiquitous and common knowledge to go like at 35, you're officially in a geriatric.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You're trying not to get pregnant. It's counterintuitive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You're very cute in your videos. I watched a hundred of them today and they're so cute.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
We're grateful for you. Thank you. The women I know are so grateful for you. Big time. Yeah. So everybody, read the book, follow you on Instagram. This was awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And you pointed out, this isn't my realization, but we're going to do one hour to address a third of a woman's life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Oh, thank you. Instagram impulse buy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Got one in this color and one in blue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
That's what we call. Well, what one's quilted for comfort? The toilet tissue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
The Quilted Quicker, well, that's a paper towel, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
The Quicker Picker. This is a Mandela effect we've created. Wow. People are like, do you think there's a product called Charmin's Quilted the Quicker Picker Upper?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Charmin, Quicker Picker Upper. How's your morning?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It is. You've signed up for a biweekly annual sitch. Yeah. Do they spice it up? Is it a different bouquet every time?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So you have anticipation. What will it look like?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
They find a guy who just has one flower bed in his backyard. Very limited edition. Very limited. Extra, extra small micro business.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And it's not a couple weeks or a couple months. It's a third of their life we're going to just not worry about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
We just learned a fascinating fact from somebody. It's a rule in sketch comedy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But if a man comes in to pick a woman up on a date in a sketch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Have him bring chocolates, not flowers. Because if you bring flowers, the audience starts getting very distracted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Oh, my gosh. You got to get those in a vase. Got to give them in water. And you can't even pay attention.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, that sounds like a good gift.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Right, the gift that keeps on giving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
That's the problem when you go with these micro growers that only have one flower bed in their backyard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, it's a really great idea, but then in practice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Okay, so I don't want to say this, and I just really can't control myself to not say it. Okay. Because I got to get out of the habit of, addressing commenters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, yeah. But I just want to make this simple point because people, you know, Jonathan Haidt will be on. So people will be like, You know, he's so anti-technology and he doesn't know and it brought people together and blah, blah, blah. Great, great, great, great. But I was just thinking, you know, what I like about our show is we have Reid Hoffman on. He's a techno-optimist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You get to hear the full sales pitch for why technology is great. And then we have Jonathan Haidt on and you get to hear the full sales pitch on why it's bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And instead of being like angry at these guests who have a different point of view, I would really wish people would be grateful that they got to hear the counterpoint to what they believe. I mean, that's what I so enjoy about the show. Yeah. And guess what? I don't know which one I think. Yeah. It's like I half believe what Reed's saying and I half believe what Jonathan's saying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But I'm so grateful to hear a very smart person tell me the opposite point of view that I have. And I just wish people could click into like, yeah, that's a gift to hear someone with a different point of view tell you what the opposite side thinks. It's not shut that person down and get them out of here and I don't like what they're saying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Now, if we only had one sides of all these debates, I think that would be a pretty reasonable criticism.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah. That was burning a hole in my... Go ahead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, some woman told me, I need to apologize for saying young men are disenfranchised. And I said, apologize to who? Like, who am I apologizing to?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
What was the main thing you said? Because I brought it up to some people, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I know. I know. It's really tricky. Now, I'd say the good news is, like, I'm not going to change at all what I'm doing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So it's not like I'm subject to altering how I'm going to invite Jonathan on and invite Reid Hoffman on. It's going to have no impact on how I do the show. I think I have a—I do have maybe an— arrogant, delusional belief I could explain the value of hearing this and people might lock into it and go like, oh, you know what? I'm gonna stop blasting everyone I disagree with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It's okay to disagree with people. You don't have to hate them. Jonathan's a great guy. I totally disagree with a lot of what you're saying. So I have this stupid belief I can... encourage people to embrace this. And that's my own delusion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
No, you're absolutely right. And I do think about that. So like naturally, you're a nice debate about men and women. Obviously. Yeah, it was very polarizing. I expected that. And that's totally fine. And I get it. I get it from both. I totally understand from both sides. But yeah, it's like 50 people. You know, on either side, out of millions of people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But what's perfect about it is... It is a facet of this thing I obsess about without the comments.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Right? So your big concern is women's reproductive rights, which makes total sense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, but it's like a very paramount concern, and rightly so. Yeah. And you'll think about that a lot, you know?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I don't think about it on a regular basis. Oh, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And I'm regularly so scared about the inability for people to listen to one another.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I'd like, think about it too much. And it really frustrates me and it scares me. I'm scared of the future where there's two camps on the planet and they don't talk to each other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, I guess probably dysfunction. I grew up in dysfunction. I grew up in two parents that hated each other till they got divorced, like dysfunction. Yeah. Not rising to one's best self to navigate these things. We have gotten embarrassingly dysfunctional.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And I see the total root of the dysfunction is us against them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And I see that as such a toxic quality And I have children that are entering a world and I care about the world for them. So yeah, it really bothers me really deeply because my childhood was plagued by dysfunction and two people not communicating and it's winner takes all. And I hate that situation. It wasn't compromise. It wasn't working together to...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It was, you know, as I always say, the paradigm everyone needs to wrap their head around is we're married. The left and the right are married. We all live in the same country. And so we have a Gottman approach through this marriage or we have a fucking what's the famous War of the Roses version of this marriage. And I lived through the War of the Roses versions of the marriages. And so for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I didn't want that in my life when I grew up. And then when I feel ensconced in a whole society that way, and then I put out a show and I see people saying, you know, heights of conservative, like they've just written him off. I think I've said this before, but it's like one time we went out to, and this is a ding, ding, ding, because it came up on an episode yesterday we recorded, but Ted Olson.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
you know, this... He was the most successful Supreme Court... He argued in front of the Supreme Court more times and more successfully than anyone else. And he... Very confusingly, from my perspective, both won Citizens United, which is a very right cause giving businesses personhood, but he also defeated DOMA. And he believed in both of those deeply.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
We had a dinner with him and there was three of us liberals and then him and... We started kind of hitting him with all of our points of view. And I said, hold on a second. We have an opportunity to be with one of the smartest people in the world who has a different point of view from us. What an opportunity to hear the best version of this point of view that I disagree with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, you'll find if you combat it, some of their pushback will make some of your points fall flat. And those are points you need to rethink or jettison or figure out another way. But as much as you can learn from them, you also learn the weaknesses of your own point of view.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Which I like. I'm arguing with people all the time and I get to one and I'm like, that's not a good point. I got to get rid of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I just wish everyone thought I have, I'm holding all my beliefs in my hand right now. And they're certainly not the best version of my beliefs. They're going to evolve. Hopefully. That's what they're supposed to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So you don't have the complete finished version of your beliefs and your points of view in your hand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
If you catch them having changed their opinion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You've come to regret how many women were basically asking for your help. And in that paradigm, you pretty much were just turning people over to different specialists.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But I think you're right. I think this whole thing feels like dysfunctional family to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And I want everyone to be a bigger version of themselves, myself included.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And it's disheartening to live in a dysfunctional family, which is this country.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
The stepdads were miserable afterwards. Their children were miserable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And if I were you, I might want to challenge me by saying maybe everyone's happy with this, which is also possible, you know. Maybe right now the right's super pumped and they're pigs and shit. And the left is vindicated and validated and feeling even more self-righteous. Maybe everyone's getting exactly what they want out of this. And so that's an interesting thing for me to consider.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Like you're trying to fix something that people will like. That's true. As much as they might not want to say they like this, maybe they do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Maybe the person that's like, Jonathan Haidt's a monster, felt awesome. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And told nine of their friends they did that. And they love it. Yeah. It's hard for me to imagine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I will watch them exist and validate them without that approach. They don't need that approach.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But I know I sound like, and that's why I said I didn't want to say anything. If I were in the audience, I'd be like, hey, shut the fuck up about the counters. Just stop reading. I fully get that criticism. And it's true. It is true. But yes, it is a perfect little encapsulation of this other thing I spend too much time obsessing about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And if I were really working my AA program, I would just accept this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I would accept this. But that's how it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And if someone's attracted to my approach, that'll be appealing to them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
More so than me saying someone should have this approach.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And I should just have faith in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
People really dined out on her show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
really hate strangers like it to me that is so interesting and then i was thinking i was like who do i hate well i think we're hardwired to do it right we're hardwired to extremely punish someone who has values and morals outside of our in group and make a make a emblem of them, right? So I do think when someone represents some, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I don't even know how they articulate why they hate her, but.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
She's interesting though. I have a story about this, but I want you to expound more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
When they first, when you were going to ask if I hate her,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I hate a couple people in public. I hate Tucker Carlson.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Sleep specialist for your insomnia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I just think he's a smug bully. I don't even really give a fuck about his politics.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Is there anyone else? Like I'm trying to imagine, and if you're saying you hate them, you have to take it to the, like literally you hate them to the degree if you saw him in person, you'd go, you're a fucking asshole.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And so I think the only person I can think of him that if I met him real life, I'd go, you're a fucking piece of shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Uh-huh. We've talked about this before.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
No, not at all. Yeah. Yeah. I think I used to say it too. I think that's one of the aspects of my life. point of view shifting of moving to California that I liked a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And then you yourself started going through menopause.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I think when I was in Michigan, I had a very long list of enemies. You know, people we hated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Wait, back to- Okay, back to Meghan Markle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So I saw, I didn't even see it, but I saw some of the Oprah thing. Right, I saw that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And a friend of mine from England- Like, let it rip on her. Like, can you fucking believe this? Just outrage, right? And so, and this friend, I really respect. Their intelligence, their empathy, the whole thing. This person's a very admirable person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And so I had to really force myself to imagine how could he have this strong of a reaction?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And the scenario I painted in my head was, and I think I've already told you this, when Obama was in office, A Russian kid comes to the D.C., falls in love with Malia, takes her to Moscow. He and her go on their biggest television show and shit all over Obama and accuse him of being racist and just trash the country under the guise of this Russian dude.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And I was like, yeah, I would fucking hate that guy. I would absolutely hate him. And there's a layer of patriotism that has to be acknowledged.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
That we all carry. And if I do think of that scenario, I just know I would hate the Russian guy who took Malia to Russia for the rest of her life and they go on TV all the time and shit on America. I would hate that guy. I don't understand the Americans who hate her so much, but I do understand the British backlash. They took the prize son. They all liked him more than the other one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But then I'd be saying Malia doesn't have a mind of her own. But if Malia left with this Russian dude.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And then went on Russian television and shit on America. I'd hate the whole scenario.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It's very positive. It's like the most hopeful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
A siren who called him to the rocks of America.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But I think we have clarity on that one because we don't have the in-group patriotic bias.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But really quick, if that... So I'm not talking about Harry and Meghan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I'm talking about this... theoretical Malia and this guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I would go, oh, you hate the media? You're on the biggest fucking show in Russia. You can't hate the media and then willingly participate in their biggest media outlet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
That's what I would say to this imaginary people who's on the biggest media outlet in Russia complaining about media attention.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I want to be clear. I understand why. I am not... None of this opinion is about those two.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But I do have strong knee jerks about this theoretical defecting of Malia to Russia and being on TV, complaining about being on TV.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, let's just say it's the scenario I painted is actually less impactful than the one that really happened because Malia was never going to inherit the presidency.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Harry could inherit the kingship. No. Yeah, his brother would have to die.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Okay, but the son dies. He could be the king.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Okay. Would they give the kingship to a seven-year-old? I don't think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I want to do a little digging on this. Joffrey. There's no inheritance in the presidency. So the scenario I'm painting is even less impactful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But an outsider came in and then the beloved person left. And that's easy correlation to get upset about. I mean, look, I. Maybe Harry would have defected on his own without a wife that was American. That's possible. Yeah. But we don't really know because it didn't happen that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yes, but, so I already agree. I understand why he left and I would have left.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I totally understand why people don't like her that are English.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It's not hard for me to understand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, they lost their cutest royal family member.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But I understand something you value getting, quote, taken from you. I understand losing something you value. So it's like they do value that. I can't understand it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I don't know that reference, but I'm laughing right now because the description was really funny. I just Meghan Markle. I didn't see that. So I'm not laughing at.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, now I really want to watch this episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I bet the core thing that people are... triggered by is like, why does this woman get a show about the things she likes?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Why don't I have, like, why would, I actually build bird houses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I actually do X, Y, or Z. Yeah. And I do think it's easy to think in some abstract way, she got something that you deserved more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And that in general, people who don't deserve things are taking opportunities.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
That should go to deserving people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
You can like quickly get into some very large moral imperative stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I'm yes and no. There's like a nihilist version of me that I can tap into pretty easily, which is like, who's kidding who? We're all staying busy on this circular globe until we die.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
There's no God. There's no one is evaluating what should and shouldn't and better and worse. Like we're just all distracting ourselves in the most entertaining fashion we can manage until we're dead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So there's that version. What's like, yeah, what are you talking about? You don't deserve, you deserve for 300,000 years, you deserve to come out without clothes on and be ill-equipped for this world. In the best case scenario, you ate and had a kid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So the notion that at some point a TV show was a human right or a cell phone is a human right, or I hate to say it, that health care is a human right. These are all really, really incredible modern privileges.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Okay. And now also on the other side, yes, Brene Brown deserves a podcast more. than a lot of people because she has spent a good chunk of her life acquiring knowledge that is useful to other people. And yes, she does. I would have to be lying to say that the guy in front of 7-Eleven who's repeating the same sentence over and over again
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It should have the same level of success on a podcast that Brene Brown has. I can acknowledge some people do deserve the success more than others because they've put more effort into it and they have more dedication and they have more skill. Jordan deserves his six titles more than a lot of the players. It's not like everyone who entered the NBA deserves six titles, you know?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It kind of was abrupt despite knowing it was coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
If his one sentence repeated over and over again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Absolutely. But what I think is even more interesting is so I feel that way about that topic. But what I can admit and acknowledge is there's another scenario you could paint that is the same principle at hand. And I'll go the other way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I think that's what's much more fascinating and more fun to pay attention to is this illusion that I have a consistent policy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And what really happens is I look at the person and generally I like them or I don't like them on some weird gut level. And I'm generally accepting of the things that people do that I like. And I'm critical of the things from people I don't like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And I frame it under this. Well thought out logic I have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And it's just so inconsistent that I have to acknowledge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Have I told you bees have rebounded?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Remember that panic we were all in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So we all heard that accreditation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, there's probably that. And then there's also Martha Stewart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
There's Martha Stewart who has spent her entire life really becoming a master at all these things. And then she has a show and by God, it's very, very helpful and useful to people because she's a master. And so if you're comparing these two people and they both have a similar size show, I can understand people being a little frustrated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It would appear that one person really is now benefiting from their dedication and love for their whole life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
To something. That's a good story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Versus like, and I could do this. I'm not a good woodworker, but I bet your ass I could sell a show to Netflix tomorrow about me with a wood shop building things. Yeah. And if I was a master woodworker, I'd be like, this is bullshit. Why is it? And that would be fair. Yeah. And also, if I want to do a show about woodworking and I think it's fun and people are interested in it, why can't I do that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So I think all these things are true. So Kristen came home to me and she said, oh, my God, I got like five texts from people. Like they were salivating to share this news about Meghan Markle's show. And she started calling people out. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
seem a little too excited about what you determined was a failed attempt by somebody. If you're taking a lot of joy out of a failed attempt on somebody, is that who you want to be is the bigger question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And I also think it's worth delineating because I'm critical, as you know, I'm trying to shut the fuck up about it, but I am critical of people that are allowing someone to make them miserable. As I've said, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
If you've been miserable for nine years or an hour of your day is spent in anger, I just think that's a rough use of your life. Now, if you're seeing the thing, the Megan thing, and you're excited and you share it with your friends and you all gossip and you all have a good time doing that at dinner, I guess I'm not critical of that in a weird way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Just hear everything coming your way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I feel bad for the subject of the ridicule, but I also can just, again, in a utilitarian way, go look at, oh, these five people had a really fun dinner for two hours gossiping, which is an adaptation of social primates. Like we're wired to do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I guess I also can go, yeah, okay, you guys had fun shitting on somebody. Everyone felt better for some reason about themselves.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Shit. It must be so comforting to hear an OB be out to lunch on their own health. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
But if the end result was you all did that versus you all got together and you like, this motherfucker and I can't believe this. Yes, outrage and feeling defeated and overwhelmed and all that. I weirdly have a distinction between those two things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Because you're not frustrated with the outcome of your life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
That's right. And I do too. And I'm not as bothered by a lot of things that people are bothered by. And I know it's a privilege. What is so tempting to try to tell people is it is a product of your own. You think this person's objectively one thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And it's helpful to understand, no, if my cup was full, actually and shockingly, I wouldn't feel the same way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And you kind of want people to know that because I think it is helpful for development, which is like, My opinions of things are dramatically impacted by how I feel about my own self and my own outcome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And I would probably be best served trying to love this version of myself enough that I don't feel anger when other people...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Get that topical vaginal cream, everybody. Go out right now and just start smearing it all over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Can I Easter egg that? I got the text of my life last night that I shared with you guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I urge people to hang on to the show a little longer. I know a lot of people are thinking about quitting, but just hang out for a couple more months. Wow, wow, wow. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I'm going to have to jerk off before the interview so I can last during the interview.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah. I'm going to have to wear really strong pants, not ones that can explode. You're going to have to be in fucking steel trousers. Might want to go short skirt. I say you go all the way. If ever there was a time to take the biggest shot of your life, you might want to go skirt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Oh, my God. If you did, and this person's a fashion icon, so they would just be like, oh, yeah, fashion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
For him. Or her. Or her. Whoever our guest is. Wow. I can't wait for it. That's an even more fun element to think about is coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yes, yes. And how aggressive you'll be. And I just want you to know that I am encouraging you to go above and beyond the realm of what you think is tasteful. Okay. And you'll be sitting directly across from this person?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I don't think so. Let me just give you some inside baseball, guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
There is no guy who's going to see a rockin' bot on display. And think, not for me. I mean, there'll be no straight guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Oh, my God. So you guys might end up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
What a great time. And then you guys bring back Monty and Jess love boys, but it's like Monty and Jess are married.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, no, you'd be fighting. All this fun you're having would quickly turn to fighting. True, true. So that could be entertaining.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And this is who... I could be conflating. I just want to be clear. The stuff I was saying that... Both Atiyah and Lane Norton are all over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
They're the ones that keep doubling down on this bad data.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I don't know why that's so weird for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It's weird, but obviously we were just given the explanation, which is menopause. But it is just not the time. You think that's the time of your life you start fully accepting who you are and what reality is and start transitioning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, that know when you're in the danger zone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Well, let's address that right now, because I happen to know way more about this than I should, because I love women. Well, I do love women. But Dr. Atiyah, I love Peter Atiyah. And he's been such a vocal supporter of this. But so all of this, the hysteria that you probably received was based on the work of two people virtually.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I was eating at a restaurant this morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
He left, I paid. Woman came over to the counter, or to my table.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And she said, I just want to thank you for the Blaze episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And I think that episode probably saved me like two years of my trajectory to dealing with this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
No, I think she already knew. But she hearing from him something he did, you know, she's like it just kind of like fast forward or two years in the process. And it was very good for me to meet her because I think a lot of times you're like BPD. They fuck up the person's life who loves them. And you villainize them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And it was very helpful to look at this young woman who's so grateful for help for this thing she doesn't want. Yeah, I was very happy to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
So fucking good luck, BPD survivors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I think I'm doing fine in the battle, but I'm fighting with all I got.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It's morning and night, that fucking topical that I hate. I hate how it makes my hair feel. Yeah. I got to hold my head back so it drips. It's embarrassing to see me at night in the mirror dealing with trying to keep my hair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah. What I really want more than anything- is for them to figure out how to clone hair. And I wanna go in and get my hair cloned and have massive surgery and get the thickest lion mane head of hair and have long braided hair like a Viking. And maybe I'll be in my Viking outfit for our guests and you'll be in your outfit and we'll let the chips fall where they may. Maybe I'll be wearing a kilt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
We'll both be topless. I'll be in a kilt crossing and uncrossing my legs repeatedly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Oh, this is great. So a 1970... We're doing the river dance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
It is something that came up in a Google search.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I'm going to use another word I don't like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Oh, okay. Yeah, sorry. The list is long. It's hard to keep track of all the things. Atelier, artisanal, rock star.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
That's a thing that like aggro dudes use to try to emasculate other men. They call them a cuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Should we have a t-shirt that says Armchair Atelier?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Yeah, I was just repeating what you said. Just doubling down on what a great idea that you had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
All right, love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
I've been telling people about the topical vaginal rub. Sure. That's what I was most interested in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Which is a huge issue already right there if you're not combining the two. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Really quick, the reason it was kind of irrelevant statistically is that the control group had an abnormally low rate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Okay. So Dr. Mary is a certified menopause practitioner from the Menopause Society. She is a board certified in obstetrics and gynecology specialist and a certified culinary medicine practitioner. specialist and a bestselling author. Two of her books, The New Menopause, which is hugely successful, and The Galveston Diet. I urge everyone to follow her on Instagram.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
Just recently, they're back at it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And in pre-study, it was at 40%, which you said.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
There's a great bit of context around this. So you start having the symptoms. You decide you want to do some investigation in this. In your investigation, you quickly find out. If you were to search medical peer-reviewed articles and journal entries about pregnancy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mary Claire Haver (on menopause)
And if you look at menopause at that same period, 94,000 articles written.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Today we have Dr. Allison Wood-Brooks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, I wrote down, you said, while strategic and technical skills can help people get ahead in many ways, being a successful person is about relationships and relationships are about talking. And I guess I wonder, did you kind of feel like the previous work in communication and negotiation felt maybe a little too calculated or manipulative?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Even when I have people on that'll be like how to talk to the right or how to talk to the left. I'm like, the underbelly still feels like the ultimate goal is to get someone to believe the things you do, which I think fundamentally I'm against.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
So you took all these conclusions and then you wove it into a class you call Talk, How to Talk Gooder in Business and Life. I don't know where you got that, but what a stroke of genius it is. How to Talk Gooder in Business and Life. But it became hugely popular. It's a heavily impacted class at Harvard. And you've taught a thousand students over the last four years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You were invited to be a consultant to the Celtics. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You found your way to the Celtics as a basketball player.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Talk is a practical guide to having better conversations in a variety of settings. Work, parenting, dating, trying to make connection. And so my first question is, do you think we underestimate the complexity of conversations? I think we all just are like, yeah, conversations. I know how to have them. I'm having them all day long. Chin wagging. I might underestimate...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Actually, what an abstract and complicated thing a conversation is just on the surface.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It also has the illusion of being innate, which it's not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's like reading. It's this very abstract thing. I'm making a bunch of noises to transfer the thoughts I have inside of my brain internally into your brain internally. And you're going to respond in a way that you'll transfer your thoughts. That is crazy. highly complicated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
that great right so i guess in just thinking it's innate you might not think that it's something that you could approach mindfully with a tactic i like that you say people will put 20 minutes into planning their outfit to go meet someone everybody yeah and they'll put zero thought into when i arrive what will i talk about what topics do i bring up you don't give it any thought
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I have half of that. I don't ever have the class I'm trying to take. Okay. I have the like, what happened? We're mid-semester. Have I gone to any classes? Yeah. There's a final. I wake up on set a lot where I'm directing something I haven't read. Right. I'm like, oh my God. It's ill-prepared anxiety.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Right. You just take for granted it'll just happen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And then the dates suck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You say it's the myth of naturalness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Well, I love that you're contrasting it with the other amounts of effort you put in. No one's thinking like, well, I'll just naturally look good. And if I don't naturally look good, it's not a fit or I'll naturally arrive there. No, none of these things are going to happen. So would you give me a little historical context for conversation, how we thought of conversation, how it's evolved?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I was kind of fascinated with the power dynamic of a monarchy and how that affected things. How has our idea of a conversation evolved?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Or they even do these super fascinating things. Well, yes, they'll find a necklace of fox teeth and then they'll do the actual math of how long it would take to procure that many teeth and then string it and all the work that would be involved. And what you have to acknowledge about this necklace is that it was a group effort.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You have to be able to tell them, here's what we're making. We're gathering teeth because we're going to make this object.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Don't have to lay out a game plan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yes, we love Kant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
He couldn't even get a professorship. Blew my mind. He lived in boarding houses and he was like a sub teacher, basically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You should add it. Yeah. You should incorporate it. Yeah. Please enjoy Alison Woodbrooks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
He curated the guest list. So you wouldn't have five physicians. You'd have a physician. You'd have a clergyman. So it was going to be an eclectic group. There were some grounders, right? No interrupting, no monologuing, no arguing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Take the ideas or leave the ideas. You don't have to defeat them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
What you're first describing is that mixing in the class is hugely impacted by the move from rural life to city life. You live within a stone's throw of the rich person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
The boundaries really fell apart. So your framing of this is to think of conversation in terms of a coordinated game, which you take from game theory. Tell me what a coordinated game is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Janusz von Neumann.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
The Stanford Prison? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Wow, you're good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And I told her I don't care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Most people who love Diet Coke will acknowledge it does seem to be a bit of an addiction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
The shock we just learned about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
That was in England.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You flipped them?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Oh, my God. Hoisted by your own baton. And you were celebrating, and I congratulated you. This is wonderful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You were right. Okay, so Zimbardo did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah. It's their over-the-counter Ritalin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, this is great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You are also incentivized to cooperate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I'm trying to measure it in a utilitarian way. I feel like both people with a reduced sentence is still better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Russians have a weird outcome in this game.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I wish I could remember the source because it'll just sound like xenophobia. But yeah, one of these many books that has talked about the prison experiment talked about how Russians asymmetrically will punish even when it costs them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Right. You couldn't have film cameras running, although your hometown would love it. Kodak would still be thriving. Yeah, we needed a digital revolution.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I know what the answer to this is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I unfortunately know too much about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I want to see a link to the... The data? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
That's exactly what I thought.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
The New York one, a lot of people will say the Empire State Building. It's a landmark. Let's say the Brooklyn Bridge. But there is a right answer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, so there is a kind of a high probability. It's kind of a riddle. It's a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
The first thing you think of when you think of New York, I'll go there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's almost incredible we can communicate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Almost everyone can relate to some social anxiety, the fear of small talk, being in an elevator, and that is all present. But in general, it goes shockingly well. It's the anomaly you hear two people screaming at each other on the sidewalk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
She is a behavioral research scientist and professor at Harvard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I don't know that. Is that the case?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's funny you say that because you have a reference in the book. You chose an artist and I was like, that's a young artist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yes, you talk about her video to describe context.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And I was like, wow, you have three children. I don't know your age.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Congratulations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Where are you from, Allison?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay, so what's really exciting, and it comes up quite often, this topic, and in fact, we are in search of a great twins expert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Harvard Business School.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I think you're too close to it to be an expert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's funny what a nugget of wisdom improv artists have. stumbled upon because you even reference it in your book. Using the improv rule of yes and not no. Should we play this game? I feel like we should.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Sarah is your identical twin. Yes. I don't think I ever really considered this. It's adjacent to self-awareness. We all strive to have a good deal of self-awareness, but you articulate it in the book and I wouldn't have considered this as you also have like an external version of self-awareness where you get to watch her move through the world and try things and see how they react.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I'll be the, do you want the switch?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Where'd you get that switcher?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Do you go there a lot?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Oh, what took you so long to check it out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
What are you busy doing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
What do you do?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I don't like that sweater.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Well, I knew the answers to what she did for, but I didn't know that was her first time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And I don't know why it took you so long. I would have thought you've been there a dozen times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I'm still in the middle of it, so I don't know how I'm doing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I would say four.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, cutting my hair compulsively and I'm exercising compulsively and I'm trying not to blow my nose, which is new.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I got convinced that I don't actually have allergies, that I've just injured my nose from blowing it so hard. And then it's sending white blood cells to repair it. And then that is snot that I have to then blow really hard to get out. And then I'm just caught in this endless pattern of damaging and repairing. And I feel like I just have to stop for it to end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Oh, like a motherfucker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, it's hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Where did you get your pants?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay. Do you notice what all the other moms are doing? And do you feel like you pick up on like, I'm not sure what pants I'm supposed to be wearing, but somehow everyone knows. How do you pay attention and figure it out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And do you have to factor in your age?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
That's very peculiar, isn't it? In an interesting way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay, so here's a calculated question I would ask. And I realize how I operate in thinking of this question, which is I would go, have you taken too big of a swing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay, so you haven't like arrived at a restaurant and been like, oh boy, I went too young with this thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
HBS. She has a new book out right now called Talk, The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves. She is an incredibly good guest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
No, no, no. So I know that the kind of questions I ask, I want to get to a time you got embarrassed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Because that's vulnerable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But I want to get to the point because I think what's very bonding in a fast pass is as soon as we can get vulnerable. So if I can get to the point where you went too far.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
To me, it's such a fast pass to like, oh great, we're both now laughing at the time I tried to wear combat boots and you tried to wear this. We've just broken through a layer and now I can kind of live here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You trusted me and then I deserted you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
We're getting so off topic, but this is really interesting. I think when I have to do my own sexual inventory, as you have to do in AA, and I think about times I've been irresponsible or not, I think what I underestimated sometimes is it came very easy and natural for me to have those kind of conversations with women. And for a lot of those women, it was such a unique thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
They had only experienced with someone they were deeply in love with. And I do think it was quite misleading at times to women, which I fear in their reflection felt like manipulation or something. But it's just kind of how I am.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yes. And I think it fast forwarded. It's kind of like this thing we learned about in England where the GIs got all these English girls pregnant. Americans kiss really quick. English don't kiss for a long time. They jumped ahead 10 steps.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
A lot of people will associate that with a very unique kind of relationship they've only had once and it was love.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Are you mere twins? Is one of you left-handed and one right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
and skipping ahead and accelerating a relationship development is one of the pros one of the downsides is it really does make you more vulnerable to heartbreak or exploitation essentially yeah i have this in male friendships a lot too and this runs the risk of sounding arrogant but i have observed it and it's real which is a lot of guys are comfortable telling me things they generally won't tell other guys which is an incredible privilege and it's beautiful
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Oh, bummer. See, that's one of the things I need to answer. How many people are like that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But I may be the only person they do that with. And so I'm kind of their best friend. And then maybe they could feel hurt because I don't have a capacity for 150 best friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, I don't see the future solution being I'm less connected and a safe place to chat. It's that I think there's more options for those people to have that experience with multiple people. That's the positive future is that there's a lot more dudes that are willing to chat about that stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay, so asking questions, we got that. But I do want to ask what a boomer ask is. About myself, I'm shriveling with embarrassment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It can be even more grotesque and direct. You can go like, have you ever been to Tibet?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You ever been in a fight at Franklin and Highland? Yeah. I'm clearly just trying to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
God, I hate that I do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's a huge development.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You're open to hearing I've had a similar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Understand if I... You wonder what's better. Come out and tell a story you want to tell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
What's a gotcha question?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Or leading them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Allison, you can't imagine how many people who only know me from acting will see me at the airport and they'll go, what do you got coming out? And then I go, I have a podcast. And they don't have any sense that it's successful. But they are really asking, though. They feel so bad. That's not a gotcha question. What they're really saying is I like watching you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Would you feel like an internal embarrassment when she would embarrass herself?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I want to keep my eyes out for something you're in. But when I say I'm busy doing a podcast instead of acting... They get upset? I think they feel really bad for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay, let's get to levity. Probably my favorite part. I could see where people wouldn't prioritize levity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
No, I was trying to do a really thorough and honest assessment of the motive behind that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I think the thing that might be truest under all of it is it is my tool to... to both let go of power and maintain power. By being vulnerable and honest, I'm giving away my power and I'm scared. But I always have the skill set to steer the reaction if necessary. I do think it's my way of controlling how vulnerable I'll be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, because when I tell you something that's very revealing, I get immediately scared, as I think most people do. And it's broader than this room. So my mind can't help but imagine however a million people take the thing I just said. And then I can take the legs out from it if I want to at any moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's really interesting. I also think it enables you to take big swings because you can neutralize it. I think of Jess. Jess is very, very funny. He's also very, very provocative. So he's saying really provocative things. And if they go sideways, he's great at acknowledging they went sideways to then release the pressure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, you said there's like a combination of things that were helpful. One was being able to see how you seemed in public, but then also you guys had constant unfiltered feedback.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay, kindness. And this is where we really get into listening. I feel like this overlaps a bit with asking questions, but why does it deserve its own category?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Could you give me an example of respectful language?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You're not a terrible, flawed person. You're not broken. You did something a lot of people do. And we got to make sure you wake up with your family for the rest of your life. How do we get there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Neurotypical neurodivergent is a false dichotomy in and of itself. This binary notion. We're all on this weird spectrum with varying degrees of adeptness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
There are people who are not neurodivergent, who are very uncomfortable with eye contact. I talk to them all the time. There are any number of things that they might be struggling with. They don't go to fucking dates with topics. They're just going to let their neurotypicalness take over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay, now, when you get into a group conversation, it gets more complicated. That seems pretty obvious. But I did want to talk specifically about the status hierarchy effect of a group chat and how it changes within conversations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Well, these companies have levels.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And is she a professor?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I never thought of that either. You could only give so many compliments to your identical twin before.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You probably don't want to be ensnared in this, but I can't resist right now. I constantly talk about this. I think status is what we are most conscious of at all times. I think it is driving so much of everything. I think it's just baked into being a social primate. I don't think it's escapable. I think there's a lot of... Young people who think the solution to this is the eradication of status.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Even these movements I see like main character energy versus supporting cast. All the movement is to get rid of status. And to me, it's just like saying, let's get rid of being bipedal and walk on all fours. We have to acknowledge it's there, accept that it's there and figure out how to navigate it best. But the notion of obliterating status...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It would sound indulgent and narcissistic. You're like, she's beautiful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, it sucks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Whether we're conscious of it, it means more food and safety.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah. Okay, I'm going to jump to apologies. And I got to give credit to AA. There's a few things that it forced me to do. I had to embrace the dogma. My favorite thing is the fourth step I've talked about here before, learning to actually take an inventory of how you feel and what fears are being triggered. That's been so incredible to understand. But...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Being forced to say apologies, make amends, and then getting the experience of delivering some of those and finding out the reaction's not at all what you're afraid it'll be. I don't know how anyone else learns that unless they're in a program that demands it. As The 10 Step, we have to do that daily. It's not just, oh, what you accumulated as an addict.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's like daily, how has my behavior maybe impacted someone negatively? And I have an obligation to clean that up because if I don't clean that up, I will have low self-esteem and hate myself and I will use. So it's imperative. And through practicing this for 20 years, a few truths have emerged. One is this never goes bad like you think it's gonna.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, you got to be careful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And then what you realize immediately is like, oh, no one's getting apologized to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Because the reaction to most people I make amends to or apologize to is shock.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Almost unanimously understanding, comforting, and touch that you did care. I think what people want to know is that you acknowledge that was hurtful and that you're not someone that is disposable, that they don't worry, that they've upset.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And he would bounce back to moms a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
So your hair is naturally curly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And you chose to straighten your hair. So you were doing things to try to carve out some individual.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
My kids are great at it. Maybe the thing I'm most proud of my children.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
What did he apologize about?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Because boys are dumb.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You're welcome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I won't ever forget it, Kevin. I will never forget.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's more powerful than I love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It is the action of loving someone, not just the words.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I know how hard it is for me. And they just did that. They fucking love me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's fucking awesome. It's so hard. And I wish people could just practice. Monica will say, I've gone too far. This is one of my favorite stories. This house has been worked on for seven years, right? That's how long it took. And we lived here through lots of the construction. And I had all my car chargers plugged into this one extension cord. And I came out and guys were working.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
They were sawing. And all my chargers were unplugged. And I was late to bring the girls to school. A bunch of things had piled up. And my reaction was devastating. don't fucking unplug my shit. I fucking, there's an instinct. Like I really lost it. And I dropped the girls off at school and I'm like, ugh, I feel terrible about this. These guys are working their asses off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I'm an entitled rich person. How ugly of me. I've got to say sorry. Come back. And I'm like, guys, guys, there's like nine or 10 guys working. I just want to say I'm really sorry about how I talked to you guys. None of you deserve that. I know you're working really hard and I'm so sorry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And what was funny is this apology went on long enough that I did recognize, oh, this is more painful than the shouting was. This like male on male vulnerability is actually making them want to throw up more than the yelling did. So then I was like, I got to make sure my apologies are serving the people I'm trying to apologize.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And you're a three-point shooter and she was a mid-range shooter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And really curb your behavior.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I was going to say that's one upside of having to do a 10 step as well is that I'm sometimes on the verge of blowing it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay, so you both played basketball. It must have been so fun when you guys came to schools in junior high and people were like, there's twins on this team.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yelling at somebody. And because I'm about to let it fly, I go, I'll be apologizing for this. So weirdly can curb your behavior too if you're in a real habit of doing it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You just hope you don't get physical when someone breaks your nose. That's about the best you can do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Well, Allison, this has been a blast. I hope everyone checks out Talk, the Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves. And I'm really jealous of everyone that gets to take your class.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Oh, it was so fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I want to interview Sarah now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I want to see how different she is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I want them to both come in with the goal of tricking us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It would be like a sociopath we interviewed. I never know what's what. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah. There is this added layer of like, you like a boy. If he likes you, I don't know, conceivably he'd also like. Was there anything tricky there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And are your current husbands similar?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Did you ever feel inferior to her or superior or both?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Meaning Kristen pegs me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I don't think that would constitute a bottom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Because the top is often on bottom and the bottom's on top.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
In the homosexual community. Yeah, they can receive that penetration on top or bottom. So I'm saying I can't really be a bottom in Kristen and I's relationship. Whether I'm in time and space on top or bottom, it would have to involve some penetration.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
In the tops on bottom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah. So we could do a shirt that explains all this because maybe a lot of people are confused. No, thanks. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
We could call it top bottom and it's a bottom on top.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Which kind of looks like a butt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Cherry on top sounds good sexually, though.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
That's straight as hell. A cowboy riding an enormous penis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I'm pointing out the hypocrisy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think people who are straight don't want to declare that they're gay. And I think gay people don't want to declare they're straight. And I don't think men who identify as men want to declare they're women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yes, yes, yes. It is. It's an adorable shirt. I really like it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Again, I blame cake boy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Well, let me ask you this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Right. So what if I made a shirt that said Tim boy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
What do you think of? Be honest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I would think tomboy. Oh, I think, oh, it's some other now version of tomboy, but now we're saying Tim boy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Do they have their own acronym now? I think they do. The COVID Gen Z acronym.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Oh, yeah. Something like that. Also, my beef with Gens now, I may have already aired this. Okay. It used to be like Gen X covers from 1968 to 1983 or something. It's like this 20-year window virtually. And there's been seven Gens since Gen X. I know. It's like you entitled, all you entitled millennials wanted your own generation every four years. I don't even know what I'm saying. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But yeah, it's this increased uniqueness where they need their own gen every year they were born.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
That's a good argument.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's fascinating. It really is. So you went to Princeton for undergrad, and then you went to Wharton for graduate school. What was the undergrad degree in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
So maybe there's legitimate reason for... Breaking it up more. Yeah, because every two years, the world's completely different. I think so. All right. Well, I'm learning a lot in this episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay. This is The Matchmaker?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You actually put no time into planning how you're going to converse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
With an option that didn't make you feel sad about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You and the candidate. Yes. Not The Matchmaker. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Right. Well, you guys sound both type A. He's got the funds to get a matchmaker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
He said he was on the West Side?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Do you think he's been killed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Well, two things could be happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Some of it could be that. What I like about no is I'm not going to be playing along with this role as you as the boss and you can call me in six days when you remember. Yeah. So I won't participate in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Go see me for six days, checking in and going, we still good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
That's a no. I would if let's just say if a woman did that to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I don't even know if I'd respond to the follow up in seven days.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But I do like that you said no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You left room for him to apologize.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It was interesting because I. So first of all, that was much nicer than I was expecting. And I even nicer than I think he deserves.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Behavioral economics. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I might have been really direct. No, you can't ghost me for six days and then ask, are we still on tomorrow? That's not for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And then allow him to mount a real apology because he owes you an apology. Not, hey, I lost track of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Maybe he was in surgery for six days straight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But I'm impressed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Sure. Yeah, that's one. That could also be it. But that would be like the least generous version, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
All the more reason you got to say absolutely not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But I just wanted to be a little more clear than, it's not that you just made plans.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's a no because you can't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You can't go seven days and then check in to see if we're still good for tomorrow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
That's not how I operate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And not even hurt feelings needy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Like, that's a.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Well, I don't think there's good or bad. This is a version of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, with the matchmaker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah. It's hard for me to not. I have to really fight being judgmental of someone that would be using a matchmaker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
No, the man. Well... Because, you know, why do I want to be... I want to say you can't farm out that activity. Like, you can't just pay your way into that. It feels like a call girl service a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, you guys are just both mutually looking around and hoping to find somebody, I guess. There's something about... farming that out to somebody. Yeah. It feels a little entitled. Like I'm a busy person and I'm just going to have them go fine. I like this, this and this. I'm acknowledging that I'm trying to fight through that. Yeah, because I think there's a lot of versions that are not that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You know what it feels like if you were at the Four Seasons and you called the concierge and said, I need a date tonight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Like calling the concierge to get you a date is a little bit the, when I want to be judgmental of it is what it feels like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And they don't deserve you, anyone that would call a concierge to get you. Okay. Can I just say that? Yeah. But again, I can imagine Bill Gates, who I worship, going, I need help. I always get help from experts when I don't know what I'm doing. So why wouldn't I go see an expert to help me find love?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
When I paint it that way and I make it a real person, then I'm sympathetic to it and I'm supportive of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
If you can work your way into my life, we've got a deal. Exactly. That's what's being triggered for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yes. I think I could create the statement that would perfectly sum you up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Indulge me. Okay. I'm very unattractive and I'm a hell of a catch. This is your story about yourself. I think you think you're unattractive and I think you think you're a hell of a catch, which is the thing we're talking about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay, great. That's better than I was expecting you to say. What?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yours was worse. I'm ugly, but I'm a fucking catch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
By the way, that's kind of what mine is. That's what mine's been since I was like 15. Like, yeah, I'm not much to look at, but I'm a fucking catch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Right. You're a catch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
If you could get the first end of that thing addressed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yes, because you're also right in your honesty that you're also carrying a lot of baggage of insecurity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And you're looking for reasons to save yourself the embarrassment of not being chosen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
So that's really happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And it's strong. And I think if you felt hot and you knew you, I mean, you know you've got a great career, you know you're super smart, you know you're personable, you know you're good in a crowd, but you know all the other things. You're not insecure about any of those things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
So if you just added that I'm hot, I don't think your mind would let you go to a place that you're not gonna get picked. Even if something didn't work out, you would go like someone with great self-esteem that wasn't a match.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It's not that I wasn't picked or I wasn't good enough. It's like the audition where it's like, yeah, you are a better actor than so-and-so, but they're fucking Chinese and I need a Chinese guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah. And it's not disingenuous to use them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But you're in a zero risk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And I don't say that to be mean. I say that to be that's a really good part of your counter narrative CBT training, which is like. I'm not risking anything. But I think if you had those other components, I think you would, because there's also this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, which is like, you're not actively going out there and spotting someone and making it fucking happen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
We got into a little bit of a chat about the validity of these telepathy tapes thing that's going around. We were using ourselves as examples because we're both quite good at predicting what the other. I'm more inclined to think it's just pattern recognition. And I also think if you, A, observed your sister her whole life, so God, you've seen her react to every way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
So you're in the incoming call business. And guess what? You don't love the incoming calls. And then also you didn't select them and there's all, but if you had those other things, it wouldn't be about like, who's going to knock on your door one day. You're like, every time you saw someone that interested you at all, you'd be like, oh, I'm going to go make that fucking happen right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
What's up? What are you doing? Do you like coffee? Do you like bagels? Here's the things I like. And I cook. You would hit them. And if they didn't respond, you wouldn't give a fuck because you're like, I'm hot and I got a great career and I'm everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And I think most people don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And I think a lot of people are afraid to go pursue someone they want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I think my success in life has solely been as I wasn't afraid or I overcame my fear to go say hi to everyone at the bar that I liked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I just got in there. And these other guys that they probably would have rather been with just never came up and said hi to them. And they were stuck with me. But I'll take it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It is, accidentally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Or am I wrong? Or am I wrong?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You ever get to the face?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I think you're a bit wrong about that. Look, I'm not one that would deny there are things happening on a primitive level, which is like symmetry. We know these things are real.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
We know fertility is somehow deduced by looking at, like things are happening that I will not be a denier of. In fact, I find it annoying when people pretend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
That some people aren't going to, 98% of people are going to find Brad Pitt attractive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
We can acknowledge that that's the truth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yes. But I can think of, and I'm not going to name them out loud because I don't want it to run the risk of sounding mean.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But there are, I know many women who decided they were hot as fuck and sexy and they are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And they have made it in show business, some of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And you can do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And then intuitively, you kind of know how you would react. You know, input A is going to equal this stimulus, is going to equal this output. I tend to believe it's that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
It 100% morphs their face.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Because they're carrying themselves like they're hot shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And you're like, fuck. They must be. They know they're hot shit. Yeah. You then go, what am I missing? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And you go like, oh, yeah, her fucking hair is awesome. Yeah. And then that's, oh, what a smile. Yeah. Look at her eyes are this. And you go like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. But if they walk in like this, like. You're like, oh, God, they're fucking. They've been told they're a mess their whole life. It does. It does. No, it does. It's powerful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And I just know because I'm speaking. I am the beneficiary of that. That has been my angle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
For a long, long time. And it hasn't worked all the time. Yeah. And a lot of girls are like, no, buddy, you're not fucking, you're presenting yourself as some 10. You're not. That certainly has happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yes. No, it's happened a bunch of times. Well. But. It's also worked a bunch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And I think it weirdly is a sign of my confidence, which is I don't need a trophy woman. I don't need to be seen with a woman that's hot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Also, she's an identical twin. Yeah. So we had a lot of fun twin chatter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But I need to be with the coolest woman in the room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
For sure. So, sure, there will be men who don't prioritize that. And what a blessing. You've weeded them out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
No, there are a lot of dudes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I think that is overly pessimistic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
There's numerous reasons why great people find themselves single all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Annulment's one of them. But their partner didn't grow with them. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay. We're lost.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But my thing about you shaving your sides has always been about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You don't know what me... Like, you can't say because you've filled in what that means from something else you've seen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I think you are assessing that whole suggestion on a static.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And my story about you is actually you had been a chameleon your whole life. And in this show, I had we have friends who go, oh, my God, I didn't know that side of Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You have become more and more yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And you are unique on a level that Shave Sides makes sense. You're thinking of it in this like really ironclad aesthetic and punk rock, but you're missing the point that I'm making.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Actually, I'm one of the most unique people here. I'm one of the most original people here. And I'm different.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And this thing is a visual cue that I am.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Well. That is. And I want people to find out I am like this very unique person. Yeah. I hope everyone is like, you know. willing to be presented with one thing and then have to climb through some layers to find out all this great stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Then... I was warned about this, but...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay, great. We are resuming. We had to break to interview and I have since been out in the rain. Is it obvious?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I feel something on my forehead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I put my hair up. I would hate for- Well, we were completely- Oh, geez. That's a real, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Well, the listener won't give a fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, the thing that stuck with me that I really liked is this like fallacy of naturalness that everyone thinks that everything should happen organically or that means it's not a good fit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Oh, I'm such a boomerang questioner. So embarrassing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
She's my kind of gal. It makes me rethink Diet Coke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I have to weigh her against my affinity for Bill Gates and Diet Coke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah. You know what I like about that? That she likes that her boyfriend's got a Costco chain on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
That says a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
This is like, I respect her. She's not like trying to have some dude in Gucci. She's like, her man looks good in this Costco chain. She's like a real chick. I'm going to have a Diet Pepsi. Do you like those things?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah. I think that's a cool detail of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
How so? Tell me. Explain the connective tissue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Cookie boy. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
That's not good enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I got to stop saying it. I thought the majority of twins did this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
One in every four people I ask will say yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I think what's interesting and worth following up on that thought is I actually think you probably could always predict But you're often missing a lot of the context. Yes, yes. You don't know what happened. This is the first example that we get to in your book. You know your sister really well, but you don't know if when she stopped at the gas station, someone called her a whore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I don't know why it's zero sum because whoever wins is going to win everything and the other person is going to get nothing of what they wanted. That feels like the definition of zero sum. Okay, we'll keep going.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Zero sum is chess. You can't kind of win. You can't win halfway. Right. You either win or you lose. Yeah, exactly. Poker, you could come with $200 and leave with $300. Right. Other people could also have $400. Someone could be down. You know, there's varying degrees of success.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But this feels like it's all or nothing. It would be zero sum. Oh, this does feel zero sum, you're saying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You're either going to get to go see your thing you wanted or you're not. You're going to be stuck at the opera.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay. Which is they'll have to go to a prison cell or something is the third option if they don't agree. It's got to be something worse than the football game for her and the opera for him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay. That's pretty good. I like it. Jesus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But really quick, yes, if there's a third option that they are penalized with for not agreeing, then yes, it's not zero-sum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Let's keep it honest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Further imploring us to get a twin expert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay. Kind of outdated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You know everything else you've observed, but that thing is still floating around. So I do think if you did know all the details, you would be in still the high 90s. It's just we don't really know all the details.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
That would be a third. That has to be a third option. That's less bad than the worst outcome and not as good as the ideal outcome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Oh, I hope you do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
We need to know these if we're going to host a Kant dinner party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
The goal of- That one's going to be hard for me. If I hear something great at the dinner party, I will keep the anonymity of the speaker, but I might want to get the message out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
I'm going to violate that one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
And I'm going to smoke cigarettes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, side conversations. I was just with my whole family and there was some side conversing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Okay, so in graduate school, you start focusing on negotiation skills.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah. Why people's behaviors impacted by their feelings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
So what caught your attention?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Who do you seek it from?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
But remember I said I seek the advice that I think I'm going to get.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
To confirm. If I want to indulge in this bad behavior, I call a person I know who regularly indulges in that and is not going to say, you know better. And then when I actually want to change, I call Tom Hanson. Okay, so you end up at Harvard teaching negotiation and you start doing a lot of clinical work and experiments. Yes. And it definitely expands out. I have a list of fun things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
People on a wait list. Yeah, it's one of these favorite classes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Yeah, you did experiments on speed dating, parole hearings, doctor-patient interactions, negotiations, sales calls, instant messaging, face-to-face chin wags between strangers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
1930s, wait a second.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
You could put all of those under the umbrella of negotiating, right? It's true. And I think the things that would be normally studied or you'd be drawn to is all the things you listed are quantifiable, like I want this amount. They're offering this amount. The outcome is measurable. But in a romantic relationship, you get into these gradients of leverage and control and power.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)
Those are not easy to quantify and measure the outcome of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard, joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Per your request, you spearheaded this, and I'm so grateful you did. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
She was the casting director for Family Ties?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Made very popular in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay, so you start working on that show, and I imagine you're doing a lot of the work that's not picking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I think it led to a lot of trips to the emergency room that show. I know my brother and I would try that. Because you'd go like this and the defense was this. But I was five years younger, so his fingers were longer than this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
But that was what we worshipped. And people are calling, I'm sure, and they're pitching people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Sides are the lines for people who don't know. So those are the lines for the audition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
They come in a variety of cool and captivating styles created by different artists, so there's something for everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. Now, this huge explosion in the amount of managers and agents and whatnot, is it proportional to because when you were on Benson, you're casting the Cosby show. There's only three networks. The three networks only have five days of airing and four shows. So you're talking 20, maybe 60 shows are on television. And now we're at, I don't know, hundreds of shows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So do you think it's proportional or something else happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I mean, an 18 to 24-year-old female.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay, so when you were at Family Ties, I'm going to ask you some juicy questions. Please. Famously, Leonardo DiCaprio was on Family Ties, right? No, he was on Growing Pains.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, I want to know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He was on Family Ties? Okay. Maybe that's who I'm thinking of. And Tom Hanks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, he did, right? What a gentleman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Find gift ideas for all ages and at every price point at tcg.pokemon.com slash holiday. We are supported by Netflix. Have you ever found the house of your dreams only to learn it has dark secrets? Netflix's new series, No Good Deed, follows three families vying to buy a 1920s Spanish-style villa that they think will solve their problems. But as the sellers discover...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, it would. Because Alex B. Keaton was a conservative and the dad was liberal. The whole family was liberal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, that is very interesting. Yeah, no, that was 82 to 87. No, 89. So I was 7 till 12.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I liked Justine Bateman. I liked Alex P. Keaton. Then he was in Back to the Future.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
A few years later, you're on Golden Girls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You would be privy to one of the great kind of funny debates now that happens with the Golden Girls. A, the Golden Girls is this enormous thing, right? Yes. Like it's had all these different lives. Which is great. And I watched it as a kid. But again, I was seven to 12. They look like grandmas to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Now that I'm 50 or closing in on it, everyone points out some of the cast members were in their 40s or 50s.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So what was the conversation behind closed doors about what age you were going to cast as these grandmothers?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Sam Harris has an enormous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Right. He became a neurologist. He has a huge podcast, but he has also famously on Bill Maher all the time arguing. He got into hot water arguing Ben Affleck about Islam. He is a very outspoken, provocative, intellectual.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Most people go the other way, by the way. Most people know Sam, and I'll say his mother invented Golden Girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, a titan, yeah, in that kind of show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So by the time we get to 1990, I guess I'm wondering, so you already pointed out something that happens, which is fascinating. You come in for one thing, you're not right for it. And that's its own thing that actors need to understand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It took me directing things and casting people to really fundamentally understand what's going on in the room. I wish I would have started directing because it would have taken so much of the pressure off of auditioning. Which is like, you're kind of right or you're wrong. You have some range of talent, but... Exactly. What can happen, which is encouraging, is...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
you as a casting director will go like, well, they're terrible for this role, but they're good. I want to keep a mental note of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
If you starred in 83, and by the time we get to Fresh Prince, you had seven years of kind of accumulating people that you've liked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And you don't have a computer, so it's not like you can put all this in a spreadsheet and break it into categories and stuff. So anytime you have a new project on your hands and you've got 13 rolls to cast, how do you keep track of this huge handwritten stack of paper?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Sometimes the home of your dreams can be a total nightmare. I love this show. I got to give a personal stamp of approval. It's so good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I think the Smithsonian has a whole TV thing to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, right. Then they definitely do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. Every time you're watching something, you're on the lookout for someone that's talented. Does that ruin seeing stuff? Are you too preoccupied?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yes, and it's going fast. And the lights might not even be on yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Wow. Okay, so that's one approach is you're paying attention to who's in what. Are you also going to comedy clubs?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's a gorgeous house. You want to live in it. No Good Deed starring Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano is now playing only on Netflix.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay, so that's positive because for every Jim Carrey, you're also wading through two or three that are pretty rough and people are bombing. Some people are thinking like, oh, I'd go to a comic show every night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Insecure and scared. It is, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay, Whoopi Goldberg. And you put her in the color purple.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Did you get good at delineating who's going to work? Because it's a big leap between standup and acting and it goes very well for some and it goes really bad for others. Do you feel like you got good with your thin slicing or your radar? Was there anything you could tell on stage that was going to be predictive of whether they could do it or not?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
We are supported by Audible. Audible's best of 2024 picks are here. Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best in audio entertainment. Like a stunning new full cast production of George Orwell's 1984. This is the one I am most excited to indulge myself with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, there's so many good ones on the list.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I love Audible. I swear by Audible. I can't wait to listen to the Orwell 1984 off this list. I'm also doing Fleas by autobiography right now, which I'm obsessed with. I can't get enough Audible in my life every night. Go to audible.com slash DAX and discover all the year's best waiting for you. That's audible.com slash DAX. We are supported by Quince.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Many, many people that you would think wouldn't be nervous. Bill Lawrence, who was just here, he's on a million and a half interviews. Very gregarious guy. Yes. You would not think he would be nervous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
WabiWab made our website using Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. What I love about Squarespace is aside from the functionality, it's just so visually pleasing. And Rob was able to whip this up in no time with all the incredible templates that were available to him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's squarespace.com slash DAX to get started today. Staying cozy in the winter months is essential, and therapy can be a great way to bring yourself some comfort that never goes away, even when the seasons change.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, if you've ever been considering starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's completely online, so it's easy to integrate into your schedule. BetterHelp is flexible, too. It's easy to book or move appointments on their platform. And if the therapist you're matched with isn't the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Find comfort this December with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash DAX today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com. H-E-L-P dot com slash DAX. I've said it before, but I'll tell you. I had a scene in this movie I directed where Kristen and I are in an off-road race car and we've got to drive through a barn door. And it's a real barn door.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, okay. Look at you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
We're going to break through a barn door. And on the other side, there's ramps that are this wide. And then we're going to jump two cars. And I'm directing, so I'm actually doing the whole thing. And it's dark inside the barn. It's going to be very bright when we crash through the thing. And then I got to hit these little ramps. And we're sitting in the car right before we're about to go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And the stunt coordinator, my friend DeCastro, goes, how are you doing? I go, I'm good. He goes, how nervous are you? And I go... If stand-up is a 10, I'm at a 4. And that's a real comp for me. Jumping a car over other cars is like 40% as scary as stand-up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I don't want you to be nervous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's just you. And when it goes bad and you know you have another 18 minutes, there's really nothing like it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, big time. That's very true. You might think it's got to be a town of a bunch of people who really thought they were awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay, so by the time you get to Fresh Prince, my question about that is, the show starts with Will Smith?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Right, because he was a producer of that, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Uh-huh. Yeah. I had the original eye for Monica. I was the casting director for Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I find that so hard to believe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I'm blown away that you would remember that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I was going to say, I think his story is, and we're very good friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
We stayed very, very close. You want to talk about casting. So I didn't make it through any of the rounds at MTV for Punk'd. I was in a discarded pile of tapes that didn't get advanced to the producers. And Kutcher had seen everyone they had basically circled. And he's like, no one has the vibe. Let me see the people that were rejected. And I was one of the people rejected. So my entire career.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He had done 70 shows. And he had done Just Married. So he was like newly a movie star.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So he dug me out. And so, yeah, my gratitude for him is off the charts. But what I wanted to own my baggage with casting directors. You do? I do. I'll tell you why. It's all my insecurity, which was I was auditioning for nine years in commercials and I couldn't get them. I just couldn't book anything. I booked two in nine years. I came to view casting directors as people who didn't get me. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And she was in our friendship group, but kind of a newer member.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I'm like, they don't get me. I can't get through this layer to anybody. And then the time that I finally did break through, it turned out, if we believe Ashton, I still hadn't gotten through the casting director. So I just had it in my mind, they don't like me. But I have to believe, hopefully, these creators might like me. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yes. I was so insecure. I had been almost a decade. We can eliminate that in the world. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, and I said, that gal's really smart. Like, she's a very smart, interesting person. Every time I talk to her, we argue, and she's a worthy adversary. Then she started babysitting and then full-time nanny, then started working with Kristen, then became Kristen's writer, producer, everything. It was before Good Place. Before Good Place. No, because House of Lies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I just had it in my mind because I was so insecure that for whatever reason, they don't like me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I don't think I was stupid enough to be mean.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I don't think I was dumb enough to not be warm. I just really had it in my head. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. I felt like casting directors knew people I was friends with and no one really knew me and I was so insecure. And so I got it in my mind, I've got to get to the other people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Somehow I've got to jump over this gate that's in front of me and get to those people. Because, again, when I finally got hired on a TV show, it was from the creator of the show. Oh, yeah. I got such limited data, and I'm telling this huge story based on this very limited data, and I'm completely wrong. And then I come to find out, like, you're saying you liked me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, we talk about them all the time. Like, you know the names of so many casting directors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
She was so delightful. I was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, yes, I've hired her. Oh, yes, she's good. I put her in Chips. You sure did. And I put her in the only commercial I ever directed. I love Chips. But I can't do it. Oh, God bless you. Okay. Nobody did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Curb Your Enthusiasm, 99. You were still on to the end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You would have had to play yourself on Curb.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I don't think I was famous enough to play myself. And then I was too famous to play.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, you're right. There was this huge talent pool that no one was really looking at.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Suffice to say, Kristen was entirely dependent on Monica, to a degree you can't imagine. Oops. And then we started this, and then it was accidentally very successful, and then I had to say, I'm going to have to steal her full time. And she, of course, was generous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
There was a great little boom because it was kids in the hall and then the state and then Ben Stiller had a sketch show and then you had Mr. Show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
A whole new genre. Yes. Yeah, we had Jack Black on and I was telling him, you know, I used to go to the live tapings of that show and it seemed like just the most impenetrable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Allison Jones. She comes up a bunch over the years. She's helped numerous people in their careers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I did. Was he in Tie-Dye? Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So that was going to be one of my questions. Do you get a swell of pride when you see like a Chris Pratt? I do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You cast Parks and Rack. Yes. If it's not obvious, you're the only casting director we've ever invited in. Oh, thank you. And largely because I have someone who didn't learn about casting directors like Monica did. Mm-hmm. I started noticing, I'm like, this Veep cast is impossible. Who on earth figured out that all these people were this level of brilliance?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And that's why I think Veep when I was like, oh, it's you. And then I was like, oh, and right. And the other impossible cast would have been Parks and Rec. Wow, you did that. And you've had several of those. It's just impossible, the level of collective talent and unknown. And I realized, oh, you're a big, big, big piece of that. Genius.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's kind of like for me when I realize, oh, John Bryan, the composer, might have as much to do with the Paul Thomas Anderson movies that I like because Eternal Sunshine I also like in the same way and he has composed both. That's like a revelation. Oh, maybe I love John Bryan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And I love that. Okay, so you do, you get a swell of pride when Chris Pratt. Oh, God, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I guess here's my question. Because Kristen and I were at a hotel once. And he and Annie were there. And we ended up hanging out for three days. I'm like, this guy is so radical. He's so real. He's from Oregon. He was a wrestler.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. I bet. What does Kristen need to do? Keep on keeping on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
She's a dramatic actress. She would, and then I always talk her out of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I don't talk her out of it. I remind her of what life she wants, which is she wants to be at home seeing her kids. She doesn't want to be on location. She wants manageable hours. She wants to know she can drive the kids to school if she wants to. So going away to, you know, Georgia for four months is a down and dirty drama. Yeah, forget the MCU universe for Kristen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Uh-huh, you cast that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And I'm going to add, and people will be mad about this, comedy is straight up harder than drama.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
There's so many tools that can be employed in a drama to help you. You could have no look on your face and do the perfect push in and the right song.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
There's no cheating a joke. You can't cheat a laugh. You can put a fart noise in or something, but in general, it works or it doesn't work. There's no manipulating it. You can't put the perfect song in all of a sudden. No, of course not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
They do try. And it's generally generic. Okay. Can you think of some people that you really... went to the mat over that didn't get it, that then turned out to be huge. Do you feel like you've got some great vindicated stories?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, the first two episodes, we were a little, Bill was one of the early ones. He might have even been the one that kind of broke it where I was like, okay, I'm comfortable here. I like this. I can pretend this is my living room. But Allison, this is a great first question. So you have spent the last, I don't know how many years since 82. Are we starting? Oh yeah, we're always rolling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Can you think of someone that you were like, you just battled and lost?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, you've navigated lots of different eras in this business. Oh, we say it all the time. So if you're working with a director, they're casting their third movie or show and you've cast hundreds. How do you manage not saying like, you're wrong, you're going to have to trust me. This is my expertise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Uh-huh. You deal with a lot of egos, Zia. Yeah, you do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I got to tell you this. This is the truth. Generally, I research people and then in the process of researching them, there's some curiosities that kind of surface. I've never sat down and just had questions like I have for you. No, please. Have you developed a radar for who's going to be problematic? Like they might be genius level in the room, but do you think you've gotten good at going?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, this person is talented, but it's not going to be worth the work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, is that true? So more often you'll hear, don't work with her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Because she has an opinion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
What pisses you off the most in the casting process?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh God. Okay. Okay, this is wonderful. You've spent from 82 to 2024. So that's 42 years of watching humans walk into a room with a ton of anxiety. Maybe the peak anxiety they'll have. 83, thank you. 83? Okay, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. Okay. What are your thoughts about improvising in an audition?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Which maybe I can't. No. I've kind of gone like this. And again, I'm not giving this advice to any actor at all. I don't think this is a good strategy. Here's what I told myself at some point. I'm like, I'm better if I can make this thing a little bit mine. I'll be different. It might anger you, but I'll be memorable. I've got to be me because this is who you're going to deal with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So actually, it's a favor for all of us if we find out now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
there are other people that are much better at this if that's what you want than i am here's the thing i can do well maybe that'll appeal to you or not like at some point i feel like maybe it was just an attempt to get some control over the experience which feels very powerless of like i'm gonna give you what i am and maybe you'll like it maybe you'll hate it yeah i think that's great
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
When they leave, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, what do you think about coming in character and foregoing the chit-chat?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That makes sense. 41 years. Yeah. Of watching people come in nervous. And I guess maybe the layperson would assume that would inoculate you to nervousness, like you would somehow... No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's got to be project specific, right? Drama? Yes. I've come into things. I remember I almost got on True Detective. So I go into that and I'm like, you know what? I want to get to the acting as quickly as possible because I am funny in real life and I'm joyous. And then I don't want to have that huge radical shift.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
For you, I'd rather just come in, be polite and do the thing and let you see that I can be a badass and then leave. But I don't know. I feel like it's project specifically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
The whole car right there. The lobby is the worst. The lobby is you're listening to other great comedians talk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yep. She's an award-winning casting director. Just, you know, a few of her impossibly long resume. Barbie, Veep, The Office, Freaks and Geeks, Career Enthusiasm, Parks and Rec.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, you're already nervous, and then you see, these four guys are definitely better than me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Honest to God. That's gracious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. What's the number one mistake you see actors make?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's what actors do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You got to be good and you got to be confident because then it won't hurt you, in my opinion. I could see someone going, this is a little scary. I need to know the real person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. What percentage of that nervousness for you when you've gotten to that last layer of the audition process? Yeah. Is you rooting for someone that you are championing versus I really want the people that employed me to be very happy with where we've gotten?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay, what's the hardest role you've ever had to cast? Meaning you read the most amount of people and traveled the greatest distance. McLevin. Oh, really?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And they knocked me out. We heard he was a casting assistant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a million questions about exactly that coming later. But I want to start in Massachusetts. I have a hard time saying it, but you grew up in a Boston suburb. I did. Needham, Massachusetts. And what did mom and dad do?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, I mentioned a new thing. This wasn't one of my questions, but it just occurred to me talking about technology. Clearly now a big driver of who gets cast is like what their following is. Not in what I work on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
How about this? What percentage of the roles on the shows and movies that you're casting already have stars attached?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Right. We got Dax Shepard. Right. Well, let's not play it too fast and loose. We got Monica Padman and Dax Shepard. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yes. So what is your preference? Do you like to start with a clean slate or do you like that? Oh, I'd love to start with a clean slate. The Office, we started with a clean slate. And would you prefer to break unknowns? In comedy, for sure. It's got to be more rewarding for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Have you had people who you know are so talented and you've seen them be so talented and they just can't audition? Oh, plenty, especially in comedy. Yeah. And is it heartbreaking?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, I got to say one of the, I think, more difficult things about this job is I don't know how good Daniel Day-Lewis is as an auditioner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He probably would be. It's a different skill set. It's almost the closest they'll get to stand up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And do you have siblings? Oh, no, I know this. You're the second youngest of six. I am.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, okay, so let's talk about Once Upon a Time. I gotta say, in the last 10 years, the performance that has blown my mind more than any other, and I watch the movie all the time, is Once Upon a Time. Leonardo DiCaprio in that movie is so next level. I don't think people are recognizing that he's playing three levels of actor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He is an actor, playing an actor, who's okay sometimes, and then he has a moment where he's great. Exactly. But he's not as great as Leonardo DiCaprio can be great. Yeah. He's as great as that actor can be. When you see what's going on in that scene and what he's having to juggle, it's so impressive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Boys, girls? Three boys, three girls. How wonderful of your mother to nail it like that, the ratio.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, Alison Jones, this has been such a delight. And a delight for me. I could talk to you guys for hours. Oh, same. You're the best. You're so sweet and wonderful. Well, I guess my single last question is, you refuted my claim of 42 years, but it is 41 years. It might be 41 and a half, but just say 41. How on earth have you kept your stamina to stay hungry? And your job is so hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
The hours are so crazy. How have you stayed hungry and dialed in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You're like a doctor that has to do managed care now with an insurance provider. Exactly. Yeah. Perfect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, we're super honored that you could chat with us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, then you're missing out on that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, it's literally the same. Fuck, I forgot one question I want to answer. This is a nosy question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
When you have a track record like yours and someone wants to cast a comedy, starting with you is like starting with Jimmy Burroughs. Thank you. Do you get to participate ever? In the success of a show? No, and I wish I had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I feel like you should be a participant with your level. You should be so rich.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's kind of like when you're a director of a TV show, you get the DGA minimum. It doesn't matter if you've had a great career. Now, if you're Burroughs, you can obviously negotiate ownership of the show to do the pilot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, oh my God. Warner bought the fucking Red Sox. Yeah, I know, I know. Yeah. Although again, that too has changed. What do you mean? It's changed. Well, Seinfeld would sell into a cycle of syndication for $800 million. And in the streaming world, none of these shows that have been on the air for six years get sold into syndication. People don't get, like Mike Schur, one of my questions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I said, Mike, do you ever lament the fact that if you had the exact same career you had in the 80s and 90s, you would have $800 million? He goes, yeah, I think about that a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay, well, Allison, I look forward to seeing you again. We adore you. This has been so fun. I'm so glad you agreed to do it. And I hope your nerves dissipated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I'm one of three. You're allowed to ask as many questions as you want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You're definitely getting called back to producers. I can tell you in the room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I think he's a, I don't know what the word is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I was going to say fighter. That's not right. I don't, clinger. Like maybe he's, because I wouldn't call a sloth a fighter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
By God, can they hang upside down indefinitely?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That is true. So maybe he's sloth-like?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And for the holiday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
What is that thing, Monica? Is that a person or a reindeer or a ram?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Those horns should be kind of informative, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Is this a big old reindeer with two big horns?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Are those his ears or hers? I shouldn't genderize.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I see some metal antennas. I thought those were reindeer horns.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yep, and to put it on the very top made it leave frame.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, he's almost summited that tree. He's a he. Yeah, let's call it what it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay, so we just scrambled, right? Because we're setting up for the holiday episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's a bonus extra episode. Yes. On the 20th.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's the 20th is when it's coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Of course, it's going to be everywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, big time. You're going to have some A-list singers dropping through. Going to have some present reveals. Going to have a lot of decor. This is only a taste of what Wobby Wob's got more stuff planned. As he does. This tree has been stolen from my daughter's room. So I had a really great meditation this morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's been a long time since I had a great one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I think what adds up to it is like, can I stop ruminating? Can I not think... about our employers during my meditation. Can I achieve that goal?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And so I got kind of, I took a different tactic with my mantra a little bit, which was no one's, and we don't need to get this in detail, but I was just literally like, say, you have to say the mantra five times and just concentrating with some limited thing. Then I could buy myself five more. All to say, when it's really great, I... Lose a sense of my body, which is really fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Like I know how I'm sitting, but I can't really feel my hands or my legs anymore. I can tell them to kind of detach from my body. And then I'll often get blasts of light. I'll start seeing like lights in my, there's a word for this in TM, but I don't know what it is. I've heard Howard talking about it. But I'll get some light activity in my detached state from my body.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And anyways, when I came out of it, and that's why I'm telling you about it, is when it ended, all by myself in my room, I said, hey, y'all, really great meditation. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It was. That's great. That's the power of TM. It opened up my creative channels enough to go, hey, y'all, really great meditation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And then I thought, of course, need to have an app that just at the end of your thing, you hear... Hey, y'all, really great meditation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, man, I'm afraid to even think about that. I mean, I know I've gotten a bunch and I've certainly forgotten people and it's going to...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
As much as I love, this is my holiday, as you know. It's my favorite. God, do I cherish every day of it. In fact, I hate that it's coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I hate that there'll be a day where it ends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And so the girls will be like, they're in a hurry. And I'm like, no, no, no, guys, just pump the brakes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Enjoy. It's so much more fun anticipating it. But the only part I can't stand about it is the test of your love for others by how thoughtful your gift was. And then I was thinking, I got a little cynical for a minute. I was like, they really got us with this racket. I mean, what an incredible racket.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
For consumerism. It's like, you have to go buy something for everyone you care about. Yeah. That's the rules. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. What if at Christmas morning, everyone sat around and you go, I thought about you. Like that was the president.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, that'd be like the Grinch who stole Christmas. Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You know this. This is a blast from the past. But Crosby's houseboat, which was in Sausalito Harbor in real life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
The first time we ever shot on it, it was an actual boat. And then it, of course, was on a soundstage down here. But it was originally in Sausalito. Two boats over from Crosby's boat was Dr. Seuss's boat. He had a houseboat in Sausalito.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It was still his boat. I guess it was his wife's at that point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
She was in 2000, but whatever year we filmed the pilot. Wobby Wob, give us a update on Mrs. Seuss.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, okay. Died in 2018. Yeah, that's way after we shot. Another blast from the past. Are you ready for this? Yes. Some scholarly detective armchairy. A lot of people don't know this whole thing because they came in at COVID. My endless fucking thing about the American soldiers getting the English women pregnant during World War II.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
They found the book I'm talking about. You know who wrote it? Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss. No, Margaret Mead. That's a Margaret Mead book. It's almost impossible to get. There's like five libraries in the country. What's it called? I could tell you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Tell you right frigging now. But not only am I not insane that I imagined that whole thing, it's Margaret Mead, godmother of anthro. It's called The American Troops and the British Community, an examination of the relationship between the American troops and the British by Margaret Mead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay. Her conclusion was culturally in America, women have the brake pedal, men have the gas pedal. But in England, men have the brake pedal, women have the gas pedal. You get a couple of folks with a gas pedal. I had an anecdotal experience with a gal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Who I adore. Yeah. What a gift. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, I remember it as being like 50-50, but... Oh, okay. But in my pursuit of figuring out what the hell I had read, of course, I stumbled upon a bunch of other academic papers on this same topic, because there's this huge term, war babies. There was like this, yeah. And so one of the theories or conclusions was, Another element is that in America, kissing's nothing. Anyone will kiss.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
any impossibly great comedic ensemble where you're like where did they find all these geniuses it's almost always going to be Allison Jones it is it's her track record is so insane and it goes so far back I didn't realize that it was fun to learn about like the early yes
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You kiss on a first date, whatever. But that in the steps of progression in England in 1942, kissing was very far down the road. You would have held hands. You would have done all this other stuff. Like, I guess kissing was like, you're there. If you've committed to kissing, you're pretty much committed to banging.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And so there was some miscommunication there where the American GIs were like, let me put one on you. And then those gals were like, oh, my God, this is what I think we're going to have. Oh, wow. Sexual intercourse. This is so intimate. Not as intimate as holding hands.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That would be so weird to be dating you, head of made out, rolled around, lots of sex, go to grab your hand and you always pull it away. That would be freaky.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, yeah. Like high school cheerleader. Were they Irish twins?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, like let's do anal, but let's not do this. Way too intimate. Way too intimate. Where do you think that stems from?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Grab that hand when it's time to propose. I hold hands on the ride to school every morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
If I'm in the car with them and they're in the front seat, we're holding hands.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Handholding is very nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Very intimate for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Right. And so you what I'm grateful for is you have experienced how I mostly experience buying presents. I hope they like this. This will do. They'll know I thought of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Sure, you got good taste.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I've already had some mix-ups. Okay. So use your gift guide. Everyone should.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
The only thing I could get is when I'd be on the website and then I'd start sniffing around for other items. Sure. Those glasses, those adorable glasses, which they didn't have the first time I was at that website.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It took like a season, maybe. I think so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Then I was there for some other business. So anyways, I sent them to my sister-in-law.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And they arrived and they just opened up the box and then she sends me a text. I like these. I'm like, how could you have thought? You didn't have to wait till Christmas. But it's not her fault. It's not her fault. Slow down. Slow down, Dax. She goes, oh my God, I'm so, your brother feels terrible. So what happened was the box came, my brother just opened it. Of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Did you have fantasies about show business as a kid? Or how did this all come to be? How did you end up at Pomona College?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He knows I didn't get him a fucking set of glasses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So he just like, thanks, got you these glasses. But clearly it's Christmas. You want to hear the gross thing I did too? Yeah, what'd you do? So she's like, oh, I like them. And then I'm like, I need her to know they're not kids. I didn't get those at McDonald's. I didn't get them at a fast food restaurant. I'm like, so I respond. Yeah, those are Monica's fancy glasses. Like I enlisted you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I was like, yeah, she'll she knows if I said these are Monica's, she's going to go like, oh, he spoiled me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Is that store not in America?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay, great. So this is a grievance I have. I went nuts there. And they use DHL, which I guarantee is a phenomenal service. This is no shade DHL, but I think it must work easier in Europe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
This is a ton of texts and it just standard as a signature. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Fucking standards, no signature guys, unless I say signature. So then I got to go every single item I bought from that place, which is a lot. I had to go and fill out the forms to make sure that they could be left on the porch. But after, but I have my texts from DHL. I probably have 40 texts from DHL in the last week. And every time I think now, no, this one's just an update.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's not the consent form for the no signature. I already did that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Listen to my complaints in life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I just got completely ashamed of my complaints in life. Like we live in an era where I can see something that's gorgeous and then it'll arrive somewhere and I'm like so flummoxed by it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I had to click my phone twice. It's true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
To it being quicker and quicker and quicker and easier and easier.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And like, it's about time, like actually frustrated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, when I try to explain to the kids that like, yeah, I had a cassette tape. It was 60 minutes long. If I want to listen to my favorite song over and over again, I had to rewind forever. And then who knows where you land?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You can't land on your song.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You're always going to be listening to the back half of a song you don't want to listen to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You're in all black today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, very smart outfit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I don't want to do this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Let me guess. Your shoes and socks aren't white. They're titanium white.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I'm ensnared in it. Here we go. There's no way those are navy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I can't sit here and have you saying those are navy. It's the same color as your shirt. On the TV, it kind of looks navy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You have something on Rob. You both have great points. I think it could be both.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay. I would prefer you go like. these aren't Navy. That's the kind of reaction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You don't think that's funny?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Right, it was like big surf culture.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, unfortunately, that's actually the script supervisor's job, which is so unfair because they don't give a fuck what you say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Those are pretty substantively different. No, they're not. I think so. I think so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's really good. You sold it this time. So I'll try that. I'll do one your way and then you pick in the edit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's kind of a new read on it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It was like an acting exercise. I didn't want to do exactly how you did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, didn't I? No, I was doing yours.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's lunch, everybody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I like the idea of that Rob leaves for lunch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
A baby pun. A behavioral pun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Back to why you're in all black. No real reason, just that's your outfit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, yeah. Dressed to impress. Dressed to impress.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Why did you look down at your.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, okay. I go, dressed to impress, and you go. This is my outfit. I'm just repeating what just actually happened. We could rewind the tape.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Tell me I dressed to impress you. Even though you know where it's going.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Wouldn't that be a wild...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, no. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry if that was inappropriate. Anyway. Anywho. I know where we were at. Really great meditation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Good, me too. I watched A Christmas Story last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And I was like, why don't they, they know good shit. Why are they acting like they don't like this movie? I really couldn't accept it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And then I was watching it and they weren't there. And I was like, yeah, it's probably a little slow for them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I could admit that. And it made me very nostalgic for back when there was like a downtown and it was decorated. Because when I was a kid, Detroit still had like, Hudson's did a big Christmas display. You could go meet Santa and you go to Saunders Ice Cream and have a cream puff. And it was a whole thing. There was a, there was a parade and then Cobble Hall had this thing and.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You know, that opening shot where they go, it's a wide, it's in Cleveland in the 50s. Higby's, you remember? Their department store was Higby's and it was lit up beautifully and a really great window display with train sets. It made me so nostalgic and sad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. And you know what? Instead of like trying to get my kids to like it, what I do, I go, oh, my father-in-law was born in Cleveland and this is the era of his childhood. So I'm like, hey, do you love a Christmas story? He's like, who doesn't? I go, yeah, but you particularly, you grew up in Cleveland. And then he was like, is it set in Cleveland? Then he sent me this whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He's like, oh my God, you're right. Higby's. I used to go to Higby's every, and then he had a whole story about Higby's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Because it's slow and boring. It's not a good movie. No, it's so good. And Ralphie, if anyone's going to, has yet to watch it and they're still going to watch it. What I want people to dial in most specific, the cutest thing he does, Peter Billingsley, i.e. Ralphie, his tongue is so busy in that movie. And it is one of the cutest things I've ever seen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Like when he's doing the decoder ring and he's like, hey Ralphie. And they know it, too, because all of a sudden you just go to an extreme close up of his little mouth with that little tongue darting around. And anytime he's reading out loud or he's thinking he's in front of his class, he's like having this fantasy that his teacher loved his essay. And she's on the chalkboard, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You just had seen it on TV.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
A plus, A plus. And they go to him and he's just wistfully thinking of this. He's like, his little tongue is darting around his face. Oh, is it cute?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
No, he's impossibly good for a nine-year-old in that movie. It's crazy how good he is. But just any time he's thinking. The Shepherds, we stick our tongue out when we're concentrating really hard. You do? You've not noticed that? I don't have it quite as bad as my dad and my brother and my uncle. But yeah, if I'm really going after something, my tongue comes out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I didn't have access to it unless I was at my dad's every other weekend or whatever, once a month. Because we lived kind of out in the sticks. We didn't have a good antenna. I had to go to a friend's house if I wanted to watch Dukes of Hazzard. But when I was at my dad's, my brother and I, all we did from the second we got up until three in the morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And we all do it. Yeah. So his just seemed like the thing he does when he's like distracted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
This would be out all of a sudden.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Like I'm expressing like, like I want to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
This is going to become an inappropriate fact check. And I want to apologize to the Christmas listeners.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Because of my previous thing about you going like this. And then now I'm just going like, like, hey, look, all of a sudden that looked kind of inappropriate. And I just want to clean it up for the holidays.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. It's great for singles and couples, not people with children. It's all about children for us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Your days of having sex by the fire are completely over the day your first kid arrives. What about if they're asleep? You can't fucking run the, why not fuck on the island in the kitchen?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
No way. Rob, are you and Natalie fucking in the open house at all? No, never.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Do you ever jerk off in front of that fireplace with no one's home? You know the thing I hate that I can't not think of, and I don't know if this is urban legend or real, but allegedly, rumor, urban legend, little boy who puts his tongue on the pole, gets his stuck to the pole, he did a porno when he grew up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's because of that. But I don't like that I'm watching this movie and all I can think of is this little boy grows up and does a porno. Which, by the way, it's fine if you do pornos. I don't even know why it's – I don't care if you've done a porno.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
But I don't think when people go into movie acting, their goal is to then graduate to pornos. I think you probably come out here to do movies, you start in pornos, and maybe you graduate. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Detroit. Oh, Detroit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Right. Unless it's a dad and a son. He's like, boy, I hope you find your way over to pornos.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Let me ask you this. Now, this one I know is real. Double check, Rob, so I don't get sued. But I do believe Screech was in an adult film.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, yeah. And Atlanta.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. And does it impact when you're watching Saved by the Bell? Are you thinking like...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That he did a porno.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Again, like it's not what they were wanting or aiming to do and that maybe they were in financial straits and then people knew that they would be a draw. It doesn't, it sounds like someone maybe compromised. Well, he put it out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
What a classy title. It's, I'm lucky I never ended up in one. I mean, let's be honest. I was unemployed for nine years. Oh no. And I was, you know, I was a party animal. I could have ended up in one. And boy, God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I mean, I don't know. You're somewhere. You're drunk. You meet like six porn stars at a thing. Everyone's having fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You got no money. You like having sex.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I'm just saying that I'm lucky that never happened is what I'm saying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
How dare you ask that question in public?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Have I ever filmed myself?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I had to really think about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I think I've run some video on, you know... But I don't want to say anything because it's not... I don't want to say... Who?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yes, but I think I've run some video on some nudity in my day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Did I ever set up a tripod?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, you got your video camera out and you're like shooting in your thing and then your girlfriend's naked and then you film her because you want to look at it later at some point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I think that's awesome. They're having fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Like most married couples with household children do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Smorgasbord of offerings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
This is our last new interview of the year. How about that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And it was a great year. It was a great year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Closed really strong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay. So I saw a comment yesterday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That was like, when is Monica going to talk about Pantone? They were like nervous and worried.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Is it the color of your skin?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
There's a lot of shades of brown.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Modest mousse? What's it called?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Mocha mousse. It's not as dark as yours, so... I'm doing tongue-in-cheek. This is the holidays.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That they brown mouse, brown mouse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That is a good omen. It's going to be an incredible year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
What do you do with that color? Are you ordering items now in that color? Like, do you adjust anything in your life?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
OK, so that's one thing. That's an actionable step.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay, there's nothing else. It's not like when they announced this color, are there collaborations where now different companies you can order the Pantone?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Do you know what I would call that color? And again, I know this is xenophobic. It's not really, but nude. That color just looks like nude to me, like nude before they got wise to that's not what everyone looks like nude, but nude undergarments. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's almost like a peach.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's this year? That's not Moose Knuckle?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh. I thought you already had it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
See, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, the one you're holding up looks very nude.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Light brown person. Colorism. It's even, it's even.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay. That, yeah. Wait, hold that up again. Now it looks darker. Oh, this is much. What has happened? Are you sure? I think you might've held up the pink.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Something goes, zoom out. It's like 10 shades darker. That's your, almost your skin color.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Could it have quadrupled since the last time you Googled it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
All right. Let's just say the last time you looked at it up, it was 22 grand a year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Who knows? But I... Just go there and then find out. When you get the bill, tell us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's crazy. Still adjusting to that info.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Because you're an Anne Hathaway super fan?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Right, from your Shakespearean knowledge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
We need to interview her to get to the bottom of whether or not that was intentional or not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It would kind of confirm the story I've made up about her in my head. Okay. Which I feel like she was just born to be an actor. Oh. Like, I feel like she's probably been acting since she was one years old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay. Is that her real age? No, I didn't see it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Please, Anne. Even if the interview's 30 seconds and you tell us whether that was intentional or not, we'll take what we can get.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
yeah really really cool and then just a sweetheart love her so please enjoy allison jones we are supported by pokemon and their incredible pokemon trading card game the pokemon trading card game is a gift this holiday season that will delight gamers collectors and pokemon fans alike parents maybe you grew up collecting pokemon or watching the show on saturday mornings well i'm
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I'll dress up as Bill Shakespeare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You are so mean to people of color. And I'm here to be an advocate and an ally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I am very disappointed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so when you get to Pomona, is this true that at Pomona, you find kind of a comedy geek culture?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
No, you'll be a moose knuckle. Pantone moose knuckle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh my, so many good things. Very even age number for me. I love that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Brown mouse for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's a quarter of a century.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, because I was born in 75.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Now they run the world. Now they run the world. Yeah, remember Revenge of the Nerds was like this preposterous scenario where the nerds would defeat the jocks and now the world is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. So you had a visual arts major there. And what was your goal with that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You're inching your way towards LA.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
For people who don't know, Pomona is like 60 miles out and Glendora is like 35 miles out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. So you leave there. How on earth do you end up at Family Ties as a casting director?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Buy some time and get a job, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I totally think that's true because even when I graduated in 2000, all in was $3,800 a year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
People were still smoking and drinking all day long?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Your friend is like your guidance counselor. She is my guidance counselor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's a bonding. It was a total bonding thing. It's like friendships forged in war.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Do you remember what about the casting process interested you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
How fun would it be to bond with your kids over Mewtwo's psychic prowess? Or how Pokemon can evolve from a cute Charmander to a fiery flying Charizard? Games are such a great way to get the whole family together. And if you don't already know how to play, no worries, because it only takes minutes to learn. Plus, Pokemon cards are not just fun to play with, they're also a joy to collect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's why I think this episode will be so fascinating because you just are presented with this show. You're very far removed from Hollywood. In the best case scenario, you're just buying into the notion these are real kids in high school in Beverly Hills, 90210. You're not even considering, oh, that's an actor and...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And the notion that there's a whole rung of this industry that's in charge of scouting, finding and getting those people in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined by Sticky Brain. Sticky Brain, my new nickname. Your new moniker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I really do recommend you go see him live. There's really nothing like it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
He's going to flatter you if you want to hear that you're young.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And as I've been talking about lately, we're listening to his short stories every night before bed. There's one-offs before bed. It's just, it makes me so happy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, yeah, yeah. Do they have some symbols above their alphabet, too, they play with?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I've used his name in many movies if I have to improv because it has such a great alliteration. So Ken Kennedy, he lived in Novi, Michigan, and he grew up on Buckminster Way. And one night he was coming home from work and he got pulled over by a cop and the cop came up to the window. License and registration.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Looks at his thing and goes, do you have any idea why I pulled you over tonight, Mr. Buckminster? He saw his street name. I thought his name was Buckminster. Like really trying to hand it to him. It was a big mistake. It was a street name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Something specific that you could actually answer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, it's just like getting through every single thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
That's interesting because I don't want to get political. But when I was sounding the alarm a year ago going, guys, Biden, he's too old. We must have another option. And people were offended by that. My analogy was if you got on an airplane and Biden came out of the cockpit and I was like, you know, you get the fuck off. It isn't running this huge country more important than flying one airplane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I thought that was a good analogy. It was big. Thank you so much. It's probably tied with your Down syndrome analogy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
People are like, do you watch the debate? And I'm like, no, no, I would never watch that. I don't want to see like on YouTube years ago, bum fighting, right? They pay two homeless guys to fight. I don't want to see that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You haven't heard of bum fighting? Oh, it's so nasty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
What did you do? Every now and then you're on a show and it goes somewhere and you're like, fuck, I'm just standing now in this situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yes. There should be some mention of bum fighting if you look that word up in the dictionary. Is that the word? Exploitative?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I have a similar situation. And really who it bit the most in the ass was Kristen, which was I was in Italy and I have a good relationship with Ducati. I got to tour the factory where they make the motorcycles in Bologna. And the tour was given to me by this very, very nice man who did not speak nearly any English. And he had a very cool vintage Ducati leather jacket on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And I had mentioned two or three times how awesome his jacket was. And at the end, he took off the jacket and he tried to give it to me. And I was like, oh, no, no, I absolutely cannot accept this vintage jacket. I was successful in not taking the jacket, but I was so moved by this gesture. He said, oh. I'm going to Los Angeles. And I was like, you must stay with us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I was really panicked because the gesture was so nice and he fucking did. This man came for a week at our old house and I was working the whole week shooting a show and Kristen wasn't working. There was just an Italian man in our house that spoke almost no English.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, exactly. I regret not taking the jacket after he was there day seven.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Were you doing readings in Australia? Yeah. Okay, so you two are worldwide. Yeah. What are some of the countries? Australia. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not in a position to judge. I haven't had 11. God. I want an update from you. Where are you at on your smile journey? Because we've kind of caught you throughout your progress. You had gotten all your teeth fixed, but you were telling us that even though they're fixed, you still just have this muscle memory where you hate to smile.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Maybe they were in love. I got to pick the right species that would be smart enough to be consenting. Like maybe they were in love with a small chimpanzee and they wanted to consummate the relationship. We've talked about this a lot. Like, is there an animal that is morally fine to be in love with? And we've concluded that female humans can guilt free date male dolphins.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Because male dolphins are so horny. They constantly are getting caught trying to fuck the people they're swimming with. They're perverts. And there's these scientists that studied them and the dolphins fucked some of the scientists. We don't think it's right for a male human to fuck a female dolphin. But vice versa is totally fine with us. What's your verdict on that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Because bonobo chimps are famously very horny. So I think I'd be fine with a male bonobo chimp dating a female.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Okay. But ethically. It's more an ethics question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
My prized possessions are behind me. He was mad that the face wasn't turned out. And I said, I don't care about a fucking picture. I want the writing of this man I idolize.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Maybe I'll do a glass wall in my next house. And I'll hang it. And you can choose what side you want to see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
They also must be master disassociators because they can just literally leave the world and go inside their shell. You know, they can really disassociate quite literally. I read the hem of his garment this morning, which is phenomenal. It was in the New Yorker September, I guess, of last year. That's a pretty crazy story. We tell Monica that you got invited to go meet the Pope.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You listed every comedian that was invited virtually in the article. And you're like, each one of those people I would want to hang out with for sure and meet more than the Pope. But they're going to be there. So this is kind of a fast path to meet all these other people I would.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I would expect that from Fiji and not from Egypt. Where is this from? No way! That's impossible timing. You just brought up being in Egypt, there being bad postcards, and then here one arrives.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
That's what I don't understand. I would presume if I were you, oh, he wants to have some kind of dialogue. Right. As you said in the article, yeah. Why have you guys all come and then he sits in a chair and then this woman makes a speech and then that's that. What was gained from this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
It sounds more like he was acknowledging your contribution to the planet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
But he had said faggotry twice in the three weeks preceding David's arrival. He said it in Italian, but it translates to faggotry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You shook his hand. Friends of yours had advised you should kiss his ring. Then others said, no, you don't. He actually doesn't like getting his ring kissed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Did you watch Conclave? Loved it. I loved it. But you must have had a particular interest having just been there and experiencing that. Did you cry when you watched Conclave? I didn't cry. Did you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You know what's so nice about this is that I wasn't going to bring up that I haven't gotten a postcard from you in a while, but I've thought about and noticed and been scared that I haven't gotten a postcard from you in a while. And I would have never brought it up, but here one has arrived, and now I don't have anything to even ruminate about. Do you want to read it aloud? Well, I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Well, before you get to there, I need to know, are you off the dome that knowledgeable about all those articles of clothes? Or do you yourself have to do some research when you write that piece?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And they're inherently interesting, those names. Like, they're words I've never heard. So I'm like, ooh, I'm intrigued by this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Julie Louis-Dreyfus. What could be more fun than having her in tow?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
So you were trying to think of a ruse by which you'll be able to buy these robes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
They're scared you'll see all their sins just screaming across their face.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Heavyweight champion, returning number five. Yeah. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. David Sedaris. My God, I couldn't love someone more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I'm an atheist and I don't like looking at a priest. I'm like, he can see what a scumbag I am. This is his stock and trade. He's like, you fucking need to come in. I think it triggers that in people like, oh, we're in trouble.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I can't imagine anything more amusing than being on a trip to London and knowing who you are and then just looking over and seeing you strolling around in a priest's outfit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I would be dying. I'm almost jealous of anyone who saw you and knew who it was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Will you tell Monica your joke about Epstein nails?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Somehow, this one stings for some reason. I want to read this first by myself in my bed. And then maybe on the fact check.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Have you watched him? Have you seen him? Oh, you would absolutely love it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And then back to—I almost brought this up when you were talking about the Down syndrome check-in person, which is he has several family members that have Down syndrome, and he has opened up a bagel and coffee shop in the small town he's from that's run entirely by these Down syndrome people. And he goes, yeah, it's running. You know, it's up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
People go in, and it's going exactly how you think it would.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I'm glad you liked him. I think he's the funniest guy. We saw him live at the Greek, and it's the greatest stand-up I've ever seen. You would love his special.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Do your part. Oh, one thing I want to hear you talk about, a tiny bit is in the hem of his garment, you say, I'm not queer, I'm gay. Tell me the distinction between that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Okay, I'm going to read it. Thank you. Good idea. Because there's nothing incriminating, but okay. Dear Dax, have you been to Egypt? If you like being hassled and tugged on, it's the place for you. There are a hundred million stray cats there, so it's good too if you're afraid of mice. I didn't see a single one in Australia now. Sincerely, David Sedaris. These are my...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Or wouldn't you just rather be Native American or be black?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I do read the comments of this show and I had made a Boy Scout joke. I've now forgotten. It was like a Boy Scout leader and a young boy walking into the woods and they're going to go camping. I'm sure you know this one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, exactly. The little boy goes, oh man, I'm so scared. It's so dark. He goes, how do you think I feel? I'm going to have to walk out alone. It's a great joke. Someone was very mad at me. How dare you make that joke? It's disgusting. And I wrote to them. I was molested. If I earned a single thing out of that, I can fucking make that joke as many times as I want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And she goes, well, I wasn't so I don't know. And I was like, well, you weren't. And you're telling me how to deal with it. You don't have any business in this, really. That one got me mad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I have that fantasy, too. Like, I wonder if I sat and talked with them. Could we join the same reality together at some point? I do have a curiosity. Like, some of these people are very mad. I just want to go like, I would love to have lunch with you and see if at the end of that lunch you could really still feel that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, I don't want to make you uncomfortable. These are like the treasures of treasures. We have the fires. I put my journals in a huge fucking suitcase, and then I grabbed this off my wall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I think what's a little bit happened is there was a barrier of effort before where your passing thought to get to you would have involved sitting down and writing on paper and then finding an address and a stamp and all that. So you wouldn't do it. You would just let it remain a passing thought. But now you're already at the keyboard and the passing thought can come out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And so I have to often check myself and go, let's just recognize this person might not even think this. It was in their head that second and they had the keys right there and they did it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
That's kind of my policy. I don't defend myself, but I defend other people I like. I'll get involved in the comments to defend other people. You wrote a children's book, Pretty Ugly. Did people buy it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
So it was done 20 years ago, but it came out a couple of years ago. Yeah. Okay. What I love about, cause you're on Seth Meyers talking about it, but you're like, there's no message in this book for the kids. There's no lesson and there's no message. And I just loved your defense of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
The baseline of piece of shit has not really fluctuated at all. Pre or post all these great books.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Dr. Seuss was pretty good at, he wasn't beating kids over the head with anything, but you're right. There's this impulse for everyone to teach them a lesson every second they're awake. And it must be exhausting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
We did a whole episode on toilets as they vary around the world. And the German toilet in particular is designed with a landing pad so you can examine your shit to diagnose your health.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Why is there a staging area for my turd before it fucking goes into the sewer system?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Grabbable. See, I'm jealous that you have that because in all these different fears I have, like somehow I'll still end up penniless. I'm still convinced that'll happen. I would like one item that I could just put in a backpack and land somewhere and be like, OK, well, I will have rent for some time. This Picasso is going to still be valuable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I'm shocked because I didn't think I would ever wander into the area that you're a prude. I mean, you have knowledge. This is like very prudish of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
So when you guys get a hotel room, do you make sure you get a suite that has two toilets in it so that you guys can split up?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Now's the time to try to move your bowels. Yeah. This is interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I'm glad I know this about you now because I talk about it a lot. And I probably would get myself disinvited had I not known this prior to coming over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I think it's funny. I think it's very inherently funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Do you like a pant shitting story? That's my all-time favorite story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yes. Bending over to pick up some wood in the bathroom was a quarter mile away. Yeah. And I know there's cameras in there and I know I'm recognizable and I'm walking. I clearly shit my pants. Did I tell you when I got in there, the great relief was there's trash cans in all the stalls at Home Depot, which I think lets you know what the overall health of the laborers in the parking lot is like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Clearly, they had so many pairs of underwear in the bin for the paper towel that they were like, we got to put 55 gallons of trash. She can't sit in each stall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, yeah. That's a gift, though. You get immediately excited.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I think that's the recurring theme is that when you smell laziness. Literally. Fucking handle your business. It wasn't about anything other than that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I sent Monica a photo one time I was at the pharmacy and I was in line and the woman in front of me who was wearing yoga pants had shit herself. Her pants were full of shit and she was waiting in a very long line and she was so casual. And I just thought, this woman's a gangster. I couldn't do that. I had to admire the bravery and the fuck it-ness of her demeanor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I just was like, man, when I shit my pants, I'm racing to handle it. This one was like, no, I'm going to stop by the pharmacy. That's on my list. God knows where else she went. She might have gone grocery shopping.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah. There would have been a lot of offensive things for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah. What an honor to have him as our most frequent guest. If I had to pick a most frequent tie between him and Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah, we got some good ones. We got a couple of good repeat offenders. Sedaris is a humorous, a comedian, an essayist, a bestselling author, a radio contributor. He's on the television on one of those morning shows. He's got kind of an Andy Rooney vibe on set.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Okay, I was earmarking Instagram because Amy's so funny on Instagram.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
My argument is if you enjoy the image, I don't understand the difference between a nice print and the original work of art. Unless you're collecting it for an investment. But like if your claim is just I look at this and I feel a certain way, I think it's a mental trick that because there's only one of them, I feel even more differently.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
She's so great at it. I don't know where she's finding me. She is the most obscure. I implore everyone to follow Amy Sedaris on Instagram. It's probably the best follow on Instagram other than Shaquille O'Neal. Where is she finding this? Do you ask her? She's just at it all the time. She's scouring the corners, though, of the internet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, she's like a museum curator. She's not posting pictures of herself or anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I don't know her at all. I've never met her. I feel like I know her better than anyone I know who's posting actual photos of their real life. I'm like, oh, I understand her brain completely by these posts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Okay. So you don't really have one, but the team has one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I understand. But I feel like you might be able to curate some stuff as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Given the position you have on the calves, what is your thought on the Ozempic Trizepatide GLP-1?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yes, I'm so supportive of it. But I was just curious, since you put so much fucking effort into this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Although diabetics have been on this medicine for like 20 years. They do. I don't think that's a really strong objection.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
How long do you stay in the tub when you're in there? 45 minutes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You ate most of Whoopi Goldberg's dinner at the Pope invitation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Well, we should really have a meal because that could get violent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's when you know you're there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah. Same with me and my brother. Limited resources. And it was a race every time we ate. And I hate sharing. I think of myself as a very generous person. I'll buy you anything. I don't want to share any of my food. I don't enjoy it. I'd rather not do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
When we're ordering, that's where I have to start the whole process. My wife will go, oh, should we get such and such for the table? And I'll go like, well, I want one for myself. So make sure I have my own appetizer. And I feel crazy, but I can't even enjoy it because I'm racing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Well, first of all, I wouldn't tell anyone I had one. This would just be for me to sit in a room and stare at and get whatever transcendent thing you all are claiming to get from it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
But I don't mean to. I don't want four people sharing two. I want three people sharing one and I have my own.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Exactly. I want my own and then the sharing one we're all getting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, yeah. You might like this. We were in Austin six months ago and we went to Lambert's, my favorite steakhouse there. I got a ribeye. And you would know as a fellow addict. The first bite, I'm angry. I'm like, fuck, this is so good. It's going to disappear. I should have ordered two. It'd be crazy now if I ordered a second one because Monica will be waiting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I was very uncomfortable with how good it tasted and how panicked I was it was going to run out. So we went back two nights later and I got two ribeyes. I could relax and breathe and I enjoyed the shit out of both of them. But it's like, you know, when something's so good, my first thought is like, fuck, it's going to go away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Can you relate to the panic the second you recognize it's something you really love?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty great. My fetish is that same hotel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I will go just for that now. That's still the greatest gift in life is when you have a meal like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I know. I've thought of many people I know who live to eat, and I thought, I can understand that they don't want to lose their passion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
The big boys. They're like a taco shell, pasta style.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Well, you just eat half of a manicotti, I guess. I have many friends on it and they seem to still enjoy it. They just don't want to overdo it like you and I want to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Or I'm regularly at a table and people go, should we get that banana pie to have a bite?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I just don't eat dessert. I got to do some bargaining with myself. So I'm like, I'll go savory. I go as hard as I want on savory, but that's off the table for me. And I just think, look at these psychopaths. They're going to order a dessert and they're going to have a bite.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Okay, and you want to be this very specific weight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You just talked about your mom and how much you like that it reminds you of her. And I just want to say out loud, I heard you say the sweetest thing in one of these interviews I was watching where you said, my whole mission as a writer has been to make the rest of the world love my mom as much as I did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Okay. You're going on a 40 city tour. You do every single year, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Do you love being on the road? Yeah, I do. You will do a reading. And as you already know, lots of armchairs go and we hear about it all the time. Like, oh my God, I saw Sedaris and Skokie. I saw him in all these places. And you do book signings generally and they go on until they're over, right? Yeah. How long are they?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Right. Can't you get piles? Is that a thing? Isn't piles the old word for hemorrhoids?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Why do you have to force yourself to go through all of his worst moments?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I reread themes and variations today. Do you recall that story of yours? It's so good, and it's all about signing. I mean, mostly. There's so much fodder in these signings. You get so many wonderful stories. But, yeah, this woman came up to David and said, like, I put my bra back on for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah. It's interesting that it's really troubling for people with artists and art, but no one is like, guys, bad news. Einstein raped his niece. E equals MC squared. We can't touch it no more. No one has any issue with any kind of scientific breakthrough that was done by a monster. There's no moral dilemma.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Now he starts asking everyone who comes up to get a book sign. When do you take your bra off?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yes. Some of the women are like, oh, heavens no, I take it off in the car. They don't wait to get home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And I hadn't even thought of it either. Reading that story again, I was like, it must feel incredible to get that fucking bra off. Like I can actually feel the sensation of liberating these boobs that have been bound up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You're not dying to get out of it. No. Now, is there any element of that that you're like, I must protect their buoyancy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I've had girlfriends. That's why I asked. I've had girlfriends that are like, I have to keep it on until I go to bed because I don't want them to get saggy. They're thinking of maintaining the buoyancy of their breasts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
But I'll tell you this from anecdotal experience and one experiment. My testicles were getting droopier and droopier and droopier. And one of the most embarrassing moments I had, which I've told on here before, is I was shooting as a guest star on the TV show and the lead actress was not working that week. They gave me her trailer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And this is a very perverted and I'm sorry for this story, but this was 20 years ago. I already love it. I finished my last day of work and then I was told, oh, they're actually calling her in, this actress, back to her trailer. And so I started getting kind of horny with the notion that she might walk in while I was naked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And then I happened to walk by a mirror and it was a very hot day that day of shooting. And I looked and I was like, oh my God, my testicles are longer than my penis. This is a nightmare if she walked in and saw how droopy these balls are. Your dick should always be further down than your testicles. And again, this was 20 years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
It's like if this thing serves me, it's a technology I want, I don't give a fuck what the person who invented it did. Yet the art serves you. You can't really make an argument that one's more important than the other. Yet there is this very arbitrary distinction we make between scientists who are pedophiles and shit and then artists that were.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And I was like, where are these balls going to be when I'm fucking 50? Like, I'll have to tuck them in my socks. That's what I was in route to. Then I did a movie. I guess it was 10 years ago, nine years ago. And in the scene, I had to wear me undies. They were tight. They were boxer briefs. And I was like, oh, I actually like these. And I switched to those kind of panties.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And David, my testicles are half the length that they were when I was wearing boxers for a decade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I'll never call a woman's undergarments panties, but I exclusively will call men's panties panties.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
We're going to have to do some Googling. I could have put mine in a ponytail.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
That's the problem. I have seen enough documentaries about nudist colonies. It's just not what you want it to be. It doesn't attract the people you want to see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, it's not sexy. You don't want it to be sexy. It's not sexy. If there's dick and balls around, I'm going to stare at them. I can't imagine myself getting immune to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, that's my straight privilege. I can totally stare at dicks and balls. Yeah. And no one thinks anything. It's not dangerous for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Well, my bigger issue is it's always the same thing. No one's worried about a trans man going into the bathroom. They're worried about a trans woman going into the girl's bathroom. So they believe that this person is a predator who will abuse children. And they're like, they can't be in the girl's bathroom. They must be in the boy's bathroom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
There's no concern that the boys are going to get molested by this predator. It's just like they're with girls. They can't be with girls. They must be with the young little boys. Nothing got safer. You prioritize little girls getting molested over little boys. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
It's craziness. And how you're monitoring this. Let's say it passed. No trans women in the bathroom. Is someone at the door checking dicks and genitals? Is that what we're all signing up for? No trans men in the bathroom. I have to show my dick and balls to go into the... I mean, try to work out how it's going to be enforced, and I'm not clear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Most hardcore racists, they've never even been in class with a black kid. They don't know any black folks. They hate them, but they've never, ever even met them. It's generally the case.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You want Coleman Domingo to come live in your house? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, my God. Do you know him? No. Oh, he is as special as they get.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
He's tall. He's got gorgeous legs. He was wearing short shorts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, he's crazy into fashion. Okay, but I want to really, really beg people to go see you in person reading your stuff. It's so, so fun. I've done it. And you're going to 40 cities in... I think people would be shocked how close you'll probably be to where they live. It's not like you're just in major cities. You're in Akron. You're in Fort Wayne. You're in Burlington, Albany.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You're all over the place. People should go to davidsiderisbooks.com and get tickets. It's such a fun evening. And if you want to hear him ask you a weird question, very high likelihood that'll happen if you stay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
in line you'll talk to everybody and you'll write something very inappropriate in their book you'll ask them a very inappropriate question it promises to be a real experience well that's nice of you yeah and also for anyone who's not listened to the audio book of happy go lucky i really recommend it because themes and variations that recording of that story is from a live show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And the amount of laughs in that, you don't pound for pound hear comedians really getting that long of laughs. It's such a funny piece, and to be in an audience listening to it I think is so great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Well, eating animals. When I bring it up to my friends and colleagues in Los Angeles, no one wants to acknowledge this. There will be a moment where they'll look back in time and they'll go... So anyways, in LA, you know, in 2025, brown people worked and white people didn't. White people didn't cut their grass. They didn't clean their house. They didn't make their food.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I like that. That and... You're getting real-time feedback of what part we want to sit in for a second. Is it possible for you to really know what part we'd like to sit in for a second? But the audience forces you to sit in some things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You're working in like a stand-up routine in some way. And I think that's kind of cool and novel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Right, right, right, right. So anyways, everybody go to davidsiderisbooks.com and please go see David live before you perish because it's totally worth the trip. And then yes, listen to Happy Go Lucky because I had so much fun re-listening. I adore you. I think you're our leading guest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And that's what I said. That's exactly what I told him to do. All right. Love you. Love you. See you around soon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
They didn't deliver their food. They didn't do anything. It was only brown people that did that stuff. People go, that's nuts. That's going to happen. And when I bring that up to friends and I'm not saying like fire your Latina housekeeper, I'm just saying have enough humility to say we're engaged in it now. And they'll go, no, what was a huge improvement from where my housekeeper came from?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, we've built up a lot of artifice around what is at the end of the day, another animal on planet Earth. But we've created all these things and manufactured things. And then, yeah, we have institutions of thought and they all feel really substantial and permanent and real.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
nothing's real but it's just all stuff we made and it's ideas we thought up and told other people and they caught on we're just here i was thinking in the simplest terms they were going to breakfast they're always going to breakfast on the show and it seems so fun yeah i get like so excited at the notion of being at a hotel and going and getting breakfast when i see the scenes and i go oh yes breakfast is so fun and then i go yeah because it's eating
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
It's the essential thing. We really do have a purpose, which is we have to eat food. That's like one of our purposes. Like the most consistent source of joy in your life is eating. Like you're almost guaranteed three times a day to have this like fun pick me up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Peptides. Does that make any sense? I was like, it's, oh yeah, it's not a mystery why breakfast, lunch, and dinner is so fun because we have to eat to stay alive. That's our purpose.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Well, hold on. No. Why? There's a very Buddhist approach to work. But it's for money. No. Well, if you make it about money, then yes. Being diligent and meticulous and thoughtful and mindful about process is very Buddhist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You love your bottle episodes. Yeah, yeah. You want to keep them going.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And I go, that's exactly what the slave trader said. It's the same argument.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Do you need a magnifying glass to see what time it is? Almost. What if it came with its own matching magnifying glass you kept in your pocket?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
She's like, just wait till you watch White Lotus on Sunday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, you couldn't. No. Because my first thing would simply be anything vintage at a really nice store, they're marking it up 100%. So why not find it in the wild if you really want it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I think the fossil fuels will go more in the category of like, can you believe this is smoke? They pull smoke into their lungs and then hold it for a minute and do that several hundred times a day. It just seems stupid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Well, I took it as she was really disappointed in herself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, fast forward. But he basically asks his family members if they can live without money. Is that what you're going to say?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
That's the one that really hit me. So that one hit you. Yeah. The one that hit me was like, you know, yeah, the dad's finding out if these kids can live without money. His wife's already told him she can't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You know, I'm sitting there going like, yeah, if someone asks me that question, it feels like a way bigger proposition than I want it to feel. Yeah. I mean, it feels embarrassingly like I've become dependent on this thing. This thing gives me comfort. Like I think a less generous version is like people want to feel superior. I don't know if it's that dark for most people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Most people just want to know like I did good. I did good. There was like, you could do good or you could do bad. You could try hard or you could not try. You could study. You could like, okay, yeah, I did good. I did all the things I was supposed to and I did good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Much less than like, oh, I'm way better than Mike who can't own a pontoon boat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
What's dangerous is what you're really afraid to lose is actually not the trip or the first class. It's the pride that you did good. The notion that without those symbols of that, you could no longer say I did good, which is a terrible way to evaluate your life. Because it's also not a good friend and a good parent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And even the belief that you have an identity. Because Buddhists are like, it's contextual. You're a different version in every single environment you enter. In this obsession with, no, I have one thing in all environments and in all contexts. Creates all this suffering.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I love it. His books, Happy Go Lucky, Me Talked Pretty One Day, Calypso, A Carnival of Snackery, the best titles ever. Yeah. Fresh Your Family in Denim and Corduroy. Oh, in Corduroy and Denim. Corduroy and Denim.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
But I think the distinction between who is made miserable and who is it not is, is their identity just that achievement or not? I think it's tempting to just evaluate like expensive stuff is bad or expensive life is bad. And I don't, I'm not willing to go there. I think having your identity completely anchored to that is very bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Now I've loved Buddhism and I've been reading it and I really like it. And it brings me a lot of perspective.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
But I'm also going to say the world can't be Buddhists. They could be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
We would not have vaccines. We would not have medicine. We would not have all the many things that we also really like and think are beneficial for mankind. That's not their pursuit. Their pursuit is acceptance and harmony. So, you know, I can't go fall. I don't think I'm willing to go full in on the whole world should be Buddhists and no craving and no striving and all that stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Because I also don't, I don't, I think we're in a much, much different world. But maybe you could argue maybe everyone would be happier, but they'd be dying much sooner and there'd be no solutions for a lot of things we want solutions for.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
They're not going to band together to come up with the huge hydroelectric power plant or the sanitation system. That's not what they're going to do. They're going to live very simply in harmony.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, yeah. Here's the scene I thought you were responding to. Is the teacher is saying, often we wake up with anxiety.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
He's like, we wake up with anxiety and we're uncertain about what will happen in the day. And we have fear. And so what we do is we reach for our identity, our ego. I don't remember the exact words, but we reach for that thing to comfort us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And I like any time, AA is great at doing this, any time that someone acknowledges what the real feelings are. Like, yes, I wake up with anxiety all the time. That's my roughest part of the day is right when I wake up. Because it's like, yes, what could go wrong today? What has to be done that I'm afraid I can't accomplish? All this stuff. And so...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
It's almost CBT to just go, oh, yeah, they've been already acknowledging this for a long time. And they're basically just saying observe it as well. There's a little distance from it. There's an acknowledgement. It's very human.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
It's standard. That's what's very comforting to me about Buddhism. It's like, yes, these feelings are very normal to humans. And here's what you will normally do to try to push the fear away. And here's another thing you could do. And I like that part.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
The kind of global judgment of things. It gets too dogmatic and too like every other religion for me at that point. If there's like this big judgment thing, About other things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, on the worst side and then just safety, which is defendable. But for all of it, there's always these, you know, there's just too many great exceptions for all of it. So it's like I immediately think of Bill Gates. Like here's a guy who, per a Buddhist assessment, has generated way too much of everything. Money. Create all these products.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
A little inner tube, a little model glue, set it ablaze. I thought maybe the server was going to come back and light up a cigar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
But that's clearly not his identity because he's giving everything he's made away. And he's impacting the world in measurably tens of thousands of lives saved. And so the whole endeavor is outside of that belief system. And I think really valid and admirable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, well, I think his identity is kind of like Rockefeller's, which is like I was put here. I was given this crazy gift. It allowed me to generate all this thing and pull this money so that I can go fix things like that's their identity. And it's a cool one. I support it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, yeah, yeah. I smoked on an airplane on a flight to Germany when I was 16.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I bet a lot of people listening would go like, I can't relate to this at all. But I would say, ask yourself this. If you could move to a place that's half the size that you currently live in. That's all that's happening. It's like, it's the proposition of having less than you have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I do think it has the little bit of appeal that a geographic has. and people didn't listen to that episode 10 years ago, but a geographic is a common solution for addicts. It's also a common solution for people with mental health disorders. I'm gonna go somewhere else and I won't have my problems there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And I do think there's a little bit of a fantasy. What I think if you sold everything and you quit your job and you got into this one bedroom, tiny bachelor thing, I don't believe your happiness or fulfillment or purpose is going up. I don't. I think you're gonna get in that little box and go, huh, wow, okay, I did all that because that was gonna result in something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I'm just saying, I think if you did all that and you pursued all that, you would get to a point where like I could have done all this and not changed anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I think fully committing to a singular view. I just, I like nuance in moderation. It's like, no, there's some good tenants and there's lots of great points to bring to your attention that you should observe and track.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And you can improve on. But like, is full Buddhist the correct thing or not Buddhist at all, the capitalist thing, correct? I guess I'm just like, no, again, they're just two stories. They have valid points. And you try to make the version that leaves you with the most peace and contentment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, boy, oh, boy. The fun thing about Sedaris, aside from that he's just so perfect every time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Is it always reinvigorates me to go back and re-listen to all this stuff. And I've just, since we've interviewed him, I've just been on a tear of listening to all this stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Listen to this incredible one in Happy Go Lucky. And the specific story is Lady Marmalade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
It's kind of Mike Whitey, actually. He's just so brutally honest with it. The Marmalade story is about like over the years, the many weird things his dad did. That were very perverse, but didn't seem to cross the ultimate line for him. It was also, it was the 70s or whatever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
But like he examined, he wanted to examine David's asshole at one point because his stomach hurt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And he's like, you probably have hemorrhoids. And he was like, didn't know what that was. And his dad made him bend over the counter and he looked at his ass. Now, as he said, he didn't like put his finger in his butt or anything, but he definitely like examined it. He said as if he were looking at a gem.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And he did that three times throughout his childhood. He also wanted he was very into photography and had these art photo magazines. And he asked David's sister when she was 17 if he could take pictures of her topless in the woods. Yeah. It's like very bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Just a series of things. And then later, his sister, who ultimately died by suicide or of suicide, accused the dad of sexual abuse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Um, and then them trying to siblings to, to evaluate whether they believe her or not, which is like so real.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
What if you're taking a red eye, David, and you left New York at 1.45 a.m. and then you could have one drink, then it was two. But as soon as you got to Chicago, all of a sudden it was 1.46 again and everyone got to have a round. And then you just chase the time change for the 2 a.m. cutoff. Although I guess in New York it's 4 a.m. That scenario would work great leaving Detroit because it's 2 a.m.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
It's just so real. It wouldn't be this way on TV and it wouldn't be this way in the media, but this is really what happened. This is what really happens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
If you really step back, it's interesting that they allowed drinking on an airplane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You got a hundred strangers sitting in a very tight area. I know. And you're allowing them to get drunk, which we know makes humans unpredictable. Yeah. You could see where it would have never been allowed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I mean, I'm all for it. People are nervous. Makes the time go by. Yeah. You don't have a problem like me. It's lovely. Yeah. But it is a curious policy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Like they should allow weed, I guess, too. But like, I don't know, mushrooms? Probably not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, you wouldn't want the smoke. Yeah, you're eating it. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
It's fine, I guess. But there's obviously certain drugs. PCP, don't, no. It's going to be outdoors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Shooting dope, no. You can't have ODs up in the air.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Right. But I don't know. I didn't know there were 39 articles of religion. I didn't either know that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And he said it's, well, Werner, yeah, Holsworth. Yeah, these are very German names, Wolf and Werner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, and guys, just for the viewer, here's a holdup of it. And the listener, it's not like a little bit of bird poop. It's a big turd. It's like a soft serve turd. It's covering his entire head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
This is going to be right up their alley. They're disgusting like me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, fun. It's a yak dumping big plops of... You would know, you know, whenever you see that horse droppings, which I see on the hiking trail sometimes, make no mistake about it. It's horse dung.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Because there's like clumps of hay still in it. Yeah. I'm so glad we don't eat hay. That's a Buddhist thing. They could probably figure out how to eat hay, but I can't. I want to eat ribeye.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, no. I'm not sure how this is going to work out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, no, be a Buddhist when you get home. Okay. There's plenty of time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
It's so stressful. I almost want to watch it again without the stress. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, you switched right from... Oh, this would interest you. I was talking to Tom Hanson. Well, I had lunch with, I had dinner with him yesterday before my meeting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And I said, he said, are you watching? I said, no, but Monica's watching it for me. And she brings it up on every single episode. And he's like, it is so good. He went on it. He is right with you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
He and I kind of went through the same transformation, right? Wasn't he a medium-sized boy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
No, that's ER, right? No. Oh, they guest starred on Friends as doctors. That's cute. Yeah, so that looks like me and Punk'd.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
But you would think I would know how to mix some music from how many times I hit buttons on Parenthood and I don't know anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Okay. Because he's a better actor. Because you haven't seen it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
No. I want you to expand how many people you let do surgery on you. Not limit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Let's hope not. There's enough surgeries for Noah and Ida.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You're going to get another one of those piercings. I know you. I do want it. I know you so well. You'll get another infected piercing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Another ring swollen around here. These are all coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Yeah, got infected. Your ears are telling you very clearly we don't want adornment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I'm just behind Unrighteous and I was behind on White Lotus. So.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
No one can figure out what's racist. That's so true and funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
He is on a 40-city tour across the United States starting March 30th till May 19th, including Burlington, Vermont, Albany, Philadelphia, Boston, Akron, Detroit, Fort Wayne, Dallas, Nashville, many, many more. Go to... davidsiderisbooks.com to see his tour. A lot of armchairs have gone per our suggestion. And I always hear how much they love it. He puts on a great show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, yeah, like one millionth of a human from the hot dog consumption.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, ding, ding, ding. This is what David's father was checking him for.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I am shocked that I've never had a hemorrhoid. I'm shocked you haven't. It feels impossible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I have some weak systems, but I have some bulletproof systems. As we know already, my teeth are bulletproof.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I think my anus is too, because we both know I sit on that toilet for fucking, as long as I can. As long as my life will permit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Fissures. Fissures, yeah. Yeah, I had a bad run of fissures.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
It's rough, but it's not a tongue hanging out of your butthole. Piles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Right. Do you feel very protective of flight attendants? Because I do. Monica saw me get into it with a first class customer that was sitting in front of us in rapid order. He was at the bulkhead and he had his bag in front of his feet. There's nobody that doesn't know you can't have your bag there. Right. So they ask him to put it away. Oh, yeah, I'll get to it. And then he doesn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Would you let Noah Wiley? You wouldn't let, would you let him look at your piles?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Mature. Just about to be picked off the vine to made into wine. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Oh, God. It's crazy he's still at it. It's exhausting work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Okay, great. I love you, David Sedaris. Love you, David Sedaris. So much. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Isn't it behind you? Yours is. Why isn't yours behind you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I thought for some reason it went behind your head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
And then they come down. They really need to take up. So we really need you to put. Oh, I thought I could get it by you. No, you can't. So I'm flagging him. We're right behind him. I'm like, I don't like this guy and I'm going to pay attention to everything he does. So then the next thing was she came to say, have you made a selection for lunch? He said, what are the options?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
The menu's right next to you. Well, just tell me the options. We have a short rib and we have a chicken breast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Chicken. It was a chicken thigh. And he says, is that white meat or dark meat? And I wanted to go like, how could you have gotten to 56 years old and not know the thigh is fucking dark? Me, why are you making this woman? So then I needed to pee. He had gotten up to pee. I'm sitting on the armrest. Clearly, I want everyone behind me to know, don't get up. I've claimed that I'm next.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
So when he exits, he sees I'm in the waiting position to go in. So he gets to his seat, which is one row in front of us. And then he decides to like open up the thing. He's just kind of looking around. He's not even grabbing his bag. He's just blocking it. And then like a hockey player, I just fucking ran through him and shoulder checked him into the seat. Do you like the ending of that story?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
Because someone needs to smack this guy on the nose. That's why. That's very simply why.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
You're going to like the end of this story, actually.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I was like, oh no, he was at that panel. We are just signing a deal with Amazon. That was an Amazon movie. Did I just fucking shove one of our new bosses? Now I'm staring through the gap when he lifts up his laptop to do some work. Thank God. It says his full name on this sign in for his password. And then the second we land, I open it up and I find out I was like, oh, he's just a fucking lawyer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I knew it. He was like a lawyer representing one of the actors that was on the panel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
David Sedaris #5
I would have given anything to fight him in a parking lot. That's how mad I was at how he's treating this flight attendant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined by Miss Monica Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Great. Because I want to know if there's papers on this, like dureneal versus nocturnal rumination. My nocturnal rumination is its own thing or feels like its own thing. Like in the daytime, I think I have a lot of tools and I employ them pretty well. But I wake up at 3 a.m. and I am fucking defenseless. I'm even saying to myself, this is madness. You won't care in the morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Zero impact on the rumination. But we'll get to that. We'll get to the treatment that's coming our way. But there's a couple of things that you lay out in the intro that I think are worth repeating, which is you give these great examples of your husband, Adam, right? Go ahead. He's in the kitchen one morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Sure, sure. That's a side note. To be done with a couple's therapy. Yes, yes, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I like those examples because it's an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure because I think a lot of people's pushback will immediately be, and mine is initially, I don't have time to add something to my plate, right? Like I don't want to do any mindful practice or I don't want to stop for five minutes in the middle of this experience to check in and use some of the tools.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I don't have the five minutes to do that, but I would just argue that Nine times out of 10, it's going to cost you far more time. Because they do, they just compound and then, not to out my wife, but I watch my wife in the kitchen frazzle, then yes, she's moving too fast because she feels like she's jammed down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Now we've got a spilt thing and I'm just watching from the sidelines going like, oh, there's just a tornado of things now cascading.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Almost all of us. We have some really counterproductive responses to stress. So people that are tight on money may find themselves overspending as the result of that. Or they have a big deadline and then the response is procrastination or trying to perfect the thing they have the deadline about. Or you're feeling anxious and you start researching this and hyper-focusing on it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
So a lot of the ways we deal with this, is that you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
So here's where you and I are perfectly aligned. And I can already tell you what the comments are going to be. People are going to yell at me and go, it saved my life. Lay off benzos. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
No, I need to yell at them. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the person that, as we described this, you know in your head, I could probably get through this without this. It is a huge epidemic no one wants to talk about. And in your book, 93 million prescriptions for benzos a year in this country. So, yes, a lot of people need them. They are saving some people's lives.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
They're also dramatically overprescribed. And there's a huge cadre of people who are addicted to them. I've watched people get sober for 20 years. It is one of the gnarliest things to get off of. Your brain chemistry is so altered for so long. You could be smoking crack for a year straight. After 30 days of sobriety, you'll be pretty back to normal. I've seen benzo addicts take a year to return.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I'm so pro-drugs. Do MDMA. Go do mushrooms. But that one, really look out for.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I'm moving through the world. I'm seeing tons of people really fucked up on benzos that I don't think most people are picking up on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, so that for people who don't know, GLP-1s are Ozempic, all the semaglutides.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Well, that's cool that that's helping because they're starting to really look into those GOP ones for addiction. I'm very encouraged by it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I use a book on tape to get out of it, but yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Okay. So people love this quote. I'm going to read it again. It bears reading. Viktor Frankl. Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist. What's his great book? He's got a great book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
The quote is, between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. And the goal of your book is to widen that space.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
The first part of the book is called Befriending Stress Emotions. And we're kind of already been dancing around it, right? Which is a bit of reframing or really coming to see it as something useful for you. And one was the knot to the bow. Do you want to elaborate on that at all?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
We are supported by YNAB. Do you experience excessive bouts of money stress? Oh my gosh, do I. Do you avoid your bank balance like it's a text from an ex? Do you feel guilt and second guessing about your spending? If you answer yes, you may be suffering from financial funk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah. How do we regulate our emotions?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
If I'm understanding this correctly, it's almost like you want to reverse the order of events. So you're saying normally you have an emotion, stress or whatever the thing is you're ruminating on. And then you start thinking about it. Your body has all these sensations. It starts responding. In the worst case, it's like getting into flight or fight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And then a behavior results from that sensation because you want to soothe yourself. So you pull out your phone and you start scrolling or you pull out your weed pipe and you take a hit or you do whatever thing. You go shopping. It's almost as if... Don't point at me. I'm not. So it's almost as if you're more thoughtful about...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
putting your behavior first, then that almost reverse engineers itself. It goes in the other directions. Like I did something pleasurable that had some purpose and some community and some communication and then my body felt calm and relaxed and then my thoughts were better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Again, you just mentioned two more AA things. It's easier to act your way into thinking differently than thinking your way into acting differently. And that is so fucking true. Your brain sometimes will catch up with your actions and then you want self-esteem, do esteemable acts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, do you trip out at all? A lot of it is CBT that they didn't know was CBT. Okay, so let's talk about resets. So you have mind resets, body resets, and behavior resets. So how would these work?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
It's that bit of brightness and refreshment we need when the days are shorter and darker during the winter months. Transport me to a tropical beach with the sun shining and the sound of ocean in the background. What a dream. And Tropical Smoothie Cafe just released two brand new Tropic Bowls, the Dragon Fruit Bowl with goji berries and the Acai Bowl with Nutella.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And now, Disclaimer has picked up two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline, a DGA Award nomination for Alfonso Cuaron, and multiple Crafts nominations for the stellar group of award-winning artisans. Disclaimer is streaming on Apple TV+, and you can learn more at appletvplus.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Oh, baby, don't hurt me. Oh, yeah. He joins the Will Ferrell and Catan, the Roxbury Boys. Oh. And he sings that song.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
We accept that insanity is repeating the same thing, expecting different results, and yet we're having the same thoughts we've been having for three decades.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Right, because it thinks you're submerged in water. It's got to save the most vital organs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
What about box breathing or breathing exercises? Do you like those?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Be more literal about that. So you breathe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, let's do it. I'm going to sit in the way you just did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
For the listener, we've become very erect in our posture.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I got a little glow across my face. Do you feel anything?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I just want to now breathe the rest of this because it feels so good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
slow breathing that they now don't prescribe medications they mostly prescribe this breath work and they're even working with people that are in disaster zones yeah back to laird that's his big thing he does like breathing workshops i was at this thing where you could do all these different kind of mini clinics and he hosted this breathing one i didn't do it because i'm like i know how to breathe i'm gonna go watch the animation thing and then by the end of the come
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
The most unanimous thing, the thing people liked the most, and there was really exciting offerings, was this whole breathing workshop he did. People were like, that was the best I felt in a decade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Not to be so egocentric, but I do want to know what I'm doing when I do this. So my biggest breakthrough in road rage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
which I am terrible about, not anymore, but I used to be terrible at it, is while I'm monitoring whoever I'm mad at, right, who I think is a bully on the road and I'm going to teach them a lesson, I make myself either start reading license plates, and I got to say them out loud, JL67, or start reading the signs of the buildings I'm passing. And I can't tell you how effective that's been.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
It's just like literally forcing myself to focus on something different than the thing I want to. That's what no one else wants to admit to. There's also a high that comes along with your self-righteous indignation. We get off on this. We're a little addicted to this. We like feeling superior and morally on our high ground. And the whole anger thing is a little intoxicating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
For me, I also have to admit there's a bad cycle of kind of, you know, pleasure seeking in it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And then what about behavior resets?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You have your own coffee shop, I see. Leora?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, I think it requires kind of like a whole paradigm shift in your head. I know it happens in AA, right? Which people are like, I can't go to a meeting because I had a thing for my daughter. And I can't go to a meeting because I have a thing for work. And you have to really instill in people... You only have those things if you're sober. The whole thing's built upon this foundation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I think for a lot of people, the notion that they can't take a walk with a friend, that they don't have time to do that. So, well, if you can't do that, the rest of the things are going to go away or they're going to suffer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
We can't make it about us because it's too rife. Too explosive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Pistachio milk. Tell me about pistachio milk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I can imagine someone doing that for the very first time and then waiting with the craziest sense of anticipation of what the response is. Like if they've never tried that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
That's a naughty sounding sentence, by the way. It is. It sounds terrible. Ew. I know, I'm sorry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
It's got to take priority. Yeah, I like that technique quite a bit. Yeah. I don't have any problem with kind of confrontation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, I know some people are just completely arrested with this inability to have this uncomfortable exchange.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, and I am so blessed. It's one of my blessings is I'm like, well, the alternative to me is not an option. Me being uncomfortable for two weeks versus being uncomfortable for 12 minutes on the phone, I'm going to always pick that for me. There's just like a cost reward analysis, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
When you're here for five days, the house starts smelling like you. That's terrible. I hate it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You don't want to always be responding. You want to be proactive. Okay. Body buffer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Whatever triggered it in the first place.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Sorry. You don't. Sorry to tell you the results are negative.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And what about behavioral buffers? What would that entail?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You failed it at once. You'll fail at it forever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Committing to the laundry list that led up to this event.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I'm incompetent. I'm not enough. I have a fundamental character flaw that prevents me from doing this thing. versus these 12 things happened and now we're here. That's very Sapolsky too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And I think in the description it says you're his mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
He's a special dude, Laird Hamilton.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah. Okay. So I had one specific question. I think the hardest time to use any of these tools is when you're in the middle of a fight with a partner. or like a family member, I find that once you're in that zone, stopping it and resetting is, I think, the hardest. For me, maybe. How would you advise?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You met him. I just met him for the first time the other day, but we were right behind he and his wife. I think her and Kristen were having a moment where they're very much married to kind of old-fashioned-y guys in some way. I don't know how to phrase that, but she said, listen, I like his vibe. He'll say to me in the kitchen, it's going to be okay. It is okay. Shh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, I'm the most emotional. I think the stakes feel highest because it's someone I love. I'm in a very heightened state and I don't know how to do the thing I do in traffic, which is look at a sign, do this, distract myself, check in. And I'm curious how one interrupts this while in a fight with their partner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I'm going to admit this. So we do this thing, Family Square. We probably do them once every couple of months. It's when someone has an actual issue that they need to bring up in the family. We all sit down on the ground. So everyone's low. There's no interrupting. There's some ground rules. And so... Most often the family square is about the kids, but we had a family square a couple days ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And yeah, Kristen and I got into our loop. You would think, I mean, the thing I'm most committed to in my entire life is the kids. And we're in a loop. I can see we're in a loop. I can see it's upsetting the kids, the thing I care the most about. And we can't get out. Until one of the kids goes, you guys aren't listening to each other and you're making it worse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And I'm like, I know the fucking nine-year-olds seeing how obvious this is. And I was just thinking, because there were moments during it where I'm like, I know what's happening. I don't know how to get out of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Well, what I think is I'm finally going to craft a sentence that's so direct, clever, correct, that it'll penetrate the cycle. And she thinks the same thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I don't know. No, I think I'm a victim of thinking I'm so good at it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
We had a fight yesterday, Monica and I. And literally this morning, I'm still thinking about it. I'm like, I know exactly how I could have got her to understand what I was saying. I should have said X, Y, and Z. I'm still thinking a day later how I could have gotten her to understand my point had I crafted it better. And of course, no, that wouldn't have worked either. No, that wouldn't have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. These are all the topics we're going to get into. Yeah, he's like tapped into some kind of primitive way we were living that seems to be yielding positive results. Like stay very active, stay physically fit, eat good, and everything will work out. There's some genius to that. I believe in that. Okay, let's start with the fact that you teach at my alma mater. Do you like it there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I'll admit this to you. This morning when I was thinking, like, I should have said it this way, I was like, also, hold on. You were in a fight in the family square three days ago with Kristen. You were in a fight with Monica yesterday. You know, it might be you. That's nice. I was like, you seem to be the common denominator this week.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
We have a lot of shared work stress right now. So that wasn't the greatest. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, I might need to adopt his. We interviewed him and he was so lovely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Now, I feel like this would drive someone crazy, but he doesn't. And I also love it, which is his behavioral thing he does, I think, which reverse engineers his whole thinking is he takes notes while his wife's talking. Like it's getting heated. He's like, let me get my notepad. And then something about him taking, do you remember that part?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Him writing down what she's saying, I guess. Something about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
It's always a hack, right? Like the part of your brain that needs to be present to write maybe is just enough to pull you out of the amygdala or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I want to applaud whoever made that. Big high five to whoever grabbed Hermium Permium. I hope he has like a million followers by tomorrow. Okay. Our guest today is Dr. Jenny Tates, who is a clinical psychologist, clinical practitioner. professor in psychiatry at UCLA and bestselling author. She has a couple of great books, How to Be Single and Happy and Emotional Eating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Okay, so now is the part of the interview where you give me free treatment. So nighttime rumination. So again, in the daytime, I'm pretty good. I got a pretty good handle on it, on my rumination. Is that accurate? Let's just say it's significantly less controllable in the middle of the night. I'll even actively be in it going, 90%, I don't care about this in the morning. And that is so the case.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
So often I spend an hour and a half at 3 a.m. obsessing about something. I wake up in the morning and I'm like, I don't even understand why you were doing it. You actually don't even care about that. What's happening and what can I do? I think you're in a compromised state at 3 in the morning. You're not your most apt version.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Like you'd inhale in and you imagine the breath traveling out of your lungs down your leg into your toe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I'm in bed like trying to sleep or watching TV. Oh. And let's not get hung up on it. You're not supposed to watch TV in bed. But do you mean just supine in my bed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Fuck, lately it's been rough. Probably six. Also, I'm in a weird zone, but seven probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, that's my reservation about people who do all these sleep monitor devices. I'm like, if you wake up and you know you've slept like shit, how are you not going to have a terrible day? I don't understand the benefit of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You probably work out for 40 minutes on six hours.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I do have that piece. That's why I say 640. That's non-negotiable. I have to meditate. I have to journal. And I have to get my kids to school at a certain time. So there's no snooze because then I'll miss the meditation or the journal. Then I might as well stay in bed all day because I'll have a miserable day. Oh, we have more control than we think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
It's a cure-all. It works for everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
yeah stress resets how to soothe your body and mind in minutes and to your point about having something to reference the book is incredibly efficient it's a lot of bang for the buck every single page there's something actionable almost on it there's something concrete and real and something you can practice and it's a very quick easy way to get your head around all this
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah. Great. Well, Jenny, it's been so nice meeting you. You represent the alma mater wonderfully. Feather in the cap to all Bruins. Yeah, it's pretty good. We wish you well and I hope everyone checks out Stress Resets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by Quince. You know, Kristen's been ordering a ton from Quince.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I think the first fun thing, I know what CBT is, and I think a lot of people in the audience will know, but I think maybe we should just delineate the difference between like, say, psychoanalysis and CBT. And then you have a second kind of specialization that I hadn't heard of. And I want you to tell me about that one as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, and I told her, you know, they're a sponsor. And she couldn't believe it. Being stylish and comfortable allows you to feel your best, making you ready to tackle anything that comes your way. That's where Quince comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Not that I've ever made that mistake and had my dog run outside without me or screamed his name repeatedly over and over and over again until I found him. Or you know to check that the guy who asked you out is an armcherry first before you agree to go on a date with him. Sage advice. Essential. Checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You're in good hands with Allstate. This content is intended for audiences in the U.S. only. Savings vary. Terms apply. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Northbrook, Illinois. We are supported by Lenovo and Intel. If your computer could use an upgrade, we've got your solution. Lenovo and Intel have joined forces to engineer the best laptops in the industry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
They also have a Smart Share feature, which lets you transfer photos from your phone to the Lenovo Aura Edition PC with a simple tap. No more waiting for uploads. You'll get that photo on your computer in seconds. How cool is that? And if you need support, they offer Smart Care. Elite support teams will help rapidly resolve any issues, and they're available 24-7, 365 days a year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Whatever you want to create... It's possible on your Intel AI PC. Learn more about Lenovo Aura Edition AI PCs at lenovo.com slash aura.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Any issues? What would we call that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah. It's very reminiscent of COVID for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, I have to imagine it's going to be... The toll at the end of this. You'd have to go back to the Chicago fires, probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Sure. In today's dollars, right? Because Chicago disappeared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Oh, space. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And then, yeah, I went out yesterday with Delty in masks. And I was like, oh, this feels very familiar. There's like people living at the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I'm in a mask outside. Oh, my God. We're back here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, we drove down Hillhurst where there was like 25 crews working on all those power lines with trees all over them. I'm presuming that's why yours is out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, what feelings? I had, there was a moment where, you know, they had evacuated like a quarter mile down the road when the Runyon Canyon fire was going. And I was like, okay, so the west side is completely on fire. Now the center of the city is on fire and the east side is on fire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And I did start to open up my imagination to the degree where I was like, well, I would have said what has already happened would have been impossible. Like that for the Palestinians to disappear. And I was like, fuck, if the Palisades can disappear, I'm like, could L.A. disappear? Like, will we witness the end of L.A. as it previously existed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, that's never a thought I ever even considered was possible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
But yeah, with winds blowing 70 miles an hour, yeah, it's possible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
But then you click into whatever role you have in your group. So, you know. Then I go to, yep. And Dresden was gone. And London was gone. And Hiroshima was gone. And Nagasaki was gone. And we are resilient. And it'll be back. And that's who we are. And trying to put some light at the tunnel for everyone in the house. Yeah, you just go through all these.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Everyone just clicks into whatever role they have, you know?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Cheering yourself up, letting yourself get scared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
What's funny is people are saying things I'm remembering that didn't even cross my mind. Like, I didn't pack a passport.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
All I packed was my journals, which I think I made. By the way, my journals take up the full size of Wayback. So in the midst of all this, I also was like, to see my journals in one spot, I was like, holy smokes, have I written a lot of, I had this weird little moment of like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, there's a ton of stuff I should have packed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
The written word. I have the memories. Like, yeah, all the cute things my kids made me. They're all really, really important to me. But I have my kids. They're important to me. And so I kept telling the girls that I'm like, we'll try to get everything you care about. But also, guys, this is it. Us four can go anywhere and we have the thing we want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah. And this I'm naturally trying to govern what stuff we talk about because I know some stuff will it'll anger you or it'll.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Right. And so I wasn't— Although I will add, well, okay, yeah, I think that's—a lot of that's true. But I'm not bothered by—I don't mind that you're as scared as you are. I'm not, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Like I'm just naturally not. This is like, oh yeah, this is all I think about. This is like the hypervigilance and all that. It's like, all right, yeah, it's here. It's time to get, it's time to get down. And so I'm like energized and I'm focused and I'm thinking and I got all the hoses out and I got the generator out and I got the extra gas out and I got the car filled up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And like, you know, I'm engaged in all the things that, I will do to help get through this thing. And so, yeah, this was a thing I wasn't, it's like runs the risk of you being mad at me, but I was going to send them away, right? Like I was going to send Kristen and the girls to their dads. I'm definitely staying and hosing the house down. There's no way I'm not going to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Like I'm going to, I can sit in the middle of my yard. I'm not inside of a house burning. I can be on the outside of a house that's burning and not die. And I have a motorcycle to escape at any point. So I very much was never leaving regardless in my mind. I was like, yeah, I'm going to definitely get my family out of here, but definitely staying with hoses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
If that turns out, I mean, if it's not, my condolences. If you have the audacity to try to fucking do some insurance fraud at the risk of setting up the rest of that area on fire, to me, you need to be in jail time for that. Yes, I agree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And so this is kind of a famous institution. Yeah. Bellevue, you hear about people getting sent to Bellevue and movies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
It started inside their house too. Most importantly. Yeah, I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Well, you have two, there's two things happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And that's another layer of this we'll get to. There are arsonists in the city. Yeah. They've set fires in, you know. Many of these fires we've had in LA are started by arsonists. And so you have arsonists that already exist and they've got the perfect opportunity, right? Then you have people who do commit insurance fraud. They also pop up all the time. So you've like...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
There's easily two groups of bad actors in the mix of all this other shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Well, and that's what I wanted to add. When I went... When it was a half mile from the house, and it looked like, okay, it's coming here. I had gone up to the gas station at sunset and... Doesn't matter. Very busy gas station. I wanted the truck to be full in case Belle had to drive it all the way to Vegas to Dad's or whatever. And... I know the vibe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I've been in Detroit when the vibe's happening on devil's night. I know the vibe. I was at the gas station and I was like, There's like 20 young men out. There's dudes on dirt bikes that are not street legal. Like there's that air of like they know too no one's watching. There's a vibe of everyone that's supposed to be making sure there's law and order is distracted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And there was just this burble that I could feel from the other dudes. And I was like, okay, so we got the fire hazard, but also- I'm now, for me, there's a significant, maybe even double-digit percentage, people are coming into the house today. Other elements are now going to pop off because of all this other chaos.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You'll never be able to watch that part again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I will say the, for better or worse in life, I'm experiencing it, but I'm also kind of always looking at it from a little bit to the side of it in the very anthropological way. And my current fascination with this whole thing and I've gotten to be a part of enough things now where I see this materialize. It's like, we're all so different.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Thank God. If they're all like me, everyone's going to kill themselves. If they're all rendered immobile by fear, they're all going to die. And it really doesn't require any talk or coordination. It just immediately burbles up. Like we had Jackie... Joe, Anna, Joy, Kristen, the girls, myself in the house. And everyone just innately files into their role.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
That they are biologically destined to be. And- It's just really on display in a situation like this. It's why ADHD folks are imperative. Someone's got to go out and find the new fruit tree. And it's why leaders, while insufferable at times, that's their time. And they reassure people. And then the people who are like, really scared than at the other time in life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
They're more compassionate and flexible and dialed in and they're, they're taking care of the needs, the emotional needs of this group of a hundred. And, and you just look at our, it's not an accident where we come in these archetypes. It's like, we all have our different moments and the reactions is so visceral. Like whether you're wired, what way or not, like I call, I immediately text, um,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
and said, are you guys up in Carpinteria? Which was my assumption. The air is very clean up there. And he's like, absolutely not. I'm at my house with a hose.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
He went to the Palisades and hosed other people's houses in the daytime. And then he's at his house. I hear what Charlie's doing. Everyone's doing. It's just really interesting. I find it incredibly interesting that we are all unique in this very complimentary way where we function as a group.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And it's great. Yeah. It's so great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah. We're at an uncomfortable transition phase now. In civilization as humans where it's like we're almost there and also we're not. It's like we can almost be our best benevolent self, but you still have Vladimir Putin on the planet. That's still a real person on the planet that's not operating in the way we're all trying to evolve to. We're not there yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah. We're not in the space age where we have, like, dominated all threats and can all just be one way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
It is. And then even like the trajectory of crime, if you plot it from the 60s and 70s, you know, it's just gone like this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
But it's not gone. There's far less, thank God. Yeah. But there's still quite a few people right now that are very willing to take an opportunity like this. That's still... A reality. We're not there, you know, it's like. Yeah. We're in a transition and it's just, it's, I think it's weirdly almost harder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Like back when it was barbarism, it was just like, okay, well, we got a rule with a iron fist and you got to put down all this and we move away from that as we should. And we're getting somewhere hopefully in the future where that's not even necessary. But it's like, we're in this interesting phase where it's like, it's not necessary, but then all of a sudden it is necessary. And then it isn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
The crickets made it though. That's good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Tell me about Laird Hamilton's Creamer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I've heard psychoanalysts describe it that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Now, I could be wrong on the timeline of this, but I do think I'm right. I think mushrooms, fungi, was the first thing to sustain itself by eating other things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Like prior to that, it is absorbing sun and everything's growing. And they invent consumption of other living beings. They're the first monsters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
There was in Mexico City on the menu, it wasn't a mushroom cobbler, but by God, it was something like that. There was a dessert on the menu that was mushrooms first. Weird. And you know, Molly loves mushrooms. Oh. And I said, how much do you love mushrooms? Enough to get this mushroom dessert. She said, absolutely not. Oh, I wish she had tried it. So I'm wondering who orders the mushroom dessert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
The creamer's good. I've had Laird's creamer, and it's quite good. Interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Can I ask where you first heard it? Because I'm pretty sure where I first heard that. Seinfeld, they would say it all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah. Of course, it's a punchline in comedy a lot. They're going to send someone to Bellevue. Right. And I think, obviously, they were all in New York making that. Well, they were here making the show, but it's in New York. And they're New Yorkers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
They should have. They were in New York.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You double checked it. Yeah, I looked it up. You check that claim and it is a fact. It's funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I really like watching when you and I start laughing in that deep genuine where we can't really proceed. Kind of you get incapacitated. You can't move or talk. There's something so joyous about that. It is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You're leaned over this and I'm kind of just hiding from the camera. It's just really joyous. What was the clip people liked?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Oh my God, that was great. Yeah, that was fun. That was really funny. People love that as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And... I got them again at Christmas, not nearly as long. Funny enough, that's when I got them the previous time. I might be allergic to them. I go too hard at Christmas and it gives me hiccups.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Really? Yeah. I was scouring the house for the Hickey Pops and I couldn't find them. I was desperate for a Hickey Pop right before Christmas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You're on the end of the earth to stop it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Right. And that doesn't mean go to an MRI and get your body scanned. No. Because that's what I think of when I think of body scan. No. It's a mental body scam. Mental body scam. Before bed is good. Focus on your follicles of your hair. Move down to the follicles of your eyebrows. Yep. What did you think of the joke? Did you hear the joke about Timothee Chalamet?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Also, have I told you how obsessed I am with him now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
No, and I wanted to so bad. You were talking about the Golden Globes? The Golden Globes, he was there. And I had just watched Lady Bird and Little Women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
It took me back to like Johnny Depp where I was like, what? Who's this guy? Whoa. Yeah. There's something really powerful about Timothee Chalamet. Am I saying it right? Chalamet. Chalamet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I need to see it. It's a revelation. Now that I'm on the Charlamet train. Yeah. Chalamet. Chalamet. I'll get his name one day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah. By the way, if I mix up your name and you're offended, I hope this bolsters well to the fact that like I'm obsessed with this kid and I can't say his name. But there was a joke about him at the Globes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Said he has the most beautiful long eyelashes above his lip.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And I was, I felt very defensive of him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
It's a good joke. Let me just say it's a good joke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Patterns being broken. I think it's unfortunate they're kind of pitted against each other because I don't think that's really necessary because I definitely see the value of CBT. Have a toolkit and have some actionable things you can do. And then also I think it's very worthwhile of understanding how one ended up in a position where they need these tools.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Uh-huh. Roasting in general is one topic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
But people who go to a roast have agreed to go to a roast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I can see it from all the angles. Right. So one is the people making fun of the other people and say they're punching up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Okay, that's kind of like the blanket excuse. Well, you're punching up. You're not making fun of some disenfranchised person. You're making fun of a very rich movie star.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Totally valid. People really deeply enjoy watching their heroes have to get humbled a little bit by a joke. So for the audience, it's deeply satisfying. They enjoy the hell out of it. At the end of the day, putting on this entertainment show that's 26 hours long. And it's presumably for the audience that's watching. Then it gets into this really fun thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And I will not out this person, but I'm really good friends with someone that was nominated for one of the big awards. And we had this long text exchange. And he is like, I can't believe I go to these events. I don't want to go anymore. The notion that the entire thing is to slake our ego's desire to
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
By making us compete so that ultimately someone else can sell a show to America for millions of dollars, that those people are smart enough to know that our egos will get us there to that room so that we can be made fun of. The Golden Globes is run by the Hollywood Foreign Press.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
It's these single people who have left their country to come to Hollywood to report on Hollywood goings-ons back in their home country. And it's very few people. It's not like the Academy Awards where it's like thousands of people who are peers and experts in the trade. Of all the things, it's funny, that's the one that broke through as being second only to the Oscars. I know, it's true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And so my friend was like lamenting of how tricky it is. Like he doesn't want to be there. He thinks it's the whole thing's a scam and that the people are making a ton of money on the vanity of these people. And yet kind of has to do it because it helps promote the movie that he's in and potentially makes the movie more successful, which is what everyone would want. The point, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
So you get this like really catch 22 situation. And I will say, and people will rightly accuse me of going, you're just saying this because you're left out of it. But I don't feel that way. The time for this has come and gone. It feels very weird and outdated and tone deaf and weird. It's starting to feel weirder and weirder and weirder. I was like, what is going on right here?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Now you get into the whole roasting thing because I was watching. I was like, I get it. Punching up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
She's great. She's really, really funny. I'll just say she's really, really funny. And I have no ill will towards her. I my personal experience is I bump into Jesse Eisenberg getting a Diet Coke and he said, did you see we were in The New York Times yesterday? You and I. Apparently, Nikki had two jokes about you and I that were too gnarly for ABC or whatever network it was on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Her new book, which is out currently, is Stress Resets, How to Soothe Your Body and Mind in Minutes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Knowing she had some joke about me that was too bad to be aired. So I'm watching the monologue going, I'm expecting there's some shot that there's a joke coming my way. Yeah. Maybe the one she wanted got rejected, but maybe she retooled it or something. So I'm just kind of waiting to get blasted. And I'm like trying to think like, okay, what's the ideal reaction to getting completely skewered?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I'm now, I'm meaner than her in my own head. Right. I'm like, she's going to start saying that I'm only there because of Kristen. I'm filling in all the worst blanks. Like the loser boyfriend who's here, you know, the way she made fun of Benny Blanco.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You know, and I'm like, oh, it's coming. It's coming. And I'm, I have to play a role where I think it's hilarious. Were you going to laugh?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Monica and I have talked about this a lot. There is this very nebulous zone where you're like, am I ready to quit this or not? And then you're fearful if you stop psychoanalysis, somehow you're going to revert or something. It's a very ambiguous conclusion, I can admit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Why did you get to see Timmy's reaction?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You got no option. You got to act like you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yes, in front of everyone. Yeah. And I'm insecure like everyone else here. We're all insecure. You all think that we got secure somehow because we got invited. No, everyone here is super insecure. And then... I find on the other side of that, this great compassion for Nikki, which is like, we'll invite you. If you shit on everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And now if she wants to be on TV in that big of an audience, she has to shit on all these people that she probably likes and would like to be endeared to and be friends with, just like all of us would be. So I'm like, everyone's losing in this scenario. I don't think Nikki only wants to be invited to the party if she's come, if her responsibility has come shit on everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And I don't think anyone likes the being shit on. Yeah. The audience is winning, I guess. Are they? Yeah, there's no way they're not. That's fun. They're loving seeing the elite people get taken down a peg because we all enjoy that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yes. I don't get that. And then I'm and then I'm taking some personal inventory during all this. I mean, my head was on fire during the whole monologue, right? Because again, I'm expecting something really embarrassing to come my way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Well, I'll get to that part of it. So then I start taking a personal inventory. I go, hold on. How judgmental can you be of all this? Have you done this? I have. I've been on Conan. I had a movie coming out that I made that was up against Expendables. And I had a good time talking about that their fight scenes, they move less and less. And I'm thinking, A, they would never hear this. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
It's objectively funny. Like what I'm saying is funny is this is an action movie where everyone fights like within a one foot thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And and I'm guilty of it. And then I go, OK, so what's some compassion I have for myself, which is like I'm scared my movies about to get blasted by these legends, which it did. I don't know what else to do. Trying to be funny and trying to make them happy. And I go, yeah, yeah. This is the whole situation. That's not in judgment of anyone. I just I'm not looking forward to getting blasted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
So the monologue ends, and somehow I made it out of it, right? And so did Jesse Eisenberg.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
We were spared. And then Aaron, of all people, my best friend, who I love, who I've told, when you hear something terrible about me, don't tell me. But I understand, like, you feel this responsibility to your best friend, like, you should know what... So... I'm on Instagram. I look at my DM and I see a clip of Nikki on Howard Stern the following day. And then Aaron says, rude.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And then I wrote, I'm not going to watch this. I bet it will just hurt my feelings. Yeah. And I leave it at that. And I decide I am not going to watch it. And then in the comments, tons of people in the comments are like, do you see Nikki's joke about you? So- I've made the decision I'm not going to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
But you have to know that I now, I have created 10 or 12 jokes that it might be, and they're so hurtful. Listen. They're so hurtful. It's not that bad. It's nothing. Well, listen, I ended up. Oh. I'm also telling Chris in this, right? I'm like, I guess, you know, she was bummed she didn't get to make the joke. So she went unstirred and made the joke. And I just hope I never see it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I even wrote that in some comments. No, I haven't seen that and hope never to see it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And then last night, Kristen comes in and she goes, I watched the Nikki joke. It's nothing. All she said is all these people in the room are trying to probably avoid you so you don't ask them to come on your podcast. Yeah. I'm like, oh my God, that's nothing. The things I thought of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
That she could have said about me. And... were on the table. And they're my, these are very deep fears of people thinking I'm riding someone's coattails and stuff. That's what I filled in so much. So at the end of the day, it was good I heard what it was because I had assumed it was way, way worse. Yes. And all of it is this crazy ride we're all on for almost no reason at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And there's a fucking closeup on the person that's about to get shit on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I was like, why do you have to agree to that part of it? Like, hey, we got this award for you. But by the way, you're going to have to probably be in a close-up getting shit on to get this award. And I think that's why this front is like, why on earth are we doing this? Yeah, I know. Because they have turned to that. I think Gervais started it. Yeah. Like, real hardcore. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Well, I'm going to make a very bold prediction is I think you'd come into it feeling the way you would feel. And then I do think you would watch Orna do some stuff that is absolutely mind blowing and so worthwhile. And then some level of empathy and optimism. I've never seen anyone really display. That's very impressive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, about my looks and why is she with me?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Right. I certainly would never ask anyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
And this goes to, by the way, this really goes to demonstrate for me personally, if you have an insecurity about something, it hurts so bad. Like had she made fun of my looks and then I'm too ugly to be with Kristen, that would have really been hurtful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I didn't give a fuck about that because what did happen at the Golden Globes, the only time the podcast came up at the Golden Globes is three different people I ran into each said, that's my favorite interview I've ever done in my life. All that really happened was people pulled me aside to say it was their favorite interview they've ever done. And I was like, I felt great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
So she could say anything she would want about that. And it doesn't bother me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Um, you think it's symptomatic of this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Larger, um, diminishing of civility.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Oh, I was thinking like, yeah, if you're, I mean, I said it out loud when I was like, when there was the moment I was like, wow, could the whole city completely be raised right now? I was like, yeah, there's some people down South.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
That are like, yeah, fuck that place.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah, it's like the liberals were happy when COVID deniers died of COVID. That happened too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Well, they'd go, you had to live in this fancy place. You could have lived somewhere that doesn't catch on fire every six months.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I have to mention, if you were like to the letter of the law creationists, believe in end of times Christian, this is so biblical. I know. How are they not going like, other than a flood, this would be the next best thing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I would imagine you can do CBT for a couple.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Well, he's very sensitive. He's like me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You think he would not be sensitive. He's so powerful, but he's very sensitive, just like me. He's very vain. He's afraid people are going to attack his looks, his social standing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Anyway. Well, that was actually a very fun detour.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
That was it for Jenny. Yeah. I do want to go out saying, like, I would not want anyone to hear all my opinions I just said and have anything against Nikki Glaser. I'm, like, rooting for her. And I think she's really, really talented.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I was on Punk. Like, it was like, let's get celebrities in a tricky situation and see if they act badly. And I was like, okay, well, this is the only job I'm ever going to get and I'll take it. Right. So I'm not really in judgment of anyone. Yeah. I'm just, I'm saying for me, I was in deep fear that everything I, I'm afraid people think about me was confirmed and then it wasn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yes. And then what's the second thing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
We should maybe have her on and talk to you this whole time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Like at first I was like, I never want to reward her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yes. But then now I feel like the bigger version of me would be like to have her on and try to have a sincere conversation about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Okay, so it started there and then because of its efficacy, it's now being applied other places. Okay, so your book is called Stress Resets, How to Soothe Your Body and Mind in Minutes. Where to start? I think maybe let's just kind of define stress. I think that too could be an ambiguous word. Some people would call some things stress that aren't and other things that are not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
There's also a tremendous amount of benefits associated with this stress response, right? Your immune system improves. There's a lot of things that your body is readying itself to take on a challenge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yes. And she took us to task in a great way. Yeah. And had a lot of recommendations for us personally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
I can feel it. I always say this when we do live shows. It's like all of that stress for me, because I trust it now. converts immediately into like improved cognition. I can think quicker. You know, I'm more agile. And luckily, because it hasn't gone bad a bunch, I associate that feeling at least before I walk out on a stage. It's like, oh good, my superpower has arrived.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Which we needed. Yeah. So please enjoy Dr. Jenny Tates. We are supported by Mint Mobile. It's time to leave your overpriced wireless plans jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages. Get huge savings with Mint Mobile. They're offering any three-month plan for only 15 bucks a month, even their unlimited plan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Yeah. And I don't want to prevent you from framing it in a positive way. But I also think there's some other fun physiological things that are happening when your stress is increasing dramatically. We know that the areas of your brain that are working are also changing dramatically. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
You're probably living in your amygdala when you're at peak stress, whereas you'd hopefully want to be in your frontal lobe making some executive decisions and putting a plan in place. But just this thinking itself is in a different region if you succumb to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
Oh, I would send you Christmas gifts for life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jenny Taitz (on stress resets)
That's probably the glue that binds us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Leslie Stahl. And today our guest is Chris Nowinski.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And there's high flying stuff that goes wrong. All the time. This is what I was seeing, Monica. Guys were running and leaping out of the ring onto the cement floor that would at that point be probably 10 feet below them with a fucking two inch mat on the ground. Good luck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And you just sort of hope. Because they're all improv, right? All these matches, which I think is fascinating. Did you watch the McMahon documentary? Yeah. What a doc, huh? I think I did in it. Were you in it? Oh, this is embarrassing, Dad. It's not too embarrassing. There's about 150 guys in it. We hadn't met yet. No, that's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Did you watch it? Did you deal with McMahon at all in that period? Yeah, I mean, he was the guy who hired me. And was he just a good time Charlie? Was he fine to work for? Yeah, if he liked you, it was fine. Yeah. Okay, so you cut to the point, you get a pretty gnarly concussion. You get kicked in the head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, what was the conventional measure of whether someone was concussed or not? Flurry blission was one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Was your balance fucked up and your coordination? Yeah. Yeah. So you're now a liability to yourself because you're not functioning correctly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, not to spoil or alert, you become a neuroscientist. I'm earmarking that, but let me just ask you really quick. As I recall from biology in college, I was told that all of the cells in your body are somatic. They go through mitosis, but your brain cells do not. They're gray cells and they don't, repair. Is that still what we think? Tell me what happens with the cells in your brain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
They are different from the rest of your somatic cells.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Right, you're going to relocate to a non-damaged area of your brain, some motor controller, some other thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, so given that, what was the method to repair the condition you had?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You're really knowing now, unfortunately, the preciousness of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I did have a really gnarly concussion wakeboarding, and I had amnesia for like 14 hours.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And I was on like a three-minute loop, and I had the MRI and looked in there, and yeah, it was gnarly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I would see I'm in Michigan, but I know I live in California and I'm with my then girlfriend of nine years. And I would say, why am I in Michigan? And then my mom was there, too, because they were all taking me in the hospital. You're home for my birthday. Why don't I remember that? You were wakeboarding, you hit your head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And then I would say, oh, so it's like the episode of Gilligan's Island where I get hit in the head with a coconut and I just got to get hit in the head with a coconut again. No laughing. And then I go, that's kind of funny. Have I said that before? Yeah, you've said that like 40 times. Crying. Then, why am I in Michigan? Come out of the crying and straight back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And I was just on this loop for like 14 hours. And then it stopped. And then all those memories that had been happening during that 14 hours were becoming clear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so when do you decide that you're going to go back to school and get a PhD in this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
That's a good question. Thank you for asking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
All undesirable data would be jettisoned from the study.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And does it have to require swelling? How would one test for it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Will you tell me more about the chemical aspect? The great work was done at UCLA. I'm not shocked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Do you know the author David Sedaris? Yes. Our greatest gift this whole show has given us is we've interviewed him like six times and he sends us postcards. And that postcards from Sedaris is like... That he writes... He writes them from all over the world. Such a throwback to a better life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
It's becoming porous through the stretching. So now all these chemicals that are inside of it and outside of it start dancing around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Are there regions of the brain that are more prone to this damage? When you see concussions, does any area over-index?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
okay now when i got mine they put me in the mri or the c-scan or whatever the i got and what they were looking for particularly is they told me well your brain has swollen and the swelling has probably caused some pressure against the area of your brain that has these short-term memories or that's why until it unswells that's what's going to go on and then we're looking for bleeding
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Right, because if you're hemorrhaging in your brain, they've got to get in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, I haven't been since. They didn't have to say much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, so for people who've had, and we don't know the number, obviously, at some point in your study as we accumulate more things, maybe we'll get some kind of predictive sense, but some multiple concussions result in the CTE.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, Monica, I don't know if you know this coming in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, so what is the full arc of the condition? And Mike, what are the mechanisms that are happening in the brain?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Although you did say one concussion doubles your outcome for suicide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah. One concussion. And I know I've had, that's not the only one I've ever had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah. Although the incident rate for suicide in a group of 100,000, it's still quite low. It's still rare. So even if you double it, it's still a low number. Don't get too worried. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, so yeah, you definitely need grandma and grandpa around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
But then also we get into a correlation causation problem, which is I'm sure there's something we could say about people who accumulate concussions. People that are drawn to that lifestyle are probably doing a whole suite of behaviors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, we did it without a grandma and grandpa, but thank God my sister lives next door, so. Oh my God, this is incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Is that generally, if you have CTE, that is where it's... Yeah, that's where the first lesions will show up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Now, just to be a skeptic, what is our control group? What are we making this relative to? We have other brains, but we don't totally know the history of their impact. Are we seeing most people don't have any of these lesions?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
That's a deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So one out of 147 versus 110 out of 111. I'm sold. I've been saying this. And for people who have not seen the images, they're taking these thin slices of the brain and they're putting them next to each other. And a healthy section of this brain would be kind of just white. And then if you have a mild case of CT, you're seeing some discoloration. But
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
In an extreme CTA, you're seeing like it's been dipped in coffee, and then there's just pockets of saturation of this dark stuff. It looks like the lung of a smoker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And then I want, this is relevant to bring up because we're in the early explanation of it. So this was observed and I grew up hearing this because my dad loved boxing. We called people punch drunk. Right. And so just talk about what that was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
What do you call it when you commission? Oh yeah, yeah. She commissioned this? Yeah, it took years to build. Oh, and you have to pee in the tank because the lid doesn't open.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You're also looking at a pretty small group of people versus high school football, which is millions of people. It's not like that many people go into boxing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, so what are the symptoms that people with CTE experience?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
He is a neuroscientist, an author, and a retired professional wrestler. Mm-hmm. We've been just accumulating bizarre origin stories. But bizarre might not be the right word. Super fascinating origin stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
This is the stuff that seems to get the headlines. And I'll say that anecdotally, we know someone that was married to a very successful football player, and they had a total personality shift.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
yeah he died and you hear about this i see it on real sports there's violence all of a sudden people who have never been violent are getting violent to their family they're getting violent around town they're self-harming the addiction is spiraling you're seeing a real tornado of depression and just the personality shift i think that's the scariest thing yeah people are married to these men that they love that were so kind and all of a sudden they're erratic and impulsive and scary
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
She's going to be so happy with that reaction. Oh, my God. That is incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, because you go like, okay, memory loss, to what degree? You can live with that. But that aspect, and then I have to imagine the suicide rate for people with CT has got to be among the highest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Oh, my God. You wouldn't know the story behind P-Baby. I got to explain to you. I don't go back that deep. Yeah, of course. I don't expect it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
If someone were to recognize in a moment of clarity that this was happening to them, are there medications that could help?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
said... Do you hear these wild cases where the dudes shoot themselves in the heart because they know they want their brain studied?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
We barely go back that deep. Sometimes we've completely forgotten.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, it forces you to look at a lot of the things we've seen with a lot of the people we've seen them with. Mike Tyson, a lot of these boxers that have had episodes that are inexplicable. You have to imagine there's a lot going on. It's not just CTE. Brain injury itself in the absence of CTE can cause a lot of this stuff. What positions in football do you track those?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Obviously, the kicker has very low risk of getting this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, so where did you move from to this area of Florida? I was in Boston for 25 years. But you're from Chicago-ish? From Chicago, right, yeah. What suburb? Have you already bonded with Robbie about this? Yes, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Maybe because they've all played different positions before they landed in those positions. That's part of it. What you played in the NFL is not what you played as a kid. You see all these stories, this was a layer of racism where these incredible black quarterbacks would come into the league and they're like, you're not going to be a quarterback because you don't have the brain to run an offense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah. Now, how did the sports compare to one another? Is football the worst? Where's NHL? Where's boxing? Where's soccer?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I grew up around hockey more than football. Concussions are standard. Because you're falling, you're hitting the ice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, those guys are flying and hitting the back of their head on the plexiglass. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You'd have to go in and do a brain surgery. We are trying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And wasn't one of the things that we've learned since we started studying this is it's not these big concussions necessarily, that it's also just repetitive, smaller hits.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So you just said 100 Gs. Is that the scale we're looking at?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Oh my God, because you think of these F1 drivers are pulling 5 Gs and their necks are this thick because they're dealing with 5 Gs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, yeah. Some of those impacts can create 100 Gs? Yeah. Oh my God. Now, is the onset period of this condition, do we know, is it age-related or is it duration from impact-related?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Well, now I want to say, so you took it upon yourself once learning about this. And at the time, I think you said there was only two or three brains that have been studied for CTE.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, and watching guys probably consume, like, 7,000, 8,000 calories before practice. You're very Chicago. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And you kind of appointed yourself the person that was going to have to try to go out and get more brains to be studied.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
which meant that you were in a position to start calling family members of people mostly football players who had died to ask the family if you could have their brains yeah i want to know a few of these stories i mean there's one in particular but i wrote down aaron hernandez demarius thomas vincent jackson ken stable or any of these i would love to hear someone's personal story with this
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I know from researching you, he had a great nickname.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Nice. He could be standing next to Ditka and look like his son, maybe. You know, that very Midwestern.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You're calling the mother of someone who just lost their son to suicide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I would imagine as scary as that call is to make, any family member of someone who just died by suicide would love an explanation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
They were so happy that someone cared to find out maybe there's more to this. It's almost like finding the killer of someone who was murdered.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Big white boy. Yeah, yeah. I'm from Detroit, so we have our variety as well. Yeah, we consider ourselves brothers statewide, right? Yes, absolutely. Also, high-rate alcoholism is standard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
How do I get out of this is what you were motivated by. I hate doing this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, it's incredibly successful. And then throughout many other sports, like Dale Earnhardt Jr. has agreed to do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
We just did a moral founding question by Jonathan Haidt of someone having sex with a corpse. And I was like, I really don't care what happens to my body afterwards. So if I'm willing to have that happen, yeah, absolutely. That went in a different direction than I was expecting. I'm showing you how low the bar is for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Did you watch that cheerleading doc that was popular? No, it's called Cheer on Netflix. It's incredible. And you go, oh, these gals are doing something more dangerous than the football players.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And no one even is noticing what's happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah. There's no regulation. They don't practice with helmets on. We got in a fight about it. I'm like, they got to practice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
But you can't tell the football players they got to have these.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Well, I'm delighted to donate my brain. Do I have to officially go to a website or something? Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Oh, my goodness. I just—I won't bore you with it, but— No, I'm going to bore you with it. I drove around with a homeless guy for an hour and a half interviewing him. And the only reason he trusted me to get him was because he was from Kalamazoo and I was from Michigan. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, okay. But we'd be honored to have you. Double check my children have no plans for my brain while they sign up. Most people say, let me check with the wife and they'll never get back to you. So I appreciate it. My wife would be like, get that fucking brain out of here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, oh yeah. Sorry. Okay, so you've gotten this pledge. What's happening in Europe? And obviously rugby, Australian rules, football, soccer is global. It's not like this is an American issue. What's the rest of the world think about all this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Is it a comparable percentage? I shot a movie in New Zealand for four months and I got super into watching rugby. And I was like, well, this is the ultimate gladiator sport. I mean, these guys have nothing on. They must have enormous rates of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
As you've learned, I know very little about these masculine sports. I didn't know this either until recently. I know about BMX and skateboarding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, so now we can get into a fun liberty question and what is the future and what would you advise? Because obviously for children, that's one conversation we have about children. We would agree they're not old enough to make this Faustian deal. I would agree. And there are a lot of people that I couldn't argue back if they go, yeah, my life fucking sucks without this thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And I'm an adult and I want to do it. And I take on the risk and fuck you, I have liberty. And I can't really stand in the way of that. I am of that mind. How do we deal with all these facets of the problem? I'm of the same mind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I know, I kind of like it that way. Just leave that hanging until maybe one day the mystery is revealed. Okay, so you played a lot of sports. I'm sure mom and dad were supportive of all the sports. Yes. And you excelled at football. I did. And then you ended up going to Harvard to play football. Yes. Now, walk me through the selection process. Like, would you have been good enough to go play at...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And let's be honest, it might be the greatest part of someone's whole time on planet Earth. It might be. I still know people. It's like the greatest years of their life for being on that team and doing that. So it has some value that needs to be acknowledged.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Would one bit of advice for soccer be like no heading the ball until a certain age?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, my daughter's buddies, some of them are in four leagues all year round.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, using your head as a baseball bat, basically. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So what we see too, and it has to be acknowledged, is the demographics of the sport are changing because educated white people with means are not letting their kids do this. And we're seeing it change pretty dramatically. Who's actually playing the sport? Is disenfranchised, disadvantaged kids more and more?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Notre Dame, and then you decided, no, I really want the education.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I guess the reason I bring it up is to say, yes, there is liberty until you observe that only certain people have liberty and don't have liberty. Like when you're seeing that some people don't have an option and other people do have an option, there is some societal obligation to protect the people that are most vulnerable. That's what I'm getting at is
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
These are necessary because you're asking people who are in a position where they've got a risk at all to make these decisions when they have much bigger fucking fish on their plate, you know? Yeah. Whatever the goddamn scene. Fish to fry. Fish to fry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Unusual. Which is probably the definition of bizarre if you look it up. Probably says unusual.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
It's one thing to say, oh, they were told the risk and they made a decision. But if you acknowledge that some people are in a worse position and they're more incentivized to make that decision, that has to be accounted for.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Well, yeah. What is that percentage? Do you know it off the top of your head? I mean, it's under 1% of kids who enter the football in their school are going to end up in the NFL. It's 0.1 or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Well, you have to acknowledge that same stimulus input results in some different output because we're so variable. So like tens of millions of people smoke the same amount of cigarettes and some percentage gets small cell carcinoma. I don't know. There's a lot of factors in there. Yeah, you're right. It's not so predictive of the symptoms.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
The pathology. For sure, the condition, but not the symptoms per se.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Your best defense is that you have a wife that's highly educated on this and is an outside observer. I think it gets hard to observe yourself. But you have a partner who's hip to all these things to look for, presumably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, so that did bring me to the final thing I want to talk about is this isn't just for athletes, right? There are occupations that over-index in concussions. All my friends in the movie business are all stuntmen. I can't tell you how many concussions these guys get.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
It'll go unnamed, but yeah, there's one friend that we've had where a few of us have talked and I'm like, this feels a little loopy. Was anyone else noticing this? And we know of many, many concussions. Anyone who's doing like motorcycle shit, you're going to deal with that. So what occupations, military, fire and rescue?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I've heard like 4.4s with all the AP classes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Always plus a ton of AP classes. Okay, you're likable, right? Did you pay any penalty for being that smart? Were you like a nerd? Were you getting shoved in the hallway?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Well, again, mostly stuntmen are coming from a different high-risk background.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
That's interesting. Yeah. I wonder how open he would be to that. That's a vulnerable thing to acknowledge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Well, it is a hard thing to bring up because, as you say, there's no cure. You know, and there's no cure for things you're really disincentivized to even know about it. Because why? So you can worry more about it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Well, right. So... Everyone who leaves the NFL is going to get depressed. They had a purpose. They had a schedule. They had teammates. They had community. But CBT or therapy will help with those. And if that doesn't help with those, then you're going, well, there's probably some kind of structural issue that's probably not going to respond to that type of treatment or therapy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, so if people want to get involved or help, Concussion Legacy Foundation is your organization. Is there any place people should go to support or is there any call to action?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Are you in the unique position where when you go to a football game, the players love you and the upper brass can't stand that you're there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Did you have this thing? Because I was in a few AP classes and I definitely think that first day of the AP class, a lot of the kids were like, oh, God, how embarrassing. He's in the wrong class and he doesn't know it. Do you think you were getting any of that when you would walk into these AP classes? Like, oh, fuck, the center of the football team's in the wrong class.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
But they have been motivated as a union. They have pushed internally for these changes. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
They made a lot of big changes. Yeah. Shockingly. That was part of the doc. Yeah. Humans are so complex. This guy's doing this, but then he's open to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Well, Chris, you're radical. What an incredibly weird story that brought you here. I love it. And I'm grateful for the work you're doing. And I hope you're effective in making sure little kids don't get hit in the head over and over again. Thank you very much. It's a noble cause. Yeah. Thanks for coming. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I had a rare occurrence, and I would do also, this is great, this dovetails nicely into what we did a week ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Delta's Play. There was two showings of Delta's Play, 1 p.m., 5 p.m.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I did not, and I regret it deeply. But while I wasn't at that play, I was like, oh my God, I can finally go get my shingles vaccine. When you turn 50, this is a public service announcement.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You are now eligible to get the shingles vaccine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I mean, maybe they'd give it to you before. I don't know. But when you, I was at my physical this year and he's like, okay, so now you got to get your shingles vaccine, which sign me up. Right. Do you know anyone that's had shingles?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
not this week but if you're on listening to Wondery Plus the episode well that is a real that's crazy anyways I've had a friend who had it it's miserable yeah it's really bad nerve pain and as our lovely pharmacist we share a pharmacist Rosalyn yes she was saying like opiates don't block nerve pain which I didn't understand that or know that or whatever but um Yeah, just agonizing pain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I don't want that. Also, I've complained about this in the past. What a gross name for a disease. Shingles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
It makes me think of shingles on a roof and that your skin starts getting... Of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Flaps. When we hear it. And then tearing off and stuff. Yeah. That's not what happens. Is it just adult chicken pox shingles?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, so I was in there and I don't, I never go to the pharmacy. But I get all my pharmaceuticals from R&D. The cutest, we've talked about it once before. It's the cutest pharmacy in all of Los Angeles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
At Hillhurst and Franklin. And because I was there for a vaccine, she had to help a couple people before me. And I felt like I was in Mayberry. Everyone that walked in, she knew by name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Knows everything about them. It was like a town... Hair cutter or I guess town pharmacist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, now, do you want to tell folks about the play on Saturday?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I'll tell you why it's not shade. Every movie you see with plays for kids, this is how plays for fourth graders are. So there's, like, there's no shade. They have, like, three rehearsals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
It's what you want. It is what you want. I guess that's what I'm saying. It's actually a success.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
It's what you want because I then went to five and they had figured it all out. Like they really, really what it seems like is they just needed one more rehearsal. Yeah, sure. That wouldn't be a rehearsal because I had heard that like, you know, no one has their lines. People are nudging the narrator. I mean, and that's what you live for with fourth graders on stage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
There is no fourth wall for Delta. Yes. People started clapping. Explain that. Well, first of all, she saw you and then put her tongue out like provocatively and crawled on the ground and was like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And they think it was directly to her soulmate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, I'm going to wag my tongue at you guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I love too that those two could find a way to get into a little power struggle, not even in the same...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, yeah. If I were them, I would be like, oh, fuck, they have jocks here, too? Isn't that why we work so hard? You're going to get shoved into a locker in college?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
This was fun. This was more of a detective thing that followed me going, which is some kid, when they walked off stage, said, well, that sucked. And they still had their mic on. And that was the last thing the audience heard. So I heard that from a parent at the five o'clock. Like, oh my God, the funniest part of the whole thing was at the end, one of them just said, well, that sucked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And I go, that sounds like my kid, for sure. And then I'm telling Delta later, I go, yeah, I guess someone said, well, that sucked. And she goes, why that? I feel like I might have said that. And I go, good, because I really felt like it would definitely be something you would say. Yeah, I think it was her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So I got the report from everyone that that's what had gone down. And so I was so excited to go to 5 o'clock. Yeah. went off with almost out of hitch. Everyone knew their lines, all the mics were working. I was delighted that she still was fully breaking the fourth wall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Well, she saw me and I was like, you know, cheering and waving. And then she started waving at me and then she was doing the I love you hand signs to me. And then she was doing the heart thing to me and just really blasting me from the stage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
They're always around. What was the Harvard experience like? Was it incredible?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And I just—it made me so happy, and I was laughing so hard, and it was—God, was it fun. And I'm going to commend them on this, too. They kept that fucking thing under an hour, and that's incredible for these kids' plays. Wow. That came in at just under or about an hour. Okay. A lot of times these— Plays have an intermission.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And it's a long time. Yeah. This was a perfect amount of time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I'm telling you, one of the kids was definitely Ralphie from Christmas Story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I couldn't keep my eyes off a couple of those kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
There was a little girl too with glasses that was, I just, she was, she, when you see someone like she was in it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Is the football team competitive? I don't know anything about it. Yes. Forgive my ignorance. I never see them in, like, a Rose Bowl or anything. No, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
It would make sense that you have that point of view and I have my point of view. Yeah. Because I didn't want to be an actor in school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And clearly you're not going to find 35 kids who are trying to become actors. We're in L.A. Yeah. Five or six of the kids on that stage are probably going on auditions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
But 98 percent are just trying to be social after school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And so I love. So for me, because I wasn't trying to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I'm going, I'm so glad they're just having fun. Yeah, I know, you're right. Like, what a memory of horsing around and fucking the thing up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, so don't be that appalled that I'm asking how good they are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
It's barely even a line. Yeah, it's just a few words.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Oh, it's really good. I hope everyone clapped. And then you said, oh, no, that's not over. So what's immediately great about, for me, Delta's interest in it, she doesn't want to be Alice. She auditioned specifically to be Tweedledee with her friend Tweedle. She just wants to be in the play if she can be with her best friend as Tweedledee Tweedledum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
The kids that want to do it, they want the bigger parts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So it's like, I already love it because it's just about her and her friend doing this thing together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah. I thought it was all very true to who she is, which is all I want for her, if that makes sense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, and their little exchange was tricky.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You love CTE. It's your favorite topic. The dream scenario would be a CTE episode of The Pit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Because Tweedledum is dumb, presumably, and doesn't know their name. So it's like they keep introducing themselves and Tweedledum keeps introducing herself as Tweedledee. And then they have this back and forth kind of who's on first thing. And it's very confusing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
That's hard because you had worship in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I'm going to admit, too, I'm probably just too in love with Delta. Whatever she does, I think I like. Yeah. And I reverse engineer why that's perfect for her, because I just see her being herself, and I'm wrapped around her fingers. So I guess I'm trying to acknowledge that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Right, right. Sure, sure. There's a bigger fun worldview here, which is like, if the show is good,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So it's like, it's just interesting. Like, if you can fast forward, what in life you'll enjoy and care about and remember. And all the parents there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Like, what I'm saying is I'm bummed I went to the five and not the one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And I bet most parents that went to the one had the most amount of fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was in soccer. Yeah. So I probably, I've had this experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You know, they lost every game. And even more so, they never scored a goal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
It's a flawless season. Yeah, flawless season. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, and Harvard plays all these teams I'm familiar with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Oh, this is a huge, endless debate you have in your head the whole time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So two things are really relevant. One is, the inclinations you have right now about Delta, I don't have when I watch Delta. I have them towards Lincoln.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Because Lincoln and I have similar character defects. And additionally, I would probably be less forgiving of the chaos watching the Lincoln play because she really takes it serious and wants to do great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And so Delta is not betraying herself and she's not getting further from her goal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And on the soccer team, all this stuff's going on. And now what I'm feeling bad for is my friend Scott's daughter is an awesome soccer player. And she's on this team with... You know, my kid. People who don't care. Yeah, people playing for the first time. Right. And so I do, I'll observe that and I'll go like, oh, she deserves a much better team.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Look how hard, I mean, literally she's carrying the entire team.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And then the thing I have with Lincoln while watching is like, I don't want to give her a tip about passing or about kicking or scoring or any of that. But I'm fighting the urge to tell her, I expect nothing from you other than you run at that person and run dead into them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You've got to get over your fear of a collision. And you minimally, what you have to be is, I'm not asking you to be skilled and have all these skills, but I want you to right now acknowledge it won't hurt if you decide to confront. Because that's so much of these young soccers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
It's like someone's coming with the ball and the other, the defender runs up and they're just so afraid of locking legs or just confronting the way you have to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And so, and that's my age old. I want her to be brave. I don't want her to get taken advantage of. I want her to be fearless in defending herself. So when I'm watching all, I don't care if she scores. I don't all, I just like, I don't want her to be afraid to confront that runner with the ball. And then I, then I spend the whole game debating whether I'm going to bring that up in the car or not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And for six games, I don't bring it up. And then on the seventh game, I bring it up. And then I don't know if it was the right or wrong decision.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
An equestrian first school. Maybe someone's cross. Okay, yeah. Well, there was a really interesting who, oh, Malcolm Gladwell just recently wrote about the absurdity of the numerous sports at Harvard. Yes. They have more sports than any other school so that there's so many routes in. Yes, exactly. Anywho. All right. So you loved it. What degree did you pick up at Harvard?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And I can totally acknowledge both sides of it. There's like a group of people that are taking life really serious and they're trying their ass off. And it's very unfair to them that some other people are just here to have a blast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Like if you want to be good. You can't get good by thinking about something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, and both are legit, and I feel bad for the serious people that are annoyed by the people fucking off, and I feel bad for the people having a great time in life who people are mad at. You know, like, I see it all. Like, you know, is life a big farce? I think so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, we've all flown to New Mexico to execute this thing. It's not like, you can't wander onto a film set. Right. You know, you, but you're right. You're right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah. And the first time I was like, I get it. I might've done the same thing if I had a smaller role in the movie and I wanted to pop. Uh, and then when I said, Hey, if you keep doing this, we're never going to get the scene. Cause, cause my character can't be interrupted in this race. And then you choose to do it. Yeah. Then I'm the person who wants to get the job done. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Someone else is fucking around. So, yeah, I'm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And now God bless him for giving me that experience. Because I've done a million scenes in a million movies and I remember very few of them. And that is so memorable and it's one of my best stories. And it's like ultimately in the game alive, I'm delighted he fucked that up so many times and all the shit happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So I guess it's like what point in time are you evaluating these things is also really relevant. Sure. Is it in the moment? Is it five years later? Is it on your deathbed? Is it as, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And the world can't be, the whole world can't be thinking this whole thing's a joke. Yeah. Because things got to get done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah. You did a whole graphic here, Rob? I did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Now, Rob, how do you deal? Because, Rob, you do everything right. It's something I am so grateful to you for. You are such a meticulous planner and just a great manager of all things that need doing. Did it drive you nuts growing up when people just were fucking off and didn't give a shit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So I saw you were an anthropologist. I love it. The same distance between Detroit and Chicago, really. Yeah. Academically between. It was very close.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I used to be able to do that voice, but now I've lost my upper register. It's a family guy character. He always wants Chris to come in his basement and show him his creamy hamstrings or creamy thighs. I mean, he's clearly a pedophile, but they find a way to make it quite cute and funny in the cartoon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And as I told you in 96, I partied with Pedro.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Who was season one. San Francisco real world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Now, do you think that remaining 1% that's girls, do they have a girl league or there's girls playing on the boys football team?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You want to know something I'm embarrassed to admit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So I'm deep in my Friday Night Lights rewatch. I cannot recommend it enough for people with kids. It's such a fun family show. We've never had more fun watching a show together. It's just, it's a drug. We love it. We fight every night about when to turn it off. It never occurred to me that they can practice. They can just play games in practice because the team is split into two teams.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
The defense, I don't know why that never crossed my mind. Like we're watching Friday Night Lights and they practice a ton on the show. And I'm like, oh, duh, yeah, they can play a real game endlessly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You can't do that in basketball. I mean, you're just, you'd be splitting up. You split it. Yeah, it's just, it's very, I don't know why that never crossed my mind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Like, you're not playing against— Unless your team has the best defense. Right. Then you almost have—your offense almost has an advantage because they're being forced to play against the best defense. It's probably like a virtuous cycle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yes, but then you're going to have, like, the goalie's going to be half as good. Talk about a fucking position I would not want to have. No way. There's all these things where consistency is important. Yeah. Those are not good things for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Or your whole job boils down to one second. Like, I need a lot of time, and I need to be intermittently good, and I'm going to be bad intermittently. That's kind of how I can operate. Interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I'm surprised they didn't do that. They will. Season two.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
But even when you make the shot, you've been dribbling for a while and you made a couple moves and you're in your rhythm. This is just you're standing dead still and you're up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
With no lead up. That's true. I need lead up. That's why I like driving is like. Anyone will tell you, like, it's very rare that a, unless you're an F1.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
There's 21 turns on a track. You're not acing all 21 turns on the track. You've blown one, you're recovering on a couple, and that's standard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So now it's just like a percentage of how good you, so that works for me. Yeah. You have a lot of time to make mistakes and recover and be perfect and then not good. But these jobs that require you to be excellent every time. Yeah. Scare the bejesus out of me. A symphony orchestra player.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I need to be a jazz, like, improver. Yeah. Some of it's like, I don't know, is that okay? Whoa, that was a nice lick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Microsoft. It's hard to feel bad for Microsoft.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Did you have friends that were like, you want to get on the jet and go to Martha's Vineyard with my family? I wasn't invited, but I heard about it. It was happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
It's weird that it didn't take off. It was already there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
That might speak to like if you didn't catch the learning curve initially, you think it's insurmountable and you'd rather just learn the new thing that came your way and everyone's figuring it out. Well, this will comfort you. I just weirdly stumbled. I don't know why I read an article about quarterly profits.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And Microsoft's quarterly profit was $70 billion. That's pretty good. That's nuts. Yeah, that's awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Isn't that the story of the internet? It's like you had Yahoo, you had AOL, all these things that seem like, you know, institutions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
And some of these, AOL bought Warner Brothers and Time Warner and just vanished forever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Of the million we just learned that play football.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
God, that seems really, really high. Because how many people get into the NFL every year?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
257. So that would mean there was only 100,000 players drafted. Of age.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Right. I guess there's the million playing football might include junior high football players and youth football and... Maybe it includes rec league. Definitely 9 through 12.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Right. Okay, so how on earth do you get on this MTV show? Oh, another thing we haven't commented.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Wow. God, I mean, that just seems really impossible. Doesn't it? That a few hundred will go every year?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Out of 77,000 that are already playing in college. It's almost impossible to play college football.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Again, Friday Night Lights smashes. He thinks he's going to the NFL. Everyone thinks they're going to the NFL.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Trying to think what the equivalent episode would be for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, me too. Can you think of an obsession of mine that might be fun? It would be car-related, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah, we've had a couple people that their main concern was that we're not listening to each other. Right. That was really rewarding. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
He's much younger than me. Nine years, maybe. Are you 41? No, but thank you. I'm 46.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Still in the 70s. You were born in 79? I'm 78. All right, we're doing good. Okay, so yeah, how do you end up on MTV?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Growing up, did you love WWF and Hulk Hogan?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Of course. John Wells is a legend. Okay. He has a book called Head Games, Football's Concussion Crisis. And if you want to get involved with the Concussion Legacy Foundation, concussionfoundation.org. This is a really, really interesting episode. And his story is... Second to none. Please enjoy Chris Nowinski.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay, great. Not in front of anybody. No. No. I got to imagine you're appealing. You have the size, great. You have the athleticism, but what a story. You're from Harvard. They're going to hate your fucking guts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You beat me. I hope we fuse at the end of this. Okay, so you needed surgery.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
We should. It'd explode out of the toilet. First trimester, it'd be 12 pounds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Yeah. Did you have a romantic? No, there's no women there, right? Of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
They wanted that. So it was eight guys, five girls. Okay, day two are on the wrestling track. Yeah. And was there any romance happening in the house? No. Oh. They didn't get you drunk enough. They probably hadn't cracked the formula yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So this was 2001. Yeah. Okay, what was the value of a three-year contract at that time with WWE?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
Okay. They paid us $600 a week to do the show, and then one person gets dangled.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
That's great. Yeah. Of the people that were on this show, how many got that contract? Two, one male, one female. And you got, you didn't get the contract. Wait, but you did end up in WWE. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you didn't get the contract. What then happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
That would be a dick, but maybe the only college grad there. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
You're in Boston. Are dudes trying to challenge you at the bar? No. Thank God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
As we'll learn, you have a big injury. Is that your fault or his? I'll take the blame.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
So some of them were my fault, some of them were not, and they accumulated. Okay, so this is a question that's been really eating me alive, and you're one of the few people that can really answer this. So we were in Mexico City over Christmas, and we went to the wrestling down there. Lucha Libre. I mean, it is wild.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chris Nowinski (on CTE)
I'm watching one match, and I'm like, these guys, there's no way they can walk for like two weeks. It's over and over under the concrete. It's so violent. So... What was the violence level in WWE compared to football?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Mrs. Mouse. Hi. Today we have Jonathan Haidt returning. I don't know if you guys would remember.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Debate some ideas probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, yeah. Constantly calling for the deans to be fired, constantly calling for everyone to be fired. That's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You have to acknowledge who the constituents are. It needs addressing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
The thing I was noticing that was very concerning and continues to be is I am liberal and all my friends are liberal. I'm having conversations with all the members of this group and none of them think some of the broadcast values of the liberal party. And that's what was really concerning. I've yet to meet the person that agrees with issue A.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
yet that's an official part of our platform and what's happening it felt like the cadre system we were all afraid to tell the truth that's right i was open to meeting a handful of people that thought this was a good idea but numerous issues everyone i meet in real life not on the internet doesn't think this way and i'm like oh it's truly been hijacked no one even thinks this
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Hopefully we've gotten 4% better. You can score us afterwards. 4% per year compounded. That's okay. If you have forgotten, I'll give you the same compliments that we probably did the first time, which is I think we were exposed to you first on Sam Harris 11 years ago, maybe 10 years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Okay, so... Your current book, The Anxious Generation, one element of it is not a shocker to me because you brought up in the first interview seven years ago, this concept of free range parenting. We ended up interviewing Leonore Skenazy, who we loved. She's great. She's so funny. So that aspect I knew would come up at some point in your work, maybe more officially.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So maybe start there because that's where you and I are really in lockstep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Normally I would brag about getting an email from you commending us. I somehow resisted in that moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Really quick, how have you come to trust the data? Because you born in 63, me in 75, I have never, ever been asked about my anxiety level. I've never been asked about my depression level. No one ever inquired anything of any of us. So how do you make peace with trusting this data, just knowing that we're looking around now and we weren't?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
In fact, that's the introductory episode I used to send people when I used to encourage people to listen to that show. It was such an invigorating debate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
OK, I'm going to unfortunately bring this word back again, and I know it's an aggravating one. But if we look at why there was this clampdown on the autonomy of the children in that period, you've got to call it irrational. It's an irrational fear of pedophiles, kidnappings, abductions. We would have to agree that that was a moral panic. I lived through this satanic moral panic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
People that weren't alive then can't really even imagine we were sending kids to prison in Memphis because they worshipped this poster of Metallica. Like this was happening. Kids were going to prison for Satanism. The next round in my memory was this big moral panic about abductions. A man with a white man. Yes. Our response to it was far more damaging than this perceived threat of the abductors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yes. If you're ever going to model great discourse, it's really encouraging to hear two smart people argue, not have the same opinion, represent themselves well. Yeah, I was just kind of enamored with your intellect and your ability to communicate what you think. It's pretty unique. And then over the years, I doubt this would get to you, but Monica and I bring up your moral thought experiments.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
500. I don't want to act like I'm ahead of the question. I know where it's going. Honestly, maybe 60 to 100. That's about right. The right's obsessed with child abductions. They think everyone's a pedophile still. They have this whole movie. They think Bill Gates has kids. Right wing TV really goes for that. They think there's sex trafficking happening on an order of like millions of kids a year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And you're like, where are the parents? Why isn't anyone reporting this? Where are these people?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
This would be a great time for me to point out, like, I was sexually abused. But almost all sexual abuse cases are a trusted person, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
They're so tasty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I would also add there was a new component around that time, much like the Internet, which was the daytime salacious talk show. There were new offerings. There was cable. There was a proliferation of options. It wasn't three networks. So you could find someone at any given moment on TV in the 90s talking about some abductor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
A megaphone was given to a lot of people that you would have otherwise not heard from. That's right. That was part of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Just a little telling they have a different version running in China than they have here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
What would be helpful, I think, is the first, because I wouldn't have known how to delineate the generations. So Gen X, which I'm a member of, are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You're the last of, okay. You're bridging it. And then we have millennials. Millennials is what era?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Monica's represented. I'm 87. We have three generations here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, they have no period of time. They have no foot in pre-internet, pre-smartphone. So it's a very interesting group to look at. When we talk about all these issues that are in the anxious generation, we are talking about Gen Z. Yes, that's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Okay, so a couple things you lay out in the book which are relevant is you have 90% of the mass of your brain by like six years old. But what was really happening through development is building all these neural networks, getting different areas of the brain to communicate. And that is a long journey that varies between males and females.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But the frontal lobe is fully on board, the prefrontal cortex. You're in your twenties. 25 usually. Okay, so that's how the brain works. And now what are your thoughts on how this technology has interfered with that process?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's really impressive. It's not like any child ever tried to start walking. It's like, fuck that. That was too hard. I guess I'll crawl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, what would be over there that's as interesting?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So you see four foundational harms from all this. One is social deprivation. Seems pretty intuitive, but go ahead and expound a little bit on that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You don't even meet kids. Anyone with a partner experiences this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Now, just to play devil's advocate right here. Please. I would imagine that is how their workplace will end up looking. So I think we're moving into an era where it's like AI is doing a lot of these tasks. AI has endless concentration. You know, are they just getting prepared for the life they're going to occupy? It's not the life I want, but is it maybe just the life of the future?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I want to say that's like first year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I need to, again, check my being 50 and getting more conservative. What do we think about that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's all so intuitive. It's not like you're going to fall so deeply behind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's interesting. Yeah, it parallels a lot of social issues of the time. It's like, when do we allow children to do whatever they want?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'll just add right now, because I think it's interesting for people to think of when they drink. Like if you read Dopamine Nation or Molecule More, both those books are great. The Joy of Drinking is the first two drinks That is the most pleasurable period because that's the dopamine dump. It's I'm feeling the shifting of reality. What could be on the other side of this new reality?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Beyond two drinks is inebriation. So you're no longer getting dopamine. So people are wondering, like, what is that experience where it's like the first two are great and I feel optimistic and energized. And then the rest is just inebriation because there's no dopamine. And that's what you really love is the dopamine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You're in a deficit at that point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
The human body is the master at homeostasis. So if you bring it up, it must bring itself down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yes, absolutely. And it's an asymmetric offset. So it's five minutes of dopamine and the cost of that, the bad chemicals you experience, go on for two hours.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It was early. Yep. And this one was really fun. I don't know about you. Were you nervous the first time we had him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I love that detail. The genius of these things is these really tiny details. And I'm upset you didn't go into film and television. I feel like you might have an M. Night Shyamalan kind of bent to you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And the gambling epidemic is soon to rival the opioid. Like there's a lot of people now starting to shine a light on just how extreme this epidemic is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah. And then you're feeding into the suicide epidemic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, you're in discomfort a lot of your day if you're not on the thing. It's identical to drug addiction. Okay, so now the data, and you've already hinted at it, but the social deprivation, sleep deprivation, we should talk about it, really probably impacts sleep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Okay, so the results of all this, as you reported, among American girls between 10 and 14, emergency room visits for self-harm grew by 188%. Yeah, it's stunning. Okay, so now this is really disturbing, but of course, I am inclined to think of all the variables that could add to this. It's hard to parse out these things. So one thing is we know the contagion effect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
We just had this expert on sleep sickness, where 3,000 of 5,000 town members all got the same sleep sickness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
The Tourette's. TikTok Tourette's. Yeah. Right. So this power of contagion, I don't think can be underestimated. So it's kind of chicken or egg. Were they on these devices so long that they wanted to self-harm or did they witness self-harm on the devices? I guess the results are the same regardless. But for me, I need to work through what's going on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
One's pleasure seeking, one's sustenance seeking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Well, the algorithm knows it must continue to get more and more extreme. Yes, exactly. Yes, it has a natural trajectory.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Can I just add, I don't care. You don't care if they eat their dog? Not at all. It's dead. Had they murdered the dog to eat it, now we're in a different zone. They've created suffering potentially, whatever. It's already dead. It's going to be wasted. I'll tell you what people around the world say. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And boys on YouTube, they're getting radicalized and becoming white nationalists.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
These very predictable paths.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Okay, and then the anxiety and depression, and we kind of already talked about it. You trust this figure. I'm a little more on the fence about how much of it. The anxiety and depression rates have risen 150% for this cohort.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Again, I just think we're really trying to figure out how much of it is the contagion, how much of it is, it's in our vernacular. Any kid now knows numerous personality disorders from the DSM. They know numerous mood disorders. I didn't know any of them. I knew like depression, I guess was the word I knew. So just the awareness is something, how much it's talked about is something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
John, isn't some of it just destigmatization? You asked to think he's dyslexic. That was a big thing you asked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Well, look, I acknowledge it's part of the tech, but I would say even back when you were deciding who you would tell that you had gone to therapy, you're making some selection. You're not telling everybody anything. And definitely you're evaluating what dude wants to hear, especially with dudes. You're like this fucking guy working on my sink doesn't want to know what's a therapy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You have some social awareness. Whereas you enter this world where if you choose to, you can be in a silo where everyone talks about it. That's right. So it's very powerful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You're going to nod along to a lot of racist jokes that were totally commonplace.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I want to put a ribbon on this because I think the tension that exists is like, there's people like me, there's people like me. Steven Pinker, there's people that want to point out that the long arc is very, very positive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And what I think some people fear when they hear that is that those people, myself included, are saying job all done. You don't have to give up improving because you've acknowledged there's been huge improvement. I think that's what some of the disconnect is, is people interpret that as you saying job's done. But that's not what I'm saying. It's like, we're on a good path.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Let's not be defeatist about this or pessimistic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And it still sucks, you can say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I get so much value out of Chappelle. I just love when something happens and I've processed it one way, I go, oh, I can't wait to hear how Chappelle processed this, right? Because he is coming from such a different and unique place than I am. And I am so regularly reminded of that this is an all-day occurrence for Black people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yes, those things have happened, but let me show you how we got devalued over this other group in two seconds or how this happened. Like, he's very good at reminding us, it's a joke if you think this is over. So I greatly appreciate that. What I'm pitching is like, we have room for both things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
One is like, we have made huge strides and it's still a beat down to be a Black man or woman in this country, much more than I'll experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
He was our introduction to podcasts. Jedediah Jenkins recommended I listen to the Jonathan Haidt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's interesting. I've not thought of this until you're laying it out, but it's almost like we do have a natural compulsion to atone and suffer. And there's an outlet for it in religion, right? It's like you're born with sin. You battle it. That's the burden you have. And in the absence of that, we kind of need a burden and we need some toxicity we're fighting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's kind of interesting that if you don't have an outlet for it and religion does provide that for you, you'll somehow find it. I mean, we all find religion. I think we could agree on that. It's like if you live in Hollywood, food is the religion. It's impure. It's toxic. It's inorganic. It's all these concepts we just love. We're built to be drawn to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Okay. Well, let's get into the four solutions. You lay out the four foundational harms, but you also lay out four solutions. And I'm in agreement on all these. So no smartphones before high school. Yes. Let's talk about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You're going to be the only kid in your class.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, they have iPods that they can make their home movies on. That's really all they do on it. And then you two, they're only allowed to watch a single show, Dr. Mike, because it's super informative. He's great. I love it. So yeah, those are kind of the parameters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
If they're on Wi-Fi at home, they can text. Communicate with their friends. Yes. Okay. I am aware of all the fear. And then I have my anecdotal life, which is I'm around a lot of kids, our whole friendship group. And there's fucking 14 kids in the group, right? And I'm hearing all these horror stories and I'm hearing what people deal with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I'm just actually not seeing these zombie teens addicted to their phones. I had all this fear about giving my daughter this phone. I engraved on it, no games. So there was no games allowed on it. I said, yes, I want you to make short movies. That's great. And I want you to have music and I want you to be able to read and listen to books on tape. So I'm all for it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And then I just deep panic that they're going to get obsessed with it. They have it. They forget to charge it. A month goes by and they go, oh, I want to do whatever. And they charge it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
They're here running around or riding motorcycles in the neighborhood. Like we're very out and about. Just the two of them or they're with other kids? Oh, so yes. And this is what you read about. I'm like, go to the store. Get the fuck out of here. Do whatever you want. I trust you. You know how to get home. You know how to flag a stranger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So they've had really a ton of autonomy, I think, relative to other kids I'm reading about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
They're pretty much on their own, except for our pod has a similar ethos.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
How many kids is that? That is 11 kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
That'd be great if you rolled in a Zenith console.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Do you know what's crazy? This is not hypothetical. What? There was a cannibal in France. We used to have a conspiracy theory show and our fellow host interviewed this cannibal and he made the cannibal's cookbook. And it was the exact thing. He worked in a pathology lab. Oh, my God. And he actually took it home and cooked it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
That was number one killer for kids under, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But I have a good counter to that. Go ahead. You're doing it all the time. You're valuing one thing and taking on risk because you know it's worth it. So yes, one girl got abducted in Europe. 52,000 people are going to die this year in a car accident. So you're comparing the incident rate of an abduction versus dying in a car, and it's
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
50,000 to one, but we know we want what's on the other side of driving the car. It is too important to miss out on your whole life to not go drive the car. You take on that risk because you want it. What people are not doing, I think accurately, is assessing what's at stake. So you know if you don't drive a car, you're not going anywhere in your life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And if your kids don't have this sense of competence and autonomy, they're going to miss out on where the car takes you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So it's not even hypothetical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
He went to jail, but he didn't do a ton of jail time for it. And he was able to get out and write this cookbook.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And if they get in a situation, they're actually far more vulnerable. So if your goal was to inoculate them from danger, them being as competent as possible is the best solution.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, they've had no opportunity to find out they can handle stuff. Okay, well, I love all those solutions. I've got no pushback on that. Now I'm going to hit you with something you're not going to like. Uh-oh. And I'm going to start this by saying I love my mother-in-law. She's the greatest grandmother's ever been on planet Earth. And no one loves my kids as much as my wife's mother.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But this is the pattern of texts I receive. Big warning about 5G. Huge dust up about vaccinations. She does not want us to get the kids vaccinated. A couple of abduction stories. And then out of nowhere, a month and a half ago, she texts me, have you heard of this guy, Jonathan Haidt? Uh-oh. She doesn't like me. No, she loves you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Links to things I should watch, interviews you've given in the promotion of this book. And I respond to her, yes, I'm aware of him. I've interviewed him. What do you think of him? And I'm going to be dead honest with you. I said, I think he's among the top five smartest people I've ever talked to. I'm very intimidated to argue with him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I think he himself is caught up in a bit of a moral panic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Here's what I think you're ignoring.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Gen Z's teen pregnancy rate is 78% lower than 91%. 31% of millennials drink regularly. Only 18% of Gen Z's drink. A third of Gen Z doesn't even drink. This has never been observed. They're completely abstinent. They are more frugal than millennials. They are more health conscious. They have better nutritional practices.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
They have better exercise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Here's what I'm going with. It's like you've decided to kind of focus on a singular thing. I could easily make the argument that, yes, this obsession with social media and the phone, although may have produced this thing, are we not then going to credit this thing with this huge leap forward this generation's taken? All this promising stuff we know about them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I know of the anxiety-depression figure, but that's to me one metric out of like six, and they're like thriving in the other departments.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Sam Harris episode. And I was so stimulated intellectually.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
The one that doesn't fit with that is they should have a big uptick in addiction and especially drinking. Why? Because they're living these scared, unfulfilled, high anxiety, lonely, depressed lives. And it is an immediate medicine that has worked for millennia. And that one doesn't jive. Well, wait a second.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Boys are rough, I'll grant it that. But they're slightly improved, shockingly. On drug addiction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Video games, porn. If we're including that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So what troubles me about my mother-in-law's text is she didn't text me to say you should let your kids roam freer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Fear is very tasty. It's very viral. It's easy to latch on to. And so my issue is that what she could have just as equally gotten from your book is is that she should have called and said, you know what? You should let the kids go out to eat by themselves. Now, that's the part of the book I love. And I do think it's the antidote. But that's not what makes headlines.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And that's not what has my mother-in-law texting me. It's not the call to bravery that I would want it to be. It's a double down on more fear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Terrified. You got to get every phone out of the house, just off to the races. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Well, the most identifiable thing is the endless arguments that exist in a household about this topic. Any parent can relate to this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'm in an interesting zone because I agree with you. I don't want a phone in my kids' school. They're not gonna be on social media till they're older. They're just not good. The phones. The phones. As I always tell my kids, I'm like, the world is so big around you and to reduce it to two by three inches, that's not what we should be doing. We should be trying to make it even wider, not narrower.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So I'm just in an interesting zone with it because I agree with you, but I think there's a little bit of hysteria surrounding it. I also don't think it's Satan. I don't think evil's here. You can maybe accept that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'm afraid of panics, irrational panics and fear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Are you open also to the notion that there are these cycles with new generations that are unavoidable, which is I have some hope that this self-corrects simply because the next generation will observe these older kids doing this outdated thing and it'll just be passe and not cool. Facebook went away for young people. It's because they moved to Instagram.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I agree, but I have some hope that this will be a dumb, embarrassing activity that the older people did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Well, they're going to have companions that will not challenge them to ever change who they are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
They'll be the highest status member of that group.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Again, I'm in favor of every proposal. So let's just do them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's a zero risk proposition. No one's going to look back in time and be like, Well, fuck Jonathan Haidt. We could have been on the phone seven hours a day and we were only on it one hour a day. No one will ever regret spending less time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'm like, oh my God, these two people know so much more about the world than I do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
That's it. Well, Jonathan, sincerely, it is an enormous privilege to get your time. I admire you greatly. I think you're such a special intellectual and I'm glad that you're passionate about this. may not have the fear level you do, but it's a true honor and a privilege that we get to sit and talk with you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
There's other metrics other than suffering. Yes, that's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
My mother-in-law is like pouring it to me. Yeah, I mean, you've penetrated. All right. Well, thank you so much. And I hope you'll come back on your next book. Love to. Okay, wonderful. Great to talk with you guys. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes. Hello.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Maybe a higher calling or a higher truth you're pursuing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You couldn't find your tabs?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
That's what you use to write, to compose things, is Word?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Oh, you had to download that program, I guess, right? It doesn't come on a Mac.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But you transferred everything from your old laptop onto that one. I think I did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I used TextEdit because it came with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Now I'm feeling like I should have gone the extra mile and gotten word.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Do you ever use Google Docs?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It never ends with the passwords. Who would have thought that would be the bane of everyone's existence?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I just had a bit of a scare. So as you know, Erin and I are starting a podcast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, I think it's going to be called Mom's Car. And I am in real life, I've registered to deliver food with a delivery service.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Popular delivery service, I'll leave it at that. And we go pick up and deliver food. And then while we're driving around, we read questions people asked. And then in this case, we did a couple last night. We also had a fun guest in the backseat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But registering for this delivery app, it was like my social security, like info I never give out online.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I was like, God, now I got to trust this company.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
To not have a data breach.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Which they all have them. I know. I was scared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
What was really, really funny about this whole thing was I delivered for three hours. Didn't get much activity. I thought it would be like boom, boom, boom. But of course, we're in L.A., a lot of out-of-work actors. I think there's a lot of folks delivering food.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I only got to deliver three different meals in three hours. Ice cream, some smoothie beverages, and some hot chicken.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And it was very, very fun. All to say I made $22. Congrats. And then I got home and I ordered food for everyone that was at the house, which we have people staying at the house. And I spent like $180. I was like, oh, this is so funny. I offset, I guess, my expenditure by $22.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You get some fee for delivering it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And then you get a tip, but that comes in a little while later. One thing that wasn't in any of the questionnaires, which should be, my first delivery, the person was on the fifth floor of an apartment building, no elevator. So I had to hoof it up five floors. I'm exaggerating. It was four. I didn't need to do that. Four is a lot. I thought they should ask if you're in shape.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I don't think not everyone can go hustle up four flights of stairs to drop off some food.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It could take a while.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And then you could be losing your mind inside your apartment because you saw that they've arrived and it's like still 20 minutes. Yeah. And then I only got to meet one of the customers because most people, which I didn't anticipate, which makes sense. Just leave at the door.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
People want leave at the door. You're leave at the door?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah. I have to interact with them because I got to open the gate and do the whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You're not worried that some of the scoundrels out there are going to dip into it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It is. How significantly?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
No shade to the experiment we're involved with, but my God, there's 10 vials of blood, right? That's what they took, 10?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It was 10. It was 10, yeah. And then finger pricks, 20 cards. So it's like you got the 10 vials of blood and then all these cards.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You are? Okay, great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
He sent me a positive text, too, that said that I've knocked out whatever inflammation was in one of my vessels or some shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Did you get any good news, Rob? No. Let's be called bad news coming. I'm sorry. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I hate my smell test.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Of all the tests we have to do again, I'm mad that I have to redo the smell test.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I just think so much is like scratching. Well, we can try it. Want to do a couple cards?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Okay. I just don't want to... It's a long test.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I wonder if our first page is the same first page.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Are your options A, gasoline, B, pizza, C, peanuts, D, lilac?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Okay. I hate this test.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I always wonder, like, did I get old cards? I'm just going to be honest with you. I don't have an answer. It's just process of elimination. I don't think I smell gasoline. I don't want to skew your results. I'll let you lock in before.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
All right. I'm going to lock in mine, too. Okay. But I don't really. I didn't smell this. I just want you to know I didn't smell the other things more. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You smell lilac?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I don't smell peanuts, but I know I don't smell lilac, pizza, or gasoline.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Oh, really good. We can, we have a control group, kind of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Fuck, I hate this test.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I hope he says pizza.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Thank you. It doesn't smell like anything. It smelled like the lead from my pencil. I think it's lilac, though. Okay. So I got that one wrong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's like intimidating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
We do. You guys are better at this than me. Okay. I can concede defeat when I'm defeated. I can take the loss. All right. Here we go. Number two. Okay. That one's easy. We're going to agree on this one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
On the count of three. One, two, three. C. Bubblegum. It is bubble gum. Fuck. I got to change it. Oh, no, don't change it. You know what it was? No, I need to, and I feel ethically fine about it. I smelled gum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I smelled gum. I'm like, ooh, gum. And then I went, oh, wintergreen's a flavor of gum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But I didn't even read bubble gum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I didn't even read it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Okay, hold on. Yeah. On the count of... Wait, I'm not ready. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'm hasty. This should be a test of how... Maybe this is just a test of how hasty you are. Three, two, one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Finally. Although we did agree on the last one. I just didn't read all the options. All right, let's do a fourth one. Now I like it. Okay. Oh, I hope this is D. Me too. It's my favorite smell. It's D too. And it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
For the listener, the options were whiskey, honey, lime, cherry. And of all four of those smells, I would most want to smell cherry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So when we talked to him, I was scared the first time. This time was much more chill.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
See, I go, I don't want to be trying to pinpoint what smell I'm smelling. I'd rather know what four options are, and then I'll be much quicker to latch it onto one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Maybe. But like if I just smell a smell, I'm like, oh, I don't know. It's a fruit. It's a fuck. I know it's a fruit. Is it this? It could take me forever to get to kiwi or cherry. But if I see it on there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
See, I didn't read them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I did read that one and I didn't get it. Right? I don't know. But I didn't read them before. And I was like, gum, wintergreen. So I would have been better off reading all of them before. Let's do one last one because it's fun. Oh, I hope it's D. No. Please be D. Please be D. Fuck, man. This one's a head scratcher.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Fuck this. It's not in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I hate this test so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You're the worst.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
All right. I'm just, this is like, again, the least.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
On three, three, two, one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Mine went grass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yes, those are such different smells.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But I'm telling you, nothing came off this piece of paper.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
There's nothing there, Rob. You're wasting your footsteps.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Stop doing that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
There's nothing. There's absolutely nothing there. There's no scent. I don't even think a dog—
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Minty like grass? I don't care about this one. I don't care if my smell's in decline.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah. It could be a blessing, really, to not be able to smell. Famously, my dad couldn't smell anything because he broke his nose so many times and he got a nose job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Couldn't smell anything. House could be on fire. He wouldn't smell it. And we'd be watching TV and I would fart sometimes and it would be so stinky. And I'm like, oh, my God, he has no clue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
That part's nice. Yeah. It's dangerous if there's a propane leak, I suppose.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You continue, Dawn.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You love this test. Yeah, I would imagine. I did a fun dad thing this morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I woke up at 5.30, which I wasn't grateful for, but then I was like, oh, whatever, just get up. And I had done all the stuff I needed to do. And I looked and I was like, oh, it's like, it's 6.30. I wonder if I shake the girls awake if they'll want to go get breakfast before.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Before school. And Lincoln's already up. Lincoln is my daughter. She's up at six. They're both your daughters. Yep, they're both my daughters to my knowledge. I guess I'll never know unless we all do a 23andMe. But she's up at six. She goes and lets whiskey out. And then she goes into the backyard. She goes up to the top to a swing. Oh, she journaled first.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
What do you think about just the appeal of one answer, a binary? And I just have found now that in interviewing so many people and living long enough, at best things are like 61% true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Then she went in the backyard, got on a swing, got a little peacetime perspective. Then I saw her walking through the backyard at like 630. And then I open up the cameras and I see her. She goes up to the gym.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So she's fucking journaled. She basically meditated. She went and sat on a swing. And then she went to the gym and did squats.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
This shit is just so genetic, right? No one's telling, no one's encouraging her to do any of this stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I just, yes, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I just think it's interesting that one of them does this stuff. Yes, it's been modeled. Both versions have been modeled by Kristen and I. But one happens to constantly replicate the modeling Kristen did. And one is constantly replicating the modeling I've done, which I just find suspicious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
If it were a little more blurry, like a little more of each person. Right. And you're right. Maybe I'm projecting. Anyways, here's this fucking girl. She's doing her whole routine at 11, right? Yeah. So anyways, so Delta's still asleep. Again, Kristen versus me. Kristen will always sleep longer than I will. So I sneak in there and I shake Delta awake. And I'm nervous waking someone up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It can make you grumpy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I give her a little shake and I go, you want to go to breakfast or before school? And she goes, yeah. And so I tiptoe out of the room. They're all ready. And then I'm like to the errands, the errands are visiting. So I'm like, you guys want to go to breakfast? Yeah. I didn't think weekly would be up, but he was up. And then we get in the car and then all of a sudden Belle runs out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
She had a late enough call.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So we had a party breakfast. There was five of us at breakfast. No, six of us at breakfast. The whole Northeast police department The division of the LAPD that's northeastern.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
They all went to breakfast. They took up all these tables. They were right next to us. And Delta was like, oh, that's the gun. I haven't seen a gun in real life. They just have their gun on. And then the guy overheard it and he's like, yeah, this is where we keep our gun. And then she's like, what else is in your thing? And he's giving her, you know, here are my handcuffs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I go, do you have Narcan? Yeah, oh, here's my Narcan. Whole like interactive field trip basically to a police station.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
They gave them stickers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Gold and shiny. I was like, if you wear those to school, which they put them on their thing, I'm like, people are going to think you're a narc. Oh, shit. It's 21 Jump Street. They're not going to tell you any secrets anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
As an undercover.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Okay. That's overt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It was very, very fun. And everyone got to school on time. It all worked out beautifully. Nice. Breakfast before school. That never happened to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
They did. It's such a fun treat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
What led to that last night?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
People... Lumped them all into one category.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's doing an impersonation of someone with Down syndrome. A lot of people are, that's a big no-no for a lot of people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Jonathan, I'm sure you've seen, he's been on an incredible- press tour for his current book, The Anxious Generation. But you would have probably become aware of him with The Coddling of the American Mind or The Righteous Mind or The Happiness Hypothesis. He is a New York NYU professor, social psychologist, and best-selling author. And this is a barn burner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Why he gets a pass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But for a lot of people, that's just a deal breaker. There's no going beyond that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But by the way, that was my defense of one of these arena comedians, which is like in the same way Shane's family members have this and he's immersed in it. Like this person who's making these jokes has almost no white friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Right, but one thing I'll say, like, here's an example where it does happen in real life. So I run into Pari, our neighbor. I think we've already said this. Yeah. And he tells me, like, you've got to tell Monica to move her port-a-potty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I go, I'll tell her, but she's Indian, Pari. She's stubborn. She ain't going to listen to a thing I say. Like, I've earned the right to say that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'm close to you. I'm making a joke about Indian people being stubborn.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And it's honky dory. I feel fine about it. Pari loved it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Well, I wouldn't have said it because it wouldn't make any sense to them. But Pari knows what that means.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But you would agree it's not objective. It's just like we're all in some continuum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And for you, the Down syndrome thing didn't bump. For other people, it totally does.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And that's just where they're at on the continuum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's like a better story if it sounds like Pari.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But I think the thing that came up in that... interview, which is really, really important. And I do stand by this point, which is like, it's not okay in a school where everyone's white and there's five minorities. It's totally fine in the inner city when the white kids don't have a majority and everyone's just teasing each other, which is a fine thing everyone can agree to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And everyone can enjoy it if they enjoy it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And so my defense of the one person is like, Yes, if he's just a guy who doesn't have any friends and isn't in a group where they're all teasing each other, if he's out there doing it, that is a different thing to me than someone who's grown up with, you know, predominantly all minority friends and everyone's blasting each other. That is a... A totally different situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And the people that enjoy it have to be allowed to enjoy it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Oh, my God. Rooting for Al Qaeda.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Smoking is pretty definitive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
We get them occasionally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Have you found though, really quick, as you've gotten older, because certainly... I'm clocking the fact that as I get older, I am getting more conservative.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I think we all, to some degree, see ourselves in the things we're watching. So, like, I recognize all those things to be true about Shane that you just said. And also, I look at him and I go, oh, the fun for me is more everyone is so quick and needs to find out whether the comedian they're listening to is on the left or the right. It's imperative.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
They must figure it out if they're going to enjoy this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And... He is bouncing both directions throughout the whole thing. And it begs of you to be a little more comprehensive in how you're judging the thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's almost like the fun challenge, which I really appreciate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And also, you know, he got famous first for getting canceled.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Which is going to immediately bring over one side.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'm due to watch it again now that we're talking about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'm starting to question a lot of the assumptions I made, like decriminalizing drug use would be great. And then I see the result in Oregon and I go, well, that didn't work out. ODs went up. Our approach to homelessness here in L.A., that was unsuccessful. We have to acknowledge it's unsuccessful. They seem very objectively and empirically true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And then it became L-A-B-O-X.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
According to him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But there is record of him being in prison.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It feels too short of a prison term for murder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But these other countries have different approaches than we do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You could kill someone and make your tea time next week.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, it's clean.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's really clean. I had AI give me moral dumbfoundings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Because I wanted to do one every episode with Aaron.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Because he and I have such loosey-goosey morals. I thought it'd be kind of fun to hear us process some of these things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
There's a bunch. Do you want to hear one?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
The Clone Replacement. They have titles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
A couple's young child dies in an accident. Overwhelmed with grief, they secretly have the child cloned and raise the clone as if nothing happened. They never tell the child or anyone else. Is this morally wrong? Why? Oh, wow. So I have to first imagine. Yeah. Because I'm going to wade through this. I find this out tomorrow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So I find out tomorrow my parents had a Dax already. Uh-huh. He died. They cloned me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And my honest feeling is I'm so moved by that. They loved me so much they needed another one of me. I would feel fine about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's just they double demonstrated they wanted you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So I don't, I cannot find who the victim in this scenario is. That's why I wanted to start with pretending I'm the cloned person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So I don't see a victim.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But if I just plot them all on a graph, I would have to recognize, oh, isn't it suspicious that you've also gotten older? So how does one correct for this natural thing? And maybe one shouldn't. And that's the nature of life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, like, if the goal in life is to figure out how to not— Be in deep sorrow over that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
That's a bizarre goal to have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Well, I think for the parent, it'd be really tricky because, of course, I go like, OK, if I lost Lincoln, would I try to get her back? Yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah. What would be kind of unfair to Lincoln 2.0 is that I have an expectation of who she is. And how flexible could I be when this 2.0 isn't 1.0? So I think you'd have to go into it with a... A real rigid game plan of like, I'm not, I refuse to try to make her the same person. I have to let her be whoever she is, which is already the original challenge of being a parent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So it's actually not a new challenge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Which is you've got to try your hardest to let them be who they are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Which is the big battle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I know dudes who are sober and they don't relapse and I'm, like, so blown away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And more importantly, I would really feel like I was dishonoring her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
To not be so grateful I got the time I got with her. That's like the weird moral position I have about it is like, I can't be anything but grateful for every moment I had with her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Is like dishonoring her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I also wonder too, this bond and trust I have with her, it would be easy to think I just have it when the new baby arrived. Yeah. But I probably forget how much I earned along the way of that bond and trust.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
That is now mine and I can feel. But at the beginning, I was earning. I was saying, welcome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'm your friend. Yeah, I would do that again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I guess you could assume you have a relationship you don't. That would be interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
In benefit of the doubt and all these things that grow over time. You know, she sees me admit when I'm wrong enough times that she trusts me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But the first one, the new one, 2.0, wouldn't have seen that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
No, yeah, it'd have to come as a baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And then if you're just repeating everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Is that a performance?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
There's some things I wouldn't do that I learned.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
The 2.0 would get a little bit better of an experience. Like, I had to learn along the way some lessons.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Because they could have her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's not an identical twin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I have a different job. We have a different level of means. A lot has changed in 12 years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah. And if I found out, like, I'm dead and my parents wanted me back, I don't— But it's not you. I would feel very loved.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But they wanted me back. I know, but— The message is still very nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Some people would be like, let's try a different combination.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Now, what my question is, is has note passing gone down by an hour and a half a day? Because I pass notes at least an hour and a half a day, probably three, or drew pictures and handed the pictures I drew to Aaron.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So I do wonder if that – has that gone down? Maybe, but that's – Is it just offsetting this other disruptive behavior?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, I think it's better for you to pass notes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
But I think if you just – I think a lot of people just go like, oh, my God, they're just wasting an hour and a half of their day that they could be educated. I'm just saying explore that a little more. No. Everyone's missing an hour and a half a day. We always have been. We just might have been doing different things. And then you can say which things are better for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I would agree, no passing is better. But I don't think missing an hour and a half of instruction is new.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's the best part of the whole experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You're just waiting through the instructions so you can be passing notes to friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Oh, I'd write love letters to Randy during class, and then I'd see her in the hallway, and I'd make out with her for a second, and then I'd leave her with a note.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I can see your handwriting in my head. Aw, that's cute. Like, immediately. You had slam books.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Is it positive or is it – slam book sounds like you're tearing people down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Who got to keep them though because they were communal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It was just rotated. Do you know the term slam piece? That made me think of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
That was a word.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I just had a thought you're going to hate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'm considering not participating in this part of the experiment. It just occurred to me, like, maybe I just go, no, I don't want to do the smell test.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I just had that thought, like, do I have to do the smell test?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I don't think I want to do it. I thought you would hate that. Is it funny to you sometimes, though, how different we are? Or is it just always frustrating?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You're not out winning a mate. That period's over. That's right. Through different periods of life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's like— Disappointing. I feel like I disappoint you a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Well, I looked over and I was like, oh, my God, there's four booklets. I thought that way you were talking. That's different.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, for you, yeah, I totally agree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, I can—I mean, I can feel it, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Well, I just want to explore it. I'm not trying to— Okay, I mean, I don't— It seems like an interesting topic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I think you're a rule follower, as we already know. And I'm a rule breaker, as we already know. And seeing someone break the rules also gives you anxiety. It gives you personal anxiety to see someone... Because my position is like, yeah, you don't break the rules, don't break them. And I don't care that you're not... Yeah. But it causes you anguish when I break them in front of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I guess I can understand. It's just like the thought of breaking the rules is just an uncomfortable feeling for you, even if you're just witnessing it happen with someone else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Well, I would argue I'm going to 96%. Like, so much of the stuff is not that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
That, like, drinking and using drugs is one of the rules?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'm as interested as you are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, he has several very respected detractors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
We want a professor at UC Irvine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah, she wrote a whole article in Nature. What's her name?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Candice Odgers, yes. And she has lots to push back on. But the thing I remember the most is her basically saying the conclusion that more social media leads to heightened anxiety and depression. When it's equally or more compelling to her that people with high anxiety and depression spend more time on social media, you really can't determine what direction that correlation is heading in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
That's a very strong pushback.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah. And nature is trusted. Very trusted brand. Extremely trusted brand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yes, and I'm so scared of him too. You didn't seem it. I love being scared like that. It's just weird. It's a weird, this is such a brag, but it's true. It's like, there's not a ton of people I'm very afraid to get in a debate with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I'm like terrified to get in a debate with them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Jordan Peterson. Wow. It's like I've had a lot of people go like, why don't you have Jordan Peterson on? I'm like, because I don't agree with him. Yeah. Nor could I defeat him in a debate. Right. I know my limits.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
He is an oral master. And I'd get eviscerated, and then I'd leave and go like, oh, my God, I don't agree with anything he said, but I couldn't win that argument.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah. It's a skill.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah. It doesn't mean they're right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I think people who do not host shows experience this their whole life, which is you're in a relationship with somebody and one of the two of you will be a better debater. It's very rare that both of you are going to be completely equally matched in a debate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I think a lot of people end up feeling so disheartened By the fact that the person will never take what they're saying in because they have won the debate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I'm certain I've been guilty of this in the past.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I was very grateful. I had a girlfriend who was better at debating than me. And she just blasted me several times where it's like we left and she had won. And it was so helpful to correct my own behavior because I was like, oh, all those debates I won, I haven't convinced the person of anything. They just lost the debate or they gave up on the debate as I did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I had the same hurt feelings that she never addressed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm really glad I experienced that because I think I've done that to people. I've done that to people. Not I think. I have done that to people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Thought I had convinced them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
So the wisdom I was offering.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And I hadn't done anything to help them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I'd made it worse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Great memory. That's how I would win a lot of those things. No, that was Tuesday. Now I make a meal out of their saying is right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
They still feel terrible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Yeah. I've really had to go. Do I want to? Do I acknowledge and help to make the person not feel the way they do or do I want to prove that they don't have a right to feel that way?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Because that's easy. That's the most appealing to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Like if I can prove to them that they're actually off base and this shouldn't be how they feel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I will erase the feeling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
By showing that, oh, there's no logical road to how you feel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And once you realize that, you will no longer feel that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
No, they will feel... They'll feel even more like that because probably their initial issue with me was related to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
You go to war over emotion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
And that's why I get frustrated when people are like, look at the science. I'm like, I know, guys, but that's not compelling. If you're dealing with a fear, science doesn't eradicate fears.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
Wish everyone was a logical robot. No one had emotions. And I didn't have to talk to a lot of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
The liberal party became a little illiberal in the way they welcomed the scrutiny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I love this one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
It's complicated, but on the coddling of the American mind and what you were exposing in that, now here's what I want to own. So part of the reason I was loving listening to you on Sam Harris and why I was enjoying Sam Harris so much at that time was I'm going to say I had succumbed to a bit of a moral panic about colleges. There are 18 million college students. There are 5,300 colleges.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
There were about 12 really nuts, crazy viral videos that I responded very strongly to. Brett Weinstein shouting people off stages. These things happened. But I think now, 13 years out of that, I can acknowledge I probably overreacted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I think really if you look at the massive amount of students that went through the system at that time and that many universities, really how many were there of those crazy protests?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jonathan Haidt Returns (on the Anxious Generation)
I enjoyed it immensely. Please enjoy Jonathan Haidt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
They want to datify everything in the world, basically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
But at any rate, 2008, you create a model to predict the outcome of that election and you start 538. That's right. By the way, I've known 538 for, I guess, the last however long it's been going. The Electoral College has 538 members.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, did you know that right out of the gates?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Okay, so there's 538 electoral votes. And you name it that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Lo and behold, your model predicts the outcome of the 2008 election and the 2012 election with an accuracy that's really not rivaled at that time, to the degree that time makes you one of the 100 most influential people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So, but in 08, you got 49 of 50 states, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
No, listen, 44 of the states I could call without a model.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Well, despite how easy apparently it was, you do ignite the people in a way that they do think they have their money ball guy for politics. And so the New York Times brings you in-house for three years. And I want to know what that experience was like, because you go from, you have 5038 as its own website, and then that gets transferred to the New York Times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And I think the numbers when you came there were one in 20 site visits were to go to 5038. But by the end, when you leave, like 17 out of a huge percentage of their personal traffic was you. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Some tests that you were going to fail. So on the one hand, it was great. It's got to be terribly exciting for you. You just started this fucking thing. And four seconds ago, you were at this stupid job cheating on taxes. This has got to be exciting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
You could really end up pregnant with all this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
First thing that can happen in the world is you've made a movie for a certain president of a studio. Then a new president comes in and that president decides your marketing budget. But they are incentivized for the previous person to have been a failure. This happens nonstop. This happened to me personally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So, Nate, I want to start by saying happy birthday to you. Thank you. Happy birthday. Yeah, you're here on your birthday. This is a very Capricorn thing to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So Disney slash ESPN comes along, three years is up at New York Times, and you leave and you go to Disney, ABC, ESPN, where you're for a long, long time, from 08 to 2023. No, 10, you're from 13. Okay, and when you leave, there is an editor there who pretty much shits on you pretty publicly. He says you were a bad fit, you were a disruptor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
At the New York Times after you departed. Now, that person then later said they regretted how they handled that. But A, was that a surprise to have them take that approach where your feelings hurt? Or did you feel like you deserved it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
You wrote an op-ed right before this election that I read, which is, my gut tells me Trump's going to win. Here. Here's the statistics, but I'm telling you my gut.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I bet people have heard explanations, but we could stand for a concise one now. Why did you shit the bed so bad in 16? And why did everyone shit the bed so bad?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Right, because you personally have Trump at three to one and the odds have him at five to one. Five to one or six to one. So for you, that's a great bet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So I'd argue mine's just 11 days worse than yours. Yay. Because it's right on the heels of all that. That's probably bad. And are you, in general, someone who has no desire to celebrate your birthday?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And I will say you're a victim of the data you're sourcing, so maybe also some of the data. I guess there's this big mystery of why these polls were so...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, and my opinion is valuable. It should be recorded. Of course. Well, I always go the other way. Me too. It's like, who's dumb enough to want to chat with a stranger? You've got to be so bored.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Right, right. Yeah, I guess some faction of the Trump base hates the media to a degree that if someone from the media called or a pollster called, they would say, fuck you and hang up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Okay. So you do 10 years there. Yeah. And how was that experience? Because I got to say, I feel this parallel existence for us. So we create this little thing in the attic and then all of a sudden Spotify comes along. And I would say that was your New York Times kind of, well, we could be a part of this really big thing and there are lots of advantages.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
These are interesting experiences where you have this little thing that you know very well and you potentially go somewhere to make it bigger. And that is kind of...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
You're right smack in the middle. Well, as I was learning a little bit more about your background, I was like, we have a lot in common here because I'm from Milford. Oh, cool. Which is what, 25 miles as the crow flies from East Lansing. And your dad taught at MSU or still does?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
A cosmopolitan man. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Well, again, you want them somewhere on the spectrum where they're not constantly bitching about someone who tried to get one over on them. You know, we do have a big chip on our shoulder about feeling less than. So you want just the right amount of less than so they work their ass off, but not the kind that bitches all day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Okay, so you're there for a while, but you also, in 2012, you write The Signal and The Noise, and that's a really successful book. My apologies, I haven't read that one. And the fact that I read On the Edge is really kind of a fluke. I always go to Audible, and I know exactly what I'm going there to get, and I just happened to stumble upon your book. That's cool. I'm vaguely aware of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Hi. We have our first, I think, statistician on today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I know that you're a statistics genius. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to give this book a shot. And I can't imagine this has gotten back to you, but I've brought it up now a bazillion times on the show because there's so many little pieces of On the Edge that I really, really enjoy. Very thought provoking. I think your outsider-ness and some degree of disagreeability, I appreciate greatly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And the book, it's sprinkled throughout. I like the spirit of it. Thank you. In a nutshell, the examination of this book is a group of people you refer to as the river, which of course is a Texas Hold'em term. It's the last card that comes out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If not, let's keep it because it's so fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And so for people who don't play Texas Hold'em, the stakes go up and up and up because you're given two cards. You've already perhaps put in the ante. And generally, you want to see the flop for free. You're going to get three whole cards. Now you're going to have five. You have some sense of what your hand is. And then it just diminishes it from there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Or at the end, you're hoping for a single card to change your destiny. So obviously the risk level's going up and the stakes are going up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
But escalation and reduced options, I guess that's implicit in a game of escalation, but you're getting less and less options.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Because a computer AI can play chess better than a human. I can play Go better than a human.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And I've played a bunch of Texas Hold'em, but even reading your first few chapters, which are about gambling in general, there were a few things in there I was like, oh, wow, it's down to the science. I forget the ratio you give, but there's a known percentage you should bluff to make yourself reputable and get paid when you have to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So you kind of discovered that you love math in a very appropriate time. So I only know the members of a single baseball team that ever existed. It's the 84 Roar, the Detroit Tigers. Yeah. Alan Tramwine. I know his name. Yeah. No, the whole gang.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Well, ideally, you know your opponent, how they play, and you're now counter-punching.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Or at the final table of some tournament.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
That's gross, not net. That's gross, I know. We're always talking about gross and net. Let's run these on the winnings right now so I can prove to her you're a good poker player.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Well, there's all these different social science studies where they measure testosterone levels of day traders. They measure testosterone levels of poker players. There's a biological component, too, that's happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
OK, so the book isolates this group that you refer to as the river. And these are people who have a great appetite for risk. They have a pretty good evaluation of risk. They have a certain rejection of the commonly held. held wisdom. There's some traits. And then you go on to profile a select group of people. And among them, and there's more, but we do Doyle Brunson, a very famous poker player.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And then we do Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist. You do Sam Bankman Freed, which is very interesting from, of course, FTX. And then you do Sam Altman. So these are people that all would fall into this group you refer to as the river. They live in the risk... analysis world. And I think maybe, could we start with Peter Thiel?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Testosterone's playing a big role in a lot of this, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
He's a unique individual. He's gay, deeply religious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
He's a right wingish gay man. That's always interesting to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, the classics. He's a brilliant, brilliant viewer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
That's no longer an advantage. The Moneyball thing's been played to its logical ends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Your work was to guide America to a better place. And then you would indulge your real passion in your retirement.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I just think it's really wild that in our lifetime there was this movie called Revenge of the Nerds, which was completely unthinkable. And the notion was, yeah, these jocks have made it insufferable to live here. But now the nerds are the jocks and now we're seeing their version of it. And guess what? No one's version of it. It's all that great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Weirdly, that trajectory kind of makes sense. I was also watching the Aaron Rodgers documentary recently. I don't know if you've caught that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
This is my own personal digestion of what just went down. To me, it feels very obvious this was an election on wokeism. I mean, just watch the rights ads, and they were about almost a single issue. How do you feed that into an algorithm?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Both sides, it's a cancer. I'm watching the people on the right celebrate that LA is burning down. And I want to just say, if it brings you great joy that your countrymen are losing everything, their children don't have a bedroom anymore, if that gives you pleasure, you must admit your politics is a cancer on both sides.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Nate Silver is the point. He's a statistician and a bestselling author. Everyone would know Nate Silver around election time. All of his computations end up as headlines all the time. He had an incredible track record for a while. There were a couple deviations that we'll learn of. But his books include The Signal and The Noise. And he has a new book out that I happen to just read on my own.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
But he too is talking about he would play this weird board game and it was all about stats and you would roll these dice. That's what it was called. And so I think a lot of you inadvertently just practicing math nonstop without even realizing you were doing it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
When people on the left are stoked people are dying of COVID, your politics are a cancer at that point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Just let people process. It's a bummer. I guess where I differ from some of my peers is it's on both sides. It's just a fucking gnarly metastasized cancer that all of us have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
It's kind of a gross level of opportunism. Okay, Peter Thiel, all to say, he did do these revolutionary things at the time with his Founders Fund as his company. Yeah. And we even heard this when we listened to the Meta AI thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
This decision to bet on founders and not try to wrestle control away from founders and have this belief in them in a way that was pretty new and novel at the time they took this approach.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I love that you say the more shabbily you show up for your first meeting, the more trustworthy you are. It's so funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Right, all the very best players came and begged to be on a team. Okay, so let's talk about Sam Bankman-Fried because you spent a lot of time with him. And why do you think he was willing to sit with you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
It's like the NFTs of the late 80s. All collectibles, ultimately. Beanie Babies. Monica has one that she believed at one point was worth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Oh yeah, let's do a little quick history of who he is, how he created FTX, and even what FTX was. Because I do think the layman, they hear it all the time, but they're not sure what happens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Earmark that because my very favorite part of the entire book was the effective altruism part. So I want to talk a lot about that. But it was his earmark that he got into that. So he's at some kind of financial place.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
It's covered in shit, though, so we think it's degraded.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
If you live on math, I mean, I don't know how much you can discount that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
You don't even know you're trying to get out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
But does the price of Bitcoin vary throughout the globe?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Which I don't even understand how a crypto exchange works. My understanding is like you go buy crypto, you have a password and it exists. I don't know. Why is someone else ever involved?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I got this much amount of money and I want to convert it to Bitcoin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So you're super into baseball. You're crushing numbers as a hobby. You're also gay. I want you to know you're gay because I know the vibe in Michigan in the 80s. And I know that I was living every minute of every day on the playground trying to avoid being called. Yeah. That was the number one go-to way to emasculate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And of course, he thought it was unutilized money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Also just what a goal. It sounds like an eight year old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
But, you know, Sequoia's a very well-respected firm. One of the greats. Their position in the book is just, yeah, it's one of the ones that didn't work out. They're not even smart in the way you would think someone would smart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So we've interviewed McCaskill and we adore him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And I had some quiet pushback that I didn't know quite how to articulate. And I thought your book did a really good job of pointing out some gaps in it. So maybe lay out effective altruism.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Just look at what Bill Gates has been doing for the last 15 years. Like, how do we get the most bang for our buck? How do we save the most lights?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Well, really quick, let's just walk that one through. So that really happened. Dakota, the dog wandered into the subway. They shut it down. It was down for a couple hours. And you simply say, really quick, let's do a generic loss of wages. Well, generic loss of wages of that one little situation was two million. So how many humans can you save for two million instead of the dog?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Then what about all the hospital workers that were waiting for their train? Did humans die because they weren't on their shift?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And you delineate the difference between small world problems and big world problems. These statistical analysis are really quite good at small world problems. But as you get into big world problems, these are almost impossible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
The experience of going through school, you say something that I relate to for different reasons, but there's some value to feeling like an outsider from the get.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
One of the things I really loved about what you pointed out, I made the people I was on vacation with in Mexico City over Christmas suffer through my regurgitation of you, is utilitarianism, which we learn in philosophy. The ends justify the means. If it has a better outcome for more people, that's good. I didn't even think of the simplest thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
The reason we're just naturally drawn to that is it has the illusion of numbers. We can assign numbers. And when we get into these very ambiguous, hard to decide moral issues that are nuanced, four is bigger than three. That's very comforting. I think we underestimate how comforted we are by the notion of numbers. utilitarianism because you have a bigger number than a smaller number.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And even the trolley one that we all know, you're on a trolley, it's going to hit three people. You can pull a lever, it'll hit one person. Well, three's life saved is better than one. But what if the three dudes just gang raped somebody and the life you're going to kill is on the verge of curing cancer? It's so much more complicated than all lives have the same value.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
There'll be penalizers and outcome. Right. One of the things he did, Sam, was dump $12 million into this very small election up in Oregon. It's detailed in the book. And in fact, I had a friend tell me so excitedly, he said, do you know Sam Bankman Freed? He asked Trump how much money to walk away from the election. And the number was X. And he's like, can you imagine how great that would be?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And I was like, I'm sorry, that's not great. To subvert democracy, whether you like the guy or hate the guy, no, buying off. What if someone offered Obama $12 billion in 2008 to walk away? You can't use your money to take away an option for people to vote on. This is fundamentally wrong, but it flies under this banner of effective altruism.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
You could definitely argue a utilitarian point of view on that. No, now we get into Kantism. There has to be a principle called democracy that rises above all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
There's like an agrarian movement right now against billionaires. I'm watching the frontline two hour on China right now. And I'm like, guys, we're kind of inching towards this agrarian hatred.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I love that chapter on effective altruism. And it's very interesting to have you sit with Sam Brinkman Freed and have him basically try to woo you while also real time watching his empire crash and getting more and more accepting of the notion that he's probably going to go to jail.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Assimilate, have a secret, have a perspective.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So let's just close with Sam Altman. So he is running OpenAI and he's in the river. What did he do in the past that from your assessment would qualify him as being someone that has got a big appetite for risk?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
It's funny because I guess I put him in that category.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Oh, yeah. Your intelligence is compartmentalized. Elon, in so many ways, is the greatest engineer for centuries. And then he has kind of the emotional capacity of a 12-year-old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, they crashed three. If the fourth didn't succeed, he's done and he knows it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Oh, I just started using it. I'm like, I really can hardly believe this can do this. You feel like you're interacting with magic in some way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Right. Okay, so dad's in academia. Also, you got some famous geologist uncles, which is really fascinating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Nate, this has been awesome. I love your book. One of the things I love that you point out in the book is like if you take right now the top 10 richest people in America, they're all self-made. Wow. If you go back a century, that list is mostly inherited wealth. That's a good thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
That's Malcolm too. Malcolm Gladwell says you should listen to his books.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, yeah, right, right, right, right. Well, Nate, it's been a pleasure meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I look forward to your next book and happy birthday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
You end up getting a degree in economics and then you end up working for a few years as a consultant. I was a transfer pricing consultant. Okay, what is transfer pricing consultant?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I'm trying to taunt you. Have you noticed that my Diet Coke says happy birthday, Dax?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
It's from my birthday, but they didn't come in time for my birthday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
You're right. He has sent us Diet Cokes. It's a natural thought.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah. Oh, okay. Your market. So how long did it take you to fall asleep?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I had three, but they didn't travel with me. I maybe brought one or two of them to my dad's on the weekends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I wish. My mom is ruthless. You know, I moved out and she just had like a garage sale and just fucking dumped all my stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Can you imagine buying my used teddy bear? Ding, ding, ding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Oh, all right. We had delayed. Liberty. Did you have Liberty cleaned?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Oh, there's the shit on the ears. He's pretty disgusting, but he does still look a little... Looks like he ate a horse's ass out. Or a mule's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Just because he had value and he was really exclusive. That's not the reason to have a lovey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
It looks like someone did because the back is spotless. It looks like someone grabbed him from the back and used him hopefully front to back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Hold on. They're not even close. Everything you had as a kid is still in your room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And then old coffee spilled at the bottom of the bag or something?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Take a big whiff of his face and see if there's any smell to him. Really get in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Let me be the judge of this. Toss him over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
He's expensive. He used to be expensive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
It doesn't smell, but boy, it does look like doodles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Okay. A clean version in a box or something?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
It's like a Warhol. Like you took this cute, valuable thing, wiped with it. Now that's a piece of art.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
No, because I would feel terrible for anyone who paid a lot of money for that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
You asked me if I thought you should, and I'm giving you an honest answer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
But I don't think they should smoke if they think you'll like them more. Oh my goodness. Get that duty bear out of here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
As long as you label it as duty bear for the sale of him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
What it lacks in tags, it makes up for in the bris all over his fur.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Why was, what were you waiting to bring it out to tell me that they're worth $700 on eBay? Yeah, $700. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Shocker that Nate didn't offer to buy it. It was so valuable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Oh, big time. And I glossed over, you were also a Michigan State champ debater. You also wrote for the high school newspaper. Also in college, you wrote for the Chicago Maroon. You're writing the whole time, and you're also doing all this stat work for fun with sports still. You're still obsessed. And then you create and explain this to us what Pocota is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Do you think so? Monica's now placed LaShitti on her shoulder. Do you think that's your bad shoulder or your good shoulder? Is he telling you to do bad things or good things? Is he your it or your super ego? He's bad. Yeah. He got in the trash. He's a little monster, a little animal. Eating up all those old caramels at the bottom of the trash can.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
That's the only id. Yeah. Yeah. I have something I want to announce.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I have a few things. Okay. First, I don't think I've ever seen a response so consistent in the comments.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I opened up the comments for James Marsden.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Little Jimmy Marsden. And nearly every comment said, Dex, please tell Monica she should get a miniature King Salmon Burmese Yorkshire Pinscher. Like they were so specific. Yeah. The different breeds you need. And everyone has a favorite breed. If you want to hear some testimonials, there are a couple hundred waiting for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And then another thing I want to say is I read a great book by a friend of the pod's wife, Alison Grant, Adam's wife. Oh, nice. She wrote a book called I Am the Cage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And it's really, really good. It's about this young woman who's living in this like tiny little town in Wisconsin by the lake. And she walks to work and she doesn't want to see anyone and she doesn't want to be friendly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And there's this huge snowstorm and she gets snowed into this house she's renting. And then just the journey she goes on in this Snowden thing. And then you're getting all these flashbacks of her childhood, having had this very specific surgery to lengthen a leg.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, in the book, the character is told by the nurse, like, you're in good hands. He's the best. In the country, and then she asks how many people do this procedure, and he's the only one. The horrificness of this procedure and how much it changed the course of her life and how it all comes into this inflection experience being snowed in. It's really, really good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I'm so impressed. It's so beautifully written, and it's also... I think for people who are like, they're not extroverts. They don't want to talk to anyone. They don't want to comfort anyone. Like it's, I would imagine it'd be liberating to hear someone speak so honestly about how much they dislike all these interactions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
It's very brave. It's a very cool book. I am the cage. People sit in it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So pre-order it. I really recommend it. It's fantastic. I'm the cage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
It kind of like, I could feel there was enough reality in it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I've never read a good novel. That's what it is. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I'm a reality boy. Don't talk about unicorns or Sasquatch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I am the cage. No, that's the title of the book. I am the cage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah. And very similar to your experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, yeah. I took a hike this morning. It's raining.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
We have no choice but to be very grateful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
You are taking it better than normal, which to me seems like proof of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Are you? What does that entail? You should look out the window and go, I love you, rain, and just force yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah. But I... And is it helpful to go... Yeah, I feel like shit, but I know it's because of these things. Does that like mitigate how much suffering there is?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Really helps. I mean, you got to do it with children.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Like if you're depressed, your children, the little things that you can overlook start becoming annoying. Sure. And then I have to go, it has nothing to do with them. You just feel this way. It really is effective.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah. Yeah. I had a good couple, three weeks of feeling depressed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
This thing has a weird name I read for the first time in my life today. It wasn't a reverseonym, but it was like a backwardnym. Backwardnym. I never heard a backwardnym. Me either.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Because you learn you can control it if you're forced to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I'm super lucky because I, in the morning, open up my drapes and I go to meditate. And often I start meditating while it's still dark out. And by the time I'm done, the light has come out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And there's just mist and there's trees and it's a luxury.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I can like, I can recognize how unbelievably beautiful it is. Like an impressionist painter would be painting that, not the normal day that I see. So that's a huge advantage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So I was looking at it and I was like, I don't know why Gorillas in the Mist is so seared into my mind, but I think maybe that was the first time I saw that kind of tropical misty foliage. It really captivated my imagination when I was younger. And so anytime I see like Columbia when they show the mountainside and it's like very damp and moist, I love it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So I was looking and I was like, oh, I can't wait to go hiking in there. There's going to be like the visibility will be low. There was virtually no one out there, which is never the case.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
To the point where I was like, is it shut down again? And I'm now doing it again. Uh-oh. But no, I saw a couple other folks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
It's like atmosphere in a movie. Like they pump scenes full of dust so that there's a texture to the air. And so it's so cinematic when it's like this. It's just very beautiful. The greens are greener. It's filtering out different kinds of light.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
My mood broke almost on February 1, yeah, or the day before or something. God, should I tell you something embarrassing? Well, let me first say that whiskey, well, it's related to that. Whiskey has diureted his cage four nights in a row.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
The fact that Kristen hasn't killed herself yet, she's been up every night for the last four nights.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
He should. Well, he went to the vet yesterday and he, by the way, you know, he's such a bastard. Not even a rascal. He's a bastard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
They put him in a cone and they couldn't, you can't even approach him. So they had to anesthetize him just to like take his blood and run some tests. So when he came home, he was completely fucked up, right? He was fucked up all, I was jealous. I'm like, what'd they give him that last 14 hours? None of the drugs I ever took lasted that long. He's very small. He's down one leg.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Oh, that makes sense. That's also how we process the world. We make sense of it after it happened and we think we understood it before it happened. And it only makes sense after the fact.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
He is. So he did not have any haunt us last night, which was great. Great. So I woke up in the middle of the night to pee as I do two or three times and I was peeing and I farted and I was half asleep. And then I went and I was about to lay back in bed and I was like, did I, is there a little, is there a little, did something come out? And then I went and sat back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I sat on the toilet and fired up the brondle, the butt washer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And I had had a little... Duty. Which never has happened in the middle of the night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Well, no, I was wearing my sleep pants. No panties, just my sleep pants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
But I didn't get anything on anything. It was just a tiny bit of... Yeah. But I got really close. I guess the point of this story is I got hugely lucky because I didn't notice and I was just about to lay down and then that would have probably caused an issue where I would have to change my clothes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
No, she was downstairs on watch for the other duty boy. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So I was celebrating this morning that there was no Hannes. And I didn't have the heart to say there was something last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I think it's because, well, my hunch is... I sold myself on the notion that I might be able to eat this sourdough bread that Kristen's making. Like I really want to be able to have no gluten.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And the first round, which was pretty dense because she used a flour without gluten. Then she's like, let's go half and half. And then she made that and it was so good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And it was much better. Of course. It cooked better. It was fluffier. It was so delicious. And I had a couple slices in the morning. Okay. And I think that's why I whiskied last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
We know tonka and what that means. It's not like a little oopsie you almost miss. It's like animals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I just was so vulnerable. I'm so revealing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
You know, we're modeling, which you ultimately do. We're just modeling the future. And then our data set is something that is heavily subjective because we make it make sense in reverse. Of course. We go, oh, this happened. It's because of X, Y, and Z. But we don't know. That's just what we kind of cling to. Okay, so you create this thing, and what is the goal of Pocota?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Will you eventually write a tell-all when you're like 60 and we'll hear all these stories, I hope?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Couldn't stop talking about. We invited him in. He blessed us with his presence. It's called On the Edge, The Art of Risking Everything. And also you can go to his sub stack at Silver Bulletin, which is where he's doing all of his research.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
A Hollywood tell-all and it's just all about your Tonka experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Okay. More like a quote I'd put in my memoir, like just a quote.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Have you found a place in L.A. that does salmon ejaculate?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Oh, so have you thought about, have you fantasized about taking a trip there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Because they're supposed to be at the very cutting edge, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Well, hold on a second. So under the skin. So they're shooting it into you. It's not a topical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah. Oh, we have a friend who did this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Did she say that the results were? She said the results. Does she look incredible?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
How do we know it's not just filler? Maybe it's just working the same as filler if you're putting a needle under the skin and putting volume in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I wonder what the price tag is on this procedure. Yeah, that I don't know, but also I— And I would want wild salmon ejaculate, not farm-raised ejaculate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I would say good boy syndrome, which Jed and I had told us about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
You got to be perfect in all other domains.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And then also huge incentive to leave your small town to go to a university.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
If I was gay, though, my conclusion would be, see, we're smarter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, that would be. That would inflate my ego better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I was going to say, you've explained it to me now four times, and I don't know what it means, and I couldn't make one. I can't really comprehend what's being said.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Now it makes, yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Okay, here we go. The Bitcoin ticker tape podcast with your host, Monica Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Although I would start to think we're jinxing it if I were heavily invested in Bitcoin. I started a new book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
I had no interest in Sam Brankman Freed. But now here he was in Nate's book. And then who's our man who Michael, who wrote the big short? Michael Lewis. I was just perusing titles and Michael Lewis came up. But then I was like, oh, well, I'll read his most recent book. I've liked the other ones. And it's about Sam Beekman Friedman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah. So now I'm going to learn more about this guy. It's so weird. I have no interest in learning about him. And now here I am again and I'm enjoying it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Oh, and we're supposed to do a puzzle on here. You're supposed to give the example from the book. I do. Yeah. Luckily, we threw them a bone with this dog thing. They're off the scent, but a couple people did bring up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
We'll try. Let's see if we're going to try.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Oh, wonderful. Well, I enjoyed Nate Silver.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah. I can find no purchase in the statistical modeling world. I barely understand it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah. It's all gambling. It's all risk. It's all percentages.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
OK, now this is where you're really going to put everyone to sleep. I understand that you're making statistical models. That's what this thing is ultimately, right? Yeah. What does that mean? You must be selecting the variables you're going to use to determine this. And I bet there's a lot of decision making just there. Like, what are we going to include?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
What were you doing that was novel about it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Am I right in that the product you create, it's a long formula and you just start plugging in up at bets and this and that. It's a bunch of computer code. And it's just a math equation that you've picked the variables of and you have some way of evaluating the quality of the variables.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Now, really quick, where the fuck does one learn to make these statistical models? Was this taught in econ or is this something you did as a hobbyist?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
No problem for you. You hit that like a silver bullet. Please enjoy Nate Silver.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
And I think people need to understand as well, when you create a model, it's not telling you this team will win. I'm guessing it's saying there's a 54% chance the team will win. There's a 61%. And in the world of betting, if you have an 11% margin, if you can predict that 61% accuracy, you're going to be the most successful gambler of all time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, so we're not looking to predict with 95% accuracy. Anything above 50% is basically a good use of your time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Right. OK, so now let's introduce your passion for gambling. When does that start? Because among your many interests, you're also a degenerate gambler.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Which some article I read said you had made 400 grand in a few years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, in 2000. And then additionally, this Pocota thing is now starting to get very trusted as a way to predict the performance and careers of these players. And then along comes Baseball Prospectus, which acquires this thing you've created, Pocota.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
What kind of money did you make selling this algorithm to them?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
So from 2003 to 2008, you're at baseball prospectus. Correct. And you're also writing. They do books. They have monthly things. And so you're actively writing books. It's just interesting how all these little bits and pieces end up getting woven together and what your life becomes. So how in 2008 do you decide to start fucking around with politics and applying your models to politics?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nate Silver (statistician)
Yeah, admits to doing coke. I like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Modest Mouse. Hi. Hello. I've been talking about this book quite a bit over the last six months, The World's I See, Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of A.I., by Dr. Fei-Fei Li. She is an expert on computer vision, machine learning, and cognitive and computational neuroscience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
A lot of Opportunity is happening as promised, and then a lot of xenophobia and violence is happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I don't know if you would rank these things in your life of like serendipitous things happening. But meeting Mr. Sabella has to be minimally in the top 10 and I would hope in the top three.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, if the spirit moves you to lay down supine. You're invited to do so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, I find this to be one of the sweetest stories I've ever read about and kind of makes me hopeful for people how generous they can be. But in a nutshell, minimally, you're thinking I'm going to do good at math. I don't have to go to my dictionary back and forth like I do in every other class. And you're in math and you're getting problems wrong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And you yourself cannot identify any pattern in this. You don't know what's going on. And you go to see Mr. Sabella in his office.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
That they had gotten at a garage sale. Her father loves garage sales. It was his favorite thing in the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
He still does. He still does.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
What time did you wake up?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You asked about extra credit and he was like, get real. How about go to good grade on the test?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
But it sounds in the retelling like the breakthrough. And I think this scene would be in a movie if I were writing the movie. You're there. He discovers the tan symbol on your calculator is malfunctioning. He helps her figure this out because he too can't figure out the pattern of all these errors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And then somehow you guys start talking about books and he asks if you've read a certain science fiction writer. You try to tell him you haven't read that one, but you really love A Million Kilometers Under the Sea. You can't translate it. You can't pronounce Jules Verne. But he figures out you've read Jules Verne.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
What time do you normally rise?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And he is like shook. He's like, you've read Jules Verne?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And then you go on to say, yes, and you've read Hemingway and you've read everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
If I were him and this young girl from China comes in and she has read most of the classics, that's a real like, what am I dealing with here? I got to imagine for him, at least that was a moment where he's like, OK, I'm betting on this horse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Mine's 6.40. Oh, okay. I'm aspiring. But you know what's funny? Today it was 6.20.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, I think he's struggling with the same issue you're struggling with. Probably. You don't feel entitled to tell this story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, they're very unsung heroes. They're not tenured professors at elite universities.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And they're the ones that get the people to those destinations. Yeah. It's a really beautiful story. How instrumental was he in you finding your way to Princeton?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Girl, girl. Yes, I'm so lucky. Although 11 about to be 12, I'm starting to get an inkling of what's coming my way. In a house with three ladies. In fact, yesterday was a very emotional day. I'm barely hanging on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I think you're underplaying your story. If you came here in seventh grade and ended up at Princeton, that's one story. You had two years to get yourself ready. To learn English. To start Princeton. And you didn't speak any English. You're very much under, which is fine. I think so would your teacher. Yeah, you feel maybe that's self-indulgent or something, but that's really bonkers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Again, AI aside, to land and go, okay, if you drop me in Russia and told me I have two years to land at their most elite university.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen for 99.999% of people. Let's talk for a second about you going to Princeton. This is another fun moment for me in the book because there's something so much more important about Einstein than the theory of special relativity. And I can't really articulate what it is, but I know you have a good dose of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So what was it like going there and seeing the statue of Albert Einstein and imagining that you would in some way be touching that reality?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Garage sales, free.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You're working a ton of hours.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Well, don't you think it left an imaginary world where this person existed and it put it in your own three-dimensional reality?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And he lived there for what, 30 some years?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Maybe more. I think that would be a special moment as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yep, yep. Talking with Oppenheimer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I don't know what's going on with my three ladies, but all of them are in some kind of hormonal turmoil. Interesting. And every variety, which is fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I'm currently stuck in a rut where I'm learning a lot about physicists, historical physicists. And I'm wondering, have you read When We Cease to Understand the World? Have you read that book?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Or have you read The Maniac? Either of those? No. The Maniac's all about Janusz von Neumann.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
This one's fun because it has the perspective of a million different people in his life. Like a student he was friends with at school, one of his wives, people who worked with him, and you get this really comprehensive view of
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, I'm obsessed with all these guys. And then when we cease to understand the world is many of these physicists who were so brilliant at a time who ultimately became crazy. And how many of their breakthroughs in the math of quantum mechanics coming to this guy in a nine day, 106 degree fever, writing down the matrices and not understanding the math when he comes out of it, but it holds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
There's a lot of weird magic in this space, I think. Where people have these breakthrough thoughts and they touch some understanding and they're in a compromised state mentally. It's just fascinating to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're always recording.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
All those stories of him getting asked a question and then answering it two and a half days later, and he hasn't left the chair and the person left. Like he went away for two and a half days and then came back with the answer. Or just the notion, I think one of the most intriguing parts is like, you're going to have thoughts that cannot be expressed in language, but can only exist in math.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
That already is like, what?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Right. And then there's a realm beyond math. Yes. It's the closest thing I think we have to magic where it's like completely outside of our grasp, but for a handful of people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So you're at Princeton. You're also working a ton, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
When do your parents start the dry cleaner?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Okay, so you have 12 and 8, and are they close? They're very close. He's a good big brother? He totally is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Because your mother had had a reoccurring fever as a child and it greatly degenerated some of her heart valves. So she was really struggling with heart issues.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And there's no money in the dry cleaning. There's only money in the seamstress scene, whatever we call it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Silvio's your husband, yeah?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
She should have done what you did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And does one of them have Silvio's personality and one have yours?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I think a chimp can do that. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I say that because I know how to remove stitches from garments. And I don't have more skills than a chimp.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
He said he didn't go to a single party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Instead of the freshman 10, you gained the 30 10. Yeah, exactly. The faculty 10.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And I think it's worth mentioning when you guys were trying to open that dry cleaners, you were trying to raise $100,000 and you were $20,000 short. And again, Mr. Sabella. Monica. He gave the money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
It's impossible that someone would do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Well, you're here because I read your book maybe two months ago. I was having dinner with Ashton Kutcher. Do you know who that actor is?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Of course, you have to give it thinking you'll never get it back. I guarantee he and his wife were like, we're giving this money away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Oh, my God. How proud I'd be of my dad. Okay, so you graduate from Princeton and you have a degree in physics as well, some kind of computational.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And when you're there, unless I'm misremembering, you had a very singular focus on being a physicist. But while you're there, you start realizing you're maybe open to something different.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
It was an identity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. So we were at dinner and we were just chatting about people we thought were really interesting. And then he asked me if I had read your book and I hadn't. I went into it thinking I would get a history lesson on AI, which I did. And a very thorough one. But I would not have invited you for that. Your life story is so interesting and beautiful and the way you write about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, understanding how this brain works. Brain works, intelligence works. It's crazy the overlap that has now been proven. But at that time, that's not an obvious, we haven't figured out neural pathways and we're not going to map that onto computers yet. So these seem on the surface, very different fields. One's biology and one is, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Right. OK, so then you choose Caltech to go to graduate school. Yes. What did you think of California? I mean, my God, what a place, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
She is a computer science professor at Stanford University and founding director of Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. So we've had a lot of AI, but I'll say that this, what makes this episode so special is Dr. Fei-Fei Li's personal story is so-
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Tell me about North Star and how you discovered yours, because this happens at Caltech.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You're an incredible writer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Millions and millions of objects.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Okay, that's very big of you. Who's Alex?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. OK, so now I think is a great point to just go through a couple of the landmark events that take us to where the technology is at that time. So I guess we could start with Turing. We could start in 1956. Give us a couple of things that have happened in computing up to that point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Now that I have people hooked into you as an individual, now we can get a little protein in this and learn some stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
DARPA funded it or something?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I think we could get even more rudimentary, right? So up until that point, a computer was something that could solve a problem. It could do computations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And this notion of artificial intelligence, what it really meant is, could we ever ask a computer questions that it hadn't been pre-programmed to answer? What are the hallmark things that separated at that time artificial intelligence from just computing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Because I think we've just fast forwarded to everyone saying AI, and I don't think they really even take a second to think of what that step is between computing and computation and thinking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Right. Without having been programmed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
How do you know Alex?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, yeah, about image, how hard it is for a computer to see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
That's a mouse I'm seeing if I'm a cat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And I think this could be a bad analogy, but you might be misled to think, oh, well, a camera can take a picture and then the computer can show the picture. So the computer understands that's a photo. But really, the camera has broken what it's seen into thousands of pixels. They are coded with a numerical sequence. The computer reconstructs those colors. It's a grid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Because he worked with Ted in some capacity?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And virtually, that's what our eyes do. Our eyes are just grabbing photons and they're sending back the ones and zeros. And then back here in the cortex, it's assembling it all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And as you point out in the book, it took us 540 million years of evolution to get this system.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You build one algorithm at the bottom that's maybe generic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Could you think of it as almost a filtration device, which is like this data comes in, we filter out these three key points, that then filters up, and then we come to our conclusion at the top of this hierarchy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Because it's just like all this raw info at the bottom, and then we kind of recombine it into this layer, and then another process filters, well, it's not a school bus, it's not this. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Okay, great. So, and now also when you find your North Star, another thing that's happening at the same time is WordNet, right? This is kind of a big breakthrough for early AI.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You're kind of creative partners.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Animal, food, furniture. German Shepherd. Transportation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Does WordNet not lead to the machine that can read the zip codes? No. It doesn't. What's that called? That's what I meant to bring up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
That's happening as you're getting your idea about the images right. We've trained a machine to read zip codes, basically, handwritten zip codes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
But its data set was, I forget, it was like a thousand or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. Which one do you find more exhaustive?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, and common mistakes, they would feed it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
What they had proved in concept, you're going to try to do in images, but the lift for images is so exponentially larger than getting the machine to read.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
By a factor of what? I mean, when you lay out what it's going to take for you to prove this theory you have and you figure out how long it's going to take, it's going to take like a decade of you feeding them, right? There's some moment where the amount of images you're going to have to feed this computer to train it can't almost be done by the group of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Both in different ways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And you wrangled someone in that this wasn't even really their North Star.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
This level of plotting that you were able to take on Is unique to you. And I think it's moving here in 10th grade and looking at that fucking dictionary back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. That kind of really unique dedication and unwavering plotting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
A million other scientists could have had your idea, but I think it's that thing right there that makes you capable of creating image.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, it's not. I think we like to think of these things very simplistically, like, oh, you had a great idea. Who gives a shit? A lot of people had great ideas in graduate school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Someone's like, that was my idea. Oh, really? Did you write the script? Did you execute it? Did you cast it correctly? Did you motivate everyone? Your idea is 1% of the equation of a great movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Because when I'm reading your thing and the data's coming in, it feels like, and tell me if I'm mischaracterizing it, the deeper you got into this experience, you were just learning every day it was going to be harder than you originally anticipated. It just kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse for years, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
When I'm reading it, I'm like, I would have quit a trillion times. I'd be like, maybe computing will get to a point where this job will be made easy, but right now it's too hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
That's what I want to start with because I'm curious when you sat down with Alex, I'm sure the historical part, the scientific part, that stuff is probably easy. But had you ever told your life story to anyone in that detail?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Naivete is the best asset you can have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, it's a great gift.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
A marketplace for that computer labor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, that cut this process down by 80% or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
They're years down the path and they're calculating how much further it's going to be. And they know they have years and years ahead until this moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So to fast forward to the end, you create ImageNet and you can feed in a picture of a boy petting an elephant. And the computer knows that's a boy and that's an elephant. Might be a different size than the other elephant I saw, but I know that's an elephant. And this is huge. This earns you the title of godmother of AI. I know you don't have to comment. I know you don't want that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. Do you think that's a personal disposition or where you come from culturally? I think of the story of your father, which we'll get to, and how little he told you about his own childhood until the time was right. And I gleaned from that, well, this isn't a culture that is just divulging all this emotional trauma and baggage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And I want to fast forward. Now, you've accomplished this incredible thing. You teach at Princeton for a while, as you say, and then you take up a teaching position at Stanford where you still currently are. You become one of these people that undergrads would then study about, which is fascinating. And you go to work for Google during a sabbatical for like a year and a half.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And there's a moment where part of your job is to go meet with the new recruits that are going to start their employment at Google. Is it fair to say this is one of your, I don't want to call it a crisis of conscience because that would be too strong, but how would you say it? You have an opportunity to talk to those people, and it sounds to me like you went rogue a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Uh-huh. Let's remind people. So Cambridge Analytica figured out how to maximize Facebook politically, and people were very upset by that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
But I do want to point out, because I heard you point it out, which is in the early advancements, they had all these peaks and valleys AI. And there was a moment in the 70s where it looked promising. And immediately people went to robots were going to take over the world. So we also do have this immediate sense. We do jump to that. They jumped to it in the 70s. It's worth pointing out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
We sell fear and excitement.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, they had taken a contract to develop some drone phase recognition stuff. And the people at Google were told that they were only working on nonprofit stuff. There was a bit of a revolt. You were there during all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, they're all benign. It's how we implement all that. Neutral, there we go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And is this the first time you articulate that you want a human-centered development of AI?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So let's parallel your speech to the interns and then also getting to go in front of Congress. So what is your overarching sense of how we keep this technology going in a direction that does serve humans?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So what are the practical things we do? What are the legislative things? What does that mean? How do we do that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And are you bringing in philosophers and anthropologists and psychologists? This is the interdisciplinary aspect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So if I play out that experiment, it's like, yes, I would love to take my phone, scan my face and know if I have a melanoma. That's all sounds great. Where does the results of that get stored? Does my insurance provider have access to that? What all happens? It's not just me that's going to find out I have this melanoma.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Will it disproportionately help some group and alienate another?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. Universities can't really compete.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. Like that's always been the good corrective mechanism we've had societally is the world of academia. And it competed pretty robustly with any private sector.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
It means the fact that people can land in this country, not speaking English, deep into school and fucking pick it all up and then master all these fields.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So all of this, I'm always on board with. I love it. I'm so grateful there's people like you pushing us in that direction. But we just had Yuval Harari on to talk about his take on it. And what I ultimately get so discouraged and defeated by is we're not doing this on an island. We're doing this while many other countries do this simultaneously.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So how do you see us dealing with the competitive nature of these AI technologies emerging and us maybe proposing we're going to do it in this way, but being realistic and saying, well, Russia might not have those guidelines and China might not have those guidelines. And if they have a product that people like, we can't compete now with it. So do you believe there could be cooperation?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
We could outlaw faking humans. Okay, so the U.S. has outlawed faking humans. No one else does. And those fake humans are really convincing and entertaining and all these things. And then that industry takes off somewhere else. Like, how do we do this in a world that there are no barriers of this technology?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I didn't get the C minus out of him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And then I think what's really important, and I only know this because I'm on my second Von Neumann book, but Von Neumann was employed in the wake of the Manhattan Project to deal with how this proliferation was going to work. And he was so analytical and so realistic that he said... mutually assured annihilation is the solution. He knew that was the only outcome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
It felt sociopathic to say it and to commit to it. But he's like, look, I'm modeling this out. This is the only way it works is mutually assured annihilation. That's what we ended up with. And so I'm having a little Van Noyman-y feelings about like, no, I think it's a race to who can win until everything gets neutralized. I don't know another comp other than the nuclear arms race.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
We're coming back around to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So I accept that the nuclear analogy falls short in that there's so many benefits to this. Totally agree. But I will say, again, to parallel nuclear arms race in this moment in time, I think it would be only the second time where international cooperation is at its peak, where it's most needed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
We have got to recognize this as a moment where we have to be getting closer to all these places and not further away. Our competitors are geopolitical adversaries that
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
If ever there were a time where everyone stands to gain, other than the nuclear arms race, this is the time where it's like, we got to really figure out how to cooperate a bit because everyone will experience the downside if we don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I agree with you, but I will just say that climate to me is a little dicier simply because you have all of these burgeoning industrial economies that we would be slapping rules on. It's easy for us to adopt a lot of things that it's not for Sri Lanka. It's not totally fair. There actually should be areas of the world where they are allowed to pollute more as they pull themselves out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, I just hope that we recognize this is a moment to be making friendships a lot better and not doubling down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Do you get to the guardrail point in the conversation with the legislators? We do. Do you have certain guardrails that you believe should be... Like, I like Yuval. Yuval said we shouldn't ever be able to fake humans. And I also think there should be a disclaimer on all AI-generated things that you at least know it came from that source.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
78% at an AI or a human does it at 40. It's a no brainer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Right. I really want to encourage people, even if people have only a cursory or no interest in AI, I really think your book is one of my favorites I've read. It's just your personal story, as reluctant as you are to embrace it or talk about it, is a really special story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I mean, what ground you've covered. Do you give yourself any moments where you go, God damn girl, we got here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, there's a lot of sweet people in the world still.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Oh, well, Feifei, this has been a delight. I hope everyone gets your book, The Worlds I See, Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI. And boy, those lucky people that get to have you as a teacher.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I also love the narrator of your book. Have you listened to it on tape?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, yeah. And you should read Maniac.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Oh, I love it. It's just really beautiful. I love the narrator, but I was having the moment where I was like, I was only introduced to you through this book. I was completely ignorant about you. And then there's a narrator. When I was doing research on you, I'm like, oh, we're going to find out what the real voice is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Well, let's jump to a really big philosophical question about that. I think when reading your story, you came here, this huge language barrier, such a fish out of water. But your work, if good enough, would speak for itself. And it would be a meritocracy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
That wouldn't be the reason I'd advise you not to do it. I think it's way, way harder than people think. And there's a lot more acting involved. I've heard some writers narrate their own book. You got to be a performer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Forget your accent. There's like a performance to be done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Well, I hope you come back and see us again sometime and I'll be following everything you do. And thank you for trying with all your might to make this a human centered development.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. All right. Well, be well and thanks for coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Hi there, this is Hermium Permium. If you like that, you're going to love the fact check with Miss Monica. I'm Ani.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
We had so much fun yesterday, didn't we?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So much fun. So much fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Okay. Yes. Please tell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
One of the many, many thousands of commercials you had done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Where they asked you to be in it. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I have some housekeeping.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You know, I read the comments. And so, and this is so embarrassing. And I read it a couple of times. I'm like, these people are crazy. That's, I didn't say, so people were like, you said the wrong voice of Darth Vader in the Morgan Freeman intro. And I thought they were saying I had said Morgan Freeman was the voice of Darth Vader. And I'm like, I know I didn't say that because I know he's not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And James Earl Jones was the voice of Darth Vader. And I said Edward James Olmos. So I did say it wrong. It was another three-name actor with an Edward in it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And so it's not surprising to me that someone who got to where they wanted to go with that belief would have a hard time thinking, wait, I was trying to transcend this otherness. This otherness is the thing that would be most interesting and worthy of attention and affection. What a gap.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So I fucked that up, and my apologies. Oh, and then the other thing was they had coitus interruptus because we were chatting, and I was going to say I was going to give a Danny Ricardo update because I had ridden motorcycles with him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
But I guess then we got sidetracked, and I never did. So all these people who are rightly concerned about our sweetheart Danny Ricardo, how's he doing, were left hanging. And I'm here to report that he's so happy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
He's so, so happy. We were riding motorcycles all day long and we chatted a bunch and he's just very happy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, he's just doing really, really good. So people should rest assured that Danny Rick is thriving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I had texted him to say, hey, people really love the episode. And me in particular, I really loved it. Thanks for doing it. And he said, how are the numbers? You know I am a lap time guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I got to say, I want to say out loud, that really put a lot of wind in my sails. That made me so happy to have that episode come out. It really right-sized my perspective. As I vocalize on here, it's been a challenging transition. I've been really stressed. There's been bad news and challenges. And this came out, and I was like, oh, right, dumbass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You get to meet people that you are obsessed and in love with. Holy lottery. Yeah, I just was, I was beaming all day Wednesday from it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Liquid Death. I'm just pointing to objects. Monkey with huge balls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
We did, we did. Okay, there's another fun update, but this, I'm starting, I'm getting worried that people are going to be afraid to text me. I guess these people should know, I run it through my analysis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And I would never say anything that was in a text that I didn't think was just lovely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I get worried about it. Don't you? Like, you know, someone's got a private exchange with me. Yeah. And then I'm reporting on it. There's an ethical dilemma here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
But sometimes they're so funny and I think the person would like it anyways. So I sent Pitt the clip of Toto talking about me telling him that Pitt said he was a good dancer and then Toto talking about him coming to dinner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And then he's... He said, I made up the thing about him being a good dancer. And I said... Oh, no. I said, I can't believe you made that up. In fact, I don't believe you made that up. I still believe he's a great dancer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I know. But then he just had to go, well, I don't understand how that happened, but I'm going to take that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
He was doing a bit. He was like, you're not going to believe this. He's also a phenomenal dancer, but he's just with him. I believed it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
The crux of that story is I'm gullible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Can we talk about Christmas a little bit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I got the fever as much as I've ever had it. As hard as I've ever had it. Let me tell you what's happening. So, so far from our homework.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
We watched Christmas Vacation already. Home Alone 1 and 2. Side note, I've never heard Delta laugh harder in my life than the 27-minute set piece in Home Alone 2 where he's hitting the guys with bricks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
She was laughing uncontrollably for like 27 minutes. She said at one point, it doesn't get old. Like they threw a fifth brick or whatever. And she's like, it doesn't get old. And I got so much joy out of watching her have that big of a laugh at something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Okay, so Home Alone 2, we did Gremlins, another Christmas favorite for us. Last night we did the Grinch Who Stole Christmas original cartoon. And I want to go out and say... For the record, it's the number one Christmas cartoon to ever be made. It is the most creative. We all watched it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
There's a lot. You've got Rudolph. You've got the Chuck Brown.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You've got the—there's a bunch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
But I'm saying maybe even Christmas anything. It ends and I said, you know, Dr. Seuss should really be regarded as like Salvador Dali. He had such a unique personality. Imaginative world he created in the words, in the set pieces. I mean, that's one of the most creative people to ever live.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I like when people use the term Seussian. Did you ever hear anyone use that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Oh my God, it's so impressive. Yeah. Oh, I loved her. Please enjoy Dr. Faith Haley. We are presented by Amazon Prime. It's more than just fast, free shipping. Whatever you're into, it's on Prime. So keep listening, keep watching, keep on keeping on to hear more about why we love Prime during the fact check.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, it's cool, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, like Newtonian or like it's a paradigm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Which is not my favorite word anymore. You taught me that word.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And I thank you for that. To remind people, Sisyphus pushed the rock up the hill every day. There's a Buddhist take that like, that's what people interpret that as a story of not wasted effort, but like, you know what I'm saying?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
But there's a Buddhist way of looking at it, which is like this person had purpose every single day, all day long and was not suffering probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
It was a huge rock. Well, first of all, he's probably jacked. So strong. So strong. But that's an interesting way to reframe it that like, no, this person every day of their life had purpose.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Probably very happy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yes. And I wake the girls up every morning. I wake up about 20 minutes before the girls to meditate. And so now they wake up to me playing from my phone. Over the Sonos, Christmas music. Wow. And I want to make a great recommendation to people who are using Spotify, and you can make a station. Go to the Charlie Brown Christmas album, and then go specifically to the song, Christmas Time is Here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. Well, I think even the notion that you're struggling so hard. I got to set up your story more. This is the last thing I'll say out of context. Monica's like, not everyone's read the book. But just, of course, math was appealing because math didn't have a language barrier.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Make a station out of Christmas Time is Here, and it's the best Christmas mix I've ever had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And it's on all the time. And so, you know, the tree is over decorated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You know, we get one tree and Kristen gets a tree in the kitchen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And hers is artistic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And this year it's Wicked. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. And our tree is a throw up of color. And I have those old fashioned bulbs that the water bubbles up in them. They're almost impossible to get to sit vertical on your tree. I've spent most of my free time positioning all of them. And then I pull the cord and they all fall down. It's a Sisyphean task.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I didn't expect it to come around that quick. I had all this anxiety about presents, but I knocked a bunch of presents out the other day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I used your gift guide almost exclusively.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Complain about your gift guide, though. You make things sell out. Your gift guide is moving markets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. I have to say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You have exquisite taste.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Some of your recommendations were so good that I found myself dancing around on the websites.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. Yep. And yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
There's fun stuff. So.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I have four strands, really long strands and four of those bubbly light strands. Sure. And the tree's touching the ceiling. It's a Clark Griswold. It's too big.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And I'd cut a foot off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
My apologies, Miss Monica. Miss Monica, I'm sorry. I get so carried away sometimes when the spirit moves me. I don't leave my apartment much, so I really enjoy decorating it, get all those colors. Makes me optimistic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I have a cousin who's not working at the moment, and he loves going to department stores and plazas and shopping malls and strip malls. Wow. And I'll call him on the landline. That's what I have, Miss Monica. I pick up the phone, and I call his. His name is Bert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, he's my—did I say my brother-in-law or my cousin?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, he's my cousin. I just remembered. Oh. And weirdly enough, he's also my brother-in-law, but it's my stepsister.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Everything's on the above board, as they say. And I call up Bert and I say, here's what I need, Bert. Six water weenies, 10 spatulas, and Bert. It takes him a while, sometimes four or five days. And then he comes over and he does charge me a little more, but that's okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And then I have to call him back up and ask him to deliver the presents. Wow. That's okay, though. He charges me for that, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Mrs. Mom. Color lights.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Well, first of all, do you have the light you want?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Now listen, sometimes you complain about there being two boys, one girl in this situation. But you have to admit, Rob is a perfect middle ground. Like if Aaron was here, it would suck. He disproves my gender stereotypes quite a bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
That's right, Monica. That's right, Miss Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I could really get on my high horse about it. I used to have a really strong stance on it. And it's all my class warfare stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, there's more philosophy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
But did you see Chris Rock's latest stand up? He said, I am rich, but I identify as poor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, well, there's people with a lot more money than me, but I do have— You're of the highest class.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Okay, so let's start in China in 1976. You're the only child of your parents.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, but you know what? I act like myself, and I have color. Here's what I'll say. The white, all-white Christmas tree— Yeah. is like occasionally I'd see that at people's houses who had an extra living room that no one went into and you weren't allowed to go in there, you know, take off all your shoes, you know, you'd get in a fucking Intel outfit to go in the room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And all of it seems stuffy and not playful and fun and colorful. It's felt very presentational.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
But I used to be judgmental of that. I still don't like it, but I'm not as judgmental.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I know I'm spoiled. I know I'm spoiled.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And talk about your mother because she's very interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I'm really spoiled.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
That it wouldn't be fair for a stranger to hate me just because I have money?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, I would feel that way on the other side of it, but I wouldn't expect anyone to feel that way, not be on the other side of it because I get it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, I know that. I would know that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You don't need to tell me that. I know that. And I'm not judgmental of you. I'm so glad you're having the Christmas you've always wanted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, because we were there like 11 a.m. on a Saturday and you were there at 11 a.m. But I got to say, this is my record of all time. I was so fast and there was no fighting. This is like first year in a few. That day is very triggering for our family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You've got to compromise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You call the tree a bald puss?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And— You like more of a Brazilian tree? No, Brazilian is— That's shaped and full.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Isn't a Brazilian like you have a landing strip?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Okay. I'm glad I- What's the landing? The landing strip's just the landing strip?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Do you think any dudes get a landing strip? I was just thinking I want to go do that just as a bit. I've done that as a joke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Okay, let's take a break from the fact check to thank our presenting sponsor, Amazon Prime. Prime has you covered with movies, music, and everything you could possibly need to make the holidays perfect. Whatever you're into, it's on Prime.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yes, it is. That time of year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
If you're as popular as Monica, you're hitting the party circuit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Prime can help with that, especially if you decide last minute you want to buy something new. You're set with Prime's fast, free shipping. And hey, what you're buying for holiday parties depends on whether you're a guest or a host. If you're hosting, then you're going deep on Prime to find everything you need to make your home feel fun and festive and perfectly like you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Absolutely. And you can get all those things on Prime.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Amazon Music will get the vibe right. Listen, what we're saying is anything you need for a holiday party is on Prime. Nice sweaters, goofy sweaters for the ugly sweater party, holiday decor, gifts for the host, or fun small stuff for a gift exchange at work. The sky is the limit when Prime's fast, free shipping is at your fingertips. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to get more out of whatever you're into.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Like Christmas vacation, there was a beam of light shining down on it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Are you his daughter? Because I think you view more of his mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, so I got you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Oh, yeah. That's the kind I like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And then you arrive and you show this great aptitude. And now she has, in a sense, a second chance at this dream. But she starts recognizing pretty soon your path is going to be stilted as well if you stay there. So what's happening? What is she noticing as you start getting educated and show this aptitude?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Is there no part of you that feels sad? Like what I really, the softest spot in my heart I have is for Charlie Brown's Christmas when they get that really bad tree. Charlie Brown did a bad job and they hated it. They're yelling at Charlie because of the tree. But then they decide to love it. And it's a good little tree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And I always am drawn to the shitty tree there because I think no one wants this tree. And we'd have a great Christmas with this tree. I have a real, I get emotional about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, I want to like rescue this shitty tree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
That's right. That's right. And all because of Charlie Brown, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So, yes. So, the girls have one agenda, which is to never like the same tree, I think, as their agenda. And then mom has an agenda. Mom's very aesthetic. You know, it's very important to her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. Yeah, like me. She's got something in her mind she's looking for. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
My singular goal is when you pull into Home Depot, you can either park And then go by the tree and then enter the line to pull up where they'll put the tree in. And I want to just pull into the line and know that they can get that tree fast enough that by the time it inches up to the front, we'll have gotten a tree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So my only objective is to get the trees in time by the time I'm pulling the truck. Because Kristen stays in the car? No. In previous years, they go in and I wait in the car. This year, I went too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I just parked it. And I'm like, I'm going to run in. I'm going to see if I find a tree. It's not going to move up that fast. They got to load a tree. I didn't hold anyone up. Okay. And then we got the trees by the time I pulled up. So that was my goal. Mine's way less aesthetic and way more time management.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
How could you not? Well... A tree that no one wants, Monica? It's already...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And by personality, I mean missing parts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
It sounds though like you guys are very Frito-esque when you're shopping for this tree. You're just not doing the voice. Talking about ball, I don't even want to say it either. My God. And you're saying it's your daughter? This is twisted. Certainly don't want Jess talking about his daughter in that fashion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Last update. It was time for a crop, a harvest. Everyone already knows that. I feel like people are going to have a bunch of judgment about this. I guess fuck them. Delta's like, I want to shave my legs. Will you shave my legs?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I'm like, okay. People are going to be like, you shouldn't shave your kid's legs. I can already feel that coming. But I don't give a fuck. She wants me to shave her legs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
She feels left out. I did it. Okay. Monica, her leg hair is also cashmere. It is. So we now have two fields in rotation. And so I want you to see what an enormous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yes. It's now father-daughter cashmere. And I want you to, you remember how much we had just two days ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Look at the amount of cashmere we now have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I was making a joke that we might get a mitten or a scarf in 10 years, but I actually think that's a real possibility now. Look at the amount in there now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Some of it disappeared. That's okay. Now we got two growers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. Yeah. Now you have two growers. We got basically a mink farm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, it's just I think it's separated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, I think hers might even be softer than my back hair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
But that's got a time limit. Her leg hair will turn into shitty hair like our leg hair. But currently she is growing cashmere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You think I need to get a work permit for her? Because she is now kind of actively.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I don't want to out her because she did such a great job. Lincoln shaved my back, did a great job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
But she thought she had some cashmere on the razor and she emptied a little bit into our pouch. And then I discovered, no, some of that was beard hair. So I had to actually go in and pull it. Now I'm getting embarrassed. It sounds like a bit, but then you realize, no, it's not a bit. He's really... That happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
No, I just, I could feel and I'd pull that out of you. I probably lost a lot of really good product.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
It's only the second harvest, so. Wow. Still learning a lot. Exciting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Oh, oh, oh, okay. It looked like the look on your face was that it was a famous person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Male. Give me age, height, describe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Okay. Your face betrayed you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Kelly was fucked up too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You should have gone back inside to talk to the third woman. Who entered.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So this is a lost persons report.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
If you open a door for Callie and Monica at the farmer's market.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Brentwood Country Mart. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Okay. Yeah. Contact, I guess, comment in this. I'll read it. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Don't. No catfishes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I guess you'll be able to see the photo, though, and you'll know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
And no one could fake it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
He's like a lifeline.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
How many more times did you think about him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Did you like whip up fantasies? I know you're prone to fantasies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Love at first sight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah. Wow. And I wonder. And how often have you thought of him since then? Daily or once every few days?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I sure hope he reaches out in the comments.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Also, no bullshit, no catfishing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Stop catfishing, everybody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
What do you want him to call you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Don't leave it. Don't let him decide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Oh, and a ding, ding, ding. We just interviewed someone who knows her intimately. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I mean, sexually. The colleague. We just interviewed a colleague.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I loved her so much too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
His secretary lived with him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
You're probably right. Yeah, I guess secretaries were just assistants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
It's kind of like the Martha Stewart thing. We all think she traded her company
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Nor did she even do any insider training. I know. But she still went to prison. I know. Yeah. But yeah, the nefarious activity was on Cambridge Analytic, not Meta. Right, but also they- And they were just using existing tools that anyone could have been using.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Well, what would have been your trajectory had you stayed in China in 1988 when you're 12? Am I misremembering that your mom felt like they weren't giving you the attention and encouragement that she was hoping you would get?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Everyone should listen to Acquired, just period.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, if you like a deep dive, that's the show for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Oh, big time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Okay. I just adore her. I wish her the best.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
I'm grateful for her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now we know. And I'm grateful for her existence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
He's great. Love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
This is what I'm remembering from the book, that you were explicitly told you're not as smart as boys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So your dad leaves when you're 12. He goes to New Jersey. He's there for three years on his own. And he is setting up a landing for you and your mother. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Do you remember that three years missing him terribly? How was that experience?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
So then you come your sophomore year. Yes. You start a public high school in New Jersey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
One of the experiences you had, I came in and told Monica immediately about, and you were in a class, some kind of a study hall or something. Library. And you were with a group of other ESL kids, English as a Second Language kids. And you saw a very, well, no, I want to say how insignificant this first interaction was, like benign brushing up against a kid's backpack or something. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
friend was on the floor by the time i realized there was some commotion being kicked and punched i think there was nose bleeding and he was holding his head yeah he said he got a concussion and a broken nose and there's two boys kicking him yeah and that's not even maybe the most traumatic part it's that after he's gone for a couple weeks he comes back and he's just not the same boy
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
We're up to a terrible start.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Fei Fei Li (on a human-centered approach to AI)
Yeah, I think it changes your worldview on a dime, which is, ooh, this new place I'm in can get pretty violent and a little out of control. And if you're other, this could happen. I have to imagine. Yeah, it's an incredibly scary recognition of where you're at.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Leslie Stahl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Is this a good example? I always think of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Initially, they think they're studying the students who have gotten too much authority and abuse it quickly and abuse these people. But then if you pull back further, you have to acknowledge that the constructor of the actual experiment is himself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, they learned how to do this at a certain point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
This has been a runner of us trying to remember getting it wrong most often. Finally, it's cemented.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Actually, I think there might be more than a second order observer, but you can keep pulling back the frame as you're saying that he himself Zimbardo was a victim of the exact same behavior he was observing and trying to understand because he himself had elevated his authority and detachment from everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
It's also a law of physics, which is if you observe light, Depending on how you observe it, it's either a particle or it's a wave. Thank you. And that can change depending on the observation of it. So certainly brainwashing has existed probably since humans have been humans. But we get kind of aware of it from the Korean War. Is that where we start really trying to study it and understand it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
At that time, would we not say it would be propaganda?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And you say, yeah, becoming someone else was alarming enough, but the nightmarish part was that you had no ability to recognize that this had happened. So even scarier than becoming different is you wouldn't have even noticed it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And if you think of your stereotype of someone susceptible to this type of thing, it's not a leader in the church who's got charisma and all these people skills and a great education and all these other tropes we think would inoculate you from this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Also a quite literal stripping of someone's identity. Exactly. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
How much were people doing brainwashing things that they didn't even know they were doing? So like a longstanding tradition is to shave all of the cadet's heads. Well, that's part of it. You're actually stealing their identity from them. How calculated was it? Or some of these things just naturally happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So I guess I didn't know a lot of this, which is shameful, but you do a great job of painting a picture of what the Korean War was, which was initially it was called a police action. These young kids went. One of the main characters in your book is a 17-year-old boy who's in 11th grade and he signs up before his senior year and he goes over there thinking he's a part of a police mission.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Which Monica pointed out to me once we left.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
They arrive. They are using all the equipment from World War II. They don't have anything. New guns, new tanks, new anything. Things are breaking, helicopters are falling apart. The enemy has all new Russian stuff because they're backed by Russia by proxy of China. So they're getting slaughtered and outgunned and their full sense of what an American is at that point is starting to really fracture.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Like we're supposed to be indomitable. We're supposed to have the highest tech everything. And all these young guys end up as prisoners of war. Tell us about the Tiger March. That was particularly grueling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Who are all completely malnourished. They have zero energy. They're already physically quite diminished. They don't have the right gear. It's freezing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And when they made it after these long marches and they got in these camps, then the camps were often even more brutal. They would have thought once the walking was done. Yeah. Long story short, it's all really, really heartbreaking and worth learning about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
But at the end of all this, there are 21 of these guys who go through this process, who choose to stay in China and take on Korean wives, have children. They do get completely converted to some degree. And there's a process by which they do it. And I wonder, we get into now Mao Zedong. He is the leader of China and he has something called the method or reeducation or thought reform.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And it has a very predictable and formatted approach, which is discussion, criticism and unity. So take us from these guys who are in these camps, as you would say, ungrounded. I think it's worthwhile to explain what ungrounded is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, because the method was designed to treat peasants one way and landowners and landlords another way. It was a very rigid prescription. And his conclusion was, well, these infantrymen are the peasants, right? They're not the landowners. The generals are the landowners. So they would receive those two different approaches. Exactly. But it's really interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
The discussion part, this kind of reeducation or the method would start with urging these people over and over again for a very, very long time to journal their life story. And in some fascinating way, none of these people had experienced therapy prior to this. This wasn't a thing people did. So this is like a very unique experience and comforting versus what they had just experienced.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Because when you're journaling, you get to sit next to a stove. So there's these little incentives along the way. And through the telling of your story over and over and over again, you then get into a zone of criticism. And this is where you have to defend your nation's ethics, how they treat black people. That was a big issue they would remind everyone of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And they're not putting you in a position to have to defend your story or your identity or your sense of reality. And then lastly is unity. And now they're going to explain this other way of thinking that is so much more beneficial and so much more collaborative and helpful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
The earliest version of man spreading.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yes, and he was heavily tipped during the dot-com bubble, but then it collapsed and then the tips dried up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
What's interesting about that, and I think why as we see it come up in modern society in a far more innocuous way, often people haven't ever taken the time to try to explain their worldview. Probably nobody really has taken the time to write out what their worldview is, what the ethics are of the country they are loyal to. So in doing that...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
It's a very clever way to establish a little anxiety in your own understanding of why and what you do. You know, it's probably the first time you've questioned any of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So now's a good time to also introduce, because there's two waves, right? There's the small wave and the big wave of men starting to return. The first wave is like 139 guys. And then over time, it's 3,600 or something massive like that. And people are coming back with varying levels of success. vacancy and being visibly disturbed, then you have the people who stayed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And now is where we should learn our understanding of trauma doesn't exist to the point where the word trauma is almost not even a word in the 50s, right? So as they're seeing all this bizarre behavior, everyone stateside is assuming this is brainwashing, not, oh, this is a traumatic response to this horrendously traumatic experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
You just had to wait for him to approach you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, maybe the amputees that came back, which there were, they would have maybe been like, oh, they went through some shit. But the rest of the guys played volleyball.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Weak, that they had succumbed to this propaganda easily. And also, it's worth pointing out that in the entire Korean War, there was only a single psychologist on the ground at the time. And then when they returned, though, now dozens of psychiatrists and psychologists are deployed to now study these guys. And so what do they find? Because now this sets us in motion on our own program.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Defended against or deployed on your enemies. Sir comes out of this survival, evasion, resistance, escape method.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Whoa, hold on, that's a huge first swing. Or a tape of this. Oh, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
There were stand-ins for the Koreans?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So we were doing this to our own people to get them ready for this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, that's my question. So I wonder how effective it was. The men who went to Vietnam, had they received this training?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I was going to say, yeah, how do we know if that was a failed attempt by the Vietnamese or the great training the GIs received?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And we've been brainwashed. Our guest today is Rebecca Lamov. She's a historian of science at Harvard University and her research explores data. I'm trying to change the way I say data.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Oh, that you'd have to look. Or take charcoal and tissue paper.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Another great hack. He's throwing all of it at you. If he tells you he's great at foot massage, you're like, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
But that's the nature of love. It is all cliche. And then it feels very special and unique to you. And that's what's so sweet. Yeah, it's really true. So that means you guys have been together for 25 years. Yeah. So embarrassingly, you were graduating from graduate school in the same year I graduated from undergrad. But I imagine I'm older than you. So I think you must have boogied.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I was born in 75. I was born in 66. Oh my God, you look incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, you do look great. I don't know if you're supposed to comment on professors' looks, but I guess you're human.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . la in in in in in in in in in in in in in in and, and, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Okay. And then now you're in Boston. So you've really done the tri-state.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And then why Berkeley? Did you fancy yourself an anti-social misfit or just they had the best program?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
You get invited to like a barbecue, you're like, shit, there might be some fights. But you hear free vegetarian food and you just think, yeah, there's going to be some peaceful people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, I was thinking of the Maoist stuff, the method that seems really present in a lot of these cult documentaries I've watched is like you have food restriction quite often. You have the narrative part where you're telling your own story. There's kind of a therapy aspect, the discussion where you're implored to talk about your childhood and explore that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
It's like you can see that it has the same arc almost as the Mao method.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Have either of you thought to yourself, I am in a cult? I have two personal experiences.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
For me, AA for sure. In so many ways, it is a cult. And then I definitely look at the methodology by which they get you as AA. Anyone coming to an AA meeting for their first time is already ungrounded. That's why they're there. Their life is obliterated. They don't know who they are. They've been acting in all these ways that are inconsistent with their morals. So we did the work for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
We show up kind of deconstructed and it's a group and there's language and there's a text. And it has a lot of built in non falsifiable claims like you don't have to believe in God, but you do. There's a lot of clever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Oh, my God. Confessing. Exclusively sharing your story, exploring it, learning a new way to live. So it's interesting. I've been in it. And I'm aware of that. And yet I go, well, the alternative for me was death. So this is far preferable. I can handle being in this cult. Now, forget cult. What I really think is brainwashing. What is a little bit unique and good about AA is there's no leader.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Like that reference doesn't mean anything?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I think that's what saves it from being potentially destructive because this is a very powerful mechanism that could destroy people if there were even a single leader. There's not even a person in charge of the room. So that's it's kind of maybe built in safety net. But the way I think over 21 years of being there is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
is I find myself recognizing, oh, it's very regimented, that's very myopic, that's very unflexible, that doesn't account for the variety of human beings that are in the world. There's a lot of things I have to confront. I was having a conversation with a great friend of mine who's been in it roughly the same time as me. He's older, he's a genius. And we were talking and we share a therapist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
That's why our population is declining and everyone else's is on the rise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And the therapist comes from this very unique point of view, which is he was in the program for a long time. He was an addict. He stopped going. And he also treats a lot of people. And he's like, there are some givens we learned that I don't know that I believe are givens. And then hearing someone in authority who is smart and trustworthy, even just that little poke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And then I found myself saying to my friend the other night, like, this part's a little crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, not to go surfing and drop acid and get counter-cultural.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Okay, so all the things we've talked about are what we might call hard brainwashing. Tell us what's soft brainwashing and tell us what's pervasive in our current landscape that we need to be aware of and tell us how it works and what things are out there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Were they counting how much time spent on the app itself, maybe?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Meaning expand your mind kind of way?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And people will now point out people voluntarily complied with that. We started just giving you a full time access to ourselves and filming everything we do. But both sides are working right because people are posting their trauma.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, we're a lot more comfortable with the notion someone chose to smoke cigarettes and that's why they have lung cancer. They just loved a perfect life and they got lung cancer. We don't like that. That's very scary. That means we might get lung cancer. But we do love an element of complicity. It helps us not take on so much anguish because you go, oh, they kind of elected to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
What's your story of why you were so drawn to brainwashing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, they're on mission. They're converting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I have to say, and this sounds dismissive to other cult members, but NXIVM interested me the most because of all the subjects of these cults I had met in these other documentaries. So many of them were outwardly searching so hard for something. They were just waiting for a guru to walk in front of them. But the NXIVM crew, they were above average intelligence, most of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
They were very critical thinkers. That's what they were. bound by. And then I got obsessed with, well, what's this guy's magic spell on these very critically thinking, smart adults? And I think what I observed was he weaponized that against them. Every time they ask him some big philosophical question, his response would be, Well, what do you think?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And they were so keen to impress him that they would come up with their very best explanation. And in doing that, they gave themselves the answer. And he just would sign off on it. He outsourced the actual dogma to them. He used their intelligence against them. And then back to your point of people thinking they wouldn't be susceptible or they would be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
It's like, well, here's this group that he figured out how to get them to indoctrinate themselves.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah. And when you're watching those guys, they're on the Santa Monica Pier. Now they've been deprogrammed and disillusioned and they're just chatting and they're recognizing some of the things they believed. And one of the guys just goes, yeah, he was a judo champ at seven. And they both are like, oh my God. How did we?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
What does it fucking mean, a seven-year-old judo champ?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yes, and the absurdity of these things they had heard now has come flooding out. And I imagine just the shame that that induces.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I hope everyone checks out The Instability of Truth, Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyperpersuasion. I'm a slow reader and I was blasting through it. There's so much historical stuff in there. I love the history. I mean, there's just so many elements of the Korean War that I hadn't known about or properly sympathize with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, the sequel was so much longer, heavily protested. Cultural.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
All right. Well, Rebecca, this was so fun. Thank you so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Stay tuned to hear Miss Monica correct all the facts that were wrong. It's okay, though. We all make mistakes. I screen grabbed something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I know if I want you to find this interesting, it cannot be about the Cold War.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So hopefully I didn't screen grab something about the Cold War.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Okay. Fun to hear updates and the subject synthesized so well. For Monica's anxiety about death. Oh. You are on the right track with one of the ways to manage that response. I did CBT for anxiety about death and the training is what you say. Look at probabilities and odds, focusing on stats and having self-compassion when the worries override the stats and likelihoods.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Also, acceptance that we actually have so little control from an existential standpoint and being truly zen about that from a place of gratitude for each day helps. It's tough to get to that place, though. It took me years. People like Monica and me are prone to rumination, a.k.a. sticky brain. It sucks so much and is tough to understand if you don't experience it. Similar to obsessional thinking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Monica's brain is micro obsessing about death now and making her anxious. Just a perspective since I know you don't suffer anxiety the same way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
That was a nice comment. Someone really took some time to try to help.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Sticky brain. I've never heard that. That's what I'm going to start calling you now. Sticky brain. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Sticky Brain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I could tell. Yeah, I had a hunch it was going to not sit right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, every scientist we have says data because it's D-A-T-A. If it was data, it'd be two T's or even D-A-D-D-A. Data. Data. Okay. Explores data, technology, and the history of human and behavioral sciences. She's written a bunch about a database of dreams.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, and this might tip you into child ownership. I have much better built-in excuses than you do. And they're legit, which is I don't do anything. Every night of the week, I'm home with my kids eating dinner and then watching TV, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So I can just always go like, oh yeah, I don't... Which is true also. We get a babysitter like six times a year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So I really make it kind of clear. I just, I don't, I'm not social. And you really...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah. So I can do a breakfast. Yeah. Once every month and a half, I'll do a dude's dinner, maybe two months. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Probably more often not understood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah. Now, so that I got to put that on them. If I ask someone to hang out and they said I can't for the foreseeable future, I would go, OK, yeah, they don't want to hang out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Oh, that must mean it's very smart. Yeah, I'm not even sure if I get it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I thought you were going to, though. I haven't decided. After Mindy, you kind of were.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah. And. And it's true, which is great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
It's an excuse and it's not an excuse. Like I really am home every night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Or you fell under a romantic spell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
You want to be a dud. You want to be able to be a dud.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I think that's the journey of finding your identity in some way, is you fall under the spell of these different things and then they stick or they don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I don't. I don't think any of these people are entitled to all that information. I think you just need to relieve yourself of the guilt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, look, I do have a set thing in my notes that I have. You do? Yes, because I get asked very often to ask Kristin to do things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
No. Hey, I've got this project Kristen would be great for. Hey, this charity event can Kristen host. Sure. And it's a very sincere and it's true, which is I won't be a conduit of requests to Kristen. She gets it all the time and it's not going to come from me. Right. It's damaging to the relationship for us to be not wanting to hear what each other has to say. Sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So I took the time at some point to write out a very thoughtful version of that. But I don't want to have to do that every single time. So I have it in my notes and I just copy and paste.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So maybe. I wonder if I can find it now that I've said that. And if you've received this, then you know. That's okay because it's legit and I stand by it. No, I can't find it. I think the parents deal with it the most.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Like my mom gets a lot of requests. I think Kristen's mom gets a lot of requests. And I get it because you're like, oh, a parent can ask their kid anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Like if I wanted Ace to do something, I'd be like, I just ask Charlie. He'll ask him. Probably. He's got no autonomy. He's got to listen to this request.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I should ask Ace if he'll host a gala.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
He and Lincoln were so cute at Disneyland. Oh. It's so fun to watch. They really get along, really. They weren't dancing. That's the problem. That's the annoying and attractive thing about Ace is he's the world's best dancer, but he won't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
He won't give it to you. I get it. Like if I were him, all I would do is dance. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I know. I would exploit it and ring it out for every bit of attention I could. And he doesn't. He's like, he was right to be trusted with that superpower.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Although he needs to lighten up the reins a little bit. I think like on Thanksgiving, he should do a dance performance for us. No. Once a year, he should put on. We sit through these other talent shows with the kids and the videos they make. We got an actual bonafide talent in the mix and he's not showing us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Do you think it's weird? I think everyone does this, but do you think it's weird to look at a kid and go like, Oh my God, he's going to do so well with the ladies. Like every time I'm around Ace, all I can think is like, God, this guy's the, every option is going to be available to him. Um, great dancer, sweetheart, gorgeous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
On romantic love. Oh, dancing. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
You don't think it's a silver bullet?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I do. I know you do. If you look good dancing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
It's not like you can just know the running man. If you look stupid doing the running man, that's a pass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, no, if you're into dancing, you go out dancing. And people see you, they see you coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I see you, your dog, Charlie. Okay. Rottweiler.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, you know what? Everyone in the pod looks like dancing. No. Sure. We've been to weddings. We've been to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
You know Ryan's a great dancer. You could name the great dancers. Erica, great dancer, we know it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
You know, I mean, asking what was your flavor of addiction?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Maybe because you never were, that wasn't anything you were into personally. Like you were never like, I'm a great dancer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, I think a woman that dances well is very sexy. Interesting. And it's a way to look cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
But what about Anderson Paak? If she can't dance, then she can't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, I think you can have sex if you can't dance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, but I do think someone who's very in touch with their body and knows how to move their body, it's a good signal. Let me just ask you this. There's two guys. They're identical twin brothers. They look the same. They have the same personality.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yes. One of them is dancing like a dad. What? And the other one is dancing very well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
You made them the same. The only different, the only variable is they're dancing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So which one do you want to get in bed with?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Great, because you would say it's more attractive than not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Oh, okay. I thought it was like a who cares.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
But if it's like guy A. And really quick, when you look at them and you're like, I wonder who's better in bed. Would you not assume that the guy that's coordinated and on rhythm is better in bed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah. Okay, good. Anyways, Ace is a spectacular dancer. Lincoln and he were having so much fun together. That's fun. And we were, again, we were gay dads, as you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
But we were not as built this trip. We're not as big.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Oh, my God. I'm a little bigger than Charlie at the moment, which is very rare. First time in our whole friendship, I'm a little bigger than him. So I think what people assume changed. Remember last time he was in Adonis and they thought, I must be an architect. Do you remember this whole thing? Only vaguely. They're like, oh, the one man's much older than his husband. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And especially opiates, they have the illusion of manageability because you can function. It's not like you're inebriated drunk and you can't do anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
But he looks kind of cool. He looks artistic. He's got tattoos. He must be an architect. This is what they thought.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, I think if you're seeing someone who is heavily tattooed and successful. Well, how do they know that? Because we have a guide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Okay, great. So yes, we're just going with like most people think. So you see an older dude with a younger man. They have a guide. Got it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
90 plus percent of people are gonna go, oh, the older dude's got some money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Oh, wow, he's made some money, but he's also heavily tattooed. So he's either owns a restaurant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, most likely. Yeah, if you were in the Midwest and I saw a dude heavily tattooed and I knew he was rich, I'd go, oh, he owns a tool and dye shop. Like this is- Exactly. What environment could he make a ton of money, but also- Exactly. Look like a fucking junkie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yes. Okay. So that was last year's scenario that we both thought was most likely. People definitely thought it was an architect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
But now it's a little bigger this year. So now I'm not sure what they think. Okay. I didn't have as clear of a conclusion of what people thought. Other than people, again, were very excited and happy that we had a family. That seems to be consistent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Different places in hopes that you'll remember it. I see you grab your phone, which is disheartening. So I'm like, oh, she's checking her phone in the middle of this story about me being an architect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And now you're, yeah, you should eat it. Just eat it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Oh, you dropped it between your legs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Oh, yeah. Well, there it is. One of our guests will be sitting there and be like, God, I just keep stabbing my butt cheek.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Oh, yeah, yeah. Remember, you would put your feet on the couch and people would really lose their marbles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
You are. You're afraid of death, but everything before then, you're kind of fine with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I'm proud of myself for that. Yeah, you're cool. You're cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Can't dance to save your life, but if you shave that side, you'll pull it off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I just think it's a very hot, attractive quality.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
It turns things sexual. I guess that's really what I'm saying. Oh. It breaks through. Like, you could meet a dude and you'd be like, oh, he's good, but I'm in the friend zone. You could see him dancing and be like, you know what? Yeah. It's definitely an in-route.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, it could change the dynamic of everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
That's been my experience, which is I think some girls were like, whatever, I don't know, he's loud. And then on the dance floor, like, oh, this is interesting. He is... Loud. Very loud. Louder. As a dancer. Even louder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So a good two years of that opioid hole. How were you able to quit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
It's its own brainwashing, right? It alters your brain in a very significant way and you can actually not even see any longer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
It's so cult, like these really, really controlling relationships and even the strategies of separating you from your friends and all your support network. And then, yeah, I was even thinking, did you watch couples therapy by chance?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, that's a very extreme version of peptides. But do I deserve to take a peptide that elevates my HGH levels naturally? Well, it's not naturally. I'm taking a peptide. Nothing's natural. My thyroid, my pituitary gland is making the HGH. It's not exogenous HGH. What's the problem?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, but let's take me as an example.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Like I have a crazy workout regimen and a diet regimen, and I'm going to take anything that doesn't have bad side effects that's going to help me in that pursuit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Being as physically fit as I possibly can. Okay. And I can afford to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Right? Now, is it fair or not that I can and other people? That's a side conversation. But just assume everyone has access to everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And I'm 50. I just was at COTA and I rode a motorcycle all day long on the racetrack.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And I felt great and I was able to do that. And primarily because of my fitness. A lot of the 50-year-old dudes are not doing the sessions like I can do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So I am... My life is really good because I can still pursue my hobbies with vigor and it makes my life better. And that is solely an outcome of how I've taken care of my body. And this is yet another tool like eating well is or like that protein is or vitamins are. It's just another thing. It's a very arbitrary line between should I take vitamin D or take a peptide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
It's incredible. And then this one woman, and I won't use names because I don't want to get sued, but one woman is with a bona fide narcissist. And when she's explaining what they're going through to Orna, you can see that Orna's presence changes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, so I go to a doctor. So yes, without a prescription, you're gonna get on a website and it's gonna say for animal use or something. I have no claim on that, but I'm talking about going to a doctor and having the human version of a peptide prescribed to you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And I get blood panels every two and a half, three months that monitors everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah. Well, but the substance was robbing your... Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Futures, your current self. So there was a heavy price to pay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, and I just, I'm not seeing the price to pay other than the financial.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, no, anything I'm on has been in the market and has been used on HIV patients for 35, 40 years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
No, no. All of these are FDA approved if you get a prescription. And they're also a category that can be used in lab testing, which is what you're seeing on the website. But no, all of any peptide I'm on from a doctor has been FDA approved and used in medical trials. One in this case I'm referencing is HIV patients.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
anchors her back into reality in a way that she's hearing what she's saying almost with an entirely new lens and realizing, oh yeah, this motherfucker's crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, you're aging naturally, but with— Botox and injections.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
It's an identical argument for someone who's like looking at you and going like, well, fuck, do I have to get Botox because everyone's doing it and I don't want to get Botox, but Monica's getting it and now I have to. So it's like, that's the same argument as this peptide thing to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, this is an interesting side thing that will take too long. But I'm more thinking about, yes, I've talked about this with Eric and stuff. It's like, well, everyone's going to be on Trazepatide or some GLP-1 at some point. It's going to be over the counter. Let's just say everyone's going to be on it. It's 4 cents. Everyone's skinny. Let's just say everyone's skinny. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
But what I think is like, well, in a world where everyone's skinny, People that aren't skinny will be very interesting and exciting. So if no one has wrinkles, it's all interesting to think of just if everything's neutralized.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Or you might, silver lining, it might actually be, well, then all you'd be deciding on is personality. Yeah. Everything else has been neutralized.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I mean, doesn't that sound like utopia a little bit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I don't know. It's interesting. It's fascinating. If mine was, I don't think I'd look any hotter. I don't think my face looks better. There's like nothing I'm taking to look better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
What are they? Let me ask my doctor if I can be on those. But yeah, I'm up for everything that makes me feel better and doesn't have a big cost associated with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
You have to consider how this person's hearing the story. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, well, I will say when I'm in Beverly Hills- I will pass like six or seven women in a row that have identical shape faces because the filler ends up making every face.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah. Well, first of all, you're a professor of the history of science, which again, that's a discipline made up by Harvard, yeah?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Right, right. I just don't care. About what? That people do that stuff. It doesn't bother me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I just think people have always been doing everything they could. So they wore perfume when that was invented and they got hairbrushes to keep their hair pretty and they got combs and they got hairstyles and everything that was ever at your disposal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
People have been pursuing looking the best they can.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And we're just, there's more and more products in the mix. Yeah. But I do think people have been trying to look their very best for, I don't think that's new.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Well, we pick what things, but I know me too. I mean, jeans are dirty, but I need to work out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah. Okay, that's it. All right, love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I wasn't even aware that that was a discipline. But as I read the description, I'm like, oh, I love that. I think I'd be very interested.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And am I right that a lot of the question is like, how do we know what we know and how do we trust what we know in a sense? Is that a common exploration in that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Oh, database? Yeah, see? That doesn't sound right. Database of dreams. How reason almost lost its mind. World as laboratory. Her new book, that's what we're here to talk about. It's very tasty. The Instability of Truth, Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyperpersuasion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
OK, so let's start with science. Well, before we start that, I do want to ask, two hours a day of meditation?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I do that before I have to go on stage or anything like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
The three days. Yeah, that's fair. In 2002.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Will you do an hour in the morning, an hour in the evening generally?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just love him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, and your family knows not to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
When brainwashing has been studied in the past, I guess you kind of lay out two methodologies, the analyst and the actor. Can you break that down for us?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
That was the defense, right? For Stockholm Center, is that the first time we heard that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And for people who don't know, she was kidnapped. She lived with this far left wing terrorist group for a while. They ended up robbing a bank and she participated in the robbery.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Yeah, it's very, very scaly and very good. And I love the history of where all this stuff was kind of discovered and workshopped.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
But the actor analyst would be, if I'm getting this right, anyone that's studying something else, they might be confident in just their observations without ever really asking what the personal experience and point of view of the person being studied is and incorporating that aspect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
Even the Jonathan Haidt moral dumbfounding things, they're going to be as provocative as possible. When you learn cultural relativism and anthropology, the one that they're going to hit you with every time is infanticide among Inuits, right? That they had some practice of killing firstborn daughters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
And so if you were to only just observe this practice and make a conclusion, you would never have learned from the actor, well, a boy has to hunt for us to feed us as we get old. So first we have to have that. When that's secured, we can now afford, like you would never have learned even what the rationale behind it all was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
I think it's a very generous and respectful thing to assume the person you're studying has a total rhyme and reason for what they're doing, that they're not doing something completely void of any logic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rebecca Lemov (on brainwashing)
So this one will be even harder to explain, but you say the other superpower is second order observer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. My friend is here today. Yes. Ken Goldberg, you'll hear our origin story, but I met him somewhere. I was judgmental of him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Now, do you have the same thing I have, which is we're both really lucky and we're running in circles that are mostly people that are college bound and stuff. And I try to explain the level of violence that was kind of ever present. I can tell there's no connection to what I'm saying. And then I wonder, was it an era? Do you wonder if it's still like that in Bethlehem?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Because I'm curious, was that just our generation?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah, I'm not going to just take this laying down. For better or worse, at least in my experience, you walk away with this weird paradigm, which is it's better to get beat up and stand up for yourself. Because if you don't, it's going to lead to so much more suffering. It's just an equation. You come to accept it, and that's it. All right, so how do you feel about bullies?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Number one pet peeve in life is bullies. Yes, bullies. I hate bullies. I hate them. I was big, so I can't claim that I was some victim, but I also was a punk rock, skateboarder, snowboarder, so I was alternative. Bullies, for me, was a big, big thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
They were cowards. And or they would at least move to someone else who wasn't going to stand up for themselves. They'd pick another guy. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
OK, but now back to wild. So you did engineering type stuff with dad. You were bonding with dad over that as a kid. But then you decided you kind of want to be an artist at some point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
See, that's, I think, the most relevant aspect is, was it this concept in your life that every time it was brought up, you saw fear on the faces of the adults and it was the cause of fighting and it is this big elephant?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
panties in the room i think just once you have that association with it so yes there were a lot of people poorer than me but i was single mom and i still have the most unrealistic relationship with money to this day it's just so grounded in fear that there's really nothing i can do to overcome it yeah you know a simple thing is like whenever i look at a menu i'm always studying the price still yeah so i would never order the most expensive thing on the menu and you could yeah but it's interesting because i'll contrast that with my wife and she'll say what do you think about this dress
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Totally. Well, how about this? Without revealing your net worth, let's just say if you had a billion dollars, don't you think you'd probably still be the same way? Yes. Yes. That's when I'm saying that it's an irrational relationship with it. It's not grounded in the facts at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So it's like going to be $40. You're in triple digits for a Diet Coke. Yeah. That actually triggers a second issue I have, which is, and we had an expert on talking about this bias of being taken advantage of to be the sucker. So then I have two things going. I've got my financial insecurity and then I have like, these people think I'm a fucking idiot. Like I'm a sucker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I'm going to pay this much for a night. So it's a lot going on. So you do what they urge you to do, and then you go to Penn, and you double major in economics and in engineering. Summa cum laude in both.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah. That's wild. For a double major, that's impressive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
You have a safety net. A realistic plan in place as well. Because it's risky to be an artist for sure. So then you go to graduate school at Carnegie Mellon, and you get a PhD in computer science. Yes. Okay, but you have a trip. You study abroad in Edinburgh. Yeah. Which, by the way, when I read Edinburgh today, I was like, isn't it Edinburgh? Yes. It is Edinburgh? Oh, it's Edinburgh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
But we don't have an O at the end of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay, thank God. I thought it was insane. I'm like, I've been saying that wrong for 30 years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So relax, employers, and let ZipRecruiter speed up your hiring. See for yourself. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash DAX right now to try it for free. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash D-A-X. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. We are supported by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yep. Oh my God, I can go all the way to here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Totally. Sometimes it goes the other way. Yeah. So is it in Edinburgh? At some point you get introduced to, I guess, the concept of A.I. ?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So at that point in 1981, what was the robotics component of that course?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So you then go and you get this PhD in computer science, and then you teach at USC for a minute, which is interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Like you know to check your sunroof first before driving through the car wash. Like you know to put the leash on your dog first before you open the door to go for a walk. Not that I've ever made that mistake and had my dog run outside without me or screamed his name repeatedly over and over and over again until I found him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah, we had Fei-Fei Leon. Oh, good. Yeah, in her book. And they give up on it, then something happens, they come back to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Exactly. Am I wrong that even Honda was one of the first big corporations that was like committed some real money to building a robot?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I don't know how you teach here and then you leave at any point. This is a fly trap, LA. The weather's just too good. Especially if you're from Pennsylvania. Especially if you're from Pennsylvania. I know. It was quite good. Oh, and let's add, this is a sincere question. The most shocking thing that occurred to me when I moved to California, I remember it so clearly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I was at a Caro's restaurant, which is like a Denny's. I'm at a booth by myself and there's a guy at a booth by himself and he stares right at me and I stare at him and And I'm now waiting for what happens in Detroit. Like, either he looks away, I look away, or I go, what's up? That whole exchange that's just unavoidable where I came from.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And then he's just looking at me, and I realize, this guy's just looking at me. And I'm looking at him. We can do this here. That's California. I couldn't believe you could just look at somebody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Esalen's this kind of crazy retreat, hippie-ish vibe, nudity's welcomed, right? That's the vibe at Esalen. Have you ever been there? No, but my father weirdly used to go there from Detroit. What? Oh my gosh. Yes, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Or you know to check that the guy who asked you out is an armcherry first before you agree to go on a date with him. Sage advice. Essential. Checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. This content is intended for audiences in the U.S. only. Savings vary. Terms apply.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Northbrook, Illinois.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I like the physicist history there as well. There's so many cool historical elements to Berkeley that I think make it such a special place.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
That's what's rad is they're fringe, but they're crushing. They're like doing it in a totally untraditional way, but they're still bringing in the results. Rigorous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Right, right. You know, it's not the most comfortable. Stanford's right up the road. Exactly. I wasn't going to say that. I think you'll love it there. Okay, so could you walk us through kind of the history of robotics? When does automation arrive? What are kind of the pillars of progress in robotics? Okay, so it goes all the way back to start at the ancient Egyptians.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
But obviously they're using some kind of hydraulics or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
It underpins a lot of our current... Totally. Even if we don't believe in God, we have some sense that we're not supposed to be tampering. Totally. Let's just use nature as God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Ken Digacy. Get comfy. I prepped Monica by saying, you're going to really like my friend Ken if Fred Armisen was a roboticist. This would be Ken. Okay. And I think maybe am I unique in that comparison or have you ever heard that before? I remember you saying that. I don't hear it a lot, but I take it as a compliment. You should. He's one of our favorites. We love him. Really?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Now, that one is specifically, I hear this antidote all the time that you could deploy AI for this simple, innocuous task, but it could determine to execute that task, it would be best that we kill all the humans. This is the very common one that goes around right now. Right, if you want to save energy, get rid of these humans. Right, if you're not careful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
It has such a myopic command it's following. Right, oh great. Okay, so then when do we get into something that is actually practically helping us? I'm an idiot, I'm thinking Henry Ford is one
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Then, of course, I fell in love with him. And now I'm just smitten with this gentleman. Ken Goldberg is the Williams S. Floyd Distinguished Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley and an award-winning roboticist, filmmaker, artist, and public speaker on AI and robotics. Now, really quick, I've read a couple comments that people are over AI. I get it. People feel a little inundated. And I get it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Now the 60s Ford robot, was it being employed to move objects or was it like a CNC cutting device? It's so much like a CNC, computer numerical controlled. So they were able to program these spinning drill bits with three axis, right? So it could say, go up, go left, go right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And through those little three axis movements, it could carve out the perfect shape of a part from a block of agate steel or whatever. So you go like, oh, I want this rim for your car. I start with this big block of aluminum. And this thing, just with a drill, it can go through. It has all these steps programmed in. And it just, like a sculptor, chisels out everything you don't want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Very unicorny, like you. Unicorny, though. Is that being rare? Well, not corny. Rule out the corny part. Okay. Focus on the unicorn part of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yes. You have a great TED Talk. I urge everyone to watch it. It's called Where Are the Robots? Yeah. We're our robot butlers. That is not the title of it, but that is really close. I found it. Why don't we have better robots yet? That's the title of your TED Talk, and it's very, very good. Yeah, so it's incredibly hard for a robot to grasp things. There's a bunch of reasons, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
They're far more dexterous than robots. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I would much more trust a crow to handle my business than a robot currently.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Right, because every single movement's going to have some margin of error, and then that's going to compound. The more movements you add, all these different little margins of errors start stacking up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay, I don't know if this is the time, but this is one of the parts I want to talk about. As I've been frustrated with the exuberance of AI, one thing that has occurred to me is that our fascination with ourselves seems to be about our intelligence. And that, in fact, is what AI is trying to replicate and or surpass, is our executive function, our problem solving, all these different things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
But if you look at us as an animal, our motor control took 300 million years to evolve as mammals. And our big brain and everything we're trying to replicate in the AI space started six million years ago when hominids arrived. You have so much time spent evolving to do all these tests that we think are just standard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And then we think this last minute thing that took the least amount of time to evolve is somehow superior to that. So when I look at this, it's like, forget artificial intelligence. Try to figure out artificial physicality.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Rare, unique, special, colorful, vibrant. Playful. Oh, our favorite word. Love it. Good. I think we should start with how we met because I would love to hear your perspective. I have a very specific perspective. And I don't even know if I let you in on the full details. Well, I'm curious now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah, we think that's the high watermark. But I think the most impressive thing is us moving through time and space and smelling these five senses, touching. I would imagine if you could quantify it, that's like this much. And then our intelligence is like this much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay, so then my question is, is that a software or hardware problem? So one of the things I think about, it must be so hard when you're trying to design a robot, is you're limited to all of these pulleys to operate a hand the way ours moves. And as much as we are pulleys, we're also not, right? Because the muscles are such a unique way to operate the pulley.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
It opens up infinite options of movement, whereas these robots are really confined to kind of this, this, this, this, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
You add in moisture. Have you ever read the book An Immense World? Yes. You have! Oh, yes. By Ed Yong. I love it. Holy fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I love that book. And you get into this mole that has this star-shaped nose. And so that's a touch sense. Definitely. And that touch sense can detect the movement of moisture in the sand it's exploring at a distance of like 12 inches. It actually can see through everything. But it's not seeing through. It's not smelling through. It's touch feeling through. Yes. Yes. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
How would you replicate that with a machine? Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Right. Robotic touch sense is extremely primitive. What do they think would be the mechanism that could replicate it? Would it be electricity? What would it be?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So you and I were at a conference, and it's the kind of conference I would have never imagined getting invited to. There's a lot of people there like yourself, professors and stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And the Roomba replicated the very first multi-cell organism. What it actually ended up knocking off was something that can only move forward and then turn and move forward and turn and move forward. Like some paramecium. What we've achieved is like, that's where we are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah, they want to see it work once or maybe even they bought it and they got intimidated about even turning it on. Yeah, yeah. That would be my thought. So even understanding, I don't really want to deal with pulling out of the box and figuring out how I deploy this thing. I actually have a drone that's in that category as well. Oh, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I'm like, I'm not going to be able to figure out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah. You're right. I'm like, that's going to require a day. And I don't know if I'm going to enjoy flying it enough to justify a day of me figuring it out. Yeah. OK, good. So I like that. We're kind of agreeing that we're really underestimating how complicated our physical abilities are. And we're really overplaying our mental capabilities.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Smarty pants, billionaires. A fun group, actually. And we're walking into this event, and they are very militant about everyone wearing name tags, as they should be, because everyone there thinks everyone knows their name, but people don't know each other's names. So I see this guy with crazy hair, and he doesn't have a name tag on. Bucking the system.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Tell people about your folding project. I don't know what year you're into this, but one of your projects. Is folding clothes? Folding clothes. That's one that I think everybody would like to have. Yes. If it just sat on your washing machine and you could dump it in a barrel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
There's nothing funnier than watching the robot try to cook breakfast or do dishes. It just smashes everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah, that's a perfect time for me to ask you, like knowing your work will experience failure. I don't know that there's one that would surpass it. Like it's just failure, failure, failure. How do you stay optimistic?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Why? They're only going to score once a game. Oh. Whereas basketball, you're going to score 110 points. So you're like, oh, yeah, I don't get it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I'm like this, which is funny, because I should immediately love that. I should go, yeah, fuck these name tags. That's my essence. But for some reason, because I've complied. Yeah. Who does this guy think he's so famous? He's the only one here that doesn't need a name tag. So I'm immediately a little triggered. And I say to Chris, I'm like, who's this guy with the wild hair?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Well, there's this critical mass point for all these things, isn't there? Reading her book, she needed such a humongous pile of data. And halfway there gets you nothing. But it's like stagnation and the acceleration is probably shocking for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And what could it do? You could put it in a new environment. It could evaluate the environment and then you could ask it to do something. So it was just grasping.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
It doesn't have a name tag on it. And then by luck, somehow I hear your name, Ken Goldberg. And then I immediately go into the bathroom. Okay. I go into the bathroom before the little event starts. You don't know any of this. What? Don't worry, you're not being led in a bad direction. I go into the bathroom and I Google you and I see robot professor at Berkeley.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Oh. This might be a good moment to bring up. So you say in that TED Talk, which I think would shock people, is that we are much better at predicting the trajectory of an asteroid that's a million miles away than we are how a plastic bottle on a table will move if we poke it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Oh, man. And again, is that a software problem or a hardware problem?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Do you worry this whole field will go through one of those other stagnation patterns that we've already seen a bunch of times?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Out of hundreds of attempts. Hundreds? Yeah, you show the clip of a robot doing a backflip, which is mind-blowing. You're like, well, fuck it. We're there. That thing's going to work on my car next month. Right. That was one in 200 takes. And the other 199 takes, this thing is like flying off the table and smashing around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And I immediately am like, that's a cool job. Okay, so he's not a billionaire who thinks he doesn't need to wear a name tag. This guy's just kind of an absent-minded genius maybe. Yeah, because I didn't know about the name tag.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Right. Because you're an academic and this becomes one of my next questions is a lot of these videos I am imagining are coming from startups that are trying to raise funding. So they're heavily incentivized to mislead you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay, so now I want to ask you, how impacted are you by this general paradigm shift where most technology for the 20th century was coming out of military government spending, DARPA, MIT, these great institutions, academia? And then as you saw these private corporations amass trillion dollar values, the government can't really compete now and academia can't compete.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And what do we think the price of that will be? What are your thoughts on that whole realm of this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
These are all my shortcomings and character defects. But they work out beautifully because then, 20 minutes later, and most of the things we were sitting through the seminars were very AI heavy. And I have a chip on my shoulder about AI. So then now I'm standing next to you randomly. And this is probably where I would enter your life story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
No, science always, and it's so cool. It's so punk rock. They're always like, before I'm German or I'm Hungarian or I'm American, I'm a physicist. The collaboration and how everyone got along is something to be really modeled. They have a higher calling, which is kind of knowledge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yes, Oppenheimer had some folks working under him that were spies for Russia and were leaking our nuclear technology. So, yeah, I guess that's not to say it was devoid of any statecraft, but just in general, if a Chinese roboticist has a breakthrough, he doesn't give a fuck where this guy came from. He wants to know about the robotics breakthrough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Let's just take really quick a hard example, and I'm not an Elon Musk hater or lover. I respect him as a modern-day Edison. He is a once-in-a-generation kind of engineer, and I respect that. I agree. His other stuff is questionable to me, but whatever. Even with that said, I can't say that I love that he has 5,000 satellites in orbit around the planet en route to having 12,000.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
It's just an interesting... level of power to give one individual when I think I'd feel safer if University of Michigan had 8,000 satellites or the US government may be further down that list, but still I'd prefer that. It's a dicey situation when someone has a monopoly on a technology that's hugely impactful. It's a great point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Because I just lean over to you and I say, you're a robotics professor, yeah? And you go, yeah. These robots are like so far away from doing our laundry and working on our car for us or doing anything really. It's like they keep saying, hey, it's going to take over everything. You're going to be a leisure class. You know, what are we going to do with all this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I looked it up this morning. So 39% of U.S. jobs are still manual labor. Oh, that's a good number. But I think even more importantly, that represents one third of your waking day. You have another third of your waking day where you're still going to have to do your laundry, make dinner, right? So you have this whole sector too that no matter who you are is still manual.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So you add those two together and now you're really looking at a number that is like 78% of the stuff done on planet Earth in a day is manual.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
You know, the gardener. The mechanic. The mechanic. The dream for me is I got a robot that's maintaining all this bullshit I bought. Diagnose why the car is not running, fix it, get in there, how intricate working on an engine is. Forget it. That's like a hundred years away. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay, so my theory on this is that the people that are being interviewed for the media, where we're getting our information about AI, the people that are getting consulted and interviewed are the actual people whose jobs could be replaced. So they are very misled by their own. You're talking to like computer programmers about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
All these domains where actually AI will threaten those jobs and they're the mouthpiece of this whole thing. So it's all very lopsided because those are the jobs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I want to talk to them. I want to get to know them. We spent a week with Bill Gates and we loved it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yes. Like if the AI robot's good at drifting in a car, I'm fucked. Because I'm defining my whole identity and self-esteem on my ability to do that. Yeah. Uh-huh. Oh, wow. That's a great insight. That's what I think. So it's not really something the rest of us need to worry about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And I'm like, where are the fucking robots? And you go, oh, I'm so delighted this is your question. All right, so should I tell you my side of this? Yes, please. Well, I'll just wrap it up by saying within 30 seconds of talking to you, I'm like, oh, this is my favorite guy here by a long shot. I hope I'm at every dinner with him. And then we since developed a friendship.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yes. Cool. You sent Monica and I a podcast that is entirely AI. There's a male host and a female host. Yes. And you said, do you think this thing was trained on you guys? Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Guys, do you not hear that? I mean, it sounds so much like you. By the way, it's great too. Like I was listening to it. I was like, it sounds like NPR. Like I would listen to this if the information was good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
When you said it, I heard it. Do they ever find panties, though? That's what keeps us human.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
That's a word I wasn't thinking. They have fabricated rapport. But that's scary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And now you can. But yeah, we're thinking doomsday like we're out of a job. But think about this. What if we own the thing and it puts out the show? We're on a beach somewhere and the show is just as good. I would love it. It's kind of like the Picasso story where it's like, yes, I drew this in five minutes, but it took me 40 years to learn how to do this. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So it's like, yes, we're not doing it anymore. But because we did so much of it, we've earned this. That's how we'll justify our beach life. Well, you guys are not going to be replaced.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And do you think that the missing ingredient is that we cannot help but evolve and change? We're aging. Our bodies are morphing. Our children get older. You know, all these elements that really funnel into this aren't existing there. So it's like what they can do is replicate very well and even create within that framework of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
But it's not going to evolve in the way we just can't help but evolve.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And it would feel a little true minimally for us if we could use our data set. Exactly. Then I would feel a little less fraudulent about it. Right. You give it your set and then build on that and see what it does. Okay, I have a couple of rapid-fire questions, then I want to talk about your art. Where are we ahead and where are we behind in our expectations? Are we ahead anywhere?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
We have all these fantasies about what robotics are going to do, and clearly we're aware of all the ones we think we're behind on. We don't have Rosie the robot in our house. But are there areas in which it would shock people how far ahead we are? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
You thought it might have a scooper on its back, like the tail would be a scooper?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay. You and your wife are incredible artists. You have an exhibit that's at Skirball right now. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
If you've ever been to Muir Woods, there's a great cross section of a redwood, and they put on the rings different events in history this tree has been alive for. It has Jesus on the ring.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
One of them that's super cool, and it's so wild to think that the tree was around at that point, the first mark on the ring is from 530 BC, and it's Pythagorean's theorem. You see A squared plus B squared equals C squared. And it goes all through these great breakthrough math equations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah. Of course. Like you had tapped into something a little mystical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah. But you're right. There's something really elegant about those formulas. And you think of the most famous one, like E equals MC squared on the surface. It's just so simple. And no one could think of that for so many years. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Right, because they're all going to infinity, so none of them work great in math.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So I'm like hardcore atheist. I believe in nothing. I don't want to believe in nothing. There's something happening with my kids that I feel like is something I can't articulate. I really kind of opened my mind to like, maybe there is some kind of magic happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah. When you look at evolution, they talk about punctuated evolution. It's like nothing happens and then everything happens and then nothing happens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I think it's actually gone backwards. Yeah, right. Well, Ken, you are a blessing on planet Earth. I think you are so fun and interesting and encouraging. You're like a polymath kind of cosmopolitan. You're an artist. You have all these interests. You're youthful beyond your years. It's a pleasure to know you. I'm so glad you came in and talked to us about all this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Thank you. I love it. Yeah. Okay. Well, to the many dinners we will have in the future. How fun. Thank you so much. What a pleasure. Thank you, guys. Stay tuned to hear Miss Monica correct all the facts that were wrong. It's okay though, we all make mistakes. I'm in an incredibly beautiful new sweater that my friend got me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
It's the topic of the day. A, this isn't very heavy in AI talk. And then B, this is a million times more playful than you could ever imagine robotics could be. I'll also add that he has an art exhibit that is going until March. Don't wait till then. Go now. At Skirball, if you live in LA or are visiting, Skirball Cultural Center in LA.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I just put it on for the first time and I'm truly blown away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And I think I like these cuffs where you have to roll them up. They're too long on their own. They're clearly designed to be rolled. See, look, that's a seven inch, nine inch cuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
But you wouldn't wear it like that, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Because you'll get lost in it. I just rode my bicycle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah. Nice. My first time in biker shorts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Well, I just can't believe I'm a person that owns biker shorts and wears them now. I'm having a hard time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah, but also I think that's something that's best done much younger. Almost the 50 compounds it. First, I never envisioned myself as being someone that would be in those biker shorts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah, but it was really, really comforting to hear you say that as someone who is an authority in the space because I've heard many people lecture on AI and I'm hearing all of the, what are you peeking at?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I don't want to say it hurts here. It does hurt. Yeah, it hurts. It's uncomfortable. I was like, oh, this is a nice padding. I put them on for the first time. I felt like Panay always talks about, like, eventize your run. I was like, well, these are built for nothing other than riding a bicycle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And let's do that. And the padding was nice. And I love that there's no fabric flowing anywhere else. I think I went up the hill faster because of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I'm not going to adopt the Lycra shirt, though. I decided. I just wore a wife beater.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I'm back home. I'm very, very, very happy to be back home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I would love to open it. Let me really take my time here. I'm looking at a beautiful tissue paper with... Oh, can I say one thing? This will sound derogatory, but let me preface it by saying... I could be in the tourism board for Mexico City. I love it. It's an enchanted romantic city. Food's dynamite. If you ever go, go to Havre 77 French restaurant. We went twice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
The French onion soup's the best I've ever had in my life. On the second trip on my birthday night, I got two bowls of it to start. Oh, wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yes. And I would tear out a fingernail right now to have it again and share it with you. It was the most incredible. But anyways, the facial tissue and I had a cold. It wasn't ideal. And where it really hit me was- One ply? Maybe less. I was at a nice hotel, mind you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
We got on the flight. I went into the bathroom and I pulled the tissue out of the mirror that's in the lavatory of the airplane. And the second I touched it, I was like, ooh, that's soft. And then I thought, how bad was the tissue where the airplane tissue felt like Puffs Plus with lotion?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Oh my God. Okay, I got to walk. So sorry, Ken. But obviously this needs to be a joke. That took me a second. Okay, so here's what happened. I just put the pieces together. There's an explanation. There is. Monica and I did a commercial yesterday, as I told you. You told me that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Anyways, beautiful tissue paper with purple flowers. Really nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay, beautiful tissue paper and then a burlap sack.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Wonderful. Oh, buddy. The stories of Raymond Carver. Will you please be quiet, please? Is this an original?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Did you pay the face value of $8.95? No, it was on sale actually, half off. What year was this published? Because we can, I think it's fascinating that a hardcover, beautifully bound book was $8.95. I know, that's true. I know I'm all over the place and a little manic, but I just got to add. Back to Little Women, which I love. Yeah. You know, Greta Gerwig's number one super fan now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
At the end of that movie, they show them pressing and making her first book. The book, Little Women. Yeah. I don't know if you remember that sequence. I don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
But the amount of time and effort it took to make a book in the 1890s. Yes. Where they're pressing it all. They were cutting it with a saw. They were sewing the binding by hand and then they were cutting leather out in a pattern and then gluing and putting that in a press. I'm like, it took like a week to make a single volume. They should have been $600. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And it explains why I think it was Carnegie who invented the library. There were no libraries. Books were just too expensive. They were like probably in today's dollars. They probably were hundreds of dollars. Yeah. That amount of manpower. OK, so this was first published.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah, I'll get the number wrong, but to put it into perspective, like, so I guess Elon is now worth $400 billion recently, although that stock just fell. Whatever, let's just say he hit $400 billion. $400 billion of our total GDP and national amount of money isn't even 0.01%. When Rockefeller hit a billion, they say he actually had like 15 cents of every dollar that existed in America.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So it was like as bad as it feels now, it was- It was worse. Exponential, order of magnitude crazier with the first rich people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay, so this was 1963. So this book cost $8.95 in 1963. How much do we think that is now? Rob, can you put it in? Well, that's a great—we have that technology.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I added a new—I actually wrote up my resolutions last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Which I don't know if I've ever written them down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
When I arrived, I changed my clothes and I put them in a bag and I brought a bag of extra shoes and pants they asked me to bring. And then I threw this sweater in there. And then that underwear was in there. And then I just threw on my sweater just now. And clearly my panties were attached and now they've fallen off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
We may have talked about this, and I had mentioned there was a period I stopped journaling over the last 20 years. And then I had a relapse, obviously. And I didn't even put all this together, but through therapy with Mark, I think what occurred to me was I there were things I couldn't write down, just like you were saying, are you afraid someone's going to find it? And I'm like, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
But in truth, there was a moment. Yes, I'd be afraid someone would find it. And I had this weird dedication to never lie to that journal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So I just kind of I didn't. It didn't feel like I was making a decision to stop journaling. It just was like, this is really weird. I've been journaling for 17 years or whatever, and I haven't in a while, but I'm not overthinking it. But of course, in reflection, I was like, I couldn't really be dishonest to this thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I love this. This is such a thoughtful, wonderful present.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay, this is a fantastic present. Very thoughtful. Thank you so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Well, look, I've stopped. So I really am in no position to say this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
But it definitely falls under the umbrella of like, well, it couldn't hurt to go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
It's kind of the vitamin debate. It's like the scientific community is kind of split down the middle whether vitamins work or not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
But it's like, I don't know, on the chance that they work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
They're not going to harm you. All right. Someone's going to comment. Yes, I hear you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And you can have too much of certain things. But just in general, if you're taking the, you know, not above the daily dose of any one thing, it's not going to harm you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
You know, Gundry's new movement is less water. Not shockingly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
It looks so good down, but go ahead. Let's see what happens there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Do you ever do an up and then a braid and back?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So for the viewer, I would be so angry if I didn't get to see the... Oh, my God. We don't even see them. You have to if you're watching and you're like, everyone's seen these panties and I'm not. Wouldn't you throw your computer out the car window? I love it. Full disclosure. Okay, so these are the offensive panties. Look at them. They have elephants. Elephants. Quite nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yes. Our second commercial of I Hope Many.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Maybe a therapist can style your hair on the days you don't want to share.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Who did you meet? Where did you meet him? In front of 7-Eleven?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
When I was- If you were having fun and laughing, stop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah, it's pretty easy to narrow this down at some point. If you know an Indian in Atlanta who's friends with Robbie, bingo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
You're the perfect person to tell this story because you have the same condition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah. He got rid of too much salt. He drowned his cells. That was the medical? Yep. Oh, okay. You have a good deal of salt, I think, from your diet. Don't take offense to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
No, but you like, you'll have a nice seasoned chicken. Oh, sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Do we know why he was drinking so much water? Was he on like an exercise routine?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay. Yeah. I don't know why I brought that up. You and Gundry should collab on this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Also, just if you are having a lot of water, maybe use some- Electrolytes. Electrolytes. That's right. Keep an eye on your electrolytes. Yeah. The only cases I've ever heard of is like no one's ever died from ecstasy, but people have drank too much water on ecstasy. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Are you being polite? That was quite nice. Or do I now have a Christmas idea for you? Well, actually, yeah. I'm going to buy a pair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I wonder if they drown their cells or if when they drink way too much water, it backs up like congenital heart failure, basically, like ends up filling up their body. Because, you know, my father who had congenital heart, I don't know if it's congenital. He had heart disease.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And what would regularly happen is his heart was too big on one side and normal on one side. And so it would pump in a lot, but it couldn't pump out a lot. And then it just ends up backing your whole body up with water and you get really bloated. You put on all this water weight and then it starts really affecting your breathing and your lungs and everything else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And so my dad would go into the hospital for like four days and all he'd be on diuretics and he'd just be getting rid of gallons of water.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Epilepsy, pressure in the brain might have been completely all related.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Oh, man. Well, I'm sending love and well wishes to this anonymous person. Okay. Why does Robbie have two very close Indian epileptic friends? I know. He's very over-indexed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I consider myself kind of unique in America, low percentage where I have a best friend who's Indian and epileptic. And he's got now two?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
He has a fetish. I know you don't like that word, but.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Ask if there's a third. If there's a third, he has a condition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
No, no, no, no. Oh, my God. No, no, no. Is he giving everyone this? He's poisoning everyone. Oh, my God. He's so sweet. That would make sense. He's one of the sweetest people I've ever met over text.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
That's so cute. And then she had to. So you picture, like, a mall. You'd walk in, but there's only three stores. And then the food court is, like, four food carts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
That's way better. Yeah, that's cute. You and Gundry can work on that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
There's a fourth. I mean, I only know of three people in his life and all three of them have seizures. So certainly there's more. Should we get Robbie on the phone?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yes. The look on your face, I thought there was maybe a squirrel under my chair or something. She had a very panic look on her face. Well, it was a little surprising.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
During the NFL playoff game. I'm so sorry, Georgia lost, by the way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
They didn't lose to Texas, but Texas won theirs. Texas is still in it. Notre Dame.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
That game we saw was one of our only two losses. They ended up being really good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Welcome to the SEC, bitch. Is that what you said?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I'm on air. And can you hear? Do we have your consent? And can you hear me?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And we did not name any names, but I'm just learning of the fact that you have a second Indian friend with epilepsy, which I find to be almost statistically impossible. And then Monty said it doesn't stop there. His wife has epilepsy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Robbie, I said there's a fourth for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
This is wild. Do you think it's because you're so calm and sweet, all of a sudden the other person's brain feels erratic and unhinged? Is it like relative to your calmness, people short circuit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Now I'm being sincere. Is there something environmental in Duluth where half the population is at seizures?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I'm not about the logic of that. But what I'm saying is there's something in the soil where you grew up where 70% of all people have seizures.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
You're right. Guys, did we just break an enormous case? Do we need to call the New York Times immediately?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Wow. It's going to be called Poison Paradise. Under the veil of suburban beauty and tranquility.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Lies a burbling poison that results in the shutters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
First was the title. And then I was then I was then I was entering into the first episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
That's well, no, I have one follow up on that, Robbie. In your free time, which I know you don't have much of, can you sniff around and see if any more folks have had seizures? Yeah. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
We all have our albatrosses. Yeah, exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Oh, man. We're not going to top that in the episode. We should wrap it up. Okay, so back to AI. Everyone's quite scared, and I think there's a lot of reasons to be scared, but also I think maybe we're a little more panicked than we need to be. I just found you to be kind of a comforting voice. Oh, good, good, good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And I just want to end on this. Robbie, your voice was built for radio. You must be involved in Poison Paradise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
That was a great use of time. Yeah. I wasn't expecting his voice to be that velvety.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay. Good luck to, will you plug your ears? Good luck to UT. Hook them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
this is the same as that story I told about the people flying to LA to watch the Red Sox play LA hoping the Red Sox would lose because they had just beat New York but the other guy was like no okay they must win that way New York's number two wouldn't you want your team to have twice beat the champions I guess you're right I think it's time for you to like transition into rooting for them for your own for my own gain yeah
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Speaking of which, and I know we're all over the map and have taken up too much time, but I just, I want to, I want to go on to say that I finished the Churchill documentary on the flight home yesterday and I got very swept up in it. This has happened a few times and I'm sure you've watched shows on this. When you are forced to watch what the Brits went through 57 nights in a row,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
of carpet bombing of London. Everyone's sleeping in the subway, no bathrooms, getting up, going straight to work and carrying the fuck on. And they were so outgunned and outmanned and out everything. And they alone took on Nazi Germany at that point. Everyone was already defeated. The amount of will and resolve It's so historic. I found myself like, this is so cheesy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
So we became friends, and you've been over, and we love you and your wife, and you're also artists, so you're impossibly interesting. Let's start, though, with, of course, you would be born in Nigeria. Oh. Is that where you were born? I was. Of course. Of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I found myself being like really proud that I know Jethro.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah. I was like, by God, that little island, you motherfuckers refused.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And Churchill, he is a very flawed person. He was horrendous to India. I'll acknowledge that. But truly one man got those people to that state of mind. If you watch this doc, you're like, who knows if that person doesn't exist, what happens? Because he had two burdens. One is to be fighting off these Nazis who are just bombing every single night, trying to keep morale high.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And he has got to get America into the war or they're going to die. Everyone's going to die because they're not going to surrender. And so his skill at wooing FDR and developing this relationship and slowly getting us more and more involved is so impressive. And his own story is so unique in that he was a soldier during – in his youth and he was an incredible soldier.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Then he went into politics and he was a boy wonder because he was right, the whole time he was in the war, he was also a reporter. So he was reporting firsthand from all these wars and he's one of the best writers to ever live. So he was in this crazy unique situation where he leaves the service
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
As a hugely popular figure in Britain, goes into politics, has this meteoric rise and then plateaus and then plummets. And he's completely on the outs and he can't get anything done. And then World War I comes along and he decides in his 40s or 50s to rejoin the army. He becomes a commander. He wins all this glory, returns.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And for four years is begging Britain to understand Hitler cannot be trusted and don't believe a thing he's saying. And we can't be signing these deals. And no one's listening. No one's listening. He never relents. And finally, the Brits realize he has been right the whole time. And overnight he becomes prime minister.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Like the story of the up and the down and the out and the miscast in the it's it's what a story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Horrible to the Indians. Let's be clear. A colonist, grew up in Elizabethan England, definitely wanted the empire to stay alive. Also, miraculous feat of will and resolve in the poetry with how he motivated people. He gave this speech to our Congress to help us embrace the fact that we were entering the war. And it's like the most incredible speech. I cannot recommend the doc enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I don't know why I went on that tangent, but it's been burning a hole in my brain. I know I'm making you nervous. My energy level is a 15.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Oh, I'm just sharing all the things that I missed out on sharing in the last three weeks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
But does that story, like, is there a male-female thing going on? Is this the Roman Empire? Maybe. Like, does that whole chapter just, like, not interest you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Of an individual story where someone's, like, completely discarded and publicly reviled, then finds their way back, then becomes so valued and important, then gets discarded again, and then doesn't quit. Like, has a calling back. that can't be ignored and then match with this like Shakespearean ability to write speeches.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I think the thing that interests me about it is as big as this world is and as complex and dynamic as it is, single individuals radically change the face of the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
For the listener, she just kind of, it was an interesting one. It wasn't an eye roll. It was a back and forth, side to side.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
You found the origin of your- I figured it out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
The world. Show the world. And I'm going to have to describe for the listener because let's just be, let's be clear. 98% of our audience is still just listening, not watching.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yes, please do. All right. So for the listener, it is a two or three year old Mary Kay and or Ashley Olson from the Full House program. It says duh across the screen. She's shaking her head and she gives the most expressive eye roll you've ever seen. Yes. And she has, Or they have enormous Disney eyeballs where it's very expressive and clear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah. It might be all the way to the end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
They might be your Aaron Weakley. I mean, you already have your Aaron Weakley.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
What I'll say is they're radically different people, which is so fascinating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
No. Well, sisters have never looked that much alike.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
One's left-handed, one's right-handed. But that's super common in twins. And one's one inch taller than the other. Even when they're identical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
You'd never know it by looking at them. Don't judge a book by its cover.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah. I've met a lot of boy-girl twins and they have all told... They have all had the experience where someone asked if their twin was identical, even though they knew one was a boy and one was a girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And it's called Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology, Trees, Time, and Technology. Very, very cool exhibition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
It must be way lower percentage that you get a boy and a girl than same gendered twins.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
We should have a twins expert on. Yes. Because what that means is that there were two ova in the uterus and that one male sperm and one female sperm hit the two. And generally you would think, well, either the males were making it because they swim slower and they're more robust or vice versa. And one swim fast. So it's weird that one would swim fast, but you know what I'm saying? I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
That's an experience to look down in your underwears outside your pants. Cause your first thought is my underwear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yes. And it doesn't seem to be torn in half.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
That's a real, like where am I at in time and space that my underwear has made itself off of my body and onto the floor. Yeah. I mean, it's so obvious later when you think it was clearly in my pant leg.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
My underwear is falling off. It's like, and I think you should leave when Robinson, they put a whoopee cushion on his chair and he doesn't understand it. He goes, what happened? Like he really shook because he didn't feel himself fart, but he heard a fart. What happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Undergrads. They just finished their undergrad. Also, they were ahead of the curve because you were born in 61? Yeah. So the civil rights movement in its full velocity is later.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Which people could have thought might be her underwear. Yeah. Like, you know it's the lining of your pocket, but other people could be like, why are both of their underwears falling off?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I assumed wrongly now that it had something to do with the mechanism of injecting it. Like did they use some weird thing? Cause again, my dad's was, I have such a good memory of my dad's. I don't know that my mom has one weirdly, but my dad's is like seared in my brain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And I was like, it looked like, I think I said a cigar, like they administered it with a burning cigar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
See, this all paid off, my diatribe on Churchill, because Stalin was the trickiest figure in that triumvirate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I'm skeptical. That's how we do it without getting sued. I'm highly skeptical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I doubt it, but I'm sorry, I'm skeptical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay, I think I've heard that. But also my assumption of what that was, was like very simple mechanized arms, not bipedal robots walking it out. Like it can make it in the kitchen, then it goes on a conveyor belt, and then it's exactly lands in front of your thing. It doesn't necessarily mean that a bipedal robot carried it as much as there might be automation that gets it all the way to your.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I'd love to go to a robot restaurant. What is it? Cali Express in Pasadena. Oh, it's in Pasadena. That's much closer. Yeah. That just upped the odds of us actually doing that by a lot. I do think there's a little guy that rides around and brings here food.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
No, he's more boy-like, remember? Big time glass half full.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
There are a lot of other robots. But he's like becoming charming and flawed. Wabu Sabi. Wabi Sabi. Wabi Sabi. Rabi Sabi.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I'm learning this from Nicole. This is the movement now is like you have these very fancy handbags and then you put all these little trinkets that fall off the side. And I think she calls it like bag trash or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah, that's really cute. Isn't it? Yeah, it's about to be critical. I just think it's funny. Fashion is very funny. So you get this perfect, outrageously expensive bag and then you're supposed to like drape some trash. Obviously, it's like downplay it. It's like what's happening?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Oh, that's preposterous. He's larger than the bag.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Sucking, fucking, don't leave out sex workers. That's manual labor. Don't we honor sex workers?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I'm glad we ended on that note for Ken. I think he would appreciate that. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
My father had that one, right? Is it the size of like a quarter? Yes. And it's a specific vaccine that would do that, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
um art project with these tree rings that are gorgeous and very creative ken goldberg i love you i think y'all will love them too please enjoy we are supported by zip recruiter oh get recruited according to research a major challenge many employers face is the pressure to hire quickly it's a tough hurdle to overcome it's so time consuming to search for great candidates and sort through applicants
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
I would gaze at it on my father's shoulder all the time. Looked like someone put a cigar out in us. Yes. That's it. That's a great way to put it. That's exactly what it is. Oh my God. What if that was the vaccine? The doctor just lit up the cigar. How long were you there as a baby? Just six months. And did you get any kind of citizenship out of that deal? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Yeah, be getting hot water up there. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Or the entree. Right, right. So then you do grow up in, I guess, would it be a suburb of Philadelphia? Yeah, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Steel Town.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
No, but is this to increase productivity through the scientific method or something? Yes, yes, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Well, and by the way, and we'll just earmark this, among the AI accomplishments that I find most fascinating is their ability to make things more efficiently. I know there was a server farm they let AI loose on, and it had been studied forever. And within hours, it figured out how to make it like 30% more efficient or something crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
Okay, great. So here's my guest because I'm from Detroit. And so you have this enormous working class. Many of the folks had migrated up from Kentucky to fulfill these roles. So you have this culture of pride. And yeah, violence was on the table at all times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ken Goldberg (roboticist)
And there'd be a few additional fights for the people who got excited watching the first fight. Yeah, exactly. The most dangerous thing was watching one of those fights because afterwards there was going to be a few more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
The Queen's mother. Oh, very literal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
If their wife says higher, then they will.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
You didn't get any real experience. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, the more successful you are, it almost hinders you in that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
It would have looked horrible if they fired you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Oh, wow. That was kind of a cheerleading move you did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, you should send that to the professor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
If I had to be him, what are the physicalities?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
The movie's so good. Were you so happy with it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, I bet. They seemed like such sweethearts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
We'll knock on wood for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
One in five, one in ten. There are very few times, but there have been times that I've pushed back. There's a reason why this is important to keep in mind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
So you just say you can't do this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
So most people who bet are a fan of the thing. That's surprising to me already. I would assume most people who get into sports betting aren't fans, so they could be sort of objective about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Well, he's just a good lawyer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But did he care about DOMA or did he care about winning a hard case?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But poker's a game of skill and it's gambling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
And give it to you for free.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
It's just your opinion. I don't think you could get sued for that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Did you say allegedly? Did you say allegedly after everything?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
You're like, there's a lose-lose.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Dax, why don't you at least do herbs?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Okay, and what are your spices? Shining.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
That's bad. Captivating. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Things that are intriguing, but you're saying these as verbs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I think I do. Stewardship, service.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Service. Stewardship. Community. Peace.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
What's E and I? Integrity. Integrity was I. It was. Yes. How many have I done?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Equality. Equality. I didn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Now yours, shining, prancing, spit takes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Okay. Shining, prancing, intriguing, celebration. Captivating. Oh, captivating. Egg on your face. Energizing. Energizing. And sparkles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Okay, well, that's cool. You're a cult. You're going to have that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Joe Rogan Intervention. It's on, it's revisionist history.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
And the new season's great so far. There's also a couple really good episodes about George Floyd.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah. There's an episode before the Joe Rogan intervention about that called the RFK Jr. Problem. Oh. That leads sort of into the Joe Rogan intervention. And God, that Malcolm Gladwell. What a gift he has. He's so good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I thought, yes. Okay, so the episode starts off kind of calling out Joe Rogan a little bit about his interview with RFK Jr. And the difference between an interview and a conversation. It really just deep dives into what is a good interview.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Interviewing is a real skill. It is different from conversation. And it is like... Yeah, they play a clip where Malcolm is being interviewed by Michael Gervais and Malcolm starts crying talking about his dad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But what led there was so nothing. Like, it was very simple. It was... And I was like, yeah, it's complicated and it's simple. Getting like real emotion out of someone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Well, right. But I guess if we're going to have someone controversial on, which we don't do that often, actually. But if we do, like before we had Andrew on, there was a conversation we had that was like, if we're going to have him on, we're going to have to have all the conversations and push back. So to me, it's that. It's like you...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Can't have someone like that on who's extremely controversial and says all kinds of stuff and not be prepared to really push back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I don't know if Joe is. I don't know if that's his conclusion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, I don't know what he thinks, but RFK Jr. must believe it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But it's not those aren't the – it's not poor people who are anti-vaccine. In fact, it's mostly very, very privileged people who are anti-vaccine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, but I tend to think the people who, I mean, just in my experience, the people who are the most vocal and leading the charge are not. poor people. When you have so much privilege and access to the Brazil nut that might have, that's, you know, $14 per nut that might have this special benefit, like they want to go that route and then that's natural and all of these things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But I, I think most people believe doctors, they like believe the system, right? That doctors pretty much know what they're doing. That when the baby is born, it needs these things and they're just going to go do these things. And they don't have to question every single thing that comes in. Also because they don't have time or energy to question it. They're living their lives.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I know, but I don't think that's the majority of those people. I really don't. I mean, definitely not RFK. He's a Kennedy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Trajectory, but not, he was privileged.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, but that to me is like so kind of part of, I guess, sort of this bigger thing, right? Like you're so privileged and insular that you think you have it bad. Yeah. Like look, and then it's also, look, if he's just a random person on earth, I don't care, right? Yeah. But he's in charge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I think when he had RFK Jr. on, I think was during the election.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah. And so he's saying like, this is my platform.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But he's not a he's his podcast isn't a comedy podcast. He's a comedian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But his show is a show where ideas are explored. It's not, you know, a laugh riot. I mean, I'm sure there are funny episodes or whatever, but it is there to explore ideas. Maybe he thinks he is being responsible with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Well... I don't know, though.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
We wouldn't have him on. to come talk about anti-germ theory.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Exactly. But I don't think, I don't know that Joe Rogan does. I think he is like, come talk about your thing. Let's just shoot this shit. Let's talk about it. But then he himself isn't equipped to really have that conversation with this person who's powerful. You know, in the episode before, when they're talking about RFK, you know, he doesn't believe in Louis Pasteur's
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
germ theory he doesn't believe that he believes in the opposite thing and um so does woody harrelson like there and and so yes it's not to me it's it's like see i think it'd be easy and convenient if you could write the people off as dumb but i don't think you can do that so then the question is how do smart people yeah have the courage to go against
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I don't think it's courage. I think it is a long time of not having your feet on the ground, that you're able to explore all these different options for life and the world and the way it works and who's in charge and who's not in charge. I do think it's like checking yourself on how, quote, normal your life is in comparison. I think most of these peoples aren't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
It's becoming more and more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Well, we do know because measles is back now. It wasn't. You know, people are now, these things are coming back that were gone. There's that whole episode about the rotavirus and the vaccine for that, which they've like, you know, RFK and them have said is bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
It is, it's just reckless. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
There also might be a part of a lot of humans that want to be the exception. You know, it's almost like the opposite side of the coin to like exceptionalism. Like I'm different from everyone else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
He's such a good storyteller.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Great show. Revisionist history.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Okay, let's see here. We talk art, art with Michael.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
We're going to do from Wikipedia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
The list of most expensive paintings. Okay. According to Wikipedia. The Salvador Mundi is the most expensive. $450 million. Adjusted $577 million. But this is the one that he talks about that a lot of people discredit. Oh, really? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, attribution is pretty disputed. Then we have Interchange.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, these are paintings sold.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Probably, yeah, I assume. Yes. Interchange is a Kooning. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, it's nice. It's nice. It was 300 million adjusted 398. That was sold by the David Geffen Foundation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I know. Well, there are cars.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
The third is a Cezanne, the card players. That was $250, adjusted $349. I like it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
How do we know? That's my story. I don't think so. I think they're playing cards.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
He's wearing like an Abe Lincoln hat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Paul Gaugin called... Gaugin. Is it Gauguin? Yeah. Okay, Gauguin. Translates to when will you marry?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Right, she has a lot of time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, you're doing Kimmel tonight, and I'm going to Beyonce tonight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Star-studded night. What a night. Jackson Pollock is next, number 17.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Incorrect. Number 17A, 200 million, adjusted to 65.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
The no. Then we have Gustav Klimt. Washer Schlangen 2. That's a hundred.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Women, naked women. Two naked women. Oh, I see a breast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But they have long hair. Yeah. This is cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
This was fun. Well, I want this one because I like art of women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
So I wonder if I can buy it. It was sold for $183.8 million, adjusted to $48. So I just got to save up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Mark Rothko is next. Number six. Violet, green, and red. Now, this is pretty much just squares.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Oh, my God. Have some respect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Well, we don't. People don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Next is a Rembrandt pendant portraits of Mertensulman and Upjinkut.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I mean, it's not about not, I'm staring at it. I don't see it as bright red, like a clown nose.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
He's pink, but that's very like, that's very close to real life skin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, but white people's skin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
No, is pink. Your skin is pink.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
What are you talking about?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
You're like so... Is this because you're nervous about Kimmel? You're being so... I'm lashing out at these people from the past. Oh, my God. You're right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
No, no, you're... She's dying of something. First off, you're overreacting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
See, this is why you shouldn't blow your nose. She's not. She does have a red, this area of her nose, this nostril is red. She blew her nose. She had a cold.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
You are not being respectful of the dead or the living. Now, or the painted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
That makes me a better person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I really do. Because now look.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I thought it was a little. I didn't say like. You guys were being mean.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I don't remember any jokes. Yeah, about this person's tongue being very big.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
No, you made a whale of it. You think you could ever observe something and not make a joke about it? I'm not sure. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Thank you so much for looking back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
This is how conspiracies start.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Okay. Anyway, I just think it's best if none of us wear glasses. Okay. I think that's all for the paintings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Okay, first cousin once removed. Someone who's related to you as a first cousin, but is in a different generation. Specifically, they are the child of your first cousin or your parent's first cousin. Think of it as a first cousin who is a generation removed from you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I thought they were your cousins.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But they were your dad's cousin's kids. Yeah. Your first cousin once removed is supposed to be your dad's cousin's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I mean, this person wrote Moneyball and The Big Short, two of my favorite movies of all time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Okay, who is Jacob Rothschild? Big business guy. Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild, was a British hereditary peer investment banker and member of the Rothschild banking family. Rothschild is a hard one. I can see you trying to not bring it up over there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Like they themselves believe it or people believe it about them?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
It is a Johns Hopkins situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Okay. The book Careless People is by Sarah Wynn William. Are people from New Orleans called New Orleanians? Yes. Assassinations due to J.D. Salinger's book. Oh, here we go. Many murder cases throughout its time. Mark David Chapman, who had an obsession with the book, murdered John Lennon. Also, John Hinckley, who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Was thought to be obsessed with the books as well. There are many other people whose murders or attempted murders are thought to be connected to The Catcher in the Rye. such as Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination of JFK and Robert John Bardo, the man who killed Rebecca Schaefer. It says Holden Caulfield might have some criminal potential as well, having similar traits of killers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah. It's a slippery slope to incel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah. I think a lot of these people... In basements who are, what are they called?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, I said in cells, but something else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
No, it's called. Jesus. God. Just go on Kimmel already. Get this over with. Chodes. It's called something like abstinent, like not chosen abstinence, but something like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
No. What if I became an incel because I started doing research?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, that's it, I think. Involuntary celibacy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Oh, that's what it comes from. I never knew that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
It's actually a portmanteau.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
A portmanteau. That's what it means when you take two parts of two words and put them together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, you ever heard that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Heterosexual men who blame women in society for their lack of romantic success.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I wouldn't say it's the best route.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I know. That's the irony of the whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But they were mainly watching TV.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Those other guys who were in the basement just watching TV, now they seem hot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
No, because they still want the power over women. Like, they don't want women to be more powerful than them. And so the sex robot isn't going to fix that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I know, but they'll still be real women in the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I mean, they can masturbate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
They just hump their couch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I bet there is something you could put it in and get off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But why do you think that's better than jacking yourself up? Because it's somebody else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah. I'm surprised they haven't invented, like, a mechanical hand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Oh, a fleshlight. Yeah, that's a— I've thought about— Oh, yeah, that's a thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Also, don't you have to hold the flashlight?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, you can like connect it to the wall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
No, like it's plug-in, but it's a long cord. So if you're in bed, you don't have to touch it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I don't think I want to know anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah. Casey Sepp's book on Harper Lee, Furious Hours, Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee. Okay. The Tiger Lady. He mentioned this Tiger Lady. He said Tiger Lady or Lion Lady who got all that plastic surgery. Do you remember her?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah. It was Tiger Lady. Jocelyn Wildenstein.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Well, she had a high-profile divorce from billionaire art dealer. Ding, ding, ding. Oh, my God. And businessman Alec Wildenstein. Cat-like facial appearance. Oh, she passed away in December.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
That was a pretty good one. Okay, let's see if it says here. Oh, my God. Her yearly telephone bill was $60,000 and food and wine cost $547,000.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I guess. She received $2.5 billion in the divorce settlement.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
But then she went bankrupt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah. Oh, three apartments in Trump Tower were repossessed in 2020.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
It's true. Oh, okay. Did Ted Olson argue the most cases in front of the Supreme Court? So there's like a list from lone dissent of U.S. Supreme Court top advocates. Yeah. Number one is Lawrence G. Wallace, 157 arguments. Whoa. Yeah. Then there's number two is an unknown advocate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Six, Carter Phillips, 86. Seven, Irwin Griswold, 83.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I know. I feel very lucky that I had a dinner with him. I felt really kind of weird in that moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Because I knew that was new. Like you were finding out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
I will. No, I just felt like, what if you cried? Like, what if you like got really needed to take a break? When that would have been fine, of course. But.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Well, if you find out that I die in the middle of an interview, I hope you take a break.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
That must have been so cool as an art person to be in it like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Yeah, some insider trading.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Liar's Poker. Liar's Poker. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
That's so fun. Now I want to get into
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
No. That's all I would be thinking about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
That's the first thing I thought.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michael Lewis (on the gambling epidemic)
Thank you, but I can't take credit for that. I was editing it this morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. Experts on experts on experts on experts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
It's like when you start thinking about your heartbeat, you can almost immediately give yourself a palpitation just by considering it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
If someone's asked you to walk along a six inch line on the ground, you could do that to eternity and never misstep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
A depressing side of this is that in the folks you work with, 30% of which are having psychosomatic seizures, only 30% of those people will have success treating it with CBT, which is our best option currently.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
As soon as the doctor has decided it's in their head, they're kind of off their plate. Go see someone else. I only know how to prescribe you these medicines or send you to this physical therapist. There's no tools on the table for a doctor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So you've been here since Friday. Did you do anything fun?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So the part I still would love to know the mechanics of is if I wanted with all my might to give myself a seizure, I don't think I could replicate the level of seizure you're seeing. What happens in the brain? Do we know?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Okay, so the third book, The Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories of Mystery Illness, you have a story in there about contagious seizures in schoolgirls in Colombia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, you didn't even know? No. You thought you were just going to see the sound stages and the lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, if you are uncomfortable with the heat and the lack of air, and then you witness it take someone else out, now a new reality is on the table, which is I might pass out from this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, it was correlation, not causation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Wow, because it became weaponized by the anti-vax movement.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And they were a Russian proxy weapon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Now, are you wearing green as a nod to your Irish heritage or you always find yourself in green?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
60 Minutes even did a segment on it. I was very disappointed. I love 60 Minutes. My bigger issue was, and this is disrespectful to the people suffering from whatever it is they're suffering from, but I was like, okay, so Russia has this crazy weapon and they deployed it on you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Not to be mean, but truly, if we made a hierarchy of who would be most advantageous for them to cripple, we wouldn't start with the ambassador in Cuba. It just also was illogical in the motivations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, they're trying to retrofit embassies. Yeah, really took off. What is the Tourette's-like syndrome that was spreading through New York high schools? Do you know about that? I've heard this. You've heard about this? Yeah. Oh, I know nothing about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You have the most Irish last name. You got a Sullivan and an Owen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And we didn't delineate, but I want to now because I'm now remembering. Even Monica, so you draw a very hard distinction between a hypochondriac and someone with a psychosomatic condition. A hypochondriac is worrying about getting things, but they don't have the symptoms. And a psychosomatic person has got a big plate of symptoms.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, you've written maybe more, but I'm aware of three books. And I would love to just tap dance lightly through some of them before we get to the new book, because I do think there's definitely going to be concepts in the new one that were laid out and built on the back of these other ones. And this is going to get Monica so excited. I think we should first talk about you're a neurologist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah. Great. So that's next. Before we get to the new book, I just want to know about the sleeping sickness in Kazakhstan. What was that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Don't swear. You've had a stroke. Go home. That's what they do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I'm caught in a loop still because we just did a personality test that seemed to be loop, a loop. I feel like we answered the same five questions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You also have a master's in creative writing, which is impressive. But you specialize in epilepsy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, let's find out. Let's find out. The first book is All in Your Head, True Stories of Imaginary Illnesses. So let's just start with some actual data, which is your guesstimation, and you acknowledge it's an estimate. But of all the people that come in that have had seizures, a symptom of epilepsy... 30% of them are not epileptic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I want someone to do work on this and maybe they already have, but someone in the social scientists needs to think about the impact of 40 years ago, you could be in this Kazakhstan town and you wouldn't really know it was that bleak. The only swing sets you had seen were rusty. Maybe you saw some movies from the West.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I wonder what the impact of being aware of what everyone else is living like on planet Earth with the Internet, where some of these symptoms might be a result of that. It's like, what are we doing here? And this is miserable and I'm going to just not wake up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And you're very aware of what you don't have now, whereas I don't think you were in the past.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And then you found also that's largely true for cardiologists when people come in with chest pains. It's common for people with heart palpitations that about a third of people that are experiencing symptoms, often it doesn't align with the actual underlying disease.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Our subconscious seems to have a genius about saving us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Or your body will make your back hurt so much you can no longer do the job that's killing you mentally. The body will somehow protect itself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Okay, so the new book, The Age of Diagnosis, How Our Obsession with Medical Labels is Making Us Sicker. Now, I sought out an expert like you because you'd have to be asleep... To have missed this wave of self-diagnosis that we all are giving ourselves. The current one, and we'll just put an earmark in it, is every single person I know, and I convinced myself of it maybe, has ADHD.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Right now, that's the one. We'll get to it, but let's walk through why this felt like a natural progression in the books you were writing and why you felt like it's time to shine a light on this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
That they've given themselves or they've accumulated from medical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Right. So you say like worldwide, 537 million people are living with diabetes. That's incredible. That's half a billion. 783 million are predicted to be affected by 2045 with diabetes. Oh my God. We kind of have three explanations on the table that would make sense. One is we're sicker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
A second explanation would be we are just finally able to diagnose all these people because we now have the language and it's in the DSM and it's in these other places. And maybe we're getting healthier because now we're getting treatment. And you're offering a third explanation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, I was shocked to read in your book that asthma diagnosis have gone up 48%. That's freaking Teddy Roosevelt had asthma. This isn't a new diagnosis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Everyone I know is panicked about their pre-diabetic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, how successful that was. Yeah, let's talk about diabetes a bit further. I guess when I was growing up, if you were suffering from the condition of diabetes, you were having amputations. Yeah. You were dying quite prematurely. Have we reduced the amount of people getting amputations or dying prematurely?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, you say many of the diagnosis aren't what they seem. The quest for certainty turns borderline medical problems into ironclad diagnosis, pathologizes the normal and hurt those who are most vulnerable. In other words, we are not getting sicker, we are attributing more to sickness. Break that down a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, certainly. You kind of go back in your mind and you go like, oh, right. Yeah, that kid was ADHD and that kid was this. We had no terms for any of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
It's such a complex issue. I'll add that I just interviewed Bill Gates two days ago, and I said to him, he knows everything. He was consuming all things. He read all 21 volumes of the encyclopedia at nine years old. I'm like, when did you first hear autism? And did you connect with that concept? And he said, I was aware of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But at that time, they were such extreme examples that I would have never put myself in that bucket. Because again, these were people who were nonverbal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yes. He says recently, and that's what's interesting, is he recognizes he is on the spectrum of it. And then the natural question is, would he have been served with that title or not? That's the big unknowable question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, did a good job. Today we have a guest on a fascinating topic that I think a lot of us talk about all the time. Are we getting overdiagnosed? Are we medicalizing everything? Is everything a pathology?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
One I like to add is when the movie Rain Man came out, the man it was based on was interviewed with his father. And Leslie Stahl did the interview from 60 Minutes. And this was in the 80s. And he was very hard to conduct an interview with. He also memorized every book in the Salt Lake City Library. And he could read with his eyes separated both pages at the same time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So she did a follow-up story on him like 10 years ago, went and revisited him. He's still at the library reading and the dad's still there. And he greets her and he's making eye contact with her and he's interacting in all these ways. And when he's not there, Leslie says to the dad, he seems to have improved a lot. Has there been some treatment? And he said, well, make no mistake.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
He's exactly the same. He has just learned more tricks over the years. He knows to force himself to look at you and he knows to say, yes, Leslie. And so that's all that's happened. You haven't seen an improvement in the condition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
It's so nuanced because what's interesting is I think the diagnosis of autism is almost more for all of us neurotypical people, in quotes, because what it does do, and I've witnessed it around me and I myself know I'm guilty of it, If someone says, this dude's autistic when you meet him, just know he's autistic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I can go into all these other things that might trigger me when I'm interacting with them. And I have a level of compassion now that I didn't have, which is just a shortcoming of my own. Monica and I have talked before. It's like really the end goal for all this would be to be compassionate to everyone with all their idiosyncrasies. But that label helps us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
It helps us write off stuff that would otherwise irk us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But it is a complementary situation because now I have lower expectations of you and you have lower expectations of you. Exactly. So it can be also a self-perpetuating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
How do you distinguish those seizures from epileptic seizures?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I think, as you said earlier, this is a collusion of many, many facets. And so one that I can immediately see is parents whose children exhibit behavior that is embarrassing to them in their own ego because they're an extension of your identity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I think they themselves are comforted by some medical diagnosis as opposed to just living with the embarrassment that, yeah, sometimes your kids are really embarrassing. That's part of the fucking ride. It's not you. You don't need to go find some diagnosis so you can tell everyone, she's this, he's that. And then you alleviated yourself of that. I think that's a bit harsh. You do? Yeah, I do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, I see so many peers excitedly sharing the diagnosis their kid just got.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You have better odds of getting what you want if you try really hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Funnels into one of the topics of your thing is this kind of false notion of the norm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
What's happening with Huntington's disease?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
If we were to observe the brain with an fMRI, maybe it's already been done. Do we see any difference in how it plays out electrically or not? Absolutely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, in that case, I wish she had had the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, it's confirmation bias. You're excluding a ton of data and focusing on a very tiny bit of data to validate what you already have a hunch is true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, even when I see on Instagram, because it's everywhere, ADHD is the thing. And I see these videos. And of course, it's like astrology. Like if you say enough adjectives about me, you're going to find some that are fitting. So I'll see the couple things that are identical to me. Like if I start brushing my teeth, I've got to immediately do something else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
There's no way I can stand there and just brush my teeth. And I'll see that one, oh yeah, that's me. But I've also ignored the six they said that I have no connection to whatsoever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So the brain's very busy in some quadrant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, it's funny when I see the ADHD clips, which I see all the time, it triggers something that happens a lot in AA, which is I'll be listening to someone share in AA and they'll say like this, this and this, my alcoholism. And I often go like, no, that's your humanism. You're being a human right now. And similarly with ADHD, I'll go, that's just being a human in a highly stimulating world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yes, you have that. I don't deny that, but that's normal and natural. And we all have some degree of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
unappealing behavior. Like, yeah, I always am interrupting, but I have ADHD. Don't you also think they want an excuse for some stuff?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So they're like maximum disassociated in a sense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But the distinction you're making is great. Of all the people I'm seeing on Instagram declaring themselves, my guess that I feel strong about is like 90% of those people have never seen a doctor for it. And they have no program of treating it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
What's going on with chronic Lyme and long COVID? Oh, God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So some people have Lyme disease and really no symptoms.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Long COVID. This is one that I just intuitively, when I hear it, I'm a little skeptical of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You say March of 2020? May. Okay, so only three months in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
We would have to be years out to ever actually declare something long COVID.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So you're seeing 30% of the people come in or 20% on a great year where these are psychosomatic. And I think we have a paradigm which is very dismissive of psychosomatic. In the same way that people are dismissive of placebo effect. People have this association that placebo effect is not real. Of course it's real. It doesn't have the causality we thought it had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
How do we correct? How do we keep all the upside of figuring out a lot of these diseases and providing help for people? And how do we shave off this large group that's also shouldn't be seen as having a pathological disease?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, you get into the structural and logistical issues there. It's like there are X amount of resources given to those added hours of teaching and test taking. And then it's kind of the same way the insurance reimbursement works is we've got to get this one thing so we can get this other thing we need.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, if there was just a place you could go to that was funded, that was like, I feel shitty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
We want church without all the collateral charges that came with it. Without God, without priests, without pedophiles. I love this topic and I think it's actually kind of brave, but I do think you do it with a ton of compassion, even tackling psychosomatic disorders in the way that you have with compassion and actually a call to treatment for the people. It's
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So do you think that by writing a book about psychosomatic disorders... You ran the risk or you would be afraid people were thinking you're dismissing them as opposed to, I like what you say, which is the symptoms are the symptoms. They're the same. Why do we have compassion for one cause of the symptoms and not the other?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
It'll be threatening to a lot of people's identity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, Dr. O'Sullivan, this has been wonderful. I'm so grateful that you made the long trip to be in rain and be at Harry Potter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, yeah. Everyone check out The Age of Diagnosis. Incredible book. Incredible message. Thank you. Wow. Talk about a reversal reversal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Because last fact check, I was in a sweatshirt. You were in a T-shirt. You were not cold.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Now you're freezing. I'm in a tank top.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, and you didn't walk today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And I just exercised with resistance training. The aliens would be really confused by weightlifting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Because initially they'd be like, oh, that monkey has to get that thing up and he's going to move it somewhere. Oh, no, he's setting it down. Yes. Or maybe it was too heavy. No, he's picking it back up again. Where's he going to take it? No, he's setting it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Just repetition, useless repetition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
There's zero gravity. They just do. They don't even need really muscles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, I would have thought your conclusion after Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan would have been, I'm not going to ignore that, all that stuff. But you're saying it got worse?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I'm as lost as a listener. Perimenopause. Oh, perimenopause.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, yeah. No, we've been saying we're going to have one for a long time. That's okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, you're probably just shoulder hurts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Can you trace it to any activity?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Okay. What would be your guess?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And then your shoulder hurts?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
In Georgia. Yeah. But you don't call that home anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, but what age did your mom have it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You must kind of get it off your desk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
OG, original Gossip Girl or the reboot? Original. Okay, great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I've just... Had you watched it when it was airing? Yeah. Oh, you did? That was one of your shows? Mm-hmm. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Nor do I. By the time this is out, maybe there will be some details. Yeah. But I just go through a checklist in my mind because I, like everyone else, or I think we all want to make sense of the world. It's like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
If it's nonsensical, it's very scary. Exactly. If it makes some kind of sense, I can deal with it. And so I, yeah, I just go 39 is too young to die of all the other things. Yeah. And then I just start doing like probabilistic guesses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Do you feel like they felt invalidated by that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But I remember people, we were pretty early or I was, or I felt no tension for me personally to guess that Matthew Perry had OD'd. But people were really mad at me about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. This is across the board fascinating because she's here to talk about her new book. Well, first of all, Dr. Susan O'Sullivan. She's an award-winning writer and neurologist. And her new book, which we're going to talk about a lot, is The Age of Diagnoses. How our obsession with medical labels is making us sicker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I knew him and it's just, it's my disease. I like, I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You need to be a little more careful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Just watch new stuff. I'm so powerful. Just watch new stuff. I'm rewatching something too. I started something over again. What? Which I don't really do. I've done Patriot three or four times. Sure. But I'm unsatisfied with the amount of Goggins I'm getting in White Lotus. Oh. It's like it's a tease hit of Goggins.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Okay. Did you watch the first episode? Yeah. There's only two. Yeah. So it's like... You know, it's like when someone would offer me one Vicodin. I'm like, I would just go, I would pass. I would go, well, do you have four?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And if they say no, I go, oh, okay, thanks for the offer. But I don't want a hint of the feeling I'm going for. I'll just get really agitated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
This is no knock on White Lotus. It's great. It's just an ensemble.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And I just, I want some Goggins.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
No. No, no, I'm not going to put them on. I'm not going to fully map on the Vicodin analogy, but I did start Fallout over again last night. I'm like, I need to see him for like 17 minutes with no nose, tons of dialogue, making moves. Yeah. Yeah. And I watched it recently, but it's great. O'Sullivan has come up a lot in my life since we interviewed her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I think everyone's overdiagnosed. And then also it put, I'm glad she asked this like second round of questioning about psychosomatic disorders because I think I was, I kind of, I think I would have guessed about the number she said. Like it wasn't shocking to me that 30% of all neurological seizures are psychosomatic or that 30% of- Really? That was shocking to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
No, I know so many people who go to the, personally, I know a lot of people who've gone to the doctor having a heart attack and it's not that, it's anxiety. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, you would think like you can't trick it. But then again, I don't, I've never thought they were tricking them. That's Munchausen where you're faking something. I've thought, no, people are experiencing this. I don't doubt that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But I didn't go the step further, which I like that she did, which is like, yes, they're psychosomatic. They're not, the cause of them aren't this other thing. Yeah. But the results and the symptoms are actually the same symptoms. They're just as serious. And in fact, more so in epilepsy. As you said, an epileptic would probably have one seizure a year or maybe one a month would be a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, medication will help. And these people can have a hundred seizures. seizures a day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah. Her going. I think I was in the past like, yeah, that's psychosomatic. You can't do anything about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
It's in your head. Yeah. So what do we what would we do? But the notion that she's really screaming, we need treatment for psychosomatic illnesses. It's the same experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
CBT, DBT. Yeah. BBT, BBD. Uh-huh. Poison man. BBD. Yeah. A-N-W. Bellevue DeVoe. But it only works 30% of the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Which is a bummer. But again, the same with recovery for addicts. Yeah. Nothing's above 30%. Yeah. But for me, I'm at least going to go try the thing that I have a 30% chance at. And for me, it worked. So I think people should still pursue it, whether it's 30%. I agree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
None of us like feeling bad. It's an emotion that's uncomfortable. So if we can say it's your fault, I think it relieves us of that responsibility to be compassionate and understanding. It's like, well, they're choosing to be this way or it's their fault.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
They must because. Yeah. As she said, she would start talking to other specialists.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Asking the pulmonologist, asking the cardiovascular, asking the.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And they immediately were like, oh, yeah, it's like 30% that aren't actually having the thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Right. At all. But what's what is unfortunate and it probably I'm surprised this didn't come up because you can delineate the difference. So you can observe the brain having an epileptic seizure versus a psychosomatic seizure. And there's a clear difference. Yeah. Same with the heart stuff. Yeah. Same with the breathing stuff. All of it. The mental stuff is not observable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
We cannot tell the difference between whether you have psychosomatic depression or any of these disorders. Yeah. We can't tell if you have some base biology or biochemistry or anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So what do we do about those?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You could have all the symptoms of ADHD. It would be weird to me that this tracks almost perfectly across all of the different... medical conditions, and then it would stop at ADHD.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So I would argue probably conceivably 30% of people with ADHD, they definitely have the symptoms of ADHD. Sure. But they don't have ADHD as we think of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yes, but she was quick to acknowledge too, even the markers in the heart, let's call them the hard sciences of biology, like taking a blood sugar level.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
That's a metric. But even if they set it at three or nine or 23 or, that is arbitrary to some degree. They've all decided like, when do we think this really tips into something very destructive for the body? And they set a number. Then you get into like, okay, attention deficit. What level of fragmented attention requires is before we get to a pathology.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yes, disabling. Unless you're going to separate identical twins and raise one with a label and one without a label. And I say this in total good faith. I just want to know what the best outcome is. I agree. I'm not really against or for any of it, really. I just would like to know what's the best outcome for.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
The risk I think I'm most afraid of is that you inadvertently limit someone's potential.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Because you accept that this condition has these limits.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And just setting a limit before it's really discovered is just a little precarious and dangerous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, how was it? Did you go out to eat?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You're probably in the mix of that equation, I think. I think he's also going, I'm not going to be Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I'm not even going to try to be Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Because I've decided I've given up on that. And to even try to improve myself would be seemingly like trying to be her and I can't be her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I have fucked up my younger sister in lots of ways I wish I hadn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But like Nikki's life was hugely impacted by having a sister 18 months younger than her that was being told she was beautiful everywhere they went. Like that just fucked her up. It's not the younger sister's fault.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
No. But I think living in immediate proximity to somebody is, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, but he certainly knew. I'm sure your parents said Monica got these grades or she.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Do you think they just, because I would have just gone like, yeah, he's a boy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Everything's fine. This is like, you know, I have a few different friends in my life who, and one just totally admittedly, and I fucking love them, and His honesty and saying is like, he's hell bent on getting his kid out of one school into this other school. And the kids evaluated and the other schools, like, I think he needs more time at this school. And he's taking that personally. And.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You know, at a certain point, he had the sobriety to go, I want this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
My son doesn't want this. Yeah. I'm will run riot. I'm trying to control everything in the world. And it's so true. It's like. Yeah. You don't have to end up in these places. You don't have to end up in the fucking school and you don't have to end up with good grades. I know. It's just one version of how you can go through life. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And I know people have done every version and it has no prediction on their happiness or their fulfillment or their sense of purpose. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Two of our best friends, our mutual best friends are, will tell you at the drop of a hat, admittedly, they hardly got through school. They both would be like, we can't, we didn't know anything at school. And they are, I would list, and all the people I've met in my life, they're among the most successful humans I've ever met. They have more friends than anyone I know. They have more fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
They're better parents. They've totally made a great living and have a great life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And who gives a flying fuck? They're a bunch of people we know much smarter, did way better academically, and they're not having nearly as big of a life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
When he and your dad have a drink, what do they have?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Sure, like some kind of paradise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
It's a lot easier to project onto the same gender.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, my mom, you know, Apparently, I'll give my mom a good run. I would give my father the hardest of runs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, I don't know how he loved me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
They are. Where are they going?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And it has a self-perpetuating physiology, right? Which is once my heart rate is so high, I'm actually going to be in my amygdala whether I want to or not. I can't bring on my frontal cortex really.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
In the water. That's where they're going.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
She's probably nervous about taking the picture.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She had a lot on her plate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, you had the same reaction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, I would have thought and gone like, oh yeah, Nermy's nervous about having to take this selfie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
That's not- Well, she was paying attention on how to operate the camera. I know, I know. Not how to pose in the picture, yeah. She forgot she was in the picture because she was taking it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
A forced smile. Yeah. Because you're doing to her what they do to women historically. I know. Smile more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You know, you should smile more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
It's true, though. That's good advice for everybody, not just women. Everyone should smile more. I agree. Yeah. It's infectious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
We got to try to do our best. We're all just really doing our best.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And did you find out if they're going to ski?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And your brother has as well?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, you have all these fears for him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I think for Carly, and that's really interesting because I have such a clear role in our family when we're all together. And that's not the role I wanted in life. Yeah. And I have purposely become a much different person than I am when I'm fulfilling my role. And so we were just all together like a week ago in San Francisco. Yeah. And Carly has done a very good job at joining me in my new role.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
She doesn't force me to be the old role.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And what's the old role? The old role is depressurizing every situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Lowering the temperature at all times. intercepting criticisms of different people and making jokes and really just trying to distract the right person who's having a thing, you know? Yeah. That makes my, I hope doesn't sound like I'm throwing my family under the bus, but whatever, that's my role. And I find it quite exhausting. Yeah. And it's not me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I want to be the person that's deciding how I want to feel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Sure. Yeah, that would be preferred. Yeah. I don't think I require that too much. But at any rate, I think Carly's done a really good job of recognizing what my role is outside of the main family, adjusting to that. And she herself has her own role, right? I think she was the baby of the family, comparison sickness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
My oldest brother was my mom's partner, business partner. They built this incredible business together. I'm like at UCLA doing great or whatever and then getting on TV. It's a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So I think in her own life, she's been able to be the star of her life, which is fantastic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And I try to make her the star of our life as much as I can when we're together. But when we go back... We both snapped right in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And we had snapped right in for three days. And then we got home and both of us were inordinately exhausted. Like she took a five hour nap, was up for two hours and then slept the entire night through. I too was exhausted. Yeah. And then the following day I said to her, man, I get exhausted every, I'm out of shape for my role. And when I have to do it, it's just very exciting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
She's like, oh my God, yes, same. I was like the baby of the family all over again. And, you know, vying for attention and all the- Oh, interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You know, this one family on the show is just vomitous, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
They're funny. Yeah. The next episode you'll see, you're like, oh my God, you got to spend your whole life in that dynamic. Right. I flash forward to like, man, if you have shit kids and you did a bad job raising them and they're assholes and you're an asshole, you deal with that. It doesn't go away. And just you stay in this little cancerous puddle of shit talking and fighting and bickering.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I'm like, oh my God, I would hate if that were.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, it's just normal for them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So, yeah, I don't even think they're so aware of how yucky this situation is. But it's like every kid's grossed out by the other one and judgmental of the other one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
It's very weird. Yeah, it's only getting weirder. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And you can kind of become numb to it. You have to exit it for a while to, for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
To recognize, like I wouldn't have been able to describe what my role was until I moved to California.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah. And I returned home and I'm like, oh, right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
My brother's getting a little heated. I gotta, I gotta get in there with some magic sauce. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
It's also a great gift, I'll add. Yeah. I think of how much my relationship with my brother has played out in my professional life. Yeah. Ashton's a great example. Bill Gates is a great example. There's been these folks that I can weirdly be beta because it's it's implicit that I'm beta with my older brother. Like I grew up that way. I'm a bit like Delta, though. I'm also kind of a fight, but.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Let's just say I've learned how to flatter people that are above me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And honor them and be deferential to them. And then come in and still be out of the role with my comedy. If that makes any sense. Like very deferential, but then weird zinger that like a beta wouldn't try.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
That ends up. allowing me to rise up a bit and join them more as a peer. Like I'd have these moments with my brother, of course, as any younger brother probably has is like, there would be peership quite often.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Often we're both racing go-karts and it's equally as fun and it's the thing. And then there's another dynamic where he's the older brother and I'm annoying and I got to shut up. But I could break through and we'd have very peer to peer moments.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And I got good at manufacturing those or instigating them. Yep. And so, I was thinking when I was with Bill, it's like I have this weird thing where I revere him so much and I couldn't be more deferential. I'll also tease him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Right. And so I got that from practice with my brother.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You can't put the latter patient on Keppra or a medicine that would help them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Can I add really quick why? My dream is to be peer-to-peer with everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I don't want to be silencing myself because I don't have the status to be myself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So it's like, yes, I'm in a race to be able to just be myself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, you were built in alpha.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But can I say one thing I can observe about you? Yeah. When you aren't. Yeah. When you're in a very rigid status structure and you're not equal, it really rubs you the wrong way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So I don't know if you know why it's so uncomfortable to you, but I think that's why. Is you just had baseline, you were the alpha, you were older. And then you get in these situations where people have much higher status than you and you're like, oh, what the fuck is this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I don't think it's not about being scared to talk to him. You recognize he has earned the right to take up the most space. If we're sitting and we're talking about biology or literally any topic in the world— Well, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, that's not a real thing, but knowledge is. So me and Neil deGrasse Tyson, the three of us are hanging out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I shouldn't take up any amount of the time talking about astrophysics. It's ridiculous because that's his thing. That's his thing. And Bill, uniquely, you and I can't cover it. There's maybe one or two topics.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
That's right. And that's one you have. And we could count them. I might have automotive knowledge over him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But in general, you and I aren't going to be around anybody ever who has a more comprehensive knowledge of all things like that man. You and I are going to have a couple of things. Sure. When you and I meet a normal person, it's very equal. We probably know equal amounts about the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But Bill knows the entire history of the planet geologically and chemically. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
okay you want me to should we yeah yeah absolutely yeah dad honest with you i don't think one thing or another i do think both sides should be explored passionately i agree okay so you can tell me first of all i'm very unlikely to tell you because i would have to ask so many deep personal questions that i wouldn't ask probably already said them yeah that's what we do we're not gonna force you to try to diagnose one of us we know that's unethical you don't have to hear the story but
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Absolutely. And you're deferential because you know better than to enter the conversation about the green revolution or biology while he's giving information because it would be a waste of everyone's time. You're not going to add more than he can add to it. There's a reality to... The space that can be taken up and who should take it up because who has the expertise? That's just a reality of life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
If it's fashion, you should be talking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Group dynamic. That's where it's really relevant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I think you're being pretty extreme about it. Like, shut up and let Bill talk for four hours. I'm saying if we're talking about software, if the conversation is about software. Yeah. You and I should have much less to say than Bill Gates has to say. We could give some experiential experience, you know, some firsthand anecdotal account of how we feel about interacting with software.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But he should probably do most of the talking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Great. So we agree on it on software. And what I'm saying about Bill is you can pretty much then add any category of knowledge. And that's consistent with him. He's uniquely like this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I don't either. This isn't a question of value. I think you're having a conversation about value as humans, and I'm having a conversation about deference to knowledge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I'm talking about someone doesn't have a chair for you at the thing and wants you to sit somewhere, and it's like it levels you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Right. But if if the table you want to sit at happens to be a table of people on television at the Golden Globes and you feel disrespected that you're not allowed to sit at that table, even though you're not that thing. Yeah, that would be, in my opinion. In denial of reality, which is like it's a table for people on television, on a show about television.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
No. Well, what was the thing that you didn't have?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But her previous few books are also fascinating when we get into those. And that's about psychosomatic illnesses and contagious illnesses. All of it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Which is like my whole childhood, I tried to sit at a table that he decided sometimes I was old enough to, and sometimes I wasn't. Or I wanted to join an activity that sometimes I was old enough for and cool enough for and sometimes I wasn't. So I have a ton of experience with that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah. Yeah, so I just know that I'm very used to being low status and being disinvited. And so it doesn't—it's not new to me. It's not novel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You had a lot of muscle sore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
My thing with Bill Gates is I don't have a—there's no— There's no right or wrong. There's no value for me. There's no injustice. I am going to shut up when we're talking about things that he knows a lot more. And also I'm gonna recognize I have comedy and he doesn't. So I'm gonna take up a lot of space comedically Because it's real.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I deserve to take up a lot of space comedically and everyone likes to laugh and he likes to laugh too. And so I know what zone I should be being a tall poppy in. And I know which ones I shouldn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And I think that's a good skill set for people to have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I think it's Dunning-Kruger if you don't have it. I think if you think you should be educating Bill on software or any other topic, mostly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
A lot of people don't recognize that you should evaluate whether you're adding value to something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, I don't know of course. Like if it's just everyone has the right to talk equal amounts in all situations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
That's what I'm arguing for. I happen to be framing it in status because that is a big elephant in the room in social awareness. If you are three months into the job and you're at the board meeting and you're going to take up all the time when the CEO has been doing it for 25 years, that is your... blind to the reality of that situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And I think you, I don't think it's wrong that some people take up more space at times than others. I don't think everyone's entitled to equal space. Maybe that's the underbelly of what I'm rejecting about your argument is that everyone deserves equal space at all times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, you're saying I'm going to talk, everyone should talk the same.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I think you and I often use words. We have different definitions for words and then we keep bumping up against each other. Like the way I use alpha is you have a very negative connotation of alpha.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, great. A ton of people do. I have a very anthropological definition of alpha and beta and all these things. And I think status for you is like, that's a negative word.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And I think what you're saying is popularity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Okay. So for me, status is not negative. It's a reality of social creatures. It's not negative or positive. It is the actual structure of social hierarchy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So it's like, it's not good or bad. It's a real thing that all social animals adhere to. And then in any given context, status is achieved in different ways. On a basketball court, it's one way. In an intellectual conversation with Bill Gates, it's that way. In a investor's meeting, it's money. In some other domain, it's looks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
That was chalked up to a mystery for a year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I think everyone should pursue status. I think your life is better the more status you have in any given situation. And I think what you should not do is misuse status. I think the real issue maybe that people have in conflating these is they're thinking of how people misuse and mistreat others because they have status, which I would be in lockstep agreeing. That's the problem.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
People being dismissive of people, not hearing people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Are we disgusting for trying to be the number one podcast?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yes, everything's a skill. If you want status in the Math 55 class at Harvard, you have to get the highest on the test. That will give you the status of smartest mathematician.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
See, I think you're always using status as popularity. I think that's why we fight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But status in the math class is the highest test. Status in the podcast world is your ranking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And you should always try. That's why I'm saying you should try to climb status. That means you're the best at the thing you're doing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And you should try to get to the top of the heat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I don't think you should try to be the most popular person in your friendship group.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I'm trying to help us because I think when we're arguing so much, you think I'm making a, I'm in support of chasing popularity. Yeah. Right. And I'm not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And I'm not talking alpha like you bark orders at people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I'm talking about who in the room do you most trust to make the decision about X, Y, or Z. Yeah. That's alpha. And it can change in every context.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
You have to police yourself a ton if you have status to not presume status in all domains when you don't have it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But when you say chasing status is repugnant, like you and I would have, like we're totally crossing paths at that point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
When you say chasing status is repugnant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
We're like totally crossing lines. Like we're talking about completely different things. That's fine. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I basically... Had that today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Well, I did three servings of Metamucil yesterday, spaced out throughout the day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I was underwhelmed with what I was getting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I almost prefer constipation to 40% output. I'm like more bothered by 40%. I get it, I know. I'm like, what is going on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I'm like, no, you got to get through your meditation. But it was dicey. And I'm like, there's no way I can journal through this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
There might be three more today. I have very high status right now in evacuation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
But cured by his time on the ranch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Working with animals, he was on horseback.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Dander, pet dander. Yeah, right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
This is like the death by gunshot data is misleading.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
We've just got really good at treating gunshot wounds. Just as many people are getting shot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Billion? Yeah. Billion, whoa.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
That's a disheartening stat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
If you're getting your medical information from TikTok.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, I was gonna say, that seems high for the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Like Indians aren't fucking with all these diagnoses yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Our guest, Blaze, is like, there's not a single CBT certified therapist in a country of a billion people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, I didn't not know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So there is- I just don't think they've been diagnosed yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
They'll get there. There's a great- signal in developing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, you'll stop having kids and you'll have a ton of mental health issues.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
I think it ends up being mutually assured annihilation at some point where it's like everyone has a diagnosis and everyone stops caring.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Yeah, I wouldn't say that out loud. But yeah, I think she has a bit of hypochondria. I didn't doubt it. I just am curious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
And so funny, too, because we just immediately contradict ourselves and then we get another expert on and learn about a new pathology.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Right. There's no shame in one of the diagnoses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
So, well, I guess what I'm curious about is, do we understand the mechanisms that can create symptoms psychosomatically? Talk about Matthew, maybe from the book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
To hold two conflicting ideas in the head at one time is a sign of intelligence. Please enjoy our ever-charming guest from Ireland, Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
In MS specifically, if I remember right, the myelin sheath is eroding around the nerves is the issue. So can we observe the myelin sheath?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Suzanne O'Sullivan (on over diagnosis)
Oh, it must be another layer of anguish on top of everything else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. Hi, Monica. Hi. Hi, Aaron Weakley. Hi. We have a really fun and special episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
But as obvious to me as each bullet point is like the Browns win for a decade, ruining the thing. You're not going to say that sentence. We're not going to hear more about that. This is a very concise bullet pointed outline.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You know Seth Green, he's a geek, admittedly. He loves the Super Bowl because he goes to Six Flags because nobody's there. It's basically like sending out the place.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
That's my favorite company.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah. I've shot two movies inside of Costco and I loved it. One was just nights for six weeks. I had a bicycle I rode around. What movie? Employee of the Month. I had a little notebook in the back of my pocket and I would find items I wanted when I got home and I just accumulated this list of wants for six weeks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Well, my favorite thing in your deck was of the hundred most viewed broadcasts of the entire year, 72 of them were NFL football games.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah. And it has the most coveted audience, which is they're watching it live and they're going to sit through the commercials. Exactly. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Got it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Also interesting, ESPN was responsible for some enormous percentage overall of Disney as a corporation. Historically, every year it's a little bit worse. It's getting eroded. But there were moments, right, where that was just the crown jewel in this thing with all the IP.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
My 10-year-old was watching the Lions game with me a few weeks ago, and she goes, how did they know that was going to be the score? And I go, what do you mean? She's talking about the graphics. There's this incredible graphic package that happens instantaneously. And she naturally is assuming, well, someone would have to design that a day or two ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And I go, no, hon, isn't that incredible that they have these real-time graphic packages that just emerge?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
They would just make one human the vanguard of the sphere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Couldn't wait. I'm proud you waited that long to say CTE.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Old Debbie Downer here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
But, Mani, it was in the wake of many, many deaths.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It was a different time. Instant deaths. Not like 30 years later. I would even argue if we had watched two dozen NFL players drop dead. Remember with DeMar Hamlin a couple years ago? When he laid there. Yeah. Very scary. That was a really profound moment, I think. You could also make a case that they were even less safety oriented.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm a little brother. I've done okay. Seems like it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Before starting, ask your wallet if adding more joy to every day and every dollar is right for you. Listeners of Armchair Expert can claim an exclusive three-month trial subscription for free with no credit card required at www.ynab.com slash dax. That's y-n-a-b dot com slash dax. Life is short. Spend it well with YNAB. We are supported by Nordic Naturals. I love that name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And the local car dealership will sponsor the whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
In fact, the Chicago Bears. Were the Decatur Staley's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Packers, was that a nod to meat packing? Why was it the Packers? Do we know?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And do we have any sense of what the attendance was of these? Are they playing in high school stadiums? Are they playing in college venues?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay, great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'll add the end of World War II is the birth of the Hells Angels. You also have a lot of young men who are now bored out of their fucking mind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
The founder of the Cleveland Browns. I didn't, and I've always wondered why a team would be named the Browns. So finally that's answered. It's a great color. It is. It's a great color. But also it does have poop connotations. The Browns.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And what was his background? He's, I imagine, a business owner, got some money. He's a football coach.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Let's just start with the name. Nordic Naturals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Do you think he is just observing baseball and recognizing the power of them having kept all these stats?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You're in love with them?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
We are supported by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like you know to check your sunroof first before driving through the car wash. Like you know to put the leash on your dog first before you open the door to go for a walk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Not that I've ever made that mistake and had my dog run outside without me or screamed his name repeatedly over and over and over again until I found him. Or, you know, to check that the guy who asked you out is an armcherry first before you agree to go on a date with him. Sage advice. Essential. Checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You did. You blasted through.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You're in good hands with Allstate. This content is intended for audiences in the U.S. only. Savings vary. Terms apply. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Northbrook, Illinois. We are supported by Quince. You know, Kristen's been ordering a ton from Quince.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, and I told her, you know, they're a sponsor. And she couldn't believe it. Being stylish and comfortable allows you to feel your best, making you ready to tackle anything that comes your way. That's where Quince comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
We are supported by BetterHelp. We often hear about the red flags we should avoid, but what if we focus more on looking for green flags in friends and partners? What I've said in the past where it's like, it's better to bond over the love of a band with somebody than the hatred of something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, look for the positives.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
There's some interesting parallels here with wrestling. Very much like wrestling. I mean, all these regional divisions, they chopped up who would have TV rights.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
They got to basically buy a company in bankruptcy. Right. The AFC had no better option. I keep going back to, we had Kate Marr on. She and her sister, Rooney Marr, they are the grandchildren of the Steelers owner. I had no idea. And the Giants owner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
My assumption is they grew up incredibly wealthy and she's like, yeah, we were obviously had a lot of money, but you have to understand my grandparents. I'm like, yeah, where'd they get the money to buy a team? And she's like, it didn't cost anything. Both of them were bookies. Wow. So back in the day, if you were just like a wheeler dealer bookie, you could own a
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Which goes to say, and that was going to be one of my questions, when the entire income of the endeavor is just the live audience tickets, I can't imagine they were terribly profitable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay, so I mean, you got an arena, you got a staff, you got a lot of players. So some money, but not... Some money, I just can't imagine anyone at that point owning the team because they have any sense it'll be worth billions of dollars or that it's some cash cow. That's still the case at this point in time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, and I don't want to jump ahead or behind, but I feel like this would be a good time for me to learn what the actual arrangement is between the NFL and the teams. They're owned by individuals. They join this league. What does that mean to join the league?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
We love and you've probably heard us talk many times about Acquired, one of our favorite podcasts. They do these incredible deep dives into different companies, the history of the companies, their finances, everything. And the Super Bowl is upon us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Supercharge your nutrition with Nordic Naturals. Use promo code DAX for 15% off your next order at nordic.com and experience the Nordic Naturals difference yourself. That's nordic.com and promo code DAX for 15% off. Okay, gentlemen, we are so tickled that you came.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Those early years of the NFL, my assumption then would be that they are just given a budget that they're going to operate at net zero from these team owners. It's not like that organization itself is going to try to generate money. And it still doesn't. It gets distributed out to the teams. Well, how does Goodell have a 70 million a year contract? He's paid by... By the team owners.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I mean, it's almost a miracle this would have ever been agreed to because clearly there are people that were in huge markets that had teams. They could have taken the lion's share of all TV revenue. And they're going to have to presumably make a little less to give this Bozo team some money. It's like actors negotiating together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm going to give them to you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
He said the least. I kind of trust him. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Of course I know it, but I don't know what it means. Me either.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, and then any given Sunday, the team could win. Anything could happen. Any team could beat any other team.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Again, it's amazing they got the dominant teams to go along with this strategy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It seems impossible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Which, again, they're in a very vulnerable situation where they probably only have any appeal if they're all one thing. They're probably doing it out of desperation originally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And NFL is already being televised on those other networks at this point. One off local deals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
This is kind of a freebie for us because normally I would have had to do a ton of research and that has now fallen on both of your shoulders. So Ben and David, you guys are the hosts of Acquired. Does it get back to you how much we talk about Acquired? Yes. Oh, good. Good, good, good. We never know if we're in a vacuum or not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It's so impressive that they did it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It is, but I imagine the delta between some of these franchises. I'm sure some teams were like 8X. The Green Bay Packers are still in the league. They're not making any money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I want a shirt that says Costco feelings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It just seems interesting too that a guy that it seems like maybe was allowed to take on this position because he wasn't overtly charismatic and powerful somehow is secretly quite visionary. Pete Rizzo was like the king of soft power. You look up soft power in the dictionary, it should have his photo there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
This is so much more interesting than I was expecting to be honest. It always is. I thought I just would like the money because I'm a greedy pig, but that's absolutely fascinating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I have to imagine throughout this story, we're also getting some kind of transition in who's playing the game, whereas it was people who went to elite colleges and learned this thing. I imagine it's getting more and more democratized as we're going along, and I imagine the racial makeup of these leagues is transitioning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Because you liked it so much and you wanted to buy one of the old bags.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Boy, it's interesting how many different forces can work on one thing, how dynamic that is. Oh, they're going to play in a publicly held facility. And there is the leverage by which that could be proclaimed. Otherwise not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Name the list of famous players. And it's some of the most loved. OJ Simpson. Well, sure, for a minute. Well, for more than a minute. I mean, I think mostly we know the quarterbacks. And then outside of that, we don't know many white players.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
That's right. Did you watch the documentary? Yeah. That was so good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
That was Al Davis. Oh, that's interesting because that carries to this day. If you want to bet on someone getting knifed in a parking lot, there's only one bet to make. It's a Raiders game. It's going to be obvious. Totally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Ah, too rich. I get it. When I was poor, I hated people like Monica, but now I love people like Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And I'd imagine that has some collateral impact. And I'm confused. I don't know which leagues do this, but I think most people just knowing you don't get to pick where you go is already an interesting thing contractually, right? If you're a player that gets drafted. I think it's part of the collective bargaining with the Players Association.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
There's something interesting about what we file offensive or gratuitous, but we don't because a piece of art. No one's mad at Picasso's worth $150 million. They're like, well, that's kind of rad. But for some reason, this is very triggering for people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yes. You're right. And it is near impossible for an NFL team to get a perfect season. It's happened once.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Did Brady have a perfect season? Dan Marino had a perfect season. He's my Taylor Swift. You shouldn't even bring him up because I will not be able to get off of him. You got him on the show? I have. Yeah, yeah. When you're rooting for Tom Brady, you don't give a fuck how far you're down. It doesn't mean anything. You go to that fourth quarter like down three touches and you're not even worried.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
There are levers in place and they're pulling all the ones they can.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm really mad I just learned this term in Bill Gates' new book. It's a Japanese manufacturing principle. It's what Toyota implied, which is every year we must improve our manufacturing process. And we must improve. Kaizen? Yes! Oh, God, you just earned your paycheck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You got to know your business. You're not in an optimization business. We're trying to ride that line between jazz and classical. You don't know how much you're supposed to improv and be loose and how much you're supposed to be classical. Tell us about it. I know, you guys are very classical. You're an orchestra.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
We were more jazz. And what have you gained and what have you lost from that evolution?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Well, we have fun in different ways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Well, the person I have felt most guilty interviewing, which we've now done four times, five times, is Malcolm Gladwell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Revisionist history is the most perfectly produced product in the marketplace. And the amount of effort that's put into it. We finish an episode and we're friendly and I'm like, is that not annoy the fuck out of you? Like we just created two hours of content and it's almost minute for minute real time content. That's it. There's no more work to be done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Monica's like, you have no idea what I do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I have the same resolution, which is, yes, getting mired in these very complicated deals with humongous companies. I had to get to the point where I was like, Remember you love talking to people and somehow you guys have figured out how to get the most interesting people in order to swing by your house and talk. Fucking stop thinking about anything else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, especially if we do 152 episodes a year now. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I in general don't want to act, but if Tarantino for his 10th movie calls me, I'm going to figure it out. But how do we do it at this point? It would be very hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'll admit this out loud. I remember Joe Rogan stating that years ago, like he's done with acting and hosting. And I was like, I don't buy it. I don't think you're having the opportunities you want. I think this is bullshit. And I was completely wrong. He definitely was just in the position we are now in much earlier. And yeah, it's much more fun to me than acting or anything else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
So now the NFL absorbs the AFL.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Let's go take that money and go steal all their quarterbacks. This is the Ted Turner-McMahon war section of the story now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It's so crazy they got outperformed twice and still remain the NFL. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Well, I'll tell you, I think it was your Hermes episode that got me interested because our friend Eric, who has zero interest, he was a lawyer who quit and now he just trades stocks. And he called mine. He's like, I've got to get some Hermes stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Cut off a future uprising. Yeah, make sure this doesn't happen again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It was $900 grand a year for however many teams.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, that one hurt. Yes, exactly. They weren't experts at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm going to interject movie stuff. So a couple of technical innovations that helped it greatly is the Superfly Cam, which was invented by John Brown, the DP of Without a Paddle's father, who had also invented the Steadicam. So the Steadicam allows them to run along the side and keep your vision nice and stable. And then the Superfly Cam is a four-point system that'll allow it to go anywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
So those are huge tech innovations that helped.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It's like, oh, Monday night with my friends. Howard is, you know, the dudes in the booth. And talk about filling time. You're going to talk for two and a half hours without a script.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Improv geniuses, really.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, yeah. That was a good one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
leads to ESPN and Sportsnet. And if you're in a market that didn't show these other games, there was no way to possibly see it. You can read about it in the newspaper, but that sucks. What a powerful aspect to build interest in the whole league.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Or it was in film, 16 millimeter that needs to go get printed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, all he knows about is the stock market. He vaguely knows law and he knows peptides.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
So it sounds like they were smart and invested virtually every dollar they received from this television contract into the product.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm just saying 500 grand per game. No, that's just Monday night. So the show that they're going to put on now with all the extra cameras and all these bells and whistles, I mean, this is now becoming a bit more expensive to produce. 500 grand per game in meteorite steals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, they just want 500.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Soccer team owner, I think. Yeah, exactly. You've heard of her. So at any rate, it's really, really great to have you guys. A little bit of background on both of you, because this was a question of mine when I started listening. I was like, why is it these guys have such a deep knowledge on all these things?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, it's entirely on the back of the network. And then they get them to compete and make the product better. Yes. Because now Fox has got to have the blue line on the field. They've got to have John Madden. Fox is paying John Madden, not the NFL. That is incredible. You get your customers to make your product better for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And so I thought it was your idea. I was about to say you had a great idea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
In Netflix's new limited series Zero Day, the country is devastated by a catastrophic cyber attack that downs America's infrastructure. A respected former president, played by acting legend Robert De Niro, is called out of retirement to lead a commission with broad powers to find the perpetrators, only to discover he may be losing his grip on truth and possibly reality.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
This is pretty iconic because it's Robert De Niro's first ever television series, and he also is executive producing Boss Move. Zero Day has an incredible cast, including Angela Bassett, Jesse Plemons, Connie Britton, and Lizzie Kaplan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And then as you cover different companies, I would say that Meta episode, which was phenomenal. Thank you. I was like, they had to be programmers or something for them to understand the tech as well as you guys both did. I'm sure one of you was better than the other. Ben, you have a computer science degree. That makes a little more sense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I cannot wait to watch episode after episode with De Niro as the star.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Big hit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Are they recouping? I mean, they have to be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
But I'm just, as I listen, as a fan of the show, trying to piece together how it is you guys ended up with this podcast. So let's just start with, it really was just an endeavor for fun, right? You both have your own careers. You both have different disciplines. So Ben, kick us off with how you came to the podcast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Commercials are still the TV networks. And then YouTube's making their money on the subscription model and not the advertising model.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
They're just snapping back and forth to all these different games that are happening. You're just seeing play after play after play.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, and they licensed it to them, but now they're licensing their footage for free. Yes. Yeah. My God, this is incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And they're just adding more product because then you have Netflix Christmas game.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
They have to be able to top everything you've been seeing all year long and bring in people who don't generally watch football. So they need something novel. But no, Monica, I think you're right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You did. And then they had the idea. What about the NFL? What timing? So we're going to learn the history and the finances of the NFL. And I need you to give me a testimonial. It's so much more interesting than probably anyone would expect, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It just totally devalued this other thing we sold people. Totally. The right to show the Super Bowl is I'm imagining a standalone TV deal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay. I kind of thought they all bid on just that one game. Maybe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
NBC, CBS. Fox.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It's on Court TV this year, which is a big win for them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm so glad I don't have the chart in my office trying to keep track of all the shit we've bought and when we're airing it. That sounds like the worst.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
But they're also, not to get too in the weeds on it, they're amortizing the cost of that through some value they assign launching television shows on the back of this audience they have. They have 16 million viewers. They show a 30 second spot on
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
But yeah, you're getting into this complicated model of new subscribers. Their only metric is new subscribers and subscribers that are staying. Why are they staying? Are they staying for the new show? Are they staying for this thing we added? Talk about a job that's nebulous that they're trying to figure out best ROI. Who fucking knows why someone sticks around on a streamer and
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I think they have good ideas on how to get new subscribers, but I'm not sure they know necessarily.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Seven billion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It would have been a very short list. I was going to say, I can't imagine you get a ton of episodes like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay, but you went to Ohio State? I did. Congratulations. Thank you. Did you guys just win? National champions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yes, it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, and if I'm a player, I'm pissed. I'm like, bullshit, I'm fucking Tom Brady. 13% of all jersey sales this entire year were me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
But yeah, some of these are half a billion dollar contracts over a period of time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm always thinking about it when you watch that HBO show, Hard Knocks Training Camp. And you're like, this guy's making $400,000 a year, and he's sitting next to a guy who's making $29,000 a year. They're arriving in these dramatically different vehicles. It's pretty wild. Most coworkers don't experience that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I don't know if you have it off the top of your head what the league minimum is, though, but it's pretty high.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay, so here's my great question. Is the only way for these networks to fight back is if they themselves formed a coalition and they collectively said, guys, we're not paying more than a billion five for these rights.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Thursday Night Football was streamed on Twitter for a year or two, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
But again, if you look at it right now, it's the exact same situation the NFL was in. in 1960 or whatever, because currently Netflix would be heavily disincentivized to enter into a collective buying group because they can outspend everybody. So they are currently someone who would be like, fuck that. But in the long run, they might benefit more from being in bed with some of these other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, my last question, and this one was really my agent when he found out I was going to talk to you guys. He's obsessed with you as well. He's like, you can't figure it out. What's going on with gambling? What's their participation in this gambling? Because this, again, is some potentially huge revenue source. So what's their relationship with now this rise of these online gambling platforms?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Have they tried?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It is curious to me why it holds no interest. I'm not a huge sports person, but I just do think objectively that game has a magic to it. The results would suggest that, aside from their collective bargaining and all these other things, it's an easy game to jump into really quick in love.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm wrong. Indian cricket.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm going to keep this really brief because Monica will kill me. But just off the top of your head, what's the greatest amusement park in the history of the world? Cedar Point. Yeah, of course. That's an easy question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
They did a big old pivot on that. They really did. There was this original fear, of course, that it would somehow corrupt the game and people would throw games. And we did see it in baseball. There's some examples. So I think the ostensible threat always was it was going to change the outcomes of these games. Is there any proof of that having happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'll tell you in my own personal anecdotal situation, I would have never found a bookie. I stupidly thought that the Jake Paul and Tyson fight was real. And so when I heard it was three to one Tyson to knock him out. You're now convinced it wasn't real? Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
When a man has that much muscle memory with his Bob left everything and we see him do the entire series and then stop just short of knocking him out, that's a little hard for me to understand. But at any rate, I was stupid enough to believe that that was going to be a real fight. And I'm like, well, that's three to one money sitting on the fucking table.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Mike Tyson's gonna knock this guy out in two seconds. I can download an app right now and make, I was like, I gotta get to Vegas. I'm like, no, I don't anymore. Now, it turns out I would have needed to because in California, you still can't do that. Thank you, California. You saved me $1,000 out of the laws. It's not legal here yet? I think it has a lot of restrictions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I think this is part of why there's so many different things you can bet on. Any state that you have a native gaming industry, which California has, you're going to find that we have more restrictive laws. Every time there's an election cycle, you see all these gambling anti and pro funded by different reservations. So I think that's why I wasn't able to bet. So thank you, reservations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, Sandusky, Ohio. Every time we have any guests on within the tri-state area, we'll do 20 minutes on Cedar Point and she cannot stand it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, they have to kick up their own ticket sales?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah. Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster. Magnum XJ220s, the Gemini, the Demon Drop, the Corkscrew. Oh my God. Yeah. They were just acquired by Six Flags. That's right. You really could do an episode on them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And you think that could seed some kind of animosity that could start to erode? Even if not animosity, just some teams are way richer than others.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Wouldn't that then incentivize teams moving much more? Because if I'm only making $50 million, I see in Dallas you can make $600.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
What a fascinating business.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, please.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yes. I was the biggest NBA fan. That was my religion for like eight years. And I was watching the Lakers during their run of complete dominance. And I remember just going, I should really only tune into the fourth quarter. That's when they start playing. Doesn't matter how much they're down. And then I was like, do I even like this sport? If I sit through three quarters, I don't matter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It's interesting the limits that are just inherently in place. Like, I guess the obvious choice for them would be to add games in the NFL. But it's such a violent sport that there's really kind of a limit. They can't play 82 games a year in that sport. They're likely going to add another week. Wednesday morning football. Tea time. Breakfast football.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Exactly. Tea time. Oh, well, David and Ben, this has been awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, good. Thanks so much for coming in. I hope we get to do this again. Yeah. Maybe another topical burble up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh. Oh, that's fun. This could be the first thing that got you interested in Cedar Point if they actually did an acquired on it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And yes, we'll be on your show. We'll be on your show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Thanks so much, you guys. All right, take care. Stay tuned to hear Miss Monica correct all the facts that were wrong. That's okay, though. We all make mistakes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay. Hello. If you say so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Scratch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, no. Oh, you can't relate. I've not had that experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
That's what you're dealing with?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Is this the mole you try to pick out or the freckle that you try to dig out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It's too successful to do it on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
OK, I've not tried to remove a freckle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
True, true. But just no freckle removal. I don't know that that's possible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, OK.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And replace it with a scar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Was it a little light white color there? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, you put makeup. Oh, I thought you were covering up. No, I wasn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Right. Give yourself a scar. Yeah. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It's so, I can't see it. Really? Yeah. I'm sorry. Well, the brown spot? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I see the brown spot. That's a liver spot, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It's time to enter our liver spot phase of life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It's very natural. If you can do it without liver spots, you probably prefer it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Right. Whole new hand. That's kind of fun, though, I would say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah. Slowing time down. That does a ding, ding, ding. These novel things slow time down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
We're calling her Jan Brady now? Yeah. You got to catch me up. I'm sorry. Yeah, where did you develop Jan Brady? That sounds like a Jess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay, right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, maybe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, I started compulsively cutting my hair today. You know, I like to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now I can't blow my nose.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And I think that it's burbling up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I think I satiated my thing. What happens is I was going to do a little trim trim. It got bigger and bigger and bigger. And then I thought I had finished in the bathroom, but then I went to work out. And as I told you, I have reverse lighting or backlighting. I know. It exposes all these things. And then the madness of, I'm just going to do a trim. I know that's it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I want to say it's in the order of like six trips to the emergency room a day that it was open, that park.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I keep scissors now in my gym, which is, yeah. And then I got to vacuum it up. And then I'm like, that's it because we can't get the vacuum out again. And I got the vacuum out like five times, I think. Yeah, I was lifting weights, cutting hair, vacuuming, lift more weights, see more hair, cut more hair, vacuum. If someone was watching.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Which someone could. It's very exposed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And there's just windows galore. Oh, true. So if someone was interested, they probably watched the ramblings of a madman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It's like a badge of honor. And I think Adventureland, that movie, is based on that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You see any spots I need to trim? No. Okay. I'm not too far from my scissors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I had a little bit of a gusher. Caught my ear a little bit. Okay. I'm just trying to be accountable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
It's like an AA meeting. It just worries me a little.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'll be blessed with the fact that it's very hard for me to see. Other than when I saw blood and blood overtook my whole sideburn area.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Wow, we had overlapping days. Continue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
The writer of that film or director worked there at the Nuts one. And people would go upside down and they would come up with lacerations. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so you graduate with a computer science degree and then you end up moving to Silicon Valley?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
This is a great way to meet somebody. Ask a stranger. Yeah. I'm so sorry, sir. Could you hold my delicate risk and help me get this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Uh-huh. Rascally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'll cut to the chase for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay, great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
So Sunset Tower, did you see fancy people?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
So, you know, I had this dinner with Nate and Panay that was a con. It was really a deception so that I could get to my birthday party. Yeah. But then I really wanted to have dinner with them. So that was last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And then Panay was like, where do you, where should we go? Like home base, one of our standards. And I said, I could go to home base or... I could also go see some new hot place. I felt like I wanted to see that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Boy, did he deliver. We went to, have you heard of Navaco?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I thought it was Nabokov when I saw it written. I was like, oh, they named a restaurant after Nabokov, the writer. Oh. But it's Nabokov. Oh. In Beverly Hills, on Canon, and it was everything... I could have hoped for. It's only been open since July, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
The food was outrageous. You know how when you're at Cara, you can pretend you're in Italy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I was like, we're in Miami. Oh, sure. It was Miami.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I got to be careful. It's fine. Almost all the dudes looked exactly the same.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Five, nine shaved heads, probably on a little too much testosterone, but not working out a lot. With very, very attractive younger women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, there was a lot of jewelries. There was a lot of paddock watches. I mean, it's expensive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm watching like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, it felt like a throwback to the 80s or 90s, which I enjoyed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I cannot put too fine a point how good the food was. It was outrageous. I want that. And we pigged out like crazy. A risotto with truffle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Gluten-free blew my doors off my barn. And then a great steak, a baby chicken.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
They described it as a baby chicken.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Not a Cornish hen, but an oven-baked tiny baby chicken.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Well, I was like, do they mean a chick?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
But that wouldn't be enough meat, I don't think. It was delicious and it was very entertaining. It was, it was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yes, I loved it. What was the vibe at, I didn't know you're now working at Sunset Tower. That's a far ride to go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You love it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You love it for the food, the atmosphere. Atmosphere. And what are you seeing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Was it a baby chicken? Fried baby chicken?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay. Grandpa chicken?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
If you will. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
So that you'll be still there at happy hour?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah. Similarly. I was dead. I had ridden my bicycle too far and I hadn't had caffeine since really early in the day and I wasn't going to have any.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I was driving there. I was like, oh, a little drowsy for this big outing with the boys. But I did have some DCs at the place and then the energy really did lift me up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Well, I think it is in service of making sure I'm getting good night's sleep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Right. Like I think getting a full uninterrupted aid is ideal right now, which I did last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Blowing my nose.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Although I have the right mental attitude. I've decided to go like, yeah, this is uncomfortable, but this is you being strong and not escaping and walking through. And it's fine and it'll change. So it's been fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah. Just a couple of haircuts, a few naps.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare. We are supported by Macy's. Planning a winter getaway? Before you hit the slopes or chase the sun, make Macy's your first destination. At Macy's, you'll find everything you need for your vacation at incredible prices.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
They've got stylish resort wear, shorts, dresses, sandals, swimwear and more from brands like Nike, Steve Madden and Levi's. I get my Levi's at Macy's. I just love Levi's. Head to Macy's to find all your travel must haves at affordable prices and spend your next vacation in style. Shop now at Macy's dot com or visit your local Macy's store. Anything thrilling happened since I saw you last?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
We both went to restaurants. I took a bike ride.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Did you end up having someone help you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
But not a stranger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I think that's the best move.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Excuse me. I've been trying to get this bracelet on for 20 minutes. Would you mind? I don't have any cooties. Well, I do have cooties. Look how fun this is already. Playful, dance, dance, dance. Before he even gets the bracelet, you've now talked for 25 minutes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, and then he's failing and he's laughing. That's funny. Oh my God. I'm falling in love just thinking about this. We had a funny moment last night. Every now and then you'll feel 13, which is really fun, which is George and I went to the bathroom. There was a girl in a cowboy hat he liked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
No, acquired. No Microsoft. Okay, now, David, you go kind of a fancier route, if we could say. I don't have any national championships. Undergrad at Princeton and then Stanford Graduate School. You have an MBA. And what's your undergrad degree in? French literature. Oh, you romantic son of a bitch. The long hair. That's nice. The angular features. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Sitting at a table. And behind them was this cool little display of like the seafood they have. It was like a little mini market set up and they're grabbing stuff from there. It felt like you were invited to peruse this little thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
So on the way in, George spotted her and he's like, oh my God, look at that girl in the cowboy hat. I'm like, okay. So when we were coming out, I'm like, oh, let's look at these. Let's look at the lobsters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah. So now we're like, now we're, we are looking, but we're also fake looking. Of course. Yeah. And we're like looking at the vegetables and the lobster and this and that. And then as I turned to walk in, well, they're all looking at George and I. And then I'm like, and now what?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
He's going to have to talk. It's so funny. That part's hard. I felt like I was at the mall and we saw some girls at Burger King. And then we acted like we were going to buy something. Then we're like, you know what? I'm full. And turned around and it was like, well, that was the... Oh, wow. And then when I left, George, well... I think we got their attention.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
And then I was leaving and George was like, I gotta, I gotta go back. I'm going to go back and see what's happening with the cowboy head. But us standing there looking at this stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Especially 50.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I think it's... I was hearing the updates of A Single Life and I was thinking, yeah, I'm glad I'm not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm not on the scene.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, wow. Fun. Ben and David. Yeah, they're great. Really, really, really.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, as a corporation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
As a capitalist communism.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, really?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Right. So now you're a huge fan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Of the Rams.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You're a Ram fan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, okay. Yeah. This is very exciting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Uh-huh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
This is fantastic. What are her cars?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You're a babe. You must know this, right? I appreciate that. Yeah, what a stuff. Ben, you're hot too. I don't want to leave you out. I grew my hair long during COVID. It didn't play as well as. Yeah, that's an enviable head of hair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, what a wonderful sedan. Luxury vehicle. Twin turbo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, four-door sedan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
G-Wagon is the G63.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, I thought you said S. No, G. Oh, wonderful. Love those. Love those. Eric's even thinking of getting one. Really? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, they're so good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You would?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, they're great. They're very expensive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Every time I see a G-Wagon, it's mostly... Rich, hot women driving G-wagons in LA. Yeah, it skews female.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
That's what I was referring to, but not the AMG version.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
That's like a coach-built, Mercedes-based, you know, like a private plane for cars. Wow. It's a rolling atelier.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Standard. You got to have it for arriving at functions. You're up high. If you're wearing a dress, you can exit the vehicle without your beaver accidentally being exposed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay. Yes. Yes. Very elegant design first. Okay. Not the most performing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Of super cars.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
No, no. Objectively, but very elegant looking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yep. And it is. It's got the Lambo V10 or it's got the V8 depending on which.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay. I'm surprised she doesn't have the V10, but when I talk to her, I'll get her to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Again, that's a very feminine supercar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
That's a shocker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah. That feels, that's interesting. That's when she plays Lavender Hayes, I think. That's her Lavender Hayes car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Well, it's just an Italian. I mean, it's so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah. Very dude car. Very, very few women go out and buy a 458.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I'm going to ask Chad if it knows what percentage of Ferrari owners are men.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Because I bet you it's about as high as any brand. What percentage of Ferrari owners are men? The percentage of Ferrari owners who are men is estimated to be around 90 to 95 percent. Oh, wow. That's that's really quite high. So she can count herself in the 5%.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Perfect car. Very exciting. Great taste. Should I see what Chet thinks the percentage of women who own Porsches?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
What percentage of Porsche owners are female? 15 to 20 percent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
So that's 4X the amount they own for hours.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
The Cayenne has female ownership estimated between 30 and 40 percent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
No. Oh, here we go. The Macan, that's the small SUV. That one's got 50% of buyers are women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay. She has some practical vehicles? She has three. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Great. She'll have that until she's dead. It'll run until she's dead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Don't worry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay. Is it pink? Yeah, it's pink. It's pink. It's like a Mary Kay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Why does she have that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Was that given? Does she have a deal with Nissan? Does she have any kind of?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
She loves it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Everyone says the Nissan Quashquai?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
If we ever interview her, I want to do 20 minutes on this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
This vehicle is in London and it's so she can... Leave an apartment without anyone thinking it's her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
She should own a UPS truck and then just deck out the back like a sprinter van and then get driven around a UPS truck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I could. And then her driver could wear the UPS outfit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Or FedEx. I guess if she's in London, it would probably be FedEx.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Am I not wrong in that headquarters of venture capital is generally though Silicon Valley? Oh yeah, yeah. Have you read Nate Silver's new book by chance? No. It's about gambling and it's about venture capitalists and it's about risk-taking. Friedman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Okay. And there's a doc about it called Class Action Park or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Five to 10 people went in an ambulance away from there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Emergency room. While they were keeping probably the town emergency clinic in business.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I wonder if they were giving away like the woman who lost her eyelid on the slide. She got an embroidered sweatshirt or something. From Armchair Anonymous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
They should have had a shirt that said, I was sent to the emergency room by Adventure Park.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Is that what it's called? Action Park. No, Action Park, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Ah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, incredible. And I've been talking so much about what I learned.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I basically repeated the entire episode to my father-in-law.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
All right, love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Thomas Friedman? No. Is that? No. Sam. Sam Altman Friedman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Sam Allman. Sam Freeman Allman. All right, Sam Allman, which is also in the book, is open AI. Sam B something. Sam Bankman Freed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
He just blew Princeton, Stanford, UCLA, and Georgia out of the water. Ohio State knew it. Okay, so you end up there and you are employed in that capacity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Acquired is hosted by Ben Gilbert and Davin Rosenthal. Please, if you like this, check out Acquired. There is certainly a business that will interest you. Costco.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, we're interviewing you on our seven-year anniversary, and I feel equally. Is it really? Is it? No. It'll come out probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Could we do in public what happens in an AA meeting? There's a lot of explanations. They're all kind of true. And there's not one. But probably more accurately is Serial the podcast. Because Monica and I were both consuming it at the time Monica was babysitting. And we would fight for hours in the kitchen about whether Adnan was guilty or not. I'm like, you're not a dude. You don't understand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Dudes do fucking weird stuff. I know kids like, yeah, that's not, it's not shocking. You know, we would fight nonstop. So we had a hobby of arguing with one another.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
We thought that's a good engine for a show. Good grist for the mill. They're going to know a lot of venture capitalist terms.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Yeah, sure. Oh, I love that. Good grist for the mill. Cereal paved the way for this whole industry. Okay, so you guys start doing it, and it's just for fun, right? You don't have any aspirations, I can't imagine, nor did we, that it would be a business. And at this point, it's also a nice business that you guys have, I'm imagining. It's our whole thing now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
We do some investing as part of Acquired. Our previous careers, we have Sunset. What year did you guys make that decision, and did you guys get together and be like, I think I'm ready? We did it different times, actually.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
We accidentally built it on the side. Yes. I'm not qualified to say this, but I do think you're a little bit inoculated from both a plateau and a decline because the folks that are already drawn to it. For me, it's like this American life. I'm never going to not be interested in it. It's not a pop culture phenomenon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You didn't have a guest on who talked about some sexual escapade with someone in that. You know, I think you have such a solid foundation of a listenership that will only grow as people like us talk nonstop about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Ethical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I believe that for sure, because you get brought in for a certain topic you're interested in and you go, oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
You start shopping as I did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
OK, so because the Super Bowl is upon us, it was Monica's brilliant idea that what if we could do kind of a mini Acquired episode about the NFL? Oh, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, it sounded too smart, to be honest, for you. How dare you? Yeah, it really did. It always was a little suspicious. No, we workshopped six or seven different ideas before.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Oh, I guess Taylor Swift's car collection. The row. This candle company I can't get the candle of. Is Taylor Swift a car collector? No, no, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I know that. That's why I had the throwing car collector because they already did Taylor Swift. And it didn't make any sense. Is there something we didn't find? I bet she has a collection of SUVs she gets driven in is my guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
So what a great time to learn all about the NFL. It'll be very fun for us and we're very appreciative to let you walk us through the history of it and the economics of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Acquired Podcast on the NFL (with Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
I've been in the Costco religion for years. I'm late. Shot two movies in Costco. Yeah. Please enjoy Ben and David on the NFL. We are supported by YNAB. Do you experience excessive bouts of money stress? Oh my gosh, do I. Do you avoid your bank balance like it's a text from an ex? Do you feel guilt and second guessing about your spending? If you answer yes, you may be suffering from financial funk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Do you think the fear of failure being so intense is because you saw your dad lose everything?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Wow, I'm jealous of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You're like, I'm fixed now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
No, I know what you mean. The next bombshell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, thank you. That's so... Oh, my God. I'm so jealous of you. That's so nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
How overwhelming is it? You are very handsome. I know. And you're very tall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Well, I think it's made you feel confident. It's had that impact. And so then you exude confidence and that's compelling to people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
No, it's okay. I have a sense this is going to be fairly— You had appropriate expectations. Yeah, I did. I did. I did. I have a Mercedes, too, that we should tell Toto.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
She's keeping you humble.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I'm glad you have her. That's good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, we love Danny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's great. Monica wears it too. Yeah, I love it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Mm-hmm. Oh, he's going to be fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Wow, Dax, you're getting everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
No, no. Let him be. You need to be in Los Feliz.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Control freak. A bit of no nonsense. No bullshit, tell you the truth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
slash Toto's F1 car. Oh, I see, I see, I see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
He's been waiting his whole life for that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yes. I mean, I guess that's how you get to be those people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
We have talked about this too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, it would have been the right thing to do. There's humans at the end of all of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, I remember that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It was huge for Danny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's a beautiful car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You do? What color?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's a beautiful car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I love the heat. I can take it. You love the heat. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I can really take it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, I wonder... I don't know how that would feel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh. I love this. Good for her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, this is so exciting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. Did you have brothers and sisters?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Hermian Permian. I'm joined by my mom. Hi, Mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I wonder if when there's a quantum computer that can model the future and all that, if it can go backwards in time and somehow we would get answers to these things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Okay, so we do see that dimorphism start to shrink.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Okay, so we're super unique in the fact that we have split up the food gathering. What else is unique? Obviously, the way we rear young.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Herman rocked. This is a really, really interesting episode. I'm usually threatened by other anthropology majors because they actually know all this stuff and I'm mostly ill-informed as we find out a few times in this episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
You were saying at your daughter's seventh birthday party, all the seven-year-olds there, if they were any other animal, would be grandparents at that age.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, that's right. That's so wild. Isn't that fun? That's a great way to think about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And then you factor in nutrition too. We were with Bill Gates in India and one of his main thrusts is these gaps. As much as like 30% of your intelligence can be missed if you're not hitting your nutritional goals and certain windows of your life. Like it's pretty dramatic, the impact of nutrition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Well, yeah, proportionally, you look at a baby's head, it's a third of its fucking being.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Right. Because of all the connections that are being built. The organ's ass off to catch up to this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Baseline knowledge. It's so cute. And when they're cranky, it's like, of course they're cranky. They're in a graduate class every day with a final.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
right so of course if you miss those calories your body's going to try to shield your brain but there's only so much you can do okay so are you leaning towards because in 2000 the two most promising explanations for our explosion intelligence was one is our groups were growing in size in the complexity of the group and the facial recognition all these different things and knowing where you're at hierarchically was going to predict your mating success and that was driving it and then
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Please enjoy Herman Potler.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
There's this other kind of fruit based. I never loved that one. Where are we at? Are those still the two debates?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah. You get excommunicated and you die very quickly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Oh, right. Because like homodrized baboons have bigger groups than... Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Right. So there's no silver bullet explanation. It's just perhaps some combination of different... Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
It's very comforting that there would be a single explanation and it would be definitive. Yeah, right. Okay, so our intelligence starts taking a leap. How is that graphed? Is it totally linear or is it more of a hockey stick? Like when we go from Homo erectus to, I know Neanderthals have a 1650 CC brain. It was enormous, bigger than ours. How gradual is that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Now, and also part of your work was you've done a lot of field work with the Hadza, and they're in northern Tanzania. That's exactly right. Okay, and so what have you observed in them that seems to confirm what you learned on the biological side?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
This is fascinating because I think we would all assume this group that is walking all day long, they're averaging 19,000 steps for the dudes and 16,000 steps, and then they're busy all day long. They don't domesticate any animals, any plants. They're doing it. Right, right. You think of yourself as burning a couple thousand calories a day or something? I hope. I mean, that's what we're told.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
What would you think they're expending?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I think that would be a very natural, common guess. They're five times as active as me, I would imagine. At least double.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Because I find it fascinating. Maybe it's too nerdy, but you're measuring carbon dioxide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
But only our wives will see it. So, you're from Pennsylvania? Mm-hmm. Whereabouts? I'm a Michigander.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Let's put these people to sleep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Carbon dioxide is the exhaust. That's exactly right. Of metabolic activity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
It's the measure. It's not a whoop or a Fitbit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
So you're probably more like 3,000 a day?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I know the real answer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
The only real relation hardcore is your nonfat mass. So your muscle and your organs. As you plot that and you plot calorie consumption, it's spot on. When we're observing the difference between males and females, all we're really observing is the difference in our body composition, that men have X amount, well, in this case, 24 divided by 3,000. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
That's probably the exact difference in nonfat body mass. That's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Do you have a favorite? None of it tastes as good as a cow. Paws of cuisine is not really a thing. It's not fatty, any of those animals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Wow. Do they have any elevated rates, probably less, of animal-born bacteria and stuff?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I read this result, and I found it quite depressing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
So how do you make it jive within that system?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Or this is why you have Olympic athletes that don't get their period for three years. Yes, that's the issue of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
All signs point to that is a good thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Now, have we gotten good at monitoring how many calories the brain is consuming while intensely active? Yes. I have to imagine if you're crunching numbers and computing, that activity is going to burn more calories than watching TV.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
So it's not like you could say this brain economy is a kind of one-to-one to this physical activity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
What you found is that there is a pretty narrow margin that the body wants to operate in metabolically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
How many acres did you grow up on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Well, I've experienced it. So that's where I'm wrestling with. Like, as I read this stuff, I'm like, well, no, I upped my thing and I've had all the results one would expect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And the body hasn't found its way to homeostasis yet. Yeah. But if you're doing a lot of weight training, we get into this nonfat body mass, or we are going to see a direct result to your metabolism.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Your body can only adjust so much. Like these bodybuilders that are walking around at 300 pounds of lean muscle, their body's not going to hit a homeostasis where they only consume 3,000 calories a day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I did the math really quick. Can I tell it to you? Because it was great. Yeah. They're doing 7,000 to 8,000 calories a day for three weeks, so 21 days straight. That's 150,000 calories in three weeks. That would be 75 days of normal caloric output in 21 days. The body can't adjust to that, right? It's going to need those 9,000 calories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
You're not going to believe this, Miss Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And could you get lost in there as a kid and explore?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, would you be out tromping around with a BB gun when you were little? Totally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Good friend of mine's here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
No, no. And also maybe a little more socioeconomic thrust because we've divided up into these lines that are pretty comical in ways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
The Olympics is the best place to observe this. I love it. You're like, look at a powerlifter. Look at the ultramarathoner. Look at the sprinter. Every sprinter looks the same. Every beach volleyballist looks the same.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And they're all the same species with 99.9% of the same DNA. And look how fucking flexible it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I want to go straight to environmental protection. I would imagine many people don't even know why some people are white and some people are black.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I mean, I think they've observed that, but I don't know if they would necessarily know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
We're lazy melanin, you can say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
So you need the exact right amount.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah. So just to remind people about the geology. So Africa is on the equator or where most of the humans come from. So the sun is always in the same spot in the sky. It's always up and down for 12 hours. You're out on the savanna. There's not a lot of cover. You're not in a forest. So as people move north. The balance shifts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
So there's less light, there's less UV, there's less opportunity to make vitamin D, and then the skin gets lighter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
No, that's really our guest, Herman Ponser. Wow. Herman Ponser. Herman Ponser. Maybe my favorite name we've had for a guest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Where'd you go to undergrad? Penn State. And then you did graduate school at Harvard? That's right. And when did you get in the anthro trajectory? Did you do any reading about me? I also was an anthropology major.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Well, that's where it gets landmarkian. So my question to you is, do we have every ingredient at the disposal, and we are turning on and turning off certain things? That's where this weird interplay between how we've thought of Darwinian evolution, and now we're starting to see, well, no, we kind of have a lot of genes that are just not activated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, the two darker kids of the 100 kids survived and they made it. And one had a third of this recipe and another had a third. And now we're two-thirds of the way there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I might be misunderstanding, but I guess what Darwin was missing was the epigenome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Recessive and dominant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
But the epigenome, which is hovering above your DNA and deciding what RNA is going to send out. That's a big factor, too. This is where I get into the recipe thing, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
There's an enormous amount of detailed data for the epigenome to choose to use or not use. And there's a lot going on there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And this is where nature and nurture start really mingling, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Now I've heard male pattern baldness is an adaptation of going into northern climates as well. See, I thought it was a sign of prowess and obvious. Yeah, I like to think so. Is male pattern baldness an adaptation to receive more vitamin D from the top of your head?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
How do we explain male pattern baldness, though? Is there an armchair theory on it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And it was all really ugly. Guess who was great? Arians.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
25 years out, let's see how I do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
So let's put a real fine point on this because what I learned in anthro and what I've repeated to a lot of people is the categorizing of people by race.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I think I'll do bad, and I think I'll be three standard deviations above what most people do. So how about that? There you go. Some humility and some arrogance. Yes. I've retained, I think, more than your average bear, but I'm probably wrong about a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
is just simply scientifically very, very weak. In that, the example that was given to me in anthros, there are populations within Africa that have more genetic similarity with populations in Ireland than they do with a neighboring tribe. So why on earth would you categorize these people by this thing that is the least telling and least dynamic in everything?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
This is just like, as you said, 150 alleles or something. That means nothing in the grand scope of things. If you really wanted to categorize and group people, We just know that would be about the worst way to do it, to get any consistency.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
It just means nothing if you were looking at it scientifically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
You give the exact examples in the books because I was like, oh, this is fascinating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Okay, but let me attempt to push back and maybe you'll correct me in this. So one thing I learned along the way, which I found very fascinating, is that African-Americans, not black people across the globe, but African-Americans have a very elevated rate of hypertension. And so the question is, how'd they get this rate of hypertension?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And what people have figured out is that when the people in Africa were kidnapped, they were first marched to West Africa, most of them, to get put on boats to be brought to America. Half of those people died of dehydration on that walk. So the people that made it to the boat had a really high salinity count or asymmetrical salinity count. They were able to hold onto the salt in their body.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Then they put them on boats. Half those people died of dehydration. So the people that landed here had this extreme force case of natural selection where a high salinity rate was beneficial to survival. We assumed for half a second that was true. Yeah. And I'm a doctor and I measure the salinity count of someone's body. And I see that it's elevated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Well, what I'm really trying to do is decide, is it elevated relative to his peers or her peers or her in-group? Because that's really what's going to be significant. Is this person running an outside risk even given their elevated disposition? Yeah. That would be relevant, no?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, so I deeply regret what I did, which is I was enamored and intoxicated with the excitement of cultural anthropology and learning about mating rituals and patrilocal and metrilocal and all these things, even the kind of fakir modern primitive, that was exciting. But as I got into it, I was like, oh, no, no, I'm way more interested in physical anthropology, specifically evolutionary biology.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Meaning if someone flew from Nigeria here tomorrow, within some time they would have the predictable... Yes, that's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, yeah. It seems extremely plausible to me. People dying of dehydration, I'm certain they weren't handing out water.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
So that's 4X from the ceiling to the floor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I wonder how this menopause data, because we had a menopause expert on. She's saying Southeast Asians go through menopause on average like six years earlier.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I found that I left with I need to know more how we ended up as a species before I study what the species then did culturally. Yes. What was your route?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Maybe it wasn't six, but it was several years. I don't know. I wonder if that's a nature nurturer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
But if everyone starts with so many eggs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
If they come in and there's a rod knock at 100,000 miles and it's an American car, All systems go, this is what we expected. If you bring a Toyota in that's got a rod knock at 100,000, something's really weird. Because we do know a Toyota will go 300,000 miles, and the American car is going to go 150.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
You won. You're going to win most of these, but I'm going to keep going for it. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
let's talk about dying because here's my great curiosity your cells go through mitosis they make an identical copy to themselves so there's this great mystery if they're making identical copies how does aging even really happen so clearly something turns on or off and it starts making the cells differently which is its own mystery kind of how it's making identical but not identical copies my question is why hasn't there ever been a mutation that just didn't turn that on
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
What would govern against that? Why couldn't that be a mutation that would have happened by now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I want to live to 600. Yeah. There's a wonderful story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
It was a 5,000-year-old tree or something like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I love when you go to Muir Woods and they've got the cross section. And then fucking Jesus is on there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
But anyway. Yeah, how do we age? What's unique about how we age? Obviously, we live quite long for a primate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Because your body starts eating all the junk that's accumulated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Okay, so what do we need to know about living and how to live longer?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Someone was even telling me at Berkeley, we just interviewed someone, they were like, look, if you get in this trajectory, you can't talk to the physical anthro. They don't even actually want you speaking to them, which was kind of nuts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
He's going to beat the four horsemen, as Atiyah would call them. The preventable cancers. Metabolic disorders.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
This is where I'm very discouraged.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Incredibly cool. Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and Global Health at Duke University. He's an internationally recognized researcher in human energetics and evolution. His previous book, which is great, is called Burn, Some Shocking Ways We Consume Calories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
It has saved more lives than any medical discovery ever by a landslide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And what's really troubling for vaccines is they are a victim of their success. Yeah. And that's a real bummer. For the people who did not grow up around polio, as my grandfather did— The notion you wouldn't get a polio vaccine for your kid is outrageous to me. But a modern person hasn't seen a generation of kids in wheelchairs and on crutches.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Okay, this is just my hypothesis. It is the same part of your brain that makes us all very susceptible to religion that's being hijacked. Because it's driven by a notion of purity in the natural world. Because there's been these studies where if you plot on a U.S. map the lowest rates of vaccinations, they correlate perfectly with where Whole Foods are. Okay. I believe it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
That's really troubling because people who shop at Whole Foods are also more often college educated. They're upper socioeconomically. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Well, this is where the circle meets. Exactly. The sense of purity, the sense of nature, natural.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
You naturally can't see at a certain age and we go get glasses. People are very a la carte about polio. What they want to accept and what they don't. That's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah. Well, back to anthropology and cultural anthropology and cultural relativity. I grant people their reality.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
We wouldn't even have an issue if it didn't actually pertain to children because that's what it's all about. I don't give a fuck if someone doesn't want to get vaccinated. Yes. If they're going to die of measles and you chose it, it's on you. In the most literal sense, you have decided for your kid they'll have the same position as you will.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And it'd be like branding them your religion when you're born or branding them your political identity. That's the bummer about it is they've inherited their parents position on something, which is probably not fair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
So that worries me a little bit. Well, Dr. Ponser, this has been so fun. You're the first Herman I've ever met You're the first Dax I've ever met. Look at that. I've met other Monicas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
That's what was illuminating to me. First, I'll say, even before Anthro was a Western Civ class, learning how did we get to where I woke up in Milford, Michigan, 1925, and I was prescribed all these things. How arbitrary are they? Where do they come from? That was like... oh, wow, there's an actual explanation for why we're doing everything the way we're doing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Very trusted brand. We've got a lot of Monicas we like. But we have a character on the show, though, that is Hermium Permium.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And Herman, he sounds like this. I've never met a Herman. This is really exciting stuff. And you're a professor and a scientist? Miss Monica, my mom, can you see this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
So Hermian and Herman sat in one room together. It's very exciting. Your book's awesome. I hope everyone's is interested in the human evolution of biology. Like I am adaptable, how your unique body really works and why our biology unites us as a beautiful message. And it's rooted in our story, which I find endlessly fascinating. So thank you so much for coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Next up is the fact check. I don't even care about facts. I just want to get in their pants. Do you want me to bore you with some mechanical stuff? Oh, boy. We're already so tired, but sure. Okay. We are both drowsy. I know. What's your explanation? Well, yours is the weather. I guess I don't even need to ask.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, so my explanation is I flew 7 a.m. flight on Friday to Nashville. So that's up at 4 a.m. to get in the car at 445 or whatever. Received my pontoon boat. Oh wow. I don't deserve it. It's too nice of an item for me. I was just like, I don't deserve this. It's so nice. Wow. It's so nice. I hit a button and the whole canopy goes up. The sound system is insane. It's the best sound system.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
That's great. That I've ever heard. So many creature comforts. It's, oh, I love it. I did put up the Bimini and cranked the music and walked around the deck for a while and just pretended I was kind of hanging out. My friend Tyler made the funniest joke. I bet it's big in the boating world, but I'd never heard it. He said, it's the most fun you can have on a floating patio.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And I was like, that is what a pontoon boat is. It's a floating patio. It's just a perfect rectangle. Okay, bored. And then a lot of busy work, readying stuff to depart, whatever. Then I drove. Also, my nose blowings back a bit because my nose was so full on day two of the motorhome drive back. So clogged, really clogged.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
No, I think I might have a bug.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, it's probably a bug. So yeah, I then drove 2,000 miles and got home and got at it. Yeah, and just a bit exhausted. Okay, so as you were dying to know what mechanical things happened on the bus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And then you reverse from there and it's like, oh, and there's an even greater explanation. And then the physical part is the grand explanation. Just in your intro, I'm really glad at how you lay this out because one of my great interests was always these differences in populations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
No, nothing's happened so far.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Was enough about the bus. Oh, the bus, yeah. All in all, best, least amount of shit broke that ever has.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Inside of the front door, all of the molding, which is a big chunk because it's got a power shade in it, that thing came off. So that was flopping. Then it broke. Still not bad. Okay. Rear toilet, my bathroom toilet, no power. Took the switch out of the middle bathroom, plugged it into the back one. Okay, it's not the switch. Get home, start reaching out to the dudes I know that build the bus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Okay, this is a gratitude and a grievance. So grateful they talk to me and they help me every time. I'm so grateful. But I'm talking with a newer guy and I don't, I feel like he underestimated my mechanical ability. Okay. So I'm like, where does this plug into? Maybe the module's bad, blah, blah, blah. He's like, oh no, there's a fuse panel under the bed. And I go, okay. I look under the bed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
There's no fuse panel visible. So now I'm going under the bed and it's an electric bed. So I can't remove the mattress and look under it. It's all bolted down with this huge heavy frame. That's two and a half hours yesterday to get under the bed and get all the little plates off of things to find these fuses. Finally, I'm like, I film it. I'm like, there's no fuse panel under here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And I think he thinks I just can't find it. Then I start showing him videos like I've taken apart everything. Oh, wow. So he's like, huh, that's interesting. The only other place it could be is X, Y, and Z. Go there this morning. Look, no. Then there's this huge panel with all these other fuses on it. And I send a picture and say, before I take this off, do you think it could be behind here?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
They say, no, absolutely not. I take it off anyways. It's in there. After three days of searching for this fuse panel, I found it buried in a wall behind this other huge panel. Plugged it in. I have power in the back. Flushed it. It popped the fuse. TBD, more to come.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I know. While I'm boring you, let me bore you a little more. Oh, no. Because I didn't get to a couple things last fact check.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I just was drawn to them immediately, finding out, oh, we kind of know that Native Americans came from Asia because they have a distant sizer and only Asians have a distant sizer and so do Native Americans. That's a really cool, hard bit of evidence clue. I like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Oh, okay. Tell me about your toilet before we move off the toilet topic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I mean, I think you just had to do what you had to do, which is go to work. Exactly. There's really nothing to think about. Is it ideal? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
It's not ideal. But I don't think he's going to steal from you. Either do I. He's too obvious of a suspect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Do you know him prior to this or is this his first trip over?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Okay, then I'm not too worried.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
It's fine. What do you think could happen? He'll look through your stuff?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah. Premature death anxiety.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Well, mine didn't make you sad, did it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And for people to know the history of anthropology, there was a field called anthropometry, which studied specifically differences between people and was heavily weaponized and used during the Nazi era. Oh, completely. Yeah. fed completely into the whole eugenics, the big push was that. So that kind of went away with good reason. It was being terribly exploited for the wrong reasons.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
So it's just rumination on scary stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
God, I'm sorry you have that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And this is a smart mouse wearing glasses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And a graduation gown.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, yeah, right. Very studious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Sure, that are inside out. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
But my interest was always not from any place of superiority, just a deep curiosity of how we could have these variations within the same species.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
How is it adaptive to where they live?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And it's actually a weapon in debunking racism.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Like they're telling the truth about race. Exactly. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Oh, God. I doubt they are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Of course they can, but continue. Well, she doesn't know that. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
So he's kind of an investigator and a doctor? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
That's the conundrum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Let's play because this is a worst case scenario.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And that's sort of what the mom will say. I don't think that. That's not my hangup.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I would ignore it. No, I'm teasing. I'm teasing. Oh my God. I would sit down and we would talk for a long, long while. There's a huge gap between I wish these people were dead and I'm going to kill these people. Yes, there is. And you're trying to figure that out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And then you're also trying to evaluate, do they have the means to do this? How seriously are they? If I had an inkling at all that this was a possibility, I would move. I would take the kids. I would move away from all these people. I would get her in therapy, hardcore, and I would get a tutor to come finish her schooling. Until she got out of this adolescent phase and we would be checking in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I would not call the police. Is that what you're wondering?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, I also take them to school, so I could definitely pat her down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
People will be mad about that. I don't think the police have anything to add to make the situation better. I don't think removing her from the house and putting her in foster care is going to help. I don't think a state mandated counselor is going to help. I don't think jail time, you know, like I don't think they have a solution that would be appealing in this situation. They can't fix.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
That's not what they do. So involving them, I'm not sure what that would get us. I'm going to remove her from the school. I'm going to make sure those kids are safe and we move. But there's no services that the city offers that are going to help her in this situation. And I just would want to help her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
We'll think it through. Let's think of what they could possibly do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Attempted? I don't know. Intent versus attempted. It's not attempted if she made a list. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
But regardless, sending her to jail is not going to help.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Well, I'm going to remove her from those other kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Well, I'd be moving to many states away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I did a Jonathan Haidt really quick. I thought of all the ways that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Well, yes, at a later date with a lot of therapy and assessment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Here's a broader question. Do you think, this is a broader, dicier, scarier question. Okay. Do you think it's possible that a kid could have those feelings and intentions in 11th grade and then grow out of that? I think, I'm inclined to think yes. I'm not saying everyone would, but I'm saying, do I think that's a possibility?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, so the book, Adaptable, aims to educate you on how your body works. But instead of it just being a straight biology textbook, there's going to be exploration of the lifestyle of the people, the landscape, the local adaptations. So it's a very fun lens to look at it. So I guess let's just start with the history of us as humans.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Do I think there's crazy, hormonal, confused, in a worse situation they're going to be in their whole life, kids that will be different as 20-year-olds? I do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I think my main obligation is to protect any innocent kids from getting hurt. Yes. And once I've achieved that, I think I feel fine on my own to be trying to help her through it. And I don't think the state would be helpful in that process. Some people will be screaming, you're rich, you can do that. Yeah. But the question is, what would I do?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, we did a little section on burn. And then his new book, Adaptable, How Your Unique Body Really Works and Why Our Biology Unites Us. This was so fun. It was. Evolutionary biology is one of my favorite books. Things to think about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, yeah. And all hands on deck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And for how long? It says you're buying yourself like a temporary peace of mind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
It kind of times out the same. It's like by the time they'd be letting a kid out of juvie for having made a list. Yeah. It would be the same time Lincoln would be entering the real world as an adult.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I get it. I get it. I get it. I'm just being very honest about what I would do. I would break a lot of laws. For my kids. I would kill for my kids. I wouldn't kill otherwise. Right. You know, there's a lot of things I would do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I would steal. I would do anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Well, innocent. They have to be threatening your child for this to work. I wouldn't, if my kid said, I don't like the grocer, will you kill him? I would not do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
All right. This is feeding into your anxiety a little bit, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Oh, wow. Okay, this is a lot. So at the grocery store, Lincoln has a firearm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Doesn't sell ripe pears.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Okay, that reminds me of Turning Point. Could we continue?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And I have the opportunity to shoot him before he shoots her. That's a good one. You came up with a good one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
That one's really hard. Good job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I would just tackle her so he knew the threat was over and that he didn't have to shoot her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah. Yeah, it'd be very hard to kill the grocer if she pulled out a gun. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
This is what I learned. So when Ukraine had their first elections, there was a pro-West candidate. And forgive me because I've forgotten these names or I can't pronounce them to begin with. And then there was a pro-Russia candidate. The pro-Western candidate was leading by a lot. They poisoned him. They poisoned him. Who did? Russia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Have you ever seen this guy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
He lived through it. Ew. But his whole face became inflamed and atrophied. I mean, they turned him temporarily into a monster. Ugh. So awful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I know. It's maddening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Oh, my God. Oh, so what are the ethics of this? I wish someone would assassinate Putin so bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
He's killing so many people. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
No. You're just not allowed to say that about our president.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Right. So what if they found in my bedroom a list and I said must kill and I intend to kill Putin?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I think they'd probably give me a hundred bucks for a plane ticket. I know. That's the thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Well, our government is one. Our leader doesn't seem to be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Oh, my God. I want to see one so bad. Yeah, I know. I really want to see one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I could. I bet they're going to be hard for me to find, but I guess I'll know exactly where the bones are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
That's not bad. This was 16,000 years ago or something. You'd have to wear a coat. Yeah, some definite North Face gear, like I were going to Antarctica. Exactly. Boy, I'd love to see one. And they might think I was cute and not threatening, and they'd be nice to me, and then they could hug me the way I was saying I would like to be hugged. And maybe even rock to sleep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I would, but if I noticed that they thought I was cute and tiny... I would appeal to their sense of safety. That's the point I was making about two months ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
That you only act terrible when you're scared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
They might want to eat me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Your brain's already formed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Easy peasy. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, we like each other. You have some anxiety, but it's okay. It's okay. It'll pass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Tomorrow you'll be feeling 10 feet tall and bulletproof.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
All right. Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
The osteology class was my favorite one in all of physical anthropology. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So osteopithecine is no longer the earliest one. No, you're already two million years. This is humiliating. Can I just add my favorite one was gigantopithecus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Some of these people are really grasping for Bigfoot to be real. They like the gigantopithecus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
I'm like, I have respect for that. How tall was the shaky? Yeah, see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
This is the fun stuff. Gorillas aren't that tall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
9.8 feet. Stop it. Let's go. You want the source. I can see it on your face. What's the source, Rob? I do. Britannica? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, like what was I just, oh my God, we were just discussing what could have been the cause of you and I. Yeah, I know. You were saying women, oh, women want to get something of their boyfriends to smell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
That's giraffe height.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Okay, so I sidetracked you. Okay, so seven million years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Is that who found it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Wow, wonderful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anthropologists are cool. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Yeah, the name it after drug songs and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, specifically a drug Beatles song. You know better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Okay, so they find Lucy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
No one throws it into a big pot other than lions, maybe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
Like a t-shirt or something. It's a very common desire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And I never met a guy who tried to get a shirt from a girl. Something's there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
It ratchets up quickly. Yes. Do we have any sense, could you determine this from the archaeological record? When does mate selection shift from a game of size to perhaps a game of savvy and aptitude in hunting, aptitude in gathering?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)
And they're going to just increasingly get bigger and bigger and bigger ad infinitum because the biggest one will have access and pass on its big genes and just keeps going up. Male lions just keep getting bigger than female lions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Monica Lewinsky
Behind the closed doors of government offices and military compounds, there are hidden stories and buried secrets from the darkest corners of history. From covert experiments pushing the boundaries of science to operations so secretive they were barely whispered about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Monica Lewinsky
Each week on Redacted Declassified Mysteries, we pull back the curtain on these hidden histories, 100% true and verifiable stories that expose the shadowy underbelly of power. Consider Operation Paperclip, where former Nazi scientists were brought to America after World War II, not as prisoners, but as assets to advance U.S. intelligence during the Cold War.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Monica Lewinsky
These aren't just old conspiracy theories. They're thoroughly investigated accounts that reveal the uncomfortable truths still shaping our world today. The stories are real. The secrets are shocking. Follow Redacted Declassified Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Redacted early and ad-free right now on Wondery+.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Right. So if mom had family in Italy, had they moved from Mexico to Italy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You know, it's interesting. This is a bizarre thing to say, but I kind of think it's good. But it does tread on this notion of people pretending they're colorblind, which is also bullshit. But I was watching Ash last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Oh, yeah. This happens to me more and more frequently now when I'm watching movies. If I hadn't done research on you, I just wouldn't have considered your ethnicity in any capacity whatsoever. And I wouldn't even guess. I wouldn't know. It was quite irrelevant. Also, people are much more now mixed, just as our population is much more mixed. There's tons of people now that I see on camera.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And I think this is a good thing where it's like, if you asked me later what they were, I'd be like, oh, I don't know. I have no clue. I wasn't even thinking of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Maybe 100,000. Not that many. You're like, nothing, nothing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You got into acting, dancing, painting all at 12, 13 because your dad died in a motorcycle accident.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Would you have a street dog? Because I like the street dog. I'm from Mexico.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I hate that for many, many reasons. I'm sorry. No, it's okay. And obviously you guys were very, very close as you already said. Super close. And mom wanted to just keep you busy and distracted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
How did she take it? My guess is at 12, you would be dealing with your own loss, but then also trying to cheer mom up or regulate mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah. Can I ask really quick, what was the work schedule of that? Brutal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
It goes for years. So you started reading about yourself on the Internet?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Cause this would have been 2004 or five. And so you could go online and what was it? MySpace. Oh, MySpace. There we go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
It was like the American office. It was like, who's going to be in the American office? Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You never got the looks or the body they were hoping you to get.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You're already so self-conscious as a teenager. At 14. Jesus. I went crazy. I remember.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You were on Lola too. So you're in another show, Lola.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Oh my God. A love triangle between mother, daughter, and a bodyguard?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
But you had a boyfriend. How long were you guys together at that point?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
At 20 years old. So that's 10% of your life. That's a huge chunk of your life when you think about it that way. And she sees a headline one morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Oh, it would be great if your boyfriend was your bodyguard at that time. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
He didn't email you preemptively going, this is coming out. He waited until you found out from the press.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Do we believe that it was from an era that you weren't together? Did the tattoos prove his? Yes. Because this actually happened to me. One of these trashy magazines ran this article about me saying I had hooked up with this girl while I was dating Kristen. I did hook up with that girl, but it was way before I met Kristen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And luckily, I have a tattoo in it that I had covered right before I met Kristen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
For me, it really was that. It was a lie. And thank God the tattoo absolved me of that because Kristen met me and I'd already had that one covered. It wasn't a sex tape.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
We weren't even kissing. I just had my arm around her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And she lied to them for sure. This woman had sold stories about three other people. She also banged an AA. I met her in AA.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
She was out of money and she's getting high. And this was a four story. That's horrible. She just lied to them. I guess they believed her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I got hard and I sent Tom a picture. Oh God. Well, I didn't want him to think I was a loser. Sure, of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You would have had to fight him and have a big separation from him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
We are playing it a little fast and loose with DNA and now human flesh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Well, they also want to see young actors just exude gratitude.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
But if guys operate in the grinding machine, one of their hair strands falls in. That's human DNA. They grind it good. I'm going to claim more of a Jonathan Haidt version, which is like, this is moral dumbfounding. We eat animals. We draw very arbitrary distinctions between which ones we eat and which ones we don't. Culturally... Some more than others. So, I mean, I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Is it possible you were also inflating how big this narrative was?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Is someone going to get killed so I can eat them? Big ethical issue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Aza is an actor. She is a singer. Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Baby Driver, Three-Body Problem, Ambulance, Bloodshot, and a new movie out that I quite enjoyed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
It's not mine either. Again, I don't desire to eat a human. It's whether or not I can handle it. Yeah. On the surface, look at Rob. Cute Wobby Rob. And then look at a pig sitting in its shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I guess I'm just saying, hygienically, get Rob out of the shower, and then the pig sitting in its shit and eat shit, and you go like, well, what would be smarter to eat?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You're an alien, and you're evaluating, what of these animals am I going to eat? One's wallowing in its shit, and another guy just hopped out of the shower.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
A cat. 80% of my shower is focused on my anus. Trust me. And I have a brondle where I spray water after every... And then I left out that I also clean when I do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
So, Ash, I would say it's got two really great parallels. It really reminded me of Moon. Did you ever watch Moon? Yes, Moon. Oh, my God. Did you ever see Moon?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Is Duncan Jones the child of David Bowie? Yes. But does not share the Bowie last...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
He wanted to make it on his own. So he gave himself Cage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, they're a family, but look at this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
It's very impressive. Okay, so it's set in the future. You are a group of earthlings that is trying to explore and find another planet that would be habitable. And you touch down on this planet in this pod. And when we meet you, you have amnesia. You don't know what the fuck's gone on. Your head is damaged and everyone on the crew is dead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And we're kind of piecing together Mento style what happened. Interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah, you're dealing with like amnesia, but also kind of madness. Yeah. Like we're not quite sure is this person insane or not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And then we have Aaron Paul pops in and he ostensibly is trying to figure out what happened as well. But in classic movie like these, we don't know who's friend and who's foe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Lots of twisties, but visually really, really original. And it had a tension and a chaos that substance. Oh, kind of unsettling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Well, a lot of them you go like, oh, it's either going to be incredible or it's going to suck. And that's fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Listen, there's multiple steps. So first is I lather a ton of soap and do a full scrub. Then I rinse because I don't want anything gross touching the soap. And then I go hard with the bar of soap. And I really rub the bar of soap on my anus. Not in it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And it has this element of oxygen, which is always fun. So like you're watching, you're kind of holding your breath a lot of the time. Is she going to run out of oxygen? I think this is a very like Angelina Jolie role.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah. If this movie was made in 97, I think Angelina Jolie would do this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I think she had similar. The bad word would be hang ups. She had a similar fear of only being hot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And I think she did a lot of things that were unflattering intentionally to break out of that. And so this very much mirrored, I think, that experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
But I'm going to really applaud you as an actor. You have almost no lines in this movie. Most of the movie is you processing flashbacks. You have to react to all this stuff that you're not seeing. You're in a scene by yourself. You sit at a desk and they go, okay, cameras. And now you got to take us through these flashbacks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You have to take us through the anxiety and the tension of trying to figure out how the fuck you are, where you are at. Anything we're going to learn from you, we just have to see. And you did an incredible job. I was quite blown away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I use soapy hands to get the first round of whatever off. Then I rinse everything. So now it's pretty clean. And now I go on with the direct bar of soap.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You were talking to yourself so hard on camera. Like a mirror scene where you got to look in the mirror. You're like, oh my God, guys, I've never. Be believable. I think it looking at myself, but I've never spoke to myself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
They're having like a conversation with a second party that's in the mirror.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
We have many scenes where lights up. She is leaking tears, processing this thing. Yeah, I was like, God bless.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah, you have to be your craziest at the end of the second act.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I hope so. That was a big exercise. That was like heavy weight, heavy reps.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Very moon-like, as I say in the episode, if anyone remembers that great Sam Rockwell movie called Ash.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You did such a good job. Thank you. I hadn't seen many of these movies, so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You guys are very judgmental of this. I'm wondering, how are you cleaning your butts? I hope not splashing water.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah, we did a movie called When in Rome. You don't need to see it. Kristen's the lead. Josh is her love interest. I'm one of three suitors trying to get Kristen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Oh, yeah. This was within the first three months of us dating. 18 years ago, we made this movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yes, which is a wonderful story because Disney did not want to hire us. We've been dating for three months. We're not hiring a three month boyfriend and girlfriend. Then they break up in three weeks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yes. One of my best friends, Andrew Panay, Yorgo, was the producer. And I was like, George, I promise you, no matter what, I will not break up with her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yes. We barely made it. We were living together. It was a disaster for us living together three months in and shooting a movie. Because they were in Italy. Only for a week. Mostly it was this dark apartment in New York. Oh, well, you just weren't here, so you had to live together. Yes, yes. We were shooting in New York and then in Italy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I'm like so frugal. Well, let's combine our living thing and then we'll pocket the thing. Oh, my God. We get home and the relationship is in a state of total disrepair. We decide to go to a couples therapist, her therapist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Well, now we've shot a movie together, so now we're four or five months. Yeah, I'm out. We took a motorcycle trip home to Michigan. It was a disaster. I left like, I hope I never see this person again as long as I live. I'm sure she felt the same way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
We get home, we go to couples therapy and I say to the therapist, I go, you know, I made this promise to not break up with her during the movie because of my friend. But now we're back in real life and I don't know that we're going to make it. And he goes, well, it's really interesting. You're saying you're back in real life because actually that was real life. You commit. We're not breaking up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And I was like, oh, my God, that's so stupid. But I honestly was like, oh, wow, that is it. You go, no, no, under no circumstances. So we must figure out how to make this work because we're not breaking up. So weirdly, it was a kind of a breakthrough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Well, good news. You'll have three and four coming your way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah, the one line got me to well up. It's right before, what's the last song they sing? Is there on the bridge? Defying Gravity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Unlimited. Together we're unlimited. It got you. I was like, oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I remember this. Oh, yeah, yeah. Ryan Hansen was in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yes. Yeah, he is. He's the most charismatic man in America.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah, he's a sweetheart. He is. All right. Well, Aza, this was so fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Really great job on Ash. Everyone watch Ash. Go to the movie theater. It's scary. And you'll have that communal experience where you're screaming and maybe throwing up a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You're not insane. No one thinks that. It's time to let all that go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Do we jump right to Dumel? Because, you know, I'm friends with Dumel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
What did that just make me think? Oh! I renamed Whiskey, and I feel like it's such a good name for him. What is it? First of all, conjure him in your head. Okay. A little mogwai rat. And then he eats people. Three legs. We decided he's Tiny Trump.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Did you date Dumel? Did I see this? Yes, we dated. Okay. I'm so envious of him in this way. He seems effortlessly masculine. He can't not be masculine. He just seems to have these huge haunches. I'm like, how much are you working out? He's like, I don't know, occasionally. I'm like, you have that frame. But I could see him in the shower just like walking through and being on his way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah, yeah. But then. And then what's the rat from Charlotte's Web? Templeton.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
So his name is Trimp Templeton something. I've forgotten his last name, but now he's got a whole new three names.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Sure. I mean more like- Oh, that reminds me. As I alerted you, on my bus trip home from Nashville, I was watching all kinds of stuff. Mostly shit I can just listen to. Great rec if you're just driving and you want to listen. Turning point, that 10- It's on Netflix. It's 10 episodes, but really the history of the arms, nuclear arms race and all the twists and turns.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I wrote down stuff in my notes that I want to bring up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You're going to like it. No, you're going to like one part.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
But anyways, I gave Love Island, Temptation Island a chance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I couldn't do it. I'll blame it on driving and needing to look at probably hot co-eds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And the most alarming things happening to me, which is like hot coeds are starting to do less and less for me. That's great. I mean, is it? I mean, it's like on a self-actualized spectrum. It's good. That's a bummer to miss. I understand. Something that has been a source of like titillation and enjoyment my whole life. It's just one less thing I enjoy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Even ripped dudes. You know how I like ripped dudes as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah, how do I how do I know? But everyone's pretty young on the show. What I think is happening is there's some sliding ratio on my head that used to be at 13. Looks was a 20. Like my body was just responding to what you see. Chorus. Chorus. And then I just feel like personality always ratcheted up and then looks priority went down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And I think that was at a really nice, even keel for a long time. Long enough that I could at least look at a hot person with a repugnant personality and think that'd be tolerable for 40 minutes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I know, I'm finally starting to understand how you guys feel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
They introduce themselves, right? It's like, you know the premise. There's like 10 couples or eight couples.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
It's the weakest premise imaginable, which is like, we want to make sure we can take our relationship to the next level. So we're going to see, we're going to really tempt each other. It's like, that's not what people looking to take their relationship to the next level do. Conventionally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
But anyway, so you're sitting down. It's this weird mix of jealousy and then bravado of that they don't care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And then the temptresses and tempters come out, if that's the male of temp.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
They break up the couples and the girls live in one house, the boys live in another house, and then they send in temptresses. And so, like, all these women come out and they're in bathing suits.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
This whole thing is really fascinating. Because what is the line? Like, if you set it up, yeah, these are very vague lines.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Like you're hiring hot people to tempt other people and then hopefully they'll hook up. It's very, it's very blurry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
They're claiming they do, but they were cast for being hot. They're not, it's not like they were like, I need to find love. And I'm looking for someone already in a committed relationship that's claiming they want to go with them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
So. And you know, they're like, these aren't real names. Sorry, I'm just making it up. It's like, I'm Tierra and I put all the back up front, like all these weird sayings and then they show their butt and stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Well, no, I'm not mixing metaphors. I'm just saying words. Anyways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
They say these things. You know, this guy's like, I'm a chef and I'm going to cook you hot. You know, like all these, they got a one line. Yeah. And I'm just like, you know, every time they say one of these.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
It's a bummer. Yeah. It's a bummer. People. Yeah. Like you're already hot. Yeah. And then have to say something hot on top of it. Yeah. But I'm saying all this saying, I know 10 years ago, I would have made them look right through most of that stuff. Although the one I always loved was with Ryan Devlin. What was that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Because they really did want to fall in love. And be on TV. Yeah. And be on TV.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
But they were like, they thought they, people were like bawling and stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
But like, here's hot models that are going to tempt you. Right. I just don't know how I feel about it. Anyways, I gave that a shot and then I didn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I didn't make it. Why did I bring that up? Just to tell you. Oh, because we were talking about names.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And I used to, I used to be able to name like 10 actor, female actors that I was like coveted. Yeah. And we're down to a couple.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Why would I have any? When would there be a day where you go like Brad Pitt's not hot?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And you should do two rounds and you should use the soap.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Every now and then I see photos of me from out in front of my house. So I'm like, oh, they sit there, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
That's a bummer, but it's not like if I go to the store, there's ever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yes. And by the way, just make it through an entire walk to Starbucks from your car without looking goofy at one point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
But also all to say, like, you're interested, Wayne, to bet just my.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I have testy atrophy or something. Testicular atrophy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Because I'm white. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm 12 years. You're 12 years early.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Can I tell you the thing that really interested me about Turning Point?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I probably have more. You know, it was reinvigorated. I went and saw Black Bag.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You saw it? Yes. Oh my God. You know what's great? I went solely because I saw Fassbender was in it. I had like an afternoon off and I went, I didn't know anything about it. Yep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I enjoyed it so much. Me too. The score was so good. And I was angry at myself when I saw the titles. Like, oh, Soderbergh directed it. Of course. And that's, of course, that's his signature kind of music and the style. I almost wanted to rewatch it again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
It was almost a blessing because I was trying to figure out the tone of it quite a bit. If I knew it was Soderbergh, I knew it would be a lot more out of sight. Playful. Yeah, and I was more like, oh, this is hardcore British espionage shit. But I loved it, but I was reminded how much I love Alicia Vikander.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
When he's interviewing her and she's passing the polygraph and they're talking about her anal sphincter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Am I right on that, Rob? I'm looking. I don't know. That would be really embarrassing if I have the wrong actor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Although she's 28. Oh. That's a little dicey. Wow, man. I'm embarrassed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Oh, I couldn't date any of these people. Is that not abundantly clear?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Well, OK, let's back up for one second. Just go like societally. It's disgusting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
When you're 50 years old and you're dating a 25 year old. I'm not here to judge. But I'm just saying societally. Yeah. It's embarrassing. If you're out at a fucking dinner with all your peers and they all have wives as peers as I do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I'm not saying people shouldn't do it or I'm just saying I would be embarrassed to be at a dinner with all 50 year olds and I brought my 20 year old girlfriend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
genetically evolutionarily no there's no there's no reason a man would ever stop seeing fertile women as attractive that's just that it would be my culture on top of it yeah but your culture's oh it is it is obviously we are have also evolved out status like status now doesn't just necessarily mean having as many kids as like you're done having kids right yes like
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
But my genetics doesn't know I got a vasectomy. No, it can't take info in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah, it's just to spread your seed. So genetically, I too am supposed to spread my seed. That's the pull inside.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And then on top of my biology is culture that's affecting a bunch of my behaviors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
All I'm pointing out is that there is no mother nature rule that I would not be attracted to someone that's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah. Well, I go to mine's very complicated. I go to I can't talk to what would I talk to this person about? How would I spend hours with this person? Yeah. I'm going to be talking about, you know, the time Prince was dead in 1983.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I also continue to because that's what I grew up with. Anyways, man, but I see folks my age just out doing it. I guess, I guess, I don't know. I want to say applaud them, but I'm just like, we just have different levels. I guess it's, I guess it's a signal of confidence. Seems like a signal of insecurity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
When I see 50 plus year old actors with 20 year old actresses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
In some cases, not all. In some cases, I think it could be Evidence of a lack of emotional maturity from the male, which is like they've never gone past what relationships are in your 20s.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And they want someone that also wants a three year ordeal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And nothing more because that's the phase they're in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And I would imagine the percentage of three-year relationships in your 20s that turn into lifetime versus three-year relationships in your 30s that turn into lifetime. I think that's a dramatic difference.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Well, that was... Do you want to add any guys to your list? I know a lot of them. Idris Elba. The guy from... That's a random one to say. The guy from Heist. Matt, Ben, Sean Penn.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I really want to get in there now. They're incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
It's an intense, it's got that, as I think I said in the episode, it's got that kind of substance-y, tenchy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Because you are a risk taker or you're clumsy by nature?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
That's a bad combo if you're a risk taker and you have bad balance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah. Now let me ask you, this is a dangerous one, but do you think we can bump up against the limits of our biology at some point? Like society evolves, culture evolves, but I do wonder at like, what point do you bump up against just how much culture can override biology?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah, I think if you plotted you and I on this spectrum, I think we have different inflection points of where that would be, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
We're highly flexible and adaptable. So maybe it'll work. That's true. Also, we could see it fall off a cliff and go, oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Everyone's all over the place. Skin, saliva, and hair. Those are the options. We think that's what's getting into the hot dogs. I say saliva.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You don't have to chew that. You're not going to feel that in your mouth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
It's best to not even know you had the DNA go through.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Okay. Okay. Which is probably dirtier than pubic hair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
It does make a good point that a tiny chunk of skin, again, would feel like the texture of the hot dog. It would. And you largely wouldn't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I gotta put hair last. Because you go, and then you're trying to get them. It just keeps coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Do you think your hair is three feet long? No, two and a half.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Because if I start pulling a hair that's longer than three inches out of my arm, it's not mine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Unless it's my armpit hair, which can get up to nine, 12 inches.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Ooh, it was really good, really good. Please enjoy Aza Gonzalez.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Oh, I don't know how that drops it. So it's kind of an aggressive back and forth. It's more of like a tit for tat, like a war.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I'm going to promote one of my own products right now to you. A movie called Hit and Run. Because I directed it, I got to do the thing I always want to do, which is in movies, no one ever brushes their tongue. And I brush my tongue specifically to like gag. That's when I know I've gotten it. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Brain health. Yeah, everything. So in the movie, I'm brushing my tongue and I gag and almost throw up and there's toothpaste everywhere. And that's in the film. And I felt like I had the first really authentic teeth brushing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
I guess it's not novel. You did it too. She didn't gag though, did she?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
So your mother has your brother who's 12 years older than you, and she's an orthodontist turned model. When does she meet your dad?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Was he from Mexico City? Yeah. I got a side note. We went for the first time over Christmas and I cannot believe how much I loved it. It's incredible, right? It's like the greatest fucking city.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Of course, yeah, from anywhere. Okay, so you seem on the surface because you went to a couple of private schools. One of them was like an American school. It was pretty privileged?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
So you did it for him. I did. What was the American school?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
And your parents put in that effort because they just wanted the whole world to be open to you. Did they specifically see you going to the U.S. ?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
You went to Italy at 10 for a minute to learn Italian?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You want to know about your own human DNA.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Yeah. What do you think you have? Because mind you, what I thought I had didn't prove out in the data.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
So I would be so wrong. I would have thought it would have been even perhaps more fetishized there because you have this mestizo population and then this European influence. And there has been some kind of status hierarchy, a little bit derived from that now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Eiza Gonzalez
Okay. I'm nervous. Don't tell me anything negative about hot dogs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Dax's Mom (Laura Labo)
He's an object expert. He's an object expert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. And Aaron Michael Weakley. Hello. Today, our guests, alliteration, Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Your ears are echolocating the distance of their mouth. I get all that orientation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Was going to be at this jazz festival? It was at this jazz festival. Oh, cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I'm like, what the fuck? Hold on, how could he not find the piano? Yeah, I know. He walked past the piano.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
This is tough. This is compelling. Now, let me ask you this, though, because then I have to go straight to what would be the motive? Let's try this case. He's been living a lie for so long that he doesn't want anyone to know. Like a great magician where you got to live the routine. Yeah. Do you think his feelings would be hurt as your friend? Knowing that, you think he's able-sighted? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
He might've geotagged you somehow. He put a little something on you on the airplane. He's like, you're going to be my anchor. I'm going to find you. Okay. Here's our really funny one. Friend of ours worked at Houston's, our favorite restaurant. Stevie Wonder comes in with like five, six friends. And the two funny things about it is all the tables are obviously numbered for the servers, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah. So one of the servers says to the runner, hey, drop this at Stevie Wonder's table. And the runner says, what number? And he said, number Stevie Wonder. Right, right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And then, and this could be an exaggeration, the friends were holding up their drinks and pointing another round, but they would never say it out loud.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
His buddies were like taking him to the cleaners. Yeah, another one of these, but they were not saying anything. So, he wouldn't know they were drinking $400 worth. Yeah. Well,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I wouldn't care if the whole thing was a ruse. I wouldn't feel deceived. And also, if you think about it, it's an incredibly useful thing to say you have because you never have to remember what anyone looks like. There's just so much shit you would get out of. But man, that takes some commitment. Oh my God. Dedication. Yes, next level.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Before the charity event, yeah. I try not to be swole at charity events. It's not a good look.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I do want to go back to Compton, to childhood. Oh, let's go. We're of similar age. And when I was growing up, all the music was coming from there that I loved. The movies I loved at that moment were coming from there. And you were living there. So a couple of questions. What was it like growing up there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And then also, I just trying to imagine my hometown being the source of all these great movies, all this great music, what that felt like to be there. And was there some disconnect of, oh, yeah, everyone's into this. It's on TV, but it's not a party here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So really quick, what's the survival mechanism? Is it ignoring? Is it acknowledging? Is it ignoring until you have to acknowledge? You don't ignore it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So when you were seeing it blow up in pop culture, to be fully honest with you, my best friend, Aaron, who I'm still best friends with, we left Detroit right when we graduated high school. We went on a road trip. We lived in the car for like six months. When we came to LA, our very first stop was, we're South Central. Very wide of you. Yeah. We want to see all the action.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And then we got there and being from Detroit, the projects of Detroit, you know, you're looking at them. Yeah. And we were like, these are kind of nice houses. It was a little confusing. I was going to ask you that. There's all these like World War II bungalow developments. It's very confusing if you're from the East Coast to come out and see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Well, that's as good a place as any to start. What world records do you hold?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if I were you, I would be annoyed. Like, what the fuck are these white boys doing? They're tourists. That's when you get caught up. So you never got caught up in anything? No, but I was also smoking crack in Detroit. I've never known that about you. Oh, yeah, I'm an ex-addict, and I used to be in the gnarliest apartment smoking crack in Detroit. We recognize that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, I knew how to get by, and so did Aaron. Okay. But all to say, I'm trying to imagine what it is when you're inside of it and people, they themselves are enamored by it. Yeah. Is it annoying?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Well, crack, thank God, was something I did semi-controlled. My preference was to snort it. Snort crack? No, no, snort Coke. Okay. I was like, hold on, motherfucker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
You just didn't want to go to Coke? And I would often run out of that. I can't get that at three in the morning. So I go to Ghost Town in Venice and buy crack and I'll smoke crack. You weren't doing that while you were in Detroit. No, no. Then I go back to Detroit for the summers and hang with all my boys and we go downtown.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I wasn't a child. I probably smoked it for the first time when I was 21. All right. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Okay, just put that in perspective, Monica. You know the gray trailer sitting over there? Yeah. That's 26 foot. So 10 feet longer than that trailer was the club he was using. What? Did you have to have something in the middle for a pivot?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, yeah. I'm at UCLA and in the groundlings. I'm a comedian. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
They called for my availability one time. It's not to say that they were offering it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I'm going to say this from the bottom of my heart. You would be great. Oh, my God. You would be such a great host. I'm very surprised. That's what I've always said. You really would be a great, great host.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
You got to take it as a win. You're back on the bus stop, 530 in the morning. You're like, oh boy, they're in a fight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And then the white angel shows up and he says, guess what? At some point, SNL is going to call and ask for your availability. You're going to go, oh my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
He had to come back to my mama. How did he end up, he owned clothing stores at some point?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
A couple hundred feet. No, no. Yeah, be careful because people could check this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So maybe not a couple hundred feet, but it was far. Okay. How did you find yourself in this position? Is this something you completely orchestrated on your own?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Did he make you work with him ever? Yeah, and I didn't have a problem doing it. Good chance to work on your people skills.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, I read that and I was like, this feels so 80s to be a telephone operator.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
When my dad died, I thought it was going well. Okay. But in reflection, it really fucked me up more than I really kind of realized at the time. And I have a few friends whose dads also died too young. I don't know. It can bring out some wild stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Me either. It's still evolving. Mine was 2012. So 13 years ago. My most consistent dream is dreams about him. When he died, it was a bit of a relief because I was caring for him and supporting him and it was complicated. And so at first it was just like, okay, whew, there's a lot off my plate now. And then, oh, I miss him. And then it just continues to unfold this whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And now I have a completely different view of him than I did when he died. I recognize all these incredible things he was in spite of some things I was disappointed in. Yeah. just all these things. And yeah, now I'm like, God, yeah, I'd really like to go back now and hang with him when he was virile and not dying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
At that point, are you like, oh, dad's kind of hallucinating? No, not hallucinating. It was like, dad is about to go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
i contributed to it were you adjusting or regulating the inside with that like i'm using drugs and booze oh no it wasn't like a coping mechanism for no no i just like good shit man probably why i got motherfucking gout in my big toe on my right foot occasionally oh that's rough yeah oh man that's what my dad at the end he had gout in addition to everything
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Now, my question is. I have so many. Me too. Are people sitting around thinking like, okay, how about this? Here's a world record. 36-foot golf club. Who's imagining this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Anthony Anderson. With a cute nickname, Ant. Ant is a cute nickname. He kind of goes by Ant. Emmy-nominated actor. I was watching his Law & Order years on the plane ride here. Oh, my gosh. Ding, ding, ding. Of course, Black-ish, Kangaroo Jack, Romeo Must Die, Barbershop, Scary Movie 3. He has a new movie on Prime Video right now with Viola Davis called G20.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
What I have gleaned from the many interviews I've watched of you now is, and I'm guessing having to leave Howard, was that heartbreaking? It was, it was disappointing. So you go to Howard after this magnet school you're at and you're there for how many years? Three, I ran out of money after my junior year. And you're doing theater there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, a little extra. So you run out of money and you come back to L.A. Yeah. How long before getting back to starting to get employed? Because I feel like you and I have a kind of a similar... I didn't start getting hired as an actor till like 28. 25 for me. Oh, right. You do five years on a Saturday morning teen show. I got that when I was 25 years old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
That airplane ride home, I'd be like, well, if it goes down, like this is about as great as it gets story-wise. Yeah. This really worked out. So many wonderful things you were in. I really am jealous of a lot. Why? What are you jealous of? Well, Departed. The fact that in your lifetime you worked for a Scorsese. You can just leave it right there. You don't have to read anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It might be the greatest cast of all time. I would say that. Directed by the greatest director of all time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And I got to imagine once you're wearing 30 t-shirts, it's got to be getting up around his face. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Of all these hosting duties, which is your favorite? I mean, the game show rack, it's nice because you're just cranking out episodes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
He's a great guy. Yeah. He'll almost shame you. He's right there. We gave him a best boy award. We gave him a best boy award.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah. Do you know that Ant refers to himself as the Lucci? What's her name? Susan Lucci. I'm the black Susan Lucci. Yeah, because he's been nominated 11 times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Monica and I were talking about it the other day, and I was like, I don't know, man, if they had fucking nominated me, mind you, I've never been nominated, but if they nominated me five times, I might go like, I'm not fucking coming anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
One last question, and then I want to talk about G20. How do you know Jordan? And what's that hang like?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Although he does live next door to Michael B. Jordan. He said there's three black people in his neighborhood. Him, Michael B. Jordan, and Machine Gun Kelly. Okay. You've done your research. I tried to. You've done your research, man. That was funny. We kind of love him. We had him on. He was one of my favorite guests ever. Yeah, he's a special dude. He's like a very sensitive, sweet dude.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
He's nothing like you think he would be. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I was like, I do. And you're grown. You should have it too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
He's a sweet boy. You need to take him under your arm. I I'm going to do his birthday parties and all that. We're good. Oh, that's good. But Jordan, we watched Last Dance, as everyone did, and just so fascinated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Were they playing golf in Compton? No, no, no, no, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Sure, sure, sure. No, were you studying the Guinness Book of World Records? Because in elementary school, I was obsessed with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It was like, one day I'm going to do this. How can I do this? I want to see the tallest guy. Like, you and I probably have the same image of the heaviest twins. And they were on those little Honda mopeds together in that photo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And he came around to you. You aimed for the fence. Oh, yeah. I'm going to show you my whole self and you're going to like it or not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Okay, G20. Yes. G20 comes out April 10th, streaming on Prime Video. Viola Davis, Academy Award winner. Fuck all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It's such a memorable photo. And then the fingernails, you look up the fingernails. Oh, so you're in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Really? Yeah, that's awesome. And so that's how it all began. So she's the U.S. president. You're the first man. You guys go down to South Africa for the G20 summit and you bring your kids. Yes. And then it's Die Hard. Yeah. So there's some bad guys, Tony Starr, who I fucking love from The Boys. Do you watch The Boys?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, out of context. And it's a testament to who he is as an actor. What he does on The Boys, the fact that that dude hasn't won an Emmy. I mean, what he's doing on The Boys is the bad guy and you feel bad for him sometimes. Yes, you do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So, yeah, it looks fucking awesome, by the way. It is, man. The trailer is outrageously good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
She's an action star. She is. It was amazing to be a part of and amazing to watch. Well, Anthony, I adore you. I have so much fun when I get to be around you. This was great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Nope, he didn't send a text. You see how many he had to scroll through in the last two hours?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Even selfishly for me, I don't want that bridge to be burned on my behalf. Anthony, adore you. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Nice meeting you, Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
You have to pretend this is going to be a big challenge. You have to do your best acting of your life. You have to pretend you don't know I wore this outfit yesterday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Oh, really good job. Moving on. Next thing. We're on the wrong set. There's some cheesy things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I was wearing it. Well, now you're so good. Wow, this is really good. Now I'm convinced you didn't see me yesterday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I see you. There are some corny sayings on sets. Yeah. Some of them, I like them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So if you're like filming, you're filming four scenes that day and you're going to be in Crosby's bedroom. And then the next scene is going to be in the living room. You like do the scene that y'all cut. You don't really know what they're saying at the monitor. Are we going to go again? Yeah. Do we get it right? And then occasionally 80s will go, okay, we're on the wrong set. That means we did it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It's time to leave the bedroom and go to the next set. And I like that one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I think specifically Hitchcock would always have a martini shot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Okay. I hope people are patient with me if there's multiple Hawaii updates.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I'm trying. Yeah, that didn't get through, right? No. Okay, right. You did not go to New York.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And you know what's interesting is when you announced that to me, at first I was like, I didn't like it for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Because I was worried your anxiety got the best of you. Like you had some anxiety and I wanted you to have that fun trip. And I know you love New York.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
But now on the other side of it, I think you listened to yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And it was the right thing to do. It was the right thing to do. And you still had your spectacular trip with Callie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Are you so selfish that you would have preferred that the flight crashed on the way to New York? Just so you could say, oh my God, I knew. I knew not to take that flight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Well, you would definitely if you canceled the flight and then you saw on the news it crashed, you would have an enormous burst of gratitude. Relief, yes. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yes, you would. Everyone would. Well, you wouldn't, I don't know that you'd say you have powers, but you'd say, well, now I have to really take seriously that the universe sends me signals and I need to listen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And we just got resolution on that last week. It was diabetes related.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yes, diabetes. I just sent Aaron ding, ding, ding. I just sent Aaron. There is a remix. A DJ made a mix of the diabetes commercials. And it's pretty good. And maybe I'll play it later at some point in this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
That he has... ALS. ALS. Yeah, I've seen him. It's heartbreaking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Because when he was here, obviously, his... He told us. Well, he didn't know what it was yet, right? I know. His arm was kind of atrophying. And he thought he had a virus. Yeah, I remember that. And he seemed specialist. And... Yeah, it's a real fucking bummer. It really breaks my heart. I hate it. I know, I know. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
ABR. Yeah. Always be recording. You and I have to occasionally, I'm sure, approve bios, right? Like you're going to go somewhere and then they send you a thing. Here's what we're going to read before you come out. Yeah. The next time you're on Kimmel, what they should say is world record holder Anthony Anderson when you come out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
He'd already been hanging on by a bit of a thread. Oh, no. So he died on Easter?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I guess if I were a Pope. And I had them my way and they said, you're going to die this month.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
When Jesus, yeah, passed. Passed. You say passed. Excuse me. I passed. Be respectful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So then you're- That's a lot of doom and gloom though.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
The headline is incredible trip. Great. I'll remember it. I'll be on my deathbed and I'll go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah. And he wouldn't like that, but I'll tell you why it's okay to like it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Or why I think it's okay to like it. Because I was talking with a friend from AA, and there are things in life that give me esteem, self-esteem, and there are things that take away self-esteem.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And so, and they're, you know, they're pretty correlated with challenge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Right? Sure. But it was just an incredible trip. It definitely had its challenges. I might've been a little naive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I guess I was misled because when Kristen has gone away to film, which has happened throughout the child, their childhood, it always goes really well. I do very well with, with the two of them by myself. And I was underestimating, like we have our routine, they go to places, they're in their house, they can separate. And so I was a little naive and I've taken trips with them solo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And those are truly kind of effortless and fun. It's just like being with a buddy. But this was, you know, there were days where one of them was mad at the other for the whole day, the first few days. And I started getting a little nervous. Yeah. And then I was, and this is kind of funny. This is one of the many stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Because that's so much more impressive than actor or producer or any of that. I think I should do that. And then just let people imagine what it is. Not even get into it, just be Guinness book world record holder. Yes, and when I describe you to people, I'll be like, you know my friend Ant, world record holder. He also acts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So my mother would have, I know what she would have done because she did it many times. We'd be on a vacation. We'd be acting like assholes. Also give me so much fucking respect for my mother's whole.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Single parent, three kids. Oh my God. God bless Laura LeBeau. I sent her a message going, you know what? I need to just tell you, you're a warrior and I admire you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
But her move was, guys, we're going home tomorrow morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
My mom... We had some rules in the house. There was no begging, period. You already know this about me. She did not play begging. And we left many places where we had put a lot of effort into it and we had driven there and we didn't get our shit together. She said, this happens again. We're going home. And we did. She never made empty threats. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So I'm remembering, like, first of all, I'm feeling that. I'm like, I'm going to tell them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And then I'm saying, you must, you must do a little, you must grow a little bit from what you were given.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And so it was a moment where it was like, we tried to go snorkeling, maybe the third attempt. One of them always had a thing. I got stabbed by a sea urchin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Um, and it was another failed attempt and then the fight. And then I was, I was in my head. I'm like, I'm telling him we're going to go home. And then I'm like, I'm going to meditate. I'm going to sit on this lawn chair and I'm going to meditate because I want to be the best version of myself. And I am going to confront this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I am not going to have five days more of fighting, but I got to do it in a very healthy way. And I'm about 12 minutes into my 20-minute meditation. And while I'm meditating, I hear a blood-curdling screaming. And I'm thinking, I'm like, oh, fuck, some parents. Oh, no. Someone's dealing with something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And the scream's getting louder and louder and louder and louder until it's obviously five feet from me. And I open my eyes and I look, and my sweet little Delty is fucking crying. Like, I don't even know where to begin to guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yes. And she has at least four hotel employees trailing her because they're obviously scared for her. God knows what liability fears they're having. Oh, yeah. They want us to go in an ambulance to be, you know, I mean, virtually they want us to be as safe as humanly possible. But I know my Delta. What she needs immediately is everyone to leave.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Two-time world record holder. Shit, by now he might have three or four.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
She got that from you. You know, it's okay. Come here. You know, trying to get a calm, calm, calm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
No, I know right now we need to like, we need to go from 15 to 10 so that I can then say, okay, mama, let me, let me take a look and just see what we're dealing with. So as it turned out, it was just a lip, but it was good enough that as she was screaming and crying, it was like on her arms and whatever. I knew it was serious, but also you never really know. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Cause they, they all, they kind of have this reaction to most every injury.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
No, I'm like, this is an emergency level trauma. The bleeding has stopped. We don't need stitches.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, had I just done 35 hours of the pit in the ER maybe. And we get it all calmed down. Now, this is where I'll give D-Money a lot of credit. As the next few days wore on, And especially day three after this thing, I'm looking at her and we're in the sunshine. I go, sweetheart. Well, and she told me, she goes, daddy, I didn't even put my hands out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
She fell, she slipped on the concrete next to the pool. And she said, I didn't even put my hands out, which I kind of was like, I bet she put them out a little bit. She's not lying. She fell directly on her face. So a few days later, she had a black and blue cheek, black and blue chin. She whacked her face so bad. Anywho. I did make this speech.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It was a very gentle version, and everyone got their shit together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It was a big turn. Okay. We still had stuff. Sure. You're going to have stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
But there was a reset, and I really appreciated it. What did you say? I said, it is very hard for me to be on this trip with one of you really mad people. at any given time. One of you was very, very mad. And I said, and I want to be able to take you on these trips if mom's working. And I have to be honest, next year comes around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
If it continues like this, I'm not sure I'm going to take this trip again. Not we're going home, still a threat. I don't know. People probably think that was bad parenting, whatever they did here. Oh, we're not entitled to these trips if we act like assholes. He's saying I can't. I'm basically saying I can't handle it. Yeah. Okay. So that's a great reset.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Let's not even talk about just single parent, the sunblock routine when you're in Hawaii. Because this is like every 40 minutes I got to slather their whole body. Almost my full time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Oh, I did. I'm like, if I bring them home sunburned, that's a wrap. That's hard to defend. Yeah. We go to dinner that night and I'm now feeling, I'm feeling like a failure. I'm like, I should be able to coordinate some kind of peaceful fun. We're in paradise at a beautiful hotel. You know, it should be easy. In quotes. Should be. And so I'm not going to blame a 12 and a 10-year-old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I'm like, I'm not managing something correctly. And I was so relieved that as we were at these dinners, we were eavesdropping. And I want to tell you, shit's going down on all family vacations. That was comforting. That's standard family vacation. People fight. You think you're going to go to paradise and everyone's going to be so grateful the whole time. That's not what happens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
You have to compromise on schedules way more and you get what you sell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Wine country, if you don't know. We went to wine country, yes. California. And food country.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
You're not going to get that record. Are those guys Scandinavian? Are they like from Iceland or something? I think they are Scandinavian. Yeah. But this father-son, they're in the book for multiple records. It's like Magnus von Magnus and...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And I urged you to make the car, the car will do a 365 degree turn like a tank. Yeah. And I really wanted you guys to do that. And you said you might find a parking lot and try it. And then you told me you didn't have time. We didn't have time. You definitely had time to do a 360, but I understand. We didn't have time for that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Okay. So you and I were recently together, which was really fun. I mean, don't say it like that. No, I'm going to leave it just like that. Just like the world record. We were recently together. Moving on. Great time. We, among some other people, went to Vegas because Kimmel was being honored. And we were on an airplane together. We were shooting the shit. Not just an airplane. We were on a PJ.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Of course. Well, I would have thought, oh, this place is known for their English muffin. I better get one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah. Did she even play the game in her head like, oh, sourdough's got less? No. She didn't even make it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And a lot of people... I can live with my... Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Oh, he did. And he's a chef for people who don't know. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
The word cherry existed before your podcast. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
You need to. I need to text Bert. I guess it'll be a three-way text, but.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Bert Kreischer. But he's not allowed to be on a text with a woman, which is hilarious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So I have to be on any communication between the two of you. You do. What would be incredible is you guys did start a huge affair and it was just in front of me. And I'm like, well, I don't know how this helped. Now I just have to observe this whole thing. What if because I was there, he was felt free to just.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, like I think about your body all the time. What did I say? It was all the time. What?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It's not a good look for me. Why is it not a good look for you? I'll tell you, and I say this all the time on here. When black people are showing wealth, I'm like, fuck yeah. It was impossible for you to get it. Fucking let it rip. I don't mind at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Sure. And so she said, Monica won't leave the room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Monica loved it. That's not why she's not here. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Have you tried the 360-degree turn? I said 365-degree, didn't I? I'm just now remembering. That's how many days are in a year. There's only 360 degrees in a circle, though. How embarrassing. Some gearhead's like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Okay, I had to get involved with something. And I'm wondering, I think I finally did it right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And it was one, it was during one of, but this was post reset. So this was fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
We found this like very, very desolate beach. Nobody's there. We pull over. The girls are playing in the thing. Then it's time to leave. We're walking back. Delta steps on a thorn. She's barefoot. She then goes and takes a breather.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So now Lincoln and I are just sitting in the car and I'm looking in my rear view mirror and there's a woman walking with two little kids. through this little dirt parking lot. And when I say little, this little boy is like two and a half. A little blonde, cute little boy. And I hear, get away from that car. And I look and she grabs him by the neck. Oh no. And drags his little body.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Right? Like there's no, I'm not gonna watch this woman do this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It was really rough. Lincoln saw it, too, if I need backup. Well, I trust you. It was abusive. It was bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It was a private jet. But would you agree there's a difference? Mm-hmm. No one's going to be rooting for me to be on a private jet, nor should they. I root for you. Because we know each other. And you know I'm from the fucking bowels of hillbilly country, Michigan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And then he tries to get free, and then she grabs his head again, and he falls. And so I roll down the window. I'm about to get out. And then I roll down the window, and I go, no, no, no, gentle, gentle, gentle, gentle. It's gentle, gentle, gentle, but also the subtext is, I'm getting out of this car if you don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And she let go of his neck. And said, come on. Then she grabbed his hand and started guiding him, which was a huge improvement.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, the woman and the boy looked alike. She had some hard miles on her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I fucking hate that there's little people who are getting treated like that. I hate it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I know, because again, we already talked about it, but it's like, I'm not going to say anything that's going to change this woman's behavior for life, obviously. And in fact, that could probably make it worse. Yeah. And probably she might take it out on the kid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And you need to know, however hard you are on me about my aggressive reactions to things, Lincoln, she will not stand for it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, it's great. I'm glad she's like that. And she was very approving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
She was. She thought I had done it well. Okay. So I finally... Did it in a way no one was mad at me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
No, but my inclination was to get in front of her face, like, so that she knew I'm not asking you to stop doing this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Well, it would have. She would have. In the moment. Yes, yes, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I don't know either. And I just happen to see a lot of stuff. So I saw this family getting a fight behind us. And it was the way the man was talking to the wife was such a bummer. And she had no, like... And she went like comatose. And then she had to leave the table with one of the boys that was pissing the dad off. And then I saw a grandpa grab a phone out of a teenager's hand at breakfast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah. Okay, so we're on this flight, and we're talking about gambling. And I already know that you gamble. Yeah. I'm fixing to gamble when we're there. We have a little two-hour break. And then you're like, let's play together. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And I was like, holy cow, people are handling their business in certain ways. And then the anthropologist in me really has to now work through this whole thing where I go like, well, you're assuming your way is the correct way. Yep. And clearly people have been raising kids all kinds of way in every kind of culture. Yep. And I don't want to be high and mighty and self-righteous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It's... I know. But there's a lot of shit going down. People are really rough. And also going... And people are having a harder time than me, right? So that's in the mix. I'm not stretched to the limit. You know, I'm not, I'm not my mom on vacation where it's like, I can't afford the vacation we're on, but I really want to show my kids the country.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
What was tempting is to go all these spoiled rich people. But that's wrong. I was at the shitty hotels too. And it was gnarly there too. You know what it is? It's hard to raise kids. Adam Grant just had a post. You would have loved this. I was debating whether or not to forward it to you. But Adam Grant had another social scientist on that's done all this work. Oh, I saw it. You saw it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, and it's just in a nutshell, it just says kids make your life worse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Now, then you get into, though, you get into the Yuval Harari, like your narrative self does feel one way and whether or not you should be happy all the time. That's what you're always servicing. That's a bigger thing. But it was interesting that the data is absolutely consistent and undeniable. They make your life worse. Yeah. So, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And I don't know if I was very forthcoming in the moment, but I was starting to get really fearful that we were going to sit down and you were going to be playing like 2000 a hand. And I was going to be playing like 25 and feeling emasculated. And you go, we should play. And I'm like, yes. You did jump at the opportunity to do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
yes and yes i look it's just like that's where lincoln and i stuff comes up is that we've two know-it-alls in the family yep who gotta make the game plan yeah and of course like we get we get to the airport we take a little tram to the airport it ends at the terminal i know that the check-in's inside lincoln i read a sign it's down there and i'm like okay
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Okay, well, and then I say, even if you're right, it would make the most sense to peek in this one before we walk all the way down. I read the sign and I'm like, okay, I'm seeing that this is me. Like, this is what it was like to travel with me. This is what it's like to be around me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And if anyone should be able to figure out how to deal with this, it should be me. But I don't know how to because I'm the same way. And I'm like, there's the idea of me walking to another terminal that I fucking know United's not inside there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Again, I intellectually know I'm not going to die if that happens, but there's no way I can do that. Yeah. And then I'm like, you know, okay, so we're both this way. I'm 50 and I paid for all this. Does that not get me the tiebreaker vote? Shouldn't the parent have the fucking tiebreaker?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah, that guy I had diagnosed was, I paid for all this. You better be happy nonstop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
But in my mind, I'm like, oh, I'm going to feel like such a clown playing next to you. Thank God you decided to take a nap. Yeah, I did. Is what happened when we got there. And you went to the table. I went to the table and Kristen and I just gave it to him straight in the hiney. $225 we won.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So Link and I, you know, and then it's like, what line do you get in for anything? Link and I have a very strong opinion. And it's me. That's what makes it so hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I know more. Listen, I am percentage wise. I am right more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yes. Yeah. I should goddamn hope at 50 I know a little more about the world than my 12-year-old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Right. And like, that's it. And that's like, right. But that's not going to work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
She's like me. She'll walk. Okay. Literally. Like, this is why it's, it's like, it's nuclear assured annihilation. She and I will both, we're both the type of people that will be like, fine, you guys go do it the wrong way. I'm going by myself to do it. And this is bad. But I'm admitting this to you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
So I know if push comes to shove, she will walk by herself away from us and go to where she thinks it is at. So I have got to prevent that because she's that strong. And I love it about her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
We could work on. We're working on it. We are working on it. And all to say, I was quite proud when I got home of the job I did, even though I did things wrong and everything. I do like who I am.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I tried that way with her for a while. Yeah. And I want to believe I'm smart enough to go, well, this is what my dad did. And my dad reaped what he sowed. I said, fine, I don't need you. Like if I'm going to, if to be with you is to surrender to your will, guess what? I don't need to be with you. So I know I had that in me to walk away from him. And I know she has it in her too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And I'm not going to let that happen. So that's the driving force behind me going, I have to do it differently than my dad did because I know what the result was. I was, look, I need her more than she needs me emotionally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
No, no, because I was there. I'm like, I don't care if I don't talk to my dad for a year, which happened numerous times. That's way easier on me than it was on him, I'm sure. And if Lincoln didn't talk to me for a year, it would devastate me. So I have to be realistic. It's like the thing that Bill Gates's therapist finally told him is you're fighting an unfair war.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Your parents are going to love you And never withhold that from you. And you can withhold it for them. And it's not a fair war.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And you're going to win. And so that's on the table. So I, if there's two variables in this equation and one of them has to bend, it's got to be me because it's not going to be her. I know it because I was the same way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Listen, but I think you have to be realistic about what you're dealing with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
No, she wouldn't. Yeah. Yeah. It also helps that she's a girl and I'm a boy. There's something there that is helpful that my dad and I did. My dad and I had that thing and then male on male. So it was like, you know, and he wasn't around. So I only saw him once in a while. That's what I'm saying. This is such a different scenario.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yes, I would see him once a month and he'd tell me what the program was. And I'm like, according to who? Why are you? Anyways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I just know, and you've seen it in me. I can... I can destroy myself in another person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I do. Yeah. And I think I gave it to my beautiful little girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And so I just have to do everything in my power to not be my dad. Yeah. And surrender because I want to be with her and I don't want her to write me off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
She does all the time. Yeah. And so here's what's great. Because I don't get in these wars with her. She will come to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And she comes to it. So she has built a lot of trust with me. If I thought she never corrected her behavior and she was just my way or the highway and fuck everyone. And then I don't even care and I don't redirect and I don't feel bad and I don't come say sorry. That's one thing. That's not at all what I'm dealing with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It's in the moment I can have a power struggle with her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Or I can have the faith that she will recognize she was being really bullheaded and she'll apologize, which is 90% of the time what happens. And I wasn't given that leash.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
My mother did. So my mother knew how to deal with me. Obviously, I never had any power struggles with my mom. Right. And Lincoln and Kristen knows how to handle Lincoln in a way that I just I can't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And in my defense, Delta has things that they just don't bother me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And they bother Kristen because they're her thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
There's two things, and Kristen always is pointing this out to me, and it's very, very true. So there's, I'm not saying she's ADHD. I'm not saying that. She's not been diagnosed with that. She goes through school just fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
But I just had Tim Simons on yesterday. Mom's car with Aaron.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And it was so fun. And he got diagnosed very early with ADHD and he knows a lot about it. And he was telling me some very interesting things about it. One of them is there's really common comorbidities with ADHD. One of them is an overactive sense of justice. Like a really strong, like it drives you nuts. And then self-abuse. Yeah. when you've erred, like self-flagellation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
But then there's just simple mistakes. Like I tripped.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I made a mess. I spilled the thing. I said something I shouldn't have said. Those kinds of things, Delta can shrug right off. Those kinds of things, Lincoln will ruminate on for a very long time. Like very self-flagellation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And so I know what it feels like. So my thing, it's not like I won't listen to authority as much as like, if I have evaluated something as unjust, like I'm a human too, with a brain too, and we have two different opinions, it is unjust that yours just overrides mine. That was such a hard thing for me. It happened with teachers, it happened with stepdads, it happened with my brother.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It was like, we're equal. I don't care that you're older. I don't care that you have a degree. I don't care. Like I'm a human and you're a human and we both are intelligent and I have one opinion, you have another. And you're telling me I have to let go of mine because what? Because you have some status, whether it's age or this or that. That was so painful for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great time. I have one really good Lionel Richie story. What's that? It's not even really good. It's just, I met him and it was so exciting. We were flying back from Nashville. We had been promoting a movie at Bonnaroo, that music festival. And then Lionel Richie was there performing. And so we get on the airplane and we're like four rows behind him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I'm not excusing it, but I do know it was extremely painful for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It does earn you. It does. But it does. And I'm looking at it from that also mature point of view. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
It is. And then on the other side is the reward of it is also, it's equally matched.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Okay, yeah, yeah. And then I'll find the diabetes song.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I can't believe you don't want to hear that. It's easy for me to find. I found it. Because of course I sent it to Aaron.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And it's really important people take the time to watch a clip of him doing it because you're not possibly imagining the golf club being as long as it actually is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yes, it looks like he is fishing off of a pier. Yes, it does. Yes, it's crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And I say to Chris, I'm like, oh my God, Lionel Richie's over there. And we're like peeping him and everything. And then we get distracted and then life carries on. And then all of a sudden I look up and he's standing there. And he goes, hi, I'm Lionel Richie. And I go, oh my God, I know you're Lionel Richie. We love you. We're chatting, chatting, chatting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
And I said, Lionel, I know what your best song is. And he said, what is that? And I said, this is your life. And he goes, I think that is my best song. Wow. And then he left and I'm like, this is so great. He does not think that's his best song.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Why can't I? I'm not the best at anything. You need to be the best at something to sign the best.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
No. Coltrane could have done it. Eddie Van Halen. There's a bunch of people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I heard Sting talking about that once on a talk show, and he said it was perfect. Within the first 20 minutes of the rehearsal, he and Stuart Copeland were in such a big fight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
That's how we like to colloquially say it. Elephantitis. Elephantitis of the nuts. Yeah, exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Well, I think he probably saw us when we got on, but we assumed he doesn't know who we are. And then I guess he just decided, fuck if I know, but that happened. And that was very exciting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah. Let's sort that out. Lionel's a great guy. I do imagine his house being a very special situation. When you bought a house in Bel Air in the 80s, it's its own thing. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Oh, no. I'm scared. He's going to drop everything. What is it? I've just left surgery. Did you watch that Greatest Night in Pop doc? It's the documentary about them coming together to, was it We Are the World?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yes. I've seen that. Isn't that incredible? Yes. Because Lionel's incredible. Everyone's incredible. Daryl Hall's incredible. Yeah. And then Michael sings and you're like, fuck, among all these people, there's one person's actually like 20% better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
Yeah. How about when Stevie had to do Bob Dylan in his Bob Dylan voice so Bob knew how to sing? That was the crazy part, man. I thought it was Bob singing. Yeah, no. Stevie Wonder also, genius among geniuses. Okay, so let's talk about this. Stevie Wonder can see. Oh, this is a big rumor. Can see? Yeah, Stevie Wonder can see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Anthony Anderson
I need to go deep into that. Stevie Wonder can see. Here's what I've seen. I'm sure you've seen them. I've seen some videos. There are a lot of people that believe he can't. And there's a couple moments on stage where like a mic stand falls and he catches it. Yes. Okay, tell me why.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Maus. Hi. Hello. Our returning guest, he was phenomenal the first time he was here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Oh, they're interviewing last night. I'm watching on KCAL. You've got a family that just came here from Ukraine escaping the war and their apartment building burns down. Oh, those people are going from war zone to war zone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I just want to push back and say it feels unique, but I actually think it's completely consistent with what happens on planet Earth. So when we were at Carnegie Mellon, you had the Serbian-Croatia genocide with like a million and a half people and the kind of things they were doing to the people as they killed them. They really surpassed anything that's happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Rwanda. So it's been ever present. And I think the real thing to remember is... It's a challenging place. There's 7 billion of us. A lot of shit goes wrong. A ton of stuff goes right. We're not unique and we got to carry on and we got to continue to make it a little bit better because this is status quo on planet earth. It just feels because we're raising kids now. So we have a different lens now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
than we would have had if even we went through the pandemic without kids. We're like, oh, this is kind of cool. You drink all day and you hang out with friends and blah, blah, blah. But now that we have kids, you're like, wow, they haven't seen other children for a year. That feels scary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So I just think our lens obviously changes because we have these little people we care about so much and we're turning this world over to them and we're a little scared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Proposals gone wrong. Yeah. I guess that could be a wider net than first meets the eye. So you would think just wedding proposals, but there's like business proposals. There's yeah, there's proposals. So proposals gone wrong. Crazy 23 and me DNA testing stories. This is my popular demand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
There's always people want to be mad at the mayor. They want to be mad at the governor. They want to be mad. There's so many people that are trying to line up and blame this horrific thing on a single individual.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Fuck you all. You should never have back on your show again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But what's funny, I was thinking, I was reading your book this morning and you have the line in there, which is comedy is tragedy plus time. And I was like, well, we're going to engage without the benefit of time. Yeah. We've had Polaron. We've had a lot of different people who was like some people's first week on Saturday Night Live was 915.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
People have had to decide whether or not they're going to carry on. I remember that episode. That was Giuliani coming on. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But them having the ethical dilemma, is it appropriate to be funny right now? And everyone gets to choose how they handle the stress. And so I have a way of handling the stress and mine is through laughing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And all I would ask is like, if that's not your way of handling stress, that's Cool. Do it however you want. But I don't think anyone can tell someone else what they're allowed to do to handle it. Amen. I promise you, if my house was engulfed in flames, I would be making a joke because I've done it. I'm making a joke on my dad's dying. This is how I process it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
If you can give yourself that little burst of happiness, it's a reminder that it's still possible on the other side. It's a great reminder. Like, oh yes. And I will laugh and I will experience fun and levity for me. Everyone gets to do it their own way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Where are you guys? You're leaving though, right? You're deserting this town and it's time of need.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But also, I just want to touch on one other thing. Yesterday, I was like, I need to stay on my bike riding schedule. I have a New Year's resolution that I ride to the observatory twice a week. So yesterday I get out there and I start riding up the hill. And the gates are closed to go up into Griffith Park, but I'm presuming for cars. And so I go around the gate and I get halfway up the thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And then some rangers roll down on a loudspeaker and they let me have it a little bit. And they're like, it's closed. And I go, oh, yeah, to cars. And they're like, no, it's closed. There's no hiking. All that to say, I'm like, why can't I ride my bike? Get home and I realize, oh, all these motherfuckers, there are arsonists out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
In force. So they have no clue who is up in the hills to start a fire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yes. Love to our own devices. We would do wildcard nurses and poop your pants stories exclusively. OK. And the fourth is at home DIY project gone wrong. Yeah. Yeah. There's got to be a lot of those. So please enjoy Josh Gad. We are supported by Mint Mobile. It's time to leave your overpriced wireless plans jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages. Get huge savings with Mint Mobile.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And this is where we file into our natural state. So yesterday, Kristen is out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Your co-star from the film Frozen 1 and 2 and hopefully 3 at some point. She's out doing the Lord's work with the children and I'm selfishly taking a bike ride. But I'm also nonstop with my buddy Brandon from the LAPD. She's thinking about helping and I'm thinking, yeah, I can feel the energy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I was at the gas station late at night and a lot of the boys were out on dirt bikes and it felt like Detroit on Devil's Night. I was like, yeah, the young men are going to get into some shit. I get it. She's out helping, but I'm like, okay, we got some chance I will have to defend the family. At some point. And that's where my focus ends. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Did you report these potential hooligans? No, I just hit him up and I said, I was just at the gas station. The boys are out. He's also from Detroit. I'm like, it feels like devil's night Detroit. And he goes, yeah, isn't it wild? You can feel it in the air. I'm like, yeah, it's like palpable. If you used to be a scumbag, I'm on that wavelength.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I said, if I'm 21 and I'm broke, which I was, and I'm drunk and I think, oh yeah, all these rich people's house burnt down, they took a bunch of stuff, but probably there's a bunch of jewelry and stuff just sitting on the ground. Your mind starts wandering and I don't have anything and they have everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Even someone who's on the spectrum of dirt baggery, they can be midway through and convince themselves. You can just see people making the argument, or at least I can see that happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
To prey on people who are victims is a rough look. But again, if you're penniless in the middle of nowhere and you're looking at multimillionaires.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And you're really like starting to strategize. I'm saying I'd be lying if I couldn't understand the rationale. Am I at risk for me?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Well, I did notice you upgraded last time you were here in a Lexus 300 four door sedan. Right. You're clocking. And now you're in an upgraded Lexus SUV. That's a nice car. What are you doing right now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And we took a long look at it because I said, this is the car I'd put you in. It's so South Florida.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I do understand it. First of all, I don't own any of them, but they're great cars. You can drive them for a million miles. I love them. They get the job done. They're not flashy, but they're comfortable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'd imagine what he's jealous of, and I don't want to speak for you, you're jealous of my enthusiasm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Absolutely. I wanted to start this episode. It's too late, but we've never started with a hard like this and I wanted it to go. Hi, if you're joining us, we're here with Josh Gad, author of Engad. That just felt like something I never got to do. That's such a PBS 1979.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I could answer, but I don't trust what the answer would be. I think my soul and heart always wanted to be NPR, but I grew up in an area where toxic masculinity was the currency. I didn't have a dad and I was doing all the things. So I would like to believe, yes, I would have become Ira Glass. But the truth is, I probably would have tried to be a knockoff Howard Stern. Right. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Not as good as Howard Stern. So I've just through many years been able to finally pursue and embrace the person the little boy wanted to be and not necessarily the aggro dude that was sending a message to everyone not to try to hurt me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yes, I admire. They're like great comedians who they're pacing so slow and they're not scared. They talk so slow and monotone and they're not worried at all. They're losing people. In fact, the more boring is the more into it I am. Yes. But what I think you're highlighting, which is worth highlighting, is our heroes. They were Trojan horses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Letterman came with the promise of irreverent, provocative comedy. But what you stayed for and fell in love with is you were like, oh, I think he's always smarter than the person he's talking to. Did you ever do Letterman? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And the delivery. Somehow he's confrontational without ever feeling like a bully. He's magic. But Stern's the same thing. You come for him making fun of Ronnie, but really it's the intelligence that keeps you there for a long time. And Conan, Conan's so insanely smart. It's crazy. So he's making dumb, dumb jokes, but you know, there's this intelligence behind it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And I think for me, that's the appeal of all those guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Try them today and get ready for some Tropic Time. Visit TropicalSmoothieCafe.com to find a cafe near you. We are supported by YNAB. Do you experience excessive bouts of money stress? Oh my gosh, do I. Do you avoid your bank balance like it's a text from an ex? Do you feel guilt and second guessing about your spending? If you answer yes, you may be suffering from financial funk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Before starting, ask your wallet if adding more joy to every day and every dollar is right for you. Listeners of Armchair Expert can claim an exclusive three-month trial subscription for free with no credit card required at www.ynab.com slash dax. That's y-n-a-b dot com slash dax. Life is short. Spend it well with YNAB. We are supported by Liquid IV.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
New Year's resolutions are often about creating new rituals for yourself. Mine is sprinting this year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
They even have sugar-free flavors like raspberry lemonade and white peach. I love that piña colada. It is so delish.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
That's 20% off your first order when you shop better hydration today using promo code DAX at liquidiv.com. So I went back. We're almost exactly at five years since you were here last time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. We are supported by Peloton. Peloton can keep your goals on track no matter what season of life you're in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Would you have thought that? No, I don't think about the show very much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I mean, I don't remember your car. But to save your family's life, if I said, how long ago were you here? What answer would you have given?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Just to alleviate any shadow talk you're having. I said to my wife, I'm fucked. I don't really know what to do. We had two episodes that were going to easily come out because I was going to record them on Thursday. And I don't know what to do. I'm like, who's in town and who would even be willing? So we start thinking. And then I walk by on our kitchen table. Your book is sitting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And I go, well, fuck, Gad's got to be promoting this book. Call him. It wasn't, let's go to the end of the list. It was like, God, Gad, set this book on my fucking dining room table. And I was like, oh, duh, he's got a book to promote. He should be in anyways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Can't wait to see you when the dinosaurs come out of the ocean and start cobbling up people. I'm really concerned about my third appearance on this show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Can I tell you what I love about you? You are so fast and witty and fun. And I am, I don't want to label it competitive, but I'm not going to let someone operate at 120 miles an hour while I'm next to them going 60. It's just not in my nature.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
You think so fast and you're so funny that it brings out the best side of myself. But I'm not an expert in anything. That's not true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
This whole fucking forensic NFL bullshit I was learning about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Whether you're starting a new chapter or looking for a way to mix up your routine, Peloton has a variety of classes and class lengths that adapt to all the seasons in your life. Whether you want to try a new type of exercise from cycling to Pilates to yoga, running, and so much more, there are a huge variety of classes to fit whatever you're looking for that day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
In his book, he lays out the options for a high schooler. And he's like, OK, the jocks are the athletes. It's not going to happen. Pretty accurate. Cheerleading. I just don't fit in the outfits, you said. Yeah. And then Model UN, insufferable. And then you get to forensics.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'm so glad that you start the book in the way you do. First of all, it's very, very well written. Did you write it? No, chat GPT. Okay. God, they got your voice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
They really do. They have it down. It's really, really well written. But you start with your personal story, which of course starts with your parents. And we touched on it last time, but your dad's almost out of a movie. Tell people about where your dad came from. We've had this conversation, but every time it surprises you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
They then moved to Israel when he's 12 and he learns to cut diamonds there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Does Kumail still look like my head? Yeah, I've been texting with him nonstop about our bodies. He's my only outlet to send shirtless photos of myself anywhere. Really? I can't send them to women. Do you think Kumail would welcome me sending him shirtless pictures of myself? We'd love the mail for him. All right, I'm going to send him. You should. No contact.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Or if you just want to try a new trainer, Peloton has world-class instructors to keep you motivated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'm giving you Brandon's number from the LAPD and then Kumail's. It's all on a chain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
The LAPD buddy would be like, get me the fuck off this chain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Great show for him. It's almost Cirque du Soleil. You could not speak English and very much understand what is happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Peloton is everything you've ever wanted to try whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power with Peloton at OnePeloton.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Could you sense this was a mission of repair or just curiosity?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
That's a pattern because I think one of the meanest things he did to you without probably any awareness that it was mean, he's left when Josh is a kid. Josh has no idea why they got divorced. Mom throws him out. And then when he's eight, two years later, he invites him to the Sheraton. By the way, that was the place when we were kids. Oh, it was. Remember the Sheridan? Of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
My mom took us there to tell us she was divorcing my third dad. Why is that? That was like the four seasons for us. So you get invited to the Sheridan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I start spiraling. And he swears you to secrecy. This is the cruelty that he probably wasn't even aware of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Can I share one part of my story? Because I happen to be writing about it just recently. Even at a young age, I was a little skeptical. So I would go to his house on the weekends and he was so loving. That's a gift I had. He was so affectionate for a dad in the 80s. He hugged us and kissed us and snuggled us and showered us in love. And he wasn't around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So there's this like huge disconnect from like what I would feel in that moment, but then the actions afterwards never matched it. And it just created this huge dissonance where I'm like, what is this? I appear to be the most important thing in the world. And then I don't see him for three weeks and he doesn't show up for my brother's field hockey games.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
We all know is very important to my brother. And also how's he living this kind of rich lifestyle and we're fucking dead broke. How's that happening? So there's all this really just confusing. How do I compute the messages versus the actions?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I also think it sets you up for this pattern you then replicate in life where it's just like highs, lows, highs, lows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Because the dads are always winning you back over. They feel bad. And whether they are consciously aware of it or subconsciously. But yeah, when they have you, they're putting on this incredible show and they're going to make up for all this time. So it's like you get pretty used to these insane spikes of love bombiness and then nothing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
For me, it can kind of fuck up all relationships going forward because it's like, this is the pattern of love.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Right. That was hard. When you were choosing to honor your dad's request to keep the other family secret, was that out of loyalty to him or were you afraid of how that would make your mom feel to know? A hundred percent the latter. The latter, right. You're responsible for mom's mood as a little boy. You're protecting her feelings from finding out about the other family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Josh Gad. What a party Josh is. Josh is a Tony Award nominated actor. He was in The Book of Mormon, which I got to see him in. I feel very lucky.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
You've never invited me over. I've invited you over, too, albeit for work. Still, it's in. I don't have a podcast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
It's been done and you could. No. Back to work. Ideally, you get enough leverage at some point that really you just get to work with all your friends. Right. That's the apex goal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
you're crushing you're in ap classes you're the class president you're a three-time champion you apply to northwestern in fact eight of you from your school apply and then you're gonna go to juilliard or you apply to juilliard and then you get rejected from northwestern and you're like i can't wait to go commiserate with these other seven dipshits who certainly didn't get it all of them got a class of 99 all got in except for me
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I love these reality checks every now and then, just when you're certain you're the king. I'm confused though, because in the book you go and you audition for Juilliard and it seems you got in, but then you went to Carnegie Mellon. I did not get into Juilliard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Which is also a beautiful story. Someone forces you to do drama, basically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And you do it and you fall in love with that as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Can you imagine just watching something and saying nothing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
OK, so let's address the obvious context in which we record this. We had a guest who canceled. Well, we had two guests that canceled for reasons they could not avoid the L.A. fires. And so I called you as one of my friends. Yes. And conveniently, you have a book out. So you do need to do some promotion. That's convenient. Have we started, by the way?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But I think the group that went sounds so fun because you describe a night. It was a three-story dormitory and there's a party and you drink a half a fifth of tequila and then you piss your jeans and then take a 20-minute nap. Have a threesome. Regroup. Go to the first floor, hook up with someone. Go to the third floor, hook up with someone and then make love to someone on the second floor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'm imagining from your high school experience to this experience. I don't know how on earth one would resist that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Okay, Josh, really quick. This is why I'm saying it's a blessing that happened to you then because I've brought this up many times on here. It's a trope in Hollywood. A lot of people end up getting enormous amounts of status and that wasn't their experience all growing up and they don't really know how to handle it. And I've seen it most often lead to this bizarre version of misogyny. It's like...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
These dudes have all these women that like them and they don't really trust it and they kind of hate them for it. Why don't you like me when I'm younger? I mean, I've seen that pattern materialize a bunch of times for people who got that attention and status late in life. Like Yuval. I don't even know why I didn't say him by name. We're all thinking it. Yuval's husband is gorgeous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
He joins him when he comes. But I think like, had you not had that thing, then you would have had an opportunity to do it later. Why does that result in anxiety? Just because you're very disconnected. Your identity is kind of fractured. I felt like a visitor in my body.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
This is something I also want to bring up. And I don't know how to tiptoe around it, but I'm just going to be dead honest. I was just thinking of you on my trip to Mexico City. So I'm with somebody who's on a version of a GLP-1 who's loving it. He more often is telling me like, it's so weird to see this stuff and not have that pull I normally have. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
If you listen to our first episode, we do 20 minutes on what the perfect day of eating would be. from your point of view, what you would start the day with. We got General Chow's chickens in there. We got everything bagel. We went through the whole thing. You're going to finish the night with sushi, but it'll be a lot of tempura.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And hearing the amount of joy you get from that, I literally thought in my head, I wonder if there'll be people when GLP-1s are virtually over the counter, if they'll choose not to do that because so much of the joy in their life is that. They don't want that relationship where it's not appealing. I'm on a GLP-1.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'm clearly playing a cello on the deck of the ship as it goes down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
We are supported by Quince. You know, Kristen's been ordering a ton from Quince.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yeah, and I told her, you know, they're a sponsor. And she couldn't believe it. Being stylish and comfortable allows you to feel your best, making you ready to tackle anything that comes your way. That's where Quince comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
We are supported by Lenovo and Intel. If your computer could use an upgrade, we've got your solution. Lenovo and Intel have joined forces to engineer the best laptops in the industry. Cool, quiet, thin and powerful. Lenovo Aura Edition AI PCs boast best in class battery life and astonishing graphics. They've thought of everything so you can focus on things that you actually want to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Working in a cafe? Shield mode guards your privacy. Taking a meeting? Collaboration mode optimizes your camera. They also have a Smart Share feature, which lets you transfer photos from your phone to the Lenovo Aura Edition PC with a simple tap. No more waiting for uploads. You'll get that photo on your computer in seconds. How cool is that? And if you need support, they offer Smart Care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Elite support teams will help rapidly resolve any issues, and they're available 24-7, 365 days a year. Whatever you want to create, It's possible on your Intel AI PC. Learn more about Lenovo Aura Edition AI PCs at lenovo.com slash aura. Yeah, I like to evaluate it in a world where it's completely ubiquitous and it's available.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I think that's where you need to place this theoretical thought process when you're going to decide if you're judgmental. Because I don't give a fuck if anyone does anything like that that's safe and doesn't have many side effects. That makes them feel better. I don't know why I wouldn't want that for somebody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But yes, we're in a situation where a good part of the city is on fire. Continues to be. I will say it's not at the peak of scariness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
It's treating a disease. I'm not saying everyone should be on it, but for the people I know who are on it, it's making their life a lot better. Yes. Why would I not want that for them?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Because she's worried you're not going to confront the core thing that's driving it. But again, that's position is binary. It's either or. It's like either you choose this route or you choose to confront. Obviously, you can do both. Yeah. Or a divorcer. Right. Well, we'll see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yeah, unfortunately. And then we'll go from there. This is not your wife, but I can easily see a hypothetical where someone... fell in love with someone that was larger. And there is perhaps some shadow in their mind that says, well, I wonder if they had all the options, if they would have still picked me. And now they're going to be thin and they're going to have all the options.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And there's fear behind that. I mean, I think that that's fair. Some people hate that when their partner becomes a gym rat and they're in great shape, they're like scared all of a sudden that they won't be enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yeah. There's no version of you that still wouldn't be dying to be with her. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Listen, Josh, I would honor this fear if I thought you were a one trick pony who fell through tables as their main deal. You're like a crazy good dramatic actor. You're an improv genius. You sing like a motherfucker. Olaf is you. All blessings to all the writing. But that creation is Josh Gad. Like that fear for you should be nowhere in sight. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I actually am going to give you $100 for coming in last minute. Yeah, I already planned on it. I put my billfold in my pocket. Is it in cash? It's in cash. It's old fashioned. So I don't need to write it off. But now I do because it's on record. But then you'll say you gave it back to me after and it was just a bit. Oh, smart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But really, you'll be fucking blowing a hole in that hundo on your way home. You're going to come home with so many trinkets to your life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
No, but I can gift you up to $18,000 tax free. I'll take it. Yeah. So tell me about the gap between graduating from CMU and then I guess it would be Putnam.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
You were just summarily released from the ground. Yeah. And you were studying college. Yeah. And I fucking loved it. It's out of necessity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And then Frozen, Pixels, The Wedding Ringer, Beauty and the Beast. Oh, Gutenberg, the musical, too. That was recently. I saw that, too. Yeah. He has a book out right now. It's very, very well done. A beautiful memoir called In Gad We Trust. This is a really fun interview. It was at the apex of our terror. Keep that in mind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
You're looking at me as if I'm going to make a list, but I bet I can get the list made. I don't want to personally lie to you and commit that I'm going to make the list and publish it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
You know what's weird? I've never to this moment considered Although I experienced it being on stage at the Groundlings, but where theater is so different than doing a movie is you don't really know while filming the movie who's popping and stealing it. But on a stage, boy, the fucking verdict's in every 30 seconds. And it's very obvious what the response to the crowd is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So if you're someone that's still doing a great job, but you're third in the crushing it, you know it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
That's why I refuse to lie to you even in these pressing times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Well, if I can make an excuse for you a little bit, or not even excuse, but more of an explanation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Isn't it true you're at fault for these high winds that just set LA ablaze? This is the same thing with black folks, with women. In your mind, if you're not the best, they're going to kick you out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Also, do you give it the power that like when I fail publicly, it's actually going to be so powerful, the failure that it'll make you go back and reevaluate everything you thought thus far. I do it all the time. Yeah. Like it has the power to not only fail in that moment, but erase everything that happened before.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
enjoy and do a trust exercise every night and it was fucking incredible that's the thing the ultimate victim ends up being you because you are robbed of the experience so that whole experience you had which is among 10 experiences on broadway like that you didn't get to experience I didn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Because you are so in the future and so behind and all these places other than this bizarre gift that doesn't really come around for people ever in this business. And yeah, you can run the risk of missing the whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I have two stupid questions unrelated to your book. Yeah. In my research, I discovered something that is an Alexander Payne movie waiting to happen. So your mother and stepfather were involved in a legal battle over a burial plot that was double booked. When I read that sentence, I was like, it's insane. If I was pitched that as a studio executive, I'd go, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yes. You can imagine you going and paying your respects at the wrong grave for years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
It is, it is. There's no good solution. There's solutions. All of them suck. But that's a good device for a film. There's really no solution that's going to make anyone in this scenario happy. Now I'm worried about what the second question is. I would urge you to tell people about Picture Face Lizzie because it's another book you have out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
The aerial stuff is blowing my mind at night in a mountain range. Zero visibility. Chinooks, everything right on top of each other, flying in complete blindness and dropping it bullseye every time. It's blowing away the Top Gun flight sequence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yeah. Parents are giving their kids advice that they themselves are incapable of following, which is hysterical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
In fact, when the fires were, again, I was making jokes. So the fires were getting closer and closer. They were a half mile from here, and they were starting to evacuate. And I said to the 10-year-old Delta, if it looks like we're going down tonight, I'm going to let you drink wine, and we're watching Pulp Fiction. No! There you go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'm not letting you leave this planet without seeing Pulp Fiction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Oh, my grandpa took me on opening day to Scarface in 1981 and I was six and I watched a chainsaw cut.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
My memory of the Thomas Crown Affair, I'm like, that is the funnest movie. I can't wait to show my, at that time, Lincoln was probably nine. I'm like, I remember the sailboat scene and the cool this and the caper with the bowler hats and the Magritte paintings. Cut to Brosman's making love on the staircase. And you're just sitting there and it's going on for a long time. Do you fast forward?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
He knows that's where some of the money is. Yeah. He's an incredible runner and a great kisser. So anyways, we're watching this scene that's now, you know, as I remember, maybe 30 seconds, which now feels like it's 11 minutes long. And Lincoln just goes, do people do that? Have sex? And she goes, no, on the stairs. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But by the way, that is a very good question. Is that real? And I go, actually, no. Only in movies do people have sex on the stairs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
This was nice. This was a good distraction. And your book is phenomenal. Thank you. It's really, really, really good. It's very honest and it's very well written and it's quite funny. You're never more than three sentences away from a Josh Gadzinger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Why don't I just write something in pen? And I wanted these book promotional things. You find a single arm cherry. You can go like, do you want this one that bags shit on in pencil?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
These things are true. It's a tragedy of really unimaginable proportion until we saw it. Also, the folks that have trained to fight fires in the craziest situation, they're enthralled. They're doing the job they've been training to do in the craziest circumstance. So I'm just imagining what it's like to be in the helicopter the whole time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I don't know. You know what it kind of looks like? Tell me. And I'm embarrassed that I'm forgetting. Did you watch the second iteration of Wet Hot American Summer? Yes. Do you remember the guy where he always wore three collars? What's that actor's name? I know he went to school at Jada Pinkett. Jordan. Joseph Gordon. Josh Gordon. Joseph Gordon-Levitt? No. Josh Gordon, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
That doesn't matter. Everybody reading Dad We Trust. And please go to Dax's curated list of places where you can support. Yes, please do that as well. And if you're struggling, I hope this two hours was a reprieve. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
That's correct. Only wear Burberry to swim. That's a Jay-Z line. That's when you know you've made it, when you only wear Burberry to swim.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Okay, great. Sure. Or maybe back out. I just blue-dried my hair. Blow-dried?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yeah, I got out of the shower, and I was like, what if we put a little mousse in our hair and then hair-dry it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
No, but it is slightly impacted by the guests we're going to have after this fact check.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
One of my classic compliments that has you feeling terrible afterwards. Whatever the most exotic lizard is, right? That's rough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And he knows this. He's also dangerous. He's like Snake in the Garden of Eden. So much Easter eggs happening right now. But we're going to talk about that. He's dangerous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But he's dangerous and colorful. So if you can think of another. I don't want to use unicorn because unicorns are for babies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But that's another thing I got to stop. I got to start blow drying my hair and I got to stop using unicorns.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
It must be incredible to be able to put your skills to the test like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Totally disagree. I would put you in the running back category.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Troy Lyons will get there. Yeah. No, you were low and powerful. So you would smash into those flamingos, little dainty toothpick slash chopstick legs. Okay. And it'd be... No one wants to know this, but it would be... Facts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
We've been like... Animal cruelty. True. But... No, I need something a little more dangerous, but also radiant and beautiful and colorful. So I'm thinking some of those lizards, they get pissed and they start walking on their back legs and they got their arms out. They're funny. Their mantles out. They flare out their big parachute around their neck and it's full of colors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Are you sure you know? If you're going to use a bird, will you use a predator bird?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yeah, because now it's probably about to pass the many, many self images you have that my children have generated and that Kristen's generated. Right. Because you have a lot of, as we know, photos of yourself, art of yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
We talked about that, though. Is it like would it freak someone out who came over?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And she made a figurine of you. Yep. With big boobs. And then Lincoln also made a big boob figurine, as I recall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
over leaning in the witness a little bit but those other ones aren't hung up i am going to display definitely lincoln's yeah um that's less about me yeah it's they're all not about you right in your defense yeah i didn't ask for them but we did ask the question what would be critical mass where even if they're not about you someone might go my lord this person
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
person has like 30 or 40 pieces of art depicting her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Even these famous artists, they tend to only do one or two self-portraits, as I recall. Right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's right. So there's all that art, too. And then there's the arm cherry art.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Real quick question. If you were a great artist, do you think you would do self portraits? And how many would you do? Like, I guess I'm delighted Van Gogh did a self-portrait because there were no cameras around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So my only idea of what he looks like is what he drew of himself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Well, that would be great. If you were a really, really talented artist and you could actually show us exactly what you see. Yeah. That would be incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
crickets are out oh yay i mean you're a good artist so you could do a self-portrait aren't they all those all those monsters i draw i think those are all secretly self-portraits it's also a little like that's how you're gonna spend your time drawing yourself yeah but you're always there right if you need a model for something it's like all you need is a mirror and you're that's true and you're sketchy yeah i'm probably not gonna do that okay should we dive into the heartbreak
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And I have to admit, when I'm watching those harrowing drops, many times I'm saying out loud by myself watching downstairs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And if I'm listing a top 10 experiences with my best friend Aaron Wakely, this is making the list. We were so beside ourself that we were down on the field at the Lions. I had the singular goal of standing next to Dan Campbell, the coach. Right. In hopes I could get a sense of just how big he is because I see him on TV. I also looked him up and it says 6'5".
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But these football players are infamously tall. They're all a little bit embellished because they were coming out of college and they're entering the draft and they want to seem as big and as enormous. So it's always like if you see 6'5", probably 6'3 1⁄2".
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'm just going to guess there's a standard 1 1⁄2". Flub. Flub. Fluff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So I was just hoping to stand next to him. So Keegan-Michael Key's there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Friend of the pod and the ultimate Detroiter. And I don't even pretend to be as authentic and committed to the Lions as he is. It's his life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So I'm a bit of a poser. But I'm as excited as anyone, so that counts. Yeah. Yeah. So he starts, he knows everybody, as you might expect. So he introduces me to Martha Ford. Do you know who Martha Ford is? Martha? Martha Ford. Martha Ford. Oh, no. Rob, will you look up her age while I'm chatting? She's 99. Ninety fucking nine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Monica, I have to tell you, of all the things, I mean, she's tied with Dan Campbell. So she, if I am to believe Aaron, was the daughter of the Firestone Tire dynasty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I wasn't even positive I knew. The Ford family owns the Lions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
They own the Ford Field, the arena. Martha rolls in on a golf cart and she gets out. Next thing you know, I'm meeting her. She's so tiny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I loved her immediately because she's so tiny. She has a walker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Okay, just checking. I think once you're 99, your standard hair is white.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
She is such a spitfire. So they get us to line up. The team photographer is going to take a picture of us. And Martha has a walker. She's 99. And we're about to take the picture and she goes... Get this out of here. She chucked her walker. She didn't want that walker fucking anywhere near this photo. And I was like, I love her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'll be standing for this and I don't want any evidence of this walker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Fun. When I was shaking, I shook her hand for a very long time because I loved holding it. It was like shaking hands with Delta.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Then I start talking to Dan Campbell's wife by chance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Brownish. Okay. Okay. From Dallas. Super fun. And before I know it, she's turning her attention away from me because Dan Campbell has walked out of the locker room. He walks directly up to her and gives her the longest kiss.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
It was so nice. I was like, oh my God, I just love this whole thing. Then she introduces me to him. I'm shaking his hand. I'm very excited to be shaking his hand and saying things. I'm not even sure what I was saying. You know, and I hope he would kiss you. Well, I'll get to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So it's some chit chat, chit chat. And then he gets distracted and then he's talking to Keegan and then he's going to carry on. And he gives Keegan a huge hug. And I'm like, I'm going to, well, even worse. I'm like, I'm going to hug him. Goodbye.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'm really afraid to say this because I'm afraid some Lions fans are going to blame me that this hug jinxed everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And by the way, I did think it in my head for a couple hours. I started feeling really guilty. Like, I shouldn't have. Did you? But I was like, all right. Yeah. Great meeting you. And I just kind of make it very obvious. I want a hug. And he hugs me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
No, no. His lats are like this wide. His neck is like, you know, this wide. Right. For the listener, I'm holding my hands very far apart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
He is, I don't think he's 6'5". It's a little bit like Toto. He's taller than me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Same. But he's definitely taller than me. Let's just say that. And he is just like hugging a redwood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
That's what I thought I was, but then I saw a video of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I just loved it. I hugged him. I felt his lats. They were so big.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Which is interesting. I just kind of wanted to feel his power a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
He got emotional in the post-game thing. I don't know if you saw that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'm beaming like I'm eight years old. Aaron is so excited.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
You should be. I'm not nearly as big as him, but my son is such a sweet boy. Oh, he was making you... Yeah, he was basically saying you guys were almost identical twins.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Do you just want to see a picture of me hugging him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So you were picturing like a monster from Game of Thrones. Like the hound or something?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Oh, no. He was a safety. This guy's extremely muscular. Oh, he's the most muscular.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
He looks like he could just run right through a cinder block wall. I don't want to know because I think he's younger than me, which would be a bummer, but I think probably true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And Aaron, I have the advantage that Aaron's behind me, so I'm closer to Aaron than... Look at this. Oh, look at his back, Monica. Look at the fucking width of his back and how tiny my hand looks on it. Oh, well... Actually, that's not my hand. That's Keegan's. Oh, my God, you were... That's a lot of beef right there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I know. Anyone who watches football has a crush on Dan Campbell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
He's like the rock of NFL. Okay. Ben Johnson. Oh, that's a heartbreaker. I don't want to talk about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
We lost our offensive coordinator, right? Offensive coordinator.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
No, the line thought the coordinator is now coaching the Bears. Bears took him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
What if you were dating him and I was dating Dan Campbell? We could go to the drive-in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But if he was still at the Lions, we'd both be rooting for the Lions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Okay, so it would work out perfectly. We could go to the games together and sit in the box and cheer for our boyfriends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
God bless you. God bless you. If you hugged him, you would know we're not terribly similar. But I am I'm delighted that that's your verdict. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Do you like it or I like it? Do you like the feeling of being small and safe?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
That's what I'm getting at. Like I'm hugging this guy and I'm like, oh, wow, I'm good. If whatever runs up behind us, a rhinoceros or whatever, like it's on him. It's his job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Exactly. It's a unique feeling for me to be being held by a man that is so much more powerful and big than me that I know he should handle the grizzly bear when it comes through the door.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Aaron, I feel this perfect connection. Like I'm a wrestler. He's a puncher together. We're great. We're a duo. I totally feel safer on air. I know that like, I don't need to worry about what's behind me. I know that Aaron's always looking out for me. I know Aaron that would jump through fire for me. I think he feels that way about me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So yeah, when I'm with him and this has been since seventh grade, I feel so safe all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
He'll do anything to protect me and vice versa. But if a rhino comes through the door, Aaron and I got to team up on it. I'm not like, Ryan, Aaron, go handle this. But if Dan Campbell was there, I'd be like, Dan, you're up. You would? Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I like being the guy that confronts the rhino, but also it feels very nice. That's great. To feel very safe that Campbell would be the one that would handle it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Okay. I'm sorry. So fast forwarding. Got to be on the field when they ran out. That was incredible. Met Will Ford. It was just very fun to meet the Ford family. Chatted with a lot of different people. And then we were... In the box with Roger Goodell. Roger Goodell is the NFL commissioner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And has been for a long time. And just to put, I know it's terrible to quantify it this way, but it made me recognize how esteemed the job is. His previous contract is $70 million a year. Woo! And he just signed another three-year contract. No one even knows what it is. But when you're paying someone more than Lewis Hamilton, I feel like you've got a pretty important job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
All this info is coming from Aaron because he knows way more about football than I do. So, Roger, people don't like him. Oh. I think it's the nature of the job. Yeah, no one ever likes the commissioner. No, no one ever likes the commissioner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Well, and I wanted to ask you because I sense just a hint of like there's some ethical dilemma about doing something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Probably. But I'm not entering with that kind of baggage. I don't dislike him or like him. I just am flattered he wanted us in his suite. I think largely because of that Golden Globes thing. Oh. I left one thing out. Before I went up to the suite, they played a video on the big screen of me watching the Lions game at the Golden Globes and then cut to, you know, and I had to wave and all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And I've been in that situation several times at Lakers games and these different games. They'll put me on the Jumbotron.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And it's at best, I would say it's in the past. It's like a C plus. Like, I feel like generally maybe 30 percent of the Lakers crowd will know it's me and be excited.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Because of that Golden Globes thing. It was legit. You know, I've always said I never got I'm always envious of that experience. The American Idol people get where they go to their hometown and they're in a convertible. I didn't think that would ever happen to me. And I'm like, when does that happen? That it happened. Oh, they showed that thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
They cut to me and the place legitimately went bananas. It was almost hard to accept, but it was, it was unbelievably lovely. I felt so like loved by my people then back. Okay. Good. L Roger. He was immediately most engaging with Aaron. Oh,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
who would asking aaron a ton of questions really engaging him talking to me but like he's not there he's not playing the status game there's a lot of people in love that fucking barry sanders is in the box he's the most famous lions player of all time and the best player of all time and the best running back in history he's in the thing roger could be chatting him up he's talking to aaron
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yes, he is. The air is like I was anticipating that I would have to see my way out of conversations while we you did your thing with the person who got us the tickets. And I was like, oh, this guy wants to chat with me, which he did. He's so down to earth and he was so lovely and hyper intelligent. And you can see why.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Sixty five. Because I did make one joke that got him. We were talking about the thing I talked about on the previous fact check where it's like you used to be younger than the players. Now you're older than them, but you're younger than the coaches. Yep. Then you're now I'm older than the coaches and I hope to be younger than the owners. Thank God Martha's with us. Ninety nine. Thank God. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And he and I weren't talking about that. And I said, well, how old are you? Then he goes, 65. And I go, well, you look fucking great, which is true. He's very fit and looks great. Yeah, look up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And I go, you look fucking great. You're definitely going to make it to 70. Oh. And that really tickled them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Okay. So as you can see, we were on fire. We were screaming. We were meeting people we idolize. It was the two of us were from down the road in a dirt road. And it was really, really fulfilling and beautiful. And I was sharing it with Aaron. And it was so special. Yay. Fighting back the tears the whole time. And the game starts. It's rough right from the get-go. We cannot get a stop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
They score every time they get it. Luckily, we score every time we get it. Our offense is great. And it just goes downhill. And it gets worse and worse and worse. And the crowd gets quieter and quieter and quieter. And I start thinking it's completely my fault because I haven't been to a game.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And I hugged Dan. I'm sincerely regretting hugging Dan Campbell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But I think all fans do this. Carly thinks that the two games they lost this season was because Lola, her dog, didn't have her Detroit Lions bandana on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I do. I was taking a lot of the blame for it. Sorry. It's not your fault. But I was also refusing to let the outcome Take away what a fun season it's been. And then this crazy experience with Aaron that was as good as it could possibly get.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I was saying to myself to try to get myself out of the dumps.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
You don't have any control over the defense. Be great if you did. Not that powerful. You're not that powerful. But I was afraid other people would think I was that powerful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'm not sure if it's not mine. I'm only like 70%. It's not my fault.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Well, I think a knee jerk would be all these people are suffering and I'm going to go do this thing that has really no value outside of just entertainment. And that feels like I shouldn't be having fun while my friends are suffering and dealing with loss. Right. I think that's an obvious thing to contend with right out of the gates. But my thing is me joining people in misery isn't a solution.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I feel like that's very universal. Rob, do you blame yourself when your team loses? Yeah, I've got lots of superstitions when I'm watching. Yeah. Oh, remember Rob Reiner was on. He said he went to the bathroom. They scored. So he had to keep going to the bathroom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Okay, great. Especially because you were a little bit on the fence on the New Year's, but whether you're going to continue on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Jan 1 is when I had norovirus yakking for eight hours. I'm kind of on board. The lion's loss. Go continue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Oh, yeah. I got it. You're saying across the board, January blows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
It doesn't help them. It doesn't help me. I have a job. And when I can do my job, I should do my job. Amen. All the other people are at their jobs. That's my takeaway. No one at 7-Eleven right now is going, do I feel guilty that I'm selling hot dogs right now when people are suffering? Like, no, I'm at my job because I have a job and that's my commitment. So That's my own personal takeaway on it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yeah. Yeah. And the rubber meets the road in a. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Well, because you can't work on future natural disasters as a cure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Right? You can only work on... the things that actually emerged in that situation. Yeah. That are personal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Like, we do have this genetic wiring to fulfill a role that when it happens, that thing really goes to the front and center.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I think I think you're you're almost your genetics take over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And this is one of the times where having a high A score is like really nice because you've already you've done a bunch of these. You know, I've done a bunch of police are at the house and fire departments at the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But I have a lot of practice like submersion therapy, which is like, yeah, we're going dads in the middle of the night. You live there now. That's disruptive. And then in sixth grade is fun. You know, like I have a ton of personal experience where it's like. I lived on the other side of those.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And I think for a lot of people that have been terrified a bunch of different times, one of the only benefits is like, you're like, oh yeah, here's another thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Well, you've probably just been ratcheting up what level for you is manageable over time as you've grown. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Like panic attacks and soul cycle versus now. There is a threshold that you've kept moving up. You can handle it and such and such.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And then, yeah, some things exceed that threshold. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
potentially dangerous, but this just happened, right? It happened with Tom Hanson. I was, to be vague intentionally, I was very much on the verge of blowing everything up in a very public way because of my anger towards something. And I ended up sharing about it in a meeting that he was at. And in that share, he learns of the timeline. So then he calls me the next day because he's my dad. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'm also just coming off watching the Churchill four-part documentary on Netflix. And you're watching what the folks in London did 57 nights in a row of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And I don't I don't call him back. And I don't I don't call him back for three days. And finally, in the third day, he's like, what the fuck's going on? Why won't you call me back? And I finally FaceTime him and I go, I didn't want to talk to you because I didn't want to hear the right answer. I didn't want. The right answer. And I know you have the right answer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And so I was avoiding you because I wasn't there. I still wanted to torch everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And I didn't want to be talked down. And I apologize, but I just. So in that way, I think we often call people that we want to confirm the answer we're looking for. Right. I do it. I know people call me. Someone wants to buy a motorcycle. They don't call their doctor. They call me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So I'm curious in that same construct, when you start texting people, do you feel that you start texting other people that you know will also be really nervous and not texting people that you know are going to tell you it's not bad?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
The dangerous part is like, what didn't happen was you didn't text me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And you knew it wasn't going to go well if you did, which is fair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And we invited you over and you didn't want to be around my energy, which would have been probably rough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Okay. But back to, do you think... Do you think that's happening at all? Are you calling the people that are going to most reassure you? Are they going to call the people that are going to confirm it's as scary and dangerous as you feel like it is?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Because I know what I would have done. I've been like, first of all, you will not die. Because you can get in your car and drive away from this fire. Right. I'd start going through the reasons that let's just start with. You're not going to die tonight. You're not going to die tomorrow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And if your car doesn't start, you call me, I'll pick you up. Yeah. You're not going to die.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
That would be like my first goal is just go like, there's a lot of things on the table here. Yeah. You might lose your shit. You might lose this beautiful house you've been building forever. Like we might get to that, but let's just, I would have just wanted to start with like, This isn't a tsunami and we live on the... No, I know. You know, like we can escape this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
him too yeah he was great posthumously but yeah you guys did like through weegee how did you do ai we talked to the estate see that's the promise there's a downside but that's the promise yeah i can chat with churchill but you know those people were waking up in a subway platform next to six kids there was no bathrooms and they went straight to work unbelievable they stayed calm and they carried on so people will have complaints about me working but that's my own ethic which is
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Well, there's probably two things going on. There's like a logistical call list.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And yeah, I probably would have been bad at it. I would have gone straight into what I do often and try to avoid, but still keep doing, which is like not observe you, but try to fix the anxiety. I would be trying to point out we are not going to die tonight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I wouldn't I would be bad at going. Yeah. You know, like I wouldn't be good at.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I saw some people. I'll just leave it at that. And when I saw them, this was on Thursday morning. The look on both of their faces was and I registered. Oh, fuck. Their house burnt down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
They were. I'm not at all shaming anyone for how they dealt with it. But I went, oh my God, clearly their house is gone. And it wasn't. So then I think the primal, primitive side of me goes, We can't have this is not productive. We are actually in a situation and there is not room for that. So snap into survival mode. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And so, yeah, I think I can tend to get frustrated in that situation that I think certain people are making things worse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And that was that was definitely the vibe of my household, you know?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And you have no more control over your reaction than I have over mine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I think all of those things would have been true if, if we were heavily interacting during all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And I accept it all. And I, and I cause a lot of that. Well, we, but the only thing I want to, the thing I need to say out loud that I hope you didn't feel is I would not be judging you or thinking you're stupid. Like if there was any part of you that's afraid to tell me how you feel, because I'm going to be judgmental of it. That wouldn't happen. That wouldn't have happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And I and I don't feel that way. I do get pragmatic about if everyone's bawling before we've got in the car, that's going to be a really hard. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But I'm not angry at anyone for having their emotions or judgmental of it. I recognize and accept it. And I'm not. I don't feel above it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Can I observe that you and I like I break four ribs, break my clavicle into five pieces, break my hand, break my humerus. Drive home six hours. We'll ride two more sessions on the track. Drive home five, six hours. Go to sleep. Don't go to the doctor. Don't go to the following day. So that's how I react to things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And then when you cut your hand, you were very scared and you reached out to a lot of people. So do I recognize the humongous delta between how you and I react to things? I absolutely do. But it's not over and I'm not under. It is. This is how Dax reacts for a myriad of reasons.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And this is how Monica reacts for a myriad of reasons. Right. And so that's the thing I wanted to bring up and make sure you're crystal clear on. I'm not saying overreact. I'm saying I see how you react to things. I can observe it. It's much different than how I react to things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
We can go right at it. There's a lot of things on the table here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Do I accept that about you? Yes. Do does it make me love you less? No. Does it make me not want to be friends with you? Absolutely not. Now, you and I also do a job together. Yeah. We sit down in here to do a fact check and I sit down on a couch and I look across to see you. And often you're upset about things like the election and you can't shake it because When you're in here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So now do I think inside of this box, we have to be entertaining and we have to kind of manage how much of a downer we are? I do professionally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I think we have an obligation like the newscasters got to come on and they can't start crying during the thing. Now they can feel however they want throughout the whole day. Go ahead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
It's fine if we have a bit of a difference of opinion on that. I do think this show has to be entertaining. And I don't think either of us can be in a shit mood for four weeks. I think we have an obligation to rise above that. I do. And we differ in that. And I understand what you're saying. I'm like, well, this is honestly me. And of course, I'm not trying to make someone not be honestly them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But I know if I'm listening to Howard Stern and Robin, and one of them is just in a dark hole for three weeks, I have compassion for them, but I'm going to go listen to something else at some point. I can't join someone on my hour drive where I'm trying to feel where I'm trying to distract myself from the things I'm worrying about. I'm looking for a reprieve. So I think it's I think it's OK.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
We do have different opinions on what this what obligation we have here to a degree. And I think there's only some I think there is room for us to be our real selves.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But I also think it needs to be monitored and we have to be responsible to do these people that rely on us for an escape. Yeah. Deserve something fun and funny. A lot of the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Oh, good. Yeah. He's funny. He's smart. He's emotional. He's truthful. Yeah. Yeah. What a soup to nuts. Same with Adam Scott. I was really delighted with the Adam Scott episode. Really, really delighted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
It does. It does. Well, here comes the great thing. And this is on topic because he's written a memoir. Yeah. I have tons of memories. I have tons of memories. And I know my kids don't remember shit. So, of course, I'm quite...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Communicating telepathically over a distance of miles, like in a town. Yeah. Meeting in a place called like Mind Mountain or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I overheard a lot of it. I was debating whether or not to listen to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I asked a friend that we very much trust, you and I. An incredibly smart friend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yeah. And that'll be so hurtful to the people who have experiences and maybe they've experienced it, whatever. But I would need a pretty robust bit of science behind it to believe that people are telepathically communicating over miles. It's a tough one for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But would you agree? I think that's way more pattern recognition. So, like, I know you so well. I've observed now so many contexts where things happen and then I see the result of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
So often we're at a dinner and I hear someone say something and I know in a second what you're going to think. And I look over at your face and then you look at me and I confirm. Oh, yeah, I do know exactly. And vice versa.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
But that to me is more pattern recognition. Like, oh, stimulus A generally results in output B.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I would love the notion that these nonverbal kids are communicating telepathically. I actually want that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Like I know there's an emotional thread to this that makes it a little bit. And that is a red flag to me. It's like, yes, I think when you get me emotionally involved and I am very sympathetic already to the subjects.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'm not really in my most subjective mind anymore, you know?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And lack of starvation and our handle on diseases. And really, by all metrics, what you're saying, which I also feel. Is objectively wrong. So, yes, our tranquil 80s, our parents were freaked out by something much larger, which was you had Bay of Pigs. Nuclear Holocaust was on the table in a real way before we were born. No, 81. You were born in 81. He's not even looking at any cards right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Okay, great. Yeah, read it. It's kind of a riddle. Do the thing from the book exact.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I'd say 10% of Eric and I's conversations are about GLP-1s.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yeah. Eric's the exact same. Like there's no shift other than he doesn't eat as much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
You know what I'm saying? And he doesn't crave sugar. And so he's not in a shitty mood because he hasn't eaten 10 pounds of sugar. So it's like, it does impact his mood, but not because it's changing his mood, but because he's not actually dealing with all the fallout from his
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
Yes. The show The Day After was on NBC when you were five years old. That was a show about what do we do the day after the nuclear annihilation. The greatest existential crisis of all time on planet Earth was crescendoing when you were a little boy. I didn't remember it. You weren't really aware of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
I agree. Also, we have February armchair anonymous prompts for folks who have great stories and want to chat with us on Zoom. Here are the February prompts. Live sporting event disasters. I hope to not be reporting one of those.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Gad Returns
And then prior to that, our parents, Vietnam and Kent State and shooting students again before we were born.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Leslie Stahl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I wish you developed the list when you got really smart, because you almost said, you go, Ovid, like, you almost... The thing about Ovid is...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You definitely see your Hellenic studies side of your brain and then this is a whole new, you have a lisp.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You seem like the biggest genius on earth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
They didn't know you were like, I know two, I'm going with one of the two.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
They were like, wow, he read that and he's like, fuck, that's Ovid all day. That's some Ovid shit. That's my man Ovid. Bitch, please. Give me a hard one next time, okay?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I'm just out of the shower, too. I wanted to smell so fresh for you. It is so hot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I really appreciate that rule that they have because when we are at home, Kristen and I were competing, watching Jeopardy. A rule in the house, because I'm dyslexic, is you can't read ahead and then answer out loud. I need to hear what Ken's asking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
To continue the parallel. Now, imagine that's my life. I'm married to her. You had one mix-up in a souvenir shop one day, and you really remember it. You have thousands of hours at airports. And I go to a hotel, and the guy calls me Mr. Bell, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
As bad as I feel for you. Yeah, no, I get it. Try that being your all-day existence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
It's obviously not that bad, but there is regularly a situation where someone comes up and they want a picture, and I really don't know. Do they want me in the photo or not? That is an hourly occurrence when we're at an airport or New York. Sure, that's a rough one. I certainly don't want to presume they want also me in the photo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
So half the time I'm out, and they'll go like, oh, no, no, you too, but that's only half the time. Right, they feel bad. Oh, let's get one with your husband. You see him? There's like trying to figure out how to crop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Hold on, I got to ask you a very rude question. Are you flipping the bill for all this, or do they have their own money?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
That happened yesterday. You felt the full weight of the tall poppy syndrome. They fucking hacked you for the next five days. They got my ass. I have a very memorable one just like that. I was in Miami with a friend and these two attractive girls came up. It's important because it makes it that much worse. And they said, can we get a picture? They hand me the camera.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I hand it to my friend Scotty and then I grab them. I put my arms around both of them and get myself in the center. And they're both immediately like, oh my God, what? And I was like, oh, fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Oh my God. And then the only thing worse than that is to then try to explain to them you're famous and you're used to this. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I feel ten feet tall and bulletproof? I never heard that. Is that a Dak Chopper original? Did you just quote yourself? I'm going to tell you afterwards because it's so proprietary and novel. I don't want anyone to steal it. But truly, you know, I was five minutes late. I was showering. That was great. I was on pace to make it in time. And I started thinking of an idea for us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I was eight years older than these women and they were much hotter than me. I don't believe that. Oh yeah, by a long shot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah, maybe they were in Miami. I can't imagine it was the first time someone put their arm on their shoulder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
It's like the equivalent of, it was your fault because you drank.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You and I were too big to not be a leading man, but we are not good looking enough to be the leading man. Very true. You can't make us the sidekick because the leading man's sidekick can't be towering over him and be bigger. I feel like we're both in the same weird nether zone. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Okay, yeah. I want to add, too, I actually don't think that would be the case if I entered acting now. I'm much more attractive as a middle-aged man than I was as a 20-year-old. Oh, I was not a dish.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And relative to your peers, you start looking better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And it was so... You know when a real idea hits you and you're like, oh, and then it's immediately writing itself incredibly fast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Oh my God, when you're on gas, do you inhale the fuck out of it and then get too high and then have to start breathing through your mouth?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
It's like you're free to get as high as possible, and there's a staff there to bring you back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You got a nice three second buzz. Sure. By the time you got it in the trash can, it's worn off. Gone. Then you're kind of angry. God damn it. Do you drink? He's one of these guys I'm so jealous of. He has like the perfect relationship with all of it. Really?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
But he can take the right amount of weed as needed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Easy peasy for you. Yeah. Will you ever blow lines anymore? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
That's just a tick I have when I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I don't know if I told you this in 2018, your first interview, but the highest I've ever been where I was losing huge chunks of time was me and my three friends in Amsterdam, space cake, and it was poppy seed loaf. Yeah. And it was just straight delicious, and we were hungry. And we ate one, and then I was like, we'll have another, and they're like, you shouldn't have another.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And I'm like, we'll be fine. They're so delicious. I was just eating for the taste at that point. It's the worst. And we got into this insane cycle. We made it back to our hostel and we were all sitting on bar stools. And I noticed all of a sudden I had been staring at the bartender and I go like, oh, why am I jealous of that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And I turn and I look and all three of my friends are also staring at the bartender with this. same look on their face. Three morons. They have four idiots from Detroit. I go, oh my God, guys, look at your faces. And everyone goes, were you doing that too? I just looked forward to same look on my face, same staring, look over, they're doing it again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And we were just in this insane cycle that was madness. That's where he came up with his character from Idiocracy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I don't think I've watched it since I first watched it. But the thing that I loved most from the script and while we were shooting it is my favorite stuff was all the ads. If you don't smoke Carlton's, fuck you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And for our third time is the charm. Favorite guest by far, Ike Barinholtz is here. He's an actor. He's a comedian. He's a show creator. He's a writer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Or that Fuddruckers had become butt fuckers and that they're showing the passage of time of how they iterated into butt fuckers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I mean, this is a game for the youthful because truly, even if you for a kabillion dollars, you had to beat a record. How many times do you think you could actually do it in a day? 50.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
No, in all seriousness. I know it's more than me, but I can't imagine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
That's what I think would become my issue in this hypothetical race to Bezos' box. Like 30 minutes or like five minutes? Can we call it Bezos' box?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
,G. ,G., In that, Justin is wearing that shirt. He's wearing the gear. And you know what? I'm so stupid. This is how fucking powerful Thoreau is. I'm looking at that exact shirt you're wearing. I forget that the name of the team is the Waves, even though I've seen the show. And I go, man, look, he did it again. He's got this shirt on that says Waves.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
What rum and sale did he find that in in New Jersey?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I gave it a shot. I was like, I think I can pull it off because I ride motorcycles. And I was like, you're not pulling this off. You're not pulling it off. No, he's one of a kind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And he's written four or five really substantial poetry books that are good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
He and Isaiah kissed each other, if you remember, mid-court once. Right, which was the worst thing ever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
That was like the first time I had seen two men kiss.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
This is a very different time. It was so different that I remember when Travolta would go on talk shows, he would hug the host.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You might remember this rumor when we were kids that the boss kissed his saxophone player. This was like this huge rumor. Do you remember that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Bezos beat off Bucks. Bezos. How do I combine this? Everyone else is so tired of it, but can I tell you my favorite joke I think I've ever come up with? Yes. Did you see that Forbes just recently announced the richest man in Mexico?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
People were like, you know Bruce Springsteen kissed his saxophone player.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You know, I partied with him one time. Back when I used to do coke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
It was pre any domestic abuse situation with women, so I had no ethical dilemma whatsoever. It was still in that phase where he had been in Bullying for Columbine, and you were like, oh, he's really smart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I never went all the way there, but I was like, that's kind of intriguing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah, and he had a ton of toot, and I was down to hang.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
He's giving me like a minute of chewing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Has that happened enough in movies? I feel like we need more of those. That has happened to me numerous times. Just took a way too big bite of a ribeye, and I'm going to need a minute and a half to get through it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Jesus, I'm going to have a cow in my molar. But back to Running Point, you're a writer-creator, you're on set for the whole time?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
He's pretty shockingly funny. He was also on a show with Caitlyn. That's where I first saw him, Caitlyn Olsen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah, his essence is perpetually hungover, which is the best kind of vibe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
That show, I don't know why that one went under the radar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Kristen and I watched it a year and a half after it came out, and I was like, this show's a 10.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You couldn't sign in for a couple months.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
The Mindy Project, Blockers, Mad TV, The Hunt, Neighbors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I'm not even worried, though. Because what happens when you hear the joke is you go, uh-oh, this is racist. Right, that is where your mind goes. You're like, oh, shh. That's why it's a nice joke, because it relieves the tension of thinking you're going to have to fake laugh at a racist joke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
We're only going to do so much about the studio because we had Seth in, and it's probably the most we've ever talked about someone's project on the show because I genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, blown away with the studio.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And do you feel like emboldened? He's opened the door.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Right, then you're almost feeling guilty. And then the relief of, oh, it's work class.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yes, because the choreography that's happening for these shots, which people might not realize, is there's like seven assistant directors With earpieces on, cueing guy with the tray to walk through, cueing the light cue. If you fuck up one cue, it's dominoes, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
It's crazy. But that part, I would imagine, is fun because once Ron Howard has sides... Everything's neutralized. He's as nervous about remembering his lines as anyone else. Status is evaporated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
If he thought I was Zach Braff, I can talk about scrubs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yes. That's the thing to do. Same. I get Garden State compliments and I'm flattered to be associated with the film.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Now, here's one bit of how the sausage was made that I'm curious about is there's this incredible episode called The War. And you and Chase go to war. How great is she, by the way? She's incredible. She's a CE, a creative executive. So she's under you on this totem pole.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You have a rivalry. You're fucking each other over on the director you want for a project. And it's escalating, escalating. And then it gets physical. Now, here's what I'm curious in The Wonder. I'd be afraid. I'd want to push. And get crazy, and then I'd be afraid if it was too much. Because at the end of the day, you're an enormous man, and she's a young woman. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Was any of that stuff circling? I was like, oh, man, they found the line just perfectly. It went as crazy as it could get, but it didn't get scary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And they want that. I mean, your character, Sal Saberstein, he drives a yellow 911 convertible. Yes, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I didn't even think that that could happen. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
He's snorting coke. We watched the first episode with my daughter. No, it was a Khaleesi. It was an even younger viewer we had involved. We had a seven-year-old. And she's like, what did he just do? And I'm like, he did a drug cocaine. And she was really trying to figure out, did you pound it into your hand?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Probably some people I would ask would know. It's like the telecommunications guy, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Absolutely. I remember if I would do a big line and then I'd be like, oh, my God, I could go to shit. I was so thrilled. I'm like, here we go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Hard drugs, especially back in the day. Yeah, I used to do ecstasy all the time. Half the time it was half heroin, half the time it was half meth. You didn't know what the hell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah, I've fucking never been happier. Ike, I do adore you. This is number three. I hope there's like ten more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I'm so glad to hear you say that because I went and listened to it back before today and I was shook. I urge everyone to go listen to that. It shouldn't be as good as it is. You were so on fire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
fucking through the sheet and you did Obama fucking through the sheet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I don't even know if the sheet thing's real. It's not real. I think that whole thing was started from a Seinfeld episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
It'll be apologies to all of our Jewish friends. All right. I adore you. Thanks for coming. Everybody watch both Running Point, which is on now. On Netflix. Go Waves. And then the studio, which is March 26 on Apple Plus. Apple Plus. Go studio. Well, you've got your dong in both of the big streamers, don't you? Yeah, I know. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
She was sharpening her scissors as I brought up Jeff Bezos. I love you guys so much. Thank you guys for having me. I love you. Measel tough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Got him up. Well, I was with Joe Gillette.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
We were talking about Jackie Tone on Jeopardy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Which then led to me. I tell everyone who will listen about Ike's. Big win. Incredible performance in the true Tournament of Champions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Really cool. Won the quarterfinals. Almost won the semis. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You fell in love. Do you want to tell people? I have a big story. Yeah. Let's talk about you falling in love. I need to wait. Yeah, he can. He'll have his time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yes, I know television. You know about it? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I was going to do research of Thursday's guests. Yeah. Nose to the Grindstone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
She's really taking you to new places. She really is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Champion. And he is a creator of Running Point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Side question. Sounds perverse, but I am sincere. Yeah. Like men's butt cheeks are not appealing. They're like hairy and they just look terrible in general.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And you see those ones on TV. Like if they're good enough, you'll be a star.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Do you think they could do but like really get your butt cheeks looking healthy and moisturized and like pink and appealing? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
But it means your face is the same as your butt. I guess the skin is skin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah, I don't want to get into all the different things I wish were more attractive about my butt cheeks. But do you want like... Because what's happening is my butt is getting bigger, which has been my goal for 40 years. Yes. Through all this cycling. Yes. Yeah. And I look at it in the mirror. I'm like, great. It has the shape I want. But I want it to look like a male model's nude butt. Like...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I mean, I don't. I mean, I don't. But I do. But I won't. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
But just also my butt cheeks have never been in the sun or very minimally have they ever been in the sun. So they're the palest part of my body. I don't like that part. Sure. Let's just say there was no hair. Let's say there's no hair. And it looks great. Other than it's just stark white.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Is there a such thing as self-tanner or is it just a tinted moisturizer you're using? Or can you put a cream on that'll make the melanin come out? No. It's just a tint.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
God, I wish my butt cheeks were brown. I really do. I did for when in Rome. Because I had so many revealing scenes and I was a male model, I was getting spray tanned the whole time I was in New York. And I will say I was like, oh, I like that my butt is that color.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah, look in the like OfferUp or one of these sites. Buy a used decommissioned spray tanning booth so I can do it at home. It is very embarrassing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You get hit with these terms and I don't even know. It's probably 50-50 ego, but 50% yes. I don't want to acknowledge I don't know it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yes, I would love to. And this is one of my grievances about my life is that there's so many people at my house. There's never, ever. And I'll get agitated. I'll be in my backyard and I think like, yeah, I have this beautiful backyard. I should be able to tan my butt cheeks. No way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Dog walker walk in. You're right. My sister. Oh, yikes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yes. Is that available? Yeah. Okay, great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Okay. Sorry, I interrupted you. So your face person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Get a bite to eat. Exactly. Hopefully Molly's available. And then she cancels. And then you don't want to go. And you say, I hate it. And I said, didn't you love it? I thought you were excited to go. Correct.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Maybe it did. Maybe it smelled great. Maybe it smelled even prettier in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Then, yeah, she would have loved it. Should have sent her over to wake you up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Same thing. I read as a dumbass. It's a chip on my shoulder. I'm kind of secretly smart. And then I can't possibly expose myself as being ignorant on anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Almost worse, maybe. Now you're in that tangled web of traffic. Exactly. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
It's going to get worse and worse and worse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I mean, you probably could have driven.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I don't know this because no one would know this. And to know it would be stupid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
This free day was robbed from you. Let's just say that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Oh, wonderful. That's fantastic. Okay, turning around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Uh-huh, to a tire shop. A tire shop. To go see John at American. Yes, who you know. Yeah, who I love. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I didn't even know they let you ride with the tow truck person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You can? Yeah. Wow, okay. Feels like a big liability, but yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Okay. Even if they're working for a, you just never know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Although he's black, so he could have been 90.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Right, because they age so much better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Okay. So yeah. Okay. Maybe 65. I'm not sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Okay. Sure. So he's concentrating on the chat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah. And then. He was so. He really liked it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
See, this is where I'm jealous of people that are minorities because you're free to guess. Yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Oh, wow. Do you know that's too fast for them to grow? Because I held one when she was a baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Exactly. Yeah. Because he's black. You're like, great. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
We've been giving them some steroids and stuff. That's when you're really big. No, that's acromegaly. Progeria is I think you're aging really quickly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And he's acting in this most impossibly great show that I'm so excited for everyone to watch called The Studio with Seth Rogen. And he is on fire in the show, Ike Barinholtz.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Eight, 11, and six. Soon to be 12. Okay, now this is repugnant to admit out loud, but I assume you'll join me. Don't you love when they ask these questions about how things work or anything historic? And you're like, oh my God, I have value in the situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Now, this is going to come later, but it would be crazy to not address it now. There's so many things that I'm impressed with you for, but this Jeopardy thing... Has me like insecure and envious in a way that's just so genuine. If people don't know, you won Celebrity Jeopardy. I did. And before we even go on from there, there was a moment in Celebrity Jeopardy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yes, there's this very similar. Oh, it was when we were at the Descanso Gardens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Calvin, he bought something or my girls bought something. Oh, it was a lollipop. And he gave it to Calvin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
It's good for our spoiled kids to not get something every now and then. But wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Oh, I keep holding up to me because I'm getting something. I'm really getting something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Oh, I know what it looks like. It looks like Alf. Turn it around and stare at the nose. It really is alpha Jason.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And you're both Filipino. And I'm still over here as a Caucasoid. Um, well, maybe one of my daughters will marry someone and then, and then that'll make me 12% or whatever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
His wealth has fluctuated. That reminds me. Oh, you want to do a crypto? Bitcoin? Yep. Boy, I wonder what it's at.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Or had it gone? What was the nadir of it so far?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Amortization? Yeah, I don't know. I like to say amortized. Oh, that reminds me. I went to Lauren Graham's birthday party. Oh. And her father was there, who we spoke about a bunch, right? Yeah. Who learned Vietnamese when he was in college and went over to Vietnam.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Do you know how wild your true daily double was?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And I was having to explain this to numerous people I was sitting with. And I kept saying it wrong. And I thought, God, this is so rough for him because he.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah. It'd be offensive. And I try my hardest. One neat thing he taught me about Vietnam. is that you can say the same five words, like they're the same five words, but it's your tone that changes the word dramatically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
So you could say the same sentence, but if you don't have the tone and then it kind of explained when I'm listening to them speak, it does sound really kind of all over the map tonally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And that's because that's how they're changing the meaning of the word. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
He gave some great examples of where like the same sentence means this if you're up here and then it means this if you're down here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Okay, Jared Watson. By the way, Jackie B... Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Although an excuse for a lot of unwanted hugs, if it's a national. People are like, I'm so sorry. I just got to do this. Honk, honk, honk. Aruga, aruga. Oh, yeah. Tune in Tokyo. National hugs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Aruga. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that. If they throw an aruga my way, I might be able to deal with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
To hear you say it that way is so funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
It turns out he could suck his own dick with all of his words in place. Yeah, he didn't need to remove any. What a bizarre urban legend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Right. During the writer's sessions with Mindy and Dave.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah, you should look it up, but it's just an enormous sandwich. My grandmother used to say, do you want a Dagwood? And it was just like, it would be seven inches tall with like lettuce and tomato and this and that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
He had $16,700, and he made it a true daily double. He risked all $16,700. Wow. How many episodes is it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah. It's not. Let's bring it up in five months. Yeah, we will.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
That was everything. Okay. Let me shout it from the rooftops. I love it. Ike Barron. I think he might be the perfect person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Cause he does. He's kind of like, remember when Jonah Nolan rolled up and you're like, this guy's a genius. Same with Ike. That's so. Mixed messies. I love that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Right, so three games in a row you win.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
And then you know how Daily Double works, right? You can wager anything up to your... I know you don't. And if you don't know, it would be stupid to know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
So when you get a Daily Double, daily double. And then you say how much you want to wager of your actual money. So you could say $100. So I looked it up. I was like, I wonder if I set a record for the biggest daily double ever. No, it couldn't be. Not fucking far off. Someone had a $25,600 daily double.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah, yeah. But anyways, I watched the clip of you doing that today, and I hadn't seen it prior to this. I was listening to that question with so much anxiety. Do you remember it? Well, I know the answer. It was Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman. It was about the Underground Railroad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
That's going to be 30, 40% of the brain capacity. That's most of the brain. We're relegated to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
I can't. I can't do that. You're so spoiled.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Wait, can I answer a perverted question? Yeah. Do you have any interest in, and it'd have to be someone you were very attracted to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
If you had the opportunity to watch a live stream of them gooning, would you watch? Jude Law is going to goon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Yeah. Right. Well, he would be holding a photo of you in this scenario. Oh. He wouldn't be looking right at her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Because the technical aspect of this show is so impressive. Yes. And deserved a deep dive. Yeah. And it got real nitty gritty deep divey. Yes. And you made the call.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Okay, so as you point out, Celebrity Jeopardy, it's just not at the same level as regular Jeopardy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Right. And we want to hear from everyone, too. So we got to open it up. It's not like we want to invite Julia Louise Dreyfuss and then we don't hear from her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Right. It's a waste. I don't know why I used her as an example because she's very smart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
Would probably do very well. Would actually be very good. If you're listening to this, Julia, sign up for Celebrity Jeopardy. Now, what's incredible timing wise is he wins the celebrity tournament right as they change the rules. And that allows him to enter the real tournament of champions like Mariah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
This is Studio Week. Welcome to Studio Week. Yeah. Please enjoy Ike Barinholtz.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Ike Barinholtz Returns Again
You got the swagger, you got the looks, you got the height.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Modest Mouse. Hi. Do you know Modest Mouse is going on tour this summer? And I really want to see them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Maybe Sly was at home bummed. It's hard for me to imagine that. But maybe because, again, in that situation, I'm insignificant and I'm almost speaking in a vacuum. These people won't really hear me. And I was on Punk'd where we put celebrities in very rough situations and hopefully they acted poorly. And at no point did I act like I was above that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
What I more was starting to feel was a kind of compassion for both of us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I want to get invited to the party. And the way I got invited to the party was like, yeah, you can come to the party if you shit on these people I'm punked. And I was like, OK, I'll do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
For years, I'm bumping into Timberlake and he hates my guts. And I'm like, don't you understand, buddy? I was like dead broke and that was my only chance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
We've had him on and we talked it all through. But yeah, I would see him for years. And it's like, yeah, that guy doesn't like me. And for good reason.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
We should make a distinction because I heard you talking about it this morning. Yeah. And it's great. You're like, Tom Brady's getting $25 million. He has consented. Yes. Everyone that said yes to the Diaz, they, am I saying it right? Diaz? The dais, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I go, is it the dais? And you go, yes, that's right, dais.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
We have the same approach. There is consent. I have been invited to so many of those roasts and I'm like, I just don't have thick enough skin. I'll just tell you, I can't handle it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I'm one of the only people who didn't watch the Tom Brady roast because I can't even enjoy watching it. I just think of myself hearing that. I'm very sensitive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You probably know your troll. If you're a civilian, you probably work with that person. You should have blocked your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend ages ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You almost need to be insecure to be funny in this way. The jock at my school never had a good burn on anybody. You don't need it. Not only did he not need it, he honestly couldn't empathize enough. He couldn't see other insecurities because he didn't have any. You have to have them to be able to spot them in other people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yes. And you can smell it in your brain is really well tuned to it because you're constantly evaluating yourself. And even we had Vince Vaughn on. He was saying at a certain age, he realized he had to stop burning people because it was the kind of burns that would ruin them for two years. It's like, well, yeah. you know he just could see it because he had them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
That was probably the only one. I love that you got permission.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You don't want to get stabbed. Don't start a knife fight. Well, you were picky Nicky in sixth grade. Thank you. Nikki was picking her nose in sixth grade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Let me ask you just a baseline. How nervous do you get for things? Obviously, you're brave as fuck. You go on stage. But like when you go to Stern and I'm not comparing myself to that, just what's the nerves out of 10 for Stern?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Monica was on the verge of getting them and it was like our biggest battle. I'm so glad you did it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
My dentist is currently trying to talk me into doing some fix-ups on the bottom here. And then he put the temporary one on there and he showed me the mirror. I was like, oh, I don't care about the bottom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You're looking at a haircut that is two days old that I gave to myself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah, I cut my own hair, but it generally starts in periods of anxiety, which I've been having. So I started trimming, trimming, trimming. You saw the progression. Anyone watching would see the progression. It's a total tick till finally Sunday. I'm like, now we're shaving the sides.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Right. You don't even have an opportunity to spin out about it because it's just too much shit's in front of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I won't hear from you about it. It's going to be hard to feel bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Anyone that's been hired by Herbal Essence to be a mermaid in a commercial for your hair. Yes. That's the stamp of approval.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
My wife has given her many pieces of artwork that say I have perfect tits and great opinions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
So when people are buying you those kinds of paintings, I think you could have two.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
We would say in the automotive world, if the paint is kind of orange peely, is that what we're talking about?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I hope we get submissions from knee surgeons. Please. The reason you were able to host the Golden Globes was you had cleared your schedule in January for a month to do some operative work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah. So you had already kind of scheduled this little buffer in January and then got the call. I feel like that's very serendipitous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Have you seen the pictures of those flights home from Turkey? Yeah. I want to fly there just to fly back with all those guys. For anyone who's not seen it, please Google this. The flight there would be interesting too. Yeah, 90 some percent of the passengers on these flights home from Turkey, the men are all bandaged up. They've gotten hair transplants. I guess it's affordable there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
We've always had them, but they're just evolving. For us, it was all like body and strength and Schwarzenegger and lifting weights and trying to be big and strong. I'm still dealing with it, obviously.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
The first time I did Stern, I laid in bed that night anticipating every single conceivable question. Whoa. And then planning what my response would be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
That's really good. Yeah. When you're a dude and you look in the mirror, you go, that's that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I was even watching this and I'm like, God, my nose has gotten so bulbous. I think most women would shade and it would not look bulbous. And I'm like, I'm not going to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I mean, it was in some way because I went in knowing, OK, I've slept with some famous women. I know he's going to want to talk about that. I have to have a game plan for that. I'm obviously not going to talk about it, but I don't want to piss him off or disappoint the audience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yes. So what worked was I was like, I'm going to pivot to addiction every time because I know he also loves that. And I'm happy to give him that. And that's just me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
None of us chose any of it. Just got it. No one went to the store and picked it out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
It's wholly unfair, which is I think I had all the same feelings you did growing up. But I had the freedom as a dude to go, yeah, that's not going to be your thing. And girls, thank God, did date guys largely because of how confident they presented and how funny they were. And so that is the great injustice. I was able to transcend it in some way. Not that I ever fell in love with how I looked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I just was like, Oh, we're not going to think about this anymore. And we're going to just do this other thing. And that's going to work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
That's a gift of being a dude. Decreasingly so, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yes. Thank God it's evolving. But in the 80s, I could kind of make that proclamation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
There's a ton of stuff going on. There's like evolutionary stuff. There's how the society has run for the previous 300 years. A guy that was confident and had a good personality was going to probably achieve high status because he would be able to do that through work. He was super smart. So he would be able to climb the status run. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Whereas for women, the status rung wasn't fully available for anything other than being gorgeous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Do you think you were just biochemically anxious? What led to, do you think the annex? It sounds like you had pretty good parents.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah, I want to go there. And you have to look a certain way to go. Yeah, there's no option.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
yeah you have some kind of plausible deniability but it never goes poorly if i plan planning does work i should just do that do you do what i do which is and we'll go right to it when i had heard did you hear us talking about the golden gloves thing i don't like to hear people talking about me so i did not listen but i heard it was talked about almost you have to because people never relay it the same i'll hear like so and so was shit talking to you and then i listened to it i'm like
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Is Boulder, you did it when you were 18 for the first time. Yeah. And you were only at Boulder for what, a year?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
So this is the fun kind of overlap with Monty. Monty had this very specific event in her life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Her thing, to paraphrase it, was. Any boy she would like wouldn't like her because she was Indian. So she shifted to being in love with people. She knew that issue would never present itself. So it was Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
So my experience was bumping into Jesse Eisenberg. Him telling me, did you hear we were in the New York Times yesterday? And I'm like, no, I didn't know we were in the New York Times. And he said, yes, apparently Nikki had written two jokes that were too hot for TV. Too hot. And it was in the New York Times. So I returned to my seat before the monologue starts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Well, what's really sad is it's all self-fulfilling prophecies. You're almost forcing him to leave you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And I'm thinking she's going to fuck me up hardcore. I'm sure the version she backed off of is still going to destroy my feelings. So I, hold on, this is not to make you feel guilty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
This may be helpful. We had this incredible sex therapist on Alexander Katahakis. She was incredible. And my question was, should people who have been sexually abused who now desire, for lack of a better word, some kind of kinky sex, should they feel guilty? It's not their fault. And if that's what they enjoy and she goes, no. It's totally fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Modest Mouse, will you send us some merch? We should just go buy some merch. They were just here in the fall. I saw them. They were here in the fall? Yep. They did a good news tour. They're doing a southern tour. I saw Asheville's on the list. So maybe while I'm in Nashville, I can go see them somewhere. Anyways, that's not who our guest is. It's not Modest Mouse. I do love Modest Mouse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And there are a lot of sexual abuse survivors who will be in like sub dom relationships. And it's very crystal clear. If you have shame and secrecy around it, it's a problem. And if you don't, it's not a problem. So I would argue all you've got to do is be honest about it and there will be no issue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah, he and my wife could bump into each other and have no idea this conversation took place. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
There has to also be a little bit of the fact that you had a problem drinking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Right. Which, of course, I'm going to be deeply interested in because I don't drink either.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
It was more like I have to have a response that doesn't make me look like an asshole. Yeah. I've got to somehow find the humor in whatever mean thing she says about me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Have I? Yeah. Leading up to a big relapse. Right. It was a tricky one. And I can relate to everything you're saying because alcohol is cut and dry for me. It's black and white. I have a drink on Thursday night. You will see me Sunday and I have gotten coke and all these things will happen. Very predictable. There was some period where a gummy. I don't know. I go to sleep. I sleep better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
There's no wreckage. There's no out of control in this. I don't crave it like the other stuff I crave. And then having been clean and sober for 16 years and going. And I also don't like that I would need anything. Yeah. Right. So I know the racket.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Nicotine. But I am at total peace with this. There's no secrecy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
If I'm hiding, there's something to be looked at. If I can't do it out in public, then that's kind of my clue. I need to get comfortable with one or the other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
not do it or i gotta just own it and then people around me i guess i'll trust to tell me i just can't have the zone where it's like i have a secret because then you can't even evaluate the thing because actually you're evaluating your feeling of having a secret not even your feeling of using weed the way that i was able to stop smoking as much weed once was to when i did it you know i was smoking from like pipes during covid it's dirty and it felt bad these are like crack pipes yeah
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I don't think you can even evaluate what the weed is until you detach the secret from it. The pit of disapproval and angst is more about the secret.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I think it's a harder one to evaluate for people because it doesn't have the kind of wreckage that other stuff does. You get DUIs. You fucking smack your friend. You fall down an elevator and pee your pants. None of that stuff happens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
oh god suffice to say the whole monologue every time it was about me i was like oh okay whoo so nothing happened then reality hits you and you're like of course nothing happened there's so many bigger people in this room to make a joke about why on earth would she even make one about me that's not why i didn't okay all to say you do do stern the following day and then i start seeing in the comments of our episode that day like did you hear nikki's
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You are. Women love you. The amount of people have asked us to have you on the amount of people that had seen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yes, of course I watched it because I am narcissistic enough to know if there's a joke that has me in it. I'm certainly going to find out. Was it the thing I'm fearing? And I thought I didn't care at all. I took it as a dude joke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yes, I watched it. I thought it was a great special. But I just want to say so many people had immediately taken to our comments. That's when I had the sense. Oh, Nikki's really, really huge. There's some connective tissue with you and Taylor in that you have worked your fucking ass off. If you decided I'm going to be this thing, whether you think I'm going to be it or not. Bad news.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I'm stubborn and I'm going to be this thing. There's something very relatable. And I think people can see themselves in you. I see how my oldest daughter, the gift Taylor Swift has given my family when I watch the women in my life, the impact that she has on them, how she can make them feel in the confidence in the Jubilee. It's such a crazy gift. It's awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And it's because in some way you could be her. I mean, you can't, but also you can.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
joke about you. And I wrote to several people, no, and I hope to never hear it. But you must know what I then crafted in my head that your joke was. They were so fucking mean. They hurt so bad because they were my deepest insecurities. And three days goes by and Kristen finally went and listened and she came in and she goes, the joke's nothing. You were going to ask everyone to be on your podcast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Sure. So I'm a control freak as well. And I was very OCD as a kid and lots of tics and I have a lot of control things. But... I love these zones where I surrender to no control. It's so pleasurable because I'm fucking strangleholding so much of life. My routine and my schedule is psychotic and sadistic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And so when I have these pockets, these things I can do where I actually surrender to it, it's bliss. Do you have anything in your life?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You said you smoke pot to give yourself anxiety, which I found interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Do you? I like being awake. Yes. And that's why I like the chaos, because it brings me to a level I can't reach normally. Improv, like you're saying, the element of failure is so present that a new zone of my brain wakes up. I get the extra dopamine and adrenaline and neuroepirin and all this stuff. I can access a part of myself, the survivor in me. And I love it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
How about this? I did a live show for a Formula One podcast I had. It was a disaster. We have done many, many live shows and they go great. They're so fun. We did this one in Vegas, a bunch of drunk people. No one knew who the fuck we were. It was terrible. And we had to do a full hour. That's what we were hired to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And I, at least at this age and having done enough stuff, about 10 minutes into it bombing, I go, oh, this is great. This is going to be so memorable for all of us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yes, none of that is to make you feel bad at all. No, no, no, I'm not taking it like that. Okay, good. This is all the racket in my head. Sure. And so when I'm about to do Stern, I'm also preparing for things he's not going to say to me. Yes. Because no one is as mean to me as me. No one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You would never be telling this story if it went well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Okay, I want to go to two things before we wrap up because you've given us a lot of time already. Oh my God, I could stay here all day. You went to 22? Taylor Swift shows. On the Eros tour? Yeah. I'm so jealous. And you have this history. I don't know if we can do like a really short- I went once, I took my 11 year old to Lisbon and it was the greatest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
But you did 22 and you have this history and I'll just do one second because I wasn't even aware of it. But in some Buzzfeed thing, you made fun of her in some capacity and ended up in the dock. Now, I saw the doc and I loved it. And I don't remember that part at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I heard you say that you were unable to listen to her music.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
They remind you of your fuck up. Yeah. And you haven't made any amends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You wrote her an apology and tried to get it to her through agents. You
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
For me, it's two-sided. It's either I'm jealous or they're displaying a side of myself I hate so much. So like my issues with JLo maybe in the past are like, why are you at the Super Bowl game in the front of the room? I've been like, why do you need so much attention?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I need endless attention and I hate that about myself. By the way, I don't even know if she needs attention or not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
That's why I go tell my younger self something. I don't even play that game. I didn't listen to anybody. No. That was part of my charm. Even if it was me who came back, I wouldn't listen to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Pretty much I don't. I try to avoid that. I'm living, I'm modeling. They'll pick some things up. They'll see other things don't work. They're very bright. I think it'll work. That's good. Okay. So have you though ever had one-on-one with Taylor?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
As you get more successful, it's harder to be a fan. It's still fun to be a fan. It's the best. I think that's worth preserving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
OK, and I so I'm going to preface this by saying truly you must know I don't care how anyone gets sober. I have zero judgment about how anyone does it. I am intrigued and fascinated that you read a book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
When I heard that was the joke, it didn't bother me at all because it's a shortcoming of mine that I won't invite anyone on. Right. Because I'm so afraid they think I'm opportunistic. And then secondly, several people there had come up to me very nicely and said, I just want you to know that was one of my favorite interviews.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You probably know enough about AA. You come in and quit drinking and then you're left with the reason you drank. And then the meetings and the steps are about addressing not the symptom. You've quit the symptom. So did you find that you were now someone without their medicine?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
unmanageable and that's when I was like I need help for this and got back into a thing and realized oh I didn't look at the spiritual element of it so would it be fair to say the drinking for whatever reason on the continuum that book was sufficient but that the eating you couldn't have read a book
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
So my self-esteem in that category was so filled that it didn't bother me at all. Yeah. But when it was going to be that I was too ugly to be with her and I'm riding her coattails and all these fears I have that people think about me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I don't have any opinion on whether people should go or not to a 12 step program. But for me, I could have maybe white knuckled it over the last 20 years. But I would have missed out on so much shit, learning how to be honest with myself, learning what my fears were, learning how to say sorry to people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
One of the early premises of this show was me going crazy. Can you have an AA meeting in public? Because I feel bad that people can't experience this. This is wild. You come in going, I'm not like anyone. I hate all these people. I'm not like them. I'm different. And then they start talking. You're like, no, I do that. Oh, yes, I've done the exact same thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
There's a human quality to it that since I'm not religious, I don't get it there. I don't know where else I would have experienced that. What a thing to experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I'm preparing for that. In my defense, there were many, many BuzzFeed-y type things of top 10 ugly guys with hot girls. And I made those lists.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Never happened in the history of the world. I do TM because Howard did it and talked about it. So I do take up things that I hear people I admire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
It's weird. I can't figure out why it wasn't a permanent solution.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Oh, God. Isn't that with everything? Fucking daily reprieves. It's annoying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
for years. So I just went to, well, that's probably what's coming my way. You don't owe me an apology because you didn't do the things I was crafting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You might have a story that if you're not working so hard that you're just not worthy of anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
We talked about getting crazy religious about exercise and then crazy religious about lethargy. You would expect this from him. But the peace he had when he goes, yeah, man, that's what life is. Just ride these waves. Yes. Sometimes you're going to volunteer. Sometimes you're going to go make a movie. Sometimes you're going to smoke pot. Sometimes you're not. That's OK. That's OK.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
We also had an OCD expert on who was explaining the majority of OCD isn't what you see in the movies. It's not washing your hands repetitively and it's not checking the lock. It's people who are convinced they're a pedophile, but they are not. They have never done anything, but they're so worried they are. They won't watch TV shows with children.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
So in some way, I think there's a little bit of compulsive. You're so afraid you're a bad person. Yes. Even though there's no proof that you are other than a couple of fuck ups that everyone has.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
All right, so I guess that wraps it. That's interesting about the book, and I dig it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Although, ironically, the time you're most grateful you don't drink is when you have kids and you're around other parents early in the morning with your fucking kid because they wake up early. And I'm looking at these people. Dude, if I had to be doing this, which is already hard, hungover, I don't know how they're doing. No. That's the times I felt the very most grateful. Can you imagine 5 a.m.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Well, Nikki, I had high hopes for this. I was quite confident this would be great, and it was way better than I even anticipated. Really? Oh, my God, that's so nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Well, this was a blast. I hope you'll come back. Oh, I really want to tell people, people should go see the Alive and Unwell tour. It's in the height of it right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Our guest is Nikki Glaser. This couldn't have been more fun. I am so delighted that we decided to explore Nashville.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And the theaters are all so beautiful, right? It's a special honor to be able to play at those places.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
They're almost all sold out. Yeah. So go to www.nikiglazer.com with an S and go quick because I was just there and so many of the shows are already sold out. Congratulations. You so deserve it. And I'm really happy for you and you're going to make so much money. And I hope you buy something obnoxious in St. Louis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
All right, Nikki, this was a blast. Come back. Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. The current confusion, and I get it, but I feel like we've said it, which is like, why are Mondays now on video, right? Oh. And then I say, oh, we offer to the guest. If they're up for video, then that's fun. And then they go, well, you said it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You wouldn't ever do that because it wouldn't be vulnerable. To which I reply, I did think that. And then we had Adam Scott on, and it was like one of the most beautiful, connected, vulnerable episodes. And I said, that's not true. I found that out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah. Because it came up yesterday when we were doing intros.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And we were mad we weren't recording the fact check because I had the ultimate Sim experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
They are. They're just so twisty and turny. Like, I never know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
As we've said, you're like the M. Night Shyamalan of just normal pedestrian life. Oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Seinfeld. Yeah, it's way more Seinfeld. I don't know where I just got it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Well, the two things I hope that got to you were, A, I thought you did a brilliant job. Thanks. You did such a good job. And your jokes were so fucking good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
In the driveway while he was visiting his daughter? That would be Sean Penn.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
That's pretty certain. We don't always know. We don't always know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Sure. Because it'll be funny anyways because we're doing this thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Go say hi is what it's telling. There's nothing to interpret here. This is as linear as it gets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And in person, did you get a PQ? Were you like, oh, wow. Yeah. In person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I'm even self-conscious that when they go to her for her category, I'm like, this is such a rough look for me to just kind of be half in or out of the frame. Yeah, I'm like, should I bail out or should I commit fully? We're here together. I don't belong there. You know, all these thoughts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Oh, great. This is like the girl with the cowboy hat. I was trying to take Panay over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
To try to get a little attention. So that my pheromones could spread. I want to play like a dog wags its tail. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
There was nobody. You had a guy put them on you? There was no guy. Okay, we can't count that one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah, how many streetcars are you going to watch go by?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
You've got to get mad at yourself. That's a good motivator. Like, that's when you're fucking, I've had enough of this. I'm going to live my whole life like this? Fuck this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
But it's only going to give it's only going to try to help you so many times. Yes. If you don't want its help, it's going to stop a universe. You need to be way the fuck above four percent. I just as your friend, I need to yell at you a little bit. You need to be in the 48th. I'm going 82%. He knows you. You're a comedy girl. You got this popular podcast. We're on a very popular podcast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
That's why we're staying at this hotel, Mr. Customsman in India. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah, it still haunts me. I'll think about that. That's like the Neff Campbell thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
The Indian customs man. Oh, yeah. When he didn't believe I was staying at the nice hotel. And he wanted the first the phone number. Then he wanted the address. Then he wanted like, I don't know what he wanted. He did not believe that we were staying there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I have a very popular phone. So, well, I'm one of the hosts of a very popular podcast and we're in town to interview Bill Gates. And I'm like, he didn't know what podcast was. He didn't know what popular was. And I don't think he knew what Bill Gates was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
It was a three strikes and you're out. We're so lucky I got let into that country.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
He's at Maru a lot, too. Oh, my. Spray. He's probably a pervert. Probably wants you to shit on a glass. Rob, if you see him at Maru. Ask him if he likes girls to shit on a glass coffee table. And tell all your friends open to it as long as there's not been like 10 other people who have done it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Okay. I pray that you think this is as insane as I do. So my friend Oliver apparently is in Toronto and he goes to a museum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And I will explain to the listener. Oh! This is in a museum, and it is an Ames chair that was made between 1948 and 1950, designed between 1948 and 1950. It's called Dax Armchair, which Dax isn't a fucking word in 1948. Not only is it a Dax Armchair, it was designed at UCLA and manufactured in Michigan. Wow. Oh. Are you fucking Dax Armchair? Does that not zap your brain?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
But I almost wondered if you're relieved of it there. I feel like I could go to the Grammys and be fine. I don't belong there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And that's not possible in a museum. Dax armchair. They should write fucking expert after it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
This is in a museum of an Eames chair. By the way, affordable. It was 20 bucks. It was meant to be a cheap. And we're cheap. Yes, I'm a cheap. I'm a cheapie. Dax armchair. Why did they use that word? That wasn't a word. That's not a name. It was made at UCLA and manufactured in Michigan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Dax armchair designed 1948 to 1950 by Charles Eames and Ray Eames. With staff of the engineering department, University of California, Los Angeles. This model made from 1955 to about 1972 by Herman Miller Furniture Co. Zeeland, Michigan. Molded polyester fiberglass composite steel rubber. I used to wear rubbers when I was single. That's a stretch. The chair design shared a second prize.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Of course, I never win either. I never win. My birthday's the second. The chair design shared a second prize loser in the 1940 International Competition for Low Cost Furniture Design, sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, one of my favorite cities. The DAX listed at about $20 each or $100 in modern terms.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Sometimes I did belong here, but I don't think anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I want to contact this museum and just sit next to it so people can crack up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
That was my first place I ever went in a hot tub. The Harbor Castle. Family vacation. I read that in bed yesterday morning. Did you cry? I couldn't. I'm like, when is it too much? You would have cried, I think. I'll cry. Maybe I'll cry a bit tonight about it. You cried about everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I was just stunned. How crazy could it get before you have to go like, I don't understand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Right. They'll get suspicious of us and start like hampering our speech. I'm shook by that. Yeah. And I must own it. It doesn't look terribly comfortable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah. What if I just couldn't? No matter what. It's round. I'm round. It has four legs. I do, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Like it's all going to be fine. Yeah. And it is all fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I told you this about Laird Hamilton. Gabrielle said that he looks at her. She's like, I love his presence in my life because he's just unflappable. Right. And she said that once in a while when she's frazzled, he looks at her and he goes, it's going to be fine. It is fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Are you the friend in the strikes room where you did hypnosis?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Our history. It was so fun. I really, really, really like her. She's a stand-up comedian, an actor, and a television host. Her credits include Nikki Glaser's Someday You'll Die. Great stand-up routine. FBoy Island. Welcome home, Nikki Glaser. Not safe with Nikki Glaser. Banging. And her tour. You can go see her right now. Live. She is coming by you. I've looked at the list. She's going everywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah. My thing is to go like, what has been helpful to me is to go like, whatever, when I quit dip or any of the stuff I quit, which is all the time I go like, Oh my God, I want it. I want this so bad. And in 10 minutes, I won't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
It doesn't. For me, knowing, yes, this is an urge. It'll be passing. And then believe it or not, in 10 minutes, you won't be fighting this. It is very comforting to me. Because generally, when I get that strong compulsion to do something I don't want to do, My brain tells me I'm going to feel that way forever until I do the thing I want to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I will say, though, that again, I don't I don't want to drink alcohol. Yeah. I really that that is a miracle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
That I was, as I say in the program, like relieved of the obsession. That was kind of unimaginable the first year. Yeah. I'm just going to fucking every time I walk by a bar for the rest of my life, I'm going to want to go inside and I got to talk myself out of not going inside for the rest of my life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
But I don't think about it ever. Yeah. I could be like surrounded by Jack Daniels bottles and it doesn't even, I'm just like, oh yeah, just like a wall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
actually get great at delineating the difference between an obligatory good job and the real one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I love this episode. I got to say, I told her it was like we have these episodes every now and again. They really fill my tank up and they make me really, really excited for our job. Not that I ever don't like our job. I always like our job. Yeah. But sometimes I'm really turbocharged and I really hits me like, no, I love our job. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
To get to like have something in your head and then like work through it with the actual human being that you have access to that. And then they're so incredible and fun. Yeah. I just, I, let's put a real spring in my step this episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And now your standard of what a real one is becomes preposterous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Go ahead and brag. Not to brag. That's a sign of really good friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah. It was a big week for you. And hers was one of them. Yeah. And that was pretty cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
That's a thing she does. It's a good luck thing for us. She does that at the end of every episode. Every single one, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I want to send you at some point, someone sent me, it's great. It's from Garrison Keillor. And he talks about his faux humility, what a ruse it is. Because not only does he want people to talk about him and think about him, but he actually wants them to kneel and pray to him as a sun god. But that's really what his ego desires. You just need to be a sun god or not even play the game.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
That's wonderful because it quiets any voice in your head that she didn't want to give you your number.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Because once in a while we exchange numbers with the guests.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Most of the time I want their number. Like I like them and I'd love to, at some point in my life, if I want to say hi to them, I want to be able to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah. Cause I might want to say hi. I might see you in something and I want to be able to tell you I loved it or whatever it is, but it's perfect for you because you didn't, You didn't ask for it, and then she reached out to you. Yeah. We love her. We love her. We love her. We're the number one fans.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Oh, he's not meant to name for a daytime drama. Soap opera. Soapy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And did he ever, I'm guessing he probably had a really preposterous look on his face. He got actually mad. Oh, he did. When he lost. When he lost. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah. God, it's a good thing. I wish someone would do that. They're on their face and it's not their name and they go, fuck this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And they stand up and walk out. That would be awesome. Like genuinely. And some of those people deserved it. Like some of these people have been nominated 15 fucking times in the same category and not one. Ugh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah, yeah. We would have said in my era, a pretty boy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah, this is like when you fell asleep during, or you shut without a pedal off, or you fell asleep. Took a shower in the middle. You took a shower. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
What if she was coughed up a hairball? Like she got too into the role that she was hacking and stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I wouldn't like tie me up. No, thank you. Handcuffs. No, thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
No, no, but it was, that was, I would say more like, two equals wrestling match.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah. It was like, uh, but it was, there was no sub Don. No, she had a mat. She had a wrestling mask on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Uh, have you ever been a sub? Yeah. Uh, No, I don't think so. Are you bringing up my molesting?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Truly no shade to anyone. I've explored everything in my mind. Right. I'm like up for anything and everything. So I would try it. Yeah. I don't care. I would try that. If Kristen's like, I want to handcuff you and hit you with a fucking horse whip or whatever. I'd be like, yeah, okay, great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Yeah, great. I would do anything. There's nothing I want to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
But when I imagine whether I'd be enjoying it or not, it's kind of hard for me to lock in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Oh, that's very sweet. That's as nice and repairing as a fucking thing can be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
It's my foundation. Single mother, three kids. Everyone needs something. She doesn't have enough time. The way you showed people you love them is to never, ever, ever be a drain on them in any way whatsoever. The way you would show love is to be completely self-sufficient and never need anything from you. This is a big issue in my marriage, which is she likes acts of service.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And I'm like me wanting you to do something for me to me reads as like, I don't even love you or value you. So I don't want to be a pain in the ass to anybody to a fault. Me needing things from you in favors. There's no way you would like me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Listen, I don't want to pretend that I've made no movement on this. I have. It started in a personal capacity where I'm really spinning out about something. I'm just now learning to reach out to someone who's been through this and say like, hey, I'm going through this. What was your experience?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
It's a huge tour. It's called Alive and Unwell Tour. Go to NikkiGlazer.com for tickets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
It's seen the magic trick a bit. You realize, oh, there isn't any pixie dust.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
Definitely musicians when they're doing their thing. And if you were watching the people in the room act, perhaps, but you're just seeing them not lit and not in a riveting drama. And they're just people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
G-squared. Big event. That's right. Please enjoy Nikki Glazer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
And by the way, he killed his close up. Kristen showed it to me. She's like, well, I mean, look at this. We did the same thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Nikki Glaser
I didn't know. I hope that got to you in our debrief as well, which is as I was listening to the monologue panic that I was going to get made fun of, I was doing a personal inventory and I was going, you have done this many times. I have been on Conan making fun of the cast of The Expendables because I had a movie coming out against them and they're easy targets and I can do all their accents.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Mrs. Mouse. This is the end of the year, best of Monday's episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
In retrospect, they were very successful. But he liked her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And I only mean story because that was sixth grade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
You know? I know. And so there was a lot of time after that. I can only assume this and backdate it because I've been around her all the time for eight years and I see a lot of guys like her and guys come to the show and hold up signs and people hit on her in front of me and I can see and she can't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I'm just saying that once that changes your point of view, it does become really hard to come back from that. I think the quintessential ingredient in that story, which makes it heartbreaking is he liked you and you liked him. And the friend was like, why don't you ask her out? You guys like each other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yes. So then, yes, the story makes a ton of sense, which is, well, even if they like me, they're not going to. So I'm just turning off the whole thing because it's just going to be painful and hurtful and I'm going to protect myself. Anyways, I just think I know you miss it a lot. And I had a hunch maybe you missed it a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
You would have blown her right off the hill at Barton Springs if you would have unleashed those suckers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Somehow you were getting even by doing that now. Warplug. We're just going to smear her name through the whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
No, we fight about it. I'll go, oh, that guy was hitting on you. And she'll go, no, he wasn't. He was saying blank. And then it's a fight. She's never gone, oh, really?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
We'll try to get all the approval in the world. If everyone could line up neatly and just walk up to us and say, you're good. And then turn to the left. But then don't forget, you got to come back and say it again in 10 minutes. I probably won't believe it. 30 seconds after you left, it'll feel obligatory. In fact, if you could write it out, it'd be easier for me to...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
But at two in the morning. Okay, it's flirty time. He can get away with whatever he wants. He's probably just waking up. Actually, it's super flattering. It's the first thing he wanted to do. He can do whatever he wants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
When we were taking pictures, that's right. He asked for her number. And Dax's. Both of ours. And then I walked him out and he said, Monica's so cool. That means... Yeah, he's like telling me like, hey, Monica's so cool. How long have you guys known each other? Like, he wants to know more about Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Then he texts her after the episode came out. Now, he has ghosted her. He has ghosted her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Was he like, you up? Me and Letterman are just hanging.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
He has ghosted her for sure. But there's another thing going on, which is there's also a reality of the world. This guy is very popular right now. He's traveling all around and a lot of girls like him. And he probably likes several girls. And so, yeah, he probably has his hands full and he ghosted Monica. But I still maintain he liked her and he did reach out to her and he did ask for her number.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And to say that this young dude with every option in the world is like a great pursuer of things, I'm not making that argument. And he probably is distracted by all kinds of hot comedy dong right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Well, I know, but like... Listen, I've never been anywhere in my life and then randomly met someone and then decided to get their number and then text them because I want to be friends with a stranger. He liked you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
That's the only text, actually. There's one button now on younger people's phone, and it's just one button that says you up. Ooh, great idea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
But again, there is a reality that this person has been out of town virtually since we met him. And he's being nominated for everything. And there are a lot of girls, I'm sure, in his sphere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
All that's not good, but it does not say that he didn't actually like her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
This episode is brought to you by Laudy Mio. Laudy Mio. Laudy Mio.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah. I'm going to also say it was compounded by you're in L.A. at Crossroads. Some of the white people that are relative to you are like princesses on planet Earth. It's not even just like you're rummaging around my hometown in Michigan. It's pretty extreme.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
My breath went away because I heard you were in love with Dax first came out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
You guys are the smartest and dumbest fucking people I've ever met. Monica, can you look at my angle? Of course anyone would be in love with her. Duh. And then, Maya, can you look at Monica and go like, of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Maya just threw her hands in the air like, is that a gospel?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah. God, again, I'm not sure I believe you entirely, but I think probably 80%.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
There isn't. I'd have to be around you in some blowhard jock to see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah, yeah. You've not really been single much in your life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Don't know where this dong ends and that one begins. I mean, endless dong. Same time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yes. You're so right to be upset. And also, you've got to consider the source sometimes. It's like, you're, like, giving these dumb 20-year-old people that are drunk some kind of wisdom they don't have. I know, but they're running the world. He's swinging for the fences.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Let me just say, like, you're assuming he really thinks that. And then I'm going, like, on the walk up to you, he's, like, he's running through ideas. I'm going to say, hey, sexy mama. No, hey, chicky mama. Ew. Oh, wild woman. Again, butthole is tight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah. You just don't even know what he was cycling through before he landed. That's a zero.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I'll try to do a medium version. I had broken my arm. I had a prescription for Vicodin and Kristen handed them out to me. And I decided I would not take those when I traveled back to Detroit because I was going to see my dad who was dying of cancer and she wouldn't be there to administer the Vicodin. So while I was with my dad and he had all these Percocets, I said, you know what?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I have a prescription for Vicodin at home. I'm going to take some of these Percocets. Makes sense. That was eight years into being sober. I had a total meltdown. Kristen ended up coming to Detroit and surprising me. Did he pass? Two months later, he did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
But again, here's the thing where like when I read about you and your dad and your recent relapse, it's like I would have told you I'm handling that whole experience fine. I'm flying home once a week to deal with his thing. The room's full of AA people. I would tell you that it wasn't really having an impact on me, but I did that thing. And no one will like this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
My dad and I did sit in his living room, looking out over the lake. And we were both on Percocet and we're both sober. I don't hate that I had that moment with my dad. I'd never party with my dad. But we were both just kind of sitting there enjoying the thing. Next day, I'm overwhelmed with guilt and fear. Oh my God, I've relapsed. I'm going to have to reset my day. Kristen comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I confessed to her what I did. I took this and I wasn't prescribed that and blah, blah, blah. And she's like, look, it's fine. You're here. I have that prescription. You're not going to do it again. And you keep it moving. And I was like, okay. And I kept it moving. But that was almost like when those owls that the falconer flies, they're only supposed to eat the food from the trainer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
If they catch a mouse one time, danger. They're gonna wanna hunt again. Because I had that experience and really it was fine. And opiates were never really my thing. Over the years, I break a lot of stuff. And when I would use opiates, I was tricky. So she would administer them, but I also would maybe not take them at night so I could save up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And in the morning I could take three times the dosage. So we're in a very gray area sporadically for several years. I certainly don't think I need to come in and say I need a new date, but I'm also being a little tricky when I have them prescribed. Okay. Then, in rapid order, I break my hand, all the bones across it. I get all these pins in it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Wait, wait, why are you breaking your arms or your hands?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I'm into motorcycle racing, off-road stuff. Stop doing that! No, we're going Monday. All right. So I get all these pins and then I get a pretty healthy dose of real good opiates for a while. Almost immediately after I shatter my shoulder, my ribs, my thing on a motorcycle. Now I have multiple surgeries. Now I'm on a lot of opiates.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
What was very misleading about the opiates compared to the other stuff is like, if I drink, you will know in one second. Because the second I'm drunk, I'm gonna get coke. And when I get coke, I do it for three days. There's no version where I don't do it for three days. There'd be no hiding. In the most conventional sense, it's unmanageable. This was very weird. I'm on opiates.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I'm still doing the podcast. I'm still very responsive and present with my family. And I'm going, this is weird. This isn't very unmanageable. This is fine. Other than I know... You have to keep upping your dosage because you get used to it so quickly. Like, I'm not dumb. I know that that's an issue. At this point in your mind, did you know you relapsed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I think I still had plausible deniability at that point. I wasn't ready to accept that. It was when I started buying them illegally. I was like, okay, now we're definitely doing something. And then that lasted for a couple months. And then I decided I have to quit and I started to try to do it on my own. And then I was visibly going through detoxes and then I copped to the whole thing. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
You already fucked up on Mad TV. You got sober again. And now you have 17 years again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
2021? November 2021. I thought it was- It was Thanksgiving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I think a lot of people who have relapsed will relate to this. You're distracted at first with the thought of just making sure no one knows. You forget that you didn't ever get sober for anyone else. You got sober because you were miserable. But at some point in sobriety, I started telling myself this thought.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Well, if no one knows, and I'm focused on them, and then again, deciding to ignore like, well, I know, and I can't really live that way. First thought is, can I get away with it? But you ignore the fact that like, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
You know now. Yeah. And I was sad and missed that purity I felt. That first eight years, there was nothing on my report card that you could have said was tricky. And then I had several years of just that was in the back of my mind. I still only had them when they were prescribed to me. All these other ways I would justify it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
But it never had that super clean feeling that those first eight years had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I know. When you have those days, you're like, why don't I recognize I am so much happier this way? Yeah, I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah. When you go like, I don't need anything to feel okay is the most miraculous feeling you can have. It's amazing. Because you really, for so much of your life, you can't feel okay without something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
From 748 with Babers, a.k.a. Amy Poehler. This was going to be one of my questions and much later, but I feel like every time I do bump into you, you and I are on a similar self-exploration path. Or maybe you'll bring up something you've been mulling around and I'll think, oh yeah, that's really fun to think about. I'm going to try that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I was wondering, we have our story and our story explains why we are the way we are. It's so comforting, right? I can see you rolling around and frolicking in the story. And then this kind of disruptive thing happens where you have children. And one of my two children's, Lincoln, she has all the shit I have without any of the reasons I gave myself for being this way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And I'm more and more having to maybe consider like, oh, no, man, it was all genetics. The story is just something you've put on top of it. And I'm just curious if you've had that experience with kids and if it's like poked holes at all in your story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Well, you have one that produces great results. This was another one of my highlighted words I just wanted to talk about was performative.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
As a concept. Let me back up. You're in therapy, I imagine?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yes, and you and I, this is where we diverge a little bit. We do have different comfort levels with that aspect. We do. And I guess probably my explanation, my story is AA for 20 years. I think I'm so used to fucking strangers are there and I'm talking about shitting the bed in an orgy and we move on and I live...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I know you referenced TikTok in an interview. I love TikTok.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Babers, you're emotional about being known. I can relate. Is part of it to be known, but also to know yourself? Or do you feel like you 100% know yourself?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Our mothers. Of course our mothers. We're like our mother's husbands. Yes. And we are the golden child.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
This is an impossible gap because really within four years you go from a refugee camp to starring in the biggest movie of the year with the biggest movie star by the biggest director of all time. This is really not a possible experience. How do we get from newly into the States to getting in that movie?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
If I were you, I would actually think, this can't be reality.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Okay, so you didn't, were you like a glass clown-y a little bit? I wasn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I'm writing this memoir. Doesn't need to be published. I'm writing it so I can get that version that I'm so afraid to lose out of my head. It'll be there. If I ever want to revisit it, it'll exist. That's my action of letting it go. Wow. There's the story I've been telling for my whole life. And now we're going to just set that over there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
It's obvious how desperate they were that they were going to random elementary schools.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Okay, so you're barking orders at your brother, which is hysterical. And I can see why she or he would have seen, oh, this is what we need. This is a little guy who's running the show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And Short Round was a total survivor. I was precocious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Guys, this is not. I know, I know. I'm trying to imagine what the fuck your parents. And they're having the same grapple with reality, too. It's like, what is my life? These people are calling to bring my child with a driver. I mean, they must have just been trying to compute what the fuck was going on. Maybe even also scared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Because you would have maybe felt a lot of pressure if you knew who Spielberg was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Of all time, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And written by Lawrence Kasdan. I mean, impossible. One of the greatest writers of all time. Okay, so you go in there and clearly you charm them in that audition. Where was it filmed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And maybe my dad was a beautiful guy and maybe he was a loving human. Well, and also like physically nurturing. A hugger and a kisser. Who got that in the 80s? All this new information's coming in that's like, meh. And my mom, I love her to death. She's also not the angel she was in my story. That's right. Nor should she be, and that's my fault.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
They're serving you Coca-Colas and nuts and all this. Sundays. And what's mom thinking? How's mom explaining this to you? Because you're probably looking at her like, how is this happening? She doesn't know, but she's got to give you an answer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
It must have been an insane amount of money relative to what they were making then. by working.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I don't love best because, you know, there were so many we loved.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Again, the range of luck you have. You've got like the worst luck and the greatest luck all within a span of four years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
They should make a movie about your life. They really should. I want to watch this movie. I want to see a little boy experience all this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
They were so generous. Lucas had done that, too, with the Star Wars cast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
But everyone in Star Wars was also a no-name actor, and he gave them some of the toy rights.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
No, you got to say no and walk away five or six times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
It was out of their generosity. Okay, so again, you have no awareness of who Harrison Ford is either at this point. So you arrive in Sri Lanka and you start working with him immediately?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And is he intimidating? He is a very big man with a husky voice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
It's not her responsibility. Yeah, I have no resentment over it. It's just like, wow, I had a really clean story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I guess I have such distrust of anything good. That I would have had a hard time that whole experience accepting it was real. I would keep waiting to almost wake up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
It's crazy how good you are in the movie having never done it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Which again, let's be honest, is just another one. Yes. I might reject the notion that there's a real one. It's just, there's all this data. It's just infinite data of your childhood. Well, it's all a story we're telling ourselves.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I believe you. I've perpetuated that. Can I tell you that? I know, I'm so sorry. I've heard it too. Do you know the other one?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Okay, great. Now, if we take you out of it, can we take you out of it for one second? No, because I'm in it. You cannot take me out of it. We're going to take you out of it for one second.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Here's why those things are so sticky and enjoyable. Because... The love of my life was Lisa Bonet. She is the number one most beautiful human to ever walk on planet Earth. Mickey Rourke was the stud of all studs. If you were a white dude, that's about as good as it got. You looked at him in nine and a half weeks in Diner. He was so fucking cool. So I'm seeing this dude I would love to be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
He's with this woman that's the most beautiful of all time. And you're like, they really fucked. You're like, yes, I'm so happy for both of them. The two hottest people did it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I don't know. That's even heightens the craziness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Okay, well, I'm glad we cleared it up. I've heard many rumors, yes. Have you heard that I've said it? When it comes up, I'll tell the alleged one. Have you said it? Well, I've said the alleged ones, just like I said the alleged angel heart, which you heard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I'll say, you know what, guys? I've got proof. That one, unfortunately, is not true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
The guy with the sexiest eyes in the world and the other most beautiful person in the world didn't actually have sex.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Oh, those are rumors too? Those are rumors too. I don't know those ones.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I don't even know what I was basing it on. It looked so real it had to be real. I just want to be clear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Just that would be awesome. I'd be happy for both of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yes, I would be so happy for Lisa Bonet and Mickey Rourke if that really happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
She's pretty cool, but yeah. She ain't signing off on that. And I'm a girl's girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I have not been objectified. So I really can't probably. But I'm trying to imagine if there was a rumor about me and one of my co-stars that had actual sex in a scene, how I would feel about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And it's more just like these are the ones that happened to make it of the many we loved.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I don't like that at all, for the record. And I very much apologize for any time I did bring up allegedly this is part of the law. Sorry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I stopped doing print entirely interviews because... I did an interview in Playboy magazine and you have to know I was so excited about that. I had read all the Playboy magazine interviews. They were my favorite. Like anytime you really wanted to get to know somebody, it was in there, right? And they asked me and I was so excited.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And in real life, the interviewer said, you've been linked to several famous ladies. What's the magic something? Let's just say that. I can't even remember the particulars. I go on to try to give an Answer that doesn't make me seem like a fucking douchebag It comes out in the question in print says you've been linked to a lot of famous ladies lists three people
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
That he did not list in his question. I had not even met these three people. But if you go to this website, who's dated who, it says I dated these people. I've never met the people. So now I'm like, these fucking women think I was asked that and didn't immediately correct him and go, no, no, I've never even met those people. Oh, they hate you. Of course they should. Where's your integrity?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Like you can't add names. That was so shady. I'm never doing that again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
The story they already had in their head about you, whether you fit into it or not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I think that's why this is the antidote to that. It's you. And I'll go anywhere and speak in my own voice. I'm happy to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah, like I'm saying it's great that Steven Seagal has a reggae album, but my voice is telling you I don't really think it's great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I hope it was clear. I don't think that's a great move.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I agree. In the same way, social media for all of its isms and ales, it has killed paparazzi. And you and I were unified on that. Oh, I'm going to throw one thing in the mix right now. You and I were almost in a movie together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Well, you were almost in Wanted. I was. And I was almost in Wanted. Really? I almost got the James McAvoy role. He had fallen out and they started meeting people. And I met Timur, that interesting Russian dude, which I assume you met him too. And Angie had fallen out or maybe you were, whatever order. There could have been a version of Wanted with you and I.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yes. I think James McAvoy is much better than I am, but just for the record. But can you imagine? That would be freaky if we had been in Wanted. That was a very successful film. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Well, You already know it, you fucking won the Academy Award for it, but boy, I love Monster's Ball. You're so impossibly great in it. I'm gonna bring up Catwomen, women, woman, only for a single reason, which is, I think this is the most gangster move ever. You cat women. Why can't I say women?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
There's cat women. It's a Freudian slip. You do cat woman. You win a Razzie and you go accept it and you bring with you in your hand your Oscar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And you hold the Razzie in one hand and the Oscar in the other. And I'm like, that's cooler than you having fucked Billy Bob Thornton as legend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Do you have to work your way up to that decision or you immediately know, fuck it, I'm going to go do this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
It totally makes sense. For me, I guess the thing I try to be critical of is the story is immaterial. Is the story serving to either excuse my character defects, justify me getting the things I want? Or somehow setting up a situation where you'll be even more impressed by me because you know the story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
It's just so confident and attractive. It is. It's so cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
What speech was better? The Oscar speech or the Razzies speech? You left me like, fuck, I kind of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah. Were you the first black actor to win a Razzie?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
From 771 with Jack Blackham. Okay, so who breaks out the blotter or the devil's dander first? I was introduced...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
To LSD, I guess I was maybe 14 or maybe 13. It was a friend of mine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I'm not looking for a name. I'm just curious. Were you hanging with a 26-year-old dude that was a tradesman? He was older.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I did look up to him like a big brother figure. I had a thing where I wanted a father figure, even though I had a great dad, but I wanted the dark dad. I wanted the one that was going to show me the ways of the dark side. Sure. And this guy filled in that role.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
We did Acid, and I remember that night laughing as hard as I'd ever laughed and having this strange feeling of being whole for the first time. And suddenly this big, dark, mysterious universe that I didn't know how I fit into, it all felt right. Laughing till I cried and having... kind of a weird spiritual experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
But then it led to the darkest day or night of my life where it wouldn't stop and it stopped being fun. And it was so bad that I was locked in this insane brain prison where all I could see was chess pieces going off into infinity, playing a game with myself. And I had this terror that I was never going to break free of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And it was like, as good as that first hour and a half was, it wasn't worth it. And thank God I made it through the night. I don't think I slept a minute.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Once the thought enters your mind, this may be permanent. The second you have that, you're fucking cooked for hours. Yeah. You're like, oh, shit. You're remembering stories you heard growing up of like, you know, Mike Benner. I saw him at the gas station. He's been tripping for four years. You have this one story and you're like, oh, wow, this is happening to me. I'm going to be him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Here's some highlights. So please enjoy Best of Mondays.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Why? I think I got some bad acid. That's what I heard. Sometimes you get the bad one. There was a few hallucinogenic experiences, mushrooms and acid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Well, I was just down to clown with anything that my big bro or my crew of heavy metal maniacs were into at the time. It wasn't a gang, but it was like a brotherhood. There was some coke. You know, when you first take it, there's an initial rush and a feeling. It's similar in that a doorway opens in your brain and you're like, I fucking get it now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
So if the story has these kind of like self-serving gross motives, which most of my story does, I'm trying to self-aggrandize myself and seem like a victim and a victor at the same time. When I recognize that that's actually the purpose of the story, I think that's more what I'm currently honed in on. I could also tell that I had the luckiest childhood that anyone's ever had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And I have a lot of brilliant things to say really fast. And you go for hours and hours and you say some things where you're talking about love and you're talking about connections and you're talking about things in the future that you're going to do. And it's in retrospect, so embarrassing. It is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Thank God there was no recording, but it actually would have been nice if someone had recorded it just to play back as a cautionary tale. of how ridiculous you can sound.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I witnessed myself a single time I had been recorded by my girlfriend, and it's a bummer. I mean, I think that might be the lowest feeling I've had, is looking at my face and going, how I thought I was coming across versus what I'm seeing now, what a gap. But I would say the thing I liked about it most is I'm not optimistic. I'm very pessimistic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Couple toots of that stuff, and I'm like, you know what? Everything is going to work out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I got spiritual. I like talking about God and stuff that I don't usually talk about. And I don't really feel a connection to. I'm definitely leaning atheist. But for some reason, once I get all coked up or whatever the drug may be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
There's a version that brings out a nice side of yourself, which is like, I'm so interested in whoever I'm talking to. Someone will be telling me that their father was a firefighter. And I'm like, wait a minute. And this is sincere. I'm like, oh my God. So your dad was like... Like a firefighter? Yeah. And I'm in it. This guy's dad was a hero. Tell me more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And I want to know about the movie of their life where their hero dad was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
It gives you a brief energy that lets you delve deeper than you normally would with other people. Maybe that's why Freud supposedly used it a lot in sessions. Oh, yeah. So that they could go deeper than they usually would about themselves and about the nooks and crannies of their personality.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Was the move to crosswords crossroads? Crosswords. We should open a competing school across the street called Crosswords. Yeah. But were your parents sensing we need to put him somewhere else and get him out of this crew?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah. But in the midst of all of that turmoil and darkness, there was someone from the crew. This dude was into this. This person who we had all met when we got on a bus and went to the arcade in Westwood. It was called Westworld. Back when arcades were a thing. Play your favorite tabletop video games. And we met these girls and we both fell for the same girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And he kind of called dibs or whatever. And I was like, dibs? Mibs. And then... I started a romance on the side and he didn't know. And then when he found out, he wanted to kill me. And then he did beat the shit out of me. It wasn't over yet. There was going to be some more ass kicking. My parents just noticed that shit was going sideways. And they're like, we got to get you the fuck out of there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And I was like, yeah, I agree. I don't want to be here anymore. Were you so relieved because you maybe wouldn't have sent up the white flag? I don't know what would have happened there. So I went to this little tiny school called Poseidon that was on Pico between Bundy and Barrington. It's not there anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And it was a school with a lot of kids that had been kicked out of their schools from all over the city. And it was kind of a last chance kind of school. Yeah, it was the Island of Broken Toys. Yeah. Misfit Island. But it had some great teachers in it. There was a theater teacher named Deb Devine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
There's enough data points for me to point to these.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
who I latched onto, and she taught us all improvisation games and viola-spoling games and got us all thinking about telling stories. And it was kind of like theater therapy. You could work out some of your demons by playing roles and just coming off the top of your head with shit you're going to say to the other person in the scene. It was kind of... Amazing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And she is still a great theater force in Los Angeles. She's got a theater called 21st Street Theater here in downtown LA. She has outreach programs to kids all over the city who come and learn theater. She's an awesome lady. That's so cool. Yeah. There was also like a therapist in the school. There's only like 20 kids in the school, but the therapist was a bodybuilder also. Oh, wonderful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Because sometimes he would have to defend himself. There's some rough characters at this school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah. Were there smoking breaks built in? I'm being sincere. There was smoking. And there was kids going in to see him and talk to him. And I was like, what's going on in there? Because there were some kids that it was compulsory. They had to go talk to the therapist a certain amount of times a week. And I was not in that group. And I was jealous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I was like, I want to talk to the muscle building therapist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I talked to him just on the side. I was like, how do you get into there? It's like, you can come in if you want. You want to set an appointment? I was like, yeah. And I went in there. I just wanted to see what was going on in here. And we got to talking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And then it only took me about a minute before I started spilling my guts about how I had stolen money from my mom and all the shit that I was carrying around, how guilty I was. Doing drugs. The drugs, but mainly the betrayal of my mom, who just was an unconditional love for me. And she didn't know that I had stolen money to get the drugs. And I just bawled my eyes out. I cried.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
cried so hard and it felt so good because I grew up with a Jewish upbringing and I learned a lot of my value system there, but I didn't have confessional. And there was something about just sitting there with this therapist and just confessing my sins or whatever you want to call it, my guilt, that felt so cleansing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I saw him for the next year once a week and it was like a major turning point for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah, that's really lucky. from 786 with Vince Vaughn. You guys did couples retreat and I was there just hanging for like the whole six weeks. We were friendly to each other, but in my mind, we took a flight during the press tour and you and I were the only people that didn't fall asleep. We were flying to like Australia. I remember it. And we're chatting, chatting, chatting, and it's fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
We're both awake. And then at some point I talk about being in the learning disabled room. And I feel like I saw a whole new version of you come online, and you and I just really got into what it was like to get called out of the classroom and go down to that room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Do you see how that's splitting right there? Yeah. That varies in how split it goes down. See, mine's beautiful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I guess I had a hard time resisting a joke and sitting still. But anyway. Were you also way too big?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Your bedroom is your bed, your shitter, your mother. Ha ha.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Oh, ruined. I would imagine through different interviews and even the notion that you had loved the Stephen King book you loved as a kid. Rage. Yeah. I saw kids get literally destroyed. There's no going past what happened to them in junior high and high school through bullying and the horror that can be. I just saw kids get fucking ground up and destroyed and had so much. sympathy for them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I just was part of who I was. But I also think you hit it on the head earlier, which is you were giving people what you wanted. Was there an inciting incident other than that experience, which is profound? I kind of belong there. I couldn't read. I didn't learn to read till fifth grade, right? I have dyslexia. And those hieroglyphics, it's really nuts what that looks like to me. I got over it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
It's fine. And I agree. I'm glad I had the whole journey. And then figuring out I was good at some things was like, what a gust of wind in the sails. We're like, Oh my God, I'm good at math. Oh my God, I'm not fucking stupid. I thought I wasn't stupid. When I'm talking to dudes on the playground, I'm verbally advanced. Why is it I'm so stupid here? Yet I'm out on the playground. I'm so confused.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Did you feel stupid or you knew you were bright? Well, I felt like as soon as you sat in that desk and they started writing on the chalkboard, I'm like, I'm out to sea and it's compounding daily. And now we're another step down the path. And at some point I threw in the towel. I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to get this. I just have to act like I'm paying attention.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah, and then DAX, and there was someone holding a slip, and then I'd leave the classroom, and then I'd go to that room with everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I got blessed in that my mom, luckily for me, thought I was a genius. She's like, yeah, I don't know what to say about this report card, but I know this kid's a genius. So she didn't sweat me. We were fortunate to have belief in us. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Well, and Bradley, that's why work is so appealing to us is that you have all the evidence of adulthood through work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah, and they get destroyed. From 696 with Heidi Klum. Okay, you've talked too much about it, but I just have a specific question about it. And that is Halloween. So do you already know this about Heidi that she goes so hard for Halloween? Probably harder than anyone in the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I hate to say this. There will be some listeners that, like Monica, haven't seen the Halloween costumes. I learned of it today. Monica, whatever you're imagining, you have to times it by 10. So she went as whatever she called it, a rainworm. It looks like a fucking intestine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Or like the lower GI. That is also what a worm looks like. She is in this like nine foot long fucking...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
It looks like an intestine. Her face is gone. There's no face. She's gone. Her eyes are poking through.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
But by the way, they wouldn't even know if you were looking over there. I don't want to suffocate. She's gone in this costume, Monica. You can't see her. Do you see it? When I tell you that this costume is as complicated as the Jabba the Hutt costume in Star Wars, it's that level of prosthetic and insanity. Look at her face. Try to find her face.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Now that we know what you're doing, so we know that the one costume that's going is 95, and you looked like... You're saying a rainworm. I think it happens to look like intestines. Do you think that looks like intestines?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
No one says rainworm. What is it? You would just say worm, right? You're talking about the worm that is just in the grass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I think in America we don't have that. They come out of the grass and the soil. No, normal worms. Yeah, normal worms, they come up. And if we want to talk about a different worm. It's not a maggot. Right, but we would say maggot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
What I'm telling you is no one would call a maggot a worm. You don't need to differentiate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Here it's just warm. I love this. That's standard, what you were.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Now that we've been brought up to speed about these Halloween costumes, my question is, many, many women on Halloween like to- Dress as a nurse. Well, they like to express a sexiness that they don't otherwise get to do in real life. And I think it's very telling that you went as a forgive me, an intestine and a 95 year old woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
From 707 with Goldie Hawn. Do you know Esther Perel? Do you know that therapist?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And my question is, do you think it's because you've had your fill of being sexy and that now it's like, let's go be a rainworm?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
thing Kristen's so celebrated for being beautiful that she does things that are so gross that only she would really be comfortable doing like she'll wear a bald cap and she looks insane or she has a bathing suit that looks like a man's hairy chest and it's so gross
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
She has this really cool, maybe it's not proprietary to her, but she deals a lot with people who have had infidelity. And a point she makes, which I think is so profound, is quite often you think your partner cheated on you with another person because they liked that person. But in truth, they missed a version of themselves. that that person allows them to access.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Well, what I like is this reinforces the point you made a few minutes ago, which is like you just pursue stuff because you pursue them. Sometimes they generate money. Sometimes they don't. This is obviously a humongous expense for you to do this. And you're not going to get any money back from doing that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And you always have something to talk about on a talk show in a pinch. All you got to do is flash that fucking picture and you got like six minutes right there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
When do you start planning? Now. Good question. Now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I can imagine this party, no one can move, no one's arms work, people are falling down staircases. No, my husband... Just a shit show. My husband was a gigantic egg because... This is like a Black Mirror episode in a way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
No one there is going to be a ornithologist and call you out on this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And I find that so much more compassionate and relatable. That's actually more about, I miss a version of me. This person gives me that version of me. It's not really about this person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Right. Or if I take a little zip around, I'll probably return to the cage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Well, I did think one thing I was listening to, A, and I love this about you, and now we're to the point where I think the yin and yang is really fascinating. And again, I am in a yin and yang. I am very much the Kurt and she's very much like you. I identify deeply with this companion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Who knows what all happened on that Valentine's Day in 1981, 83. I was thinking, and A, I just like that you're so honest about that. There's phases and there's twists and turns and you both are in stages. I was thinking when I was hearing you talk about it, I almost would guess if you guys had gotten married, you actually wouldn't be together now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
That in some of the phases you would have had to sever that thing and then coming back together or finding peace would have been a whole other weird thing because it's all been framed differently. Like I almost can imagine that you wouldn't have made it 41 years if you had gotten married.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Let's be honest about who you picked and who he picked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yes. How many times? Yes. Because you're married and you go like, can I live this way for the rest of my life, which I've already signed up for? No, I don't want to live this way for the rest of my life. That's why I think it could have potentially ended.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
This is an outside guess. And we interview a lot of powerful women. And there seems to be a pretty common pattern where men are very attracted to the powerful woman. They're dazzled by the powerful woman. And then once they're a partner with the powerful woman, they then want her to now end that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
And so a lot of women who are successful, I have such great sympathy for because they either have to get a fucking golden retriever who's not challenging, isn't rewarding, isn't going to
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
really be a partner building shit that's just going along for the ride or an equal that's going to get jealous of the attention they receive and the money they make and so unfortunately i think for women as successful as you it's such a narrow field of men that's an equal yet is confident enough to let you shine that's my guess of why kurt has been in the picture for 41 years this motherfucker somehow has a confidence that he is not threatened by your shine right he's not
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
From 728 with Maya Rudolph. Probably so many of these men that you've been comedically involved with were in love with you. How did you manage all that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
But Maya, you're so beautiful and you're so talented. It's crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
Yeah. Which isn't legendarily great dong. No, it's not. It's actually kind of known to be pretty bad dong. It's like dark.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I also think you might not know that guys like you is my hunch, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
So that's, yeah, your story, I think. Monica has a story too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Monday 2024
I had a hunch. And by the way, all of it's built on a single, well, I don't want to diminish it. It is built largely on one very profound experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Monica Lewinsky Returns
Okay, wait, what's this spray stuff? I'm just curious. Oh, interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Adam Scott Returns
Behind the closed doors of government offices and military compounds, there are hidden stories and buried secrets from the darkest corners of history. From covert experiments pushing the boundaries of science to operations so secretive they were barely whispered about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Adam Scott Returns
Each week on Redacted Declassified Mysteries, we pull back the curtain on these hidden histories, 100% true and verifiable stories that expose the shadowy underbelly of power. Consider Operation Paperclip, where former Nazi scientists were brought to America after World War II, not as prisoners, but as assets to advance U.S. intelligence during the Cold War.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Adam Scott Returns
These aren't just old conspiracy theories. They're thoroughly investigated accounts that reveal the uncomfortable truths still shaping our world today. The stories are real. The secrets are shocking. Follow Redacted Declassified Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Redacted early and ad-free right now on Wondery+.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dak Shepard. You know, I saw a comment. I said Dan Shepard, as I do often.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Oh, even better. You see like up in Sweden and stuff, they leave their babies outside in the pram in the cold. They're going to the store. There's just babies lined up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, exactly. We should raise some children in a commune. I think we're in lockstep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay, so you moved to San Diego when you're nine. Why did we move to San Diego?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And how did you take to San Diego? That's a big cultural shift.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
So I'm going to go by the lore. Some of this might be apocryphal, but you see The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. You see that play and you're intrigued.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, the combined goal, all the business that goes into it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Because my daughter's about to do it in a month and our other friend's kid is currently doing Annie at the same time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
But do we think that could extend to some other things like comedy? I don't think you can train yourself from a three to...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Right. You have some anatomy that's going to live. Exactly. You have to have a range. Yes, that's it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
See, that's the thing. I think there's an archetype of the brain that is similar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I need to admit something to you. I don't know that I've ever done this, but you make me really nervous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
What? I think it's a good feeling, though. It's a good kind of nervous, but I don't really get nervous and I can feel nervousness in my body.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's like kind of maniacal. It's so cute and scary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Do you think maybe you were just missing it and no one told you? What was I missing? You're powerful and you make people nervous. Oh, good. I got her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And I'm sloppy. And I'm like, I want the interplay to be right. But yeah, I'm a sloppy mess that I somehow landed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You know what Kristen did tell me? I said, you know Michelle a little bit, right? And she said, yeah, I love her. We have a lot of mutual friends, which makes me feel closer to her than we actually are. But she said she speaks very poetically. I love how she speaks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, I wrote the thing that went viral. I didn't need to take credit for that. A really good version of me would have just let her have credit for that. She did more, ultimately, than I did. But I wrote a thing. I was so upset. I just put it on Tumblr. Tell people. Okay, when Lincoln was born, there were paparazzi living on the driveway for a long time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And every time we left, we covered her with a blanket. We went to so many lengths to not let a photograph of her get taken. And we were at the Hanson's house, Deep Valley. I wasn't even thinking of leaving their house. And then my mom texts me like, oh, I'm so sorry. And it's a picture of Lincoln.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And I was, I can even say now maybe over, but I was just so fucking upset about it that I wrote this long thing and I put it on Tumblr and then somehow it got picked up by the Huffington Post and all these places. And then that led to talk shows inviting us to argue with paparazzi, which we did. And this is where she deserves all the credit, Kristen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
She built a coalition of other actors, basically saying we will no longer participate in these magazines if they don't stop showing kids. It was called the no kid policy. And she got all the photo houses started. To commit to that, which was pretty powerful. And I do give her all the credit for that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Oh, that's so sweet. God, that makes me happy. Yeah, she came in and read that to me. That was really nice of you to send. Even forget the cameras. Just imagine you take your kids out and there's seven men in fatigues that just run in a circle around you. That's such a bizarre human experience for a little kid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's kind of nuts to shit when we look back what was totally acceptable. You look at Britney's life at the apex and you're like, that's just an assault.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, it's just the price you have to pay. And they're right in some degree, at least saying you chose that, right? And I would agree. You go into acting, you would have to have your head in the sand to think that if I get popular enough, I might not have to deal with that. Now, we could have another debate about whether you really need to deal with that because you want to act.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
But your kids didn't choose that. That's an insane proposition that the kids made the decision to be born to the parents who made the decision. That's like sins of our father stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I believe so. By the way, the added benefit for us was we're always with our kids, so we don't really deal with it at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Also, you're getting a photo in their house of them smiling. You have this new access that they're in control of. So it's more interesting. I do think that overall just kind of crippled that industry. Although there seems to be a market still for Ben Affleck and Justin Bieber. Those two seem to still be living in prison. And their children. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Also, then you add in there the kid that's arriving at school with a gang. It's already hard enough to fucking go to school. So embarrassing. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, I know. You need to do more than ride motorcycles to overcome that. That deficit you've assumed. Okay. Now, this is a thrilling part of your story. You start acting. You're on Baywatch as your first one. Incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You were a temptress to a young man. Was that the storyline?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And then you're in Lassie and you're in Step by Step. You're in Home Improvement. You are like working.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And you're in San Diego, so you're going to LA at a time. Yeah, so we're going back and forth. Are you taking the train or are you driving? Driving. Mom's driving you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay, now this is the part that's really unique is you got emancipated at 15. And you had to do all of high school in nine months?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I would guess you have two vastly different perspectives. One now as an adult who's been around 13-year-olds and 15-year-olds. And then the 15-year-old you who probably thought you were 26. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It could have gone crazy. What age were you when you moved to Burbank?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Oh, I think you should. It'd probably be so PTSD for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
That's a tour bus. My neighbors think Aerosmith's spending the night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You said at one point, and I will get it wrong, but something to the effect of there's a lot of scary people or dangerous people in LA. And I met many of them during that period. Was it fucking terrifying? That sounds insane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
They do. In fact, last year we were going to go up to Idaho and everyone was busy, so these four years in the bus. And the kids were like, we're not going unless we're on the bus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay, so yeah, when you got Dawson's Creek, you got very lucky. That's kind of a little life raft at that moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And the stress of supporting yourself in Burbank. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
What was the age of the other folks? Were they a little older than you? They were legal adults, 18, 19, 20. They didn't do high school in nine months?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Did you get a GED? Is that what you ended up with?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's a testament to forgetting about school, I'd say. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. So that's one theory. That's a good theory. My theory is almost similar to me going to college. Like I retained so much from college and other people didn't. But I wasn't there because I had to be there. I got to study whatever I wanted. I was not trying to get a career in anything. So I think if you weren't educated and then you set out to learn, you want to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's not something you're forced to do. It's like the decision to pursue this. And that just makes all the difference in the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, I remember distinctly arguing a guy drunk in Detroit when I was 19 and he just mopped the floor with me. I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. I didn't know it was Egypt 10 years ago or like 900 years ago. And it was 3000 years ago. I remember just being humiliated with how little I knew in that argument. And that was like a big motivator for me. I'm like, oh, I'm stupid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And someone wrote, why Dan? And I wrote, I know you're a new listener. Welcome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yes. Because you're going to go home and cook dinner for yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I only have three pieces of advice for young men. It's get a best friend, learn to dance, and try to learn a few jokes, and everything's going to work out just fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Well, you can send them to my school. It takes about seven minutes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, they must know how to back up a trailer by the time they're 18. That's another skill. Okay, so during the whole Dawson's Creek experience, you clearly had your mindset on establishing yourself in projects that were tonally kind of opposite. Was there tension between the gratitude for having such a great, safe job and then also not being in the things that you were dying to be in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
The things that you did in that period, which were Kill Joe, Dick, If These Walls Could Talk, Me Without You. Was it hard to get cast in stuff like that, given what you were currently known for? Was that a challenge?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Because from the outside, it would appear like you're on this thing, but you know you want a career at some point that's going to be much heavier and that you're going to have to establish yourself as quick as possible before you're just permanently in one type of role. Or was that not happening in your head?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And then there's a serendipitous and domino effect, which is me without you. A.V. Kaufman had seen that. Is that true?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I read that A.V. Kaufman had seen that and that was what urged her to push for you in Brokeback Mountain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Maybe that's true or maybe it's not true. Half the stuff I read is not true. Oh, Station Agent. That's a big, fun movie that you did in that period at Dawson. Did you fall in love with Dinklage the way my wife did? Everybody does. There's a handful of folks, and he is definitely at the top of that list.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Powerful charisma. She is head over heels. If I were to pass in a fiery crash, her first phone call, I don't know if he's wet or not, but I think it would be to him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
When you're making Brokeback, are you sensing what it is? You don't know about you, but I do some things and I thought they were going to be great. And then some things I thought were going to be bad and then they're good. I don't know that I'm a very good barometer when I'm inside of something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, you'd get nominated for Academy Award at the end of it all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Although one thing can happen. I've never met Ang Lee, but did you sense from him he had a spirit that was special and that somehow that was going to be present in the product?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
We're in a post-Brokeback Mountain world where we take for granted that story could be successful. But prior to that, we don't have that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you're comfortable talking about Heath, but I feel obligated to say that I knew him a little bit when he was getting sober. And I don't know that I've ever fallen in love with someone so quickly. This is one of the most special boys I've ever met, and I can feel the weight of the world on him. in a very special way that kind of broke my heart. I was very, very sad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And I thought he was just so special. So special. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. What a guy. I feel very lucky that I, yeah, it just got to, there's like a handful of people I've met like that in my life where I'm just like, oh wow, there's something, there's this heart here that's just leaking out everywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. Great taste in motorcycles too. He had a 2006 Sport 1000 yellow. That's what I also drive. Yeah. That's
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
We want to thank you. We haven't been up here in a long time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It wasn't an obvious cast. You now take for granted it feels like it was an obvious cast because you've seen the proof that everyone was brilliant. But it's not an obvious cast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
How was the life-altering shift of you're going to be at the Academy Awards? Was that a natural transition?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. We've been downstairs where there's video. And so we haven't been in the attic for a long time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, because I was going to say another theme I see present when I look at your life in its totality, and I doubt you reflect back on it in its totality, but... You have had many moments where you seem to have an incredibly healthy relationship with the job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Because I think having a baby on the heels of an Academy Award nomination, most people are like, okay, get me the list of all the directors I can now work with and it's time to go. And that seems like a very healthy relationship that you were like, no, it's time to have a baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
This is my main thing I've taken from parenting is it right-sized all my other concerns and pursuits in a very helpful way, ironically. I kind of thought, oh, you have kids, I'll be so distracted, there'll be no time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's like, oh, no, no, actually, I will now approach the work with kind of the stakes that it deserves, which is I like to do this and maybe I'm good at it, but it's not anymore worth The most important thing, there's some liberation in that. I think it's been helpful for me work-wise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And how about just the notion that your best day at work is you accomplish the thing you had hoped to accomplish. Your best day at work isn't when someone else in a scene was their best ever. But weirdly, the joy of the kids is like they do something, right? It's not like your best day is because you were your best self.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
A lot of tears in here. A lot of laughter. A lot of everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's just they do something that's so spectacular and you feel so lucky to have witnessed it. It's kind of the opposite.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You wanted to go to the mall with a teenage daughter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
There's been some unfortunate... It's a small room for two days.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. It's about the, yeah, whatever. I could go six hours on kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
We should do like a kid podcast. Some of this stuff that I think gives people anxiety about having kids is my absolute favorite stuff. Once they have some shit to get into, I'm like, let's party. I've done it all. I've fucked up in every way possible. It's go time. It's so rewarding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I don't ever do it when there's guests, but Monica would sit where you're at for the fact check. This is a questionable distance, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I'm not going to blame anyone in my parenting circle, but I could not make a mistake. Maybe it was self-imposed. If I fucked something up, I would just lie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I know in the fact that my kids fuck shit up and then they come tell me and I'm like, oh my God, this is incredible. They're better than me. I was hiding things I broke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Well, again, it's not her fault, but single mom, three kids, it was fucking chaotic. I couldn't put anything on her plate. I just did not want to be another burden in her very burdened life. So I think kind of self-imposed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
At least that one part. I catch myself all the time. Do you do this? This is last night. I catch myself being annoying in the exact same way my mom and dad were annoying to me. I want to play and I'm always petting their hair. I'm pulling their ear. And most of the time they like it. And then a lot of times they'd look at me and I'm like, oh my God, I know this so well. This is my dad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Like, just fucking watch TV. Why do you need my attention right now? Just watch TV.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And then the person wrote, you're right. I started listening like eight weeks ago or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Their little earlobes are so. Okay, I have selfish questions. When you did Synecdoche, I can't pronounce it, but... Synecdoche. Synecdoche?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
A sound absorber and just a muffler in general. And probably, well, I know absorbent. And so a lot of times I'm like, yeah, I think that's far enough away for me to try one. And I've gotten away with most of them. I usually out myself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
What is Charlie Kaufman like? I never met him and I only have adaptation to work off of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I want to have a dinner with him and I would be nervous too. Okay. Blue Valentine. I know you already talked about this a lot. This is 15 years old, but I'm still fascinated by the notion that you guys were urged to live together for a month before filming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Were you on your own for these eight-hour improv things?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
That would be a big challenge for me because I just want you to like me, especially if we met two months ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
That's kind of heartbreaking. Yeah, it was. Was it rough that second half? Were you feeling the heartbreak of that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, I can imagine coming home and feeling heartbroken or not liked, maybe. Yeah. My worst fear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I have a lot of toot integrity. Why were you late? What have you been doing? Not to out you for being late.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Back to Charlie Kaufman. If I had a list, it'd be really hard, but definitely in the top for me would be Eternal Sunshine. Just for the scene at the end when she's like, no, but I'll annoy you and I'll do this and you'll do that and I'll hate this. And he goes, yeah, I know. And I still want to. And I was like, Oh, my God. It was so heartbreaking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. I know, because when you're young, oh, man, you can get annoyed. And then in retrospect, you're like, what was that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Michelle, if you heard me and you'll hear me when we live in the bus together. Yes. In the morning, me starting this machine up, sometimes I hear myself. I'm pretty immune to it. I'm clearing my throat and I'm coughing. And sometimes I'll just be at the mirror and I'm like, my family, what they hear every morning from me and that they still love me is a miracle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You've been bopping around. You were on a previous podcast?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And they have so much fun making fun of me about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay, now, I already learned that this is not going to be the case, but it would appear again that you're in a very popular thing, and then you do a bunch of kind of smaller things. Then we go to Oz the Great and Powerful. You had not done a big-ass movie like that in a long time. Was that seemingly abrupt?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
What show were you doing? Were you with Larry Mantle? No, I was not with Larry Mantle. Do you know Larry Mantle?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You've heard this story. In fifth grade, a teacher said, he's not dumb. He's really, really smart. There's a school roper that could tend to his needs. You have to take an IQ test to get in. I got in. My dad said, no fucking way is he going to school with eggheads. And he pulled the plug on that. So I didn't go. But roper's the thing I always wanted to go to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Oh, she's in love with Larry Mantle. He's a longtime KCRW NPR. He hosts a few shows. He's got a very steady, calming voice. He's older, but that's not who you're with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Do you do any lake business? Do you get on the lakes at all?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
We're finishing a house right now on a lake in Nashville. Lake Life. Just got our first pontoon boat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Well, we got to stop in Idaho for two days. We sleep in the Walmart parking lot in the bus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, yeah. And I said, oh, I just get bored saying my name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Michelle, it's exactly back to being a kid and crossing the stream because numerous times we are in that bus and I'm getting into a tighter and tighter and tighter situation. And I'll say out loud, I don't know, guys, we may be backing down this mountain in that thrill of will we get through? It's exhilarating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay, after The Oz and Powerful, you do two Broadway shows. You won a Tony for Blackbird.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I know. It hasn't been cut, but it's being threatened to be cut. That and PBS.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You love that? The schedule for me seems very scary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
That's what drove that decision. And then you were great at that. Fucking asshole.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Is your hack to just commit to it before you actually think you can do it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay, now my favorite thing you ever did was Manchester by the Sea. You like to suffer. That's all I can conclude. It's been a minute since I suffered.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Boy, that movie. Have you already figured out how to not let things seep in at that point?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, you guys are both so fucking heartbreaking and good in that movie. Okay, Fosse, Verdant, Incredible, won an Emmy and a Golden Globe. Well done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I'm like, have I come to the end of the... Do you want to hear the funniest two minute story about the In Memoriam? I've only been to the Oscars one time. We went long ago and I directed a car chase movie with Kristen for a million dollars. Very few people saw. And I worship Brad Pitt. I would do anything to make out with him. And I've gone out to go to the bathroom and I'm coming back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And I've never met Brad at that point. I've come up my aisle and I'm walking towards my seat. And as I'm getting close to Kristen, she goes, he's talking to you. I go, what? She goes, Brad Pitt is talking to you. And I turn around and he's like three rows ahead. He's standing and he says, we loved your movie. At that moment, I kind of forget I've even made a movie. And I go, what movie?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And he goes, hit and run. We love hit and run. I can't believe this is happening. I sit down. Kristen's like, oh my God, are you so? I go, I can't. I'm smiling so big. And they immediately start the in memoriam. I can't stop smiling. I'm the happiest I've been since I got into this business. And Kristen looks at me, she goes, stop. Like, I'm so happy everyone died.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
They could have ended my life if they just cut to me. I am glowing in that moment. And it's all the people are dying and I'm so happy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You got to get the B-roll from that fucking award show. I would kill for that footage. Just me so fucking happy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay. So again, now here's another moment where it appears that you have a really, really impossibly healthy relationship, which is you take a two and a half year break after Fableman's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
We have a lot to catch you up on. Monica and I want to invest in a real T-Rex skull. They're very expensive, but we want to monetize it by renting out the mouth and turn it into a sex hotel because people would love to have sex in the mouth of a T-Rex.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I have a vasectomy. If we have one, it won't be mine, but I'll raise it with love and understanding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Nuck you in. So, you know, we're not always home all day long, but currently we are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. Do you have the tension? I know Kristen does a bit. I know a lot of working moms do where it's like when you're working a lot, you have some guilt about parenting. And then when you're parenting a lot, you have some guilt about not working.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
That sounds like a very good framing of it, which is it's fine to hurt. but the guilt and the judgment's not part of it. That's kind of how guys have gotten it for a long time, which is no guy feels guilty that he's going to work. Societally, he's never been asked to feel guilty about that. He should feel proud of that. But you feel sad that you're not with your kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You don't have any desires or passions or dreams.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I think of that all the time because I've journaled every single day for the last almost 21 years as a sobriety commitment. Often I'm journaling and I'm not editing for them. And then I think they will one day have all these and they can read all them. And then I go,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I'd like to read what my dad was feeling like at my exact age.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. Okay. Dying for sex. In this two and a half year break, this got to you. Was it a spec at that time or was it already set up?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I did a show for her for two years. She's a Michigander.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's rare you're afraid a woman will get canceled. Let's just say that. I think that's the best way I can euphemistically say it. It's very rare to be around a woman. Good for her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You had a lot of brave roles, but this one, there's so much sex in it. There's so much sexuality. Yeah. And forget the sexuality. I can hook up with people. That's fine. So much masturbation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
We were just discussing this on a different episode where I was like, as liberated as I am sexually, when I've been caught jerking off, not hiding the fact that I jerk off, but getting caught is really humiliating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Is it the level of creativity that has your mind blown? Yeah, kind of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, if someone walks in and you're doing it, I'm humiliated. So for me, singing and masturbating on camera would be rough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
At the same time. Coming around the mountain when she comes. Oh, God. Oh, look, I did it. I got to do the comedic version.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Did that stuff spook you or do you commit to it? And then you're like, I'll just come to terms with that when we start shooting or what was that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, you would hold onto a tooth at some point, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, so your character has previously had cancer, went into remission. And in the pilot, we learn that your cancer's back. And in fact, it's metastasized and you have stage four. Now, this is one of the heartbreaking parts of the show. I love Jay Duplass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
He's such a wonderful, wonderful guy. I hated to have to see him be a very annoying husband who I'm rooting for you to leave.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Michelle, they're so expensive. We heard that Leonardo DiCaprio has a full skeleton. And I used to know the price tag on it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
That's what I love. It feels very dangerous, which is my favorite humor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
So your character has also not been intimate with her husband for two years, I think we learned in the show, maybe even three years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And even worse, maybe like a Munchausen-y, a source of confirming his identity as the good guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's outrageous. They're very pricey. Limited edition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, I'm not going to die alone, but I'm going to die with my best friend, Nikki.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You had to have another storyline going other than dying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. How did it work? I stopped working in the era of intimacy coordinators. This one probably had a ton. That's why he stopped.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Sure, sure, sure. I always just gave the famous Jack Nicholson line. I'm sure you've heard it. Sorry if I get erect and sorry if I don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Neither is good. Oh, my God. 70s. Wow. Yeah, right? Can you imagine if that was 70s?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
That part's fantastic. I guess what scares me is you're already trying to do something that can't be choreographed in life. And you're trying to do it in this really crazy situation in which there's cameras, there's 15 people in the room. So already for me, I'm fighting against the mechanization of this thing you're hoping to capture. I agree with everything you're saying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And I hope that I've always been really... responsible and kind. And I've always just chatted with people beforehand, but I just fear this layer of, okay, now this whole thing has already been talked about, decided. How on earth will this look natural and fluid?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I mean, I always think of the worst thing, right? That's my gift. So my assumption when someone says that is more like, They've found out Dax was a bullshit name. Like, it was my stage name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, it's hard to compete. They gobble it up. Have you read Unstoppable Us to him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's Yuval Harari who wrote Sapiens. He did a kid's version of Sapiens. We've read it to our kids several times. It's incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's incredible. I'm blown away with your performance. I want to tell you one, it's not an intimacy coordinator, but it's one sex scene story of mine. I was doing something where it got to the point where the lawyer's talking about what can be shown. I'm not shy at all. My deepest insecurity, though, is that anyone would see my butthole. I don't want anyone to see my butthole.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And I'll show you everything else. Zero self-consciousness. And I get into the scene. We're walking. Okay, you're going to be on top of her. And I go, and where's the camera? And I see it's on the floor. Looking up at the bed. And I'm on top. And it's going to see my feet first. And I'm like, they're definitely going to see my asshole. I know cameras work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And I'm like, oh my God, they're going to see my asshole. We do a take. It's a long take. And then... I lay down for take two. I'm certain the whole crew just saw my butthole. And the director comes in and he takes the sheet and he moves it up just to cover my asshole. And I'm like, okay, that's confirmation. The entire gang just saw my butthole.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
They found many of these dinosaurs, ding, ding, ding, in your birthplace. Isn't Montana a big site for these skeletons?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Some editors at the studio. We have butthole here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay. But I just felt these sheepy plush stuff between the plushies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Truly, I've learned throughout my life. I've been delusionally unaware that I'm 6'2", that I'm white, that I'm all these things. And so when the crew sees my butthole, I'm not in danger. There's nothing to be that afraid of for me. And so it is a completely different dynamic. Like, I can laugh about that, but it's a different scenario that for years I didn't really even take time to consider.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. The last thing I want to say about the sexuality in the show is what occurred to me midway through was, oh, this is distinctly female. I've grown up watching tons of different sex scenes in different movies, and they have almost been exclusively written by men or directed by men. And there was something very unique and tangible about this whole journey that felt definitively female.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, you accomplished it. It's a completely different version of this tale than I've ever seen. That was the defining thing is that it was clearly all women making this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's crazy. To me, where the comedy is, is this intersection between your fantasy and reality. I feel like that's constantly explored. One after another, you have an idea of what's going to be great. And then where the rubber meets the road, there's just so much comedy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I don't know if this is intentional. It's just what my projection is. It seems that she entered the experience with the curiosity of a novel experience, which is like what I would hope I could accomplish in that time. Let's explore this new thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Or there's some notion of what you're supposed to do with the end of your life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
For me, that was the greatest source of anxiety, both with my dad and my stepdad, which is what's the timeline? You're trying to prep yourself for how long is this experience? How often do I visit? That unknown is so powerful. It almost overrides the actual thing itself. My dad was a blessing because it was small cell carcinoma. So it's like, he'll be dead in three months. Do it all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
That was great in retrospect. My stepdad was like two and a half, three years of prostate cancer. So it's like, when do you plan the trip? When is it too late for this? It's really hard to come up with that game plan when you actually don't know what amount of time you're dealing with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I've seen a lot of cute smiles in my life. I know. It's very disarming. It is. I just imagine a guy pointing a gun at you and saying, like, give me your money. And you hit him with that smile.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I think we are starting to look at it correctly. There seems to be a movement, like Atul Gawande, where it's like, don't just look for longevity. The goal shouldn't necessarily be longevity. 11 months instead of nine months. It should be, what do we want to do? That's like a bigger question and maybe more important than, are we going to try to get 11 or nine?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Measure it a little differently or evaluate it differently.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. Well, it's great. I just want to call out one scene that's incredible. When you talk about this dark and dangerous sense of humor, the fact that you break your leg kicking Rob Delaney in the dick. What a swing. Good job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You're expecting one hilarious moment. And then this other thing happens. You're like, holy fuck, this is a train wreck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Again, back to the poking someone in the eyes. It's hard enough to just kick and make sure you hit that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And then Jenny's fucking great. Jenny Slade is so great in it as Nikki. It's fantastic. I hope everyone watches it. This has been a delight. You're invited on a bus ride whenever you'd like. You could even follow behind in a smaller motorhome and you're like, well, fuck, if he's going to make it, I'll make it in this size one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yes. And you would go, I feel so silly. What am I doing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I do fact checks from it. I'll probably do some this summer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
But you're a delight. Most powerful smile in real life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And thanks for trusting us. I know this isn't necessarily your cup of tea. It feels flattering.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Anytime. All right. Adore you. Good luck with everything. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
No. Why do you smell something? My apartment smells. What's happening differently here?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, you look great. But I don't know if you just like you're at a film, you're at a photo shoot beforehand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
This is a Dingles. Really good job, Rob. I was looking specifically at the darkness there and wondering, is that all that's happening? Okay. But a major Dingles, because last night I hosted, Charlie and I tried to do Old Movie Night for his kids and my kids. And then Charlie's so much younger than me, he hasn't seen a lot of classics.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Because it's so disarming. And then boom to the eyes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Neither have I. Last night. Last night was Pirates of the Caribbean, the original. We were watching it, and Captain Jack Sparrow is so fantastic in it. And he looks so sexy with...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Uh-huh, he does. It's more than that. It's like smudged all the way down. And I said out loud to Charlie, I'm like, God, I wish that was a more acceptable look for guys. I would love to have that look.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay, we'll go in steps. But I definitely had it for Wednesday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, that's fun. Yeah. Okay, now walk me through why now eyeliner at this late stage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
That feels like a high probability of failure. Because you've got to practice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yes. Okay, great. I gave Rob something else to put up, too. This is going to be very visual heavy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, I guess people, I read a lot of people went to see the haircut, which delighted me. Of course. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Are you wearing eyeliner, baby Monica, in this photo? No. Okay. Look at the size of your eyeballs relative. That's like Vinny. You've got a similar ratio.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, your head is only like 3X your eyeball size, which is unique.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Big eggs. That's how you can tell someone has big eggs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And you look like a little guy, like a little boy. She got a little boy. Okay. Nobody wants to hear that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Oh, with some kind of gooey eyes. Squishy eye. Polyurethane eyes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I have some photos of me. I'll share with me carrying, you know, I carried a purse for like two years. So I'll give you some of those and you can go, oh, what a beautiful little girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Because you saw your mom in it and you're like, well, why aren't I wearing it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
We're in this situation where you, I know you have a story for the last two days, but we were waiting for the fact check.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Which I guess is, I guess it's not a complaint. That's fun. I have something to look forward to. Yeah. But it is crazy to know you, you're like, oh, I, oh, you know what? I'll just wait. And then I'm like, oh God, I get it. Wow, I can't hear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
The anticipation just also. It's so foreign for someone to say, I have this great thing and you have plenty of time and then you go, but I'm not going to tell you for two days.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's great. It's crazy. I mean, do you see it, Rob? Yeah, I went to the Vista and saw it. By the way, go to the Vista.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I actually felt like, oh my God, I live in a neighborhood with a neighborhood theater and I actually know people. It was a very heartwarming experience. And the Vista was sold out on a Saturday afternoon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And Tarantino did a fucking awesome job with like the popcorn stand. Everything's retro. So it's like the old cartoon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Nope. Just to the movie. But the popcorn, Nathan's hot dogs, the way the signage is, is very nostalgic. It's awesome. Yeah. And it's an insane movie. And it really... It tests how much you can fuck with the historic role of a protagonist. Like in Aristotle's Laws of Story. Because this, it's Tim.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
We're trying to come up with at least seven good ideas per interview. Okay, so Montana, you were there till nine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Tim Robinson. And he's being very Tim Robinson. He's going berserk. Yeah. And you kind of want everyone in his life to just get rid of him because he's, but he's your hero. So it's like this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, and some of the biggest laughs in a theater that I've heard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And Paul Rudd is just what a champion for taking that role and leaning into all of his Paul Rudd-ness in a great way. I love him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Most of the comments are people saying I wasn't aware of him. This is one of my favorite episodes. Yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Actually, I have. In fact, I was towing an obnoxious trailer and we went, I'm embarrassed to admit, but like one of these conferences and it was at Yellowstone, that fancy place. And then everything is set for you. But I had to call ahead and I said, so I have a 45 foot bus and a 22 foot trailer. Is there any place to park for me?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. Two things. Oh, my God. So much foreplay. Ding, ding, ding. Easter egg.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Easter eggs. That's perfect. It just took me a while to compute. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
That's the only one I ever broke in. I think I told you that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I don't think I was prepared for the level of devastation that occurred. They dropped this fucking steel I-beam on this mobile home and it flattens it like a pancake. And I'm watching it, looking at it and the cameras, and then I have to turn and act like I'm like emotional. And I am laughing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I'm like, I'm like worried I'm not going to be able to, because you know, I love when stuff breaks, like when a car drives through a window or something, that's my specific trigger. Yeah, and I had to turn around for a minute and like regroup.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
No, I think I had gotten it together by then. What an insane bit that was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Oh, wow. Thank you. That's a great compliment. I didn't see that coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
But you forget like I was a comedian at one point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And really good. Maybe stop there because that's great. I could float on that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And they're like, no, we're going to meet you at this service lot with the snow plows. So we had to park there and then get shuttled into there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
As again, I have a couple friendships where I juggle both things. I juggle what I feel about them on screen and then the reality of them in person as a friend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's all, there's no magic, right? It's like just disillusioned.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. I can imagine even if I turned in a performance that was funnier than Frida or the grocery store movie I did, whatever that was called. Employ the Month.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Which for my money, I think is the best I ever did. If I did something that was like we could measure it was the same. It just wouldn't tickle you because you sit on the couch with me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You can click into me being a stranger, basically. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That makes sense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Right. But that was a completely different life ago, right? Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
For most people, yeah. But I grew up working for General Motors and I've been driving really large things since I was young. So you're very comfortable. Some would argue too confident.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It feels like a different life ago. Even like what I do now. It's almost as if I am now a roofer and I used to be a car mechanic. Like there's something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Well, definitely in that like the goals are so different.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
The goals on Punk'd were like, be as funny as reality will permit and find the line and try your hardest to be right there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And that was just such a specific mindset. And then that's not what the mindset is in here for now, which is crazy. You know, we're going on. Well, we've already passed My Longest Job Ever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And there'll be a point where, you know, I'll have done this as long as I act it, which is a crazy thought to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Well, good in that. Oh, fun. I got to experience so many things. Bad in that, well, this last 10 years was much quicker than the formative 10 years, right? Like, 2003 to 2013, punk to end of parenthood is, to me, feels very long.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
This show feels like we've been doing it for three years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. But I did have a dream last night that I was acting in something. Yeah. It's kind of like my relapse dreams. And I tell you, my relapse dreams are always the same. I'm like, I'm out of town and I'm drinking a few beers. And I realize, I remember, oh, I always drink a few beers when I'm out of town and it always works. And then when I wake up, I literally have to go like,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You never drank in a few beers when you were out of town. No, I haven't. And then similarly last night, I was like taking a roll and we still have this. So it was like I was having to juggle both things. But then I had been doing that for a long time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Kristen often says she can't wait for the day that she sees me parallel park as quick as I do and fuck up. She's like, you know, your powers are going to fade and I just can't wait till you just fucking blast into a car, take out the side of the bus. She's really looking forward to that. But Montana, did you have that childhood I would fantasize about?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Exactly. So imagine, fast forward 12 years to my age, and you've now been doing something longer than you ever did the podcast. Yeah, I know. It's wild. But it feels like a third of the time. This is very confusing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And subscribe. We've never asked anyone to subscribe. I've always been really adverse to asking that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, go fucking subscribe, even if you're never going to watch it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. Just for fun. Because I... Remembered how great the show is. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Anyways, I'm joined by Monica Lilly Padman. Real name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, and again, you can't really consider that when you're writing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Oh, when they get to the... The trials. Oh, shit. Yeah. I did... Wow, that's funny. I never listened... You did hear. I never listened to that. Me and Britt Martley?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Funny, because I listened to when we redid... The Little Mermaid. Uh-huh. But I didn't listen to that. That's crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I'm jealous of them. They're getting what I had. They have as many motorcycles as I have. They are so well equipped.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I'll try to keep it coming. I'll try to do some more. You're just popping up all over the place. Yeah, more surprises. I got to get on a makeup tutorial. I got to get on a fashion podcast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
They go in the back of the bus. If we don't have the trailer, then we have this big tray. And I put my 11-year-old daughter's motorcycle, now 12. Her motorcycle, my motorcycle, and then two electrics for the non-enthusiasts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Oh, because, well, if they were in northeast Georgia, I know that Asheville is very close to there and it got submerged underwater.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay, one more chance at generosity here. Go ahead. Remember I was saying the time 100, like first 40 are so easy. Oh yeah, that person who dodged a bull, that actor. The last 15, you're like, he had a great golf swing. You know what I mean? Sure. So 12 grade, maybe they just got to third grade last and they're like, we have used every category.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And yeah, forget politics. Just like the assassination of anybody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
On your birth certificate and your driver's license. Today, we have one of the most acclaimed actors we've had on the show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It is wild. Yeah. And I don't know why this is my compulsion. I don't want you to be mad at me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's a very good esteem builder. The theory I had was she'll be sitting in class next to somebody and she'll be feeling insecure. But she'll go, I ride a dirt bike. And they don't do that. And that's just one thing. You just need something to cobble together a little confidence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
So I think that's very extreme. Yeah. And I think it's bonkers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. And they are in rural Georgia hearing about a real case here in LA where a child identified as a cat and they put a litter box in the bathroom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
So I only say that to just say- If we focus on the crazy ones, like they're on both sides and neither are really that representative.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
No, but they're putting a litter box in the bathroom. That's truly craziness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. He was elected. No, I'm only talking about the school's decision. I'm hoping.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
That that's as rare is the litter box in the bathroom. That's what that's all I'm saying is I'm just my optimistic self is hoping that that is rare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Right. Here's what I would hate is someone hears the litter box story, right? They're in Georgia. You know, he's fucking California school. And I just would go like, well, hey, just my kid's school isn't like that at all. It's public. Sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You'd probably have to live somewhere different, which is like the Sedaris thing is like, yeah, if you're gay in a small town, go to the city.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You can live low income in all states. Yeah. Right. You could be up in Oregon or Eastern Washington. There's like there's equivalencies in liberal states, if that was your desire. Was the parent they were like, what the fuck? Yeah. And what goods? What did their kid have to dress like Superman or something? Oh, OK, great. Thank God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It is. It is. It is. And an opportunity. Like my mom would say to me, what do you think of, what do you think of all these kids calling each other fags on the playground? What do you think it's like to be gay and hear that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
What do you think it's, you know, like my school is all Christian. We didn't go to church on Sunday and other people that, you know, like, well, what do you, it's also not bad to be an outcast and to be, It's a character builder. And if your parents are engaging you on it, then that's an opportunity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Can I say one thing? It's actually weirdly related to your story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Rob, will you put up the thing I sent you? I just stumbled upon this. This is Quirky Maps, I guess, is the source. I follow a few different infograph accounts on Instagram, and they're so fun. Now, this is a countrywide breakdown of largest employers by state.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And what's undeniable about this map is... You can quite clearly see the states where Walmart's the number one employer is almost universally a red state. And then lo and behold, the states where the university's the number one employer, which is several, they're all without exception also blue. They vote blue. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I'm going to add it's a real bonus, too, if even the boys in your class can't do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
So it's interesting of all the employers, really, there's just three categories, really four. There's either you work for Walmart, you work for a health care, like a hospital system or university system. And there are only two that are like manufacturing. Michigan General Motors is the largest employer. And then Boeing in Washington is. But I just thought this was a very informative intro.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Like in Colorado, the largest employer is the Denver International Airport.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, like MGM Resorts makes sense in Nevada. But just all these university systems, that's pretty fascinating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You were fishing and you were shooting guns as a kid, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And North Carolina is... It's purple. It is far more liberal than the surrounding states.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And it does make sense for like your bread and butter, right? Like people are pretty loyal to their bread and butter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
New York is the university. It's like you talk about the elites and the coastal. It's like, oh, yeah, that's well, there's pretty obvious reason.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yes, 16. So 21 states, the largest employer is Walmart. 16 states, the healthcare is the largest. Eight for education and five for others, of which there's really no pattern.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Air Talk. That's the show Kristen's obsessed with. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
He has a great origin story. I want to say like he applied at NPR and he didn't get it. And then he went to another station and he started and he was so good. Then they brought him in. There's some kind of fun. Let me read you. Oh, you know, let me just shave this side.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay, go ahead. Impulse control issues. They say it's part of ADHD. I got a little bit, but that's okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Okay, sounds like a rocket ship ride of success because of his enormous talent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah, so let me just say, A, I hate this. This is fucking ridiculous. But I will say I was a little comforted when I read, not PBS. I think that one's really largely federally funded. But NPR is only getting, I want to say the number I wrote is like 2% from federal funding. So I am a little relieved that potentially they can survive that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Is much of a ridiculous thing. Hopefully people— Like, what we spend money—the shit we spend money on is like, let's trim out all this stuff that's so low impact.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Doesn't move the needle at all. And we lose all of our favorite things from the public funding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And we also— The Sesame Street and everything, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I mean, I do my best to give the argument a fair shot, right? There are many left-leaning media outlets and there's right-leaning media outlets. PBS is not. Like when they have the election and they do a two-hour thing on Hillary and they do a two-hour thing on Trump, they are equally hard-hitting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I guess, though, his point would be if all of Americans are funding it and half of Americans are conservative and half are liberal, it's not fair that the output is leaning left. That's a fair assessment. Now, cut it entirely or try to correct that is two different arguments.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
No, I'm more mean like if they're going to do KCRW is going to do a story on unhoused. Is it going to be the liberal version of unhoused or is it going to be the conservative version? And I do think probably more often it is the liberal point of view.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
What they... I know I listen to NPR and I like it. So I'm inclined to think it probably is a bit more left. I guess that's my gut intuition about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Well, like I'm pro-gay marriage. So when that was all being talked about, everything I'm hearing on there is the experts talking about the reality of that situation. But I'm pro that union, right? They're not going to give 30 minutes to a Christian saying that God says this is wrong. They're not going to do that on NPR. But your argument might be that that shouldn't. You're right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And that shouldn't get 30 minutes on an NPR. But I guess if it is federally funded and it has to be reflective of all the people that are paying for it. Then maybe it does. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Well, now the daily, I don't know if you listen to it, but I really encourage you to listen to it. These two professors at Princeton wrote a book, which is they have analyzed now for four years the COVID response. And they take all this World Health Organization had just done a study on social distancing for an airborne viral congestive virus. And they concluded it doesn't work. It has no impact.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And so their point is, and these are liberal Princeton professors. They're like, where was the New York Times saying, what about this article? Like we did, the left did a bad job of being, pushing hard and pressure testing the things we were being told. And there's now a lot of evidence of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Well, no, because this report that had been funded by the WHO, it existed. It existed. Anyone who wanted to look would have found that they just ran this study and that it was recommended that that wouldn't work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
You'll hear them. I want to get them on. I think when you hear it, you'll be very convinced, as I was. Like, oh, wow. Normally, we would have heard this counterargument to what was being proposed. It's how the fourth estate works. And what these two professors are saying is, like, there was an institutional breakdown. And we need to we need to come to terms with that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
We need to prevent that from happening again. And one of the people that now the Daily's brave enough to now run it in 2025. But the Daily would have never touched that WHO study during the pandemic, which they just should have. They really should have. And we'll have the experts on, and I think you'll agree. And there were many, it got so politicized, the whole event.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And I'm not defending the right, the right stance was fucking ridiculous on it, right? But there was a big breakdown and you have to ask them why. And I think part of the explanation as do these people is like, Every journalistic output became so politicized. They're either left or right. We need PBS. We need NPR. We need ones that are not servicing the market.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Oh, right. We need a good reminder of what's going on here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. I hope he's not offended. Like, if anything, I could get wrong about him. Yeah. The fact that I think he's got a really cool T-Rex skeleton, I hope doesn't offend him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I wish it said right here, but I want to say it's like five Academy Award nominations or something bonkers. Definitely four and I think maybe five. Emmy win. Tony nomination. Yeah, she's just a powerhouse. Blue Valentine. Dawson's Creek originally. That's where we fell in love with her. Brokeback Mountain. My Week with Marilyn. Manchester by the Sea, my favorite. Five.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Those plates are enormous on the back. Yeah, they are. That's virtually what I was looking at installing on top of our gates.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. We're always just trying to replicate what nature already figured out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yeah. But it's so clever because they get attacked from behind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It is so sweet. You know, hearing that makes something for me make so much more sense, which is Malcolm one time randomly sent me a text that said, I stumbled upon the thing you wrote about your dad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
It's just really like sore. Yeah. And I thought, how on earth did he stumble upon that? But it's interesting because he's talking about a friend who wrote about his father who's dead. And this definitely happened within the time that his dad had died.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And that the grieving is how you keep someone alive is also sweet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
There are also really great little trials of being afraid. All these things you would start with fear, unless something's wrong with you. So just these little ways to confront fear and then get comfortable and then have the pride of having confronted it. All those things are really good. How about even on grandparents' farm, going on a long walk where you're like, oh yeah, I'm a little scared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Yes, we will make room. I might have to tow another living quarters behind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I actually can. Okay, great. You saw it. Fuck it. Take it for a wrap. When this is all done, we'll give you a little test. But you know what else is happening on those walks? You scare yourself. That's fun. But then also your imagination's on fire. Because as beautiful as it is, it's also boring. You've got to now pretend on this bike ride that you're doing something important.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
I had to make myself some explore. And you're really trying on all kinds of different fun pretend identities.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
We have been criticized for this publicly. We let our kids go. I've encouraged them. You want to walk to the store, go to the store. We were in Denmark and there's the Trifoli Park. And so in the morning, we just say to the girls, goodbye, here's a credit card. You can spend X amount. And then here's the time you got to meet us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
So we're very big into just turning them over to the world and hoping for the best. Me too. Do you know Leonora Skenazy? She is this proponent of free range parenting. She's great. We interviewed her and she was letting her kid ride the subway at a very young age, but he had mastered the subway. People called her the worst mom in America.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
And the kids fine and did great. So we're proponents of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Five nominations. And her new series that's out now with my former boss, Liz Merriweather, Dying for Sex on FX and Hulu. Right now, I urge everyone to go watch it. It's very bold. It goes hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Michelle Williams
Unsupervised, as you said. That's the key. Yeah, crossing a river. And this had happened to you a ton. You got to cross the river and you got to jump on the different rocks to get over there. But you need a story in your head of why we must cross this river. Because we're being chased. It's so good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Monica Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
You playing on stereotypes isn't scaring those kids. And so I think what could be really dangerous for people to do is to apply the context you're in or that you're from to somebody else and globally. And what I will defend about you is You grew up in the East Village. You went to these schools that it wasn't all white. Your friendship group, which I have observed, is not white at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
We got a few whites. You got a few whiteys. Yeah, a couple of whites in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Andrew has a new comedy special out now called Life on Netflix. Beautiful stand up really about him and his wife's journey to having a kid, which is really, really sweet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
But I don't think it's terribly fair for the white suburban person with no friends of color whatsoever to be telling you how you should interact with your very multi-ethnic group of friends who are all consenting and enjoying it. I don't think that's fair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Russia? Taiwan. Oh no, Australia. The audience is super Asian. Oh yeah, the front row are all the Taiwanese guys. And you're making jokes directly to them that are very funny, very racial. It's not behind their back. There's no sense of superiority.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And he also has two very popular podcasts. He might even have more, but Flagrant and The Brilliant Idiots. So check out both podcasts and Life on Netflix. Please enjoy Andrew Scholl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Well, and a lot of people are just watching things to police whether or not it falls into what they would do. Yeah. Well, counterpoint. That's kind of my defensive view is I know what it's like to be in a poor neighborhood in Detroit, living in an apartment building where all my neighbors are everything. And it's on because we all trust each other. We love each other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And it's very fun for all of us. And I'm watching your special last night and I'm like, here's the truth. A ton of Latinas and Latinos are going to be offended. None will. And a ton are going to love it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
No, I did have a personal experience with this that I'll share. But no, I think there are some Latinos living in a predominantly white suburb that are going to see that and it's going to be scary. Like what joke? Just hearing you do their accent. They're going to think, oh, I'm going to go. This is not a reality. Wait, give me one second. Yeah, go, go, go, go. They're hearing that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
They're going, fuck, I'm going to go to school and every white dude's going to think they can come up to me and do their Latino accent. That's a portion. You know, I speak Spanish, right? I believe it. I'm not against you. I'm trying to point the two options. One is that I can definitely see how that's going to happen. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And then I can also see that tons of Latinos and Latinos are going to love it. Now, my point is. It's okay if a ton love it and a ton don't like it. It's not being forced. They're not showing it at school or before movies. Just don't watch that thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Bye. You made your point and now you're out? This house is comfortable, but like- But terrible? There's something about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
They're mine. This is my argument about molesting jokes. People yell at me. I'm like, no, no. I went through it. If I have one thing I can do, I can make a fucking Boy Scout joke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
But I'm just saying you feel like, who am I apologizing to?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
In so many ways, yeah. Yeah, he said, I don't know what you said. You were like, can I come by? I got a special coming out. And I said, oh my God, I'd love to have you. But I also want you to know you're going to walk into some pushback. And you said, let's party. Yeah, which I appreciate. I think that makes it better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
What's the hardest anyone's gone on you? Have you ever actually been in like a gotcha situation, like gotcha interview? I don't know what there is to get. You're not hiding anything. Yeah. Your worst side is out in public probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
We've already had this debate. I wanna know if you and I agree. I think a lot of the left, is viewing this under the lens that he won. And I think that's the wrong lens. The correct lens is we lost. We did not offer something appealing enough to vote for. Our side did not offer a platform that the majority of Americans wanted to vote for. Forget about him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Exactly. They rejected him and then they rejected us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Let's start there. I think there's a huge dissonance between what the official party is and what all the members of the party I talk to are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I hate to get back into the water again, but it's like I have only liberal friends. I'm surrounded by hundreds of them. Really? I've talked to, no, I have Republican friends, but I live in Los Angeles and I'm in show business. But I am talking with liberals nonstop. And when the topic of should trans women compete in the Olympics, none of them think that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
But that is the official message of the party. But is it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Right, so we see the right is so fueled by it. Why can't we stand up and go, we don't think that's a good idea either. No one's allowed to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Hi, today we have a guest that I've been following on Instagram for a couple years now. I went and saw him do stand-up on First Date with McConaughey in Austin, Andrew Scholz. And he's also an actor. Okay, this is fun because you were on the fence about Andrew.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Let's make a category. I actually am supportive of their right to compete. And I acknowledge that they're a woman. I want that right for them, but not at the expense of 20 other people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Do you see this clash? I never talk about politics, but. With Zelensky? Yes. This is worth repeating. Wait, what? Zelensky joined J.D. Vance and Trump at a news conference, and it is a screaming match.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
They do not. We're talking about three or four athletes on the planet that are going to want to do this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
My issue is we're not fighting back. No, you're not. We gave it to them on a silver platter and no one on the left will stand up and say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yeah. Trump's like, you don't have good cards. He's like, I'm not playing cards. We're in a war. This is for real. This dude is in a war.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Just to put all my cards on the table. I'm rooting for the Ukraine like crazy. from the second it started. They invaded you, bullies, let's go, let's help. That's where I stand. Then I read something yesterday where I was like, oh, I think I see what's happening. So Trump wants to be completely divorced of China. China has 74% of the rare earth minerals. Ukraine's got a ton of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And Trump's like, hey, we've given you $300 billion. You pay us back in those. We're free from China. And I was like, oh, maybe this whole thing is starting to make sense. And then I said this news conference, and I'm like, I don't know if there's any game plan. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . la� and in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in and, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl, cl
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
When they lock onto a truth that we all feel, but when you have hatred, I don't have that hatred, so I can't really connect to that. And maybe there's some love in it. Ideally, I'm pointing out really specific things. I've observed you. I've seen you. I've paid attention. I'm interested in you, and I know this about you. Yeah, like, I love you. To me, there's something very complimentary about you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Your Armenian run when you were here in L.A. I was like, you would think you lived in L.A. You would have to live in L.A. to know all of those tiny things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
That's a good segue for me. So I understand fully how you're at peace. In fact, to go behind the curtain, when I did your show, I just like you a ton. Respect. Feeling is mutual. And I've gotten some flack for liking you, right? Yep, sure. You have some war with Kimmel, which is unfortunate. No, I love Kimmel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
We have a statue of him. But you guys had some battle. Let's not get bogged down in that one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
But the idea of McDonald's was one that pulled out in the immediate. But then they just put FickDonald's. Yes, exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Whoa, hold on. This is what I'm leaning to. So, yeah, you got the Kimmel thing. I'm like, ah, it's a bummer. I'm still going to be out loud liking you. Hopefully he doesn't think it's a betrayal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Okay, so this is behind the scenes. I do your show. It's great. We hang out afterwards. It was so fun. You guys were so, so nice to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
The pre-battle of me getting called a snowflake. None of that happened. So then we walk off of your show and we're just hanging for a minute. And then I go, man, you really lost Kristen. I had Kristen on board. She was on the Andrew Scholl's fucking train. And then this joke about abortion. You lost her. Yeah, it wasn't a good joke. It really wasn't a good joke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I did it to my daughter this morning. I've been feeling terrible ever since. What happened? Well, I woke her up. If she ends up being late and rushed, it's a full meltdown. We can't get her to school at that point. It's just so much. So I got to get her up on time. I go to get her up on time. She's turning into a teenager. She turns 12 this month. And so I'm like, let's go, baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And she's like, no. She slammed the door and I opened it back up. I go, you got to get up. She slammed it again. I opened up. I'm leaving this door open. The light's going to get, you know. And then she later sent me an email from school saying, I'm so sorry I was so mean. And I'm like, oh, my God, don't worry. I love you, baby. I'm sorry I was so abrupt and blah, blah, blah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I hope you know I'm just trying to prevent you from having a really rough morning. Sent it. And all day I'm like, just say sorry. Yeah, you don't need to explain. I didn't need to say I'm trying to prevent that. But we want to be heroes. We want to be a good guy. I just don't want her to ever think I have a bad intention. That dude.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
By the way, that's not who you want to be in a court case with. Coca-Cola. Why is it that bad? Well, they got some deep pockets. They do have deep pockets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Okay. So anyways. I've understood all your scrapes and I've understood where you're coming from. And I understand you've accepted. Yes. Some people are going to be upset and I get all that. Should we say the thing that rubbed Chris in the wrong way?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Is a joke. I don't think you anticipated what Kristen heard. What was that? Where's the guy in this scenario? So you're pissed about the girl who's had 20. Well, guess what? 20 motherfuckers knocked her up and they're not paying any price for it. And they're not getting shamed. And we don't have to punch their card or do anything for them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And it's like, there might be something in there. You didn't remove all the pieces to make it David. It still is a piece of marble. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
She's actually a pretty good barometer for me. Why I say her in particular, I find her to be someone who is incredibly progressive and left and has not let it affect her sense of humor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I don't care if I found out terrible stuff about Coke. I will not stop drinking Diet Coke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
A white woman's Instagram. She's also really great at laughing at when she's getting burned. Like she gets burned a lot and she does very well with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
She loves getting blasted by Bateman. She loves getting blasted by Ryan. She'd not like getting blasted by me. That's definitely true. Fair enough. But all this to say, I have seen the decisions you've made and they've all pretty much made sense to me. And I've not been scared for you. The first time I got scared for you, truly, I like, should I call him? Yeah. Was Kendrick Lamar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Okay, so I watch your response. What's really funny is I have actually a friend reach out that go like, oh my God, have you seen this? So it comes to me in his version of telephone where he explains what you did. I'm like, oh boy. What's his version? This is so funny how this works. I think he just read the reviews of what you did. They made it racism so fast. Yes, yes. This term. Buck breaking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yes, buck breaking. And I'm like, he said buck breaking? So I now got to go find this thing. So I go to your Instagram and I find it and I go, okay, A does not say buck breaking. It's pretty silly. I said, I'll make sweet love to him. Right. If they were in prison together, he would make sweet love.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I saw it is about as playful as a fuck you, I'll kick your ass. This could be done. That's all it's trying to be, yeah. But now I'm really worried about you because I'm like, well, he thinks that he's a rational person. Kendrick is a national treasure. Huge. He's a Pulitzer Prize winning. Incredibly talented. He couldn't be more talented or loved. And I'm going, bro, is this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I'd like to have the standard approach we always do. Let's get to know Andrew as just a boy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yeah. Even if he's not affiliated, they could think they were doing a favor to someone they love. And that's how it works. He doesn't want you to get hurt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Now I want to bring up a love connection. Ooh, go. I've been trying to get Monica to love you for a while now. A couple of years, would you say?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
We're going to win over. Don't you feel like I'm always kind of like trying to pitch Andrew?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yeah. We're talking for two hours. We're going to say some fucked up shit. But let's get to the love affair. So one of my favorite things, I saw your rant on Taylor Swift and I couldn't send it to Monica fast enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
As I was watching it, I think I interrupted it to send it to her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
You were screaming. No features. No features. I think you were arguing whether Beyonce. People are upset about that. I'm sure. Yeah, you're right. Followers were probably. No, no. Beyonce fans. But I went to the show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I love her. She's incredible. She's from another universe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I just find it's very powerful to hear someone's real story to find out where are they coming from? I agree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
So shout out Taylor. Okay. Life, your new standup special. Yes. It's your second one on Netflix.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Okay. So right out of the gates, I hadn't noticed this prior to this, but you know, I've been in bed with Kutcher for 22 years. He gave me my start. Yeah. You and Ashton have an extremely similar vibe. Do people ever tell you look like him? Okay, here's the Kutcher story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
You could probably be three times bigger as a business. Way bigger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
All right, let's do it. Talk to me. Well, first and most exciting is your mother is a bombshell. Thank you. And when I was on your show, we discussed, well, I asked. She is a professional ballroom dancer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
You guys might be identical heights too. Maybe. Very handsome. Okay, the show's wonderful and as we already laid out a tiny bit, this special is solely about getting pregnant, having a baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And I'm with you. Chris and I, when we decided to have a baby, she said, do you want to get your sperm count checked? And I go, why would I do that? I'm not assuming I have a problem.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And she goes, how many times did you fuck without a rubber and you've never gotten anyone pregnant? And I was like, oh shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Three-time U.S. ballroom dance champion. Not a big deal. Okay. Three-time. The GOAT. Who's the most winningest ever? Is there a woman with six or seven titles under her? We don't talk about those women. Oh, God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
yeah of course it's almost a B minus it's pretty much a B if you round up if you round up I'm a solid B and also I have the same shitty sperm I tried in UCLA I read that I could make money donating sperm because I was a student there and I went in and I did the jerk off thing and then they called and they're like your sperm count's not high enough no way yes and I was like oh Jesus
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
From taking tea or anything like that? No, it was just when I was like 21 years old. They want you to have a big sperm count at the bank. Yeah, they're so prejudiced. I was probably a C. Yeah, we don't talk about that enough, huh? No, I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And before he came, I said, yeah, you come on in. We'd love to have you, but there'll be some pushback. So this was a very unique and fun episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yeah, it's beautiful. It's really special to get to receive that, I think. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yeah, exactly. I think that can be misleading for all humans, which is you have such a sharp skill set that Really, anything you bring that talent to bear on is going to yield results. And it could mislead everyone. We had Robert Sapolsky.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yeah, he's the smartest person alive, probably. And he's a determinist. And I'm like, great, you've made a great argument. But can you acknowledge you could have turned that same brain on free will and made just as convincing of an argument? It's just like, where do you want to focus this hyper talent? Let me ask you if this observation rings true for you. Yeah, sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
In the last eight years, we've watched so many people become famous in the podcast space, whether it's Huberman or name the number of people. And I'm not using Huberman as an example in this, but I've watched many of these people get led by their audience instead of them leading their audience. Their audience will take them in a fucking rabbit hole.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I've seen like eight people taking themselves out where they started here and they literally went in the rabbit hole because they just were responding to the most vitriolic response.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Shane Gillis. Shane is great, man. He's unbelievably good. That's the unfortunate thing of our current society is you're watching things, trying to pin them to a camp the whole time. It's like,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
whoa where are they are they liberal are they conservative and what's fun about shane is it's a hardcore conservative position it's a hardcore left position it's bouncing back and forth and i personally love and cherish that and you're bouncing back and forth in this special you definitely have some moments i think i think so this isn't funny this is just another observation so
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
We went through the same thing. You're there, you're in labor forever. All of a sudden people rush in, the heart rate has crashed, and now you're having this emergency thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How scary is that shit? It is. Did you have this moment? This is so dark to say, and I would never make this decision now, but on the ride with her in a gurney and me walking next down the hallway and 15 doctors all in a panic, I literally said, just keep Kristen alive. I don't give a fuck. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
In pursuit of dancing. Yeah. And then Andrew and his sweet father and mother had a ballroom dancing studio in lower Manhattan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Like I was so excited to have this baby, but my God is my wife in danger right now. Yep. A hundred percent. I was just like, please keep her alive. And now I'd be like, take her. I'll keep Lincoln and Delta. You know, what's funny is that Kristen would probably give her life a hundred times over. She'd have me killed a thousand times to save him a broken arm. And I want her to take him. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
But it was just like, she gave everything. Does it make you admire her? Fuck yeah. And you go, oh, this new thing I care so much about hit the jackpot with this. With a mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I hope you give her some attitude in front of me. That's what I say to Monica all the time. My dream in life is someone shoves her. Beware they're getting shoved and falling down just so I can react.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
That's funny. Even you coming today, I'm like, I want to be bros with you for life, to be honest. If it goes down, it's going down. And that's how it's got to be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
What I need to do is go on to bears and go on ideally Rogan and go, you can also be a masculine dude and cares a lot about people and wants to help them. You can do all those things. You're not a pussy if you care. I adore you. I love you guys. Thank you so much. I'm glad this happened. I really appreciate you guys doing this. Oh my God. Oh, my God, yeah. All right, everybody watch Life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
It's fantastic. It's on now on Netflix. You have it. Watch it. Also listen to The Brilliant Idiots and Flagrant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I'm working late because I'm a singer. It's a good song. I think that's the cutest lyric I've ever heard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I'm working late because I'm a singer. She's very cheeky. Oh, my God. I'm so late to the party, but now I'm an enormous Sabrina Carpenter fan. It started with Bed Cam. Do you know that song?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I'll play you one taste of it before we get flagged for copyright infringement. But let me see if I can give you a taste of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I was driving with Delta to school today and we listened to it every morning. And I said, you know the sign of a really, you know when a song's a fucking jam? A lot of times you're driving in cars and the song's good and it's a dancey track and you're like maybe clicking your fingers and maybe you're dancing a little bit. But if a song hits, you can't resist dancing with your shoulders.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I was telling her that's what you look for. And so we were both in the car fucking... We're really getting our shoulders active this morning. It was a blast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And I'm like, what about this one? She's like, have you listened to Juno? And then I'm like, OK, listen to Juno. It was a little slower. I was worried it was going to be a little too slow for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
In fact, Juno is sexual. Well, that's I'm so glad you brought this up. I would have forgot to say this. So we're laying in bed last night. We're talking about Juno and. You know, I'm like, I don't want to tell her it wasn't my favorite because it's her favorite. But I am not going to lie to her. All right. So here we are. So we're working through it. She's like, yeah, I understand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
It's a little more of this than that. And she goes, but do you know what Juno is? And I go, no. And she's like, well, it's a movie. And I go, oh, the movie Juno? Yes, I know. She goes, yeah. She said, I want you to make me Juno because it's a story about a girl who gets pregnant. Yeah. And I go, yeah. I go, ooh, that's a little nasty. All righty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And she goes, what's nasty about wanting to have a baby with somebody? And I go... Well, it's a teenager. She's in high school. And she goes, oh, she's in high school. So she knew part of the Juno story. She didn't know she was in high school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yes. And the way she phrased it was like, wait, what's nasty about wanting to have a baby with someone you love? And I was like, oh, no, there's nothing nasty about that. I'm just saying I want to get pregnant in high school is kind of a nasty, fun lyric.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Okay. Do you want to tell me something you want to talk about before I get to the next thing I want to talk about?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Isn't it weird that your upper ears are very prone to infection?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Okay. It's sensitive. Anyway. Particularly sensitive to infection.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Okay. I'm glad you got it out of there because that's that's an improvement.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I think it's a wrap on your upper ears. Really? I mean, repeat the same thing, expect a different result. It's like two for two.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I mean, it's your body, your decision. So but I think we stay away from there. Bit me twice. Shame on me. You're at the shame on me part. First time was shame on your ear. Sure. And now shame on you. Yeah. Well, we'll see. Yeah. Now, this one I flagged. I did flag it with you in mind. I thought this would interest you, even if the topic doesn't, because of. Where the money comes from. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yesterday or the day before. Unmarried Hermes heir. That's hard to say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
It's not like he got left a million dollars. You got left... You're in the top 200 richest people in the world kind of money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Although there is some little bit of it having to do with he doesn't want control of his portion to go to certain people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And if I'm the gardener, I don't really give a shit what your motivation is. You give me that $11 billion. I know. Can you imagine waking up one? You went to bed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
You had like three thousand dollars in the bank. Yeah. And the next morning you have eleven billion dollars.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
No, because you had been honest. Yeah. If you led them on and married them as they had gotten their cancer prognosis, yeah, you're pretty shady. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And he had to work on it as an adult. That's charming, though. People have a lot of compassion for someone with a stutter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Perfecting the stutter. This is like King Speed. Perfecting it. Making it great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
p p p p Laboratory force...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G...G... la P a in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in a, never, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don, ,,, ,,, ,,,,,,,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I can do running man and I crush. But can you do any ethnic shit? Hit me. What are the options? If salsa pops on. I like to do the Greek thing. That's fun. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
They're the most off-white white. They're an ethnicity, Andrew. They are an ethnicity. So it begins.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
It sounds great. You already want that. Last night, yeah, I would have loved to have been wearing a diaper.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
So this was really political. I guess that's what I want to say up front. Yeah. We try to avoid politics. This one where I was like, there's no way we do this without going all in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I always wonder if that's a sign of depression. That should be on like a first questionnaire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Do you feel like you're going to be done soon? Yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
It's a lot, but you'll be making new friends and having more children and having more lives.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
You have to just think. What if you could live a whole other life in France and then a whole other life in China? Like, there's so many corners of the world to keep things interesting. And then after like 800 years, you're like, I'm going to move back to Milford, Michigan. Try that out again. Hope it's still there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
That's the part I think is interesting. Yeah. People think like you're going against nature. What you're really saying is you're going against God. There's something deep that people think you're playing God if you live forever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
It's moral dumbfounding. You're like, you know, it's greedy and too much to ask to live forever. There's something about it. There's some moral imperative that feels like being violated by living forever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I agree. But Scottish is. Definitely. The Greeks, they started it all. Hellenic studies. So they say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
We've been forced to view it that way, though, because it is that is what it is. I think we have no choice but to see it as poetic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Where you start cherishing everything. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Think how much wisdom you could have, though, after 400 years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I even feel this aging myself is like you'd have seen so many market collapses. Yeah. Social upheaval that you would go like, yeah, and it'll pass. Yeah. You know, kind of like kind of like emotions in your body. And I've gotten to that. Like, I've just seen like, you know, 2008. Yeah. You're a monster if you drive an SUV. The SUV market collapses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
The Rift Valley started it all. Yep. But the Greeks, boy, they gave us a lot of stuff. Why did we just skip in Asia?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And then I look up one day and it's like, oh, everyone's trying to cross over an SUV and everyone just kind of forgot about that thing. Right. It's just these cycles of like everyone decided everything is just this is so terrible and we're done with this. And then I watch it come right back up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
For me, it's helpful because I'll watch the current craze of like what is going to go away and I'll just go like, yeah, maybe. Well, I don't know. We'll see how this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Right. Yeah. And I think some of that you're seeing some of that in me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
They gave us some stuff. You got a real boner for Asia because you want all our shit to be built in China. And now you're coming back with their cultural contributions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Some feedback just came in for, cause it's on the week early.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yeah. And already I read a couple of people say like, oh my God, what a fucking incredible episode. So that was good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
They left Russia. Yeah. And then those buildings just got taken over by some other company.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yeah. This is what I said. Like, you know, my story of my Russian stone person, my first house, whatever that is, 20 years ago. And I was redoing the bathroom and the contractor had brought the stone person that was going to put in all the stone in the bathroom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
But he hadn't said anything. And the contractor was like, do you want a steam shower? Do you want this? Do you want, there's so many options, right? Yeah. And at a certain point I said, sometimes I just wish I was doing this fucking bathroom in Russia. It's like, you want to take shit? Yes. No. You want to wash face? So I do my Russian thing and there's no laughing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And I say, are you Russian? To the guy there. And he's like, yes, but it is funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Tasty and that's it. If you don't like tasty, then fucking keep it moving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Well, the Indus Valley, also one of the very early civilizations. You did psych in college. I did anthro. So I'm hip to what was happening in these different regions. Great contributions. But Western Civ starts in Greece. In Greece. OK, fair enough. OK, good. What is Greece? What is it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Okay. So it was created there in Germany land. That's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I always find this so interesting. Yeah. I bring it up kind of too often, but Adidas and Puma were brothers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And at the outbreak of World War II, one was a sympathizer and one was not. And the company split up over it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
That's what's unfair to a lot of these disciplines. You know, a guy like Jordan wins six rings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
And you're like, he's the Michael Jordan of whatever. And then some other guys win. He's won 14 times. He's like, Jordan, you need a step stool to kiss my ass. That's what he would say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
0.7, 44 divided by seven is almost seven. Yeah. Yeah. So seven. Seven percent. No, seven times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Seven. We have seven times the rate, not 10 times the rate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Although you're going to restart pit. I just finished pit and I'm going to restart it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I was too busy in life when that came out. You know, it was like early twenties. I think I wasn't at, I wasn't watching TV. I was like out every single night doing something fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I've been saying this. Yeah. Now that I'm 40 and I've met. Congratulations. Tens of thousands of people in my life. Yeah. I think there's like 1600 people. Right. I meet doubles nonstop. And then what's crazy is the people with the same physicality, their personalities are generally the same, too. Like, I think how you look ends up predicting a little bit how you're going to act.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Kind of like my tattoos. Ding, ding, ding. Change them enough that they're original. Exactly. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Isn't that unfair? That's like saying, is he an Angeleno or is he American?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Italy's not even a unified country until 40 years ago. Back up, Andrew. Yeah. No. Zero to 800. Rome is entirely unified. In fact, they've unified all of Europe, the Roman Empire. Zero to 800. Yeah. And then after that. The Visigoths and the Ossegoths come down from Gaul, which is Germany. But I didn't say Rome. I said Italy. Yes. Wonderful. It's changed names.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I didn't see this coming. All right, moving on to the dance. What kind of jobs were you mopping? Were you talking to all these older women who were dancing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
You're not dying to hear Q, but you are dying to hear some kind of approval and recognition you exist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
I'm with you because I have a similar ism, which is I think I want to be liked, but I want to be liked for being brave and unique. So it's not just I want general you like me because anyone could get that. I need a very special.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
That's off the table. So then I think we always think of becoming attention seekers and approval junkies because we weren't getting enough. But also the opposite could be true, which is you could get it and it's enjoyable. It was awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
So for me, it was very fun because we never do it. And also in the middle of it, I was like, yeah, this is why we never do it, because we're in the you know, we're getting very granular about this policy or that in this year and whatever. But I I thought it was thrilling to sit kind of on the sidelines and watch the whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
If this were a spectrum, I'm not with you and I'm not with Monica. This is like what you guys think I am politically. Politically, racially, you know, all these things that are kind of out. Oh, the words that I'll use.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I'm in an interesting position because this morning I'm like, I need to do both things. This is my best friend. If it gets dicey, you're going down. But hold on, hold on, hold on. Yeah, yeah. It's not going to get dicey. Let me just finish. This is just me mentally in my head. Yeah. Very relevant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Andrew Schulz
This is a really relevant piece to this that I don't think is examined much. If you are... in the suburbs in a predominantly white school and you're using stereotypes and there's only five minorities there, that is a rough situation. It's scary for those five and it's dangerous. Now, if you grew up and you're not the dominant group, You're among a very diverse group of kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Modest Mouse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It's not great, but it'll make it through, I think, both series. Really?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But what a great show to go out watching. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay. This is great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You did a really good job. If I'm your teacher, I'm going to say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I was playing. I need to do a few minutes on mom and dad because they both have very, very colorful, interesting backgrounds. So as you said, your father was a taxi driver, but he also worked at a hospital and he also became a college professor of sociology. This doesn't seem like a possible trajectory. That sounds like an immigrant story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
They went in that neutral route. Yeah, the two fronts met in the middle. That's something we can both agree on. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then mom was a choreographer in a high school. Oh, my God. That's not even on the Wikipedia. She was also a clown by the name of Kalana. What was her mom? Yeah, Bonabini. Bonabini.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Leaning to the number thing. Can we take one second to recognize that we've interviewed 800 people. No one's mother was a clown.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You never had a friend over that had this eerie feeling he or she had met your mother before and then hours later went, Oh, my God. Did your mother do my fourth grade?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best in audio entertainment. Like a stunning new full cast production of George Orwell's 1984. This is the one I am most excited to indulge myself with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yes. So now I guess this is common knowledge. I didn't know this before researching you. But when I told my wife excitedly from the bedroom, you're not going to believe who Jesse Eisenberg's little sister is. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Did she know? She knew immediately. But do you know, Monica? His little sister is the Pepsi girl, the Pepsi girl, the one you're thinking of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But you were already acting, right? Because you're first, you were an understudy at 12 years old for a Tennessee Williams play. Exactly. That's pretty nuts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah. So do you have to go there every night if you're an understudy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Even though at that point, Little Sisterhood also generated a bunch of money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
We would. Would we go promote? That's the question. I've been told that's what you get paid to do is go promote. Unless it's a podcast, then you would do that for free as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, no one asked for this, but I think the finances of this would interest people who are not in show business. So if you think about a studio has a budget to promote the movie and they're trying to get it in front of as many eyeballs as possible. And so they have many options.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
They can buy a TV commercial and a 30 second spot is going to cost however many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars versus we send you to Camel. We show a clip of it and you talk about the movie. We can count that as basically two ad spots. So by their math, they just saved $200,000. So if they're going to send you out there, my God, they'll spend five grand on your hotel room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Don't give a shit. And they'll pay for you to get a massage. And it's a big savings for them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I love Audible. I swear by Audible. I can't wait to listen to the Orwell 1984 off this list. I'm also doing Fleas by autobiography right now, which I'm obsessed with. I can't get enough Audible in my life every night. Go to audible.com slash DAX and discover all the year's best waiting for you. That's audible.com slash DAX. We are supported by Klaviyo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I mean, I guess I like it and hate it. Gangly hillbilly crosses the parking lot to say, hey, I can tell you, Jesse Eisenberg, by the way you're standing. It was the parking lot of Universal Studios where you were filming a major popular show. Yeah, I already got through one round of security, I suppose. Yeah, exactly. OK, so. You were already on that trajectory.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You've said a couple of times school is miserable. What version? I mean, I guess I have hunches. Oh, I really had a very bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Now, here's my hope, is that it was... so endearing that it got you out of getting bullied for it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, that's really kind of life affirming, to be honest, because I do think even shitty kids have some critical mass of suffering. OK, he's already too fucked up. Maybe that's it. They'll push, push, push. And there's a moment where their actual conscious kicks in, I think. That's a really good point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So that's weirdly kind of hopeful that you were crying that much and they were just going, don't cry, don't cry. Not like if you cry, you fucking baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
What parent do you think it was harder? I mean, it's hardest on you. Let me say that first. As a parent, that would be absolutely heartbreaking for me to know my kid gets on the bus and cries the whole way to school every day. But I weirdly guess that dad would be in a very big panic that this world's going to be too hard for a boy and that he somehow has got to toughen you up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And how does he do it? That's exactly what happened. But I didn't think of it that way. He probably so overcome a fear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Out of his fear, I'm sure that you were going to suffer your whole life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It was genuinely terrifying. Do you mean any sexy Ali Shidi types that were like misunderstood? I have a fantasy about falling in love at one of these places. Oh, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You can see the movie in your head, right? The teenagers that go to the derelict center and then she's really hot and misunderstood and she just needs to talk about her dad to you and everything will be fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I would be thinking cohabitation with other teenagers. What might happen?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Okay, this is great because people may remember a while back, you and I have debated which is better, acetaminophen or ibuprofen. We sure have. So for me, particularly headaches, I got to go Tylenol.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, you won't even play. What about for headaches, though?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
The gods have intervened, and we have a perfect solution. Motrin and Tylenol have finally settled the great debate by teaming up and introducing Motrin Dual Action with... Tylenol.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I think they may have. Why just use one when you can have both? The pain-targeting strength of Motrin united with the pain-blocking power of Tylenol. Ibuprofen is the active ingredient in Motrin, and acetaminophen is the active ingredient in Tylenol. Motrin plus Tylenol brands provide over 100 years of combined pain relief experience in one product.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Whatever your needs, Tylenol and Motrin are here to help. Fast acting, long lasting. Buy Tylenol, Motrin, and Motrin Dual Action with Tylenol on Amazon or at a store near you. Use product only as directed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Klaviyo powers smarter digital relationships for more than 151,000 successful brands, including Hedley & Bennett, Fishwife, and Dagny Dover. Build smarter digital relationships with your customers. Visit klaviyo.com to make every moment count.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Hello there. Hello there. Hello there. Jesse Eisenberg. This is a reunion for he and I, as you'll find out. We met one other time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Compounded medications are not reviewed by the FDA for safety, efficacy, or quality. We are supported by Audible. Audible's best of 2024 picks are here. Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best in audio entertainment. Like a stunning new full cast production of George Orwell's 1984. This is the one I am most excited to indulge myself with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I love Audible. I swear by Audible. I can't wait to listen to the Orwell 1984 off this list. I'm also doing Fleas by autobiography right now, which I'm obsessed with. I can't get enough Audible in my life every night. Go to audible.com slash DAX and discover all the year's best waiting for you. That's audible.com slash DAX. Okay, so we're laughing about it, but were you terrified?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Were you thinking at that point, there's something fundamentally broken with me and I'm not going to be able to function on this planet?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, I've heard you talk about harnessing it in a positive direction. I think that's virtually the only option you have on the table is you got to learn to work with your character defects and exploit them for the good side and try to mitigate the downside. Yeah. Yes, I guess so. You have no choice. I wrestle with this, too. I write from a place of you're a lazy piece of shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You're a failure if you don't accomplish this. Everything is negatively motivated. And so I relate to when I hear you speak about it. I'm like, oh, yeah, I do a very similar thing. And then feeling guilt that I have to be motivated that way by self-loathing and all this. And then hopefully some compassion and forgiveness and acceptance. You're that way. And OK, here we go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
No, I think it's possible. I also think it's fascinating that you can have or in my case, it's like this split confidence thing. There's no self-esteem at all in imposter syndrome and all this stuff. And then also this you're a failure, which has innately in it some idea that I'm supposed to be special and super prolific and good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So this dichotomy of I'm unworthy and I'm a fraud and also you're supposed to be doing great things. They're kind of incompatible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Hi. Welcome. I'm sorry I'm late. Oh, that's okay. Thanks for having me here. Yeah. Oh, you smelled the light bulb. Oh, you too?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I picked this up in AA and it's been kind of helpful in me governing how bad the self-loathing can be. Because in there it says that self-pity is the other side of the coin is self-aggrandizement. You've still elevated yourself to some level where the universe cares is against you or you have bad luck coming your way. Right. Like today, you know, something bad's coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You're not that important to warrant this bad luck or the right sizing of the justice. The piece of shit at the center of the universe. Yes, another great AA thing we say a lot. Or I'm not much, but I'm all I think about. That's really funny. Yeah. And sometimes I'll be in that kind of self-pity or it's self-pity adjacent, right? Right, right. And I'll go, this is so indulgent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
This is as indulgent of being a megalomaniac, which I would not tolerate from myself. So if I can turn that same ire onto the self-loathing part and go like, it's still you feeling way too important.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You should. You can imagine someone going, get over yourself. You're not fucking so important and you're not suffering any more than anyone else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I'm the worst narcissist in the world. Yes. I think I'm the worst single narcissist. Yes, but I think it starts dissipating every one of these steps you take. So then it becomes a little manageable that your ego got away from you. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
We have this weird dichotomy of being so important and then also zero self-esteem.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It seems to be very universal in AA. My hunch is it's probably universal to humans. But we have, for whatever reason, determined that was one of the main driving forces of the self-obliteration process.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It is quite obvious to me talking to you how Woody Allen would have been such an appealing figure when you were young. Yeah. Because here's a guy that seems to have the outward same personality. grab bag of anxiety and is processing it through art. And it's hysterical. Right. And so this is a time for a really great and weird story, which is you wrote something for Woody Allen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Did you hit him with that story on a first meeting or did you wait till you were filming for a while before you told him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So maybe she smelled great, yeah. My compliments to the former owner of that sweater.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It was like a joke, but also indicating that there's nothing we're going to be talking about. Do you chalk up the anxiety to just baseline biochemical or do you think any of it is nurture?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I find you very interesting to watch endlessly. So keep processing in public all of your stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Okay. So back to now, this radical flip-flopping. It's no wonder you're waiting for the shoe to always drop. So you're in a mental institution and then click of a fingers and you're on a TV show in high school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
That's a fun first question. Is most of your wardrobe comprised of shit you've collected on sets?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Southern religious Jew. Yeah. Tommy Shlomi, the best dramatic director in television history. He's a Texas Jew. Oh, is he really? With the name Shlomi.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
No, but he's so special. He was the West Wing guy, right? He did West Wing. Yeah, yeah. I've always seen that name and wondered, why not change it? Yeah. He did the pilot of Parenthood. And I said, just hearing that name, it's one that would make you or break you. And I see it's made you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Anne Hathaway, had she already done a bunch of stuff? No, I think it was both of our first jobs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Would you be in scenes with your sister thinking you've got to table your attraction to this person because you're playing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, maybe. I really was not. I bet that's charming to gals. I bet over the years you've had something that would appear to be confidence because you've already just written it off as not an option.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yes. That's its own interesting really story I want to remark. But yeah, five year break that ends a marriage is incredible and unconventional.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Oh, this is like Sorrento. She kind of like fell in love with your words. Is that the name of the play? Sorrento?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You gave it the Parmesan cheese version of Cyrano. Yeah. Well, I'm always straddling the line between Philistine and know what I'm talking about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, it's a good story. You were going to go to NYU, but instead you did a movie and then you ended up at the new school and you dabbled in anthro. I've graduated in anthropology. I have an anthro degree. Wow. Can I ask why? Yeah. That's exactly why I was going to ask you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Through my own childhood, I just always felt outcast. I didn't feel like I agreed with the vibe that was existing around me. I thought there had to be other ways. And answer was like, oh, not only are there other ways, there's like very exotic, interesting other ways. Oh, you mean to just
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
That's a ding, ding, ding, because my only really sad experience I ever had with wardrobe was Sony. Really? Because in this movie, Zathura, they made this really cool astronaut's outfit for me. And again, there were several. And I wanted it. And they said, no, you can't have it. And I said, well, I'll pay for it. And they said, no, you can't pay for it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, culturally, realizing how flexible culture is and how many versions are out there to try begs the question, are we even close to what version we'll be ultimately living in? Because anthropology teaches you that cultures are not superior or inferior to each other. Cultural relativism. We just got to learn why it functions the way it does, not whether that's good or bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah. And I'm feeling like it's unacceptable how I'd like to be doing this. Oh, there isn't a right or wrong. That's comforting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah. Interesting. And then you're doing a bunch of acting while you're at the new schools. Yeah. I would leave every other semester. And is that where Lipson was the new school? Oh, wow. Yes. James Lipton. James Lipton.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I hated it too. But if I do some soul searching, I think it's probably because I thought maybe they were better than me. That I haven't studied enough. Oh yeah. And I could understand feeling that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And then years, years later, and I know you're not on social media, but like 15 years later, someone sent me a link to it being sold on eBay for like 15 bucks and it's sold or something completely insignificant. Are you serious? Yes. The whole astronaut outfit. And I was like, those sons of bitches, I would have given them more than $15. Wait, who was selling it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Okay, so you come onto my radar in The Squid and the Whale.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I saw that movie and I absolutely loved it. I love Jeff Daniels like crazy. I think he's one of the most unsophisticated. sung him a newsroom. Yeah. So I saw that and I thought you were incredible. And I thought that movie was absolutely incredible. Is that Mark kind of, I already know the answer, I think, which is you don't ever feel safe, but did it feel like, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
The right people are noticing this. I have my foot in the door firmly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, you have four years between Squid and the Whale and then Zombieland, which unless I'm mistaken, Zombieland's then the next big kind of thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So in those four years, where are we at mentally? Also, is there anyone you've isolated as I'm emulating that career or I would like that career? Were you thinking of what kind of actor you were aspiring to be?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Zombieland to me was so fucking incredible. I don't like zombie movies. I was like, who's Ruben Fleischer? This guy can fucking direct. There was a Metallica song in the movie, which there almost never is. Yeah, you're right. When you were shooting Zombieland, did you have any sense while it was happening? Like, oh, yeah, this is pretty mega. This is going to be fucking awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I imagine Sony just was like, we got to get rid of all this. We need 15 bucks? We got to get 15 bucks by Friday. Oh my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
This is cruel. He's kind of obsessed with Michael Cera.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And it takes a while to get comfortable with it. Now, and I've talked to Zach about it as well. It's like, I'm happy to pose in a picture and you think it's Zach and that's great. I don't need to correct anyone. You were great in Garden State. Thank you. I've signed a hot rod.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Jesse, that happened to me while I was presenting on stage with this singer. We're midway through one of these award shows like this season's blah, blah, blah. And she just looks at me and she goes, you're so much better looking in real life. And I was really delighted and also like, but hold on now. She thinks I'm rough. Like that's the objective truth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
As opposed to what she thought before, which is why is this guy in movies, which I would have related to her on. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
OK, now the social network comes along. I guess I just want to know a little bit about how you came to be in that movie. And what's it like? Do you go meet Fincher first? Do you audition? Was it written with you in mind?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, maybe we were both thinking the same thing and then it came out and just didn't. Didn't really do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Wow. Did the repeated takes. Let me ask you this. Are you prone to insecurity on set? It sounds like you are having a lot of insecurity on Zombieland.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It could also be, you know, the company that made it. They could add duplicates. I don't even know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And you famously had no experience on Facebook. You joined for 30 seconds or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I joined for like 12 days once. And I looked at everyone I went to junior high with. And when that was over, I was like, I don't know why I'm on here anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, my conclusion was everyone I looked at, I'm like, oh, they're old. Oh, they got families. You can only do that so long before you go. And clearly I am too, because we're all the same age. Whatever I am looking at them with, I have to acknowledge is happening for me too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Okay, this is always a stressful question to hear out loud, especially in public. But do you remember meeting me? Oh, I was actually racking my brain trying to. I'll paint a picture for you. Okay. I don't know the year. It would be between 2008 and 2013 because that's when I shot the show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, thank you. You already had your taste of it all with Zombieland, but that's an enormous moment. You get nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe and Academy Award. That prick Colin Firth had done King's Speech, so no one had a chance in hell. Yeah, what was that whirlwind like?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Which part? The story about why you're not drawn to it. If I were you, I'd be like, I don't belong there. Those people belong there. That's the real feeling in my heart that I might not want to look at.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So I build on top of it a very defendable reason why. Artistic. Which is that awards are bullshit. Pitying artists and all this stuff. The brain quickly fills in a plausible excuse that doesn't require you to own your fear or your vulnerability.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And you actually leave going like, no, I actually belong in this group of people, which I keep convincing myself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But I was at Universal shooting Parenthood and I'm outside my trailer and I see a young gentleman across the way in front of one of the bungalows. I think having a cigarette. Were you a smoker? No. You weren't a smoker. I could tell from a hundred yards. I'm like, that's just- Oh my God, yes, I do remember.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I should be there alone. I don't know why they invited DiCaprio.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Oh, I did want to mention one thing because it seems relevant for A Real Pain, which is Emma Stone, of course, was in Zombieland. Is that the first time you meet her? Yeah. You guys become pals, obviously, because she's a producer on both the movies you directed. Yeah, exactly. I think she is so talented. I think she's so sparkly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And I thought, poor thing, she was off the charts great in Zombieland. I find her to be a real unicorn.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You're right. There's a hyper intelligence, too. I should have listed that in the mix. Yeah. But so often you go on a movie and you really bond with somebody, but then there's no legs to it afterwards. You both go to different sides of the planet and do another movie for three months. How did you guys end up maintaining that friendship? It just broke through that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
My hunch is she makes you feel incredibly comfortable to talk to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And so for a lot of people, she's the most comfortable person they get to talk to. And so they are in the level of intimacy that they can feel comfortable sharing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I mostly out of curiosity had to confirm, like, can I possibly be recognizing that's Jesse Eisenberg from this far away just by how he's standing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Because I could also see you convincing yourself to not stay in touch with her. Oh, no, I did. I basically didn't reach out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Wow. That is when you finish saving the world. Yeah, exactly. Okay. You do the Now You See Me's. Those are huge hits. John's a friend of ours for part two. John Chu. Oh, really? You got to see Wicked. He fucking slayed it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It's insane. OK, it makes a ton of sense. You've written a bunch of plays that have been produced. You've been writing forever and you're acting. So obviously directing is not a big leap. But for you, did it feel like a big declaration?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You were living also in a subset of Hollywood that got largely diminished. You were in a lot of 20 to 60 million dollar movies, quirky comedies. Those went away. The actual sweet spot you were living in is only just deflated over the last 10 years because that's TV now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But I'm sure you're at home going like, yeah, no one likes me anymore. Forget the fact that they haven't made a $35 million dramedy in eight years. You know, it literally never crossed my mind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah. And I came over. I'm like, I could tell as you from and you're like, OK, trying to take that in. Like, that's a weird icebreaker. And then we had a nice 15, 20 minute chat. Yes. I don't know why I remember you smoking, but I sexed you up a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Right. And had you convinced yourself that the ride was over, even to the degree where you were trying to transition into gratitude for having been at the party? That's funny. You're talking about the memoir phase of the career. Like the processing of the experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Mine is I'm doing Ace True Value hardware commercials regionally in Michigan. And I go, no, you didn't get punked. We do have garden hoses on sale. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I didn't know that either until I was reading about you today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Okay, great. So here's this other great irony, which is constant fear of the future. But when terrible shit's happening to me, I'm kind of good in terrible shit. I'm fine. Which begs the question, why am I so afraid of the future?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Now, I heard you talk about directing. I thought this was a cool thing to acknowledge because I say this kind of publicly. This is a wild business. The most creative person isn't the best director. You have to also lead 120 people in a direction. That's its own skill set. And it's almost bears no relation to the other part of the job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It's like your general manager of a store. Yeah. It's very interesting. You think, oh, if you're creative, you're a writer and you're in your room by yourself. And if you're a good enough writer, eventually they'll go, do you want to direct? You're like, well, I sit in a room by myself. This is going to be a different experience altogether. I liked hearing how you owned that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Like, I'm not the kind of guy that can be shouting on set. We're losing the light. But you found your own way through it. What is it that you landed on that made you comfortable in that role?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I think I'm best in the things I've directed because, yeah, I'm so distracted by the much bigger issue at hand. So you're unselfconscious. Yeah. There's no time for it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, it's kind of poisonous. I mean, I'm addicted to nicotine greatly. But not cigarettes. I smoked for, I don't know, 15 years. And it's miserable the first, I don't know, 100 cigarettes. You got to really stick with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It gives me an example that I can do the same job without all the bullshit. I don't have to be fearful, right? And I don't have to be nervous. It's almost like immersion therapy for you or I, where you get results and then you have to acknowledge, oh, I didn't need all that racket.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, I watched A Real Pain last night and I really, really enjoyed it. And in fact, I was watching it. My 11 year old who was just trying to get out of going to bed, which is a great technique. She kind of joined me. She was laying on the floor watching with me. And she goes, this movie is hard to watch. But I really like it. And I'm like, yeah, that's like a whole genre of movies, hon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
We take for granted all three of us grew up watching certain kinds of movies. And now kids grew up watching like kids movies or tentpole movies. This whole strata. Oh, right. Of like an emotionally taxing talk heavy. It's not in the marketplace. It was cool. This is uncomfortable. You can feel what these guys are going through. And that in itself is very intriguing and pleasurable to consume.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But what you're saying is that's unique. My finger's off the pulse. If you're 11, look, we took them to the mall Friday night because I found out there was a Dairy Queen in the Burbank mall. Once we got there, I realized, oh, we've never been to the mall with the kids. They think this is spectacular. We're in Macy's. They're on every bed, every couch, every chair. And I'm like, oh, right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
This was my entire childhood going to the mall. They never been there just because mall culture is not the same thing. Well, we don't shop at the mall. We shop online. And this particular mall, the Burbank Mall, shout out. It's a time warp. It's the 80s. This is the same terrible things at the food court. It was just one of these dumb things where I was like, oh, right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I spent every weekend of my life at a mall. This is their first time to a mall at 11 years old. In that way, this movie was weirdly refreshing because this movie could have been all of movies. Yeah, yeah. Could have been. What director do I want to say? Not Hal Ashby, but there's a 70s vibe to this movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, she liked Kieran, but Kieran is also making everyone very, very uncomfortable around him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, it's unpredictable. All right, so let's set up the movie and then I want to hear your own history and going into it. The thing I want to applaud the most is just as a writer, it's such a different story by the conceit of it. So you and your cousin, who are very close as kids, who are separated in adulthood geographically and socioeconomically and all these things, you shared a grandma.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
She lived in Poland, World War II, and she died and she left you guys money to go visit where she's from. And you guys joined a tour. Yeah. With a really fun group of different people with different reasons to be on the tour. And now we're just on this tour through Poland and it's a Holocaust tour. And there's these cousins trying to come to terms with how different their lives have turned out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I'm sure the implicit guilt in your character's mind. And he's Kieran. So he's the dude from Succession. He's impossibly charismatic, can get away with saying anything. Yeah. And it's really fun to watch. What's your, I know you have some similar bit of history with Poland and your aunt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
He is incredible. He's an Academy Award nominated actor, filmmaker. Did I say actor?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
For lack of better verbiage, he seems kind of bipolar. You don't know what you're going to get on what day. Is he going to be really high and ramping up everyone else around him? Or is he going to be in the pits and drag everyone down with him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
There are two different characters. But are they you? I mean, are they your superego and your id?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
There's also all this great exploration of what the third generation Jewish experience is. But it brings up different things that you could potentially be dealing with with that family history that's shared by so many.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
One of them I found was fascinating I had never really considered was in your great moment of frustration with your cousin, you say the notion that he's living in the basement of his parents' home, knowing what his own grandmother went through and survived, is like somehow this cosmic disappointment. Exactly. It never occurred to me...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
That people would feel that way, but of course they probably would. That might be an actual thought people have who feel like they're underachieving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, you inherit. It's more than the immigrant story. It's the survivor immigrant story. And yeah, I think about my own self-flagellation. And if I could add in there that my Papa Bob, he was orphaned. He adopted all of his younger brothers and sisters and supported them. I think what that man went through. And I'm like, yeah, I didn't get X movie to Y actor. Isn't that weird?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
What a shameful place I'm occupying in my head right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, just all more fuel. And then again, the story he's telling, like, yeah, just an outward rejection of all wealth because he doesn't have it. Also, these stories that he's telling himself, Kieran. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rich people are fucking idiots.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
My overarching hunch is that you've convinced yourself there's a lot of things you can't pull off that you could. Maybe that's true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yes. And why the thing you're doing is the natural and right thing to be doing. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I think this is some of the great angst with economically disenfranchised people is they're hearing rich people talk about that they should care about the planet. Right. And they're like, yeah, let me handle dinner and rent and I might join you in this existential crisis that's a thousand years away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
There is some reality, like when your full bandwidth is made up of surviving, a lot of these other concerns are trivial.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So my gut's telling me you think you weren't pulling it off and you probably were.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
All of it's overwhelming. And so I don't like thinking about it. And my best course of action is to explain why. It's just to basically fall on Nietzsche, to have kind of a... Nillis takeaway is your only recourse to not suffer in thinking about it. I'll go, yeah, bad shit happens on planet Earth. People are tribal. And that's the facts of life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It's all an attempt so I don't actually have to feel how miserable that might be. Oh, I see. I got a little compartment in my head and it's like, yeah, the Earth's gnarly. We do gnarly shit. People are susceptible to cults of personality and we're social animals. I understand it, quote. Therefore, I don't have to feel it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But I think going there, I go, it matters a ton and it's real and it's palpable. And there's nothing I can do to really think my way out of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah. This is one of Monica and I's longest standing battles. I think she's cooler than she thinks she is. I encouraged her to shave. I think I'm
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
To understand intellectually. Exactly. One detail that I absolutely love that you had in the movie, only because I just read this book, When We Cease to Understand the World. Have you read that book? Oh, no. You must read this book because you show the Prussian blue... On the gas chambers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Did you read Maniac yet? His next book? Oh, did he write another thing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
He's French, right? He's like from 10 different countries. French is his first language, but he might be in Argentina writing. Oh, that's exactly what it was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yes. And so to tell people, Prussian blue only exists as a byproduct of the poisonous gas that was used.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So Prussian blue is just this beautiful color in a palette of painters and it was discovered in some year. I forget which year. And when you create that compound that's in cyanide or you say in the movie. We say Zyklon B. Yeah, those chemicals create the color Prussian blue, which is so beautiful. And all of the gas chambers had Prussian blue all over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Like the gas just would seep out of the doors where they would open it. So surrounding the door going in. And so now like 80 years later, the stains are still on the wall. And there are these clouds of the prettiest blue you've ever seen. It's so weird.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
He's a borderline blessing. Wow. And he's a playwright. The Social Network. Come on, guys. Now You See Me. There's two, three, third coming maybe? Zombieland. Oh! Fleischman in Trouble. Great show. When you finish Saving the World and his movie is out right now, A Real Pain, which is a bonafide great movie. I hope people check out this movie. It's so, so good. It's so unique and honest and great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
No, no, just the side. I thought she could really pull off like kind of a punk. One side. One side shaved. I like that. Right? Picture her in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I mean, they purposely named that because they're white supremacy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Isn't that fascinating? It's a fantastic movie. You did a fucking great job. It's really, really good and refreshing and new and interesting and a cool story. And Kieran's phenomenal and you're phenomenal. Thank you so much. I appreciate you saying that. Yeah. And I'm delighted that you accomplished so much in such short time and on such little money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
We just had someone on who was just here talking. Oh, maybe Anna Kendrick. When you make a movie for such a low budget, you want two things. You want America to think it costs 100 million, but you want everyone to know you only have 3 million. Oh, that's brilliant. I want the credit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Of having made a big movie for a very little amount of money, but I want everyone to think it costs a hundred million.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Right. Puffy chair. We can name them probably. Yeah. Well, Jesse, this has been wonderful. I've enjoyed this so much. I hope everyone checks out A Real Pain. It's so, so good. What's interesting, it's Searchlight. This all makes sense because I watched a Disney debut, which is their like screening platform. But of course, Disney owns Fox and Fox Searchlight. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Just type in Holocaust on Disney+. Yeah, yeah, exactly. What if it said, I don't like to talk about that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, how do you know it's you until you try on some looks?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
All right. Well, I enjoyed meeting you on the lot some 12 years ago, and now this has been even better. I hope everyone watches A Real Pain, and we would love for you to come back when you're doing it again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I want to give a public shout out to the number one bunny in America, the number one rabbit, Carly Barton, my little sister. She got out all 1500 sweaters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
She had to borrow the truck, multiple trips to the post office.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But she cranked. That little gal can work. I think I can always call her a little girl. It's not disrespectful on a feminine standpoint because it's my little sister. And she'll always be a little girl. I think she likes being a little sister.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah. I like being a little brother. I mean, I hated being a little brother, but now I like being a little brother.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah. Oh, here's something that I wanted to bring up because I always talk about things I love that I've seen. And I know you're never going to watch this, which really breaks my heart. But do you know about the Yacht Rock documentary on Max? My God, is it good?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Thank you. It's really good. And you know, I consider myself a student of Yacht Rock. As you know, since you've known me, Yacht Rock was my thing. It gives you the origin of Yacht Rock. It was a comedy sketch by these guys in the 90s. They coined the term Yacht Rock.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I knew all the players, of course, and you know my love for Steely Dan. But I got to be honest, I don't think I knew how much Steely Dan is the hub of all that music. I mean, you can trace all of it so perfectly to all just them being the nucleus. And you know, Steely Dan is my absolute favorite. I force people to talk about it all the time, especially when we have musicians.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So what a delight for me to hear that that was the glue that held all that together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
He and I, well, Molly sent me the best video ever. If she says to her Alexa or whatever device she has, hey, Alexa, play good music. She did a video of this. It'll go playing Dax's playlist, like the playlist that Jimmy made for me is what Alexa thinks is good music.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
There's a few bands, I guess that's where the debate is like, where does the line, like Hall & Oates is not yacht rock, but that's so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And then there are people like Kenny Loggins is one of the, he'd be on the Mount Rushmore of yacht rock, but he also danced in all the genres. He also had a lot of rock and a lot of pop and then all these seminal yacht rock jams.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Neither of those are... James Taylor is not Yowrock.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, if you watch the doc, they give you a pretty good framework for what it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So the band that's at the hub is, of course, Steely Dan. But then the individual that's the common connective tissue is Michael McDonald. He's in every single one of these things in some capacity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Have you ever bought a car and then you got in the car and you're like, fuck, I don't think I can do this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You didn't tell anyone it was coming up? Because when I did Toto, I couldn't, whenever I was with the boys, I'm like, oh, dude, Toto said this, Toto said that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I need you to be brutally honest. So I was going to wear a hat because, as you know, I am involved, engaged in a two front war with the thickness of my hair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And so I have a product that I have to use in the morning and at night. And it makes my hair terrible. I have an eyedropper, a drop, drop, drop, drop, drop. I just want it on my scalp. That's what I'm hoping. And then I try to get my fingers in there and just rub the scalp. But of course, it gets all over the hair. And then it's a pharmaceutical. So it's not like a hair product you'd want to use.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And so my hair just always looks bad, basically, because I'm putting it on in the morning and then at night. So take your pick. It's going to look bad. So I'm wearing a lot of hats lately because I don't want to deal with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Or maybe I won't put in that product. I'll just I'll give up some some territory in this war. I might lose the battle today, but worth it so that I don't have to wear a hat at work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And then so I was that was all happening. I just exercise went in there, cleaned up. What are we going to do here? Wear a hat. And I go, I'm not going to wear a hat. And now I'm here. And then just crossed my mind. Does my hair look crazy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
On a day I'm not going to wear a hat, I would forego the treatment so that my hair doesn't look all goopy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But then I decided at the last minute when I came down, no, I'm not going to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Like a big block of plastic on half my hair and then normal hair everywhere else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It's a great idea, but I think if you'd use the product, you would know why that's not going to be an option for me because I do the eyedropper. Well, inevitably, it wants to start running down my forehead, and I don't think I can get it in my eyes. So I just got to immediately stop it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It's like you've spilled something on the counter, and it's making its way towards the edge, and it's going to go down on the floor. You got to really quick get involved. Oh, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, that's front number one of the war. it's two front war i'm fighting in the front and in the back the middle we're fine i don't really need so most of my drops are all along the front and then it wants to because of gravity come down my face okay i have another idea what about q-tips what about if you put it on a q-tip and then you dab dab dab So I almost think I tried that method.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
The problem is, is like I've got an eyedropper and I don't know in milliliters, but it's a considerable amount of fluid. If I was going to douse a Q-tip, we would be in there for like 45 minutes to get enough of that fluid on the Q-tip, get that then transferred to the scalp, then go back because the Q-tip doesn't absorb all that much. And you're supposed to do two of the eyedroppers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
We love Heather. As a human, I mean, I don't know much about the products, but she's a wonderful woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Because Kristen did a wicked tree and it's pink and green.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, you kind of answer the question. So that was my hobby as a kid. So I'm pretty mechanical and we have a tour bus. And I say to my wife every time we're in it, because the entire time we're operating, it's breaking. Like it's breaking real time as fast as I can fix anything. There's too much gadgetry on it. Of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, in full honesty, when I look at our wicked tree, I don't think wicked. No. I mean, green obviously is very embedded into the wicked aesthetic. Yeah. But I don't know about pink. Does that represent her?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, apparently it's an essential part of the sauce. Speaking of Ariana Grande.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Did I already say this on here? No. Oh, my sweetest little Delty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
She has her first star, Sheila. Oh, my God, you guys. I love it so much. It's her version of Lincoln's Taylor Swift. She finally has her girl and it's Ariana Grande. And she has printed up. She goes on the Internet and finds she types in Ariana Grande color. It's in my phone as a search, which is problematic. But she uses my phone sometimes. Sure. It's like a drawing outline.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And then she prints up all these little things and then she colors them all day long. And then she's now telling me a lot of facts about Ariana Grande. And she wants to know when we're going to interview her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I know. My gals did not shoot low. They have good taste. They went right for the stars. But boy, do I like it. And I really like, it's just so cute when you love something when you're little and you start gathering all the facts. And she's telling me about her vocal range and why she's special in this way, in that way. So cute. Oh, I love it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And I always say to Chris, I'm like, what is your normal person who's not a mechanic do with these recreational vehicles? Is yours in constant need of
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Instagram CEO, head of head of Instagram. I don't know what the title is, but I follow him. And, you know, there is a feature on Instagram where you can wipe your algorithm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah. It's like if you're starting to see stuff too often that you don't like or maybe you watch. In my case, it would be like I watched a fight video. Because there are certain fight videos I love. If it's like a little guy that was getting bullied by a big guy in a car situation, he gets out and he happens to knock the guy out. I love that. Sure. But then they think I like every kind of fight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And then I just, and then it's sticky. I kind of, it's hard for me to resist looking, watching fights. And I don't want to watch a bunch of fights. Yeah. So like that's a case I might go in there and like just wipe it and then start fresh. But that's a feature now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
He's a very thoughtful person. mindful person that's trying to make that thing the best version of it. There's like a real commitment. Remember when he was here, they were going to hide likes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But they tried, which I think in theory was a really kind of good idea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But I do appreciate that there seems to be a lot of effort being made to keep it a kind of positive place.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Trying to dial down the polarization and stuff. Yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by Anytime Fitness. If you've been considering starting a fitness journey or if you're actively pursuing fitness goals, Anytime Fitness has everything you need, not just for bigger muscles, but for a bigger, better life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Like I love that she's drawing pictures of her. I don't mind going on the internet and getting the little things, but I don't really want her just mindlessly ingesting a bunch of videos.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Probably at school. That's where you learn everything, right? Probably like one friend learns one thing and they add to the thing. The other friend's like, I heard she owns a Chihuahua. And you're like, yeah, you know, I don't think she owns, I don't even know if she owns a dog. That was just an example, a theoretical example. Sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
The last one was Charlie Brown Christmas and then half of Frosty. Have you watched any?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Again, I just think it'd be so trippy to be in one of those movies where like every single year everyone's reminded of you. It's like a hit song.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You don't get that with movies. People aren't like making time to watch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Hurt Locker, which was an incredible movie, but in large part, I'll never be seen again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So it's kind of a gift. It's a blessing to end up in one of these.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yes. Did they eat any plumbing? Because mice ate plumbing in my bus and it was so expensive because I have all this water. You know, I have two toilets and shit. They fucking ate through the plastic hoses. We went on vacation. All the water dumped on all the electronics, short circuited everything in the bus, the shades, the lights, everything. And then you found out later.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
When he had a scheduling conflict. But then they worked it out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You could have been, you could have been, I could have been in one of those where everyone remembers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
They should re-release without a paddle and just give it a ton of Christmas songs. Maybe that'll be a good trick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It's funny you would say that. Well, no, it's just set during Christmas. You know, I tried to do this with chips and I was a bit heartbroken because I love that just in the background of L.A. in Lethal Weapon was Christmas because it's so especially if you're from Michigan, it's weird that California is Christmas. How are they doing it? They don't have fucking snow or anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So I have this great scene between Michael Rosenbaum and Vincent D'Onofrio. And he pulls over Michael. And where we shot it is right at the 101 where you get off at Vine. So in the background was the Capitol Records building. And they always put this enormous Christmas light tree. It's like the shape of a tree on the roof. And it's so iconic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And every shot I kind of built around making sure that was behind D'Onofrio. Uh-huh. And it was so great. And it was the opening scene. And I was like, oh, it's great. It's going to have a Christmas. And we have other Christmas stuff. But when that one went away, that scene didn't make the movie. It was a great scene on its own, but it didn't really service the movie all that well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So that scene got left entirely unseen. And then it really took out the momentum of the Christmas aspect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, because I love a little Papa Christmas in the movie. Everyone says triggers in a negative way, but there's really positive triggers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Oh, yeah. Well, I think we think because everyone says I was triggered every fourth sentence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
In popular culture, myself guilty of it, too. And it's never a good thing at the end of it. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
A coordinated effort by mice. What's the solution here? New fucking plumbing. But I mean, how do you get mice out of the things?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But you can't put a museum in the middle of someone's neighborhood. That does remind me. Last thing. Lincoln and Delta and I on Sunday, we went into Altadena. I think a bit because you and I had shot a commercial there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So we were shooting a commercial there. And then I kind of remembered, I think they have a street here that's super Christmassy, known around town. So then I hit up Bree because she lives adjacent to Altadena.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And I said, isn't there a strange, oh yeah, you got to go Christmas tree lane. It's right by the public library, blah, blah, blah. So, and she said, we let the kids hang out the sunroof because you drive really slow. And I was like, okay, great. I got great tips. I'm going to bring the Raptor because it's got a huge sunroof.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, first I went on a mice killing spree, which was I put traps out in the bus with yummy, yummy peanut butter. Those ones were ethical. And this fell on my sister, unfortunately. She had to go release them in Griffith Park. I assume they came right back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So Lincoln and Delta and I went up to Christmas tree lane and we spent two hours just crawling through all the neighborhoods, looking at all of the houses that were decorated. And there are some doozies. I'm so, I'm so proud of those people that put in that effort. Some of these displays, some, that was a week of installation for sure. There was, there was a full Christmas vacation house. Oh,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
With like the characters there. There was someone had the lamp from Christmas story. You know, the dad wins that stupid lamp. It's a sexy leg with a stocking on it and then a lampshade and then the dogs break it. And he's so upset. My lamp, my lamp. And he spends his whole time gluing it back together. And that looks insane. Someone had one of the actual things in their window. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Someone put up this huge. It's like you're standing inside of a Christmas photo. They put a big border with Merry Christmas and it's lit. So you can get out and step behind it. So I got the girls standing behind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Signs from the city. No parking during this time. It's designated as an attraction. And you just coast through. Wow. And people walk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I can't reach the pedals. You have cruise control. Fuck, you're right, Rob. I should have set the cruise on six miles an hour. Maybe ghost ride it. It just got out and walked next to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, it was really, really fun. And then we made the mistake of going to the In-N-Out in Altadena. And it was, it was a record. Waiting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, it's like a little resting area before we take our next trip. Right, right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, Bree and I used to see those commercials because we would sing. That was our love song.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But we would say what made it our love song is we would say in and out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
We would say hand in burger. That's what made it a love song.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
One more thing about In-N-Out. My mother went to California when I was a kid, when I was a skateboarder. We couldn't believe she was going to California, USA. We had never been. We never even met people that went to California.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
When she came back, what she had seen while she was out there, this is what a good mom she was. She had seen other skateboarders and they had the In-N-Out sticker on their skateboards. It would say In-N-Out Burger and the skateboarders would cut off the B and the R. So it said In-N-Out Urge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
oh and she brought back a stack of the stickers for david and i and she showed us how to cut off the thing cute yeah and were people like that's so cool man people thought it was really cool california like oh my god the land of fruit nuts i told you my my friend's mom said that yeah were you it was california like a crazy fantasy as well for you
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But just as a place long before, like I wanted to be in show business. It was just like, oh, they surf out there. They skateboard out there. There's palm trees out there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Oh, see. OK, well, then that maybe. Yeah. Then it's a real place. So, of course, you wouldn't have had that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
The first time I went, I think my mom took me when I was maybe 14 or 15 to do legwork for a car show. So we were working.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But we flew and we went to Riverside. That's where the car show was. What? No disrespect to Riverside folks. Not the fantasy of California. Like a land, you're 50 miles from the ocean. Yeah. It's industrial. Yeah. It's sprawling. I was like, this is California. Oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But then we went to San Francisco because we had legwork up there. And then we rode the trolley. Yeah. And I was like, well, this is a fantasy land.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You did? Mm-hmm. Your parents were good. Good parents.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
OK, great point. I didn't see how much debris there was underneath. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, they love insulation and wood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I didn't know. I'm wondering what percentage of the audience will know immediately who I'm talking about. Because as soon as I heard Pepsi Girl, I could see her in my head. The spirally curls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I want the best for her. I always have. Well, that's great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I don't know if people with dimples like dimples, even though we all like their dimples.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Lincoln was just telling me that there are now a trend on social media is there's like a freckle filter. People put freckles on themselves. And what a turn of events. Everyone with freckles didn't want them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
And I was trying to explain to her, look, here's how it goes, Link. Whatever you don't have, you want. I wanted curly black hair. Sure. Everyone with curly black hair wanted straight blonde hair. Yeah, exactly. I had a ton of freckles. It was like a fart cloud on my face. And of course, I didn't want freckles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
There's probably too much like sun damage under. I bet if I got good, if I got like acidy facials, maybe it would reveal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It's almost like I'm almost turning a person of color just on the arms. If you just saw my arms.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It's a cute name, too, for what it is. It's onomatopoeia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
That would be the easiest thing for them to do for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
No, I don't know if I understand how it works, but I do believe there's some kind of a facelift you can get with strings where they put string in your face somehow. So clearly they could just put the string in and suck that part of the string in. And if they haven't invented that, that's mine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I want string involved. It's only $1,500. Oh, that sounds way too cheap for facial surgery. This is not where you want to save a buck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
If you like two dimples, why wouldn't you like four?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
That you were obsessed with and turned out one of her parents was Indian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Well, have a kid with carrot top or something. Ooh, that's a good idea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah. Red curly hair. Dimples. And then I'm going to give her... Are there any Indians with red hair?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Because cricket infestation. Yeah. I don't know what's going on because they're here in the studio. And then when I'm in the hot tub at night, it's so loud behind my head, the crickets. It's interesting because in the summertime in Michigan, I love the sound of crickets. Yeah. In the hot tub at night or when we're recording, I hate it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Again, we had this moment last week where the guest was becoming very emotional and it was a very sweet moment. And like, it was almost like someone cued the cricket. Like there was a second. Crickets, crickets, crickets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
The PA was like, cue the crickets. All of a sudden, the crickets were so loud in there. And I was like, oh, my God, this is so embarrassing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Just brew a pot of peppermint tea and just splash it everywhere?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
What if I took that mouse to court, like a small claims court, and I said, look, you need $3,500 worth of damage here on my bus. And the mouse is standing there. Maybe the mouse has a lawyer. I'm not sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But the mouse is just there. What do you say about this? And he's just like...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah, and you don't want to be in a long-term negotiation. Just throw out your final number. Listen, I'm easy. We want to sell. The seller is very motivated. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Yeah. I don't have such an interest in... or it's just more I had an interest in keeping my costume.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
That's different than the Will Ferrell kicking and screaming, though? I think it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Okay. I sent it to Kutcher the other day. I said, I don't know if I've already recommended this book or not. Sent him the link on Audible. And then he said, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who recommended this to you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
So that's like, yeah, Carly Simons goes in there, James Taylor, soft rock for sure. Yeah. Yacht rock is a subset of soft rock.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
You're writing a lot of checks that I don't know that your little buns are going to cash. We'll see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Only to get 20 miles down the road and realize there's a major mechanical issue with the trailer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Please enjoy Jesse Eisenberg, The Blessing. The blessing. You don't watch Christmas Vacation enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
OK, this is great. So cars can be so healing because you're saying you feel very confident and sounds like you're aggressive in the car. Ooh, I see where you're going. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
But I do think the car, so we, okay, you were brought home as a little tiny bambino to Queens? Wow, yes. Okay, but then when do we move to New Jersey? Wow. Oh, this is the tip of the iceberg. You're already impressed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
That's very cursory. I'll get deeper. Are you serious? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have your physical from 10th grade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
I was counting down the days till 16. I could not wait. But I grew up in a rural area of Michigan outside of Detroit. And in New Jersey, clearly kids were driving, right? You were probably anxious to get your permit and all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Let's have Aunt So-and-So say grace. Grace? She's been dead for years. No, the blessing. They want you to say the blessing. He's pointing at his teeth or something. Why is he pointing? Because he's very old and he has a toupee and it catches on fire. A lot's going on on that. Please enjoy Jesse Eisenberg. We are supported by Audible. Audible's best of 2024 picks are here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
It's kind of like an acting exercise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, this is the greatest day of your life. So no matter what, that would be an acting exercise. This is the greatest day of your life, no matter what information you hear. And then I would say, thank you for coming in, Mr. Eisenberg. We just got your lab results back. And unfortunately, you are showing a very large tumor in your neck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
No, the acting exercise is this is the greatest day of your life, despite whatever information. I get it, I get it. Okay, got it. Mr. Eisenberg. Let's take this back. Let's try it one more time. Okay, got it. Did you cut, Rob?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Don't ever cut. Wait till I yell cut. Yes, we did get your sonogram back of your chest and you have a very large mass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Eight to 12 inches, it seems like on the scan. So virtually your full left lobe of your lung.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jesse Eisenberg
Oh, my God. Well, congratulations. You're going to love it. It's a great show. Be patient of the first three episodes. OK.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Buck Rogers and I'm joined by Gene Lightyear. Hi.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Quite simply, I had been told in comments that I got made fun of on Two Bears by Bird.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I've been doing this for nine fucking years. What's funny is I'm aware of that. I come to expect that. But then somehow I see a video of Bert telling a story where he said, I feel really bad that I made fun of Dax Shepard. And he did this incredible thing, which he sent me merch, which I didn't do, but an armchair he did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
All of it, I totally understand. And I would be fucking annoyed. And then we hashed this all out on his show and it was lovely. I've done that to a few people. And so when it happens to me, I understand it more. It's helpful, right? When you go like, all right, it's the same thing I did. I don't even mean it. They probably don't mean it either. You're looking for a funny take.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Listen, I'm so pro-drinking. I'm so pro-drugs. Everyone that can do it should be doing it as much as they can. I'm doing it tonight. I got to shoot something tomorrow. And I was like, I don't want to look bloated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
People are going to recognize me if I'm not bloated. Kind of bloated and a lot bloated. I have to drink to keep up my personality. But what I would say about that point is simply to address the you that is the problem, which I would agree with. It's best to do that not drunk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
You're not the most objective version of yourself when you're trying to do some self-analysis is when you're feeling very confident and better looking than you are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
We'll just talk to anyone in their first year of sobriety. They're either fucking nonstop. They've started online gambling or something. The best feeling in the world is gambling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
It goes to the fucking house. No, they get their tips. No, she puts it in the bucket. We're going to fact check that. They got to get their tips.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
There's already a pay gap. Just go make some money. And he's black. You don't want black dudes to win.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I know, I was like, oh God. I'm going to keep the money. They've had enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
We had wild moments doing that. That's what I love in life. Oh, for sure. OK, we must get to how you're here. So Tampa Jesuit school shocker to me. Loved it. Define me. You describe yourself as a dum-dum all the time. It's kind of part of your onstage persona.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
you can't get to a jesuit school and be a dum-dum they specialize in making people very critical thinkers challenging of opinions you'd be shocked at how many dum-dums are in my phone right now that are all jesuit graduates the funniest dudes ever my group of friends in high school without a doubt were the funniest individuals i've ever known in my life so then you go to florida state and this is important you're there for how many years six or seven
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Six and a half. Year six of his enrollment at Florida State, Rolling Stone is in search of the biggest party school. They do an article and they crown Burt the hardest partying guy at the hardest partying school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And you kind of have a moment of... celebrity all of a sudden in your sixth year. It's the best. It's my first taste of celebrity. I'll tell you, it was intoxicating. And clearly every kid on that campus read that article. It's going to be the biggest news possible that they got crowned that. Everyone did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Wow. This is nuts because normally you're chasing fame and it takes forever and then you maybe get it or you don't. Fame found you. You're like, oh, I like this. How on earth do I keep this going? This sounds shallow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
exactly yeah my wife's from georgia what part bowden it's a really small redneck town sorry anyone from bowden listening no shout out anyway fame felt good well the gals were staring at you did they talk to you came over sat down with us it filled holes that i didn't know i had but i knew were there dude we all want to be the gorgeous quarterback of the football team we want to know what it's like to just walk down the hall and people turn and they look at you if a girl said she wanted to have sex with me and this happened a couple times
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I was like, yo, if I don't get famous quick. You realize you were on minute 17. Yeah. Of the 15 minutes. You're like, uh-oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And then I started getting good at stand-up quicker than I should have. Let's talk about your dad, though. One second, because I know this part from when I was on your show. Your dad lets you have it at one point. Yeah. This, to me, on the surface, sounds like the wrong approach, but it really worked for you. Tell Monty what happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah. And you have it nearly as bad as me, which is you record in a house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
You're a fucking mulligan. You're going to be a failure forever. Let's game plan that. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
One more day as a piece of shit, please. It's like a junkie going, can I party on the plane? I already bought some. Can I get through that? We'll go to treatment after. He goes, you don't deserve a party. Oh man, he was fucking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Hi. Everyone will know who Burt Kreischer is. When I describe a jolly man with no shirt on who does stand up, he does not do his profession with a shirt on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I would argue to your particular version of fame is really fun. Cause you're a good time. Charlie, you're like a turnkey. When you show up, people are like, Oh, we're partying. That's the association. Yeah. So generally when people see you, they're fucking pumped to have a good time. I love to have a good time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
When does this stand up take off where you're headlining and you're starting to make good money? I worked for Travel Channel for like eight years. You would go to amusement parks and stuff. You would go on thrill rides. You jumped off the stratosphere and you're afraid of all this stuff. Yeah. Eight years. I did that for three years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I was only able to sleep nine hours uninterrupted last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
My daughter, I listen to that kind of music. So how many years ago did you stop recording at home? Because I went to a house, but that's not where you were living. That is just our studio. Probably three years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I got it late in life, which is the best thing that can happen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Because you're so rich now. Oh, you're so rich. You can Google it. Okay, so really quick. I want to know. So you've since done, I guess, five stand-up specials. This will be your fourth on Netflix. You had the Showtime one. You had a couple on Comedy Central. Last year when you toured, did you do a full tour last year? Yeah, yeah. Last year was my arena tour.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I was acting like I did. I thought I could context clues.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Don't you think it's also dangerous when you have this thing to lean on, which is like something's working so well in your life. You're like, yeah, I'm drinking more than I should, but everything's going exactly how I would want. It's very hard to confront when everything's working.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And then I had a show. By the way, you just have to set goals on the personal frontier. Like you can still be goal driven.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah. What is the vibe at home? Because almost all your stories involve your wife and your girls and you do an impression of your wife. It varies wildly throughout the show and you acknowledge it. How comfortable are they? What's that dynamic like?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Oh, boy. Well, anytime schoolmates can get wind of it, that's what you don't want them to have to deal with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Oh, okay. So it had a positive ending. I just got my period today. My dad's doing a period party for me. I put my finger in my ass and put it in the red velvet cake and then the dog ate it. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
He takes a very pro-choice stance on behalf of. Yeah, well, you're not going to love it, love it. Yeah, you're going to also dislike some of it. Okay, cool, cool, cool. So you actually watched the special?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Okay, so I love Bert Kreischer, Finder of Things. This is your self-proclaimed identity marker. And I think this is the funniest trait to have. How does one come to this realization that this is your knack? It's a little bit of delusion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah. Well, you have to because it's now an identity. If you don't find it, you don't know who you are now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Interesting. There's a lot of theories out there, but we have not considered that Shamu went and told everyone. It's like, remember your friend who's lighted a cigarette in his bedroom?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
They're like, wait, we're bigger and smarter than these kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
This is like a George Costanza type storyline. Delusional. It's very endearing. I go on podcasts. I talk about the ring.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
They come in, move out. We got three podcasts. It was a fervor of activity when I showed up. For anyone who didn't listen to that episode of Two Bears, One Cave, I roll up and there's a tour bus in the driveway. I'm immediately ingratiated to you. I'm like, no one else has this in their driveway in L.A. This is great. Yeah. And then I go inside and there's people everywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Too much fabric. It doesn't declare I want to party hard enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Wow, what a turn. Almost as if she said, like, I threw that away in a parking lot so I'd never hear about it or see it again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
At this point, what generates more income for you? Doing standup or the podcast? Standup. I go back on tour. I haven't announced it, but I'll say it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
No one wants to be here. I had the same role. I would always show up at my friend's house with a six pack and they were like, oh, this is great. You brought a six pack. We're doing this. Like, yes, I would go first all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And I'm like, they have a big business. There's a lot happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
At one point, I go, am I just drinking perfume? Exactly. Can I tell you how much rosé they drank? Oh, my God. Because we all hung out here. There's a liquor store that's two and a half blocks away, and I would get on my motorcycle, and we started this thing where they would time me to see how fast I could arrive back at the house with four bottles of rosé. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
The final one was sub two minutes. It was like a minute and 45 seconds. I was back. And then I got back. I was like, I got to call it at that. I ran the red light. I was going 95 miles an hour on Franklin. I left the gate open so I could blow in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Great. It's creepy if I'm like, what are you fucking the old vice president? Mike Pence. Mike Pence can't be in a room with a woman other than his wife unless someone else is present. To be very clear. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Now, let me ask you this, though, because my wife is so grateful for that. I have several friends that are female that I get on with like that. And my wife is like, oh, my God, thank God I don't have to receive all of his energy tonight. It's on someone else's plate and he needs to talk so fucking much and I don't want to talk that much. She's like grateful for it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I really honestly love Whitney like a sister. So you text her, right? Obviously. You're not only on three-way texting her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Just walk up and go, shot of Fernette, please. You're already trying to limit the amount of drinks that you like. So the notion of making yourself like one that you don't like is really funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Well, Bert, you're a goddamn delight. We really did it. Just like when I was on yours. We went for it. We went hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
it's an interesting fun relationship podcasters and their listeners yeah all right well everyone check out lucky it's on netflix it couldn't be easier for you to consume it's hilarious i really adore you i'm really glad that we got to do each other's shows i am too yeah you're such a sweet boy truly you're such a this is like a big old fucking heart in you and i love it well i think it's just because i drink a lot no enlarged well it is probably enlarged
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
But it's also very sweet. All right. So everyone wants Lucky and we'll do this again. I can't wait.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah. I loved Cribs and, you know, so nosy. I wanted to know how everyone lived, what their style was, how big their house was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
But you know what else was fun about Cribs is like they would do like an L.A. actor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Anytime they were in Atlanta for like a rapper or a basketball player, everyone had like 10,000 square foot houses on acreage and then huge driveways full of cars. I'm like, oh, yeah, it's a lot more bang for your buck in other places.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah. That's our age difference. How old were you when you were watching it? It made you uncomfortable because so many of them were set up for partying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
You know who's got a great episode of Cribs? Maybe the best. Uh... Rosenbaum. Really? Oh, yeah. He had someone like hiding under the sheets in the bedroom when they were looking at the bedroom. And then the guy jumped out of the bed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Hers was infamous more than it was because she seemed a little unstable. She like took a bath during her episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I was 24. I was ready to go to one of those nightclubs in the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Who was your favorite? What are your favorite episodes of Cribs?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I'm going to do top 10 best episodes of Cribs. It's funny to me. Now, mind you, I got to remember, everyone that participated in Cribs was in their 20s. Pretty much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Oh, God. Lil Wayne. He has a plastic hot tub in the dead middle of his living room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I remember Shaq's house. Yeah. Tony Hawk. Russell Simmons. That was an older man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yes, he did. Oh, the Playboy Mansion did a Cribs. Wow. Aaron Carter, that's an infamous one. Yeah, 50 Cent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
You're extremely ADHD, right? Yes. And I was thinking, what a perfect time you were born in. to come of age where you could be doing 57 different things and there's no barrier to entry and it's self-distribution. Well, we started at a time when that wasn't it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah, Branson. Oh, I wish they'd bring it back. But anyways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
No, no, no, no. But I remember as soon as I owned a house thinking like, oh, no, God, no, I don't want anyone to see where I live.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Are you going to do an episode when your house is done?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I love looking at them, but I wouldn't participate in one. You got a smell?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Did you cook fish in your apartment last night? Okay. As you're prone to do?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
This is remember we learned some people's OCD is that they are scared of smell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
OK, so 2010. Yeah. So I could have definitely participated. I think I was even asked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Not posters. Bad, still bad. I can own it. But a lot of stills from the movies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Like there's an on-set photographer and there's a picture of me and Luke Wilson in Idiocracy in a scene. And I like the photo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I do have that photo, but that wasn't the one I had on display. Look at my hair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think my neck is a lot thicker, which I think changes the whole look of your face.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
That's like one of the big things I noticed, like when I'm watching Parenthood or something. Uh-huh. Like, oh yeah, my neck was half the size of my neck now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Because in Idiocracy, I was fat. Like I gained a bunch of weight really quickly. Yeah. Like 37 pounds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And then this was months after. And so now I'm like, I'm halfway back to me being thin, which I always was on Parenthood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yes, that's Parenthood. And I'm like 185 there. In Zathura, I'm probably like 200. And then in Idiocracy, I'm 220.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
But nah, I was so thin. Like my way of getting, What ripped then was the traditional approach, which is like, get really cut and you'll look big. So I was like 169, 170 for the like modeling shoot stuff. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Rob, can you pull up? This probably sucks if you're listening. You can start Googling all this stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah, like I look similar from a distance, but I'm so much lighter there. I'm a full 30 pounds lighter there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I think it's just the light is interesting. Wow. Well, this is a real fun retrospective. Yeah. With that watch I'm wearing, this is a bad story. I don't actually know what I want to tell her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I don't really want to say it in public because people... Anyways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
We were trying... I wanted to look douchey. That was my goal for this character.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And so when we had the meeting with like what kind of jewelry and watches I would wear. Yeah. They just kept handing me different watches. And then they handed me the one I'm wearing in that photo. And I go, oh my God, this is perfect. It's...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
someone's personal watch that had taken it off and just handed it in the pile no yes and i i felt so bad oh my god why would they do that i don't know because yes it was a little bit of a trap because we knew everyone in the room knew why we were doing what we were doing and then it was just handed to me and i was like yes oh i i still at night think about that i feel terrible about that
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
It's kind of a cool watch, though, now that I'm looking at it. I was. Well, anyways, moving onward. Anyways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I have way more of those than most people, I think. Or at least no one tells me their stories about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
But wait, no, you remember you. You thought I was a lot, but then you watched Idiocracy Army. You watched without a pale and you said, oh, you're you're still were sweet back then. Your conclusion. But you had thought maybe I wasn't because I was using drugs and alcohol.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yes, yes. But I think maybe you thought I wasn't sweet back then, but I think I was still sweet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Well, I wasn't thinking that, but when I did, I felt like this situation I still think about. Yeah, you weren't like, well, fuck it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
You're so good with names, I just got to say. I've been watching you all day on different interviews and your recall for people and how much you're abreast of every comedian that's working and all that. It's kind of staggering. I can tell you things I like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I think an apology is better than like trying to lie at that point. You're doing an about face.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Once you get that moniker in college, you got to make it a lifestyle. And boy, has he successfully.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Do you know when I think of pretty often, I accidentally was, oh, God. It pains me to bring these up. This one's not going to bother you as much, but to me it's rough. But someone's wife had gotten a new car. Okay. And before we got to what kind it was, I started making fun of the old RAV4. Okay. Yeah. Because they look kind of like a Fisher-Price car, the old one. Because you're still doing it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I think it was the second best. I think I just read it's like the second or third best-selling car in America.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Give it a CRV. Yeah. I hadn't seen the new one. The new one looks way better. It's a very good looking vehicle. But I went on a little thing about how bad the RAV4 was. And then my friend said that's what she got. And I was like, oh, my. I felt so bad. And then I was like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Look at that vehicle. That looks like a Play-Doh car. It's like a wind-up car. Yeah, a wind-up car. I stand by my aesthetic assessment of the old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
It looks like something Ziggy would drive. Remember the cartoon Ziggy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Oh, it's a great car. Very dependable. Everyone who's currently in one right now, I love it. But boy, they had just gotten a new car and I was bagging that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
That was really bad. And I felt bad and I still feel bad. Then I saw the new one and I'm like, I love the new one. And I don't know if my friend bought it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I did. And which was your recommendation with the watch. But this one was actually sincere. And I think even the sincere version.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
If that would erase the whole thing for sure. And if I could buy the other person a new watch and erase it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I would do it. This is there's a whole gray area where like that would never make a ninth step. NAA.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Well, and I said sorry on the day about the watch. But I just I just think about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And I would love to figure out how to not think about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Speaking of children, we just came from the most life-affirming event ever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
The rainbow run. She was so excited. She was up very early. She wanted to do a top knot for her running. And she painted a rainbow on her cheek. Yes. I don't know if that was a transfer tattoo or painted on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
So cute. Right on her cheek, a big rainbow. Yeah. And she's in a little jumper. Oh, my God. And we watch her run around and all the little kids run around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And I'm there to see Delta first, but really close second is Freddie because he runs like a gazette.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
The coolest. I don't know how someone just born that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Of course. And he high five me the first time. And then on the second lamp, I ran out and he, he ghosted me. You saw that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
No, no. I was trying to get another round too. I got greedy with Freddie on another high five.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I know. It's the nature of an addict. Like I liked it the first time I thought, well, let's keep doing that until it breaks. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
But he did tell his mom. She told me that he said, I'm giving him a truck at some point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah, he has it in his head that I'm giving him a truck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And I said, fine. That's fine with me. All he's got to do is marry Delta and then... He can have all my shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Will you do drugs when you do that? Because you're not into drugs. I'll drink. You won't do like mushrooms or something for that? No, no, no, no, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Well, and I want her to have like 20 relationships before she gets married. Yeah. I think some parents want their kid to date from junior high all the way to adulthood. And I just don't think that's. Very likely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
It'd be like if you married Dairy Queen guy. That's still an option.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
What if he came to you and said, I think about that. Once a week. I feel fucking terrible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And I liked you then and I still like you. Well, I... And now I'm not a dum-dum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Okay, if you're listening to Architect, you'll die, Jack.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I'm gonna hope and pray. If you want it, this is like dating. This is like the hot guy. If you want to be in Architectural Digest, ask.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Oh, man. Yeah. You gotta ask in life. Oh, hold on. We have a visitor. Mr. Rogers is here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I like cinnamon. Favorite spice? I like vanilla. I got vanilla.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Himalayan pink sea salt. Let's see if... Okay, I'll go cinnamon because that's the only one that I associate with being sweet. Even though on its own, it's not sweet, obviously.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I was wondering if you were still on your L. Yeah, I made a big batch two days ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Is legendary. Yeah. The dad makes me nervous and is so good looking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And he's got siblings. And he's got the cutest little sister you've ever seen in your life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
You know, I offered a friend sperm years ago, over a decade ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Bert, of course, is a host of a couple of very popular podcasts, Two Bears, One Cave. Yeah. And Something's Burning and BurtCast. And he has been in The Machine, Razzle Dazzle, The Cabin, Burt the Conqueror, Secret Time. And he has a comedy special out right now on Netflix called Lucky. So please check that out if you haven't already. And please enjoy Burt Kreischer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
They said, I would love that. We're going to try one more round. First, I asked Kristen, would you care if I and we didn't have kids yet. So this is I was like naive to what I thought. I thought I would just like, yeah, who cares? I'll give him the sperm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
They didn't. Thank God. Let's just say the parenting I totally disagreed with. It would it'd be crazy for me to be looking on the outside and not want to rescue. Yeah. So a child. Yeah. That's half me would be crazy. I'm so grateful that didn't happen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
No more like what if you had a kid and you were really crazy protective and he wasn't allowed to do anything and he never learned to ride a bike and he didn't like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
So I would go this is this kid's like a he wants to be out there tackling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
No, no. Yeah, this is good to know. But I only feel this way after having kids. Like if I was seeing Lincoln around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I don't know if like when I look at Lincoln, as you just said. Yeah. She has my face at that age. And if I was around her, it would be hard. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
It'd have to be a situation, to be honest, where it was like, A, I have a vasectomy, so it's not even an option.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
But if we had a friend who wanted that and needed that, and we decided yes, I would be involved.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah, it's very complicated. If I reverse it, let's say, so she needed to give an egg to somebody. She gave an egg and then.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
That's what's tricky because there's a mom involved already. In my scenario, there's no dad involved.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay. And then this guy. So Jess has a kid with Kristen's egg.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Well, it's a great era for someone with your makeup, probably ADHD, super crazy passionate right now about the thing. My hunch is if you can't knock it out in a small window, it's gone, right? Is that fair? They put pilot in Hollywood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Red hair. What would win, the tininess or the tallness?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah, I don't know how she would juggle it. I would expect her to want to be very involved in Jess's kid's life if it was her egg. Maybe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
But what if Jess wanted the child to have Kristen as the mom?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
But she kind of grew up like separated and you understood like, oh yeah, my dad's gay. So he got a donor, but that's my mom and I love her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Unless it's their friend and they're already immersed in one another's lives.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah, no, it would just have to be with my time with the child.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
All right, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. Shh. I can't do it. And also I'm not doing it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I think it could be done though. Like, let's just say like there is a version where Kristen's egg was given to Jess and he has a little girl and they, and she knows Kristen's her mom and she has a mom and she sees her mom a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah, I think whatever you're raised in is standard. And you don't think too much of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Don't you think you do want to attempt to level out? Yes, balance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I'm not going to go get an addict egg. That's too much addict in the mix.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And I got both things. I got my dad. I don't know. My dad was a love addict. What am I talking about? Love addicts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
No, because I think you're not thinking of kids, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And then they decide they want to have a kid. And then you start thinking, oh, boy, both of us don't clean the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Rob, would you give your sperm to anyone? Uh, yeah, I guess so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
That was the donor we talked to on Armchair Anonymous who had like a hundred kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
He was just like, yeah, if you want to meet, let's meet. Like, I don't feel any. Connection. Or guilt that I'm not raising anyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Sleep outside in the woods naked. There's a chapter in Schwarzenegger's book, Education of a Bodybuilder, where he and Franco were, for a period in Germany, weightlifting in the woods naked, right? And they would have a barbecue and they would drink wine. And he said like old time gladiators.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah. Just imagine walking through the woods and you see two bodybuilders squatting naked with raw meat everywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Okay. That's also kind of the name of the chamois. Chamois. Chamois.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I wouldn't be afraid to fight a red fox. I don't think you would either.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I do think fox is an appealing animal to identify with if you're a woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Foxy. Foxy lady. But I'm not. I'm just a chinchilla. Well, chinchillas are very cute. Have you ever held a chinchilla?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Shrews are clever, right? They're supposed to be real clever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Now that's a tough customer. You don't want to tangle with a badger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I wonder what his favorite... He eats Captain Crunch. You're a small mammal, I just will add.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
So you should watch your... Because I'm a... I would way rather fight a red fox than a badger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I know. If I see a domestic cat in the woods, I think a witch is nearby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
You're white hot, but it's got a real short half life. If it's not there right away, I'm on to the next thing. But what amazing technology that has sprouted up where you make real time content and it can be released that day and you see the results of it. And then you're on to the very next thing. This is not a personality type that works under the old paradigm. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
This would be a bad arrangement for me. I would have a very hard time with this. You would not. If I saw someone with a shitty personality that was not kind to everyone, I'd be like, dude, you got to brighten it up so we can get... We're pulling our tips. I'm over here bringing in 300 bucks. Learn some jokes. Do your hair. Brush your teeth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Oh, here we go. We should get Mindy on the phone for this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
This is like the situation with the watch. I'll probably like, I'll regret this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah, I'm burning. I'm lighting this bridge way on fire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Okay, great. I'm just going to leave her a quick voice memo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
No, I'm going to leave a voice memo. Monica's so up in arms right now that I had the audacity to call you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
She claims you're too busy to take a phone call. But we were about to read the list of the top 10... comedy tours, the financials. And I said, I need my friend Mindy here so we can count everyone else's money. Let's get her on the phone for this. And that's what happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Monica's very relieved you didn't answer. She thinks this might be the end of our burgeoning friendship. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Hey, man, you want to know how much money all these stand-up tours are making?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And he's been doing this for years. Oh, yeah. I wonder if he has a huge mansion somewhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Two guys who have so much money and they just can't help but make more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
So Sandler's making more per show than Seinfeld. That's interesting. Seinfeld must play smaller.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Exact same as... Uh-huh. I wonder why they put him above Trevor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Just let everyone know I read this list. Yeah. Like three weeks ago. Yeah. I think after we had Bert on, I got real nosy. Because I asked him how much is he making more on tour or from his podcast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And when he said way more on tour, I thought, well, what is that number? Anyways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Cat Williams, I thought, was, we go on podcasts. He'd blast a bunch of people and be very viral. Although somehow you didn't see his last round of viral. He did one interview that he just, he lined up 20 people and just let them have it. I had no idea he was the king of standup.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
God, what do you do in your 20s with 57? It's a lot. I hope he has so many dumb Lamborghinis and Ferraris.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
For no reason. 148 shows, 1,100,000 tickets. Wow. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
He took the steps two at a time on the way up to the studio.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah, that's really kind of you. Well, and then I just gave you five years. November 72, you arrive. St. Petersburg, but then we get to Tampa.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Okay. Just not Jack. Yeah. What about a Jack Ginger for you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
No. Jack and Diet's the best taste, but you don't even like Diet Coke, so I don't want to start you there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Do you shave your sides and start drinking Jack? I mean.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Is it? A lot of them have all come out in the last 20 years since I quit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
They're trying to be like Oak Barrel Whiskey. It is. Like, call it a man's name. Jim Beam.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
A whiskey. Yeah, well. Actually, he should have a gin. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
But you're going to love Mike Pence's gin. Jim. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Okay, so Tampa, Florida. Dad was a real estate attorney. Yeah. So was he crushing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
My bad. In first grade. First grade. Oh, my God. I hope she was in second grade at least. He had to be in like eighth grade. They were older. They were older.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Oh, my mom will like that. I tell this story. She was water skiing in Florida as a young 20 something year old. She saw alligators and then she fell and she was too terrified to let go of the tow rope. And she was drug behind the boat so long that it gave her an enema and she shit her bathing suit. That's Florida water skiing for you right there. Public enema number one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And they got the great whites. It's teeming with man killers down there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah, it is. So as a car guy, the weird thing is I would go to Florida and everyone drove a Mustang notchback LX five liter. They were only sold in Florida. People always got a hatchback. I don't know why they all like that, but it was all kids living with their grandparents because their parents had kicked them out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
I mean, there's a huge contingency of people just living with their grandparents, which. which is a wild group. Were you running into that a lot? I was not. That's more central Florida? No, that's more northern Florida. Okay, like Orlando-y? Yeah, like Ocala. I was in Sebring a lot. So that's southwest coast Florida? Yes. Southwest coast? No! It's central, mid-state. We'd fly into Orlando.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
You're not watching this. That won't be entertaining. But the look Monica just gave me, anytime I talk about geography, which I can't resist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
And she's like, no one gives a flying fuck where Sebring, Florida is. And she's right. No one. But we care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Back to Tampa. Dad has this client. Now, that's all we can say about that because I would certainly need to know more. I read that book going clear and him floating around on a fucking float.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Bert Kreischer
Yeah, what bothers you? Because you seem to have a very thick skin and you're very self-deprecating, so it's hard to know what would trigger you. I'm extremely sensitive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hello. Our good buddy is here today. Yeah. He's wild. Josh Brolin. He is an award-winning actor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah. Put me in the ladder. I know. And that's kind of what I'm saying. I probably didn't do the headline correctly, but I'm just saying I'm judging you so unfairly and severely because I hear myself and I hate myself a lot of the time. So you hate me, therefore. And I really relate to that. reading your own thing out loud.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Because when you're writing it, you're really just broadcasting the way you do in life. I'm telling you my story. But when you're hearing it, you're actually now the audience. And now you're like, God, do I sound like that all the time? A. B. That's really tragic. What I'm acting like was no big deal. That to me is really the heartbreaking part.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And that's the stuff that I found like a ton of compassion towards you. And I do this a lot. And I think for Monica and the people in my life, I have such a nonchalant way of going through all this stuff. And when I'm hearing your nonchalant version of it, I want to go, yeah, you were really scared. This was a very, very scary ride you were on. You were a little person. You have little people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I have little people. There's no way you weren't terrified. And there's no way I wasn't terrified. I don't know. Your book has helped me kind of really embrace that part. Like, go ahead and acknowledge that. No, you were fucking terrified a lot of the time. And it's colorful and cool. And it's my story now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But let's also be honest about the fact that you spent a lot of your life quite scared of everything going on around you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah, I think you'll fight with the people in your circle and I'll fight with strangers. I think maybe that's the difference.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I had some epiphanies reading it. So just to lay it out to people who haven't read it yet, I really recommend it from the bottom of my heart. But also in your previous interview, we got a taste of the chaos, right? You were living in an animal life or an animal way station. Your mother collected these animals that were by all accounts wild. By all accounts. By all accounts wild.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And she also was a very active drinker. She was sexually very active. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You were regularly, though, at truck stops, at shitty hotels. She was a vagabond. She was dragging you guys around. God knows what she was looking for. But she was interacting with again. This is where it's no matter what you think it is or when you tell it to people, she's going up to truck drivers and restaurants and going like, that's a stupid hat. What's going on with that hat?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Her technique to engage people was to neg them and be aggressive and be fearless. And sure, there's some fun and excitement in watching her navigate that and land the plane safely every time. But also, as an eight-year-old, watching the scary dude in the corner that mom's getting in the face of also is terrifying to no end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It's like a kid being beaten. They know it hurts. They think it's standard. But some primitive part of you goes, there is an animal that's 300 pounds and there's another animal that's 105 pounds. And the one third animal is shouting. You know, there's a reality to the swing she was taking that had to be quite scary. Even if you come to expect she would pull it off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
A lover 25 years her junior. Oh, yeah. Monica's traumatized right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But again, I don't think you and I run the risk of seeing ourselves as a victim. I think we have the opposite complex. Which is what? Which is I think you need to acknowledge a little more. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think you need to be policing yourself about whether poor me, I was a victim. That's actually not the thing you need to be on high alert of. It's the, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I walked through that shit and made me this. I think that's more the fucking thing to monitor. But what is clear throughout this book is you absolutely love your mother. You're one of the few people that have said that. You admire her. You've been kind of trying to be her in some manageable way. Totally. She made a fucking impression. No one ever met her and forgot they met her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
There's like a lot of attractive stuff about her. I've never thought about the fact that if anyone, not just us, anyone that's The child of a divorce has witnessed that one of the parents left. That's an option. Truly, in the most simple fucking way, it's an option that these people can leave. You know it now. You're down to one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You better fucking love and cherish and perform for that one person because you're down to one. I hold true that I love my mother more than anything. And she is the greatest woman to ever be on planet Earth. Also, I don't know that I had a choice to feel otherwise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I just think once you put a kid in a situation where they only have one parent left, I just don't know what else that kid could do other than A, be really grateful that one didn't leave. So there's this true gratitude.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That never occurred to me until I was reading your book. Interesting. I was like, huh, that's an element I need to, again, go through the fucking catalog and just apply that a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
We are supported by Quince. You know, Kristen's been ordering a ton from Quince.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah, and I told her, you know, they're a sponsor. And she couldn't believe it. Being stylish and comfortable allows you to feel your best, making you ready to tackle anything that comes your way. That's where Quince comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Not that I've ever made that mistake and had my dog run outside without me or screamed his name repeatedly over and over and over again until I found him. Or, you know, to check that the guy who asked you out is an armcherry first before you agree to go on a date with him. Sage advice. Essential. Checking first is smart. So, check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Visit BetterHelp.com slash DAX today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash dax. It's rough when your whole environment was an 11 and then you're interacting with people that that feels very uncomfortable. And I get it that it feels uncomfortable. I wrote way too many notes. I see. I love it. We're on sentence one of 15 pages.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But back to conceptually the book, I wanted to ask you because you told me some people fucking hate it and some people absolutely love it. And I was wondering why people hated it. And then my hunch was you've already alluded to it, that they wanted this to be your Hollywood stories. Mm hmm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And so I imagine for you, it's probably hard to juggle that because that in itself is one of the most complicated things to understand. The Hollywood show business fame part of this equation. And so if it were me, I'd be like, that's not what I'm trying to share with you. Like, do you want to fucking know me or not? Because it's not about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You were here three years ago, which kind of shocked me. That's crazy. As I listened this morning on my bike ride.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But then on the outside, I would go, but also it's so much of you. How could it not be?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I wanted to know, did you have to step over... the hurdle of wanting the book to be as well-written as Cormac McCarthy, like that you want so bad for it to be the thing that you loved so much. I think that's one of my continual hurdles when I write.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Kind of thing. I hope you journaled throughout the day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Oh, my God. That's not even clear to me in the book. By the way, you got me. Poorly written. Wait, so what's happening? This comes up. multiple times. So to set the stage, the structure of the book is like two page stories, four page story. It's not linear. We're bouncing back and forth from childhood to Goonies to 2023 to this, to that. It's all over the map. As your memories do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I think for people on the first approach, it probably is a little off putting. It's not clicking into their normal format, but I will say if you stick with it, I do think when I put it down last night, I'm like, I have the whole picture. It didn't come out in the way that I'm used to it coming out, but it's almost like a Nolan movie. I tell people, Don't try to figure it out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It can be super absurd. It can be super emotional. Well, that's our desire to control. I'm scared because I don't know what this is. I can't enjoy this because I don't know what this is. The submarine. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. So this comes up in many different things. He's telling Oliver Stone about this idea. He has the audacity to tell Joel and Ethan Coen about this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And it says the script is 357 pages long. And it's about a Russian submarine and he has a budget. He doesn't know how much a Russian sub. I thought all this was real. And I'm like, how dare you tell the Coen brothers about you? They only direct shit they write.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I know it's great now that I know it, but I didn't get the joke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah, you know enough to not trust your assessment of things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's hilarious. And Joel or Ethan, I don't know, said like, yeah, the submarine part sounds scary. And he goes, exactly. Think King Kong. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's exactly what it is. I'm like kind of reanalyzing every single time I read that. I'm like, he really thought this was a great thing. And it's the town next to Fargo. So the movie would be called Witch of Papa or whatever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I just know that. So what's tricky, though, is and I think we do the same thing as my wife. Well, and Monica as well, because we talk so much. They're my two kind of check ins. They'll say to me, you're crazy right now. That theory makes no sense. I know you've convinced yourself that's what's happening. But what's tricky is if you're kind of check system is the person you're having trouble with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I think it's kind of actually a... Well, there's two things. One of the things in the room is ego. We'll keep that aside for a second. The other thing is a really beautiful and sweet part of us, which is like, I read Bukowski and I felt a connection and I felt... being seen in a way that if I'm going to do this, I really want that for other people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So part of it's like a really kind of altruistic and beautiful attempt, which is like, if I'm going to do this, I want it to do the thing the things did to me. Yeah. But now I have to think of those things that did that to me. That's in my mind. And that can be really arresting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I took a picture and sent it to Monica of the book because you use Seussian. And the day before we were on the fact check and I said, one of my favorite terms is Seussian. And literally within 14 hours, I read in your book Seussian. My favorite writer of all time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
We were watching Grinch Who Sold Christmas with the kids the other day. It's the greatest book. And I go, this guy really needs to be held in the same regard as Salvador Dali or something. He's like one of the great thinkers of all time. The great artists of all time. The language, the image.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
He's an artist on a level of Picasso, in my opinion. OK, so my favorite. There's some fun Hollywood ones, actually, that I like. The Punchline of Goonies is a really good one. And I think people will know this lore of Goonies, which is the kids in Goonies were not allowed. Hopefully this is the half of Goonies. the Goonies you saw.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
The Goonies, No Country for Old Men, Sicario, Dune, Milk, and a book I absolutely loved, which is out right now, called From Under the Truck. And... We daringly asked him on the spot if he would read one of the stories. Cold read. Cold read of my favorite story in the book. And he obliged, that sweetheart that he is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Where do you go? So where do you go? I have a specific person I go to. I usually go to Dax Shepard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I don't know if you remember, there's a point where they... She just threw out the one thing that she knows. Well, we interviewed him and it was our favorite interview.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It's the only episode I've ever made my children listen to. He's so special. Fuck is he special.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Within a year, he was on a boat coming here as a refugee. And then he was on a first class flight to Sri Lanka to work with Harrison Ford. It's like the worst luck in the history of mankind and the best luck. And I was there in the beginning of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Okay. So famously they built the whole pirate ship and they didn't want the kids to see it. Do you know this lore? No. Oh, you're the one. They wanted, when the kids came down the water slide and came out of the water and saw that pirate ship that they had built, that they would get their real reactions. That was the goal. Very, very cool idea. Yeah, great idea. And so what happens?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And ironically, it is your doppelganger. Matt Damon? No, Tom Hanson. I don't know if we've discussed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
10% of gross. So this is literally a hundreds of millions of dollars. Literally. Literally. Few people can remember a time when they go, no, thank you. And that resulted in a $200 million loss of income. Maybe more. That's crazy. Yeah. You didn't know that. I did not know that. Oh, isn't that. And I love that. Yes. And he has a great attitude about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
They wanted Michael Cera and they didn't get him. And now I'm here. Is that the one he directed? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
The one he just directed is fantastic. I heard it's really, really good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Okay. Back to the book. Yeah, yeah. So there is fun. My own selfish curiosity, and I'm glad you developed a relationship with him, but you have this funny beginning and end to Nick Nolte. Explain the first time you saw him to Monica. My editor, Noah Eaker at HarperCollins.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
As you say, and I would have thought the same thing as like, he saw in this young shirtless man, and that looks familiar. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It's in my top three comedies. I list it all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But you say when you're in this scene with him, he wants to breathe with you. When that's happening, he's actually not Nick Nolte. The magic is real.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah, I only know the lore. Never met him. I've heard some. The best.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
He has. Yeah, because I've heard some fantastic stories. He has. I got left with a few questions and I want to touch in on my absolute favorite zone you get into in these many different stories. I have a favorite story in the book. Oh, great. By a landslide. I'd be so interested to know. Yeah. Mull over whether you have a guess before we get to that. I do have a guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Okay, you're raised on this crazy ranch. Life's nuts. You guys moved to Santa Barbara. This is where you get involved with the Cedar Rats. We know about that. We talked about that the last time. Created the Cedar Rats. I'm sorry, created the proprietary recipe of the Cedar Rats. But mom was involved.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You say she was like one of the lead people in a pyramid scheme that was just kind of raining money. Yeah. But I need more info. What was the- Do you know the pyramid scheme?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Also, simply because I'm obsessed with money. It's like the whole time I'm reading the book, I'm like, what is mom doing for a living? It's like, where is this ranch come from? My dad. Your dad. Okay. And then this pyramid. So then a windfall of money, which is fascinating. And then you're stealing a good deal of it. Maybe six grand of it you found. No. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It's like these cartel people. They lose hundreds of millions of dollars in holes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's the big bait and switch. You meet the owner of the agency and then you never see them again until you quit. And then they call you again when you're quitting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Just can't imagine anything more exciting than being 12 years old and having access to six grand and how much fun me and my friends would have had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
OK, so the times I like the book the most is when you're telling on yourself. That makes sense. It's crazy how that's the most beautiful part of people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah, I guess, A, was that stuff hard to write? Or has our- 30 years in AA helped us get to a point where we know we'll be loved on the other side of that. Was it hard?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And if I have to reveal shit, I don't want to do that. We just talked about this or the story I've been telling myself, which is no one will love me if I tell these things might be incorrect because you're doing it and people love you. And so it's very threatening to the core story they've been telling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So the tragedy that makes most people cry to me feels very expected. Of course, that person died. And of course, this happened. Life sucks and it's going to get worse. When people are genuine. Can't say that in front of Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
When they're genuine and earnest and sincere in the face of how risky it is to be, I lose it. Bro, I lose my shit. When someone's sincere and earnest and they do it out loud.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I'm like, thank you so much. Being fucking earnest and beautiful in this world where people are going to call you all kinds of things for being that way is, oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Forget it. Bravery. Just bravery. Yes. OK, so the part of the book I don't relate to you on and I've really been spared this. And it's the thing that really probably gave me the most compassion for your story is I never was out there in the bowels of my addiction. With kids. I had my mom as my voice, right? Like I would be at the depths of some deplorable act. You didn't have kids yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But I would think of mom. Forget it. I would have been a dead man. God, if my mom saw me buying this crack right now and, you know, like, oh my God, what would my mom think? I think. I know what shame I've carried around, but so many of your stories, when it is crazy and you're in your craziness and you're getting stabbed in fucking Costa Rica, of course, you're like, I have fucking kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I have a son I love. I have a daughter. Why aren't I with them? That layer of disappointment in yourself and the shame of that, I have been spared and I'm just so compassionate to. It must have been so fucking painful to be in those states, just thinking, why aren't I with my kids?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Let me tell Monica too, it's a Gus Van Sant movie about male prostitutes. River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves, beautiful movie. So he's like, I don't know what it's like to be a male prostitute. Maybe I should go figure it out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You have the right ratio of delusion and reality. So it's like you're delusional enough to go up there, but you're also there going, I'm a fucking fraud. I don't know what I'm doing. This isn't accomplishing anything. I suck. I have a kid. Why aren't I at home? That's it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I mean, she's a high end. There's a really great metaphor here, which is, yeah, the person under the owner, of course, wants to get in with you and they can have some ownership over the ride, which is what we all want. Right. They want to collaborate in a sense. If they inherit Jack Nicholson, there's really no ownership.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's insane. Do you tell Oliver, hey, man, I was like wandering around acting like Jim Morrison. Yeah, he didn't care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I mostly just think, well, I should be with that person because that would prove I'm of value or I have status or something. And I would deny someone this great opportunity to help me and allowed myself to be helped. So back to Tom Hanson. So when you were saying you met with him, it was in a professional capacity, but it could very well just been in a sobriety capacity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
On Prime Video, you can add over 100 subscriptions like Max, Apple TV+, and Paramount+, all in one app. That means more time watching and more time relaxing. I've got the perfect example. Armchair-y favorite, Matthew McConaughey, is in so many of our favorite titles. You could have a Matthew McConaughey marathon day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Start with True Detective on Max, then check out The Lincoln Lawyer on MGM+, and top it off with rom-com classic How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days on Paramount+. That's a good way to spend a day. You can watch all of those titles and more without ever leaving the Prime Video app. I think I may take a little Nicolas Cage binge on Amazon Prime.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Oh, sign me up. Streamline your streaming today. Check out subscriptions on Prime Video. Again, back to my favorite part is always when you're telling on yourself. This is a story that could happen to me any given day and it would be a fucking bummer. Your sheep story. I knew it. You did. It's such a beautiful story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I read it out loud to my girls last night and my wife was listening and she said, wow, I can't believe what a great writer he is. I totally want to read that book. Wow. It's such a great story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I would love for you to read it. And if you don't want to read it, I'll read it. Oh, man. I want people to hear this story because I think it would make them want to read this book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I interviewed him and he's very open where we spoke openly about it. When you were saying he was bringing me in. It's an anonymous program, you know. No, he outed himself in the episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
When I was ringing out loud, I was like, I'm just going to flub this. They won't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And people take a certain pleasure out of going, who are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah, at Tom Hanson's house. Seriously? With the actor Eric Dane. Do you know Eric Dane? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He and I walked out to Tom's driveway in the middle of a meeting. Because you got into it? Really? Yeah, I was sponsoring this kid and he yelled at this kid and I already had an ax to grind with him. So I go, let's go, motherfucker. Really? It's a low point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Oh man, that's like fucking Carver S, my friend. What a story. For me, of course, I'm always walking this tightrope of trying to give everyone the most spectacular experience. That's exactly right. And I'm irresponsible and it goes wrong. It's so selfish of me that I do things and it goes wrong. I mean- I'm reading that Kristen and I were in Africa. I see this huge herd of giraffe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I'll have it on video. It's part of our video. It worked out. I ran at the giraffes and they all started running and it was great. One could have tripped. If I had killed a fucking giraffe trying to entertain this gal. And that's with them for the rest of their life. And that's the kind of things I play with. And it's irresponsible. And sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I got to live with the fact that, you know, it doesn't. That one fucking hit me because that's really a metaphor for how I've been living my whole life. That's it. Watch me jump off this thing. Watch me do this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But anyways, when you were saying Tom Hanson was going to bring you in, it very well could have meant he was inviting you to the meeting. That's where my head went when you said.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You're living out their fears weirdly. Whatever. Yeah. You're the horror movie they go to see. I'm the horror movie that they go to. That's it. Yes. And then under all that is, could we love you just because you exist? That's it. Which you can't. And you don't think so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But I was just with him and he does look like you guys and you guys are both blessed. You're both very handsome. OK, so I have and I just text you this the other day. You are in my algorithm on Instagram in a way that only Corey Feldman is. I see. I understand the parallel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
This has been incredible. I guess the only thing I wanted from the book, and maybe it'll come in another book, is your mom deserves an explanation. Why is she that way?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Because again, her whole thing was she couldn't be vulnerable. So she had power over that story if it was just her. But I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
We may never know. Well, I fucking adore you. I adore you, man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Dude, I'm telling you, it's not like the others. All right, I love you. I love you. We'll do this again. Yeah, thanks for coming. Thank you. So lovely. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Wild sky this morning. I got up really, really early. Part of this resolutions biz is I got to wake up so early to get things done. Now that I'm back to writing again. In the memoir after the journal. Got it. So I woke up super early. I checked my emails to see if Delta's school was closed. There was no emails. She was also incredibly excited to go to school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
She was out sick the day before, but she could not get there fast enough today because she bought Freddie in Mexico City a fidget spinner with grenades on it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And the cutest thing was when we were walking down the street with all these little tiny market stands with selling different stuff. Of course, I'm checked out, right? I can't stand shopping. So I'm just kind of like standing. And then she ran over to me and she's like, Dad, I need your help. What would a boy like?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So I went over. We looked at this thing. And her conclusion after playing with it the whole trip was it's the best fidget spinner she had ever. Performance wise, she spun it. Watch how long this thing spins. Anyways. We drive to school right away, even when the sun came out, because I watched the sun come up. And I was like, that is the eeriest sky I've ever seen in L.A. It's like dark as hell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's not why I know that. Monica, really quick, just for a fun question. What human is in your algorithm?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
We get to school. We were early. We were out of the house on time. And I was like, oh, I love getting here early. Parking's a breeze. Wow. Parking's really easy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Open my phone. 7.20 a.m. That cancellation came in. So I was 20 minutes early. So then... We drove up to Freddy's at eight in the morning and gave him that present, which was really, really fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah. And then got home and we have a couple different groups staying at the house who have been evacuated. Yeah, people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I was watching late last night in the high schools on fire. I was like, whoa. But the winds were.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Wow. OK, so five football fields, 500 yards. That's a quarter mile a minute.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah. The winds were blowing 60 miles an hour. The embers were like, just, yeah. I don't know if you saw like the, the female newscaster was given thing and she just gets engulfed in embers and she's appropriately so panicking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I was having a moment watching that. This woman is in the pit of hell. She is standing across the street from the high school that's on fire. And then the other side of the street is on fire and there's embers whipping around everywhere and she's breathing in tremendous amount of smoke. And of course, everyone else is scurrying to get out of it. Right. And she is there. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I was like, this is the greatest example of like when you have a goal and you want to do something like she wants to be a reporter on the fucking ground when the shit's hitting the fan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I'm following Josh, but I'm not following Feldman. But I guess people who like the shit I like, cars or whatever, they like these Feldman videos. So it knows that I might like them. And I liked a couple, but then I didn't like them anymore. It was really fun for like a month. Yeah, and then I don't like it at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So for her, it's one experience. And it's and it just it illuminated for our illustrated perfectly what your mindset does to your experience in a situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Oh, yes, yes, yes. This is on video. Josh is so fucking handsome. To not watch the words come out of that gorgeous mug would be a travesty. So go over to YouTube and watch this. Enjoy. We are supported by Macy's. Planning a winter getaway? Before you hit the slopes or chase the sun, make Macy's your first destination.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I guess what my conclusion was, you think a situation is objectively a thing, but really, if you want to be there, It's one experience. And if you don't want to be there, it's a completely different experience. The context is identical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It's like I said, if you're on a football team and you want to tackle the person, you're completely oblivious to the amount of pain you incur because you've chosen to run as fast as you can and tackle the person. If you're sitting on the sidewalk and you're having an ice cream and that's not what you want, you don't expect it and you get hit with the same velocity, it hurts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It doesn't hurt when you want it and it hurts when you don't want it. And it's just so interesting, the power of our brain. So if you want to be in that situation, you're where you want to be. And it's all tolerable. And if it's just came up on you out of nowhere, it is a nightmare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
She said something like, OK, like it was a self-talk of like, OK, we're in the shit now. It was the attitude of someone that wanted to be there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But if you're in the hospital... But even experientially in the inferno.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Well, then it became a two front war because on the west side of us, it was that and then Altadena.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So I was like, come over if you need to. She's like, oh, we got a hotel, shockingly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I'm like, I'm watching that thing. I'm like, where are all these people going? Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by Skims. You know, I was just in my Skims tank top last night taking a little snooze.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
One of our friends in the Palisades house burnt to the ground.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I found myself on hour two of watching the coverage myself. getting annoyed with human nature, people must be thinking this all over the country, which is like, how many times do we spend hundreds of billions of dollars in the wake of it and continue to put almost nothing into prevention. I know. I don't understand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Like, is at some point the governor going to go like, we got to cut the shit and get fucking serious about preventing this stuff because I mean, and it'd be expensive, but these start because the winds blow the power lines down. They start a fire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
We've got to get the power lines underground. I don't know. That's step one. Power lines shouldn't... That's going to cost a fortune, but there's no way it's going to cost as much as those houses that were burning in the Palisades. Those are like $40 million houses. The bill on that...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
No one could fly in it last night. The winds were way too bad to fly. Like, I think they're doing a great job. In fact, I was watching it and I was seeing that like already Arizona had deployed a bunch of firefighters. Towns north of us had deployed. They had, you know, they're coordinating all this stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I was like, when you're at a bar saying you hate the fucking government, that's the government. Somebody comes to help.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I agree. There's this huge system in place. They don't have their hands on it now. They're gonna. Without them, the entire city would burn to the ground. You'd have no city. I know. And you'd go, yeah, good. No government. What the fuck are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Like, you hate the government. That's who's come to rescue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It's funny because we had done an episode of Armchair Anonymous yesterday. And we interviewed a nurse who was telling us there was a bomb threat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And so there was a nursing home that they had to... Evacuate. Evacuate in Glendale. And there's footage of it and there's just... All these old people on wheelchairs and on beds. And I'm like, again, thank God there's nurses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Sure, sure, sure. Well, and they're looking for cheap land and no one gives a shit. They don't. Yeah. I mean, there's a numerous reasons, but I was thinking like, yeah, what happens when you have when there's a bomb threat at the prison? Do they just go like, oh, tough shit. We're going to ride this out. The guards are like, what happens? You just let inmates out. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Nothing really compares. Nothing beats that, really. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
He did live in Malibu, but I think he relocated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
On the eighth day of journaling, I wrote down a secret. Yeah, lots of secrets. Now I have to burn, but I can't because if I are. Oh, shit. It would be insensitive to burn my journal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah. I remember I was shooting baby mama in 2005 or six and Griffith park was on fire and they evacuated all the houses on Los Feliz Boulevard. One of them being mine. And so Carly called me and said, Hey, they're evacuating your thing. You want me to go? What do you want me to grab from the house? And I was like, Everything I've written is on the computer. Grab that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I don't want to lose everything I've written. What about that? No, just grab that and get the fuck out of there. Did your power go out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
yeah fires are observable and they're predictable you know where they're at you know which way the wind's blowing there's some prediction that can be made the wind's like where did that come from why now when's the next one you don't know and they're yeah they're like 60 70 mile an hour gusts but okay but so this is for josh brolin our friend i love him just that was lovely i'm so happy he read his book for us that was so kind yeah yeah him to do
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Someone had heard it on the early release and they said that they cried during that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah. Well, what I think is happening is Fred Durst, who I don't know personally, I've never met him. I follow him on Instagram because he loves station wagons. That's my full extent. But he seems to be a pretty self-aware person. And I think he's very aware of that Doc Woodstock and the fact that they were
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
At least in that documentary, kind of credited with this terrible toxic masculinity, all the gnarly stuff that happened at that festival. I think he's aware that people are associating him with all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So he tours. He's a musician and a lead singer and a guitar player. And he's on tour seemingly many dates a year because the videos come hot and fast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I think he's probably not that as a whatever age guy is. And I think he's trying to figure out how to own it and continue on being a musician. I don't know. I think he's in an interesting situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I think this was probably the best attempt at that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Do sprints once or twice a week. I think they're the worst workout you can do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I think they might be the very, there's probably something worse that I just haven't done it yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Because biking up the mountain is really terrible. But the sprints are worse. But I did them. And then today I'm a little taut.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I did one half pace. Well, I start at the gate and I run to the far end of the property. I think that's probably about 75 yards. And I do a half pace one first, then a three quarters pace one second to loosen and warm my tendons and muscles up. And then it's as fast as I can humanly come out of my blocks and run to the end. And then I'm allowed to walk back to regain my breath, which I barely do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And the second I'm back there, I have to turn and I'm using your clicker finally. Oh, no. Yes. You got me very early on for my birthday an ushers clicker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I have had it and really not had any great use for it. I don't tear tickets often in life. But in the past when I did sprints, I'd have like a pile of rocks I moved every time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So this time was like walk back. The second I'm at the gate, I have to turn, drop, click, sprint.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah, I wasn't noticing it too much at that time. Yeah, but it could have been rough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah. The good thing about sprints is they're over quickly. You can't do sprints for an hour.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
At least the way I'm doing it where it's just they're back to back to back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Of Avatar. There's, what are we at? There's three of them? There's two of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Let me see what the brand for all of those movies is. Worldwide Avatar number one in 2009 is $2.923 billion. We can call that $3 billion. So that's $300 million. And let's see Avatar 2. Oh, we're at $300 million. Let's see. The Way of the Water. We got a grand total on that bad boy of $2.3 billion. So we're looking at $530 million. Half a billion dollars. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But what were they just valued at? Six hundred million.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Okay. So you can buy half of it. Controlling interest. And part of your stipulations were that the girls had to go out for wine with you a lot to pitch you the new product lines.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Can you imagine sitting with wine and they were showing you sketches and fabrics?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
They're too cool. They're cool. Wine's too pedestrian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
that confuses. So similar, exact same thing. And I didn't forward to anybody. I did immediately text my best friend Aaron and say, like, are you seeing these felonies? Like, it's all I'm seeing. And yes, the great curiosity, which, by the way, not even to be political, that was always my great curiosity about Trump. That's what I'm most interested in. Is he in on any of this or is he not in on it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's what I'm not sure about. He is. But all to say, Brolin, for much different reasons, has just infiltrated my algorithm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I love it. And I texted him the other day and I'm like, I watch four or five interviews with you a day. A day. A day. And I like every single one of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's the point I'm getting to. That's the point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So first question. Is this the most fresh you've ever done for anything? Let's start there. Yes. To promote your book. Yes. I have whored myself out to this dog and pony like I never have before. Selfishly, when we have a guest coming up and I start seeing that the guest is everywhere, I just kind of go, ugh, I'm bummed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Two things, yeah. What new are they going to say? And then are people just sick of this person? Because I know I've seen them six places. So I saw you everywhere. And my first thought was like, oh, bummer. Like, we're going to be less. But then my true belief in what you and I share that we could also have something completely original and different. That's for sure. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I don't want to be hyperbolic. I want to make sure I'm being honest here. But I can't remember a book I've read that took me more through it personally. And I don't want to make this about myself. But why not? I am also writing something. I imagine we have some of the same fears about writing something. And... I'm just reading it and I'm like, this could be my book. I could be writing this book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I could see that. And I'm extra mean to you because I'm extra mean to me. And I'm like, oh yeah, we have the same story. The fucking story. Like I'm getting really mad at myself reading the book. Oh. But in a glorious way. No, but tell me why. The amount of things we had to do to be dangerous and scary so that no one would try to hurt us. How exhausting for everyone. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I'm like reading my own inventory. Oh, yeah. Now I know what you mean. I'm also having great forgiveness for myself because I have great forgiveness for you because I just adore you. I agree. It's very mutual. Thank you. But I'm reading it in a way that I don't read other books. It's because it feels so familiar to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I am constantly checking myself and going, really, you're just a fucking egomaniacal piece of shit. And I'm so mad at myself. Then I'm reading your book and I'm like, what the fuck else was this guy going to do? He grew up in a cage with a wolf.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It's actually by design. So I'll have read some crazy book on, you know, astrophysics. And all of a sudden, me and the person, we've left the planet. And Monica's like, hey, no one knows what you're talking about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You guys left when you were nine, but how long had they been there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And did they come to love it when you guys did leave? Did mom miss it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You went to a British speaking school. Yeah. What kind of classmates did you have?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So anybody that visited, there would be presidents that would visit, they would put them up there. I would ride by on my bike if I was a kid and try to see who was staying in the palace.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Six weeks to eight weeks recovery, no talking. They cauterize it, but you can't feel if it's bleeding down into your stomach. That's all I needed to hear to make it even worse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I think it's not as mature enough. It's an in and out procedure for kids. But someone was just telling, an adult was really battling whether or not to do it. They don't like to do it on adults because it's bleeding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
My life is ruined. Because they sound terrible. So the invasions in August, the U.S. enters, as I remember, because my birthday is January 2nd, and I got my license in 91 on the 2nd, and it was the only thing that played in the radio. I feel like it was maybe January 1st of 91. The U.S. entered.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
But then since it's the Kuwait oil company, so our neighborhood was a hot one and it was all about collecting people who could help manage and turn over the control of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Do you get anxiety before you go out on a talk show that you're going to have to pee once you get out there? Peeing is not the anxiety. It's not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No compulsive rumination thoughts. Like I can acknowledge the pee one is insane. I'll be in the dressing room at Kimmel and I'm waiting to hear the knock. I stand in front of the toilet. Yeah. And then when I hear the knock, I go, one second. And then I do my last pee because I'm so nervous that it's 12 minutes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You heard we were a godless country. You did. Did we deliver? We delivered. It was so funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No. Although, if ever there was a place to try it, it would be on Kimmel. That's true. Kimmel's the one to do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So he dies in 94? December 1995. So you're young, you're 14. I'm 14, yep. Why did he die so prematurely?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Let's do it on the same. Let's do it. I'll go to yours. You come to mine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Mo is a stand-up comedian and an award-winning writer. I first saw him on Rami, which is another show I love. Friend of the pod. Where he plays Mo in that, but not our Mo in Mo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It'd be so great. That's kind of what they do on Weekend Update. Do you ever watch the stuff with Shay? Fuck Shay, man. No, I'm just kidding. That's my brother.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You had the right skill set, it sounds like, minimally. You weren't lonely. That's a blessing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Okay, so what's happening financially, though, when dad is out of the picture?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. You don't have passports, right? You don't have a Kuwaiti passport?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So I guess we get into some of the complexities of this immigration story you have because you're just waiting forever on the asylum list, however that process works. But In the meantime, you have no passport. You can't come and go. You're just in this kind of purgatory. Yes, exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. When we meet Mo on season one, he's selling shit out of his truck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Do the Reader's Digest version. You go to the rodeo and Bill Cosby's performing. You're young and you see that you decide you want to do that. You're a shit student. A teacher says to you, I'll let you stand up so long as you're making fun of the course material. Yeah. That's a lucky weird thing that happens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
But in a weird way, I'm like, they're geniuses. They've hacked the math of this. And really, we are dying to see this white guy make a terrible joke because we know the risk is career ending. And they figured out how to do it. Yeah, they have. No, it's perfect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. And we were in Kuwait and we went on a boat ride in Iraq. There was like Zodiac boats and they were fucking doing cool maneuvers and shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That's when I got the fucking food poisoning coming home from that. We had been in Afghanistan for eight days and I had been eating at the DFAC, like microwave hamburgers. We get to the Kuwait first class lounge and I'm looking at all this fresh tabbouleh and delicious vegetables and I'm pounding it. And Cooper goes, bro, you're going very hard on the salad bar in Kuwait. And I'm like, it's good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
There's another person. It was Bradley and his cousin, me and Aaron Eckhart. Oh, wow. That's really wild.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
They were literally all there at the same time then. Because I was about to say, yeah, they didn't let us do shit. Anytime we tried to wander or stray or the first time I went, we landed in Qatar. The GIs took us to a nightclub and I was like, I'm going to go on the dance floor. I had to get that cleared. There's too much. They don't want the drama of you getting kidnapped or some shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Monica's so sick of this story, but I still think it's very funny that I did this. I had heard on my first tour that Larry the Cable Guy was coming the next week. And, you know, they make you sign all this shit when you're there. You're signing the Apaches, the Blackhawks. You're just signing everything. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And everything I signed, which had been signed by all the previous people, I wrote on every single one, get her done, Dax Shepard. Ha ha ha. Because I'm like, he's not going to have the catchphrase. I'm going to steal it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Okay, guys, hey, it's really rough out here, eh? If you were tracking your stand-up career, what are the big level ups? Because, of course, I become aware of you watching Rami, which I love, and I'm like, Who's this most hysterical person who needs his own show and then immediately had his own show? Thank you. That's my experience with you. So what was happening in that stand-up?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Because you're playing Mo, who owns a restaurant on Rami. And you're like, well, now am I stuck with that character?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I think I did Crashing first, like a guest star. That was Pete. Pete.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
This is an impossible question to answer for you, but you're immediately so insanely natural. Were you shocked by your own ability? Are we trying to be humble right now? That's what I'm saying. You can't really answer this question, but I have to imagine there's a big relief at how fucking relaxed and in your body you are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I have said this a bunch in the past, which is for the young black dude who's from a shit situation and makes it out and become successful. It wasn't bad enough that he had to go through all of that and be extra special to get here. But now he's also burdened with the responsibility of representing the black community and speaking out on all issues.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And I just have always felt like if you want to be political, great. But just to have to inherit that on top of everything else, it seems like a weird reward. No, I agree. And I would be resentful a bit if I were in a position where it's like, no, no, I want to tell jokes and have fun. And I'm entitled to do that as much as anyone else is. So does it feel like a burden at all?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Did it almost help you go, oh yeah, that was real? It did. That's a great way to put it. It's so far away in so many ways, geographically and time-wise. To see it, I would imagine you're going, oh right, I haven't imagined this whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I feel that. Oh, that's beautiful. Now, the show is twice 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. You won, and I'm very jealous. There's only one award I've ever coveted and I campaign for all the time, and I don't even know what it gets awarded for, but the Peabody. Yes. That to me feels like, oh, you transcended Hollywood somehow. It was beautiful. It's kind of a rad group to join. Of the people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He's a different Mo, but very similar. Also Black Adam and two standup specials on Netflix, Mo Amr, The Vagabond and Mo Amr, Mohammed in Texas. And he's on tour right now with El Oso Palestino Tour, which is the Palestinian bear. That's what that translates to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
A lot of opportunity for failure. Exactly. Exactly. Whenever you take on something that has about 90 ways it can go bad and then a couple that could go good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Another guy's talking about cartel apprehending them for four days. And he's like, how'd you get here? Like, well, I took a bus. And then I took a short swim.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. It's like, bro, what are you doing? But our dog Lola didn't just want to observe. She wanted to like walk around and get a little closer. Sometimes I feel fur on my leg. No, come on. And then I was like, Lola's a fucking pervert. And I was like. Wait, is that what's going on? Or when Lola looks at me, I feel like a pervert. I'm aware of how perverted I am with this third person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I knew you were a good planker. You can't tell on Facebook.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Well, not to be too corny and make you uncomfortable. I appreciate it so much. Rami for me was the first big, like, I really, really enjoyed almost being forced to see what the experience is like. Yeah. And same with you. And so I'm grateful we live in this. The negative would be like a niche economy of content. But the great part of it is I get to watch Atlanta again. It's a great era.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Well, have fun touring and then also act more because I love watching you act. You really are just born to do it. You're so effortlessly comfortable. Mo, I'm delighted to meet you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
A good analogy would kind of be like, you're asking who's your favorite athlete as opposed to who's your favorite basketball player, your favorite hockey player. Pryor's doing something different than Jerry Seinfeld, than Cosby was sitting down and doing this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So you hit me with an idea. Yep. Which is after we chit chat for a while and we get into the facts, I'm going to cut your hair while you read the facts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I know, but I told you this is not the situation. Like, I need you on a tall chair in the kitchen with a lot of light, and we got to discuss what you want. But what you're telling me is you just want the ends trimmed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Okay. We'll see. We'll see what we can do. Okay. But I do have my tools. I got my tools.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Like normally I would use this comb, but I was thinking your hair. I don't know if I can get this comb through your hair, can I? Have you ever? I brought one of the girl's brushes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Do you think all Indian women have the same hair? I mean, they seem to, from my point of view, it seems pretty similar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So density. Yeah. Yeah. I've never seen a blonde Indian. Let's start there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Edenic. Yeah, and it meant... To describe an environment as Eden-like, like the Garden of Eden. Yeah, I liked that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
God, I'm glad you remembered it because I said out loud I'm going to commit that to my... Repertoire. Repertoire. People loved your David Chang story. I just want to add that. Oh, good. I looked at the comments and people... Many people write, this is all of us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
We get so nervous as if like people get punched for doing it wrong or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He'll handle that right now. The bread that his children didn't eat, that he brought home for his children.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Oh, there's a bit of a standoff in our household. So Kristen, as you know, you've tried it. She's in her sourdough phase.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
What about Molly's birthday party? She brought over like two fresh loaves. You didn't get into it. I had some, I cheated. And I also, I was like, you know, I already told you this. I'm like, oh, sourdough has got the least amount of gluten. I can eat it. And I had it. There's nothing better than sourdough out of an oven. Forget it. But anyways, my kids are like, Where's the white bread?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And Kristen's like, I'm making the bread. You have homemade bread.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Rightly so. Right. And Delta's like, I want little square white pieces of bread. Yes. And I get it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That one's hard because I don't eat bread anymore and I got to just eat this and watch you guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I'm not. When she got into the phase, because you can't imagine waking up and the whole house smells like a loaf of sourdough. It's actually now maddening that I don't. I had a week of it. I'm like, yeah, this is where it's not working. My skin started flaking. My wrist started hurting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I also gained like immediately. I just mysteriously gained like eight pounds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Go ahead. What did we talk about? That I gain and lose weight really quick?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I don't know if you inceptioned me, but I've been eating more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Well, then I got back down to 194. Right. And then I think vanity. I'm like, I don't like my face at 194.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You know, I gained a crazy amount of weight when Kristen was pregnant the first time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I just don't know what it was, but I find that every man I know has done that when their wife is pregnant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I think she's like driving it a little more because she's got these weird urges and there's more shit around and maybe that's part of it. And maybe you are like, you know, like if you, I want people to think about this. The next time you're at a booth at a restaurant talking with somebody and Start paying attention how you inadvertently mirror each other's body language.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
If someone puts their hand on their, rests their face on their fist, you'll do it. Just be aware of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I wonder if we were at a booth at a restaurant, we would. Sometimes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Oh, interesting. But my big thing was we were at one of the checkups and I just hadn't been on a scale in like four or five months. And I got on, I was like, oh my God, I've gained 22 pounds. I didn't even notice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
This is embarrassing for her. For whiskey? No. I don't need to say who. Oh, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Why is it embarrassing to have your period? I would be embarrassed. You would?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
There's a lot of women in my house. Okay. Nicole's there nonstop. My sister's there nonstop. I got Kristen's there nonstop. This is a whole bevy of urine in and out of there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I do want to make this. You pop some tampons in those trash cans for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And we have a friend we won't honor, but we have a friend in the pod that uses the diva cup.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
What a kinky broad. She's on her period, not wearing undies and on the dance floor, popping and locking. Who is this woman? Do I know her?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You should be able to go underwear-less to a wedding and a dress. I mean, technically, I'm sure when I wore- You don't think that, if I did something like that, you'd be like, that's so arrogant. You know you would.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Well, your bathing suit's the underwear. You're not not wearing underwear ever. And then you're on your period and you decide that's when you're going to not wear your underwear?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Even in the day of the thong and everything, that's still an issue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Can you give a specific time ever? Like, this sounds so theoretical. Can you tell me a time you were on your period, put a tampon in and went out of the house with a dress on and no underwear?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
In your house. I'm asking, can you think of a, are you, are you telling me right now you have a, you have a memory of going out on a dress? Yes. Yes. No undies on your period.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
To be honest. And to believe each other. You can't feel like you did. You either, you got to say I did or I didn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's weird to say wear it. I know. Wear a tampon. I had to put one in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I have no experience with it, but it seems crazy. There's a cup in there that's relying on a suction seal. And that that seal couldn't break. Anyone who's ever used any suction cups.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. Has your dog ever eaten it? No. Okay, well, let me get to the story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
A new update on Whiskey is he's a bad to the bone. That doesn't help me. Do you see it? Because it needs to be next to a Bic lighter or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Oh, okay. So it's the same length as a tampon. Okay, so whiskey, you need to know some updates about whiskey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Well, you know, first of all, he was Trump and he was president of the hallway.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And I wanted to tell you about that. And you seem to enjoy that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He's eaten 100 men and 150 women, but he doesn't talk about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And someone in my household put a tampon in the trash can, which is advisable for your plumbing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So I want to high five this unnamed person who put a tampon. Because Whiskey's bad to the bone and he loves blood. Ew. He went and ate the tampon. Okay. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Then, and I am getting, she won't mind this. I just want you to know she won't mind this. And this is a big honorable mention because this, I've said this before. My sister Carly is fucking down. When shit needs, when the gnarly stuff needs to get done. My sister will do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
She is. She's fearless. So they were taking whiskey back to the bone to on a walk. And he pooped out half a tampon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And then a little while longer, he pooped out, tried to poop out the rest of the tampon. And now the cord, the string, the rope. And now he's got a rope hanging out of his butt. And he's a bastard, right? So you can't get close to him because he's bad. He'll bite you. He'll eat you like the hundred men he's eaten. And so Carly's trying to get this fucking thing out of his butt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And he's trying to bite her. And this whole thing, it's a battle that I guess she had to take him to her house and put him in the sink and get him warm water on him because he calms down when he gets a bath.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And then she had to pull this thing out of him. These dogs, man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That's what Kristen goes. Is he going to get toxic shock syndrome? I'm like, no, your butt is so different than your vagina.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You get a proctologist. I don't think you can get toxic shock syndrome in your butthole from a Tampax.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Tampax is the brand I prefer. Kind of like I like Huggies. Tampax. Radiant. They always man these ad campaigns. And I tip my hat to them because what a product to have to sell on TV. And, you know, they have these commercials and someone's like sailing. They like to put you like in an article situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That's why. Yeah, this is more, I think, like, oh, it's going to be a long sailboat ride. I don't know. It's always like someone's in a field and there's a lot of flowers. Like, they're trying to de-stigmatize, I guess, it. Keep whiskey away. Uh-huh. But, yeah, they got to name it whatever name I just, Radiant or something. I just, I think they have their work cut out for them and I applaud them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You know, one's on the fence about getting depends or you either need fucking depends or you don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Grab my period underwear. Don't you think there's a, like, I think the Tampax people should take a stab at period underwear because I think they could top it. Well, it's not all- Like freedom panties or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. It's got, it already starts with an X. So I'm, I love it. Is it an N-I-X?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, the trust that these people have tirelessly built. With this product that is, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
If I was in the ad game, I would want to get put on Tampax. Because you want to bite off a lot. You know, like you want to challenge. It's like if you're an actor, you want to play someone dying of something or whatever. You know, you want to challenge. And I would like, I think to cut my teeth and make a name for myself, I'd love to just like blow out a Tampax campaign.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
the cup you're supposed to carry what you're trying to tell me is that a woman on her in her cycle is supposed to have a purse full of underwear no they'd use that's not a move for an elegant lady out on the town yeah see this is the fact that you got to carry extra undies with you what are you talking about well once you've once you've soiled your necks Just like a tampon, you got to change it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Forget the cup. Well, that's a huge thing. This is Tampax versus underpants. Okay, fine. Are you trying to tell me that the day you get your period, you put on a pair of Knicks and you leave them on for the duration? Okay, great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Even a very heavy, heavy day? I want to be choosing my words carefully.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Bingo. So we build on that. For the adventurer, for the person engaged, sure. If you're a couch potato, where next? If you want to get out and see the world, if you don't want your period to keep you sidelined on the bench, you still want to go sailing and go to amusement parks. There's only one brand for you because you can carry extras in your purse discreetly like an elegant lady.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No one wants to have no one. You know what I would do is I would have. Thank you, Monica. Here we go. I got my pitch. Okay. We start the commercial with a woman in line at an amusement park. Everyone's having a great time. Her child asks her for a sucker. She goes in her purse to get it. The purse comes dislodged and on the ground tumbles five pairs of underpants. She's mortified.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Well, they want it because they're not humongous, like underpants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Now, this is linked to the obligation to talk about being Palestinian in this moment. But also, do you get sick of having to tell your story because...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You get to choose. Yes. You're on a date with this unnamed guy that was at Saturday Night Live.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And either a gigantic pair of underwear fall out, because they're big, right? To cover everything. Hold on. Am I imagining them correctly?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. So. Fuck, where are you keeping all these other underwears?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You don't. I think you're reckless. I think you need a backup pair on you. I'm not going to say who I know. I know someone who wears them and they go through a couple of days.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And so that person has to carry an extra pair of these grundles around, okay? So we just concede the fact that someone might need to be carrying grundles with them. Now, my question is, your purse falls over at dinner, on a date with a boy you like, and either a very large pair of underwear fall out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
your show which we're going to talk a lot about is your story so you inevitably do have to share it again back to the i just want to be funny i don't want to have to tell this fucking story again there's some fatigue for sure but it's mostly not coming from sharing the story because i am introducing different eras of it and there is
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Save cotton. Please don't use that word in the campaign. That's all putting one to the consumer. Pussy or cloth? Yes, no, no. That word doesn't work in advertising as much as I wish it did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That other country's a lot more buttoned up than this country.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I know I don't, but I do know the difference between I won't say the name of the country and our country, and we are much more foul.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
OK, so the answer, your answer is. Yeah. Lock in the answer. You'd rather have a big pair of underwear fallout than a tampon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
They're bigger than the ones you normally wear. They're not like there's a pair. You'd be happy to fall out. Right. We agree on that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Now, and be honest, you're not going to pitch them in the fucking trash can when you switch grundles in the turlet. So yeah, there's, you could be in a situation where you're carrying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
But for the person who does have to change midday, they have to carry that around. So, okay. They clearly now, they also have to carry a Ziploc bag. Great product. I wish I was on that campaign. I swear by Ziplocs. Now they have, not only do they have this, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
In a Ziploc bag. I mean, now this is crazy because the guy who's not as hip and a feminist like me, who I already know about all these products, but for the untrained guy, he sees a pair of undies in a Ziploc bag, Monica, I'll tell you a thousand percent what he thinks happened. She shit herself. Okay. That's a Ziploc bag full of shitty underwear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Well, now you're... Now you're... That's an interesting counter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Delicate. It's not delicate. Yeah, it's inspirational. What was it called?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And there's flies, too. Just. There's immediately. There's a fucking swarm. In fact, before he even sees it, he hears. Whoa, is there a swarm? I heard a swarm of flies. No. And then whiskey runs across the restaurant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Oh, and I'd say, I'm so glad you're taking care of yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And because you don't wear tampons anymore, you pooped your pants?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
all men off the campaign now let's see what kind of appetizers they got you're not can we have a can of raid like you aren't having sex with people on their period oh absolutely i love it i love it police yeah one of my yeah i'm gonna leave that there yeah yes of course i don't give a shit i also don't care if you have shitty underwear in your purse but i do think i'm a rare rare customer
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. Okay. Well, Mother's Day is right around the corner. So think about getting mom either of these options, whatever you found would be a compelling argument.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. Choice is yours. If you're a pop in locker, you wear dresses. These are all things you got to consider. Yeah. They're great. I'm just having fun. I'm having a good time. And you were too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Another incredible story. Yeah. We're just coming off a John story. And then now we have this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
If I ever got in a situation where I had accidentally killed somebody. And it was one of these scenarios where it's like, there's no way I can. My story's not going to hold up. Like, literally, the choices are it was an accident. Yeah. And my choices are call the police and go to prison forever because it looks insane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Or get rid of the body. Yep. And I can't do it myself. I do need one person. Okay. And Aaron's in Detroit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Do you ever do them on your way to get another glass of wine?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Sure. Well, of course, because you're feeling stronger than you are. You're feeling like overly confident.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I think you can look up. I want to say they're supposed to last either 30 seconds or a minute.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Well, I'm just going to start by saying this will be my first haircut I've ever given sitting down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Well, no one's ever cut your hair sitting down, right? This is crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Don't forget to do the facts, though, because that's also your job for the listener. I already forgot. If you're watching, this will be fun, even if you're not giving facts. But for the listener, you're going to have to give your facts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, I bet you probably never want the haircut to start. Yeah, can we just... I can see why you want to trim. See? Yeah, you have some strays.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And a lot of them are kind of mid-level, so that's a little tricky.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. Well, okay. We're going to start. We're going to start at the bottom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
What happened? I just fucking cut myself. Oh, no. You know why? I cut like this, Monica. I cut like this. And because your hair's down here, I have to cut like this. And I just cut my finger. It's okay. We're going to continue on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Get me one of your Knicks. I'm going to wrap a Knicks around this and see how absorbent it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, I didn't remember that story when you told it. Did that not check out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I enter the plane a little bit self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm suspicious someone's going to try to be mean to them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I don't, but I'm looking for it and you find what you're looking for. That's like the best way to sum it up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I'm bleeding pretty good, but that's okay. Oh, my God. It's okay. It's okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No, no, no. Keep going. I just showed Monica the blood, but it's okay. I just dabbed it and got a bunch of hair inside of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Everything's fine. No, everything's fine. Continue on. Nothing's happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I think that you know what happened? This is God smiting me for all the period talk. Now he's given me a lot of blood. Well, her. Now we know God's a woman and she has smited me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Wait, can we pause for one second? I am going to get a band-aid because I'm going to have to pull out the layers a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, I mean, no, we're just, no. Because you just started?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I am going to have to get your hair. Your hair is going to look crazy in this interview.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Or not interview, but fact check, because I'm going to have to flop over the layers over the back of your head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Okay, so here's what I'm saying. You're going to have to deal with that. Oh. Do you want me to hold it? No, no, it's okay. Let's get a little blood in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Oh, okay. God, I really thought it was like right on my birthday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I'm going to give your hairstylist credit. This is a complicated cut you have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, yeah. Can we have a band name? And I was like. I was like, what? What's happening now in this show?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, this may be the last successful episode of this show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No, we'll do that afterwards. I just need to stop it so I can finish this haircut.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Do you know I was telling Monica that Whiskey's a very bad man who killed 100 men.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, there's nothing unique about that. He's a prick, as the whole family will tell you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I think he's ashamed that he's killed that many women. Well, that's a nice way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I'm going to be honest with you. Like this is going to be fine. And you're going to need to see Jenny when you get home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Thanks, love. Thanks for saving the day. The show will go on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Nope. Great. It's not like that penis story. I don't think I'll need a chemical cauterization.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I hear a lot of young white liberal kids telling me about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I mean, not great. If you're born there, I feel like you should be a citizen. Oh, me too. So not great, but great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Oh, this might be the one. I mean, I bled for this episode. Yeah, you sure did. That's what I'll say in my speech.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Oh, yeah, we're both bleeding. Rob, you got any blood back there? Not yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Doubly embarrassing for us. It really is. That we should have a home court advantage and still no Peabody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You could have been a voice in the Peabody's? Correct. Oh, wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Because he kind of blows you away in a lot of these competitive situations and you still love him because he just killed you at Major Dong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It is. It is. That's how I felt about Aaron. Aaron was just so much physically superior to me in everything boy-related as a kid. His coordination and his athleticism was off the charts. Like, we both tried out for the basketball team in seventh grade, and I didn't make it. And he didn't even want to do it, and he made it, and then he just didn't play.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, I mean, again, Jenny, she's going to need to come in here. Okay. I'm going to flit around a little bit while you finish.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, yeah, and I'm going to try to clean up just some of these strays.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I'm going to tell you right now, you are free of gray hair, which... That's nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No. I mean, there's some that are like a slightly different color, right? Oh, God. But they're not gray. I don't know how to do this, but let me just take a look at the side here a little bit. We did not touch the sides, which conventionally you want to cut the whole hair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I can't believe you guessed this. I brought this down in my pocket. I was like, is she going to see this thing hanging out of my pocket? This whole thing was leading up to freaking you out and just going.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Well, that's what Chappelle's so masterful at. And yeah, I need his perspective on Black experience. The insight that he has repeatedly given me is just incredibly valuable and so authentic and from the inside that I always appreciate that. Can't agree with you more. To start, you were born in Kuwait. I was, yep. I got food poisoning in the Kuwait first class lounge. Oh, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, I mean, I should probably just quickly look over here. I didn't look anywhere over here. Let me just quickly see what we got over here. What if I fucking shaved the side ear? And you were so mad. Yeah. And then you looked in the mirror and you were like, fuck, Awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
There'll be others. You're cheap. No, you're not even cheap. You're lazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
All right, Rob, sit down. That I could actually do a good job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. We're accumulating some wild. You can really take some circuitous paths to this town of Hollywood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No, it's really funny. Can you think of a worse scenario than food poisoning setting on as they close the door for your 14 hours?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You now look like someone that's smuggling something on an airplane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
My first thought upon waking up and seeing the Swedish ski team would be, are my pants full? Because we don't know what happened. We don't know what happened while I was out. Oh, yeah. And these are very beautiful women. And I might have a full cargo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
We'll just say, ideally, if that happens, you want to wake up and see three ugly old men.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You're like, yeah, guys, I shit myself. I'm disgusting. Like you guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. Okay, so dad is a telecoms engineer. Great segue. Yeah. We're going back to Kuwait.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Let's bring up your deceased father after all this shit. You lost your mother in 1990. I forgot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Straight into that. Yeah, my father was a telecommunications engineer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You don't have to model some great behavior. You just have to be available.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You were. I looked today. You were April. So you were two months in. There's been 850 people since you...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, but you're kind of getting that motherly feeling, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
A little naive, you said last time. A little trusting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah. And she has her vulnerability, obviously. This runs the risk of sounding like women shouldn't be in the workplace. So I'm going to acknowledge that. But I will observe in my own wife, a ton's on her shoulders. She's the boss of the set she's on, as are you. And there is one costume designer who she really wants on every job because that woman feels so maternal to her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And she will often just hug her throughout the day. And she said, I'll often just cry. But it's not sad cry. It's just I feel so safe in this particular person's arms. And I like that throughout the day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
day because there's a lot on her shoulders and there's this whole acting the way you have to act in that role as a woman I don't know I just think it might be a bit more complicated than when you're the boss oh yeah and you're a woman in this job I think you need a soft place to land occasionally I guess what I'm saying it was interesting doing this show I
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
We're always on. ABR. Go ahead. Tell me how it reminds you of Parenthood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yes, I watched it. And no insult to anyone. They were all fresh faces for me. I'm also 50.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You ruined my 50s. I was going to tell you after the interview. In a corner. I was like, well, she's not coming then. Why the fuck are we doing this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Can I guess that you have to be the grownup? Like we could be on set together. If you and I had a scene together, we could complain about the director. There was a whole strata above us and we can be little misfits who are bonded in this, but you can't take that role now. You can't shit on anyone. You can't complain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
We'll have these brilliant fucking experts on there, professors, and they would say this astounding thing that their data just backed up and they go, or, you know, that's at least what we found. It's like, oh, you don't even need to say it at that point. You don't. You have the data. It's really baked in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Adding a little escape for you to not feel so threatened that I just knew more than you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And let them come hear directly from you. And also, you're an author. The authors we have in, they're on press tours. Actors could never even comprehend. You're killing yourself to get people to read a book. So if you have the opportunity to put that in front of millions of people's eyes, it'd be insane not to. But this is a pattern of yours.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
First of all, I loved the Gilmore Super Bowl commercial, but I did remember we would talk about doing commercials while we were shooting Parahood and you were just like, I just can't wrap my head around. You were so curious why Kristen and I kind of were just like, oh, fuck yeah, we'll go. We'll go sell some phones.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You just have to treat it exactly as you would treat a TV show you're offered, which is like, is this good? Will this be fun to watch for 30 seconds? Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I didn't request that. No. I looked so bad on the monitor. I was the only one who was like, we got to light that nose differently. When someone puts a bounce board only under your face, you're like, oh, fuck, I am the ugliest member of this cast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Well, when I was re-listening to the episode from seven years ago today, you were talking about this intense pressure you put on yourself out of college. And you had started early, yet now you were behind. And this terrible fear of making the wrong choice and fucking up. Which was really present in your early life. And I think also part of it is just, you know how hard it is to get here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You know how hard it is to end up on Gilmore Girls. Two dozen people have a show like that for the rest of their life. And so you are terrified you'll make the wrong decision and fuck it up. And you'll make it go away because you went into this other thing. It's very consistent, I would say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
This is a funny story from Fallon. You did post a cute picture of you with the billboard for the Z suite behind you in Times Square. I think people might not realize this funny aspect of those billboards.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It looks a little suspicious. Yeah, for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
There's more than that, too, because you and I, we have bonded over this before. You and I fucking hate getting our picture taken. I don't ever need to see my face as long as I live again. So just the notion that I've got to take my own picture of myself at a really bad angle with a terrible lens, we're not set up for success right out of the gate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, I will never... Ever forget it. You know, I went back and listened actually to your episode because it was seven years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
We have one daughter, Delta, who doesn't have an ounce of self-consciousness in her. Good job. And what a thing to observe. What a thing. Your life can be so fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I can't believe it. I mean, it's her mom. Kristen largely is quite unselfconscious. And what a fucking gift. And where does that come from? That's the better question. We can't train her to do that. She just came out like Kristen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
That's my way of taking the power back because I do get very self-conscious and very embarrassed. But I'm so stubborn. I refuse to let that be a defeat. So I have to. But now I genuinely do. Monica, I'll tell you, we were at the movies. I was carrying the biggest, like a comical. If you were directing this scene, you'd go, the popcorn's too big.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
So I'm going back thinking this is going to be rough. This is going to be month two. But I'm going to tell you what, this is one of the first ones that I've gone back to that I totally liked it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I don't know how starving I was at that point or I thought you and Jess were going to take a lot of it. Yeah. I had a gallon of popcorn and I had sincerely a hundred ounce Diet Coke and then some Milk Duds or something. And we're walking and I slip as if there were a banana peel on the steps. And I go completely up in the air and land on my back and the fucking popcorn got thrown up in the air.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And even before I land, I'm laughing so hard that I know I'm also going to almost pee my pants. So like once I land, I'm now pinching my penis because I'm afraid I'm going to pee my pants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yes, because I know to do that, if it's going to be bad, I just put some pressure on that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I'm very proud of the penis pinching. There you are, a grown man. No, that's a guy who knows how to handle his business.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I think because I was panicked that I had to guide the thing somewhere at the beginning or that I had to manage what was happening. But you and I have such a effortless rapport that I was just really relaxed. I still interrupted too much. It's not great, but it's better than the other ones.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And again, no, I'm just saying I think that's a control thing. I think I was very self-conscious as a kid. And then I just at some point was like, we're going to have to approach this differently. Because, I mean, I'm just highly self-conscious, as is my other daughter, who's very much like me. They're in the same house with the same instruction. It's pretty wild. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
One question I didn't ask you last time is, how well do you think you could do on the SAT today? Our friend Lauren was a SAT tutor for the Princeton Review.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
What are they out of? 1600 back then. Anything above 13 is pretty good?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I don't even know. It was 13. I bet you were in the 15s.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
My two questions are, one, you would have had to inadvertently pick up the whole test at some point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Like I'm saying, if you would have taken it at the end of that job, you probably would have gotten a pretty outstanding score.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, so when you were doing that job, this is a very weird comparison, but I think of Epstein, right? He was like a teacher at a private school. He was lying about his credentials and teaching at a private school. And he wooed this man whose kid he was teaching, who was a big investment banker and ended up getting a job with that guy through having met through the kid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
So I went to your SAT thing and I was like, did you interact with all these privileged kids? And did the dads come and make moves on you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
But as a tea tutor, you would do it in their homes?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I think it's like acting. At the beginning, I was so self-conscious and I stand where, like I used to look at the lens without a paddle. They had to rotoscope my eyes a bunch of times. I like look right into the fucking camera because I didn't know better. But by parenthood, you're just kind of existing. But that happened in this job, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
That's your weird fun dichotomy as a human, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yes, because you have a healthy dose of anxiety and overthinking things. But there's also a side of you that understands restaurant culture and can get down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You're beautiful, but you're, hold on, don't fucking do this. You were a fucking smoke show when you were younger. I've seen a lot of these pictures of you recently. Super curly hair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
He wonders if he himself hit on you. He can't remember. Sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
What I hear is he really regrets not hitting on you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Whereas, like, at the beginning, I had a lot of fear of am I doing a good job and how do you conduct an interview and all these kind of things. And then just over time, I think I don't have any real fear around it at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Well, you're staring at your whole childhood going, right. Oh, and you put on makeup that way and you do this. Any of that. Oh, and she said hi to dad that way and he kind of blushed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Imagine her now without her mom. Cannot imagine. I had the same story about my dad. I'm like, well, I didn't ever have one, so I didn't pine for it. I didn't miss him because I didn't have it, but bullshit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
unusual. You were certainly the only kid in your whole high school being raised by their dad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
She was pursuing a singing career at the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You're incredibly fair in the first interview to her and your dad. They were both very, very young. They got married and the dad took off to Vietnam for two years to be an interpreter. And they were in Japan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
When I read that this morning, I was thinking, wow, yeah, you actually have a connection to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
She also died when she was 61. She also died. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I'm going to stop psychoanalyzing you, but the one thing I'll add is I think whatever parent takes you, you'll have a loyalty to that parent that you have to. This just occurred to me interviewing Josh Brolin. Just think of the notion that you recognize these adults can split. If you just acknowledge that's a reality, one of your parents can bail. Presumably the other one could. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
So you have this really deep loyalty. And so for me, I was like, I'm like my mom. I'm not like that guy that abandoned her. Well, I'm very much like him. It's taken me my whole life to recognize. No, in fact, I'm kind of a carbon copy of him. But I was defining myself in opposition of him because he didn't have qualities I admired. He wasn't around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
So I don't know, maybe subconsciously you also identified more with your dad and wanted to identify. And he was a cerebral, competent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, the experience of trying to do good and trying to be in the top versus trying to stay in the top is a completely different pressure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And then I was telling Monica, I don't ever worry about terrorism. I just started thinking like, well, this would be an ideal place. And I'm here. And why? I don't even care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Last thing I wanted to say before we get to your show, we both have read the Cher biography.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And I don't like that. It's not why we did it, but then you can't not start thinking like, well, I certainly don't want to watch us just decline over the next five years. I'd like to stay or grow. Today's the day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
There was a strength to her version of her story that I thought, well, if you get to choose, that's the way to do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
She did get her own leverage and broke free. So you're right. Since she landed on top, it's probably easier for her to see it that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I was wondering if the reason you didn't want to go back to them is like it represented something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You know, Monica's done more commercials than both of us combined. She's been in a hundred because she's the most successful commercial actress I've ever met in my life. She regularly had five nationals running at the same time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You had the illusion of being productive. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. One thing you have to say to Monica, because she's, I don't want to say the biggest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Tell us everything. I learned this. This is fun backstage. I was flying to Lisbon with Lincoln and we had not had the passport and then we got it. And then we had this five hour layover for the next flight. And then God bless the universe. You and Sam Pancake are at the counter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're new to Instagram, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
So we got to spend a couple hours at a lounge together, which was the longest time we had spent together in a couple of years. I cherish that little layover. But that's where I learned this story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, he's the most lovely talent. It's her best friend who's a really funny actor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It's best to start there. You're super pleasantly surprised when it's the other thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Well, comments, you learn things that I wouldn't otherwise have known. So I'm very aware that Parenthood is now back on Netflix and in Canada.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You think you're being respectful, but you could also be being read as aloof and disinterested. Oh, God. They could walk away thinking she had zero interest in me. We worked together for two months. She didn't ask me a single question. I was in Godfather. She could have inquired about that. So you want to know anything?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
There are a lot of Canadians right now that are tickled pink.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yes. I have the thing they say the best advice if you have a stalker or someone obsessed with you is you can't say anything because no matter what you say, if you're like, get out of my life, I can't stand you, they can twist that. I have that skill with a positive. I'll make it a dig. oh, so I didn't have enough blue on. Even you being professional.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It's like, it's like, that's a great compliment. Okay. So the Z suite, first of all, what did you think the name was when your agent told you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, they're more flexible and open. But we didn't even get to the punchline.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I have a whole issue with C-Suite because this is now ubiquitous that everyone knows what a C-Suite is. And I don't understand why it's called C. CEO, CFO, COO. Only the people with the C. The chiefs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Okay. What's your baseline about Generation Z? I think there's a bunch of stereotypes about them, but I am suspicious they're not the numbers that we think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
In a very healthy way. Seven years ago, we already felt this way, which is you get to a certain point where for me, I was like, I'm not going to be in a Marvel movie. And yours was I'm not going to be Sandra Bullock. And then at that point, I think a very healthy transition happens where you go, okay, so I'm going to focus on process because I'm not really in the results game as much anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
But the process now means everything to me. And I think it's a very healthy thing to prioritize that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It's the most multicultural place on the planet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
That's the thing that very few people get, which is something that just keeps getting enjoyed for a long, long time. It seems almost impossible. And that's really rare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
There were 13 cast members and we bought the gift. You know, we would cumulatively chip in on whatever we were getting the crew and the amount of emails that would go back and forth to decide whether we were getting this mug or this fucking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, it was impossible. What was the brand of sweatshirt we get? There was kind of terry cloth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah. Hattie goes like, are we going to go Patagonia tall neck or are we going all the way with the puffer vest version? I love that. I know I was making among the lowest of all the actors and I was kind of like, get him a mug, man. Oh. I didn't say it, but I was like, guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
But then it was sort of like, then people, that's right. It's like, that's not fair. Maybe I've told you this, maybe I haven't, but every job I had ever had in my life prior to parenthood, I made a point to find out what everyone was making.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, I'd always figure it out. You just ask. I'd either get in a conversation where I'd get it out of them or I'd back channel through an agent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I went into parenthood going, I'm purposely gonna not find out. And I was so happy on the show. I was like, if I find out Jabbar's making twice as much as me, how could I enjoy going to work? But I enjoy so much going to work until I find out my son is making more than me. But that was the first time I ever broke that habit. Boy, was it a blessing. So your character, Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
She insisted, as a nod to you, that be her character's name. It was originally named Gail.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It's got to be Padman, but not Padman. But we can't do that, because that one's taken.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
But we meet you and you're winning a huge award for being an incredible advertising agent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, wow. Which is a big word we talk about all the time. That's a big ding, ding, ding for us. You can't imagine how much you just walked into. Because I was taught that name by Monica, who's a fashionista. And I said, you watch. They're going to start calling Subway an Atelier. Oh. It's going to be like artisan. Right. Where it's like, it'll mean nothing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
The artisan sandwich from the Atelier Shop Subway. Yes. You're super well-established. You fuck up an ad campaign. You say all somethings matter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Tone deaf, not racist. That's the kind of the line we want to straddle. That's exactly right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, all vibes matter. In the right context, you could not put those two together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
So that spells your demise. And you also have a young woman that works for you. And she's worked there for 168 days, only 43 of which were in the office. And she thinks she's ready to run the place. This stereotype, I do have a few friends who own businesses who they have some young employees that are completely shocked they're not vice president within like a year of work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It's probably exaggerated and also quite real. Yes. I was almost thinking when I was doing my research on you, I'm like, I wonder if part of it is it's totally not their fault. They would have been at an age where they watch Mark Zuckerberg start the biggest company on earth at 26 years old. There would be a lot of examples for them that we certainly didn't have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
So some of it, I think, is not even their fault. Right. By the time you're 26, you should own Facebook.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
We'll find out tonight at nine when I get home. That's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, God. I knew a family who, yeah, their kid didn't learn to walk very, very late. And my mom was like, of course not. The kid gets picked up and carried everywhere. He doesn't need to walk. The kid's a genius. So why would he waste any time learning to walk?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you get canned and then you build an entire replica of your office in your home, which is fantastic. Now these young kids start running the agency.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Studying for the next day. That's the plight of the boss. Yeah, right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Here's a joke in the show that I have unfortunately heard people in my life claim they have, which is one of the younger workers is late and he says, I have time blindness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I've now heard people our age claim to have Time Boy. This is a new concept.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, was all this worth it? And I'm disappearing. The world's changing and none of it was for anything. Right. You're so fun to work with. I'm really jealous of those people and I miss it so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It's all going to go downhill from here. This is as good as it'll ever get.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You got to actually act nearly the whole time you were there, which is impossible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You keep dodging this question in every interview, but I'm going to pretty much make you answer it. Great. You're a part of a phenomenon, which is Gilmore Girls. And certainly we saw Will and Grace come back in a very satisfying way for everybody involved. This seems insane that we wouldn't be doing this show again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
What I think Will and Grace did right is they gave you exactly what you had the first time. Right. We can accept that the story's now progressed. Right. But you got to keep it in our really familiar, fun... That's a really good point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yes. The engine of the whole thing was her being single. That's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Also, dating's a whole thing that still happens. It's actually real.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Crosby's never going to learn. You're never going to learn. That's the premise of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I'm going to tell you right now. They have the thing. You can't erase it. You can't make it disappear. You can't dishonor it. All these fears. You give them this other thing. Maybe they'll like it or they won't like it. It's not going to impact that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I don't desire to act at all, but I deeply miss being on Parenthood. And there is a version of that show I would probably do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
If it were eight episodes or ten episodes, I could manage my now real job. My fear is more, is it like going back to your high school? But I don't think so, because we were already like full-fledged adults. And when I see you, it lights me up every time. And when I'm with Trilling, which I spent a lot of time with Trilling, I'm just enamored with being around him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah. And you're in town more. Yes, I'm in town more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I mean, we did six years. That's about as long as you can do it. And I wouldn't even give a fuck. I don't care how it turns out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I just want to go hang out with you guys. I love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
This is so fun. The Z Suite is out now on Tubi, and it's free. It's network TV for free as a streamer. I'm in. Thank you. So everyone watch the Z Suite. It's spelled Z-S-U-I-T-E. So glad we got to hang out. You and I have had sauna plans for about a year and a half. And I said, Jim, we have done this interview.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, exactly. That's why a lot of people aren't taking my offer up. They don't want to be in a bathing suit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
They're mostly other men. I love you. Love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And maybe you can lure May over and I can see her because that's the only way I'll see her. I will.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong. Are you so happy to be wearing your raincoat?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Driving to Anaheim, California, home of Disneyland, as you may know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Because my pitch to you, I remember. What was it? I wanted you guys to have basically like a homewares type podcast. Because you're so into decor and building and she's got a real eye for fashion. Over the years, people have asked me, shockingly, for my advice in this space. And my thing is literally pay attention. What do you talk about in your free time endlessly? I talk about trauma endlessly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It's a huge trade show for consumer products. All kinds? Grocers, products, buyers, suppliers, founders. And Sharon Beasley and I, Aaron Weekly, were on stage being interviewed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Well, that's happening, yeah. I had to come back to work for my real job. Oh, are they still there? Yeah, they're still there. Wandering the halls of a huge convention. 70,000 attendees. That's great. Rob, Google, how many cities in America have more than 70,000?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Out of 50 states, that's like 10 per state. I don't know what that does for us, but I feel like it's relevant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
What I'm saying is this would be in the top 500 cities in America for population had this group incorporated into a city while they were watching this interview.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, a lot of products. It's a crowded space.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, my goodness. What a controversial stance. Well, you like capitalism and you like the marketplace. Of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
That's why I love talking about Ted Seeger's because this was not a cash grab. No one approached me. All these other there's another guy with a celebrity with a beer brand. And he's very openly on a talk show saying, like, he got approached by people. They handed him five things at a boardroom meeting and said, basically, we put your name on this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
So this is like me and Aaron created a beer we wouldn't be embarrassed to order at a bar. Yeah. Right. We're not like, hey, do you have a little duels? Could you bring it in a Budweiser? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
We made it for ourselves. And then we thought, oh, maybe people would also want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
No, it is. That's what Ted Seeger is all about. You can still fucking rage. You don't have to have alcohol.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Barbecue, laughing, screaming, five of them, not the sip one. Of course. Empty can. It's a party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And then that's kind of what the show ended up being. So I've been around you guys. You guys are horny for all this neat stuff. Truly invigorated by aesthetics.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Party is a state of mind. And I'm going to drop into a carefree tomorrow never comes attitude. That's a party to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah. We party. We fucking get down here. What are you talking about? This is a major party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
That they think it has to involve being intoxicated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
The show is called The Z Suite, which is a comedy exploring the tension between the generations, which is kind of the topic of the day on the show. We're doing a lot of generational stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yes, yes, yes. But Erin and I will be out late. Rarely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I'll give you a prime example. Aaron and I will be which happens often. We're both binging a show together and it's midnight. We should go to bed. And I go, you just want to fucking party. And he's like, yeah, let's fucking go. And that means we'll watch till maybe 3 a.m. because tomorrow's not coming. That's tomorrow. Dex's problem.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yes. I don't think we should let the people, just people who are getting intoxicated, own the space partying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Wait, back to, I want to spend a little more time on this because I think you're representing... how a lot of people feel. Like, oh God, this guy's got a vodka now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Right. You're more like the category. Yeah, pick a new category.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
No. He did wine. Nope. Danny DeVito. Oh. He did Lemature. What is it? Lemoncello. I love Lemoncello. Lemoncello. Like when we went in Rome 18 years ago. He was ahead of the game. He had Lemoncello because that's his drink.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Okay, sure. Things like that. Some browns and light browns.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Chemistry. That's right. Oh, I was only going to, not that anyone cares. I don't even know why I'm saying this, but I'm going to. If you look at the last six spirits that were created and then became evaluated over a billion dollars or multiple billions of dollars, the truth is four of those five are celebrity driven, whether it's Conor McGregor or it's the handsome Clooney, McClooney.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, he was right out in front of it. Oh, he was? Yeah, yeah. There's several. They have worked. And what you have to acknowledge is if you're a distiller or a distillery, breaking through this insanely cluttered space is nearly fucking impossible. you would really have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars marketing this product.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Or you get The Rock to talk about it on his Instagram. You save yourself several hundred million dollars. Sure. And it breaks through. So it's like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
No, he started that. He's one of the founders.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And me too a bit, which I think is the sign of a good conversation is you're like trying to figure out what your position is midway through. I don't care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I want to explain the landscape and why it's irresistible for distilleries and, you know, spirits. Yeah. Because you. You almost can't do it to just have like a novel recipe and try to penetrate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, you were on a morning show. show and the co-host handed you three books. That's how known you are for being an avid reader.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
We wanted people on a budget to have the same shit we have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Don't you think it might be fair to also acknowledge is like, however you feel about the new celebrity product is virtually just how you feel about that celebrity. Because like when Clooney does it, you're like, oh, cool. He's super classy and elevated. And I bet his tequila's top shelf and you won't get a hangover. And it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And then you see, I don't even want to say a name, but you know, there's like a whole legion of people. You would see with the product and be like, well, I don't even like their vibe to begin with. And it reeks of cash grab.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I'll have everyone know if it makes them feel better. I have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on Ted Seegers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Mine's also a mission to be with my two friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Just do it. And I don't care if you think I'm a, I'll just, yeah, I guess it is important to me that everyone recognizes this is not a cash grab. No one came to me. This is all self-finance and I'll probably lose my shirt. But again, I'm having a blast with Aaron and Aaron. We were at a fucking convention just now on stage. Cash grabs are great too. Cash grabs in the right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, there's the right. Listen, I'm part of some cash grabs. Everything's fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Everyone's trying to make it. What else? How was your weekend? We haven't discussed weekends. Yeah. Tell me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh yeah, Max Greenfield. Sweet Max, who I love.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Well, I'm glad you finished that whole, you plowed right through. Yeah. And it felt great. And you woke up and felt good in the morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You didn't feel guilty for partying too hard. Yeah, good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
The funnest times of my whole life were watching Sopranos on Sunday nights and making Italian food.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, when you get it, it's a gotta gooch. And when you miss, it's a gotta gooch. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
So you'll follow people's book lists. Who do you follow?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
When you miss a week of viewing, I thought you meant when you miss cooking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I had a television party, too, because I got early screeners for Drive to Survive. Nice. And I had the boys over. Cool. To watch. And what a show. What a show. Boy, do they build the suspense for the season, which kicks off in a week. Fun. I can't wait. Testing happened. Some surprises. Some big, exciting surprises.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Since he came on the show. Yeah, of course. But prior to that, yeah, it was Ricardo or Bust.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Also, your eyes look so beautiful. You wouldn't forget. These are blue, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Daniel Ricardo. You can't even look. Yeah, great total. What a charming son of a bitch. He gets you several times in the three episodes. He does.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
But back to testing, Carlos signs who we love. Sexiest man on the grid, best lay, father is a legend. Poo-poo pants. Don't say that about him. He was unceremoniously let go of Ferrari to make room for Lewis Hamilton.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And what was great is that the first half of the year, Carlos was destroying. He was beating Leclerc, who I love. But it was fun because he's like, oh, you're going to fire me and keep Charles. Let me beat Charles for a while. Very exciting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Monica's a hard time remembering people's eye color, but yours are memorable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
He went to Williams, always a bottom three team. In testing first test session, Carlos Saenz had the fastest lap in a Williams. That's awesome. Talk about a little bit of poetic justice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
This is straight underdog. You know, I have very specific compartments for my stories, as we learned on the last fact check.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Well, I was like, no, no, this is a climbing the ladder becoming a CEO story. This isn't a dreams come true story. That's too broad of a blanket.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
But the Williams story is an underdog story. And then the Carlos Sainz is a revenge is a dish best served hot and straight up your ass on week one of testing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
That's right. Opinions are facts. Don't talk back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, that was a really good time. Had a double date on Saturday night at a steakhouse by the people who do sugarfish.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yes, this is the purest delivery system possible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And you can expect it's the steak version of sugarfish.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, the Philly cheesesteak. So good. Oh, my God. That was dessert. We got this crazy, like, all-in meal, and the dessert was that friggin'.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
That's the best. I mean, people in Philadelphia are going to slit my throat, but it's the best Philly cheesesteak I've ever had, and I've had them in Philadelphia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It's a Wagyu. You mispronounced it, but yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
No, I haven't. Now you talk like that. I spent one evening with Aaron and Erin, who are not bros.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
We went and saw the Led Zeppelin documentary yesterday. Fun. In IMAX.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
No, I never was really into the gum. I remember you chewing the gum. You remember these. I've been on these for 20 years. Right. I dipped for a while, but I'm a year and a month off of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I already know what's coming. And I'm like watching you play. You're like testing the ice. See if you're going to fall through before you say it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, OK. So far, I can agree with these. I can hang with the bros like I'm totally comfortable. Sure. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, yeah, yeah. The Aarons? Yeah. All my friends from Michigan are sweethearts. I know. We fist fought a lot, but all of them are very sweet boys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
If I dare, I'm not on the ice. I think you had some pretty binary categories. And I don't know that you had the category of boys who are super sweet to their moms and their sisters and also fought at the bar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And I think that's the category that the errands and I are in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I think a lot of the bro culture without naming names is in deep search of masculinity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And I think I've been lucky enough to achieve a lot of that masculinity. Yeah. Like, I think there's a lot of guys who act tough, who they've never challenged themselves to find out if they are. And they have this fear that they're not. And they're kind of compensating. So I can hang in those circles because I am often the thing some of these guys are purporting to be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
She was on the gum, yeah, yeah. You should always say, give me a two.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
But I don't act like a blowhard or I try not to act like a blowhard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Well, she loves her nicotine. She's on the spray. We're a nicotine family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, yeah, yeah. He trains. Exactly. But his story, as I've learned from other people, is he was a bullied kid. He's short. I think he was bullied. And I think he didn't want to ever feel that again. And I think he made himself strong and learned how to fight. And I think he's, I'm assuming he's kind of honest about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I think it could be misleading if you only evaluate Rogan by the 15 most flagrant guests he's had instead of the dude's done 2000 episodes of his show. And he's also really good friends with Chappelle. I think he's a comedian first. I think if we were to interview him, I think he would most identify. He's a comedian. UFC's not first. He's much happier in a green room with all comics.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I think that's his allegiance in his tribe. And then I think as I'm crazy into cars, he's crazy in the UFC. And then that invites UFC fighters. Now, those guys, yeah, I'm not a lot of them. I don't have much to defend about their worldview. But I don't know that it's entirely fair to graph on to Rogan who his 15 craziest guests are. Because he also has...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
See if you'll understand this wardrobe choice. It's been a long time since I wore this shirt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Other guests in the opposite direction. If there's anything I'll say about him, he's incredibly fair about everyone there is kind of welcome. If anything, he's just really attracted to the super provocative ideas. Sometimes they're on the left, sometimes they're on the right. I listened to a speech he made the other day that was like, I'm not in either of your club.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
What I think is crazy is to be in a club. So I don't think he is... He himself self-identifies as much as the left thinks he does with being a conservative. But I think he's a bit of a big bad wolf on the left, and I personally don't think he is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
The thing I own that has the most connective tissue to Parenthood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Well, again, I think they listened to the 15 episodes that we would then talk about in droves, and then they... I mean, he obviously is the biggest show in the world. Oh, by 510X.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
See, that's where I might disagree. I don't think he's led by his audience at all. Like, I think he is actually insanely true to who he just is. That's why I respect him a lot. I don't think he's chasing that audience. I think he's him and a big swath of the country loves that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I see other people chasing that and trying to be opportunistic about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And I just don't think that's him. I think he's been the same fucking dude for 12 years on his show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
This whole week is generation, really. Wow. Wow. God, I love her. Most stunning eyes in the biz.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Knowing you're coming, I'm like, I want to do something Parenthood-y. But I don't own anything Parenthoodie, but I own this, which is connected.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
the lion's den of these dudes. But again, I have the gift of having done all the stuff. I don't ever feel like I need to inflate or bonify my masculinity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I don't. I'm so comfortable when it goes into those zones that I actually like. If it's about cars or a great boxing match, I do like that stuff. But I don't ever need to join.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I mean, we've had so many, especially when that's empowered.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Like if you were to guest on one of their shows, it would be dicey. I don't, you know, it would be hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Did you take any props or anything? Like I took the mugs. I took the lunch and I signed it. We had the mugs for a while.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, what I would agree with is the guest, one of the two, would have gone further. Now, I wouldn't have joined him, but he would have certainly gone further. Here's where we might disagree. So, yes, in this situation, of course, I couldn't be more grateful you're here at all times. And this show absolutely needs you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Now, I don't mind at all if there's a podcast with five guys talking about guy shit. That's okay. We don't have to have a woman there. And we don't need a man when there's a podcast of five women talking about women shit. I don't think we need representation in all places. It's plenty fine if girls have a podcast and boys have a podcast. That doesn't bother me at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And boys can go ahead and talk about the UFC the whole time and who paid for dinner, all that stuff. That shouldn't. That's not the enemy, I don't think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Like if women's shows don't need a man, which they don't, I don't think men's show need a woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
That's to me sounds like you're saying one is superior to the other. That one has an ethical drive and the other one is inane. And so-
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I know, I'm telling you what it sounds like. It sounds like you're saying a women's show is needed and they're a part of some kind of good movement and the men's one is not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I think it's good to have— Like, I don't think The View needs a man. I don't think Alex Cooper needs a man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
There's tons of very successful shows that are female-led, and that's— Awesome. And they don't need anything. They are doing the show they want to do, and the audience who's consuming it wants that show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I'm just saying I don't think they have advice for how the female dominated show should be or shouldn't be. I don't think they're telling anyone how your show should be or how female shows should be. But I think a lot of those men would feel like, why are you even telling us what our show has to be? Like, just don't listen to our show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
If you don't want to hear a bunch of talk about fighting and stuff. Who cares?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
How many pair of jeans do you think you have? You want Monica to go to first so you don't feel as bad?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I hate to say this. It is working because they got their president in there and they're all suffering.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I don't want Trump to be president. I don't agree with. I mean, name the thing that's going on. But if the disenfranchised – if you make those folks black, take them out of that they're white men, the black community totally disenfranchised. You get hip-hop. You get rap. You get this empowering art that comes out of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And for anyone who is sitting on the sidelines telling Ice Cube how he should be dealing with this situation when he's got tons of raps about shooting people and hating white people – The people that were on the outside telling him how he should deal with growing up in South Central, we would both agree they should shut the fuck up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Because that's the disenfranchised group, and you're hearing their voice now. So now there's another disenfranchised group, and they're doing what generally people do that are disenfranchised. They bond together over that, and then they try to get someone they think is going to represent their cause. And those people won the election.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And your opinion is they'll suffer more under this president.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I don't think they're going to benefit. But what I can say is we don't know the result because four years isn't up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I just think if your goal is to help this disenfranchised group, I think saying your conclusion is they got fooled, which is if I'm them and I hear you say you all got fooled, what I'm hearing you say is you're smarter than I am. And I got fooled and I'm a fool. I think a good chunk of men feel like all they've been hearing for 10 years is how terrible men are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
She's about 16. What are they called? Armoires. Armoires. In her one bedroom apartment. Her entire apartment is armoires.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And I think it's pretty predictable that this group that's being told they're toxic and terrible for 10 years is going to at some point go, well, then fuck you. Yeah. And I think that's what you're seeing. And I think if our continued approach is to tell all of them that they're terrible. Yeah. You're going to see more of this. I think if you want young men to be on our side, you have to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Invite them. And I think you have to make it seem like they're welcomed and would we we'd be delighted to have them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And I think the messaging towards men over the last decade has not made a lot of them feel that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And I think even if they don't have a job, let's say they're unemployed today and then they're unemployed in four years. But at least someone got up and said, hey, I'm not apologizing that I was born male and I'm sick of hearing the bullshit. Maybe that win for them would be better if they're unemployed on both sides of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Like that's I. Well, that's a I think that's a really.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
There's a huge gap, Monica, between you're so great and just you're so shitty. I think, and you could argue and win that it's justified. So yes, I think my general feeling about women is much more positive than your general feeling about men. And you could argue that that's totally justified because they're the patriarchy. They commit the sex crimes. They do all the murdering.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Those are great reasons. And I'm not even going to argue, but I do think my overall opinion of women is higher than your overall opinion of men. And I think I feel it. Do you think that's an accurate assessment that your overall opinion of men is lower than my opinion of women?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And so, yeah, and I get it and I get it and it's justified. So if you're a man and I'm a man, and yes, there are pedophiles that are men and there's rapists that are men and there's a lot of bad men. But if you paint me with the same brush as those men, if you're conflating me with those other people, now I'm a group and now I have a group identity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah, I never experienced it when we're interviewing a guest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I experienced it when we do Armchair Anonymous and we're listening to a woman's story. That's when I observe it, where it's like, there's no benefit of a doubt to the man that's being talked about You'll generally go to, you know, they're a terrible the girl who shit on her boyfriend and he threw up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And, you know, that's where I'll notice it, where I where I'll go like, well, I think Monica's opinion of men is pretty low. She's, you know, quick to assume the man in this story is the problem and not the woman or that it would be equal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And I think a lot of people feel that way. And again, men have earned that. But I'm not that man. And so many of the men are not that men. And we don't like it. Okay. Just like you wouldn't like any negative stereotype about Indians or women. You wouldn't like it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Now I relate to that because I have several pair of jeans that I'm supposed to do work in. I see something, I'm like, oh, fuck, I was supposed to cut that down. And then I'm doing it and I'm ruining the new jeans. I'm never, ever going to go inside and get eventized for my yard job. I'm just going to ruin whatever pair of pants I have on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Right. I can tell you, I go to Kristen's cabaret show and there's a woman host of it. It's her show. And she does seven minutes on the world would be perfect if there was an island and it just had women on it and there was no men. And all the women clap in the audience. That's a real thing that's totally fine to say in public right now. And in fact, gets applauded.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And I'm a dude in the audience and I'm like, this is a weird, we're in a weird pattern right now where this is not only fine, but applauded. And I'm looking at the seven men in the room and I'm like, Yeah, this is weird.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
There's never been, it's just, if that was the same thing that was being done and men were going, dream world is an island with no women and everyone clapped, I'd go, I would go, you guys are fucked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I'm never laughing that a guy goes, women suck and men should all be together. I've never enjoyed a stand up routine or laughed at a joke that that was that complicated. Her entire thing was just wouldn't it be great if there were no men? Now, had she crafted an incredible joke and it was funny, I would laugh at it for sure. I don't have that big of a chip on my shoulder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I'm just saying that's a weird vibe and I'm in that kind of often. And I'm pretty evolved and I still go, I don't want to be a man in this room. I don't know why you hate men across the board. I don't think you should hate me. And I am semi evolved. So I'm imagining all these other kids that are unemployed and hearing that sentiment and just going like, OK, I guess it's us against them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah. But do you agree at all that that's a weird thing or no?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oh, yeah. I'm only pointing out that that's happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
But I and I don't think that that cabaret host needs a male and present. She's fine to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I think that's a, I don't think that's a single digit opinion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I just think it's a real bad idea for just squaring off like, OK, it's on. It's men against women. And I think a lot of people feel that way. And I think that's a bad. Yeah. I think that's going to have a bad fucking outcome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It was an entertaining walk. I think a lot of people will have heard their opinions voiced.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Sweet Lauren. Sweet Lauren Graham. Boy, we got a taste of her, what she was saying with the young kids watching Gilmore Girls, because she left the garage, and we were in the yard, and Delta had a friend over from school, and that friend was freaking the fuck out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Is Lauren on a show called Gil, what is it? Gilmore Girls. Yeah, she the Gilmore Girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Okay. 31 years. 30 wonderful years. Wow. That's crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Did they take it all? Oh, they were just watching. They weren't contestants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Just resumed Paradise last night. Same writer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Oof. Yeah, it's all caught up to what our screeners were.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yeah. Tasty. We all watched it. The Aarons, the girls, me last night. Yeah. Aaron was on a second viewing of it. You know, Aaron sees absolutely every show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It's also smart week. My God. I know. There's a lot of things happening. We didn't even mean to. This is all accidental. Please enjoy my sweet, sweet sister, Lauren Graham.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
I'm envious of your relationship with Meg. Really? First of all, it's the sweetest relationship. It really is special.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Yes, because she's a blessing on planet Earth. She is one of my absolute favorite people I've ever met. And my envy is that I've been trying to hang out with her for 10 years. I literally have not seen her socially since we interviewed her. That was it. And I text her and we'll have an exchange and I'm like, we're going to hang out. I want to meet her baby so bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And then I bump into you and like you'll have just seen her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
To put that in context, she's been on a set since she was a baby. She's been around adults, so she's the only person that I know that's that much younger than me that any reference I make, she gets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Well, look at her on the show. She's wearing enormous clown glasses. No one else is allowed to do anything. And the third youngest person on the cast is wearing, like, enormous cartoon glasses. She knows herself. And she can put a boundary out. She advocates for herself, too. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
The Voice. I think it was The Voice. We had to stand in a weird spot and they cut to us for half a second.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
The one she wore on Parenthood begged the question, has she gotten a job cooking at Benihana? And that's like part of her character, like cookie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
We were in Turks and Caicos seven years ago. There was a Benihana.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And one of the cooks name was Cookie. And he had glasses on that were like literally two and a half feet wide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
And covered his whole face. I think for most tourists, they loved Cookie. But it was like watching a mime the whole time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Play along with Cookie's routine. I didn't know how to give him one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
That's great. Do that. Sure. These enormous glasses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
He was in a commercial for the place or something. Anyways, he's doing great. Cookie's doing great. But the thing I'll add that maybe you can't see or would sound arrogant to say is you guys are definitely girlfriends. That's for sure. But she admires you so deeply. She, like, really has looked up to you since the day you guys met. She has, like, what... Me and Tom Hanson have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
Me and Tom Hanson are best friends, but also he's my dad. He's the dad I wanted. I think there's a lot of that happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lauren Graham Returns
It's like a nurturing relationship, which all friendships aren't necessarily nurturing by nature. More than just, oh, I'm in a bad mood. Give me advice about my girlfriend or boyfriend. This is more like, hey, anytime you need anyone to take care of you, I'd love to be that person. When you have that instinct towards somebody, it's very sweet and special.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Chelsea, it's really, really nice to see you. It's been a minute. It's been some years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Are you seeing my hamstring? It's pretty muscular. It's popping. Yeah, it's popping.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Perhaps, again, I don't know what time you saw me because I've gone on this weird journey where it's like I wanted to get huge. I got huge. I was big, big. So now I'm I think my resting where I'll be. This is where we stay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had that babe Nicholas Holt on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
He's so gorgeous. He's so gorgeous. I mean, he's so fucking gorgeous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
But he laughed and I did go, I mean, I can acknowledge that's what girls like. He looks athletic. He doesn't look like a fucking meathead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You're one strike away from being completely unfuckable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
We've long discovered this and hashed this out, which is guys do this for guys. And girls do it for girls. What does Kristen think about your body size? What does she prefer? I'm completely invisible to her. I mean, we've been together for almost two decades. She's even figured out how to not hear my voice, which is so loud. I get it. I know what's happening. Okay, so you have a seventh book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
It's hard. It's time consuming. I've been writing a memoir for two years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I imagine your last book would have been the last time we had you. Possibly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I'm not sure how to say it. So that was my best stab at it. Thanks for making fun of the dyslexic in the room. Please continue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Can we take one second on that? I was among those people. I don't actually get swept up in anyone's thing. In fact, most times I don't like seeing it. I was so delighted about that. I mean, genuinely, I thought, oh, my God, I just love this. And I hope this is a thing forever. And it feels very right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I like the pairing a lot. It felt very mature. Is that a weird way to say it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
To appear eager is like the worst thing ever, right? So when you fail, it's extra embarrassing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
It doesn't matter. What's really fun, I don't know if you care about numbers, but I turned 50 a few days ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I'm seeing all that. I was kind of overjoyed with the whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
That's sweet. And then I was really, really kind of sad. And then I was curious, if you're comfortable, why didn't it...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I think he might be my favorite of all those characters. He's a cowboy. I mean, impossibly charming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Thank you. Yes. Your birthday, 225, 25, turn 50. I can't imagine a more symmetrical thing to happen. Do you like that kind of thing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And I want to say, I love the green in here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Well, it's in the book, you lost your confidence. Yeah. Which is so scary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. And I would imagine, too, for you, your defining characteristic is almost self-assuredness. Yeah. Right. That's the attractive thing is like, oh, this bitch ain't afraid of anything. Watch her go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You have no experience in previous tools learned.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You were giving a speech at a women's conference.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
My favorite part is when you're telling the story in the book, you tell the organizer, they say, are you okay? And you're like, oh yeah, I had a really bad fever today, but I didn't want to cancel. Turn myself into a hero. Wow. You start shooting your Netflix show shortly thereafter and you decide you can't really even stand during the monologue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You need to go sit behind the desk for the monologue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Kristen uses them every time she performs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. You're in a business, too, that devalues your age and wisdom. And so then that becomes a new thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Well, for me, I can't speak for you, but also there's a voice in my head from day one. It's like the ride is going to be over soon. It ends for everyone's going to end. And then so one hiccup is like, yep, here it is. The ride's over. I knew it was going to be over. I was waiting for this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You and I are on a really parallel journey. So I entered therapy about the exact same time in a real, real way. And by the way, our therapists are telling us very similar things as I'm reading your story. I just can't shake this financial insecurity. It's like it doesn't matter how much I squirrel away. I'm still panicked. And the more I get, I kind of am even more panicked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And I recognize it's insanity, but it doesn't have any effect on how I feel about it. And he said, well, I'm not even going to suggest it's not going to all go away. What I'm going to say is, don't you recognize you're the type of person who can tackle problems as they arise? How could that go away from you? That's the thing that can't be taken. And you have shown you have that skill set.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
So you have something comes up. Guess what? You're the dude that can handle that. That's kind of true. I might let that in just a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, it's what you want to focus on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, I saw this dude speak a few months ago and he had a slideshow presentation and his thread was kind of optimism. And he showed a picture of Dresden in World War II. There's nothing there but rubble. He's like, we wiped the city off of the face of the earth. Here it is today. Here's London here. Here's Rome after this. He's like, yes, we create great catastrophes, but we always come back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. If there's anything to know, magically we do rebuild, right? You can't point to the city that got leveled that stayed level. And I was like, yeah, much bigger shit has gone down that we have recovered from. And it was a cool message. Now, what was my favorite story in the book?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And we're kind of talking about it starts with the shaky legs and starts with this period of kind of questioning yourself. And then this is great. I just want to flag one moment. You have a girlfriend over who's crying for three hours at your house because she got a terrible haircut.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And at one point you say to her, listen, you can't be one of these people who is so consumed with the way they look. It's fucking hair. And as you're screaming it, you have gotten CO2 LASIK and you can't leave your house for 10 days.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
For a year? No, no, no. You said till 26. You mean January 26th. January 26th, 2025. Okay, I was like, you can't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
But you went through this phase where you kind of started shutting up a little more and listening a little more. And it was even scary to the people around you. And I want you to tell me about that and what's on the other side of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Well, if it's two years for normal people, I'll have this handled in four months.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You know, like all of that shit. Sure, sure, sure. I'm going to formulate my next incredible joke. Yeah, exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You're like a running back looking for a home defense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. And in your mind, that'll be permanent. But no, five minutes later, you got to remind them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yes, first time on video. She's so radical. Oh, I love her. I've adored her for decades now. Chelsea Handler. She's a comedian, a television host, six-time New York Times bestselling author and advocate. She has written Life Will Be the Death of Me and You Too, Uganda Be Kidding Me, Lies That Chelsea... These are all great titles. Yeah. Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me, Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You are comfortable throwing a birthday party. It doesn't give you any anxiety.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
So I do too. But I think for me under that is some fear that if I let this vibe continue to be this way, something bad's going to happen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Because you're there. Yeah. And I'm there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Do you want them to say you have great taste?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I hadn't planned on getting you either, but now I'm going to write you a card.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You just didn't know yet. I think my birthday gift request from you would be to not have to get you anything for your birthday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
So Polar was on and kind of tried to talk me into doing a dance party, 50th birthday party she had done, and it was great. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I love dancing, but my birthday's on the 2nd. The day after everyone has quit eating and quit drinking and they've just been with people for way too long for two weeks. It's just not a great date. So objectively, I think I'm right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And I'm like, I just don't think it's a good date. And then I was like, is that just me being insecure? No one's going to have fun. Cut to, so I don't have a big party. We go to Mexico with another family. On my birthday, four of the eight people have Corona and I'm caring for the children. And so I was very confirmation biased. I was like,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
If you're one of the many people I know and you're a piece of shit, you're just not coming to my party again. She has to care about you deeply to go through that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, what if I had planned this big old birthday party, and now I'm with a bunch of sick people, so I made the right call?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Well, I think you can really delineate whether you're doing it because you love someone, want to help them, or you want to shame them. And if you want to shame them because you're actually just resentful that you fucked up my party and now I want to shame you, that's not truth that we need you to have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
But hey, I love you. You're better than this. Let me remind you of that is very pure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I'm even going to argue that the gif is that I'm guessing she might have been the only person that could have told you this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
But wait, if I had called COVID Corona, you'd be upset?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Can you imagine getting to your middle seat and Jane Fonda there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I would love if you all checked into the shit box, though, and then put her in her room. Good night. See you in the morning. And then went to the thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, I'm with you. She might be the greatest of all time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
If you're right, you don't have to defend yourself. I don't get defensive when someone says I'm too short. Right. Oh, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. How did you find yourself at dinner with Woody Allen and what did you ask him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I'm hearing it sometimes at the same time you are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Because you would have felt like you were co-signing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Side note to that, though, I have been challenging myself to say, no, my silence doesn't necessarily mean I'm cosigning on things because I'm the sheriff everywhere. I'm trying to be like, no, you're not complicit in everything just because you didn't fucking confront it. This binary option you've given yourself is a little bit of a story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Right. Oh, that's very nice. I wouldn't have expected that from you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Okay, another question I had, because I'm imagining you experienced this. We're both 50. We've been both doing this now, employed shockingly for like 25 years, or I don't know how long for you, but for me coming up on that. I occasionally see some people that remind me of myself coming up that are younger than me, and I have this insatiable compulsion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I want to grab their ear and go like, hey man, fucking stay on the horse, but relieve yourself of these couple things. Do you feel a compulsion when you identify someone that's got a similar vibe that you do that's younger and coming up? Do you want to kind of help them avoid the seemingly unavoidable traps of it all?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I guess there's just things that I wish I was able to have missed along this journey. And I just wondered if there's some potholes that you feel implored to tell these young gals who do have a point of view.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I've never had a mentor either, but that's my failing. I never humbled myself enough to ask. I also thought it felt opportunistic. I also thought anyone that I was a drag on wouldn't want to be around me. These were all insecurities. In confidence, I now have a couple mentors. And I'd say, Jane's your mentor. But you had to be big enough to have a mentor at some point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. It's like you're on that flight for a day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, your first story is like eating shit at the Montreal Comedy Festival. Yeah. Which is your first huge opportunity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
It's another great book. You're a great writer. It's called I'll Have What She's Having. It comes out on the most auspicious date of the year, 22525 on your 50th birthday. Chelsea, I adore you. It's always fun. I hope we do it a dozen more times. Also podcast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Vegas residency. Vegas residency. How does that work? Have you already begun that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Okay. When I saw residency, I'm like, she can't possibly live in 200 days a year in Vegas. And if so, I need to know how that's happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Is it the same date every month? No, it's just different. Okay. People should go to ChelseaHandler.com slash book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You'll be able to navigate to all these different.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, yeah. You were in the car when you pulled in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I adore you. I'm going to carry your hamstring compliment well into the evening. Yeah, keep sitting like that. Sometimes I wear shorts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Hamstrings is one of the main. Yes, definitely. Hamstrings. Boys, work those fucking hamstrings. Forget the chest. All right. Adore you. Come back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. Hello. Hi. We just completed... Easter egg.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Should we have pretended I just came from an event?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I think I've only worn a suit one other time. Letterman? I thought it was Bill Gates.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. Remember, I won't wear a suit for Letterman when I get invited to his dinner party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And is that your very favorite top? It's new. It's new. Yeah. And is it the one you're feeling most bullish? Like, I guess what I'm asking is, did you save it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Oh, I have an update. OK. So, yeah, we recorded yesterday. And when I went to go in the sauna after work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I took off my clothes in the kitchen and put on my bathing suit. Sure. It was a downstairs and I want to go upstairs. And as I took my pants off, I realize, oh, you're wearing two pairs of underwear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
So yesterday in that interview, I was wearing two pairs of underwear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
This may not shock you. It was the same mysterious pair of underwear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
The elephants. So the elephants are, there's something going on in this pair of panties. So what had happened was the night before I took off my pants and I had worn boxers that day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
So I hung up my pants on a hook in my closet. And then in the morning I was like scrambling to get ready, take the girls. And I put on, I grabbed a pair of fresh panties, the elephants, put them on, they're snug. And then it's got into my pants. Okay. Not even realizing the boxers are still in there from the day before.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I didn't. Weird. Is that bad? I did have a slight memory of the time I went to the bathroom. I kind of was like, oh, I'm wearing boxers. I can use the barn door. No, I'm not. I'm wearing my elephant panties. I think I had felt the barn door boxers and then was like, no, I'm wearing elephant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I blew past it. And then it was just a fun discovery.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Like, have you ever worn two pairs of underwear in an accident?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Actually, you don't want to seem loose. I think it's prude to wear a couple pairs of underwear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I think that's more what it was on that given day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I don't know how many pairs of underwear I'm wearing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
That was a fun pop out though. And that second time those undies have been a pop out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, me too. Well, our adrenaline was high.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Okay. Cause you thought they had gone bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I don't understand how all you women are all synced on everything you're doing. Cause this is exactly what Kristen's been doing. I bet all the other women in the pod have been doing it too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Really quick, I wonder if that's geographical because of course in Michigan you do spring cleaning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Which makes sense because everything's going to be fresh and you want everything to be fresh. But in a city with no seasons, you have to just arbitrarily go, okay, first of the year makes sense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Do you ever say start anew? Because that's a thing people say. I don't. That's old timey. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
We were going down to Nashville a couple years ago. It was at the tail end of COVID, corona, pick your verbiage. And we were going to see our friend Huey, who's a God-fearing Republican. I love him. He's hysterical. He's a great guy. And he goes, just wanted to give you a heads up. We can't wait to see y'all, but don't wear them fucking masks down here. It's just not going to go very well for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I don't hate bespoke, if you recall. I thought you were like... Our guests didn't like it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I was just saying it's similar, but people don't overuse bespoke too much. I don't think people are using bespoke to seem fancy. Or maybe they are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Okay, well, I'm open to changing my opinion on how I feel about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Oh, what kind of nut is it made from?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Very bespoke. I'm sorry. I keep putting in the gutter. But nut butter does sound weird to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And it's nuts, like butter from the nuts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And you loved it. How big is it, if you were to describe it? It's bigger than a ping pong ball. Is it like the size of a tangerine?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. Cuties are often squashed. They're more oval.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
That's a tiny apple. There's three bites. I know. It's so cute. Aren't you into the core too quick?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Okay. I almost eat apples exclusively for that sensation of biting it. Does it hurt your teeth? I love it. I feel like it's cleaning my teeth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
My mother always said, if you don't have a toothbrush, eat an apple.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yes. So you loved it and you ate just one and you were satiated?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And then when we got there, I was like, that was sage advice. Yeah, people don't like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And then the last thing you can click to a link to find out the answer. Exactly. Oh, incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
This could be a huge challenge for you to try to eventually knock out all 860 guests. I'm excited. That's going to be tough. I'm going to do it. We might have to start dropping some in inorganically. We're not doing that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I mean, I know that you like that word, but I have forgotten what the meaning of lacuna is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
The missing link, we would say in science.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Oh, yeah. Okay. So it's going to be called Armchair Lacuna. Every time you say it, I know I always say Lacuna Matata because that's what it makes me think of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
How effective were they? I don't know, maybe they had a point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
That would be great. Sign off on that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
We got I got four electric motorcycles. Cool. For the family. Nice. We took our inaugural ride through the neighborhood yesterday. It's really fun. I don't think there's a moment where the similarities and the differences are so stark. Between Lincoln and I and Mom and Delta. OK. Mom and Delta ride the exact same way. And it was it's very comical. It's very fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Never. I'm very supportive. I'm so happy that they're willing to join. Yeah. They both get spooked pretty easy. They're going much slower. I would be spooked. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And they're they're fast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I was very proud of Delta. She's almost not tall enough for it. Oh. She's got to be on her tiptoes when she stopped.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I think it's okay to take on some new information. Everyone was scared. We did the best we could. And also some things have been learned and maybe a lot of things weren't necessary. Possibly. Okay, so back to 50, because everyone's asking me. At some point, I feel like I should have a great answer for this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
She had a couple episodes, but she really bailed out perfectly and everything was hunky dory. Okay. But Lincoln's like popping wheelies and riding super fast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Also, she just, we're so similar in this domain. Sure. Yeah. But it was incredibly fun. My bad mood broke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, it was almost like a fever. Like a fever breaking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, we had a we had a company meeting, which we've never had. Just insane. You think about it. But we had Emma on Zoom and it was the three of us in here. Yeah. And it was instantly really fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. Emma just really makes me smile, too. She reminds me so much of my two girl cousins. And she had a stupid dog on her lap.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I'm not giving her credit for it. I'm saying the whole meeting was so fun. But I get a bang. I don't ever see Emma.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And when I see her, I'm like, oh, that's right. Emma's delightful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
She's an absolute delight. I love her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I love her, too. I love her first. And then I just had a spring in my step the rest of the day, which was very nice. Good. Yeah. Still going a bit early.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I like it. I hope I can keep it going.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Oh, it didn't go our way. No. Pax Iwana.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. Pax Iwani. Do you think people ever really believed it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I only know that because of the great movie, Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I think 10. And will you look that up, Rob? Because I know I was wrong about... Oh, yeah. About Scarface. Yeah. I was actually eight. I was the old age of eight. So I shouldn't have been so traumatized by the chainsaw butchering scene. Sure. This came out in 1979. There we go. So that's Bo Derek naked on a beach.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
My Papa Bob took me to that. I tell you, my papa just took me to any movie he wanted to see. That was his buddy on the weekend. And he'd be like, we're going to Quo Vadis was the movie theater. Quo Vadis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And it was a shrine to movie theaters, like a tiled exterior, which I had never seen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Well, sure. It wasn't NC-17. Was it R? Oh, yeah. But I think my Papa Bob went to see Bo Derek naked. Of course. And brought me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
He's my sweet grandpa. This is just reminding me that I had a teacher in high school. This is how much things have changed and how inappropriate this was. But yet, had no problem saying this. Yeah. In probably 10th grade, he was explaining... It was like a religion class. And he was just explaining that Judaism doesn't have a hell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
In her new book, I'll Have What She's Having... Which is really, really good and very introspective. And it was a great jumping off point for lots of tasty conversations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Like Christians have a hell. Right. But Judaism doesn't have a hell or a devil, even though it's Old Testament.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And he said that's why Jewish women were more sexual.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
That they're more sexual. Yeah. Maybe he hooked up with one Jewish girl and blew his mind. And he was like, why?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
He had to figure out why. He's like, oh, it's mostly because she's not afraid to go to hell. And then I'm going to, I'm going to tell everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
He also told a gay joke out loud. Oof. Yeah. Do you want to hear the gay joke?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
He said, what's the difference between a gay man and a freezer?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
The freezer doesn't fart when you pull the meat out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, in class. Wait, how old? What grade? 10th or 11th grade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Is he had teenage sons. He had like a 18 and a 20 year old son. I think he was hearing their jokes and he was just repeating them to us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
The joke could have been what's the difference between a freezer and women who have anal sex. That would have been very, I think you would have lost everyone at this setup.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I had him several times over the years. I think it was spread out by a year or two. Still, I don't know why I'm defending him. Well, I liked him. He's a very nice guy. That's that's why he was one of these fun teachers. You know, you're excited to go to his class.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
See, I have a totally different point of view, which is like I'm outwardly perverted and then I'm not secretly perverted. I think it's more Cosby who's like lecturing people on propriety and he's secretly a pro. I think that's more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I think you're right in that groomers are like gregarious and outgoing and flattering and kind. But I also don't think they ever do anything sexual or talk about anything like that. I do. I do think that's true for the most part. I don't think. They try to come off as like, I'm the one guy who loves being around 13 year old girls, but for no real reason. You know what I'm saying?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You can't be like coach of a 13-year-old soccer team, girls, and make pervy jokes. It's off the table. Yeah, no. Right. We agree. Yes. It's the super G-rated, friendly, supportive guy that's the groomer. That's building trust and confidence with the parents. Yeah. Like Michael Jackson, like, I'm a child. I'm not even sexual.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah, where we're kind of adults, we're having sex. Exactly. A lot of the students are having sex.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Oh, okay. Okay. Now there was a groomer at my school, but he was like everyone's best friend and he didn't make any pervy jokes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Oh, I know what I want to say. Okay. We always try to shine a light on great TV shows we love. Documentaries, books.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I want to shine a light on Chappelle's monologue. Oh, my God. On SNL a few weeks back. I've watched it four or five times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
It is so great. That just made me think of him saying, I'm ugly. Okay. It's such a good monologue. It's like incredibly funny. And then it's impossibly poignant at the end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. He said, if it's safe for me here, it's safe for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
That's like the best monologue I've ever seen, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
That's why I hate poor people. They can't see through their own pain. That's so funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You have a pretty good bag of evidence that you keep landing on your feet and things keep working out. Like at some point you'd have to go like, yeah, I'm blessed for whatever reason. It keeps working out and I need to not spend the rest of my time here convincing myself it's not going to work out because look at the fucking data. That's helpful. I don't have a satisfactory answer either.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
It's like I still feel 12 years old. I've yet to ever feel past 12 years old. So mentally, that's how I feel. Physically, I probably am in the best shape of my life. I'm not having the hottest sex of my life. I've been with someone for 17 years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I guess what I mean when I say I'm mentally 12 is at 12 years old, it occurred to me, I had a moped, a mobile, the world's mine. I can go out and tackle it. I just got this excitement at 12 that I get to do whatever the fuck I want while I'm here. That enthusiasm is still where it was at 12. And that's kind of how I'm tackling my day-to-day life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
being very saccharine about everything. It started to feel a little disingenuous. I guess that's my main. But I didn't say one word out loud.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I keep waiting for me to wake up and be like, I just want to sit in my jammies all day. I don't feel that way at all. That's what I mean. Now, am I more mature and am I more patient and all these things? Oh, my God, yeah. And especially have kids and be with someone for a long time and you will learn patience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. And that's why I never said anything out loud. I would have never brought up my opinion. I didn't even know that thing was written. But like everything, it's just what is your childhood? And when people I'm triggered by people who are broadcasting how good they are, I'm nervous. I think they're deceptive. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
If I needed to find a motive, I would say someone's like, look how good I am. I'm so concerned about this. And I'm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Just like virtue signaling. I think it triggers whatever baggage I have about religious people growing up. Sure. They were so pious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yes. And so that's what I'm saying. Like, none of it is true. Yeah. It's just my knee jerk is like this feels a little too grandstanding, as I thought the religious people who were very pious in preaching their purity. And I thought they were all full of shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I'm on fire to be alive on planet Earth still. Right. So the thing that has been occurring to me, and it's way more philosophical and hard to explain, is I was watching Little Women with my 11-year-old in Mexico City on this trip. And I'm telling her, you know that gorgeous mansion they're in? There's no fucking toilet inside.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
It's like anything else. Like there's great people in AA and there's fucking terrible people in AA. And there's great people volunteering and there's people just dying. trying to get a pat on the back. So I always, though, I hope, you know, I'm grateful that people are the way they are. I'm glad I'm very grateful. Not everyone is cynical like me or not even cynical, skeptical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And I'm glad that I'm skeptical because you guys need me sometimes. And this is a time where we need the really optimistic helpers. And I know to shut up and get out of the way and not share my opinion when I'm watching it. So it's like I don't think one's bad or good. I think I'm one thing and you're naturally this way and you're naturally that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
And there's a time for me when the guy comes to the door selling you steaks. The deck steps up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You know, there's another time that I sit, sit down and shut up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. I mean, the defeatist in me is like when they raise money, I'm like, this is a two hundred and fifty three billion dollar issue. What is throwing any amount of money other than the government and these huge insurance companies like we're making all these people on the ground try to offset this thing that is so enormous?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Listen, I want to say a million times, I'm so happy everyone's not like me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
As pretty and great as that looks, those people had to cross the yard and go shit in a box in 1886. There's no indoor plumbing. And as I'm saying that, I'm like... I thought that was a thousand years ago, but I'm 50. So that's really just two more of my life's ago. Oh, my God. Time is so much shorter than I thought.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
We don't need a single more person like me. I'm just going to be honest about who I am, which is, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Something needs lifting. Something needs wrenching on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I just brought that up in the fact check. I was saying we went for our first all four people family motorcycle ride.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I said that I don't know if the similarities between the four of us are more pronounced ever. Then you and Delta on a motorcycle and me and Lincoln on a motorcycle. It's like the starkest it gets, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You did a great job. And I hope, I was very supportive, wasn't I?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yes. And I even yelled at Lincoln when she was making fun of her mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
It was really fun. Okay, I'm going to leave you. I love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Well, she tried to drop a controversy bomb right on my lap. People are going to be mad at me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Whenever it went up, the stock market took a shit with all this tariff war stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I hear everything always promotes collagen production. That's what I always hear. Sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You did them? Mm-hmm. Is your posture all better? It's pretty good right now. Do you have shoulder pads in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
You don't have to wash them, but you do have to pull your underwear out from the night before or you'll end up wearing double panties.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
That was all the facts. Yeah. All right. Love you. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I'm tripping out on how recent everything was because now relative to me, I've lived for half a century. Me plus you is the Great Depression. That's bonkers to me. Yeah, that's what I'm like swimming with. Does it make me recalculate how I think about the past in some weird way?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Just starting. We just had high, high winds and an inkling of things were going to happen. Exactly. Much worse later that day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
The best conclusion I've reached from this kind of new calculation of time is it makes me mildly optimistic, which is I know my life's pretty fucking short. And in my lifetime, you smoked in the car with a baby in the backseat. And that was groovy. And you were drunk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
No. And there's major Jim Crow segregation still happening. So as daunting as all the problems are, it's like, my God, the thing does move pretty quick. And we were without toilets three of my lifetimes ago. So it's like, chill a little bit. This is a pretty new experiment and it's going pretty good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
That's interesting. We could be our own trust funders. We could figure out how to at some point just coast along.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Can I be nosy and ask what you bought it for? Because what is it, like 60,000 or something right now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
She also has a great podcast, Dear Chelsea. Check that out. Please enjoy Chelsea Handler.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
I don't know anything. This is what's preventing me from ever getting it. I can't get into my fucking iTunes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Yeah. Would you be opposed to kicking Christine 5K for that tip?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Okay. Well, I planted in the seed and if you don't do it, it'll not you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Chelsea Handler Returns Again
Well, you have a quote in the book that says to have had and not shared is somehow worse than stealing. I mean, you wrote it. It's not you who said it. But do you recall putting that in your book?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Or you think it's got like a bad historical- I think so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, then what can be bad about it if it's not racial?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I told you, it's very Murders in the Building with apartments.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Everything's good. Middle English. Oh, fuck. We don't care about that. Is that referring to any ethnicity or anything?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, I remember Bree and I driving home and we were like, I can't believe we met Lisa Kudrow. Oh, how fun. Yeah, we couldn't believe we were at a dinner with you, to be honest. So I don't know other than Bennett, who was there other than you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, the Murders in the Building. I know. I'm so excited.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yes. It's really, really great. She's fantastic in it. Please enjoy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I think this is a different party. How many times do you have dinner over there? Just once?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But OK, so for people who don't know, when you're on a set and you're filming the A.D. 's, if someone wanders into the scene that's not background hired to be in the scene, like you're filming on a sidewalk in downtown L.A. and everyone that walks back and forth has been hired. But if a civilian wanders in, they go might go to three. Yeah, there's a bogey. They always say there's a bogey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And that's a civilian that's wandered into the professional setting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's funny. So Kristen and I are big on bogey. You got three bogeys. You're somewhere and you just think, oh my God, some civilians have entered the wrong door or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I don't think this... Well, no, I think everyone can relate to people being at a party that doesn't seem like they know anyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's all it is. Well, that happened here. So for Halloween, Dax has a big hayride for this neighborhood and he takes it all across the neighborhood. It's very sweet and cute. Oh, that's nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But two of our friends who have a baby, they came back early and they were sitting here and there were some bogey slash riffraff that were just hanging out at the house. No one knew who they were for like 35 minutes. They were just chatting with me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I feel very grateful. We're seven years in and it's our first friend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
We got a food truck and invited everyone to come to the driveway and have a hamburger on Halloween night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's right. But now there's a little bit of a permeable. Is that the right word? There's an impermeable border. Like that's not an invitation to inside my house. That's the driveway where the food truck is. So it sounds like people decided, let's also get into the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Luckily, I was driving the hayride and I missed it. So, OK, great. Yeah. Back to you and your friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Should we go inside where these other people are? This is clearly a haunted house situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It'll come up in the episode, but I want to say it now. We did almost have a friend, David Schwimmer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. You were there inside. No, I was out in the hayride, but two of our friends came back early because they had a baby. So they then later were like, this is so weird.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, we'll have all this in heaven. We just leave the house for two hours and the house is wide open.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Did you pine for popularity? Did you care? Were you the kind of student that you had your thing? You were focused. I'm going to be a doctor. I don't give a fuck about all this frivolous crap. Or did you want way more friends?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You and I would be cutting it up like crazy because that's all I want to talk about, too. I don't know if you've ever heard the show. That's all this is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I must know. I can't feel comfortable until I understand why it happened because then I can predict what's going to happen. That's all I really want to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And he had to cancel because he had a really bad ear infection. Yes. And Robbie Wobb said he had Schwimmer's ear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, I can feel it walking around the world today. Like, whew, everyone's a little on edge. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
OK, so great. So I'm delighted to know that you didn't really covet that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I relate to that greatly. And I also remember from Poehler's autobiography, those moments you have in your teenage years. And for mine, it was literally in a mirror. Where I go like, okay, here's the situation. You're not a babe. I wanted to look like all these other boys. We're just going to bet on our personnel. Like a real, let's talk about the game plan here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Those moments happen in teenage years. It's really adorable. I wish I could like see kids doing that in the mirror.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Thank you. Yeah. I think I'm way better looking for sure now than I was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's really good. It's a great joke. It bears repeating twice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Do you want us to just tell you everything that happens in it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But it's about aging, really women aging and how they get sort of cast aside. I'll just hit you with the premise. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
She's an aging actress. She finds out there's a thing you can shoot in your body. And then for two weeks, you'll be your 20s self. But you have to return to your old self for two weeks and you go two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. And that's the substance that makes you young again. And of course, when she's her younger self, she don't want to play by those rules.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Nope. She takes this shot. She becomes young again for two weeks. And then she has to go through a procedure to go back to being old for two weeks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And you pay a heavy price for that. And you end up kind of destroying your older self. It's very, very good. And so feminist, it's nuts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But this whole thing of he comes in, he's gorgeous, he looks better. And we do that for men. We allow men to age and think it's attractive. And it's not the same for women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I think you and I could have a conversation that no one was allowed to have. About? There is an evolutionary reason for that. It's like both unfortunate and it's not out of nowhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Dudes can have kids in their 90s. Look at some of our famous directors. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
We don't know that we have that awareness. So you got to like fight through all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
No, we don't even need each other anymore, which is a whole new interesting dynamic. Oh my God. And it's scary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Whoa. And they wanted to make this movie for the rest of their lives? Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Feel free to use either of those blankets. Can I do this for you? Because I've done it one other time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Or I'm just getting old and I need a shawl. It gets a little chilly. That's nice. He likes to wrap people in like a burrito.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay, this is great. I just took you back in time without AI.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay, maybe this is crazy glass half full, and I think it's very unlikely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
So you and I will have experienced, and I already know you have your arms completely wrapped around the experience because I've heard you talk about it. I wrote down a quote from you today that said, oh, let me just read it because it's so good. That's the healing power of fame. Everything will be fixed now. You're talking about getting the dream and your thought is everything will be fixed now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Right. Suggesting like, yes, that there would be a healing power of fame. It would fix everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It doesn't. But I think in that, for me, is the greatest gift I've ever been given because... I at least got to go like, okay, great. That's not it. What is it? And it sent me on a journey of figuring out what it is. And if I hadn't been given the gift to find out it was lackluster or that it was empty, I would have never stopped believing that that would have been the fix.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
So currently, everyone in America thinks, if I didn't have this job and I didn't have money problems and I didn't have that, I would be fixed. And so we'll give everyone that. You don't work. You don't have money problems. Fucking robots are doing every single thing. And then three weeks after that, they turn that light switch on. Everyone's going to be like, yeah, I'm miserable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Why am I miserable? And then we all start the path. That could be the outcome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Because everyone will actually try to confront the real angst of being a human.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And not these other stories we've told ourselves. It's because we don't have this ski boat. We don't have this pair of shoes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You're right. So I guess it can't be about being the best takes that off the table.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I have a solution. Hiking with friends, playing pickleball, playing cards, being social and enjoying the big gift, which is like other people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, because you and I are doing the same thing at the end of seven days. Like I'm a piece of shit because I haven't been productive. And if I'm not productive, I have no value.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But again, we're so distracted by the immediate needs that are on everyone's plate. Make my rent, feed my kids, all this stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Currently, we can't. We're just imagining a future where the robots actually do do every single thing and they grow the food and there's just a surplus of all things that are needed and they manufacture phones and they build houses for everyone. So that's where we're at. This is Yuval Harari, Homo Deus. It's all been solved. We're all a leisure society. Now what?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
So I think now what would be great depression for months.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
In the show notes. So is that possible? Does it give everyone the gift of not needing all the stuff?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
OK, so now back to graduating, going to Vassar, integrated in 1969 for men, 1861 for females. It started. I just learned all this from you. How the fuck do you get into comedy? Did you know you were funny throughout all that seriousness?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It felt like watching Houdini for a second. That's why I offered assistance. I saw your hand moving around a ton under there. Like, oh fuck, she's trapped.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
No, of course. I'm only saying if you've been friends with someone for eight years, I always have a hard time understanding that transition into dating. Obviously, there's probably success stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, just that's an interesting transition after eight years. Like, generally, your first kiss is quite exciting, whereas opposed to, like, we've been hanging for eight years, now we're kissing feels a little bit awkward.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, wow. Yeah, you should. Is it nicotine gum? Yeah, yeah. You know, I love nicotine. I'm on all kinds of variety other than smoking. What? I do the mints, the lozenges, and then I do a little spray. Do you know about the spray?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Because I can relate to that is so embarrassing. When I really think about the times I've done it, I feel like it's because, well, first of all, I'm allergic to earnestness. I don't know if you have that. Right. It feels so cringy to care. But now I can see that as that's actually a beautiful thing that people care and throw the thing with such fervor, even though it's embarrassing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I can see that now is cool. Do you think you have that? I'm afraid to care that much because then there's possibility of getting rejected. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
He told the cutest story. Oh, you remarked that. I'm going to save that. When you were on his show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I'll just say no. But you telling him how thrilled you were to meet Matthew Perry and how hysterical he was. You're going on and on about how special and funny he was. And he admitted to you when he interviewed you. He's like, I just started feeling like, well, who is this guy? And why is he so my Gene Cordero thing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I started calling him Mean Gene Cordero. That's not his name, but because I'm threatened by how funny he is. They would just regale all the time how funny he was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, you stumbled into one who historically will go down as one of the funniest people ever. Of all time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You just ran into him at an improv class. That's so bizarre.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That was my hunches. I bet, sure, you were attracted to the comedic ability of him, but I imagine how brilliant he is is what really made you want to be friends and eventually lovers, as we discovered.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You then started going through the actual program at the Groundlings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's fucking pricey. Because, yeah, they're European, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, it wasn't Simpsons first? It was Saturday Night Live first?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
On this episode, we answer the burning question, why wasn't Conan a groundling?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
How far into the main company before you got an audition for SNL?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Were you focused on being on SNL? Was that something you wanted to do?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
How's the song go? Did I have it? You can't trick me into singing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It might make it go worse for you. That's the real answer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
So you didn't fly to New York and do the whole thing. No, they were in the audience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Right, right, right, right. Were there any dudes that went to SNL while you were there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's so weird to think of him in the Sunday Company. It's almost like he's too much of a god to have possibly done that. Was he outrageously good as we came to know him on SNL?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
They're just thinking of smoking, which, yes, you should get off smoking. And I chewed tobacco, which, of course, you should get off of that. But nicotine is fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I was about to say Airhead 1, Airhead 2, Romy and Michelle. Yeah. So they made it later into the movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Right. Everyone tried their hardest. Sure, sure. That's in between, I imagine, Cheers and Friends. You do two pilots between Cheers and Friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Could you be misled by the fact that you were with Sweeney on stage?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I skipped one part and I just need to know because selfishly I'm left-handed. So a lot of the work, you did a study with your father for eight years. And part of the study was to see if left-handed people had cluster headaches at an inordinate rate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
My understanding is that your right hemisphere controls your left hand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
So did cluster headaches show up more in the right hemisphere over the left hemisphere? Was that discovered?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's what you found out. Now, let me ask you this. Because headaches were such a topic in the house, it would have given me a self-fulfilling prophecy that I was going to get headaches. Did that happen to you at all?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I've been like overly concerned about headaches because this is like the primary concern of my father. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
We both quit at the same time. I quit in 2005. Yeah, me too. I did the full body scan recently and I was just bracing. I'm like, you know, dude, you smoked pack a day when not drinking and several packs when drinking a day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Could those people discover a pattern or were they completely random?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
They go away. Because my daughter has a lot of headaches. I don't know about a lot. She has more than average.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
She's 11 and things are starting to happen. Sorry. Sorry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I would have been happy to have a good time with you, but you brought up headaches. Yeah, I had them when I was younger, but I don't really have. If I have one now, it's very, very rare. And I'm so grateful because they're fucking miserable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, I know people. They do injections when the shit hits the fan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Whoa, is that there's too much electrical activity going on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But that's a joy because he can explain to you all over again. I bet he loves explaining it and you'll love learning it all over again. This is very symbiotic. I don't know if he does.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You said he's a man. He loves to explain things. Trust me. As I explain this to you right now, I know the same tickle he's getting. Oh my God. Got meta.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay. I want to talk about this kind of interesting and sim-like thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Your life is a sim for sure. You meet Conan on your first day of, do you believe in the sim? What does that mean?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You can't get enough of them in your mouth when you're drunk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Do you think you have a carcass somewhere plugged into a computer and it's giving you this experience?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's all it took is a simple explanation of where you're from.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I heard it once. You've experienced a lot of one-of-one things, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I think if you have a lot of suspicious stuff happen in your life, you're probably more prone to think like, what's going on? We don't really believe in the Zim, but also we 30% do. We play around with the notion that we're plugged in somewhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
We have these five. And if you really ponder it, if no one had sight and you didn't have sight, it's completely unimaginable. Nobody could expand their fucking imagination enough to imagine what sight is or hearing or taste or touch. So, yeah, conceivably, there's like 12 other ways to observe reality that we just don't observe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's so bad. It's a real fuck you to that whole system.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, let me ask you this. Have you had those moments? Cause you've had a very exceptional life and you go like, well, how do I make peace with this? This is an abnormal amount of, you know, of for me, I would call it like things I couldn't have imagined. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
The fifth tallest biology graduate from Vassar. Put your hands together for the fifth tallest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I'm feeling very seen by the notion, and this is a terrible thing to admit, but it has been a great source of confidence for me. I watch stuff and I think, well, that's not very good. Maybe I can do it. So much of my propulsion has been seeing something I don't think is very good. So then I think, well, shit, then I think maybe I could do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yes. I don't. You would go to an improv show and you go like, that's not very good. I have so much fear that I'm not good enough. But when I see something bad, it would weirdly encourage me and go like, no, no, this might be doable. And so you're hearing shitty acting on the radio and something in you that tells you, I know that's not good. That's weirdly confidence building.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
No, it is. I watch a ton of interviews with you today. I think that's a very charming part of you. Now, back to you and I trying to not perform anymore. Oh, right. My therapist would say to me, hey, sometimes, and I'm only asking you to do it 10% of the time, sometimes watch the show. It's a good show. You don't always have to be the show, but I'm so controlling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Now, this is a childhood question. It's related to the truth and it's related to watching the people be phony. Now, it could be as inane as you're a younger sibling. I'm a younger sibling. My older sibling tried to deceive me all the time because that's how it works.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And everyone's getting something you're not getting all the time and you want to fake it like you are. Do you relate to that observation, which is it's very important to you to know what's real and what's not? Oh, I used to. And do you think that's childhood stuff or just your biochemistry?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, and if you like Buddhism at all, which I'm very newly into reading about, yeah, we are a product of whatever context we're in. We're not even the same person throughout the day. You go to the grocery store and shit's popping off and there's an argument over here and there's some version of you that's there that's not the version of you at dinnertime later.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, sometimes you care a ton about something and then other times you're like, I don't even care about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's also good. You don't want to be so stuck in the thing you were saying when you were 16. We're supposed to evolve.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, yeah. Yeah, not being married to all these cornerstone beliefs we think that define us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Would I be right in guessing the permanence of the role as mom is something unique? It feels like bedrock to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And you can feel it's permanent. And you're like, oh, yeah, there'll be no wavering. And this is a unique feeling. Other than when you get a tattoo and you go like, OK, put it on. You go like, yep, well, that's a permanent decision. There's very few of those in life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Some of my performing is out of my controlling nature. Is yours that way?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay, so I just wanted to point out this Jimmy Burrows thing, because this is another simulation-y kind of thing. You go to Cheers and a very cute conversation with you and Ted talking about you being there all week and just staying on set the entire time to learn what was happening. But Burrows, of course, is directing that show. So you have some experience with him there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
How deep into the process did you get before you were replaced?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
For sure. For you at that moment, career wise, he's coming off of Cheers. This is just shows going to work. Right. You must have been like, OK, back to the like, everything's about to be fixed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
What was the heartbreak of that? Was it devastating? How did you handle it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
How do you find your way back to some level of confidence?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. How long between getting fired again by Jimmy Burroughs before Friends?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I didn't know any of this. I find this really fascinating. So you audition for Friends and Jimmy Burrows is going to be the director. And your last experience with him was that you were fired.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
He took one look at a tape of them and they're like, oh yeah, that's him. Oh, wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's a blessing he didn't know that until 10 years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You're like, you're not even that important. None of this matters that much. You've made this something that's not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And when I heard you retell us before, you're feeling right because I don't belong here. You don't think I belong here. And now you're physically removing me, putting me where it's now visually obvious I don't belong here. Right? It was like a very triggering confirmation that he hated her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Wasn't the working title, though, of one of the shows, Now It's My Time to Shine?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
For people who don't know, Jimmy Burroughs is, by all accounts, the very most successful director to ever be in television by a landslide. Every show you ever loved, he directed either the pilot or the whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
When you're not pleasing this person, it couldn't get worse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
So that was a turning point. And then things got better. And as you said, you grew to absolutely love him, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
There's a third show. Still in development. In development hell. But my controlling part is I get anxiety that if it's left to some non-professionals that this thing's going to go in the ditch. It's like if I get on an elevator with four strangers, I think, well, I'm the one with improv training. It's kind of on my shoulders to make this experience less awkward.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Now, let me ask you this, because you do it so gracefully and it appears to me that you don't ever mind it. But it occurred to me there are things that I got sick of talking about. What is just your overall feeling about talking about friends?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Was there ever a period where you're like, please shut up about friends?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, that's nice, though. I should have been grateful for all the things, but sometimes it took me a while to be grateful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay. You forgive me? Well, I hope you do. Are you going to fire me from this table?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But is part of that because the experience itself was so fulfilling? Yeah, it was great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's that thing that you were talking about at Groundlings where you can read when people are having fun. That show is so special in that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
What did that look like? Just like going out for dinners and stuff or being social?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
So knowing you were entering the situation where this guy was going to direct you who had fired you recently, what was your confidence level going into that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Now, this maybe is a rude question, but was it at all on your mind that you were the oldest member of that group?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Now it means nothing. But when you're 30 and this is your big shot and you've been chipping away and it's hard and you got fired before, the stakes feel so fucking high. You don't know at that point you're going to follow Seinfeld, do you? Or do you? Like, do you know this thing's going to be given the best shot imaginable?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. And you were playing your own twin. I didn't know that until today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay, good. We have kept it from you until this moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Even yesterday, I was thinking, I was like, are we going to even talk about it? Oh, my God. What do you want to say? I don't know what to say because I don't think there's any way for me to really tell you how important it was to me. I mean, we have a stanzi in there of Matt Damon and me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It was Good Will Hunting and friends that changed my whole, whole life. Oh. I had every episode VHS taped. I myself VHS taped. I had a color-coded system. I had 31 tapes. Wow. Oh, my God. The night of the finale, I had an AP test the next morning. Couldn't care less about the AP test. Was up till like 3 a.m. watching the Letterman or whatever you guys did that night and rewinding it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You couldn't miss it. You could not miss it. Hence the must see TV. You really if you didn't see it, you're fucked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You're absolutely fucked. Your life's over. If your fucking timer on your VHS didn't go off as planned. Oh my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
In anticipation of you coming, I was trying to isolate why I didn't give that show a chance. I simply didn't give that show a chance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And I imagine it's because I was in my 20s trying to be an actor and something about that is something maybe I wanted. And I don't know. I have no explanation for why.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
There's first, why didn't I give it a shot? But then once it was off to the races, I could never join on late. I was too punk rock in my own mind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I was in middle school and I was trying very hard to be like everyone. Right. Everyone was watching Friends. And I think it was like, I like this thing that everybody else likes. I'm like everybody else. And I'm also going to like it times a gajillion. I'm going to like it the most. I'm going to know everything about it. I'm going to be perfect at liking this, which I did do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's so true. I had the luxury of I looked like everybody. So all I wanted to do is be different.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And all she wanted to be is like everyone else. So I was like, anything anyone was doing, I was out. I still have to tell myself, you're acting like you're 12 years old right now. And it's okay to like something everyone likes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
There's a thing about being in the cool club that gets in your way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I agree. Having done some things that weren't my thing,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
comedic tone and to see how appreciated there are by people and recognizing like oh no everyone's entitled to laugh everyone deserves a laugh there's no hierarchy there's no great comedy and bad comedy if you make people laugh that's it and also why did i want to do this anyway for me no because when people are laughing and enjoying themselves it's something you're doing that's what the thrill is sorry you keep going like trauma style but yeah
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Additionally, for me, that's when I'm safe. If all the men in the room are laughing at me, no one wants to fight. No one's hitting anybody. We're at peak safety when everyone's laughing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Probably is hard to see it as a gift, but I think it's really hard to understand why. the integration your stuff has in people's life. It's too abstract. I don't even know that it's even healthy to know it. But to be given that moment at the light, that weirdly is kind of helpful in computing what it really means. Yeah. You're not at work feeling special.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You're like, oh, let's go out and save the world tonight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You got there pretty quickly, actually. You're being a little hard on yourself. It took about one second.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You know what it is? I think your obligation is you do want to honor those people. And part of how you honor them is accept what they're telling you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Being great at that taping. Let me just scan here. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
No, she hasn't had nearly enough is my argument. Yeah, you need to steady yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And we're both improv people and sketch people. I often feel, and this is too critical of stand-ups, but it's like, are we playing or am I hearing six minutes of your stand-up right now? Is this interactive or am I the recipient of pre-planned something?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I'm going to be really rude while you reload. I'm going to go pee pee. Is that okay?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
We didn't have a door on that for many, many, many years. It was wide open. So you got the door.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You've never done it. To our chagrin. No. The guy who used to live here was a big Scientologist. And he had a podcast?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, ours wasn't a curtain. It had nothing. A precognition. That's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Obviously, you resisted it for so long. And this is your life. It's not a weird thing to think. it's added up to being exactly that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's when we talk about the sim. I think that all the time, even this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh my God, what's happening with you? Hearing the song come out of my mouth is very disruptive. Well, we're just... Disregulating. Okay, can we please? Friends! What if I thought at some point they screamed friends in the song?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Get your head straight in there and come out and talk more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Did it overflow from the toilet? Sometimes I wonder if it will.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Sometimes, especially doing this, I rarely, like that's actually a sign to you that I feel comfortable around you. Just generally I'll sit here and be miserable. And then the guest leaves and I've peed for three minutes. Where I'm like, oh my God, I cannot believe this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Mixed with the shakiness, we might need to get you to your brother. Oh my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Do a little pet scan? That's so cool that he followed in the family footsteps and became a neurologist. That's very fancy. He's super smart. That's like Vosser.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Sorry about this. And then we're moving on to your new show. Oh, bear with me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
One question is there are some people that get famous and they had some training that They have some experience being the most popular person in school. And then there's introverts that get famous. And I think it's a little bit different of an experience. There's no prior experience where it's like, yeah, everywhere I go, everyone wants to say hi to me. It's very foreign. Interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Let's take Matthew McConaughey, who I love. He's so comfortable being famous, but guess what? He has been famous since he was born. He was little Mr. Texas, we found out. And every girl liked him in school. He had a lot of training to be kind of adored.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, he's hot shit. So by the time it happens, he's kind of had some practice. And then you take other people that were like, I'm hesitant to say this, but I'll give the example of Edward Norton. He was a fucking genius bookworm. And now he's the most popular guy in the world. It's a much different new experience, I think, for some people than others.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
How did that transition for you feel when all of a sudden you were like one of the six most popular people in America?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, it takes some people decades to come to that. Or never.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
In AA, we say what people think of using it in your business.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Right, it's the exact same footage. Yeah, again, it has nothing to do with what you've done. It's everything to do with what you feel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Do you also think people, because of the TV show, they don't know what you can do? They think, oh, you can read a script in a funny way, but they don't know about your background?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Is everyone but me doing this, right? That's the thought I have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
He likes your face as your face. He won't let me. It's so crazy how we see ourselves and how other people see us. Because obviously we look at you and I'm with your husband. I'm like, don't mess with it. It's great. But I also I look in the mirror and I'm like, OK, I did. I got chin filler. You start looking and you're like, OK, I think I can start. Just rearrange this a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
OK, sure. But I really relate to like this bizarre zone your brain goes into where you go in some weird way. Am I not being professional?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I signed up to be a fucking actor. I got to be pleasing to people to look at.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Why am I acting like that's not part of my job, that I'm above this? And I look at peers and I go, yeah, they're doing what you're supposed to do. It's a very entangled experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say, do you have pride? On the other end of it is pride. Like, I haven't done anything, guys. That's cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Older and fucked up. I think it's more complicated than people give it credit. They're just evaluating it in terms of vanity, which is fair. Some of it's vanity, but some of it's also like, you know, you do certain things. If you're a pilot, you get lasik. There's things that people do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But what's the obligation for people to see us as young?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I've got some stuff in my fridge. Let's play with some injections before you go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I'm going to give you some injections and then give you a tattoo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
When your husband says, that was the podcast, you go, I don't know what happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I think it's his height. I just trusted him. I have no other explanation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
OK, another question I had is when it became so publicized how much money you guys were making, did you witness any impact on your interpersonal relationships? And that being so public, was there fallout from that? So, again, I think that's another one that's like it's probably more complicated than people would fantasize about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yes. I definitely think there's a strata of dysfunction that the result is comedy. And I think improv artists are like a seven on that scale.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. I wonder if you felt a discernible lack of compassion towards you at any point because you were just known to have all this money. Who the fuck's going to ever feel bad for you again because you have all this money?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
When I'm going through a hard time, the people that I've loved and been there for, I would want them to be there for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
This problem with your husband, have you thought about giving him a couple million dollars? See if that makes it go away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And I think standups are generally a 10. They got some fucking shit to work out and you're going to sit here and listen to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
No, I didn't make it. I was in a Sunday company for a year and was kicked out. And I just recently got over that wound. I mean, truly, maybe like six years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
A thousand percent. I went to Dachau with my mother when I was 16. We toured Dachau. Yeah. And I really recommend everyone have that experience because talk about the stuff we can't figure out or we don't understand really what's going on. To stand someplace where it is still so physically accessible that the weight is so palpable is fucking weird.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I've never had an experience anywhere else in my life like it were after an hour there. You're like, oh, my God, I got to get the fuck out of here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's convenient to think of that group of people as some other group of people that were evil and stuff. They were normal people that were in a system and they played their role. And yeah, I imagine, of course, there's some monsters that were like, we didn't get enough. And then I think more often people were like, Now there's a new reality and now I see it. And what the fuck happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's almost sadistic, but we like this part. My last, it's kind of related. I only bring it up because I wasn't on a cultural phenom, but I was on Parenthood for six years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And I fucking love those people so much. And I hadn't seen the show, I guess, in eight years or whatever it was in my daughter's I don't know if they wanted to see it or I suggested it, but we watched it on a vacation last year. From the second it started, the title sequence, I started crying. And it was the most cathartic, wonderful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I got to experience it in a way I almost couldn't when I was doing it. I've heard you say a couple of times that you were unable to watch Friends. Yeah, to watch myself. Well, what I really liked is I have a bit of the same fear, which is like, I mostly just don't want to get caught watching myself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
So I think it would be helpful for people to know within the growlings, when you're in the Sunday company or the main company, You can be an inside favorite. There's always a couple people in the group that they're clearly the funniest by our definition, but that's not to say they kill the most. In fact, it's almost assured that you won't kill if you're the favorite among us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And it's almost impossible to avoid. If any show is on at all times of the day. In fact, one of the only fights I ever got in when I was still dating Kristen, we didn't live together yet. I went to her house. This is back when a DVR only had like 20 hours of storage. And I like go to watch some show we had and she had all these roommates and someone had recorded and put a season's pass on friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And I'm yelling in the house. I'm like, whoever put this on the DVR, you don't need to just turn the TV on. It's on. You don't need to record it. It's literally on all day. No, you need to record it. And then Amy Hansen, our sweetest friend, came around the corner. And a true angel. An angel. She goes, I'm sorry. And I go, you were doing it. You should definitely keep recording.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But anyways, you can't even avoid that. You can't go channel surfing and not see it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Whoever was the most offbeat and weirdest and most esoteric would make us laugh the night you'd put up all the sketches because it was refreshing and novel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But it really touched me. I was so happy for her. I'm glad you got that moment. That's what everyone felt. That whole series is like, we know them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I cried so much. I was like, I know them. They're my friends. They're saving me from feeling lonely. That one glimpse you got is what people had for 10 years. Yeah. So lucky for us and grateful to you guys for that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, yeah. Look, what us addicts put everyone that love us through is rough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
If I were you, I would want to see the version. Like, let's put it this way. And I can compare. I think it's a good comparison. Cancer. So my father, he had a lot of health issues towards the end and There's a whole decade of his life he was really on the decline. When I have dreams about him, I have dreams about him in his like 40s. I want to see his vibrant, virile self. And I miss it so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And I guess I think if I loved an addict and I had to see the whole thing, I would be grateful to get to go back and see it before it had like taken its toll.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, I think people, they have a category addict. It's really incomplete. It's a spectrum. I've loved people in the program that I could recognize who they got it worse than me. And I've had friends in AA where I would say, yeah, the weight of the world is heavier on your shoulders than it is on mine. And it's pretty heavy on mine. And I can see it and feel it. And it's heartbreaking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And I don't envy you. And I have a lot of compassion because you really are dealing with more than I am. And I can feel it. I'm sad for that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I didn't even watch the show, but I got to be around him a lot. And he has a lot of quotes I keep with me. One of them is, I've spent my whole life making everyone like me. I haven't really asked myself what I like. Oh, I can relate to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's the same thing, really. Not asking yourself what you like is very similar to you haven't figured out what you like and you're not trying to make yourself like yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It weirdly compounds it and it makes you hopeless because the thing that was going to make you love yourself didn't work. And now we're out of options.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It can work temporarily for me. Okay, your show, No Good Deed. I'm not blowing smoke up your ass. It's fantastic. I'm gonna add- You've seen it? Yes, I watched today. While I was working out, I watched three episodes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yes, because it's very, and I don't know if you'll agree with this comparison, it's weirdly very murders in the building.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's great. So Liz Feldman and I were in the Sunday Company together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
So again, back to Parenthood, that's where he did his first kind of dramatic work. He was awesome. I got to direct him in an episode. I loved Parenthood. Oh, you did? I saw every one of them. Oh my goodness. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, there were a lot of moments. Remember I told you I rewatched the whole thing and I cried and you were like, oh yeah, it was really good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's what it was, that you're a super fan of Parenthood. But yeah, he was incredible on Parenthood, right? Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I'll add, what a dude. He has no ego. To walk into Parenthood season, whatever it was. Yes. That's fucking hard. You were on a show that had your name in the title.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. And then you walk in and you're like 23rd on the call sheet this morning and you can't wait to act.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
He's incredible. He's almost a Duvall. Like he's just alive there. And it's real.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And you have a lot of heavy lifting. You should see the list because you don't get sent screeners and get told what's embargoed. But the list of things I can't say is comical. I've never seen a list so long.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But I think we can say from the get go, you and Ray Romano are married. You're empty nesters and you're going to sell this terrific house. It's a very L.A. story because this has happened to a lot of people where you accidentally end up with a house that's worth like five million dollars. And they're in this situation. And they're going to sell the house. And it's a great device.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You meet all these characters that are coming in to tour the house. And they all want it. And by the way, the house is so great. It made me want the house so bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But you have heavy lifting without giving anything away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's my favorite kind of story or it's unraveling. You're just two people selling a house. You're having a great. Then this weird thing happens and this happens and this happened. These people are weird. And all this stuff is getting kind of peeled back in every episode. You're like, oh, OK. But first and foremost, and this is the thing I was saying about you living in your house for so long.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I can really relate to, without knowing anything else, just the notion of handing over this place that has given you almost all of your most beautiful memories is such a bizarre notion. When I think about our own house right now and like all the memories we're having with these little kids, it's a very weird thing to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Also, what you think you're buying is a teleport device. Back to those fun memories. I discovered this in the weirdest way with Nintendo. So I had Nintendo in seventh grade. It's the only year I ever played video games. I had such a fun year with my friends playing these new video games. And then as an adult, eBay came around. And I was like, oh, I could get a Nintendo and all those old games.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And I ordered all the stuff and it came and I hooked it up to my TV. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't giving me anything. And I realized it's not the game I missed. It's seventh grade I miss. It's like my friends and I doing the thing. And I think I can get it back by having this object.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, let's back all the way up. Mom was a real estate agent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
What does he sound like? You must be able to do a great impersonation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
My only regret in life sexually is that I didn't make love to a French woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Cause I have a whole, no, I think this is worth exploring.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Listen, I am so sorry. I'm sorry. This was really too long.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay. And dad was a doctor and he specialized in headaches.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. We had David Schwimmer and I'll tell you our funny joke. He had to cancel because he had an ear infection and Robbie said he had Schwimmer's ear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But you're the best one. So we're glad to- No, I'm not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It was. Thank you so much for spending so much time with us. Everyone watch No Good Deed, 12, 12, 24. I know you don't care. Numerically, what could be better? 12 plus 12 is 24.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
What would that make him by training? Was it an internist?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Thank you. He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's got to let him have the facts. It's 11, 11.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, okay. Hold on. I really want to think on this. Did you have one?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I can only assume knowing that you ended up working with him for so long. Were you guys besties? Did you have a great relationship?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, wow. I want to know so bad. Don't you want to know?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Why is it that telling someone your wish would make it not come true? I know, but why? I don't know. What's the logic behind it, Monica?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Do you do multiple wishes in one minute or do you just do the one?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, my God. That's a great idea. I might switch to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Our first friend is here. This is very important. Maybe that's why I'm getting upset.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Let me ask you this. Do you want to tell me your wish? Is that another part of it? Like, I want to know it. My hunch is you want to tell me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
They're pretty... basic like my wishes are very similar to my prayers great hair great skin oh wonderful
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
he's bored he was telling us he's bored i said we need a new topic he should have a like some kind of button where he's back there he's like bar it's boring click does this mean we're recording or not uh i'm probably not audio oh i hope so because 11 11 so i mean i have a backup recording and theory should be working but on the computer it's not registering for some reason so interesting
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I feel like, Rob, your wish should have been that there was no technical problems.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Wouldn't it be such a sad wish for Rob? It's just, it's one of them. We were free to like want to ride a unicorn on a- That was yours? Snowcap mountain. And Rob's going to be like, please, no technical glitches.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, I got that wrong. Okay, sister and a brother. And you went to Vosser.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, mine, some of mine are- Work related? Often, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. Same. I guess you're right. Go ahead, Rob. Make your wishes about technical proficiency.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I bet the computer made a wish on 11-11, which is like, I wish I could stop computing. Oh. And then its wish came true. Then Rob was like, bullshit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
To be a boy. Oh, I forgot. Yeah, his wish is right on his sleeve. He wears his wish on his sleeve.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
How do you think he's... It's 11-11. Time to make my wish once again. I wish I was a boy. I never tire of making this wish.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
He's feeling a little uncomf with AI. Yes. And chat GPT and like meta glasses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Vassar. You made it fancier. I mean, it is fancy, but you made it really fancy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I'm excited for AI. They will be superior to me. I will seem so charming as if I'm a flawed human being.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, that's very, and that's an interesting take. Glass half full. Yeah, he's very optimistic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
He is. He'll seem like a clumsy dum-dum, which is very much what a boy is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It was nice. It was. We're shooting a commercial tomorrow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
We shot a commercial once before together a very long time ago for the city of Los Angeles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
The state of California or the city of Los Angeles. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
California tourism, I believe. And we were up at the observatory. Ding, ding, ding. I was going to tell you what I just did this morning, but that'll put on pause.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
What's your biggest memory from that California tourism shoot we did together?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, that's my number one memory. So we work with a guy all the time. Yeah. And he saw me in a new light. He saw you in a whole new light. He was so shook. It was hilarious. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, understandably, because especially up until that point, I was a little assistant running around in sweatpants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I was going to say you're in your pangaea phase or just prior.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Not really. I mean, when I would show up to the house, I'd look cute, but everyone saw me. You know, it's all very interesting, actually. This is psychologically interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
When I was an assistant, I liked fashion the same amount. That hasn't changed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But I think when I was an assistant, no one thought that or, you know, they were just like, oh, she's just like a little girl and she gets groceries and she eats chicken nuggets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
We don't have a status thing. If we see a hot woman, it's not like we're like, ooh, she's the janitor. We don't think that way. We just go, ooh, hot. I don't even think about it. I'm just like looking at them and I go either aruga.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
No, that's not even a cat call. Even the worst guy is not yelling out his window. Aruga!
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. Someone yelled at me the other day and I was, it's awful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I'm going to, this is a brag. I did yell at two guys. I was at a crosswalk and there were two dudes in a truck and this gal was at the corner and they started hustling and I got involved. Oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I'm not gonna, I don't like when I show that side of myself. You've seen that side of me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I was like, hey, motherfuckers, have some fucking, you know. Respect? Some respect. Yeah, have some manners. Shut the fuck, like I, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Tell me more. Like I'm a human being who's attracted to people. It's just what you do with that attraction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And that's why I've chosen Aruga because I feel like that is a playful, cartoony way. You're right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Now if I went, that's rough. That says I have a boner. The other one says I have an old timey horn somewhere on me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
No, no, no. I was exercising. Someone else was in exercise outfit. These two guys were letting it rip.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I didn't think that was cool, but I am making a decision in that moment. There's two guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
They might hop out of the truck. So I got it. Like there's a lot of thin slicing going on. I'm like, I'm going to tell these guys, shut the fuck up. This is crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
There's two of them. They're a light. Maybe they're going to get out. Okay, I guess I'm up for that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's the part I don't like because I don't want you to get injured. Right. But I also like that you protected.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, you're getting nervous because it's such an honor and you're afraid I'm going to anger our lovely guest, Lisa Kudrow. You can't. She's a groundling improv genius. She knows how to party and get down and play.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
This is the problem with life in the world and the planet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's a messy fucking place. Sometimes a bad decision is mildly better than the other thing that's correct.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
What do you mean by that? Like the Kennedy type people who partied and had yachts and stuff?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yes, that's right. That's true. Yeah, one of the biggest memories I have in my life is,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's also funny, though, because I was wearing like a very sparkly dress, kind of like a ridiculous looking dress. I didn't pick it. And so for that to be the thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, well, you can see this, though. Yeah. Do you think your dress, and now it's changed to yet again, but do you think your dress evolved from when we first met you? Because I think it did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's what I'm trying to say. I mean, look, in some ways, yes, because my financial situation has changed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I think you felt more comfortable being who you are, what you have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
See, now that's what I'm saying. Then it pivoted again. Now you're like, I'm in a sleeping bag.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. I don't know. But I just I mean, he had never seen me in a dress and then he'd also never seen me in full glam. That was also probably part of it. I was in heels. It was a look. But that was a fun commercial.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, that was funny. OK, but I'm glad we had the same memory of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And then you, of course, repeat, you passed along the compliment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. And I think you mentioned it a few times. And so that was my last.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I really wanted to sink in. Yeah. I'm going to add Kristen's a handsome man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay, but a memory I have, I was at a light. I think I've talked about this before, but I was at a light. It was red. It had a no turn on red sign.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And there was someone behind me and he was honking. And I was not going to move.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, but it was getting like aggressive. And then there was a man on the street.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And he like looked at the guy and was like, it's not, it's not, she can't go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. We have a diminished role in this world. But one of the roles is to keep the younger cuckoo versions of ourselves in check out in public. They want to freak out in their house like Tonka. Go nuts. But when you enter society, you got to tighten it up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. I think that is a good thing for men to do for other men.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. Yeah. OK. Now, the reason I was just at the observatory.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I'm trying. This is a New Year's resolution that I started last week.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I want to be able to ride my bicycle, my cute road bike I told you about that's green and yellow. A lot of people ask me to post pictures and I need to. So I did it for the first time, I guess, four days ago on the break. I rode from here and my thought was I'm going to ride as far up the hill as I can get.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You know, it twists all around and then how you would drive to the observatory.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And my hunch was like, when you leave the house, it's immediately incline up the side street and then up Ferndale. When you get to the stop sign, I'm like, I already know when you're hiking, you're winded by the time you get there. So I'm like, maybe I'll get to the stop sign. Then maybe next time I'll get to the first turn and so on and so on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, on my trip last week, I got all the way to the final stretch, like maybe a block. I did have to get off and walk the last like half block or block up to the very top.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
My thighs were... as dense as like a microwave. They've never been that inflated with blood or whatever was going on. They were just so pumped up. Wow. So I did that. And then this morning, I'm like, I'm going to do it again. So I did it again this morning and I didn't have to walk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. I was kind of shocked with just one trip up because the first trip up was bonkers. This trip up was good. It was a hard workout, but my legs didn't get like locked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
The first person to climb Everest on a bicycle, on a road bike.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Thank you. Oh, I brought it up. Not just, I didn't bring it up to brag, but I also brought it up because the most insane thing was happening on the entire trip up this morning. It was an SNL sketch and it wouldn't fucking stop for 25 minutes. So I'm huffing up the hill. I'm in the highest gear. I'm like, ah. And I have headphones in. I'm listening to stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And I hear something just to the left of me a little bit. And I like, look. And it's like, it's really close. It's a dude with dreadlocks and a backpack. And he's on an electric fucking scooter. And we're going roughly the same speed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's maddening. Being next to a dude on a scooter. He goes ahead of me. Now he's ahead of me. Then he gets to a stop sign. And I think he maybe had to put more money on the scooter. Because now he's got his phone out. And I think he didn't have cell service. Whatever. I then pass him. I'm now riding. I forget about him. 12 minutes later, I hear something. I look over. He's like,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, my fucking God. And I don't have it in me to go faster.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's there's something that was so invasive. Well, it was the awkwardness of it. But then it was also the humiliation of a guy in this little scooter passing me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It was all female when you went there? No. When did it switch to co-ed? 1969. Perfect year for that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Imagine you see a guy taking a nap passing you on your hike. Like, it just felt like that. Like, how is this guy and I doing the same thing? Yeah. We passed in, I bet, five times. Did he pass me right at, he passed me at entering the parking lot to the observatory. He did win. Wow. Yeah. But it was comical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
This reminds me, fights, bikes, running. Remember earlier this year, my running situation with the dogs and the people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yes. Now, I drove by the other day. Okay. Let me see what I can find.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
There's now a sign up that says, no dog walking, private property.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
No, I didn't. But that would have been a good move. But also, it goes to show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You weren't the only person inconvenienced by that. Correct. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
They were just there. That's not even their house. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I guess if I was being generous, I thought maybe one of them, that was their area.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. That was a thing that happened when we used to live on Los Feliz Boulevard. I would come out and someone just be having like a picnic on the front yard. They'd have a blanket out. They might be asleep. Sure. It's interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay. I do want, I have an update sort of. Okay. Not really. And I wasn't really going to say this, but I am. A couple fact checks ago, we talked about a dream I had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Let's be, let's like make it so clear. That I was talking about a dream.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay. And when you went there, you majored in biology. I presume you were going to be on a medical track.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I got a very disgusting email from somebody. Also, like, do not email me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
The less emails I get in general, the better. But this random person emailed me and said... I think you should read it. The subject is, geez, dot, dot, dot, be an adult, exclamation point, exclamation point. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Then it just says... Really quick, just already, I want to have a grievance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
This is the definition of being an adult. When you're a kid, you don't even think about this. This is exclusively for adults. So just right there, problem number one, continue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. She said, go to your doctor and convey- Hold on. I know it's a woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I know. Oh. And I'm interrupting you too much, but you already have a look on your face, which I love. When you're reading it, you're her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. I say, so you're like this. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay. Go to your doctor and convey your concerns. Instead of making your personal hygiene issues a problem for your audience. You never cease to amaze me, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. You are such a constant child. Not go to a doctor because you know better, MD after your name, God, but you're tedious. Okay, so none of that makes any sense and it's really mean.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But let's just, let's treat this as if it's a real piece of advice. I want to give this person a day in court. So what she or he, she is requesting is that you go to your doctor and you say, I had a dream. My vagina smelled bad. He's going to go see a psychologist. Why are you here? Does your vagina smell? I don't think so. I had a nightmare that it did. And the love of my life was put off by it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's what she wants you to do is go to the doctor and tell him you had a dream about your vagina.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And I'm going to start going to doctors to tell them about my dreams.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. I mean, I'm so tedious. Also, why do you listen? Go away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
No, I 100% stand by that. If you're the type of person who's going to send an email like that, I prefer you do not listen to this show or me or engage with me ever again. I understand. You actually don't have permission.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, which is like people, I'm one of them. I used to kind of hate listen to Rush Limbaugh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
People hate listened to Howard Stern. Like they just, they wanted to hear what he said so they could be mad about it and they could go to work and they could talk about what a misogynist piggy was. And it was like, it was their hobby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
He still got those ratings. They still had to listen to his message. Some of it definitely sunk in. So I don't mind. I don't mind. I don't mind if you're like you're an incel listening that's hating me. That's great. Keep listening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I understand you. I get I get what you're saying. And I get what you're saying. I know. No, thanks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You don't get to or you do get to because it's a public show. So you can do whatever you want. But like the idea that you opened an email. I mean, I I didn't understand half of what that meant. So I think this person is unhinged.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
They're probably. Yeah, they're probably got a lot of stuff going on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, it's so ridiculous and silly and stupid. Like, it's mostly just embarrassing. That email is so embarrassing. If I sent that email to the host of a podcast and didn't want to accept she was talking about a dream, it's just it's embarrassing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But even not just the part about the go to the doctor, like you're tedious. You never cease to amaze me. You're a child.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, again, that to me confirms. So she has a story about you, which was at the end of the email. Her story about you is that you're tedious. And so anything you say is going to be tedious. So the fact that you said you had a dream. That has to be tedious because her story about you is that you're tedious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And so she's backed herself into this crazy corner where what she's saying doesn't even make sense. Go see a doctor about your dream. It's so, I mean, it's such a stupid email.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. It's mean, but mostly it's stupid. Let's go into the psychology of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
This really doesn't work because I already... I think the story part is really relevant, but my hunch is she has something going on vaginally. Why is that such a hot, like, why did that trigger her so much?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, I think it triggered people. I got a few nice responses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, that's nice. But I mean, I like a person in my life reached out and said, oh, I use this. And I was like, it was a dream. Like I freaked out and they were like, oh, sorry. Oh, but then. I know. And I was like, no, no, I know. I'm sorry. I was like, I got a bad email and I guess I think everyone thinks that. And I wasn't I actually don't think that about myself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I could be wrong because that's, again, the fear. But the dream was a fear about being unlovable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's right. Fundamentally flawed. Like, okay, he passed. Somehow I fooled him with this and I fooled him with this. But eventually the truth will be discovered. And the last thing that he didn't have access to that he finally discovered was, of course, The deal breaker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You went to the same high school. What was it, Taft? What was it called?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. It's just a metaphor for like, I'm not good enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And it turns out there are a lot of products on the market.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Are they oral or are they, you put them in you? Oral. Oral.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, I think it's like prebiotics are supposed to be helpful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
No, it's at the same time. What? How could I be the one telling you this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, they don't think you're tedious. They think I am.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, even let's take her out of it. I think there are many people that would clutch their pearls when you're talking about a vagina in public. And I think that's crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Like, get real. And I don't think it's... And it's not dudes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Because I think what makes sense is like it's a fear. So when you're talking about it, like God knows what it is. Like she shouldn't say that. I would never say it. Like you're doing something that scares the fuck out of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yes. So that makes sense. And then maybe if anyone was going to have an issue with my erectile dysfunction conversation, it was a dream. It would probably be a guy. Like, dude, shut the fuck up. No one wants to hear about your limp dick. It would probably be a guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I get this, by the way, if I can own one of the worst parts of me. I was thinking in terms of, in fact, I just, I think I saw the person driving and I was like, what is my problem with this person? Why don't I, what is my issue with this person? And it is that they present so fragile and vulnerable and weak.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And when I see them moving through the world that way, it gives me this deep pain. I just can't imagine presenting this way. I would just be so afraid everyone was going to take advantage of me and harm me. So like my own stuff, I can't even handle when someone's like just presents as crazy fragile. It's really.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It triggers my fear of myself presenting that way. And.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I think some element of homophobia is in there as well, which is like, you're a young boy and I get, I'm only going to speak for my generation. And we just had a guest on yesterday. We talked about the power of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And I want to add like, yeah, there'll be straight guys like me or this guest we had talking about having been molested and the implications that you're gay and you feel gay and then you'd be dead. Like your whole school, you'd be dead. But I think some element of homophobia for some guys is it's not even maybe that they hate that two guys are going to hook up in their house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's that when they see them presenting as gay, they imagine like, oh, my God, that's what I've been trying to avoid my whole childhood to be masculine and butch and tough. And it scares them. Like, to see it scares them. Like, fuck, if I was acting this way, I would be so called out and, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
That's probably true. When people are themselves, a lot of people find that very threatening. Yeah. Or maybe there's like a deep jealousy because they are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yes. I'm disappointed you didn't know he went there because I was under the assumption he lived in Compton. Their hit song was straight out of Compton. But he's going to school with you out in Woodland Hills.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
They're holding in their true selves because they've told themselves, if I show my true self, I'll be excluded. And now here's this person showing their true selves and they're not being excluded. They're being embraced. It's like very threatening to your core.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yep. It shouldn't be that way because I know if I did that, I would be excluded. So why is this person getting away with it? It's like, why are they getting to do something that I'm not allowed to do? And then, yeah, I think that's what's going on a lot of the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
When people walk around with a victim complex. Right. I am so disturbed by it. Yeah. I also I find it annoying because I guess I feel like you're not everyone like everyone has issues. Just stop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
She was awesome. I love Lisa Kudrow. Me too. Well, that's our guest, Lisa Kudrow. I said it seven times. She's an award-winning actor, a producer, friends, da, da, da, da, friends. The comeback, Romy and Michelle's high school reunion, web therapy. I was on that. Who do you think you are? And okay, her new show, I say from the bottom of my heart, is delicious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Like the world is not conspiring against you any more than it's conspiring against.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Granted, there are classes where if you're a black female.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Victims don't trigger me. People who walk around with the victim complex. That's a different thing. That's like everything is they're a victim or the world is doing this to them or they like they can't figure it out. And it's everyone else's problem.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's like when they've clearly fucked up and they clearly owe someone an apology. They figure out how they're the victim and now they just switch their story to how they've been victimized.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
There's a lot of people who are very quick to be the victim in this world. Yeah. And yeah, I'm not talking about real victims. Yeah. And I find it so off-putting. I don't know. I don't really know what it is, why it's so... Well, for one, it's contagious. There's that. I think there's something about walking around like that and being so negative and all this is happening to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Maybe. I don't know. What's his name before it was E-Z-E? That might help us here. I know. What if I go, oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's hard to be around that and maintain a level of happiness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I wonder if there's something for you in the fact that like you were presented a fork in the road as a little kid. And you could have gone home every day and told your mom, no one likes me because I'm brown.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I was thinking that, and I thought it sounded a little arrogant. But I do think that's what it is, is there's a part of me, and this isn't necessarily fair, but there's a part of me that thinks, I figured it out, so can you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Again, not to everyone and not to people who are victimized. Sure. These are people who are victims in their brain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
There is a way to look at the world differently. And I know it from experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, exactly. I slept with him in 11th grade. Eric W. Wright.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I think for me, mine is ultimately incredibly self-centered because it's really just my irritation or fear that I would present that way. It just seems so unattractive that when I'm around it, I just can't stop thinking about how much I would hate to be presenting this way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. I mean, it's just a buzzkill to be around that all the time and to feel like you have to be constantly- Lifting up. Lifting somebody up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And we all- do this, right? Like we all need to vent. We all have moments where we feel like a victim and we're not, I mean, all of us, it's not, but for some people, it's a way of looking at the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I wonder if what could be helpful. Cause I think this is one of the, um, one of my favorite AA things, which is like learning in the fourth step, I believe, um, that self-aggrandizement and self-pity are the same level of narcissism.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Right. So I think once I really accepted that and believe that concept, for me to be doing the self-pity thing, I feel as bad as I would be talking about that I'm God's gift to this planet. And so I'm just like, oh yeah, that's the same level of self-indulgence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Jagers. Clean as a whistle. Don't be scared. Don't be scared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You ever smelt a Springfield, Jagers? You ever smelt a warm apple pie coming out of the oven, Jagers? Because that's what you're getting into when you pull them slacks down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
What a dream. What a gift. What a blessing. A Christmas miracle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
My new over indexed is blessing. You probably noticed it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You were a smarty pants? Like, what was your strata in that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But I like what that means if you do believe God's involved. Sure. Like I understand what it means and I like that meaning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Like this is otherworldly. This is really a special treat. So I say it a lot and I do wonder if it's confusing to people who know my stance on religion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I'm wearing a very fuzzy sweater and somehow it just migrated into my mouth, I think. Or I don't know if it's psychosomatic because I can see the little frizzies. I'm like, pfft, pfft, pfft. Is this in my pfft? Oh my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Wait, add some to the bag. Oh, no, that's only Harry. I'm sorry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
By the way, we're due for, I think today we're doing another of Harvest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay. Lisa, this was such a long time coming. Our first friend. I was so grateful. I did feel like I fucked it up a little bit. There's no way to really convey. the meaning of her here. And so I was kind of put in the position to try. And so I said, I think I said, there's nothing I can really say, but I wish I could have. I wish I could have articulated it, but I can't. It's a blessing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I don't know. There's just not, there aren't words in the English language.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I wonder if Lisa's thing, there's a myriad of reasons why that's hard to accept.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And let's be honest, like a lot of people feel that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Right. So it's like even the most grounded person at some point would come to expect that that's the effect it had on people because you've heard that a million times. So I think you're trying to elevate what you want to do is give this person who's very nice. I just met Monica Padman. I want her to know that I've received it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Because really now I'm doing something for you, which is interesting because the goal is you want to do something for her, right? You want to tell her, I really am grateful for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. Like, I'm just personally grateful that on this trip you were in my sphere and you just gave me so much relief and happiness. All right. But I do think that maybe she's in a position where she's got to act like it's the first time she's ever heard that or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Maybe. I mean, I'm not going to do that. Like, that's not my job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
To worry about worry about the way she's going to receive it. I'm not going to play that game.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But I I am anymore. Maybe at one point in my life I would have. But whatever. I can't. But I I just I do feel what you're saying. There is nothing new I can say to her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
To be clear, I don't think you should have not done that just because of whatever her reaction is. I think it's good for you to be able to express your gratitude for the people that you have gratitude for.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Me too. But I guess that's where it gets heady. It's like, I want to be able to tell her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And you should. Accurately. But I can't tell her accurately because I don't have, I really do not have the physical words to do so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You'd have to open your chest and invite her into your heart and let her feel what it felt like and then release her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
There's no way. So everything you say just starts falling, is sounding dumb and trite and falling short. And it's just like, what's the point of any of this anyway? And she hears it all the time. And is it for her? Like, is it for her or is it for me?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I think it'd be crazy if you didn't tell people how much you appreciate them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And their reaction is their reaction. I just enjoy imagining what her reaction is or what she's going through. But in no way am I suggesting you shouldn't. I think you should do that always.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. I mean, this happened with Matt Damon too. Same thing. It's like, sure, I can sit here and we can... Talk about the camping trip and that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
We can do it, but it's never going to... Well, here's a darker examination of it. Is part of the frustration, because this is part of mine, is like, I know, Letterman, you've heard from people that they like your show. But you need to understand that I like it on another level. There's none of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's not a competition thing. It's not... I know, but you really don't understand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
See, I have a tiny bit of that. I'm like a lot of people laughed at your show, but I'm like, oh, I can be who I am because you exist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, yeah, that's, but that's right. But that's, I think other people had that too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. Adam Scott had that. Kimmel had that. Most people I know actually had it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I don't think I'm a special case, but I. I want to be a special case though.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. Everyone wants to be a special case. I would just want to be a special case in life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Everyone is a special case. They are. Everyone is, except that lady. Well, she's special, I guess. She's great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
She wants you to go to the doctor and tell him about a dream.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I do think your sweater's everywhere. It is. I might have to table this guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I have two of these. This is a part of my wastefulness. Luckily, I don't shop often, but I don't ever go to a store.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I got an XL out of the gates and I was like, too big. That's a skirt. Might be a great skirt for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But then longer. Okay. And then you put like a belt around it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You'll be wearing my extra large version of this. It'll be fucking, oh, we'll both wear it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It'll look like it's snowing. Oh my God, there really is shit flying everywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah, it's all right. Okay, now a few facts for her. Was Vassar the first women's college to offer science? No. The first women's college to offer science was the Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York, which is now Emma Willard School.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
She said it opened in 1861. It was founded in 1861, but it opened in 1865. It opened its doors in 1865.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
So we're guessing then that it got founded so it could get funded and then it took four or five years to build.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Oh, my God. Yeah. I know. Yeah. I mean, I'm not surprised. I don't think you – I really – maybe this is –
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You can't be a great comedian and not be pretty bright.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. I mean, you can have done terrible in school, but you got to be bright.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yes. Yeah. It's the timing. There's a math happening in your brain at all times when you're really performing comedy well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And there's a verbal dexterity to reconstructing these things in a manner that is funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Tell me. Now, Eazy-E went to three different high schools. He went to Compton High School.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
And Taft High School, which is where she went. But he dropped out in 10th grade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay. How tall is Ray Romano, 6'2", according to the internet?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You know, Feliz Navidad. It's with the girls decorating the tree. Kristen's out of town, so it's just the three of us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Los Feliz Dad. I go, girls, you listen to a song about me. Los Feliz Dad. Da da da. Da da da. Los Feliz Dad. Oh my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
It's going to end my life. Like when they're 15 and 17 and I sing a Los Feliz dad and they're like, fuck this guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
If that all happens, I'll just, and they go, what the fuck is this guy doing? I'll just walk down into the basement and I'll just stay there until my life's over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I think sometimes it's rough being tall when you're a girl in high school and boys are like 5'4". They haven't grown. It can be hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I'll stand in the middle of the basement. What happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
What the fuck am I going to do? Listen, kids, can you prepare yourself a little bit that kids do grow up and- And I'm not cool anymore? Eye roll a little bit. Yeah. But it's loving. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. I think it might prevent me from going down the road that many comedians do, which is like they just get less funny. Okay. But I'm going to be working my ass off. You want to stick with the tie. Well, I got to keep these girls laughing. That's my priority.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Well, that means you can't be doing comedy from 2024 in 10 years. You got to be like, that's not funny anymore to these people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Okay, you said impermeable border about the house and you didn't know if you said it right. Impermeable means not allowing fluid to pass through, not liable to be affected by pain or distress. Okay, does your right hemisphere control your left hand? Yes. Are cluster headaches due to damage to the hypothalamus? Yes, it's related. Are migraines worse for girls? Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Hemolygic migraines, are they still called that? Hemolygic? Yes. She knew a lot. She made a little misstep with that science thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
They were the first women's college to lie about being the first to offer science.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
So that was her. And it was really just very. She's a blessing. She really is a blessing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You and I are built for each other to be in a scene together. I'll make you look like tiny little girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
She is. You can believe in the word blessing without believing in God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I know. I worry that people who truly believe in blessings coming down from God, that they might think it's a joke. It's not. And it's not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
No, I'm sincere about it. And I think they would be fine with it so long as they agreed it was a blessing. If I say the Big Mac's a blessing, although I think it is. Look at it, man. It arrived in the 50s and it's still here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
All right. And I'm just going to end on reminding everyone that it was a dream.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Love you. Okay. Okay. Okay. My God. Good night. I love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
This is a phenomenon. I've noticed it elsewhere, right? I remember the first time I met Andy Richter in real life. And I went, what? You're 6'3?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
He and I are the same height. Definitely 5'5. Right. For sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Yeah. With heels. And that can happen. Yeah, Brad Garrett is a monster. So Ray Romano.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
But Ray was on Parenthood, so I'm hip to the fact that he's probably 6'1 or 2 or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
You just added one. Did you feel self-conscious that it was only three? Now you just made it four real time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
I've been to one with you. I doubt you remember, but I've been to one with you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Lisa Kudrow
Was he? I wasn't hip enough yet to have known who Jim Burroughs was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by the Duchess of Duluth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And they were casting locally. Whoever was managing that show had a lot on their plate. We have 13 shows and you got to find a ghost choir in every city. A children's ghost choir. Good luck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
When they divorced, did dad just keep going with the business and she just left the business?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
This is an incredible amount to be happening at once for dad. If he's losing this business he's had for a very long time, that's stable. And his wife he's had for a long time. And then now his daughter's moving down to Burbank.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, please enjoy Dove Cameron. What are bloomers, guys?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, there's an interesting thing at play. And Kristen and I have this too. It could go wrong. It's gone well. But when you're both locked into somebody because you have a kid and you're locked into them professionally, I think that's an interesting dynamic to navigate because you're kind of like, I'm not sure how much of this I'm picking as much as now. I just am locked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
We have these two commitments together and that can be hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Did dad have some mental health stuff? Did he have depression?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, if I was your mom, I was like, Oh, it can go this way. I'm not going to be around for this version.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I think it's all getting reframed. But whereas that stuff used to cause shame now, I think it's more a testament to bravery and resilience. Like all these stories for me, they're empowering. They're not shame inducing. They're like, oh, fuck, yeah, these humans live through this. That's rad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Who are also fucked up. They got some shit going on next door.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. So you could have that goal, but it's not even going to work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I definitely border on overshare. Me too. I would love to just make that selection right out of the gates. That's totally great if that's not your jam. But there's no way I can talk about your job for two hours at dinner. I got to talk about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So when you got down to Burbank, did you get a wave of, oh, it's a little less intense here and this is nice?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
We have a friend that graduated from there. Yeah, we're kind of familiar with the vibe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
He was also a show choir person. So was I. I know you're a national champion, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
What makes it show choir? I'm a Philistine. I just know the word choir.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, it's a powerful AMC. There's like a couple hundred screens there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I'm like, this is San Fernando. It's about as American. I always say to people who are not from here, if there is a Midwest of LA, it's Burbank.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It's a New York Times puzzle, and it has 16 words, and you have to put those words into four groups so they're associated. It's increasing hardness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It's a lot of trades people that live there that are crew members, they're lighters, they're gaffers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Remember who you are. Okay, so you're going to Burbank High and then you're starting to audition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Then you get this pilot, bits and pieces. Okay, research. And you shoot bits and pieces. And then what happens during the filming of bits and pieces?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Okay, you would get the first four, you'd be like, oh, day. That's easy. But then it gets hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Right. You're trying to be older. We already like the compliment. We're mature.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
You're not trying to get on a kid's show. You're trying to be in true grip.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
When you were doing that, did it come with some discomfort? Were you like, I hate who I am being right now? Or you were like, oh no, this is fun to be this too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
What's happening with your teeth? I'm already jealous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. That's cool. You're very cool. I've been circling. I want a gold tooth cap. I have a girlfriend who has a gold tooth cap and it is so cute. Can you connect me with her gold capist? Absolutely. Oh my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it way more work if you're playing twins or no?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So it was huge. Live and Many comes out and it gets 5.8 million viewers. And that's the most viewers Disney had gotten in two and a half years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I didn't know any of this. Yeah, so it's like hugely successful. And you do four seasons? Yeah. What was it like to have overnight fandom from young people?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And one great and one terrible. And I'd imagine I would feel guilty enjoying the great thing because this other thing happened. I just imagine tension between those two things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, I bet when you get there and you don't think about the fact that your dad has died for 11 hours and then you get off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, the most heartbreaking part, it would seem to me, is that you at least had the fantasy at all times. This will get repaired one day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I keep trying. But one day he's going to be feeling better and I can get it repaired. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
No. And then they go, oh, God, yeah, I'm not going to be able to repair that is really sad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And no one thought to tell me. No one thought to tell me. I've gotten brattier over the years, more protective of myself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
That was an incredible episode. One of these, I say they pop up like every 15th. where one so moving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It happens when I do stuff with Kristen. They'll blocked it where they want me on her left side. And we're like, no, we don't do that. I'm always on her right side. And then Monica and I do stuff, too. And it's like, I'm so sorry, but I got to be on her right side.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Or we could just like prom. We would always do profile.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
,,,,,,,. P P P P P P 19 PD.G.G.G,G,G,G,G,G,G,G, , ,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , in Laboratory force a
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, you're the product in this domain and in a movie, the movie's the product.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Is it weird? Like you won Best New Artist MTV Video Music Award in 2022 and you won New Artist of the Year American Music Awards in 2022. You've been singing for 10 years. Is that weird?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
You made it just enough of your own to do it, but it wasn't your own.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Bingo. I've been playing that out for years now. Almost cartoonish, the proportions of the eyes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And she goes, oh, you're interviewing Dove today? And I said, yeah. Are you hip to Dove? And she's like, well, yeah. I watch all the Descendants with the girls. And then her song Boyfriend's awesome. And she was telling me all about it. And I'm like, oh, this is interesting. This hit her radar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Before you, this didn't exist. And after you, this exists.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
My fear would be, oh, people are going to think this is opportunistic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And Dove just ding, ding, ding. Last night, we were with Rob, who you just met, his little boy, Vinny. Is Vinny a little person, Rob? He's 4% size.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I guess that's what I'm wondering. When does that paradigm start or it doesn't really need to be declared? Not that I care. I'm not like someone's like, why do you got to tell me? That's not what I'm saying. It's just like, when will it not even be interesting to anybody?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
He's really small. He's so tiny. And his eyeballs are the size of ping pong balls. And we were eating dinner with him last night, and I was like, this ratio of eyeballs to face size is the most appealing thing I've ever seen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, that's the erroneous assumption is that there would be some kind of unified harmony among a group of people because they have a single thing in common. It's like, well, no, it's just like one element of who they are. They're from every socioeconomic bracket. They're from every ethnicity. They're from every type of trauma background.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, yeah. Well, just six years prior to you being on that show, they're asking 17 year old Britney Spears if she's had a breast augmentation in the middle of a six year old. Or if she's still a virgin. Yeah, everyone's asking her. It's so crazy. You're still a virgin?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. OK, so now you're releasing more signals. You did. I'm afraid to say it. Is it alchemical?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
No, some completely different name, Volume 1. And just your thing is you call everything Volume 1.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And that kind of right sizes the ship because his son sexually verbally assaulted my 11 year old last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I'm just trying to balance it in her defense. He's a baby Vinny and he's talking to Lincoln. He loves Lincoln, our daughter. Look at that little fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Right. That's why you're going to release a new album called Volume 1. And then you'll get depressed again. It's life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
But you're having tons of success with now your happy falling in love song.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
In going through all the dad stuff, I mean, here's what I would hope for you. Did you come to accept, oh no, he most definitely loved me like crazy. And he most definitely had a lot of conditions that had nothing to do with me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
He's talking to my 11-year-old, and he goes, I like your hair and your body, and I like your butt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
You're trying to control the environment they're in so the bad thing doesn't set off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, you don't say that, Vinny. Oh, you said that? He's three? He didn't know what he was saying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, one thing I read that you said about him, which I thought was really neat, is there seems to be an embrace of a dual masculinity, femininity that maybe is Italian. Maybe it's just the group that you're surrounded by, but that they seem to have a great comfort in being both sides.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
He had already complimented her earrings, and now he was just moving on to anything he could think of. So hair, body, butt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
To sit down with a stranger and like have a very special, intimate exchange. Yeah, lucky as hell. It's so nice. Dove Cameron. By the way, when I came in after this and I'm talking to the girls brushing their teeth, they don't ever care who I, you know, sat with that day. And I said, oh, man, I had a great interview with this actor, Dove Cameron. And they flipped out. They couldn't believe it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Very few guys are secure enough to let you be a supernova and not be afraid they're going to lose you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
He's okay. He's good. He's good. He's a good guy. He's a bikini.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
My best friend Aaron and I at times talk like mafioso. And we just thought, what if one of the family's last name was bikini? But they had to sell it. It's like, don't worry, he's with us. He's bikini. He's bikini. It's just funny you say the word bikini like it's tough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
This place is full of bikinis. The whole block is fucking bikinis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
The guy serving you a dish? Bikini. They're everywhere. Watch your mouth. So stupid. I want to make sure I'm plugging the right thing. Too much. Too much. Too much. Too much. You said it first. Great song. Watch the video. Great video.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Tell me what's coming this year. Too Much is in charge right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, Dove slash Chloe. Your friends call you Chloe. Your work associates call you Dove. Dove was her dad's nickname for her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
This has been really one of my faves. This was so fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, I love if I get a cry-in in an episode. Me too, honestly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, the father-daughter stuff's a real cheap shot. So pretty high odds of getting some tears out of me. But this was incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, I really, really enjoyed this. You're wonderful. You deserve everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
The listener viewer will see me at some point in the near future with a gold tooth and we will have you to thank.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong. Hello. Happy fact check.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Now, clearly you must be seeing the litany of ADHD messages on Instagram, like posts. Have you noticed this like tidal wave of, I don't know if it's my algorithm or everyone's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Right. Yeah. Which normally is one second ago. Sure. Right. But I went to Disneyland.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
All day Friday. Went there Thursday night. Then flew crack ass to Austin on Saturday. Went to a sprint race, waved a checkered flag.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Then went to the race on Sunday. Yes. Walked another 10 miles. Then Monday went to the track and rode all day. Then flew back last night. So I feel like we haven't worked in three weeks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, wow. Did you discover that in your leisure time? Yeah. A new brand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
One thing that I saw was someone saying ADHD people always have like three drinks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, okay. Yeah, well, yours is browns. I think that's for people that are white probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
That's cool. As long as you say like, I got it, I got careless with a knife and stabbed myself. If there's some kind of cool reason. Cool twist on it. Yeah. Raccoon scratched you. Okay. Yeah. Dog bite. But yeah, I had something removed and I have a Band-Aid. I know. Or this is a wart removal. I don't think it's a wart. I think it would be a... Hypoplasia. Cancer. Hyperplasia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And you don't want to ruin one of your trips because I was going to say you could have it done right before spring break.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. Well, I don't think you would need to supplement your hair. You have plenty to pull it in front of your band-aid. Oh, like this? What was it the time you did pull your hair as much as you could? Because you had a chemical peel? In front? Remember? And we had a hot guest. Oh, it was Chris Pine, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It was herbal. And there was just like an oval slit in the middle of your face. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And what is that version of Monica like? Likes baseball games?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
By the way, the look you just gave, a woman gave me in a restaurant on Monday night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I was walking from the bathroom and I like caught eyes with this woman and this man. And like, she was just like looking at me straight. And I was just kind of looking at her back straight. And then all of a sudden she went, like gave me a real weird eye roll. And I was like, that was weird.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, no, no, no, no. It's... It was great. It's Mediterranean. It's right under the Soho house. It was very.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
R-A-B or R-I-P. It's not it. I think there's an A in it. A-R-B or.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yes. And then a very funny thing happened, which was I hung out with my friends, Amy and Rory, the whole time. Rory and I went to the both races together. And what's so nice is he lends me one of his cars while I'm in town. Yeah. He did the last time. It's a very nice car. Yes. When we were there for Unboxed, he also lent it to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And I find that to be one of the most touching things imaginable just because I'm super into cars. Yeah. And I do not like loaning my cars out. Yes. And it's a very, very nice car. Very nice. It's a Bentley Speed. It's crazy. Like it's a car I wouldn't personally. Loan out. Yeah, or by myself, you know, it's so nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And I was nervous. I did again. You did? Uh-huh. Anyways, I love it. I feel so fancy driving around Austin in it. And it really touches me. So we went out to eat on Saturday with his dad and his stepmom and Angie. And I was there for, oh, Lambert's, our spot. So I had put my credit card down. I gave it to him as soon as I got there and I was there before them. So the bill comes, I pay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Exactly. I knew I was going to eat like an asshole and I did. And so what was really funny was he said, okay, tomorrow night I'm paying. And I said, okay, well, we'll see. And then he texts me in the day. If you don't let me pay, I'm not loaning you my car anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And I said, really good leverage. I'm definitely going to let you pay because I want to borrow your car. And then he decided last minute, I'm going to stay home with the kids. Just Ange is coming. But you must let Ange buy. I was like, okay. Okay. So we have this dinner. It's spectacular. There's a woman with a huge group of people. They're all from Minnesota.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
The manager comes over and says, this woman has bought your dinner and sent over a dessert. Oh my gosh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So I was like, oh my God, Ange, I can't wait for you to go home and say you still, you didn't get to buy, even though I agreed. I didn't buy, but nor did they.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I, too, was there. Not on that trip. But my best friend who's visiting right now brought his, at the time, 11-year-old son. And he was obsessed with that show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Two things are happening for me. And it's a challenge. One is it was pointed out to me by Tom Hanson, a very smart man who I think learned from a therapist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, he's like, you have to, relationships have to be reciprocal. Yes. And that's true. I get that. And it's just a bummer that it has to be seen as reciprocal just financially.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yes. And I'm like, do you have a dream thing to witness? And he was like, Liv and Maddie. So I figured out how to get us in there so he could watch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Because here's my dilemma. So I get it. Yeah. People want to, well, A, they want to treat you and they want to reciprocate, but- I have an ethical dilemma with it, which is like, I get paid too much money. Yeah. It seems crazy that of the two of us, you're working your ass off. That's not to say that that's Rory and Angie's situation. No, no, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Just in general, if it's- Everyone's working hard. Everyone's working hard. And if it's a lot less of a ding to me, I just feel ethically like this feels crazy. The example I gave my mom, because my mom tries to pay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I said, mom, just imagine we're walking through the desert and you were allotted a half gallon of water and I was allotted a swimming pool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And we're traveling through the desert and you want to share your water with me. It's nice, but I just ethically. I know. I get this fucking, it would be so wrong of me to take your water.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I know, but what blows is it's mostly in the mind of the person who's getting something for free, which I get. Yes, there are certain personality types that it does lead to resentment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have a little anecdotal history with you as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, like, I'll notice, like, okay, I'm about to make Rory mad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And you can be honest, probably more of a fan of Kristen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
That's our favorite thing we've ever been a part of. Because it was just our movie that we paid for. We made it because we wanted to make it. And it's all my cars. Yeah, it's very special. We just showed it to our daughters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Because I have spent almost a decade of my life up there. Why? My ex-girlfriend of nine years, Bree, was from Marysville, Everett, lived on the Tulalip Reservation on the Puget Sound.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P but seg gicin實 gi� seg gi� græ g� græ g� g� græ g� græ g� græ g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , a en in in in in in in in in in in and. G. G. G. G. G. G. G.G P. G. G. G. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g en in. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
You're right. It is a very specific area. I took to it immediately because her friends were all also alcoholics, which I loved.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Right. I remember that. Yes. Because it kind of caressed your back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
The clipboards. Yeah, I like it. It was a good one. But you told me you had an update. I just want to make sure that I do have another update. You have another.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Let me see if I wrote anything down in my fact check category. Oh, you know, I've actually formed a I encourage you to do this. I made a notes folder called Bucket List. I've never actually had a bucket list. Have you ever actually written down a bucket list?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And masculine. They won't be driving a truck and maybe they work for the forestry service, but they're also liberal. Super liberal. Yeah. And I was like, oh, this is refreshing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Isle of Man. That's a motorcycle race on the Isle of Man. It's crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, every year someone dies. I got to go to that. That Iowa bicycle ride that you cross Iowa.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It has a crazy name, but I would like to ride the course and then spectate for the madness. Okay. The bicycle ride across Iowa.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
That sounds so fun. Great. And then the great loop on a boat, which I've talked about before. Wow. Of course. 6,000 mile.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
The king in conveyance. Oh, no, I haven't written anything down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. I think Kristen went to like a Mahjong learning day at a friend's house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And there's different. countries of origin versions of Mahjong. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Mondale Ferrara bumper sticker from the 80s on their truck still. But did you go crabbing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
This is like the girls in spades. They'll be unstoppable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, wow. I guess I should learn. I'm in the process of learning bridge, which our lessons are like every two months and we all forget.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. He's a professional bridge player and teacher. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. But we forget because we've only done two or three lessons in over six months.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Seth Green's beautiful. Beautiful doesn't even describe it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
She's like Tinkerbell. Yeah. But with red hair. I don't know what color hair Tinkerbell had. Probably blonde. Probably, yeah. They like to put those sprites in those fairies, make them blonde.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Now, is it just a skirt or there's pants in it? There's legs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
That's cool. My thing would be back then you didn't have washing machines. You're still hand washing everything. The notion of splitting up the dress into two pieces sounds smart because what if the top got dirty but not the bottom or vice versa?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
You sat in a little something. You could just wash the bottom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
But the top remained clean. True. It seems like it would cut laundry down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Lie, I think, which is also what you can decompose a body with. You put a body in a barrel. Don't teach people how to do that. And then you open it up in a couple hours and it's just jello.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, my God. You could be eating an animal that's 130 years old. Oh, that feels unethical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I don't understand. For the listener, the clam shell only covers about 33% of this thing's body. I don't even understand. Ew. Oh, my God. That's so phallic. And the clam looks, the shell looks like balls in this photo. This looks like a cowboy. It's very penis-y. Oh, my God. Oh, boy. I can't imagine eating this. It's so good for everyone who eats it. And then what's inside a big ball?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
What age did you start drinking coffee? Because I'll say this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
What do you put on that thing? Fucking wasabi or something to kill the.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Anyone putting it on a hot dog bun, eating it like a tube steak.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
After spending time there, one knock I have on the area is you get exhausted there. It's drizzly and dark and damp. Yes. I was like, oh, duh, the coffee revolution started here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, what's better, to eat an animal that had a 150-year life or to eat one that has only got a year and then you rob half of it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Probably the former. We'd agree if someone was eating humans.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It'd be a lot better if they ate our 100-year-olds than our children.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Robbing it of 100. 100 years. 120 years. Oh, boy. Well, we don't have to deal with this because we're not going to eat any geoduck. Or people. Anytime soon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It's not like... That was a derogatory term in elementary school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Because it's not even... You're just saying you're attractive to queers?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Combat that. Include everyone and also go, we're not a strictly gay. Exactly. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
There's a very famous clip of Walker, Texas Ranger, the Chuck Norris show. You didn't see it, but you know exactly what it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And I want to say it's Haley Jo Osment is the guest star. He's a little kid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And it's this clip that goes around my Instagram all the time. And it's Walker. And he's with the little Haley Jo Osment. They're talking to other men. And Haley goes, yeah. And then Walker and I really had a long talk. And that's when I told him I have AIDS. It's like, how dare they? How dare they make this scene? It's like four cowboys. Like, I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, do we have it? Oh, my God, Rob. You're incredible. We're coming. We're coming to clip show and I like it. Are we going to have volume is the question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Walker told me I have AIDS. Oh my God. How on earth did that fall under Walker's purview?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I'll say they were like talking about Cherokee and the boys picked up some other language. And then Walker told me I have AIDS. What if he just guessed? They're not based on any lab results.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Little man, I think you have AIDS just judging from the way you walk and
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. I think I'm imagining Gen Z and stuff. Like when I was in 11th grade or 10th grade, turned 16, magic came out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And a book. Yeah. And it was, oh, my God, he's going to die. And I know everyone's going to die. That gets it. Yeah. So different.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It was. Yeah. Even though you didn't do any of the things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. I remember on the other end reading a article that said of the population in New York that had HIV.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
92% were either gay men or intravenous drug users. Right. So I use that to regulate my fear of it because I was out on the scene.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
No, no intravenous drug use for me. Thank God. Lots of sharing dollar bills with blood on them. Hepatitis was in the cards for me, but not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I guess it's really unstable, though. It dies when it hits the air pretty easy, like way easier than we were led to believe at the beginning. Yeah. But yeah, because I would have sex with someone, not wear rubber. Yeah. And I'd be convinced I had HIV for two weeks. Sure. And then I'd go get tested and I didn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And at some point I had to get my hands around this fear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
At the very beginning, they didn't want kids in pools. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I don't think you could have made it to school if you weren't because it's just too dark and drizzly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, I. We have talked about that I flirt with men and women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Stop flirting with me unless you want to seal the deal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. And I don't want to seal the deal. I just want to flirt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I don't know. I don't think so. Also, it does make me think of a Sedaris chapter we were listening to. This is now the funnest thing I think I told you. We now listen to Sedaris at night in bed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And he's talking about every doctor he knows has pulled things out of people's rectum.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And he says... Most people claim it's from falling down on something. Now, I'm clumsy and I've fallen a bunch of times and I've never stood up and had a candle in my ass. In fact, I'd argue that I could probably fall down off every flight of stairs in the World Trade Center holding three candles and a baseball bat. And I'm pretty sure at the bottom I wouldn't have any of those items up my ass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Well, big shout out, love shout out to Dove. Yeah. That was an awesome episode. It really was. I liked it so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Pass it along. Forward it. Forward it. This would be a fun one to watch on YouTube if you want to see me cry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
That's me in Michigan now. I'm like, oh, my God, it's too cold for humans to live here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It's raining 200 days a year and no one can drive in the rain. Seattle people are going 30 miles an hour on the highway when there's a little drizzle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
OK, so what did mom and dad do on this island for a living?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So you did homeschool the whole time you were on that island?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Calvin loves Dove. Yeah. Well, she's an Emmy award-winning actor and singer. Descendants. Liv and Maddie. Shameless. Cloud Nine. Her album, Alchemical. Alchemical? Which we learn about. I learned how to pronounce it and I've already forgotten it. Volume one is already out and she has a new single out right now, Too Much. It's a great song and it's really blowing up. Ooh, lovely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Your level of intimacy is very uncomfortable for me at age. Yeah. Which I was similar to, by the way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Did you love being told you were old for your age? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I understand. What age did they get divorced? 13 or 14. OK, so does it correspond with you moving to Burbank? Kind of. Well, we got to add before you move to Burbank, you start acting at eight. You're doing local theater in Bainbridge and you're already on that trajectory before we go to Burbank.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
He can do everything. It's so hard to like him, but I can't resist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by the Duchess of Duluth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. I was set on this trajectory. There's some parts of me I'm going to have to accept. I'm not going to erase the hard drive from the arousal format.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
What's interesting is I think you and I went almost in opposite directions based on similar things, which is kind of fascinating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And Happy New Year. And to all a good night. We are supported by Prime Video. You know that feeling when you go to log into a streaming service and you forgot your password? Or when you have to switch from app to app trying to find the movie you want to watch? Stop wasting time toggling between the apps and start watching the content you want to watch right away with Prime Video.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, you embody masculinity in our simplest definition or stereotype. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
A thousand percent, Tyler, because owning a studio is not very relatable. But the other stuff is you read The Body Keeps the Score or any of these books. It's like 30 percent. I mean, it's huge numbers of us who have gone through this stuff. And you would think you're the only one, at least when we grew up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
On Prime Video, you can add over 100 subscriptions like Max, Apple TV+, and Paramount+, all in one app. That means more time watching and more time relaxing. I've got the perfect example. Armchair-y favorite, Matthew McConaughey, is in so many of our favorite titles. You could have a Matthew McConaughey marathon day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Can I ask really quick, how do you feel about men in general? I'm kind of relieved to hear you were on a dude's trip in Jackson. I'm not expecting you to be excited to become friends with men. Really? Why? Well, given the dad and that seems very scary and that perhaps men in general. No, no. I've got great guy friends, great female friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. So I think that's the gift that I've come to realize I'm grateful for, which is someone sits down in here and I know within 30 seconds if they've had our childhood. Exactly right. I see how they look at the doors in the room. I see how they look over at Rob and I just go, oh, we're on the same team here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And not be fearful. Do you have a hard time sleeping? No, I sleep well. And you always have. Or is that post trip to this great place?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
You have to police yourself, I imagine, with isolation. Of course, especially having a 10 year old now. It's like, hey, dad, hello. Soccer practice over here. Real life's happening over here. OK, so he's 10. Yeah, I have 10 and 11. It's so fucking fun. Yeah, he's so good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Start with True Detective on Max, then check out The Lincoln Lawyer on MGM+, and top it off with rom-com classic How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days on Paramount+. That's a good way to spend a day. You can watch all of those titles and more without ever leaving the Prime Video app. I think I may take a little Nicolas Cage binge on Amazon Prime.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Okay, so at a certain point, again, it'd be shocking to people, I think, to learn that someone as smart as you, you didn't graduate high school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, who wanted to go to school. And then in your early 20s, you're watching Oprah. Yeah, picture that, right? Yeah. You're watching Oprah. You learn about journaling as a way to process your thoughts and you really decide to take that up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
When you were reading the one from 20 years ago, what were you... wrestling with that you now realize your past. Does it also give you a sense of humor about all the stuff you obsess about?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, and I told her, you know, they're a sponsor. And she couldn't believe it. Being stylish and comfortable allows you to feel your best, making you ready to tackle anything that comes your way. That's where Quince comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, sign me up. Streamline your streaming today. Check out subscriptions on Prime Video. We are supported by BetterHelp. The start of the new year brings you 365 blank pages waiting to be filled. What do you want your 2025 story to be? Maybe you're ready for a plot twist. Or maybe there's a part of your story you've been waiting to revise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I didn't. What was your rationale? You're clearly very bright. It's not working in school. It's not working at home. What were you thinking you were destined to do? Were you so confused?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Great sweater. You got a new sweater with two different colors, blue, very light on the sleeves. Thank you. Starry night in the middle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And you went in this incredible journey. So you moved to Atlanta in 1990? Yeah, early 90s. And I think we got to do one second on, it seems obvious to me, but why Atlanta from New Orleans?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So I would go down to Atlanta and I'd be like, this is a completely different version than I've ever seen. There's black folks in Escalades and they have nice houses. They're at the nice restaurant. This was unimaginable in Detroit in the 90s. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Think of therapy as your editorial partner helping you write new chapters and become the author of your own life. I know for me, I want 2025 to be filled with a lack of codependency.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I bet when you were in and out of the bathroom, you didn't count. I wouldn't count, man. Yeah, that's right. You undertake from that moment something that is, I think, very rare in our business, which is you then take the next six years, I guess, to refine, to rewrite, to rework, to restage. No. Okay. Well, no wonder it was impossible to believe. I see you doing your research. That's good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yes. If you want to start your therapy journey in 2025, join BetterHelp's over 5 million users worldwide. BetterHelp is fully online, which helps make therapy affordable and convenient. You'll have access to a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. And you can easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. Write your story with BetterHelp.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, I'm dead with you. A, I'm thinking resentment is drinking poison, hoping the other person dies. My own father, my resentments. I'm thinking of you being Christian, how it's probably compounded that you weren't able to achieve forgiveness in the context you were in. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
But I hear what you're saying. Yeah, I'm trying to find this crossover because I don't trust people. What's someone going to do? And then I have tactics. So if you're a woman and you're in love with me, I feel safe because you're probably not going to hurt me if you love me. If you're a man and I think I can dominate you, you're going to know not to try to hurt me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
If I can make everyone in this room laugh, I'm totally safe because people aren't swinging when they're laughing. So I have these techniques. And I guess I would have just imagined that. If you're the caretaker and you're benevolent, you would expect the reciprocity would be kindness. That's exactly right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
You're not an AA, but you'd be great in AA. Is that right? Expectations are resentments under construction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of like that classic codependent paradigm, too, right? And I imagine you probably collected folks that needed a lot of help, not intentionally. I absolutely didn't think it was intentional. But as I look at my life now, it's a suspicious amount.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
It's frustrating and confusing when it actually leads to their resentment. And understandably, once you unplug from the whole system, yeah, they feel shittier. And they weirdly resent you because you're helping. You're sort of a reminder that they need help. And that's a very tricky dynamic to navigate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Visit BetterHelp.com slash DAX today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash DAX.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. Monica, cut this out because I say it too often. But my mother said the best thing to me ever. Why do you want to cut it out? Because I say it too much. It sounds redundant. But we can leave it if you want. Yeah, because if you say it a lot, then somebody may hear it for the first time. OK, you can be the judge of it. So I call my mom. I'm complaining about someone else asking me for money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And she's very generous and lets me go on and on, comforts me. And then she says... you know, Dax in life, you can either be the person calling for help or you can be the person that gets called for help. Who do you want to be? And I was like, Oh, definitely the person that gets called for help.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
That's true. That's true. But just given those options, it was very helpful for me to reframe my frustration with it, which is like, Well, I could be in the other side of this equation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. Okay, so you forgive your father. That's fascinating. People should know, not to make you go through it again, but you were born a junior and at 16, you changed your name. So just to accentuate the stakes that were on this relationship, it was very strained. From childhood, I knew this man was not my father. And it turned out to not be your father, which is crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
She was on about her book and that estrangement from the family and not being able to put your finger on it. And that fucking huge looming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So you find some forgiveness for him. Yeah. Are you cool now? Oh, you cold?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. That could have meant so many things. Cool. No, no, no. Sorry, because it blows right here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
But then conversely, we had Jeff Bridges on and he hated how hot it was. So it's like, I don't know, what are you going to fucking pick? You can't trust anyone in that seat. That's right. So lo and behold, these plays become hugely successful. The amount of them you were doing is staggering. You're doing 300 a year. Sometimes 360, 370 a year. And not in one theater. So you're traveling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, that's a cream top. It's very famous coffee. Cream top? No, I'm not a coffee person. You're not a coffee person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, I'm definitely watching that. I'm ashamed that I don't know that yet. I spent all this time reading about you. It's hurtful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
The light and airy fun. I don't want to embarrass you, but there's a point where at least minimally Forbes goes, this show has generated $100 million. It's generated $20 million in merch. At that age, you must be more successful than you had ever even dreamt of. Yeah, but it wasn't enough. I was scared. Okay, that's my question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I don't like some of the things I'm learning about you right away. Tell me. You're early. Yeah. And you don't like coffee. I love your chair though, man. This is my size chair. Yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Were there not mentors available or you weren't good at availing yourself to mentorship? There weren't any available. I'm going to grant you that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Okay, so I wouldn't trust it either, but mine would be, you want something if you're just going to be nice to me. There's no way I would trust a mentor. They must have an ulterior motive. That's my hang up with mentorship. Do you still feel that way? No, it's lessened. I mean, we're talking about stuff that's like 30 years old and 10 years old and eight years old, but no, it's lessened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And I can ask people now. Lessened, but it's still there. Yeah. But yeah, that's how deep that fear is, I guess. Here's this man who's got status and wealth and he likes me for some reason. And my next thing is to have a dream where he wants to get sexual. That's the sad part of where we come from.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
You really should consider ordering one of these online because I didn't realize I was ordering like a big and tall version because I'm a big guy and you can get your kids beside you. Yeah. Yeah. My feet barely touch the ground if they do. Where did this come from? Online. Lazyboy.com. Lazyboy.com. Yeah. You got to get someone on that. Do you own any Lazy Boys? I don't. You don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, and let's add now on the other side of it, which this state of mind was truly unimaginable for me growing up poor, which is like, well, the only joy I'm actually getting out of this thing that I thought was going to be so spectacular is giving people shit. I don't mean like family members. I mean, tipping an obnoxious amount every time I eat a cheap meal. That's more fun than anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
That server doesn't need to worry that I'm a creep that wants to do something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. Okay. So then going into movies. There's a point where the show's incredible. It's generating a ton of money. You're working too hard, which is your dream 24-7. No time to think about anything. Why get out of that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Okay. Weirdly, we've already laid the groundwork for this. And I was talking about it in the trauma aspect. So I wanted to hear from you how you process that huge dissonance between what it's doing commercially and what it's doing critically and
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And so my own pet peeve about this is I think it's people removed from that situation, telling the people in the situation how they're supposed to process it and enjoy it and like it. There's something very condescending about that specific type of criticism.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, but you know, I think there's something a little deeper going on with your work particularly. So yes, two people could watch The Graduate and they're going to have different opinions. But I'm going to argue, and this is something that's very burbling up all around us and no one really wants to talk about it, which is there is an elitism. Yeah, for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Because your style aesthetic won't permit you to, or you're afraid of comfort?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And it's condescending and it's judgmental and people feel it and they go out and vote in response to that. And I think this particular thing reeks... of elitism. It reeks of we know better. You should be doing this. You should be showing what should be not what you experience and recognize. There's something about it that feels very removed and judgmental.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
It doesn't feel like it's coming from the inside and being judgmental. I would agree. This happened to Sandler, too. Critics fucking hated him. Every movie is an enormous. A third of the country loves the movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Now, I have different opinions than other people, and I might not like stuff or like stuff, but I like to think I don't get onto a soapbox of it's lowbrow or it's cheap or it's bad or mine's better or superior. It's just, all right, that audience likes this. This audience gets that audiences get what they want. without the deep judgment of it all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
A little bit of both. Don't want to be too comfortable. Can't get too comfortable. Did you like miniature things when you were a kid? This is a weird first question, but... I can elaborate. Please. Like you would go to, where would I see miniature stuff?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Okay. Your string of movies that are gigantic hits. I'm going to add just for fun. Do you know who Joy Bryan is? Yes. Okay. She and I were married on a TV show together for six years. But when we saw each other every day at work, I would say, hello. And she'd go, Larch. Who's talking about Larch? Oh my God. And it was our favorite. Our salutation for six years was, hello.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
What you talking about Larch? Nobody's talking about Larch. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. Culturally, a world all her own. I love it. So once you get into TV, I do have one logistical question. When you do House of Pain, first season, I'm presuming you just funded 10. You went out and made 10 episodes?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
No, I would never be in there. I like the idea of feeling like a giant. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So just explain the affiliate for people. So you've got in your town, Atlanta, you got your own news station. That's its own affiliate of NBC. But there's hours of the day where they don't have programming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
What are you talking about? Yeah, you keep timesing this by 10 and you shouldn't. You make one pilot, not 10. And then you get nine episodes with a back order.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So bad, but I'll sit here. What's your heat level right now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
You know what a solution would be is to actually use the thermostat on it and just not make it frigid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Let's travel to Europe right now and enjoy some Celsius. Yeah. Okay. Because what I'm so confused about is when I go to the Wikipedia page for House of Pain, it says like 336 episodes, which is impossible. Yeah. I think we're at 400 something now. Okay. And I go, no, there's no show has 400 episodes. And then I'm looking at the breakdown of seasons. And yeah, it says season one is 10.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And then it says season two, a hundred. Yeah. How does that work?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, not to jump directly into trauma, but I feel like both of us probably desired to be 80 feet tall as kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, wow. Okay. So you go on this impossible run. You have so many TV shows. You have so many movies. You open up the studio. You become friends with the Queen Bee. You then have shows. I had one question about, I've met the Queen Bee a few times and boy, does she deliver. Yeah. Yeah. She's amazing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, I count her as a friend, too. But, Oprah, I had one little question on that. So you end up the haves and the have nots. You do eight seasons on own and it's huge for them. It's a great success. Is it tricky at all to be friends with the owner of the network when you're making the stuff? Because those are kind of inherently often at odds, those two roles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
In Truesdale. For people who don't know, it's like one of the fanciest neighborhoods in all of L.A.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. But the notion of being like the Hulk and you can defend yourself and no one can hurt you, that didn't enter the fray.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
The lead of your movie, which I watched last night, is the woman you interviewed. Yeah. The first one? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. How do you anchor this huge story in this very intimate, personal one? And in the movie, she's from Philadelphia. She's kind of in love with this boy. He's in love with her. It's unrequited until he's about to leave. And then he's dead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And there's so much stuff that immediately burbles up without you having to really shine a light on it. Even her story. She's very smart. She's very capable. And she doesn't want to go clean and cook for men. But going to school, which would be a very natural next step for her, is expensive off the table. Yeah. What options are there left? So that right there is kind of telling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
That's where we were at. But I think even crazier to think about was like all these women from the north are coming down and they're like, what the fuck is going on? You could time travel still in 1944. You could teleport to a much crazier place. But also women of that day were very aware of racism, no matter where they were. Sure. Well, she was already experiencing it in Philadelphia. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
But just that level could happen on a train ride is also really stark. Time travel across the Mason-Dixon and you had a whole new world. Right. Okay. So then we meet Kerry Washington and she is the leader of this group of women. She's phenomenal as always. Your first time working with her? Second. Okay. What do we think of her? I'm in love with her. I think she's so fantastic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And the transpo dude found it. Yeah. Wow. But then you see what she's up against. It's all these half steps. We had Malcolm Gladwell on talking recently about what do you actually need for representation in something? And you find that like one woman on a board does nothing. She's a token and no one's going to listen to her. Two is like... She's got a friend. That's not going to do much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And then it's three. There's this like magic number of three where now you get three women on a board of nine and now they can be themselves and they can really enact some change. And I was just thinking about Carrie's role is like she's the leader of this one black battalion and she's the only one there. And when she's meeting with these generals and stuff, they're placating her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
They're just getting through it. They got to do this thing. And you realize like, oh, my God, to be in that situation, actually get anything done seems nearly impossible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, and also you do a good job at pointing out there's a mom. I'm sure this part might be artistic, but a woman waits at the gates of the White House basically to talk to Eleanor Roosevelt to say, like, I don't know if my son's dead or not. Yeah. I haven't heard from my son in a year. Yes, morale.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
But I think more about all these people that were cut off, just assuming the worst for months and months and months at a time. And you can't call anyone to get an answer. Are they still alive? That must have been the most agonizing for those parents. Of course. Can you imagine? No, if I wave goodbye to my daughter and I don't know for a year whether she lived or not. Yeah, awful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So no one wants to deal with the situation. The army doesn't. They're like supplies. That's all we got to worry about. We can't be worrying about mail. And so they throw them a bone and they intentionally give them six months to sort all this out. Yeah. Thinking, well, that's impossible. They're going to fail.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Exactly. And these gals, God bless them, they got the job done in 90 days. Wow. It's kind of impossible. Pretty amazing. It's a great story. Thank you. I'm excited about it. Yeah, yeah. Everyone's really, really good in it. Let me have you rephrase these gals. These women? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. These women got it done? Yeah, yeah. So these women, they got it done in 90 days. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So a lot of it I could sense you were shooting. Well, I know you have a White House. Yeah. So we're shooting at his White House. So to be at your studio, I was curious of the plays, the writing, the films, the TV show. Where does the studio rank in that as far as the amount of pride it gives you when you try to integrate the fact that you own a studio?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. Takes a lot to get me there. So I was enormous for my size as a kid. And in all the class photos, it looks like I flunked a few grades. Because you're so big. Yeah, it looks like he's in the wrong class.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I just feel like it's so tangible versus what we do, which is like, I write, then I make it, it gets seen, then it's kind of gone, maybe it gets seen again. To have something that tangible, I feel like it would force me to experience what's happened. I feel like this visceral, real, tangible 3D space might force me to go, no, no, for real, you built this shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
What about Black Panther being shot there? That was pretty cool. I feel like that's a real moment where you're like, oh, damn, this gamble also worked out. One of the first things with Chadwick. Oh, really? And would you pop in at all?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, it's staggering. I guess my only thought is how do you figure out how to enjoy it all? I think that's the last kind of hill to climb, isn't it? How do you really integrate it? How do you enjoy it? How do you accept it? How do you believe in it? How do you not fear?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, New Orleans. Yeah. So what were the virtues that were prized at that time? Obviously not those things. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So it's like there's a whole nother challenge to deal with. Yeah. Oh, I have one last question about this. Could you ever mentally be at a place where you go? I did it. It really happened without feeling like you have to keep pursuing it. I'm there now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Pure white. Wow. Like the driven snow. Our guest today is Tyler Perry, and I just got to say right out of the gates, this is a very mind-blowing experience. I don't know what I thought about Tyler Perry. I mean, as a person, other than I had seen this incredible 60-minute segment on him one time, and I knew he had had a really incredible story that he overcame, so I knew...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. And you got a little boy. So that really takes care of a lot of it. Yeah. All right. Well, I hope everyone checks out the six triple eight. It's in theaters on December 6th and it's on Netflix December 20th. I think this is going to be enormous. Are you still surprised when you have hits? I'm thankful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, Tyler, this has been so fun. I don't think I ever thought we would meet. Of course, like everyone else in America is very aware of you. I watched the 60 Minutes profile. I was very charmed and thought you were wonderful. And you're going to watch Maxine's Baby. And I'm definitely going to watch Maxine's Baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, wonderful meeting you. I hope everyone checks out the film and I hope we get to do it again or maybe just bump into each other. Not working. That would be fun, too. Yeah, a lot of fun. A lot of fun. I love it. All right. Take care. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, thank you. It's your birthday today. It's a birthday miracle today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I'm in Mexico City, and I just want to start by saying, what a place. Everyone should come. It's incredible. This is a very, very special place. I've never been. So, yes, we were having the very best trip, and I'll tell you some of the details. But then Lincoln, three or four days ago... She started throwing up and it was really rough. And she got really kind of scary sick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I was like, do we need what? You know, you're trying to figure out, like, when did you go to the hospital? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. So that was really rough. And that was going on. She had been completely lifeless and zero energy for like 48 hours. And then New Year's Eve was fine. And then New Year's morning at around nine in the morning, I was like, oh, I got something sneaky going on, but I didn't, I wasn't panicked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And then I, and I'm going to spare you the details, but then I went to the bathroom and then I had, I mean, really just the most violent throwing up I've ever had. Aw. And that went on for eight hours. And I was certain I gave myself a hernia. But the throwing up and the other stuff I won't mention duty stuff was truly nothing compared to the laying in bed, shivering like crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
All of my muscles cramped. I really, I mean, kicking opiates, motorcycle accidents, none. This was the single worst I've ever felt in my whole life for eight hours. I was like, and I had it in my head like, oh my God, if I, if this is for 48 hour or Lincoln at that point was on 50, I was like, I can't. I don't think I could make it. Like, why isn't my body just stop letting me experience this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Cause it's way too much. Yeah. And it was, it was just torture. And then Kristen brought me a Zofran and a, and then a leave about eight hours into it. I took that. I was able to sleep. I slept for four hours. And then I woke up last night around, I don't know, 8 PM. And I was like, I was okay. It kind of passed. Wow. And then Linky was starting to come out of it, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So everyone else did fun stuff. And she and I just hung out, went to the hot tub to soak our achy bodies. That was fine. We did about 10 minutes. That was our big adventure. And then we laid in bed and watched Little Women, the Greta Gerwig one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
OK, this trip for me has been a total revelation about Greta Gerwig. I knew Barbie, but I hadn't seen Lady Bird.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
What a movie. Do you know, I didn't see it because I thought it was a period piece like the cover and the title. I, for some reason, thought it was a period piece, not a high school coming of age movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
But now I just love Greta. I would watch, I don't know, name your worst. I'd watch a horror film that she made at this point. So now I became obsessed with Greta Gerwig. And then last time I was like, let's watch Little Women. Well, that's an incredible, perfect movie too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Then I did research on her, Monica, like I was going to interview her. I did like an hour of research on Greta Gerwig just for my own edification and fun. I had no idea she was like a hugely successful actor before she was our best director. And I didn't know she was married to Noah Baumbach.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
You are a know-it-all. So anyways, all to say I woke up this morning and I actually feel really fantastic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
There was no way yesterday at 7 p.m. But then I heard you had an idea that I almost felt like I wanted to stay sick so you would have to do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
That's a lot for your birthday. Were you intimidated? That's a lot to commit to. 50 facts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yesterday, I was like, oh, wow, I'm not going to make it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. Yeah. Yesterday, I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to not make it. I thought for sure I was going to outlive my dad for so long. I was like, oh, no, we're going to come in 13 years before.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. I think I'm mostly thinking about the thing that's tripping me out is like, OK, wow, I'm a half of 100 years old. I just watched Little Women. That was only set 150 years ago. Right. That seems like a million years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
In fact, we were watching the movie and there's these beautiful mansions in the movie. And I said to Lincoln, you realize none of those mansions have toilets inside. Like as fancy as this looks and is how much you'd want to live there. All these people in their fancy dresses are going across the yard to shit in a wooden box.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Nothing is good. It looks pretty. But so then when I think, well, that's not terribly long ago, two more of my life's ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
It starts to put time in a weird or it's like all these things that feel so far away. They're not that far away. And then I then, of course, I think, well, life's really short. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
But mostly I'm happy and I feel good. And I'm very excited to see you because I haven't seen you in a long time. So I think we should rewind all the way to your Christmas at home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
That's interesting, because I still when I go home, when I go to Michigan, I think it's home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, because I moved it when I was 20. And so for 30 years, I've been in California. Exactly. I was in Michigan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, I got to tell you, I saw the 60 Minutes profile you did however many years ago. It had to be over 10 years ago, probably. And it was insanely moving. I appreciate that. Thank you. Particularly when you're visiting that house. And I think we come upon the crawl space. Yeah. It's not planned, clearly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I'm going to still do fast math when I'm 50. Yeah. You went to your parents' house, not home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
You ever get toothpaste? Our alarm? Our alarm? So, oh, wait, the last day and a half or the first day and a half?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
When I reordered, I changed my mind on the reorder. I mean, truly, that's a blessing from above because you would have two shark necklaces. You don't need that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Whose you return? Yes. Well, you got to return mine. And have Nermin deserves to have those.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
That's right. I mean, you also in a subversive way told me what to get you as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
You should have bit her. You should have lunged at her and snapped your jaws at her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
You want to see the shark? I'll show you a shark. You know what I think is really gross about sharks is that their upper teeth move too. You know that? No, what? You know, like our top teeth are fixed. They don't go anywhere. Just the bottom mandible moves up and down. The top teeth aren't coming up and down. They're just stationary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And you're just having a moment where you go like, oh, yeah, I hid and I spent so much time in this crawl space. Yeah. That was heartbreaking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, yeah. It does the same thing as the bottom. Whoa, that's so cool. The better to gnash you with. Yeah. I don't like how it looks when they lunge at a seal or something. You see the top teeth descend. It just makes it that much more terrifying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
It's one step away from the whole set of teeth just turning into a vortex and like, you know, eviscerating the prey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I do. This year I tried to break it into different categories, like professional, you know, physical, spiritual. There's another one. It's probably the most important one. Professionally, I really want to finish my memoir this year. Physically, and this has been a little bit influenced by watching Sprint season two over the break. I need to do. I need to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
It's so good. And yeah, I didn't know that either. But Molly had already seen it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. Yeah. So sprinting, I really I'm not biking is my new thing, but I'm going to try to this year do biking and sprinting. So that's a physical goal. And then spiritually is finding my way back professionally. This is spiritual professional.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
To focus on what I love about work and not the outcome, I guess. I get to really, really hunker back down into that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I think it's too late for Max. I once read if boys don't do that by the time they're 10, they can't physiologically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Max is my arch nemesis. The notion that his thighs are that much bigger than mine and he can do the splits. I feel like he has too much muscle to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Depends how you quantify it, I guess. If you use inches, yeah, sure, he's taller.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, I forgot too. Medically, I want to, I'm seeing an allergist this year. I got to stop blowing my nose all day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, well, I'm 50 and sometimes I look at my my nose in the mirror. I'm like, it looks like a catcher's mitt. Like, I think I need to pull a couple of layers off of the skin or something. It's starting to look really leathery.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
that youthful skin underneath you just have bright red like muscle your muscle shows i keep fluctuating i keep going like half the time probably even more than half the time about 80 percent of time i go like yeah let's get this face all leathery and fucked up there's something charming about that in an older man and then one day i look at my face i go baloney i can get facials i live in a city with a lot of good facials i should make my skin look rosy and youthful
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I'm vain and I live in Hollywood and I'm an actress. Yeah. Are we kidding?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Listen, this is working perfectly with my New Year's resolution because we haven't recorded in like eight days and I'm having as much fun right now as I have on a roller coaster.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. You need it. And I want to add about your skin. Delta and I... So on New Year's Eve here, before I got sick, which was great, the hotel nearly set itself on fire. It was launching all these fireworks from the roof. And we're on the top floor. So about... 14 inches from our window is where the fireworks were being set off from. And I'm going to send you a video.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
It's like I'm talking a lot of fireworks where our whole room filled up with smoke because we had the windows open watching them. So and then. They were playing music in the courtyard and everything. So there's no way we were going to go to bed before 2 a.m. So Delta and I were in bed together and it was about 1 and the music was really loud and we couldn't sleep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So we watched the Christmas special and numerous times during the Christmas special on the close-ups of you, I thought, well, I don't know what more she would want out of skin. It looks absolutely flawless and beautiful. And I'm just not sure what Monica's aiming for, if not what she has in the Christmas episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
See, this is where I go to the 80%. Let's just stay leathery. I know. I'm like, yeah, I want whatever you got going because it's certainly working.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
There is something really. There's something about it. Yeah. Well, wait, you have Joe. I would now have geriatric acne is what they'd have to call it. Oh, no. Oh, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
OK, let me ask you this. Does she like the East Side? Like, are there any favorite restaurants she has? Could we get her like five clients on the East Side and then buy her lunch and she'd come out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
What if we put her up at Kara once a month? I would love that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
We get like four or five Eastside clients, put her up a car and now we got something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And well, yeah. People should know, too. They're probably thinking like in L.A., how far could this be? And if you look at a map, it'll be very, very deceptive. I mean, it's it's sincerely it can be 90 minutes. Oh, it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
If you go the same distance to go to Santa Barbara to get a facial.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I also have a Tonka adjacent story, but because I already had this poisoning yesterday, I don't want to overwhelm the audience. I'll wait. But I, on the departure of this trip, had a real emotional and Tonka-like experience. But I'm going to I cannot fill the first episode of the year with double whammy on that. So Easter egg.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, good. The journal is a great place. I don't you don't really have any resolutions of quitting anything. But I think the journal is the best place to put your numbers on the corner because you see them piling up. Like I just hit three hundred and sixty five days without dip because last year's resolution was no more chewy tobacco.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. And so on my journal, you know, I see a 365 days without. And then you get a little encouragement to stick with it that day. So if you I don't know your icing or whatever thing you want to be consistent about, if you keep a little tally in your journal, you get to see that climb. And it's very encouraging.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Well, because I think you and I are among very few men that will say out loud, I got molested. Yeah. I think that's important. I'm sick of talking about it, but I think it's important.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
No. Well, okay. Yeah. Let me hit you with like I write in it with even much deeper knowledge that I'm going to die. And I don't presume my kids will ever have the interest of doing this. But if my kids choose, there is a daily account of my life for the last 20 years. Should they ever want to read it? And it's all in there. And that's at one time scary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And then at another time, kind of comforting the notion that they're going to struggle in life for sure. It's the ride and they're going to be ashamed of themselves and they're going to make mistakes. And I have this, if they're so inclined, I have 20 years of huge mistakes and still keep going and keep trying. And, and so I,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I write in it knowing there's a possibility that my children will read it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I don't. I know. Wow. I think the more I've learned of my parents' struggles, it did nothing but comfort me and make me less self-loathing and...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I don't know. You've been around me. I tell them pretty much everything already.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, now I want to know. I'm going to break into your apartment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
No, can't you get us safe at least? Don't do that. Well... Because you might want to write a memoir one day. And our memories are complete fabrications.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
As we know. So, like, even right now, this memoir I'm currently writing really is only going to take me to, like, adulthood, right? And then I'll have the gap between moving to L.A. and being an addict and then getting sober and starting to work. That'll probably be a second one. But... I mean, this sounds so indulgent, but regardless, in my mind, there's three.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And what's exciting to me is the third one. There'll be no I'll be able to read like any time I tell an event of my life or the story, I can go read that day and actually know what happened. It'll that the third one will probably be the only one that's approaching accurate of reality.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, yeah, all the other ones all have been the victim. And the last one you realize I'm the perpetrator. Oh, wow. That's a twist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
OK, but and by the way, I don't really ever go back and read my journal. Yeah, but I have on a couple occasions. And one thing that's very useful about it, as I've already said on here many times, is when you can see a pattern you've been stuck in for a very long time and you see it in writing. There is something very powerful about seeing that and going like, well, it's up to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I'm going to continue to. This isn't a new feeling I have. This isn't a new reaction. This is the same fucking thing I do all the time. And it's in black and white. And I have a choice to continue it or to stop it. And that's where I think it's useful. What if you put it in some second location and you don't have your name on it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So if someone found it, they'd have no fucking clue whose secrets they're reading.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, you do? Yeah. The one thing I really agree with you on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, I guess if every entry has to do with someone famous you interviewed that day. They'll go, well, it's either Rob's, Monica's, or Dax's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
The one thing I do think is incredibly powerful, and I think this is what I use it for more than anything now, is there is... And the documenting part, it's not like I'm documenting it for posterity or I think I've even ever been writing in it thinking I'd consult it for something. It's that...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I wake up and the day often feels insurmountable and I am pessimistic and I think I can barely get out of bed and nothing will happen. But the act of having to say everything that happened yesterday, I see, oh, no, yesterday you felt that way. And look, all these things you did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
The more important thing that's happening now is like I wake up with a rumination and I'm committed to putting down the rumination. And once I get it in writing, the absurdity of it generally cuts it in half. Or even more sometimes the whole that realization I had about Bradley's movie where it's like I saw it. I hated it. I got to interview him that day. I don't know what I'm going to say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I'm not writing about that in the writing of it. I realize, oh, I hate it because this movie is about me. Yeah. Or, you know, the part of me I hate the most. And then what clarity that gives me. And then I end up loving it. So, yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Monty, erase everything I just said. Yes. I think that's the number one thing of all of it. Yeah. Which is, like, you just... What you've shown is you have a commitment to yourself and, and, and, and you did it. And so you feel, yeah, you feel good. It's like exercising. You're like, all right, I did things I didn't want to do to make myself better. And that implicitly feels great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Do you want to know one of the sickest parts of myself?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I always make my bed. I would anyways, but I also, there is a part of me that like, I make my side of the bed. Yeah. Because often Kristen's still in it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And this is really disgusting part of me. But part of me goes, well, there's the evidence. Like I made my side of the bed. I'm I'm I'm committed to keeping this room clean. So there could also once you live with someone, you might start making your side of the bed just to shame them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, I'm overselling that a little bit for comedic value, but it does happen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Why had it happened or why the people that perpetrated it could have done that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, here's really what I don't I'm not making it thinking I'll shame her, but occasionally I'll see my sides made and hers is messy. And I and I do think I hope she notices that I've made my side of the bed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, that's not where I thought we were going. I thought she wants to return to a clean slate. I know that would have been the normal answer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I have the complete opposite. If I thought I was going to die on vacation, I would set my room on fire before I left. Like, I wouldn't give a fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. She's the type that would have killed herself at the Colonial Motor Inn to not make a mess for anyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
OK. OK. One more thing. Christmas was great. We had a great Christmas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Really, really fun. T.T. and Bear came over in the morning. And that's Carly and Yurdy. And then we left on the 26th to come here. And I committed us to a hot air balloon ride.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. And you had to wake up really early, like five in the morning on vacation to go. And I was a tough sell and our drive there. And that was the day before Lincoln got sick. So Lincoln couldn't come and mom couldn't come. So it really was like on the fence. What are we going to do? We can still do this thing. And it's so early. We went anyways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Delta was so afraid the whole ride there, watching them inflate the hot air balloon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
getting into the basket was almost impossible she almost she just almost was like fuck this i'm not doing it yeah i coaxed her into the basket there's pictures of me holding her before it takes off and i had said in the car delta i will i would bet all of my money that at the end of this you're really going to want to do it again like i feel that confident about it i would probably bet everything and she goes well you are going to lose everything that's what she said
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
The balloon took off, Monica. I promise you, we weren't even 15 feet in the air. And Delta goes, Daddy, you're going to win that bet. This is my favorite thing I've ever done. Oh, wow. And it was among the greatest things I've ever done. This was so incredible. There were so many hot air balloons. Maybe I'll post a picture. Oh, cool. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
On this episode, there was probably 50 or 60 hot air balloons all up in you hover above the pyramids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And you just float around for like an hour going up and down. And there's all these beautiful hot air balloons. And it was Molly and Dahlia and Lily and Eric and Delty and I. And it was about as cool of an experience as we ever had. And then the dude set it down. We were touching the tops of the trees as we floated in. He put it on this little, like the size of your yard of your current new house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Over power lines like a foot over it, brings it down and landed it on the fucking trailer of the truck where it gets transported. Wow. This guy was such a top gun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
This guy was great. And you should know all I did half about half of the time I watched him operate it in preparation if he passed out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I had a very bizarre breakthrough with it that thus far as I share this, I've not heard a lot of people relate to. But the confusion from my perspective is like, yeah, it was man on man. So this opens up this hole, especially where I grew up in Detroit. I guess now I'm gay. So there was like this bad thing happened to me. And then I think this makes me gay, which is its own crisis at that time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I started clocking like, okay, wow. So when he gives a gas, he had like three different throttles to put heat into the balloon. But when he would put that in, there was about a 45 second delay before the actual elevation would change or not. So I was like, okay, wow. If I know if we're coming at a tree, I got to predict 45 seconds from now we need to go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So I was really, I was monitoring like a hawk thinking I might, I might have to land and Eric goes, after we landed, he goes, yeah, I don't think you could have done that. I think you could have flown us around, but I don't think you could have made that landing. And I'm like, I don't think so either, but I certainly would have given it a shot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
That was a big time once in a lifetime. Cool. Experience. Yeah, it was really special. And my littlest buddy, we just had so much fun in that basket together. I've been having the best time with Delty on this trip.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Okay, before you get into those facts, I just want to say about Tyler Perry. I thought about him so much after this interview. Really, I got to say, tied with anyone else we've ever interviewed. I just, all week, I kept thinking about him. And he might be one of the most unique people I've ever met in my life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
He has such a softness and kindness and also this firmness with his boundaries and beliefs. It was like this really unique person. combo of just beautifulness and also self-assuredness and not going to be led anywhere. He doesn't want to go. Yeah. Something about him I felt was just so magical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And his bravery talking about those topics fully exceeded mine. And I just thought that was really, yeah, a real privilege to, yeah. I love too that he was like, wait, you told me this was going to be fun to his publicist. I know. And then I said, well, it could be fun. We can do a fun version. He's like, no, no, no. Actually, let's do let's go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
that he was very honest and stuff. But just as a as a human, he was just a very powerful and special presence. My God, did we like this so much?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Ah, you can just throw in more kinks, I guess. I guess so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And so then the notion I would ever tell anyone wasn't on the table because that would have been telling everyone I was gay again in the 80s in Detroit where that's not going to work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, I had a little realization on this – or not a realization. I launched a new theory on this trip. I was listening to Nate Silver's most recent book, and he was – in a very respectful and smart way, he was poking holes in – Effective altruism. Oh. Our good boy McCaskill, who we had on. We like him. And utilitarianism. He had a couple of really good pushbacks for all of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And they're very solid, as I also believe that Peter Singer and McCaskill's points of view are very, very solid. And my conclusion was... You know, everything's already been fleshed out. These theories and philosophies in life, they've been explored since Greece and probably before. They're all here for us. And I think... We are just biologically unique.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And I guess our childhoods and our zip code and our socioeconomic. And there's just an offering for us that'll feel most correct. I don't think any of them are necessarily superior. I just think there's there's a lot of really good fleshed out ones and you'll just be pulled to one. And the notion that yours is the one or someone else's is the one isn't really it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
There's just these offerings and you have some predisposition and some bias and certain ones will just appeal to you more than others. And I think you're just born that way that you'll be drawn to these certain ones. Does that make sense?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
It is. Then hearing once I did say it, oh, it's not your fault. You know, you were a kid and that just didn't really alleviate any of the. And so for me, the work was I had to first acknowledge and own my part. This is what people don't like. But for me to get over it, it was my spidey senses were going off. I was in a place I knew I shouldn't be and I didn't leave.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah, I think most of my life I've thought, well, one argument will have the most merit, like somehow if you can quantify it. And even that was a part of utilitarianism. He said, you know, the reason utilitarian is very tempting as a philosophy is it is our innate desire to quantify things. So if we can say, oh, four people died versus 12 people, that's very simple. It's 12 versus four.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Well, were those 12 Nazi party members and the other four were Mother Teresa and her pals? Like, no, actually, that's not necessarily true. the appeal of quantifying and being able to compare two numbers is very attractive to a lot of us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And, and biologically, like we have such different dopamine levels naturally, you know, like there's such a variety of how much dopamine you have or depression you have. And I think we're all inclined. It's also kind of what, um, uh,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And Payne was saying, Keith Payne, about isn't it interesting that although you've thought through the arguments and you're sure the conclusion is correct, isn't it weird? I could have predicted what conclusion you would have come to before you were born based on your ethnicity and your zip code like that kind of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
That theory still, I think, is what I'm getting at is like, yeah, there's just a lot of really good, well thought out theories and philosophies. And those ones will just appeal to us for whatever reason. Others won't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
OK, I'm good. OK, I got to imagine if you Google least amount of black people in any state, Utah's got to be number one, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So if they interviewed the 12 people that live in Provo and they're thriving like crazy. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Is there a threshold like minimum amount of black folks that to count?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And I have that pit in my stomach. I can remember how that feels. And I didn't listen to my instincts. I first had to go, yeah, that part happened. And I actually got to forgive myself for that. And once I was like, that all happened, you knew better. You should have gotten out. You felt those feelings. It's not like it came out of complete blue for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, well, hold on. Hold on. I want to read. Why is it so shaky? Oh, sorry. I was kicking the table at my computer. I'm going to go back. Maybe North Dakota and Montana.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Good for him. I'm not allowed to have that opinion, but I agree with him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, can I bring up a scary one? Because I actually had to discuss this with Delta on this trip.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I accidentally she was sitting on this swinging net chair in a park and she and Dahlia were both trying to get on it at the same time. And it was clear to me that the only way they are going to be able to do that is if they both sat crisscross applesauce.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And I accidentally said Indian style. Sure. And then Delty said, what's Indian style? And I go, oh, you know what? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. That's what we used to call crisscross applesauce. And then she said, oh, OK, why is it bad?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And I said, you know, Delta, this is one of the few that I'm not quite sure because obviously people saw Indians meditating sitting that way and they called sitting that way Indian style. And it's not derogatory in any way. Yeah. If you invent a way of sitting, I think, why is that negative? So I just want your two cents on that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And that's OK, because you were like eight years old and eight year olds choose poorly. And I did. For me, it was allowing myself to forgive the eight year old who didn't listen to his spidey senses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. And you're not saying it to like marginalize anyone or even. Yeah. I'm just like, it's if there's a lot of things, different cultures have invented, or at least that's the first time people writing about history saw it. Obviously people probably sat that way from the beginning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Like French, let's say this, let's say that the French were marginalized in the country and you could no longer say French kissing. Well, it's like, well, there's nothing really bad about French kissing. It just means you use your tongue. And I apparently English people, that was the first time they saw that. I don't know, but. Like, yeah, French kissing, that's a fine thing to say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
You would be proud of me because I said my point and she said, yeah, that doesn't make much sense. And I said, but you know what Monica would say is that would be fine if half the country were Indian. But because there's there were so few Indians and they're already marginalized, it's just another way to make them feel different. So I think that's what Monica would say. And that's a good point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
I guess I just I'm gently asking if that might be an overcorrection. Just that one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
That's really relevant. But yeah, if American Indians feel bad when they hear that, then, yeah, of course, forget it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
What if they all just looked at you to see how you were sitting and they thought you were supposed to copy how you were sitting?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
That's everything. Well, I'm telling you, this is made me so excited to come home and resume working on my favorite job I've ever had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
We have we have a new member of our team that put this together, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
That's right. We both read the letter she sent us and we were intimidated by her intelligence and her overqualification. And we thought, well, there's no way she should be an intern for us. We should be an intern for her. But here we are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yeah. So welcome to her. All right. Well, I love you and I'll see you in 36 hours. Yay. Yay. Bye. Bye. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
And that's what I came to. But I first had to grapple with this guilt feeling I had. Yeah. Just to hear that it wasn't my fault was not sufficient to make it go away. I needed to kind of confront what was the darkness. The darkness was I felt like I should have known better and done something differently. And I just needed to explore that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Yes. Well, listen, Tyler Perry is a filmmaker, a playwright, an actor, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Sisters, House of Pain, Madea's Family Reunion, Alex Cross, and his new movie Out Now, which is doing really great. I've noticed it's always in the top couple there on Netflix. The Six Triple Eight with one of our favorites, Kerry Washington. This is a very, very special episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
Oh, that's wonderful. All of it's a sword, right? So I would argue that part of your arousal template being set in the way it was does predispose you to be able to handle what comes your way and results in the success. So my thing is I thrive when shit's hitting the fan. And spent a lot of my life seeking those out. We set this thing at a 50 instead of a 10.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Tyler Perry
So it's like, I'm asleep unless I really got to be aware of how to get out of this situation. I'm sorry, man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Today, we have one of my favorite actors on. I've been slowly becoming obsessed with him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You go to Moscow on the advice of one of your acting teachers?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
When I've sat in that position, I'm like, how do those catchers sit like this for two hours?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Can I make a guess or a suggestion? Sure, man. When one embarks on boxing and fighting and defending, weirdly, I don't want to get hurt. And I want everyone to know, pick someone else. There's an easier thing for you. Because I'm protecting this sweet boy that's really in me. That's it. You get in there and you're like, wait, you can be a sweet boy? And people will be happy about that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And no one here is going to fucking call me... Gay because I just said I like my brother and miss my mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I wanted them to feel so safe and protected that they would love me so much. For sure. And I thought my wife would like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
So, yeah, I loved my friends so much. I wanted them to love me so much, and I would jump on fire for them to show that. And I found out you can do it in acting and comedy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I know. If your group of friends come from a group of adults who say I love you and then act in an opposite fashion, if that's like your core group, everyone there is divorced, kids. No, saying it really doesn't mean anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You got to at least sing that and get a laugh. Actually, how funny is that? I never even thought of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yes, sir. Somehow this teacher says, you know what you might want to think about doing is going and studying in Moscow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Are you a romantic though? Are you telling the story of your life? And you're like, look at me, man. I'm in fucking. A little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You also end up playing professional baseball while you're there. How does that happen?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I was there then. Yeah, I went to St. Petersburg and it was like, oh, communism's dead, but there's no stores. There's no bars. There's no restaurants. The downtown is just like dudes are drunk at nine in the morning. There's really nothing to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I think they've seen so much fucking suffering is my guess through those many years. I mean, fuck from Stalin on so much suffering, food scarcity. They've just seen it all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, it's really cool. What were you making playing baseball? What could someone make?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I got a handful that I follow that I'm really intrigued by, and this is one of them, Jon Bernthal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
So you get back from Russia. You moved to New York. You do 30-odd plays. You do some like guest stars on all the shows everyone in New York does guest roles on. Yeah. You get Tina and Tony's wedding. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that brings you to L.A. in 2004. Yes, sir. So you're just scrabbling for those however many years that would have been. Just kind of cobbling together. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, I mean, I guess we've got like the big- Well, let me ask you. I made a decision where I'm like, this isn't the face I wanted. So I guess we're going tough? I'm going to embrace being masculine?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Okay, so you come to LA 2004. You get yourself on a show. You're a regular for a season. It gets canceled. That's 2005. You get another show for a year. You're in this nebulous, I'm imagining. You're like, is it starting or not starting? Is it starting? Were you feeling that feeling here in LA?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Listen, we got to get into his brothers. They're like the Romney family. No, not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
No, no. Romney Malick? Romney's brother's cool. I like Romney. The Emanuals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Have you read the Pat Tillman book, the John Krakauer book, Where Men Win Glory? Sure. I love that book. He had that moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah. He really hurt a guy right before college and he was almost done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I can explain all this by one event. I let a kid beat me up in sixth grade. And for years, I laid in bed at night going, oh my fucking God, why didn't you fight me?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Well, he was a lawyer that became the board of directors of the Humane Society. Humane Society, yes, sir. Wow. I'm presuming a nice gentleman that would take on that work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I've never been more mad at myself. And it's funny because we interviewed Conor McGregor and I was like, how do you get into this? Oh, I saw a boxing gym. I'm like, there's got to be more to it than that. Oh, I got jumped by these guys that were older than me. Okay. And then I go, well, I didn't fight back. He's like, yeah, yeah, I didn't really. I'm like, yeah, that produced Conor McGregor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That's right. God, it's fucking powerful. The amount of shame. I'm 50. It's all worked out. I'll be in bed and I'll just occasionally, I can be on the couch watching the kid punch me in the face for a long time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I'm so in awe of it. You've done a bunch of great shit. I'm going to jump right to one thing because I saw you in Walking Dead. And to be honest, I was like, if I know this guy, I would be fighting this guy at the bar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Can you watch and just fast forward through my stuff? I think this is great, though, because I'm like, oh, this guy and I would get into it so bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Then you start popping up in other stuff. I'm like, this guy is pretty good. This guy is pretty good. And then for me, we own the city. I was like, I'm prepared to bow down. Oh, man. Holy. What a gift that was. Fuck, are you good in that show. Thanks, man. That's like Gandolfini level. Oh, my God. Thanks, man. I cannot believe that show wasn't enormous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Both The Wire and We Own the City is as close as you can get to narrative being a documentary. I mean, it's just so enjoyably specific. There's not one line of exposition that someone thought they know how it works. They know how it works.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, thanks, man. Me too. Wow. You're incredible. I know we're here to promote other stuff, but everyone needs to go watch We Own This City. I agree, man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yes, because then you don't have to prove it in other ways. I guess so. Let's talk about what's coming out. You have so much coming out. First of all, you won an Emmy last year for Bear. Last year? Yeah. Congrats. Thanks, man. So you're on the Bear. You're going to be in the new season of the Bear. You have The Amateur coming out April 11th. That's with Lawrence Fishburne and Rami Malek.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
So The Accountant 2. I saw Accountant 1. Seemingly from the trailer, this one's a two-hander. More so, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You guys are exploring in a fun way. He's autistic and you're not. And you're brothers and you have a relationship and you're trying to understand what's happening with him. Does he... love you? Does he care about you? Does he think about you? His behavior is very hard to read. That's all happening in this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
He wrote The Judge. I was in that. Yeah, man. That's right. He was a headhunter in St. Louis or something right before The Judge. It's a great story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Okay. Do you like this term method actor or do you hate it? Do you have objections?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
With that said, you played a mute in a movie. Oh, fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
do it and that is his thing i really do try to give people the benefit of the doubt and say god bless you man like if that's what you need to do i think it's cool i think everyone gets to skin the cat how they want to yeah yeah and then the last thing you have a really popular podcast you have a podcast that's adored and loved and so you're a peer in this space the real ones you have firefighters first responders drug dealers convicts you have the whole spectrum
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That's even worse. Yeah. Well, but listen, the older brother fucking was working in the Clinton administration and comms in the White House. Is that a misunderstanding? A little bit. Okay, let's straighten it out. Hang on. Don't give him that one, dude.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
He's in absolutely everything. I think so many, most people will probably know The Walking Dead because it was such an enormous hit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That's awesome. I think people should check it out. The Real Ones with Jon Bernthal. Watch the amateur. Watch the accountant too. Watch Daredevil. Watch the bear. My fucking goodness. Awesome. I don't know how you have the endurance for it all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
So I got back from dropping Delta off. I was like, I got to work out. Then record.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That was the plan. Then edit. And then I was like, I'm very tired. I'm going to take a 20 minute nap. So it must have been 945. Okay. Yeah. And I set my alarm for 10, 15. 30 minute nap. But that's not, I now know that's not what he did. I was like, oh, I set it for 10, 15. Then I'll have a 40 minutes to work out and then I'll be able to still do all the things. Then I'm taking this nap. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And do you ever do this when you're taking a nap and you're like, you're kind of waking up a little bit and I'm like, oh God, this is so much longer than I thought. Like, am I going to, the alarm's going to go off any second. And then I'm like, okay, who cares? Right. And then I go back. Okay. So I was weirdly conscious of how long the nap was. And then I thought that was part of my dream. Sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah. Like, oh my God, this feels so long. Anyways, my alarm goes off. Oh, okay, great. Then I look at the wall clock. I'm like 11.15. I'm like, 11.15? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I did. It's more than that. I knew I was setting it at 11.15, but for some reason.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
For some reason, that was 10.15. I was still going to have, I was setting it at 11.15 and I was going to have 45 minutes to work out, which makes no sense. That's what I'm struggling with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I just confused. You just got out of whack. I confused 11.15 for 10.15 is what happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah. Were you sleepy? You would have liked to have slept longer. Big time. Instead, you got over here on time. And then I'm mostly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, no. Why were you late? Did you have too long of a nap?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
No, because you sent it to me late last night. Well, not late last night, but like nine o'clock at night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I'm not really. And then my full intention was like, I'm going to listen to that while I work out. And then you and I are going to talk about it in fact check. I didn't make it to that workout.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
This is all kind of, I think, reflective of what my updates would be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Okay. I'm going to hit you with the headline. I think this is miraculous. Okay. Um, and I think people will, they'll be scrutinizing of this. They'll be skeptical of these numbers, but I swear these are numbers. I weigh myself every day. Um, pre and post duty Wednesday, when we left for New York, I was 194 pounds in the morning, almost on the dot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Then when we got home on Sunday, I weighed myself 208.8 pounds. Okay. So I gained 14.8 pounds. In three days.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
If I'm just, like, being... I want you to write a fitness manual as well. Then... Wogs and farmer carries.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You got to give your body what it wants. Mine is just eating so fast and so much. I overate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, my God. Infinite hamburgers. But a new thing that I'm here to give a testimonial for. Okay. I urge you to do on your next trip to New York. Have you ever been to Mercado Little Spain? That's Jose Andres market in Chelsea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, Monica, you're going to die. I'll add, I walk in and it kind of looks like a food court a little bit, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, but it's not. It's so, so elevated and hand-built and everything's so good. And the meat has been flown in from Spain and they have a cool little market.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And so my intention was to go and get the hamburger there. Because remember, Jose was like, I make the best burger. Yes. When we interviewed him. And so I go in there with the intention of getting that burger. I invite Dr. Mike.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, King Richard. And everything. The Punisher. He is The Punisher. The accountant with your boyfriend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
We got a really cool tour of the whole thing. I'm going to cut to some of the things that came my way. Okay. They take olives, they press them, then they gather the oil and whatever else came out of it, and then they put it in some kind of calcium or do something to it. It comes out on a spoon, Monica, and it's an egg yolk. Have you had this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yes, it's got a now skin over it, but all it is is the olive oil.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And it's a yolk and you take the spoon and you put it and then it pops in your mouth. Yeah. The taste, I couldn't believe how good this was. Best artichokes ever. Then the Big Daddy Burger then also recommended this more street burger. And it was, he's right. It is, yeah, Emily Burger's got some mage competition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Honest. Now, don't let that break your heart. Okay. I also ate at Emily Burger three times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I don't even want you to tell people about it, but yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
The vestibule. Vestibule three. You're flying out of vestibule three.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, I agree. I agree. And it had similar amount of syllables.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But then for the Bill Gates conspiracy theorist, that's a problem too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, yeah. Well, even that tone of hey, you told him I know you. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, my God. She wants round two of this. Thrilled. Uh-huh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
In your row. In my row. In that single banger. Correct. Oh, wow. Now what?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You don't meet a lot of dudes at the gas station that look like some of the folks. Yeah. I think that's probably right. And then when they're playing the guy at the gas station, why isn't that guy in fucking Hollywood? Because he's gorgeous. Why is he wasting his time in Pennsylvania at this gas station?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh man, I'm sorry you had that. I feel like it brought you back to seventh grade or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Like it feels, I'm sure like a lot of old muscle memory was triggered.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
So you had a brother ahead of you who went through school and clearly he must have been brilliant. This school you went to, friendly something?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I will say in his defense, he was on Zoom. That was a Zoom interview.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh. Can you ask? I'll ask. I'll ask. Hey, my friend Monica was on a flight with you up to Napa. Yeah. Opposite experience. My kids made fun of me for the first three days in Hawaii. I mean, you know, I don't ever talk to anyone on an airplane. I just want to watch my shows I've brought on my iPacks. And that's my goal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Daredevil, Fury, and he has a new movie in theaters now, The Accountant 2.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
If I'm seated next to somebody, I'm not striking up a conversation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah. I'm trying to watch all this content I've downloaded on my iPacks. Yeah. I've got it so mapped out. Like, I'm going to watch this many episodes of this. But I got sent a video of a dude that was filming riding behind me on a motorcycle at Circuit of Americas in Austin, the racetrack. Before takeoff, it was just like I had enough signal to download this video and watch a lap.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And I'm watching it. And then I hear the guy next to me says... I was at COTA. And because he immediately knew it was COTA from like two turns, I go, oh yeah, it's COTA. Have you been there? And he goes, oh yeah, I do a lot of track days there. And his name was Boyd. And Monica, entire trip to Hawaii, five and a half hours, we talked like two schoolgirls. Boyd, what a stud.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
He's a builder who lives on Maui and is so into cars and everything. My kids just couldn't get over it. They'd never seen me. They'd get up or I'd have to take Delta to the bathroom. She'd go, wow, you're really talking to that guy, huh? There's like, does he need a break?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
No, that was in no reference to your story other than it reminded me I had a real ideal seatmate, which never happens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It was such a fun and good conversation. It felt kind of crazy to not exchange numbers at the end. I can see how people fall in love on airplanes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah. I told him where I was staying. You were hoping he'd pop around. I kept, at dinner, I would like look. I'm like, I wonder if he'll just.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Okay. So we went because Kristen is, again, time 100 most influential people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
We did not. I did not. And Juan, I know she didn't either. We didn't look at the list. We didn't know who was nominated other than her. Okay. I guess I know, you're not nominated, you're declared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
So my joke, the two days leading up to it was, you know, I bet the first 40, it's so obvious, right? They're the committee. Oh yeah, that person, that person. And then 40 through 85. Okay. Is probably a little, takes more time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
My hunch is 85, the last 15, I bet is like a month of them in a room. I never even heard of that person. What? No, they can't be on the list. Like, I just imagine it gets harder and harder to make a case. Sure. It's a lot of people to say. Sure. Anyways, go to the event. And to our excitement, Adam and Naomi Scott are there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Friend of the pod. Just a friend. Good friend. I have an update.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, wow. This is like Lionel Richie. Uh-oh. Ha-ha. I did say hi when we left Burbank for Napa, but I didn't get a response. So I wasn't sure if it was actually her or maybe she did and I didn't hear or maybe I'm just gaslighting myself. I thought it was her. So it was pretty strange when I returned on the same flight. I was sitting next to her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
If I had doubled down and said hi again, it would have seemed very odd, especially if it wasn't her. This was really a Curb Your Enthusiasm moment. I did bring home all this bread that my kids never ate. Good job, Rob.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It really demonstrates just how awkward being a human being is. I know. He was like, is that her? Well, if it was her, she would have been a little more engaging.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Then she fucking iced me out on the flight, would never look at me. You owe him an apology.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, that's really funny stuff. He really wrote a long, look at that. He gave you a paragraph.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That could be from Natalie. I mean, we don't know the providence of this text.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, he'll just be like, hey, dick, what the fuck's up? Monica shit or slacks around you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, it just, I think it demonstrates how awkward everyone feels at all times. Even if you're both successful in your own right, you're still walking around like you're in seventh grade and you're not sure the person knows who you are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
The event is, and I know I'm going to get myself excluded right now from ever being nominated. I'm looking around the room immediately. I'm so excited. You guys, as everyone knows, I want to be around Simone Biles so bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
She was there. I went up to her mom and told her mom how much I love her. And I wanted to know if everyone asked her to do her hair now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And then there's a bunch of people I don't recognize because they've done something heroic around the globe that year. Yeah. And so the thing kicks off and it's like Snoop Dogg is emceeing. What a party. Snoop Dogg, he's right there. That's so exciting. And I'm like, how is this dude a better host than everybody? Like he's reading off the prompter like all people, but it feels so good and natural.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That's a blast. Woo. Let's go now to this honoree. Immediately a microphone. And this woman has been freed like 68 days earlier from Hamas. And she tells this long story, this absolutely one of the worst stories you've ever heard in your life. And then begging for her husband, who's still there in tunnels to be released.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And you're like, you went from like Snoop Dogg cheering. So it goes from that. And now you're just kind of like, oh, man, fuck. I feel bad that I was having a good time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And then back to Snoop. He's like, bring out this great pop country star. And this guy gets out and he starts rocking on a guitar. And he's like, everybody on your feet. And now we're all standing up and we're dancing. And then it goes to immediately.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It was just like this. You didn't know what it is on TV. You can see where you would be. You'd have the wrong look on your face. You just couldn't settle into a fucking mood or a tone. Or if we were there to have fun and celebrate, if we were there to really cry and be fucking heartbroken and bummed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, you love when someone's alone. Unless it's David Chang.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
You could have had the most regrettable experience of your life. Given this, I'm glad you, I'm glad you had a trial run with David Chang. Cause that wasn't even, there's nothing, there's no stakes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Can I play a role in this? Do I have access to this person?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That's sad. I know. I'm sorry. The opposite of Boyd and I.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Oh, man. What a boy. I love him so much. Can I say one more thing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
We ended up in a back elevator, like a service elevator to get out of there. And as we got in there, there was a room service tray, someone's room service tray. And there was a half-drinking cup of coffee. And I said to Adam, how much would you pay me to drink this cup of coffee? And as I was saying, would you pay me $5, I just drank this cup of coffee. Uh-huh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And well, OK, you didn't like that story. It was so funny. I felt like I was in seventh grade and he was so he's putting hand sanitizer on and I just drank a random person's half cup of coffee. And then I picked up the tray and then what was the item in there? And then I took a scoop. It was an old dessert. Yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It was like I was acting like I was back when Aaron and I were causing too much trouble. I couldn't believe how much fun I had out on the town. Like I was in my 30s. And then I've been tired for two days.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah. And I've had like- Did you finish all fours? You did, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Show me the cover because I want to see what grabbed your attention. Yeah, it's a word I don't know, I've never heard of, and there's cute little foxes and bunnies on it. And then the name Millet, is that the author's name?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
With your boyfriend. But one thing we didn't get to in the interview, which I really wanted to, we ran out of time, we had him for so long, is he has a really cool project in Ojai. Called Ironbound. And it runs from May 9th to May 11th and May 16th to May 18th. And he will star alongside actress Maren Ireland in an immigrant blue collar story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
The gambit. Gambit. You say gambit. You really hit that B. I say the gambit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Okay, so it's the whole gamut. That's okay. This is great real-time learning. We claim to love learning, but now we're not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
So then you could say like he was running a gambit, meaning some kind of strategy against me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And people don't watch you on the fact check. They are they are missing out on 99 percent of the ride. That look.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
That's helpful. Because I was like, could I really be dropping the B that much?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
All right, say on them again, and let's say what we think our worst two qualities are of that list. Okay. So simplicity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
What are your- Simplicity. Oh. I would say simplicity is my weak. That's weak. Right? Hmm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
But I don't think I make things simple per se. I think I tend to have a lot of balls in the air all at the same time. Trying to do too many things, go too many places, have too many vehicles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Trying to live 10 different lives at once. Not good at simplicity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
It wouldn't work for me either. I don't even aspire to that one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I don't have to live all of them, do I? I can just like a la carte. And then integrity, I think I'm mid-level there. That's good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah, so it's like you're the steward of your flock. You're the steward of your wealth. You're the steward of your objects. Do you maintain them? Do you cherish them? Do you take good care of everything that you were kind of gifted? And are you responsible with all this stuff that you were gifted?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Right. I don't want to live. That feels akin to boring.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Yeah. But I think if you know about yourself and I've had therapists tell me this and I've had other kind of clinicians tell me this, like I am an arousal personality type. Like that is, I love being aroused. So. I think it would be, I see the value in it, but I also don't think that's my path.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
No, but I like it a lot. Well, it'd be up there if I'm forced to join some kind of religion. Yeah. This is good. This is where my friend Christine joined. She's very, very intelligent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
All that sounds vaguely like Stoicism to me, by the way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And he has aged beautifully. He's still so good looking. Yeah, it's a great movie, isn't it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Iterations. I keep thinking of the word iterations everywhere I go. I took a long bike ride yesterday and I was just thinking on iterations. That's a big theme of the movie. It's a scary movie. And he points out how many religions had all these same tenets prior to the Judeo-Christian ones.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
I like it, though. It's my kind of horror movie. It's just creepy and suspenseful. It's not like machetes and chainsaws and ghouls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
This is consistent with all these things. It's like Naxiom's really good until a line in the sand. But also that movie hinges on him as an actor because he keeps getting them to stay and quiet their fears. And if it's not Hugh Grant. Yeah. That was really cast dependent. It was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Mm hmm. It may turn out to be way smarter than you think, which I like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Last time you did it, it was 88,000. Okay, so maybe it went- It's on the rebound.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
So it must have rebounded and then- That's a wild ride, this cryptocurrency ride.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Thank you. Love you. Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
And he has put his whole life and passion into this theater project in Ohio. And I hope people will go check it out May 9th through the 11th and 16th through the 18th.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
One of the things I'm sure you wrestle with, like I do, which is like, what reality do they know? They've had a swimming pool their whole life. That's bizarre to me. But I think having a little girl around who's really in it is a good perspective giver for your kids, who I'm presuming your house is pretty nice in Ojai. For sure. For sure. For sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Jon Bernthal
Both can be true. This school, though, looks so idyllic just from the photo I saw.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
That's the Huston. Half the jokes are about the aunties and uncles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the official car of Indiana.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We needed streaming and niche audiences, which turned out to not be niche audiences.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. And then it gets 40 million households viewing it. Thank you for knowing that. It's not a niche at all. In fact, it's one of our. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
By the way, I hadn't heard this. I just read enough articles about you today that those people had heard about it. One article was talking about that you've had a lot of criticism for not having more diversity on your cast. And I was just getting defensive of you. And I was thinking all writers have the obligation to write their experience. And your experience was being surrounded by white people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So to have created like 227 in the Indian community, that would have been fraudulent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You were hoping you could keep yourself at the party. You hadn't yet thought you could bring other people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But guys, it's exponential growth because it's not just that the parents aren't pushing their kids. It's that the kids didn't see anyone that they found their place in. Like I always say, I needed Nick Cage. Is he good looking or not? I'm not sure. He's tall. That seems like enough. He's the lead. Maybe I could do this. You just need somebody to make it seem real or plausible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
so nice to see you nice to see you how's it going oh my god hi nice to meet you welcome handsome and put together you're number two for that you're the second person i've ever worn a suit before it's a good one you deserve it well it's a tux i think
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
There's a justified and baseline fear that's a little higher in the Indian family. Definitely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
There's also a reality to who came. Your dad was an architect. Your mother was an OBG. Your father was an engineer. Professionals coming here. And now the sky's really the limit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Cause Monica and I did meet the Indian Bob Dylan. He was a chai walleye in front of the hotel. Now that motherfucker had more pizzazz than anyone I've ever seen. But yeah, that guy's not getting invited.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, but have you heard the Malcolm Gladwell episode Token? No. It's worth listening to. I feel like it could relieve you of some stuff. It's all about Sammy Davis Jr. and what he went through, what he had to put up with. It's heartbreaking in so many ways. And there's just a lot of good data about it as well. I was more making the artistic point, which is you had just spent eight years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
surrounded by white dudes in a writer's room on a cast that was largely white certainly your current experience was that when i'm thinking about what i know inside and out at that point it would be to be the lone brown person in a room that's what i would know best
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. What was Buckingham Brown? You went to a school from K to 12.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Okay. What was the vibe of that place? It sounds fancy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I think you very much deserve to be dressed up for. And I don't like dressing up. So it's a gesture to tell you how grateful I am.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I already know that, actually. I heard you say you would stare at boys that wouldn't look at you back and you would have pornographic thoughts about them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I was thinking of Monica, of course, when I read that. Very similar to Monica's story in high school. This may sound like a huge swing, but... I'm going to set it up by saying we've seen this really predictable pattern where we have people who were on Disney and their sexuality was kind of repressed. Yeah, it was forbidden. And when they break out of the Mickey Mouse Club, it's on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
They're like super outwardly sexual. And then we've had a bunch of mostly actresses who their sexuality was overly embellished. They were sexualized as young performers and then they clamp down when they have a choice. And I was just thinking that for the girls that are super hot, that every guy is trying to fuck their almost state of rest is I got to keep that away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But if you can't have it, I think you're liberated to be a pervert. Kind of like guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I apologize. I couldn't do the dress shoes. That would be too distracting for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
There was a pizzeria Italian joint out there called Earth, Wind, and Flower. And the owner had a ponytail. And he was in every commercial. And he would go, classic Italian food with that California flair. And he would pull his ponytail around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
What do you think of that theory? Your theory is that if you are repressed like that, it makes you sort of a... Well, if you've concluded that these guys aren't even going to come at me, you don't have any defenses up. You're not like, I got to keep them away. They're trying to fuck me. As opposed to like, oh, they're not going to. And now you're kind of like, I think I want to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And running point, she enters the coach's domain and he happens to be shirtless doing pull-ups. I do a lot of pull-ups, almost never shirtless.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It's like having Jordan there and there's two sports on the table. You can either film him playing ice hockey or play basketball.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, we should get that top off and see how many pull-ups we can do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We got in the teens. Does it help you to know I was 5'11 and 159 pounds? I've been this size since then. That does help. It does, right? And my girlfriend, she was in ninth grade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And she had enormous boobs and was a woman. We didn't know what else to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We were. We were Riverdale. And again, she was 15. She was in ninth grade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes. And she had already had sex once before and she had enjoyed it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I mean, it was a very brief. We're being so honest. I had made a mixtape and I had hoped that the coitus would start exactly when Love My Way by the Psychedelic Furs came on. That was my favorite song. And it did. And I don't think I made it to the chorus. I had a condom on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But then I didn't know what to do after that. I was like, when do I stop? Then I just kept pumping for a while because when I was that young, my penis just stayed hard. I just kept pumping. I was like, when do I? Is she going to tell me when this is over? Like, I'm ready for this whole thing to be over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I don't think so. Early on, you may have found yourself living there because I lived there the first 10 years I lived here before I realized that's a terrible place to live. Is it? Oh, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Probably within the first five seconds, I had already reached. So she didn't know?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Where I was on a couch, it feels relevant because there wasn't like a lot of options to move around. And I hadn't thought past that. I didn't know when does this conclude? And so I just kept humping. And the longer I was humping and I was like, this is awkward. I don't really know. When do we stop?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You'd be in trouble if you tried to tell the story of a 13 year old and a 15 year old having sex.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
OK, I just want to bring up. So Monica, admittedly, she lived in deep fantasy and part of the fantasy was goodwill hunting. She watched it in her head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. Get hydrated. Wear something very comfortable. Maybe bring your own couch cushion because it'll be all day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You're very hot. I follow you on Instagram and I often look at pictures of you and I go, she's so hot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I've told Monica that. I'm not doing this for your sake.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Okay. So you liked boys, but did you not have a boyfriend through high school?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Now, this is really personal, but we just talked about mine. And I got to bring you into it, Monica. Sure. It becomes a point. When I met Monica, she was 27, 8. And as she was approaching 30, I just started getting the sense maybe Monica had it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, I asked you ultimately. I said to Kristen, I don't think Monica has been with a dude. And she's like, yeah, I think she has. And I'm like, I don't think so. And then I needed resolution to that kind of argument.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
At the time, we were just friends. We argued about podcasts all the time. She hadn't. And then my first thought was, is it a religious thing? Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. I was like, do you want to be married? Is it a religious thing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I was in a hick town and I was super large and we were bored.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Did you? Monty had this too. There is an ambition. So if you do decide you're going to do something, anything in the world, you will figure out how to do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And everyone's already had five girlfriends that you're going to meet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
What do we eat when I'm with you? Am I getting the popcorn and the milk duds?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Are you 50? I just turned 50. Congratulations. Thank you. That's a good one. I made it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
What if they're dyslexic? First of all, I loved Parasite. But what if reading takes so much of your concentration, you're totally missing all the visuals?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So... We have to go through a couple of the fun touch points, touchstones of your ride to here, which is, as you mentioned, Dartmouth. You wrote for their comedy magazine, Jack O'Lantern. Very briefly. It didn't work out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Right. And you were in an improv troupe. Which I loved. And you did stand up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Oopsies. Do you think their presence added to that happening?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Sure, that's a great plan. Forget where the audience is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Did you hurt your hand? Because often, if you've broken someone's nose, you could break your hand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I wouldn't want to ever see someone get punched. But also, I really wish I had seen that. You're going to remember that for your life. If you go to a play and one of the actors breaks, the other actress knows, especially if it's two women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, I think that's why the first step of processing grief is denial. That's the denial phase. You're like, well, I felt it, but maybe she didn't. It was total denial.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Again, not to keep bringing it back to Jordan or Isaiah Thomas playing on a broken ankle in the finals. Just got to do it. It's game seven.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I can only imagine them being from Chicago or at least Ike and how much they must talk about Jordan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I love Ike so fucking much. There couldn't be a better guest. He is wonderful. He's coming. I think he's coming. Yeah, he's coming. He is. I was delighted to see him in the credits for Running Point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Dave is his partner. He made the best joke I've ever heard, which is Dave is a Gentile. And Ike says that in several pitch meetings, he has said he lost a family member in the Holocaust. He fell off a guard tower. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
There's so many overlaps, but this will be a difference.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So really quick, Jeannie Buss is the daughter of Jerry Buss, who had owned the Lakers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
When I was watching the title sequence, because it's giving us a pretty good layout of the setup is in the title sequence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And as I was watching it, I was like, well, this is Jenny Buss's story. And then I saw her name in the credits and I was like, oh, good. She's participated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
They dated. Seriously dated. Yeah, yeah. For a long time. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She loves comedy. She gets to hear his perfect walk-in anytime she wants. He does the very best Christopher Walken. In fact, I think he's who started the Christopher Walken impression. On SNL he used to do that, right? And it's not just that his accent's so perfect. It's he has tapped into what kind of things Walken would say. One of his famous ones is he goes, I don't like sports, but gymnastics.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Boys or girls bouncing on the mat. It's exciting. It's not about the accent. It's that this guy would love gymnastics. Boys or girls bouncing on the mat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
That was a bad one. Don't judge me by it. I'll do it later.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Then it's the L.A. fucking Lakers. It's its own thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Minimally, you want to do the best version of what you thought it was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And then if that's not what they want, great. Let me try to give it to you. But give me a chance to do the thing well that I think it should be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, I didn't know this about him until I was researching you today, that he went on a crazy run on Jeopardy. He started on Celebrity Jeopardy, won that, and then they brought him in. Did you know this, Monica? And they brought him into normal Jeopardy, and he fucking mopped up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
What are his shows? Does he like like Blue Bloods and stuff?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, you don't want to watch what you make. People will be bummed at me that I haven't seen certain comedies. And I'm like, I don't love watching comedy because I can just feel the math most of the time and I can't get lost in it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
They shot it right. Held her head the right way. It was slow enough. Fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, it's comforting. And I'm happy you said that because, yes, I will not read a single thing unless my mother, she knows me enough. Once every three years, something is written so perfectly that I can't find something in the subtext I'm certain is a burn about me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Us too, by the way. Don't let that character. Nobody wants to mislead you. We have two kids. You go to France and stay in Bradley Cooper's house. The year our kid was born. That was the last trip I took like that. And that was 2013.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. Is that what you're referencing? Maybe that's true. That's true. I guess. We do go on family vacations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
No, no, no. None of that's happening. Really? No. We leave this house to go to the airport and we'll go on a vacation. But in general, in LA, we don't ever leave this house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes, that's it. We go to the airport or we get in the bus and drive there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'm flattered by it. But when you got hired on The Office, did you know you were coming in as a performer?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, try as you might. I did that, though, for a movie, Let's Go to Prison. I'm like, yeah, I'm a prisoner. No hair, no makeup. And I was like, you're on film. You should probably put on a little mascara or something. You're just too vain. Yeah, I know. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, she'll find the thing. They cannot shoot my hands. I have the hands of a 90-year-old woman. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Our friend Anna just scours the internet. Well, you have to. And then sends Kristen pictures with her hands circled. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I want to say Mindy Kaling's Kaling it, but it doesn't really work, but I want to say it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Can I just say, I think most women who have just had a baby experience quite a decline. I think your body's like, hey, we have a very specific mission right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I find him to be incredibly charming. Talk show appearances, but I've never heard long form.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We've made a lot of just straight to you pledges on air going, Mindy, I promise you, you don't suck at it. I know you're great at it and you just need to come in and do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I do think culturally the English are better at being interviewed. They have a tradition there of going on the show and being prepared. There's an expectation there that I think the bar is higher.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
OK, so when you started acting and throughout the course of The Office, you ended up being in tons of movies. There had to be a point I'm imagining where you could have at least considered, do I want to continue writing or do I just want to act? Did you ever have those thoughts?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I relate to it deeply. You do? Because I was like, I'm not in the Judd click. I'm not in Will Ferrell's click. I'm not in Vince Vaughn or Owen's click.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
He is. He is. But I did have the Groundlings click. And all those guys have Boom Chicago or I.O. I understand feeling like, oh, they're all from this thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You kind of earn those clicks. No one knocks on your door and says, hey, you want to be in the Judd clip?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But then you get into this situation. You end up getting mad at yourself that you're not a certain type of person, but that certain type of person also wouldn't have gotten you there in the first place. If you were some crazy social butterfly, I don't know that you spend the time in your room writing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I don't know that you bring notebooks to the movie theater when you're 15 and start writing down dialogue. There's a lot of things you probably don't do if you had that skill set. So it's like you can only be so regretful that you weren't that way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You have a one-year-old, a four-year-old, and a seven-year-old?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So I have three friends like Michael Scott, by the way, because mine are a little older. They're 10 and 11. Yeah. And they're just straight up friends. They're friends. Yeah. I took my 11 year old to Lisbon last year to see Taylor Swift. One of the best trips I've ever had with a woman in my life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Which you're arguing with them because they have a different point of view about a political thing or a world event. That is so fun seeing their little brain. No, actually, I'm different than you. I'm going to show you. I'm like, oh, this is great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'll go a step further. We have had multiple guests on I was certain I hated. Forget even ambivalent about. I'm like, I don't like that guy. He's been a dick to me every time I've seen him. Or I don't like this person for X, Y, and Z. And I, too, am just as shocked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She's Kaling it. Still doesn't work. Maybe a third time. Mindy Kaling's Kaling it. Wow. Check her out this fall on NBC. No, but what a delight. We've been bagging.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It's a hack to just plan it way out. Right now, you should be making plans for March.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Because right now you're like, I can't do anything in the next three weeks. Yes. But you think for some reason on March 20th, you'll be available. I think that's how you hack our disposition. Schedule it for way far out because you'll say yes and you'll put it in a calendar and then you'll just have to go because you do everything that's in your calendar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Listen, you guys both love fashion. You love rom-coms. I love fashion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Both of our parents died in the same year, by the way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And I think it's weirdly comforting and makes me optimistic that even someone I'm convinced I don't like, if I sit down with them for two hours and I hear about them and where they're from, inevitably, I always like them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Do you think because you had such an active fantasy about what it was all going to be that men have had a hard time living up to what you were fantasizing about?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'll add, this will sound like pandering, but I believe it. I do think as a man becomes more successful and wealthy, his options widen. And I think for a woman, they narrow. The pool of men, you guys-
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
In 850 guests, we've had like three people I didn't like. And they weren't celebrities. They were experts that we just couldn't do it. They were maybe so smart and esoteric or something. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
have to choose from that are not going to be threatened by your job and your wealth and your status and your attention is a very small pool i feel heartbroken for half the females we interviewed we were watching the paris hilton documentary and i'm like this guy ruins her show gets too drunk it makes us sing he's so jealous everyone wants her attention and it's like What's that girl to do?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. But again, I think I was designed to have this in that my mother was a gangster. She was a fucking super ambitious badass. And we had to get with the program. And I only attracted to people like that. I have to have a pretty good sense that you'll choose something over me to be interested.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
No, I think it is. I think most men, by no fault of their own, they grew up in a married house where mom didn't go to work. That was what was modeled. And so for me, that wasn't modeled. The notion that someone would not leave the house and go gather information and bring it back and share it with us seems crazy to me. But we've had a lot of male guests.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Most men who are married to gangsters, their moms were gangsters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We're going to come back, you know, make you uncomfortable. And I'm going to give Monica some time to prepare because she wouldn't even come in just now. She was hiding in the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Oh, wow. That was a meet cute at the apartment complex.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Have you, I'll just say my experience. So my dad died in 2012. I was going home nonstop to do it all. I think you did the same thing. Yeah. He was a dependent the last several years of his life. It was taxing and we were about to have a child. And when he first died, my truest feeling was relief.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I know, but that's part of what's cool about you. I'm already loving where this is headed. I just think you're hyper talented. I used to go to the set of Mindy to say hi to Mike Weaver. So for people who don't know, Mike Weaver was the DP on Parenthood the first two years. And then he went to your show as a director.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. And the dynamic of if he called, I knew it was to get another thing. It just it was a hard thing to navigate. And so when he died initially, I just kind of felt relief. I don't have all the stuff I normally deal with and I'm already busy. I was shooting on Parenthood, just directed a movie that came out. And then about three months later, I had the wave of like. Oh boy, he's gone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And then obviously throughout the last 11 years of having kids, I go, oh my God, what do you love these girls? I'm like heartbroken. He didn't get to meet these little girls. He would have been so in love with them. And it's weird. My missing of him is only increased. It's taken the opposite trajectory. I would have thought.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You've seen it get really, really ugly. And my dad's saying like diagnosis to death four months. There's no treatment for small cell carcinoma. It's not going to happen. But that whole four months, you're like, how ugly will it get? Well, I have to decide at some point. He went out relatively peacefully. I'm relieved about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
My memories stopped being about the last couple of years and my memories and my dreams, he'd be younger in them. I was able to re-remember the stuff that came before the illness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You want to drive? Let's go. I love those moments because, of course, I relate so much. I relate to I just wanted it. Like, when can I call the shots? I don't agree with anything that's happening around me. And I just subject to it. And so I go, oh, I love it. It's fucking maddening. Both of our kids are so stubborn, but I have so much gratitude. They're stubborn.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Everyone I know and like and respect and has done the things I've wanted to do. Stubbornness is, I think, an essential ingredient. And I just got to let it happen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I didn't live in fantasies about girls. As you know, at 12, that fantasy came true or 13. But I had such rich fantasies about being rich, about being famous. Wealth was something that was so coveted and it was going to feel a certain way. Being accepted by famous people was going to feel a certain way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
They're a little underwhelming when they happen, or at least they didn't fill the thing. But I have got to say, and people think I'm baby shaming when I say this, but boy, did that thing for me 10x what I was expecting. Has that been your experience?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But I'd go say hi to him and I would hope to God you would come out of the soundstage at some point so I can meet you. I just genuinely have been wanting to meet you for over 10 years. I'm a huge fan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, she's going to name her daughter Monica. She's already declared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But those can be powerful. Favreau, to put him on blast, when I was doing the movie Zathura and he directed it, I was around his family a lot. And his daughter Madeline, we would go trick-or-treating and she would ride on my shoulders the whole time. Like, we just were in love. That made me go like, oh, I must have a Madeline before I die. I got to have this little girl on my shoulders.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
When I see babies, I do run over. I'm like, who's this new person that just got to planet Earth? What's going on with you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We'll revisit. Let's not get a permanent. Let's not get a tattoo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
OK, well, we talked about Running Point. I just want to say I watched it. First of all, as I said, I got so excited in the credits because Mike Weaver, I couldn't love more. I love that you're writing it with Ike and Dave. I love Jeannie Buss. I love the story. Kate's an ex-girlfriend. So that's complicated. We're ex-lovers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
No, it was a summer romance right before I met Kristen. Hot. Three months, four months.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I was. I was friends with her brother, Oliver. I'm trying to think of the order of how, you know what it was? She was playing poker when she was still married at Oliver's house. And I was there one night and I put on the show of my life for her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes. And I think at the time I was probably 30 and she was 25. Best performance ever. And I knew, oh, she kind of likes me. She's married, but she likes who I am. And then, yeah, I got invited to a Halloween party. And then a couple of years later, a year later or something, she was divorced. I was single for the first time in eight and a half years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And we went to a dinner at a restaurant with friends. And then we had a romance. She's been on and we've discussed it publicly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, there was a lot of travel. I got to meet Kurt and Goldie. It was very exciting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So, yeah, I think you're hyper talented. I love your acting. I think you're a fucking babe. I think you're hot. Everything about you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Are you obsessed with her? Because Monica is obsessed with the row.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She doesn't have old Indian money. She has nouveau riche podcast money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
These stand-ups are making tens of millions of dollars.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Oh, yeah. There's like almost going to be an agrarian revolution.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'm obsessed with it, too. And I admit all the time I'm a very greedy pig. OK, well, I want to make sure we talked about running point enough. As we discussed, I saw it. It's great. I blew through three of them intending to only watch one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Oh, yeah. He is tangentially related to Henry David Thoreau. Really? He comes from good stock.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
No. And Kate's great. We love seeing her do this. You were already obsessed with her as a rom-com person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She would totally allow it. I always say if you're going to say about me either I was a genius or the funniest person alive or hot, I'm picking hot across the board. A lot across the board. Yes. I didn't have it. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She's so great. Ike's dad is in it, which delights me because. He was so good in jury duty. And I'm like, this guy, I can't believe he was a judge. He was born to ask.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Day one. Put it in the atmosphere, the universe. And boy, if you're patient, sometimes dreams can come true. They can indeed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
He's the family lawyer, which is great, of an old school, multi-generational.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, he's a lawyer. Good for him. Well, Mindy, we waited a long time and I'm so happy. I hope it lived up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, you're never social, so I'll never see you out in public. So I guess I'm glad that I got this. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Truly an honor. Everyone check out Running Point. I only had to watch one and I watched three. I love it. Oh, the other thing, your mom's name is Swati.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So we just learned this term. People in England say swatty for nerd. It means like you're a swatty. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Swatty through and through. You bleed swatty. I do. There you go. All right. Well, we love you. Thank you for coming and come back so we can see you again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We've got a bit of a role reversal happening. Let me remove my spectacles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We do have a role reversal. Usually you're dressed quite warm and I'm dressed in a chilly, like, no, you're dressed very warm and I'm dressed very scantily.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It's a hoodie. I don't know if I'm going to say it's a jacket.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So if something has a zipper, you upgrade it to jacket status. Jacket or coat. If your Uncle Jack climbed up on the roof of the house and the ladder fell over, would you help your Uncle Jack off?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
There was a lot of gold in the hallways of Spring Mills Elementary. That's from way back in 83, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. It's just Jack. Somehow Jack got in my vocab. Jacket. Correct. That's why. Fun update from armchairs. It turns out there's a lot of armchairs that are very, very in the know when it comes to Eames chairs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
That doesn't surprise me. People are that it's like if you're into architecture, you're probably in the Eames chairs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So now I do want to correct one person like hate to disappoint you. This doesn't disappoint me. It's worse. OK, so DAX isn't is an acronym.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
For the chair. For the Eames chair. Okay. So I can tell you what it stands for if you're interested. Yep. Okay. So it's an abbreviation or an acronym for dining, D, armchair, A, on X base. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Great. But as we talked about DAX from the book, The Adventures was also an acronym. Initials. Right. So that's great. I think that's even better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I don't think it took away from the sim at all. I think it made it more simmy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes. We recorded on Thursday and then I went out to eat with some friends that were in town. Oh, Ken Goldberg, previous guest. Ding, ding, ding. Roboticist and his lovely family. So we went out to mess hall, met this great arm cherry. I don't know if I've told you about this arm cherry. There's an arm cherry and I see him on Instagram too. He has autism and he left a note for me at
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
the restaurant knowing I go there sometimes. So I got this beautiful note for him and then I wrote him a note back. And then I actually met him that night because he happened to be there. So come home, whatever, no big deal. That's Thursday night, Friday, previous guest Seth Green comes over with his beautiful daughter and wife.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It was a weekend of previous guests and we're all in the yard playing with the baby. The baby's way too cute. I want you to meet her so bad. She's so talkative and she's not even three. And she was hugging me and she said, give you a big hug. She goes, I love him. I love you. I love him. I was melting. I was a puddle for like three hours playing with this little girl. Oh my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
The red hair, little red hair, green eyes, red hair cares. I don't know. Okay. Anyways, the, uh, Claire got thirsty. We were in the yard. So I was like, I'll just run into the studio and grab some water out of the fridge, go to grab some water, the fridge. And I'm like, huh? Rob took all of the cameras out of the studio this weekend. He's like, no, he's moonlighting on another job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And he's just he's embezzling. Basically, he's just taking the equipment I've bought. And he's got side projects and a side hustle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I mean, that still means I bought. Well, OK, so potato, potato. Also, I need to say earlier in the day, this is relevant. It's very relevant, actually. I was, I took a long bike ride. I pull him into my driveway. Carly's pulling out. She's got the window down. She's like, do you always do it? And I'm like, what? And then I slowly start turning around on my bicycle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And then I'm like going like half a mile an hour while I'm trying to talk to her. Right. And I have the clip on bike shoes in, which I'm still an amateur at.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And so I have this moment where I'm about to fall over, but I can't pull my foot off the pedal to stop. So I just fell over like a sheet of plywood. I just fell. It was so it was the stupidest fall of my life. Just imagine being on a bike and letting yourself go completely 90 degree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
No, it wasn't nearly as bad as a skating accident on my birthday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Okay. Thumbs up. Yeah. Fall guy. Yeah. So I broke my phone when I hit the ground. I guess I hit hard enough that between my thigh and the cobblestone, I broke my phone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Everyone already knows where I live. It's fine. We got to give credit to Kristen a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So... I'm like, oh, yeah, but I got to add I'm driving to the mall, which I don't normally do. It's like it's going to be a three hour ordeal. Right. And I can't get my phone to turn on. I've tried every protocol. I've held all the buttons for all these different ways. And I'm just like praying that I can get a new phone and they can transfer everything at the genius bar. And I get there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And of course, the woman turns my phone on. It turns right on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I told her I compare it to when you've been sick for like two weeks, you finally decide to go to the doctor and in the exam room, you feel wonderful. Fuck, it's over right now that I'm at the doctor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So that was happening. Now cut back to in here, realizing none of the cameras are here. I can't call Rob because my phone is broken and it's transferring for nine hours. So then I have Carly call Rob. I say to Rob, let's act it out, Rob. Hey, what's going on? Not much. What's going on? Hey, did you take all the cameras out of the studio? Nope. Nope. You don't have the cameras. No, definitely not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Okay. Well, we were robbed. Oh, what else did they take? I don't really know. I just discovered all. So whatever. Yeah. That's that conversation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And then I asked Rob, will you come take stock? I don't know what all gear is in Rob's zone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So Rob comes over. Now... Now, this is what sucks. Now, I'm really kind of distracted for the rest of my play date with Seth's daughter, which is a bummer because all of them, right? I want to be right in the thick of it. You want to be present. But I'm like, fuck, when did this happen? Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She had her 18 years. She has my man. She's done. But yes, the yard for me too. I'm from Michigan. And the definition of having made it was you would have a big yard. You could run around it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Also, some weird thing happened where when I came home on Thursday night from the dinner with Ken Goldberg, I noticed that my trailer door was open, which I didn't understand. That was like... That was just, you know, you notice little things. Yep. Shut that. And then I was like, okay, well, I, well, it happened between Thursday when we recorded and now. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So I'm going to presume I'm going to start with when it starts getting dark last night. So.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Half hour after we went to go to dinner, two dudes. You have cameras basically. I have cameras everywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes. Now that's its own. That takes a long time. What camera am I looking at? I don't know where they came at on the property. Yeah. So I do waste a good hour looking at footage from, I don't see anything. But then I see that they have jumped over the pedestrian gate. They're in full masks. And then they went up into my gym. I'm watching this now on all the cameras. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
They go into Kristen's office. They come out. They go up into the attic. They go down into the studio. They take all the cameras. They head out. It's 10 minutes. That's it. Start to finish. And the very frustrating thing is... On camera, I see them. They exit the house with all this gear and they have two Lime scooters parked against the wall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
OK, not like fucking COVID masks. I'm talking full masks. Yeah. One of our neighbors pulls in, headlights bright on these two guys with full mask, holding a bunch of stolen cameras, loading it on a bird scooter. And they just cruise by. Yeah. And they don't call anybody. So I was a little bit like, oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
If I roll in, I see I'm out of the car. It's on. Oh. Oh, anyways, I don't recommend that to whoever that was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I would have called the police and I would have followed them on the fucking scooters in a car. They can't outrun you. I would have stayed with them while I was on the phone with 911. They might have had guns. They had cameras, I think is what they had. Lots of expensive cameras.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
The thing that I find rough about that, again, I was like, you can afford to replace the cameras. It sucks. They're expensive. It really sucks. It really sucks. It is quite an expensive ordeal. You can't report it to your insurance or my insurance will go up over time. That doesn't justify, you know, so that's what I hate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I don't think anyone does. But the obsession of like, are they coming back? I know. Why wouldn't they come back?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'm now like, well, I'm going to have to be watching this like crazy. I'm going to have to get loud alarms over there. I have to do a lot of stuff now. And I think that's the thing I resent is it's just the anxiety of are they coming back?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes. Okay, Monty, do you want to share or do you want to go later?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Oh, well, they- They made a huge mistake. They slept on a gem. So here's the blessing though. I wouldn't have gone in to the studio all weekend. Why would I come in here? This is our place of work and it was the weekend. And we had a really great, wonderful guest on Monday. And we would have arrived with no cameras. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So, again, I couldn't help but be grateful that I at least discovered it on Friday. Rob then had the weekend of his life trying to track down five new cameras.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I hate knowing they were in my gym and stuff. I hate it. I'm sure Kristen hates it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Our sweet best boy, Jimmy Kimmel, was being honored by this great charity that works with Cleveland Clinic that does work on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's neurological disorders. And it provides a ton of support for the caregivers of all these people who have these conditions. 11 million people are caregiving. Wow. So went to Vegas just for the day. Yeah. And I went gambling with Kristen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And I wouldn't be shocked if we get barred from the MGM. I don't know that they'll let us back at the tables.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Because we put it to them so hard. We won $225. Wow. So. Cool. Probably will get barred.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Too many, some would argue. Let's be honest. They're taking over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
They do at certain games. Yeah. Yes. In fact, it's in Nate Silver's book. So the people are really good at counting cards, which is not illegal, but the casino has the option of denying you to play there for any reason they want. Right. So they will notice someone's counting cards in a single deck or double deck blackjack, and then they will not allow them to gamble anymore. Got it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So a lot of these people. Yeah. And ultimately, I think there was the Harvard. There was some Harvard thing where they over the course of 10 years, they won millions of dollars. Oh, wow. With a system. Again, not illegal. They weren't somewhere like tap in any devices or anything. It was just all math. But they all ultimately all of them were barred from all these casinos.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Only seven. But I like that you've made it bigger because that feels good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It was a very well-run, tight show. It was. I was impressed. Yeah. That motherfucker's straight live.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
There was only a couple of hiccups and had nothing to do with anyone's writing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I noticed on your post, you had like a thousand comments. People were exploding. Well, I would argue some spraying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
What a team. I want to shout out everyone that works in this whole— organism that is something like this. Marcel. Publicist. Who I love, who's been around for 20 years. I love him so much. Sweetest boy alive. Jenny doing hair. Yeah. Best vibe possible. And best. And best in the biz. Yeah. Simone, makeup, incredible. Incredible. Known her forever. Yeah. Who am I leaving? Anna's there crushing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You're there crushing. Nicole is styling the fuck out of it. It's incredible. Everyone just works so calm. Like it's such a well, sometimes I'm like, I'll be doing a talk show as a guest and I'm walking to my green room and I look in the other people's screen. And sometimes I look in and it's just fucking madness, right? It's like people panicking. That energy is rough for me. That's not the vibe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
This was last weekend and we had our anniversary two weeks before that or a week before that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Oh God. She can also, she can fucking, she is so calm and confident. It's boggling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She's so chill and fucking not in a hurry. Nope. She's like a great comedian. That's not in a hurry. Yeah. Stand up. Yeah. It's impressive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Okay. Here's my crazy moment. So we're leaving and I'm carrying tons of bags and stuff and I've got the kids in tow and we're going to the car and I literally bump into meet cute. My biggest crush, Timothy Chalamet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, he was hanging in the hallway with his mom when I bumped into him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And I go, hey, first of all, he's much taller than I was expecting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Tall boy. Oh, he's so dreamy. And I go, oh my God, I'm so horny for you. And he goes, oh, thank you. And I just I can't believe how into your career I am. I'm following it like I'm a teenager. And he's like, oh, my God. Thanks, dude. I tap danced away from that interaction. I was smitten. Nice. I loved his speech.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We talked on the way home about it. Kristen was like, it's weird to hear someone admit they want to be great and they want to be like Brando and all these people. And I go, but why? If you're a snowboarder, you would say, I want to be the next Sean White or I want to be Jordan. That's that's what you should. If you're entering into an endeavor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
As your main focus of your life. Yeah. You should damn well be trying to get to the greatest it's ever been done. Totally. I loved it. I thought. Yeah, why is everyone acting like they don't want to be that? That's awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It just goes to show when you love somebody, whatever they say, you kind of like it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
He's not. Yeah. He would have said Burt Reynolds or Ben Affleck. Sure. You know, ultra famous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Did you enjoy listening back while you're editing? Yeah, it was great. Did it help reconfirm it happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
What a joy. And how sweet. We were like, do you hear how much we want you on? And she's like, yeah, I thought it was a bit. We're all what's wrong with all of us. She's a queen. She's a queen. She's a queen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Right. I just want to add, I've had pizza a couple million times and I've never had food poisoning. I don't know how you would get, how a bacteria would still be alive after it goes through the oven. I know. This lends itself to the conspiracy theory, I think. It does. Okay, so hit us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
No, you blast, even mad cow, you blast that in the furnace, it's dead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So that to me is what's... Very problematic. Five guys delivered the pizza. If five guys show up to deliver a pizza for me, I'm not opening the door. They're going to rush in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Not rushing. I'm not saying Russians are all home invaders. I'm saying rush in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
This reminds me of you were too young to really watch people's court a lot. Right. Did you ever watch people's court? No. It was the precursor to Judge Judy. Yeah. And let's see, Doug Llewellyn was a commentator. He would name the cases. And this was like someone who ordered a pizza suing the pizza delivery guy. And Doug Llewellyn called it the case of the painful pepperoni pizza.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
This was exciting. Jeannie Boss. Yeah. Owner of the Liqueurs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You got to figure that out. It's a party. In fact, I just saw Instagram yesterday of Will Ferrell and Chad Smith, drummer for the Chili Peppers. You know, they look identical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Type in Chad Smith. Your horns are going to fall off your head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And they're nodding back and forth to each other and doing a whole thing. Oh, wow. That is crazy. He's also like 6'4". Wow. He's tall like Will as well. Yeah. So they were like both at the game and they were making a real. Oh, look. Oh, my God. That is so funny. It's fucking freaky. Yeah. If Chad's nose was just a little narrower, there's no way to tell them apart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Because we're tanking it, right? And we don't have it. But people are going to connect that since we started reporting, it's been going down and then they're going to attack us under the veil of night. What is that? Go ahead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes, you have to admit that. I think the first one was like $102,000.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Except for me causing the Lions loss. That's still up in the air. And my ring. Yeah, and your ring. Lost us the election.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, the amount of months that goes into harvesting those eggs. Yeah. Can I use that word, harvesting? Sure. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Would you ever get an answer from your contractor? When I was with you, you emailed them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
No, I actually think it's like 4290 something. That includes all the other buildings? Shut up, Rob.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
That's a side. We can have that, and you'll win that one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Not this studio. I'm not counting the studio. You should count it, too, then.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Oh, I appreciate it. You would have figured out the cameras were stolen a little earlier. No, no, no. Anyways, what's your house? We're getting distracted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Above it. Separate. Yeah. So that's, these are all great points.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Those are great, great points. But I have one counter that's very, again, you're going to have to acknowledge how powerful this is. When I go to sell this house, it is illegal for me to say that the house is more than 4,300 square feet. You cannot include any out housing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
That's not included. So when I put it up on the market, people will think they're bidding on a 4,300 square foot house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'm just saying the city only acknowledges 4,300 and the real estate's only acknowledged 4,300. Rob. I get both your points.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I also have an acre. I'll admit my property is bigger than yours.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Let's talk about- Now these buildings are going to be on top of each other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
If I'm trying to sell it for a price that would be commensurate with how much of these outbuildings I have, they won't even come look at it. They'll be like, I'm not driving across town to look at a 4,300 square foot house for that much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Both things are true. I have more. Square footage all told. Yeah. And what's also true is that your house is bigger than my house. Oh, boy. That's true. My garage isn't my house. But your garage... My house is the building I live in and eat in and sleep in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You spend... The same amount of time in this building as I do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
If you want to work across the street, you can be in that building as much as the owner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I know you're bummed that your house is bigger, but it just is. We just found out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'm locked into the story. The story is fantastic. I love the story. Such a great American story. Think what a good story. Take us out of it. There's a family in Louisiana.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
A woman comes in to clean their house. Okay. Okay. And then within a few short years, that same woman builds a house across the street that's bigger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, I can't say babysitter because I'm trying to get you out of, you're locked into your story and I'm trying to make a story very similar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But could have. And then a few years later built a house across the street that was bigger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
At no point in this story have I said the maid in Louisiana was gifted a house across the street.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, you're making of all those assumptions about the woman cleaning the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes, I love that. That doesn't diminish the story at all. It's a story of someone starting on the bottom rung of a ladder and being at the very top of the ladder five years later. It's like a great story. It's like the most triumphant story. I don't know why you can't accept. That's more curious to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Is the story that if you heard about, you would love has happened to you and you feel removed from it. Yes. Different, but yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Because all of that came from the job you got. You didn't buy the house across the street because you went out and did a TV show for 12 years. Right. I think that's your I think you might have a hang up about that. And I don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You directly rose through this household and ended up going into business with one of the owners of the household, which created all this. Yeah, that's great. That's a different story than mine. I have a great story, but it's a much different story. Sure. I cobbled together 25 different acting jobs before I bought the house. It's not a story of me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It's this is a story of someone entering GM and becoming the CEO.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I just think it's a great I love the story. And it's an even better story, I think, if your house is bigger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess that really, this would probably satisfy her greatly, this debate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
All right. Love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
This can often happen to the best of us. If you hear someone being completely candid and you have told yourself that you're not allowed to be and somehow this person's doing it and getting away with it, sometimes it can lead to some resentment. It kind of shatters your story a little bit. We went and saw Husson stand up and Monica had kind of a breakthrough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She's like, I've been hiding my Indian-ness my whole life, thinking I could only succeed if I assimilated. And here this person just showed me, no, I could have embraced it the whole time and done the same thing. And she, lovely enough and is confident enough, could be happy about that, but could have also fucked her up a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Okay, Mindy Kaling. We're so excited she is here today. Award-winning actor, screenwriter, and producer. The Mindy Project. The Office. Never Have I Ever. Sex Lives of College Girls. Inside Out. And her new series out on Netflix now, Running Point. What a delight. So special. Yeah, I really like her. Please enjoy Mindy Kaling. Kaling it. Who's Kaling it? This fall on NB's Really Great Station.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Willkommen bei PreSales Unleashed, deinem Podcast für Sales Engineering im B2B-Software-Vertrieb. Und heute haben wir eine ganz besondere Folge, weil ich bin am 1. Januar auf einen kleinen Ausflug an die frische Luft gegangen und war eine Runde joggen. Und beim Joggen, da kommen mir manchmal die guten Ideen. Und eine Idee war, ja verdammt, warum machen wir denn keine Predictions-Folge?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Es folgt Martin Kraus, er ist Director Solution Consulting bei ServiceNow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Als nächstes hören wir Peter van Zijst. Er ist Manager Solutions Consulting bei LastPass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Die nächste Einreichung kommt von Sarah Helle. Sie ist Director Sales Engineering bei Cognigy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Nun folgt Stefan Reimann. Er ist Head of Solution Engineers bei Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Als nächstes folgt Thomas Heinz, er ist Senior Manager Solutions Engineering bei Okta.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Und bevor jetzt Jan und ich hier unsere Weisheiten ins Mikrofon tröten, frage ich doch einfach mal Führungskräfte aus dem Feld, was ihre Prediction für 2025 ist. Also eine ganz besondere Folge. Ich habe tatsächlich in der Summe zwölf Menschen gefragt und somit zwölf Einreichungen bekommen, die hier einen Beitrag jetzt leisten für diese Predictions-Folge und dabei wünsche ich dir ganz viel Spaß.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Und last but not least, als nächstes folgt Thorsten Rusch. Er ist Director Solutions Consulting bei Cornerstone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Das war dieses Mal eine sehr ungewöhnliche Folge. Lasst es uns gerne wissen, ob sie dir gefallen hat. Dann können wir solche Formate öfter mal ins Leben rufen. Das war für dich Pre-Sales Unleashed, dein Podcast für Sales Engineering im B2B-Software-Vertrieb.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Wenn dir diese Folge gefallen hat und du wertvolle Impulse mitnehmen konntest, abonniere gerne die Show, hinterlasse uns eine 5-Sterne-Bewertung in deinem Podcast-Player. So können auch andere von dieser Folge profitieren. Schön, dass du dabei warst und bis zum nächsten Mal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Kommen wir zur zweiten Einreichung. Ihr Name ist Dola Akenduro und sie ist Director Pre-Sales bei HubSpot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Bevor ich jetzt gleich die erste Person anmoderiere, ein kleines Easter Egg für dich. Sehr viele der Lieder haben erwartungsgemäß auch auf den Trend AI etwas zu sagen. Einer dieser Lieder hat tatsächlich den Beitrag mit AI generieren lassen. Und ich rede dabei nicht vom Inhalt, der kam nämlich von der Person selber, aber die Stimme ist komplett synthetisch durch AI generiert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Übrigens, was all diese Führungskräfte gemeinsam haben, sie sind Teil unserer deutschsprachigen Pre-Sales Leadership Community. In einem geschützten Rahmen sprechen wir dort über alles, was dich als Führungskraft im Pre-Sales bewegt. Zum Beispiel Pre-Sales Talententwicklung, Pre-Sales Playbooks in Deutschland versus international, Pre-Sales Incentive-Modelle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Das sind alles Themen, die wir kürzlich in dieser Community aktiv diskutiert haben. Das Ziel dabei ist immer ein gemeinsamer Austausch, voneinander zu lernen, die Weiterentwicklung deiner Pre-Sales-Organisation und von dir als Führungskraft. Der Fairness halber sei dazu gesagt, bist du keine Führungskraft in Pre-Sales, ist diese Community nicht für dich.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Deswegen prüfen wir jede Anmeldung tatsächlich einzeln. Und wenn das jetzt für dich noch interessant klingt, dann schau mal in die Shownotes. Dort findest du nämlich einen Link zur Anmeldung.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Deine Aufgabe beim Zuhören, versuch mal herauszuhören, welcher der zwölf Lieder das getan hat. Und wenn du glaubst, es entdeckt zu haben, dann schreib mir gerne mal auf LinkedIn. Also wir starten mit dem Andreas Schmidt. Er wird auch gerne Andi genannt. Er ist Director Solution Sales bei Ivanti.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Als nächstes hören wir die Prediction von Julian Preto. Er ist Head of Customer Advisory bei SAP Deutschland.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Nun hören wir Katharina Baum, Solution Engineering Leader bei Miro.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
James Marsden
Als nächstes folgt der Lars von Strahlen. Er ist Head of Presales bei Babtec.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Give me the real. Show me the ropes. So he showed me the ropes. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Well, because there's an insecurity for them. It's like, if I don't have enough, what if I didn't do it right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
What is it about that role that you think just makes it impossible?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Same. That's the big hurdle, the learning part, unfortunately.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
It's also so funny to me that the bucket list was invented from the movie, and now it's just a ubiquitous phrase that everyone uses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Yeah, but he was probably saying the same thing. It's a similar situation for him, I'm sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I think it could be definitely true. I mean, maybe not him, but everyone else then on Earth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Can you go anywhere without getting involved? No, I stay home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I'm saying this obsession with your voice. When that first started, were you like, what's going on here? Or were you like, yeah, I get it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I want to watch it tonight now that we're talking about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Yeah. I had a dream last night that I had a booger on my face.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I feel bad because it involves a previous guest, but it was a dream.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
It did not happen in real life. I guess I've been having a lot of dreams where I'm embarrassed by my body, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Oh my, I mean, it's possible because the dream is about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
But the booger, not so much, but maybe, maybe it's a snowball effect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Okay. So I had a dream a while ago that I saw Jake Gyllenhaal somewhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Yeah, it was like it was frisky and it was bantering. It was electric.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And I even my non dream Monica was like there somewhere and she was excited about the rest of the dream.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Where it was leading. Yeah. And so we got to the bedroom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And then he, this is like really, this is really bad, but it is a dream.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
It's a dream. If anyone's listening with kids in the car, this is not appropriate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
He does. And he was, and it was, he was so nice the whole day, the whole day. He was so, um, effusive, so cute and sweet and lovely. And then he like made this face and I, can you make the face that he made?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Um, more of a, yeah. And I, I said something like, Is everything okay? Or maybe I ignored it. And then like, he kind of tried again. And then he, and then he was like, started like getting angry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
So yeah, he turns and he becomes angry and mean. And I said, you're being mean. Oh, you said that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I mean, I guess people have smells, but I was like, maybe I do, and I've just not known this. And obviously no one is telling me, and I can't smell myself. So, oh my God. And then that was the dream.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I don't think he commented. I do think he said like, ew, this is disgusting. He didn't give any action items.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
But he did. It was horrible. And then I've been scared ever since.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I'm about to compare it. The butthole slash anus is actually a good equivalent because even if you washed it...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Let's say... The outside. You wash the outside, but what can you do about the inside?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Okay. Anyway, but so even if you get a little bit though, you're not really like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
If you have fecal matter in your anus. Yeah, in your bottom. No, in your bottom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Let's keep it clean. Yeah. It'll probably still smell. So it is a good comp because you can clean the outside of your vagina. Although I have heard you're really not supposed to clean it with soap.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
That's been, not to disparage any brands, but that's been debunked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I know. So now I'm like stressed and I think I'm going to take your approach and I'm just not ever going to date.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Yeah, but who, most people are probably not going to pull a JG, a dream JG and like make a bad face. They're going to lie because of course you're going to lie because what to do?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Stop! Also, what? Like, this does anything. This is such a dumb move.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
It's not too embarrassing, but I just don't think there's much to do. There's some like, there's like foods you can eat that help, I think, like temporarily. But I don't know. I'm just of the opinion that you get the smells you get. Like you said, BO, you get what you get and you do get upset. Because as you said, some people have stronger BO.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And of course that has, you know, there's deodorant and there's stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
High stakes in the world. Well, not that it was high stakes. I think it was my brain telling me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I'm going to ask you to speak on behalf of most men.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I rarely give you permission for this. Do you think it's... a deterrent for real? Or do you think people like, look, think about all the people in this world who are married.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
In relationships. But I'm saying married, like you're in it. You're not getting out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And I have to imagine that there's a varying degree of odor among all the people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
So some people are with Like odorous vulvas and vaginas and uteruses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
So, I mean, people are obviously either fine with it or they don't smell it or they're just like, fuck it, I don't care. You get used to it. Like, what is it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Okay, but what about when you enter the relationship? Forget, now you're married, so yeah, you're like, baby, we got to do this. But what about when you enter? Is it a deterrent? Like if she stunk, not just her vagina, let's just say she stunk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And that's the moment you get married when you met her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
So I guess it's, wow, it's really to each his own. I guess it just wasn't the right match with Dream JG.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And that's where I'm asking you to speak on most men.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Like this guy is- But is it cool? Because it's like fun, but very intimidating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I mean, the people look, this is great, great, great details.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
But I really I think the the question is, how do you feel about the fact that you are done writing with 30 year olds?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Okay, well, okay, but it made you think about your age.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
About aging. Oh. That's the question. Like that's a kind of existential thought.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I feel really, really, really lucky we got to talk to him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
What were the movies at the time that were huge for you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
That's a good way of looking at it. Like not just you camp, but that you don't really want to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And this is a ding, ding, ding. Cause this is from Morgan and he had to stop sailing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
The squash was a hit. Really, everything was a hit. I was going to make, you know... It's a big undertaking. It really is. And it starts the day before. The day before, you have to make the stock, and that takes three to four hours. And then you also make, I made the cranberry sauce the night before. I made, you brine the turkey. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I know the kitchen. Oh, boy. We talked earlier that Allison Roman, I was worried she wasn't going to do Thanksgiving this year because she's pregnant. But she did do it, which was very exciting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And she shows in the video her turkey has a bag of giblets on one side and a bag on the other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Well, exactly. So, okay. So she was like, make sure you get them because she said one year she accidentally cooked with them and ew, that's disgusting. Okay. So I, I, one was easy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
half already kind of sticking out pulled that out then i am looking for the other bag and i can't find it you're saying there's two bags of giblets in a turkey i thought there was only one bag well exactly so on her videos there were two bags have you been listening are you doing the thing that i did with the no i thought she got an auxiliary bag of giblets from the butcher oh Oh, gross.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
That's what my whole thought process was. Oh my God, there's two. There's one on both ends. Weird. And they have to be removed. So I took the one out that was like very obvious. And then I'm looking in the other side and I can't find it. But it's also like, feels like it's a little frozen. So I'm just like... shoving my hand up this turkey all the way up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And I'm moving my little fingers around looking for this bag and I'm convinced that it's frozen up in there. Sure. Can't find it anywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
So I am doing that. And also you have to like pull out this plastic thing in there. That's really hard. It's a whole.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
There's a plastic thing inside that you pull out with the legs. Anyway, so I was like, okay, I can't get this bag out now, probably because it's frozen. So by tomorrow it will be unthawed and I, like, it'll be completely unthawed and I'll be able to get it out. So I brined the turkey. Well, it was unthawed already. But I was thinking maybe it wasn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
It was thawed already, but I thought maybe there was still some parts that were unthawed inside.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And that was causing the issues. Whatever. I brine it, put it in the refrigerator.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I did a full fist. Then the next day when I took it out, I... Did it again. Hand all the way in. Squish, squish, squish.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I panicked. So then I do text Allison and I asked, does every turkey have two bags or is it just one? I'm panicking that it's in there and I can't find it. She said, no, not all of them do. Phew.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
So anyway, that next day, you know, I have to make the turkey. I make the stuffing. I make the squash gratin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I didn't make that. That's not part of Allison's thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Okay. So the squash gratin, the stuffing, there was a kale salad with these honeyed walnuts. I had to make the gravy. My God. I think I'm forgetting something. Oh, potatoes, mashed potatoes with sour cream and chives. Okay, I start cooking at 11 and people come at six. And it's the whole time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Yes, but as we're heading towards the end, I think I cannot make these green beans. It was the last thing I had to do. And I was like, I'm not doing it. But then I looked in the mirror and I hated my face. Okay. It was the face of a failure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I said, that's not me. That's not going to be me. So I made it. And it was basically a homemade green bean casserole. You make it with green beans, mushrooms. You make your own roux. Okay. And it was everyone's favorite.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And it was so hot. I was sweating for seven hours because it was so hot in my kitchen because the oven.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Yeah. Anyway, but it went great. It was super fun. Loved it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
We gave thanks. Oh, good. It was a great night. Oh, I want to make this clear. This is important to eight people who are listening, our friends. I think it might seem to the pod like I'm neglecting the pod, that I'm rude because I'm not including them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Well, in case they're worried about that. The reason it's done like this, one is I can only host maximum eight people in that kitchen. Next year, who knows? But I have a limit and we already do Thanksgiving together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Such a legend, like a true one of one. We're not going to get another one like him. Very, very special.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Well, if it's not as good because no one made it, no one made it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Now you're taking it as an insult, but I'm telling you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Well, in this case, I would be feeding the same amount of people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Well, that's weird because if I ordered sushi for everyone and then like the next week we went to someone like a sushi chef.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Well, I said, I will be competitive if that happens.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Yeah, that's true. That is. I mean, I hear you. I just can't ever like anytime I order anything ever. I don't expect it to be as good as someone who made something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Not you. Someone who is a sushi chef, someone who has the full recipe. That's not like someone who doesn't really chefs. He doesn't really know what to do. It's a little different. It's not like I'm making a pizza and we're ordering from Lucifer's. Yeah, I don't know how to make that, but I'm following a really fancy, real recipe that I've also now been making for a couple years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Yeah, I don't think anyone needs to say anything. Okay, let's say that I order... I order for 22 people. I throw a big dinner party and I order.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Sure. We don't have to, no one has to say it, but don't you think in your heart that people should and would like your homemade spaghetti more? then my purchased spaghetti from Little Dom's a great spaghetti.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
That's weird. I would never expect anyone to prefer that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
But it's not the same as when someone makes something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Okay. To me, the way it's really bad is if I made Thanksgiving and then you made Thanksgiving, then 100% no one could ever. That's really horrible to say one is better than the other because that's like. Your effort and work. It's like saying someone's writing is better than someone else's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I feel like you're making it that. Like you're like defensive that you're catering it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I know. But anyway, the reason the pod is not invited is because we already do Thanksgiving together and it's a beautiful, wonderful thing. And we don't need to have Thanksgiving and then the next week have Thanksgiving again. Right. And so I have it with friends who I don't have Thanksgiving with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Okay. Another real, just super, super quick. Gift guides went up. So this will come out Monday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Okay, so they were up last week on my Instagram. If people want to go look at my gift guides, they're on my Instagram. Also, I made a sub stack for it so that I could write a little more. So what's on my Instagram is an abridged version.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
You can go to the link tree in my bio and you can go click on it. And if you feel like you want to read a little more, you can do that. And there are links to the items there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Okay. Now, a couple facts really quick for Morgan. So the old, the riddle about where did they bury the survivors? So the brain teaser is... If a plane crashed on the border of country A and country B, where would you bury the survivors? The answer is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
You knew it. Okay. The South African woman who sailed around the world in the documentary, CBS documentary called The Loneliest Race. It features Kristen Neuschafer, a South African sailor who became the first woman to win the Golden Globe race. And you said it was harrowing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Yeah. The doldrums, he said, are 10 degrees north and south of the equator.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
And there are five. Sesame Street started November 10th, 1969.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Wait, sorry. Wait. Help. Sesame Street started in 1969. The Electric Company started in 1971.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Yeah. Why is Othello so hard to perform? According to AI, it's considered a challenging play to perform, primarily because of its complex characters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
particularly the nuanced portrayal of Iago's manipulative nature, the delicate balance of Othello's trusting nature that quickly turns to destructive jealousy, and the sensitive issue of race that can be difficult to navigate on stage, requiring careful interpretation to avoid stereotypes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
It's new. That's a new... Answer? Weird. That's weird. What? What? That's weird!
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
That's not weird to you that it's like updating that quickly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
We're moving like women are getting erased. Okay, fibromyalgia, neuralgia. He has neuralgia. It's a sharp, shocking pain that occurs when a nerve is damaged or irritated. It can feel like burning or sensitivity to touch and can cause muscle spasms. Neuralgia can be acute, short-term, or chronic, ongoing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Don't complain about it until you get it checked out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
I'd like you to get it checked out. All right. That's it from Morgie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
But if it's like a body thing, you can complain a couple times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
But then you got to get it checked out if it still hurts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
Wait, now you have to kind of say it quickly. Can you say it really quick?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Morgan Freeman
These are the things that you sit with for the rest of your life when you make these decisions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard and this is Monica Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Hi, Luke. Hi, that's right. Can you guys hear me? Oh, wonderful. It's like you're about to land an airplane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Yes, it's working. Tell me why you have this headset. Are you a gamer?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
We appreciate that greatly. You're going by a pseudonym. Are we allowed to know what state you're in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, okay. Wonderful. That's a beautiful place to be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Right, which I imagine yesterday was unexpected.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Do you guys have the same thing we had in Michigan where it's like you have a fake spring and you get excited and then all of a sudden it just fucking turns to winter in May and you're like, fuck this place.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Those climates, they're backstabbers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Yeah, they'll fool you. Did you grow up in Montana?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, okay. So you have a cruise story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Yeah, yeah. He was about to say penis, and he's like, no, I'm already talking about chafing. It's dick chafing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
So fast forward, we're like on day two of the cruise. Can I pause you, Luke? I just want to regale for a second. That brings me back to my youth. Your fecundity rate was so high that you would actually damage the skin. I mean, that's for the youthful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
It's like punctured the vein. Punctured. What? What?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
They can take a beating, but you push them too hard, they will give. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
This is where we're different. We were in line so far, but now I would be so excited to call her in like, holy shit, look at this, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
You're losing some considerable blood here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Luke, at any moment, are you considering a tourniquet?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
And you have bare legs. There's nothing I would want to see more than that. A man in his t-shirt and no pants on with a towel over his groin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Is that your lover's blouse behind you or yours? Is it birds or flowers on the sleeves?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, it like cauterizes? It's like a chemical cauterizing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh my God, I'm sorry. I missed the cauterizing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
And I would be wondering, is this a disposable or many people bitten down on this rubber stick?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, I know. And also, I want to see video of this entire thing from beginning to cauterization. I wish it existed. Once it's cauterized, does she say to you, like, don't use this thing for a while?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Right. Try not to look at any pretty ladies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Tell your new wife to keep her clothes on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Those bald eagles, though, they can get things moving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, that could also, yeah. I like that euphemism.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Well, you're welcome, I guess, because that's an impossible task.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Wow. You reversed the wife who's had a baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, that's great. What a memorable honeymoon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, Luke, that's fantastic. What a great story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, it will. Don't you worry. You can bet your scarred dick it will.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, Casey, big shout out. Shout out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Well, thank Casey on our behalf. I most certainly will. All right. Take care, Luke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Are you going to leave the room to make this call? Our next call is Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, Monica's calling. I have a lot of cruise ship stories. I could have submitted many different things. I've been on so many cruises.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
You haven't been on a single cruise? I feel like your parents would have loved that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Hi. Don't show me much of this car. I always try to impress Monica. I'm going to go with Chrysler Pacifica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, okay. Monty had a, did you have a pilot?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, yeah. Things are getting real busy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh God. I hope she doesn't come up to the blocks while we're talking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, Oh, I was a high jumper. Is she tall?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
But I would agree. I'm going to say that Monica's over-indexed in Good Folks. I like all the Monicas I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
No, I might like her, too. Okay, she was nice. Yeah, she has a boundary issue, which I like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Okay, so you have a crazy cruise ship story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Did you have a favorite Backstreet Boy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
If you want to go to like Montauk, how long of a trip is that for you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
And you still like them in 2011? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
That's not bad, though. You're two hours from paradise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Edenic? I like that. Wow, that's a takeoff on Eden? Yeah. Did you know it, Monica?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
That's going in my arsenal. Okay, so you have a crazy cruise ship story. I do. Can I set the stage a little bit first?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Do they perform right away or they're just waving and saying hi?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
For the listener, Monica's getting a little sick right now, just remembering. Yeah, there's a little green. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see that you're hanging on by a thread already. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
I also love there's no men on this cruise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
They should have let the women use the men's bathroom for this cruise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Listen, A, the story is fantastic, but you're just so funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, I fuck up my kids' names all the time, and they're drastically different. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Yeah, that was so fun. Thank you so much, Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Take care. Wish your daughter victory in this high jump contest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Bye. I love her. I love them. She reminds me so much of my cousins, Mandy and Kelly. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah, same kind of storyteller.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Yeah, I don't know what the mechanism for either of them is, but Zofran should have an actual cruise line.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Yeah, and they should sail into the choppiest waters. Have you seen any footage of these fucking cruises down to Antarctica? No. None of those have popped up on your Instagram. The water's fucking crashing over the whole front of the boat. They've got like a glass thing where you can... People are falling down and breaking shit. Yeah, it's nuts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
And really quick, if you're on a budget cruise is nice. Could you get the drink pass at that point? There was no drink pass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
I know. We should have almost called Laura LeBeau as an antidote because she just went on a Viking cruise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Can I quickly ask, where is it taking off from and where will you be going?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
She said she's not going to do any other cruise line, though, after this experience. She said the food was absolutely, outrageously good. Yeah, this one, this one you can listen to, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Let's take a gander at this sunburn. To say you're a lobster is just as spot on as it gets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Oh, no. Yeah, there's stuff. Chemical cauterization.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Is it a burning pain or like an impact pain?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Funny enough, I just in Hawaii got five quills in my heel. They're still there. Just this morning, I'm like, when are these coming out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Yeah, but no, no, well, whatever. Well, there's fluids. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Well, my daughters thought you're going to get poisoned and die. And I'm like, no, there's no way they're letting a snorkel in front of the hotel. I'm not saying they're poisonous. They ran it to the scuba guy. And then he came and gave me vinegar and said, soak your foot in vinegar. That'll help it dissolve. I did that. They didn't dissolve. Anyway, sorry. No, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Yeah. All right, please enjoy cruise ship stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Wow. This was a deck chair that just was scraggly on the back?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
I hate to be disparaging about Carnival, but let's get those deck chairs oiled and sanded.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Yeah, this is like, you don't really like my Ziggy reference because you didn't grow up reading Ziggy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
But do you remember Ziggy Hale? Of course. He was the cutest cartoon and everything that could go wrong to Ziggy did. This is really like Ziggy went on a cruise in a lot of ways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
I would be like, fuck that. Let's just go to one of these islands that we want to be at and just be there. Were there any gals on the boat that really took pity on you and wanted to rescue you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Wow, that's a real shit cruise. And you didn't make out with anyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
What on earth were you doing in White Lake? So I grew up in Highland, right next door, bordering White Lake.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Well, Hale, delightful meeting you. God, did you give your buddies a gift. Truly, there's no better gift than when one of your buddies can take the beating on everyone else's behalf.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Hi. Are you the owner of this closet?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Well, it looks great. I mean, it's ready for a photo shoot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Do you feel like you have two moms?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Yes, yes, yes. Double first cousins, half siblings. Whoa. I wish your mom had married an identical twin. Then your cousins would really be your siblings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Well, it's very nice meeting you. Really good luck with ninth grade. Tell your seventh grade sister, good luck with seventh grade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
My favorite year of my life. And say hi to mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
I guess everyone loves identical twins, probably. Well... We're probably not unique in that, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Okay, yeah. I can see people being scared by them, especially if you don't really believe in science and God makes babies kind of a situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cruise Ship
Yeah, maybe like, how do you explain that? Well, science. Right, if you don't believe in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
A wonderful, you and Ted tied the knot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Oh, that's a really positive. Yeah. Now I feel bad. And I guess I owe the pit bull. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Oh, and you're doing a crawfish boil. Is that a popular event down there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
What kind of cuisine do we have at Vortex? Should we eat there, Monica? Oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Well, shout out Vortex. Shout out Pitbulls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Grady Hospital. Making dreams come true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah, Ted. Way to get it, Ted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah, that's a great story. Very rarely do the animal tech stories have a silver lining, and this one really does. Well, lovely meeting you, Amanda.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Oh, wonderful. Are you married to Matt?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
They're like shrimp or like lobster or neither?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Oh, lovely. Okay. I'm trying to think what animal you could have been attacked by in Boulder. I guess this guy's the limit. You really have a lot of stuff, right? You got mountain lion and bear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
But still, it could be a three, four hundred pound.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah, she just held up an inch between her index and her thumb.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
From going through trash and stuff?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Now, hold on. I got to pause to just say we just kind of shit on dogs for a dog attack story a little bit ago. Now, this is where dogs rock. Dogs will fucking take on a bear to protect you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
So, Kyle, you have an animal attack story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah. Yeah. You can kill a bear, but it's going to be 10 minutes after you shoot it. You got to deal with this bear that doesn't even fucking feel that it got shot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
He died doing what he loved, being outside.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
This is like, he should have been in the circus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
And is he very docile? Would you go out and pet him and interact with him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
They probably track bear attacks around the country.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
You should have let the bear eat you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
I wonder if you didn't have a dog and this bear, you know, is rutting around the kitchen, finds a bunch of peanut butter and yummy stuff and then just ate 50,000 calories and then just went to sleep. If you guys would have woken up and found like a snoozing full bear in the living room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Why would it? It's inside. There's a couch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
They tend to avoid people. But if there's yummy food and they'll eat till they are, you know, nearly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
If you've only been eating leaves and bark and berries and you get your hands on some crystal light, I can't imagine what an explosion of flavor that was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah, I think maybe if he hadn't gotten into that, he might have been more docile. This is why Monica doesn't live in Boulder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Double whammy. We have earthquakes and fires and mudslides and mountain lions and bears.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Well, Brittany, wow, what a thrilling story. What a thing to witness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Shout out to Nicole. Thanks for being a great boss. Yes, definitely. All right, take care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah, we haven't even talked about it. You were in your bedroom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
I was in the basement watching a guest movie and the whole house started shaking above me. And I was like, oh my God, the house is going to fucking collapse on me. I do not want to be in this basement right now. I want to fall down on shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Well, you got to make a game day decision. Is it more dangerous? I mean, ideally, yes. Being away from the falling buildings is the best. But if you think you're going to be mid-run when the building falls down, you could have stood in a doorway, which will protect you. Get on a boat if you can. Yeah, you want to get on a boat as quick as possible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
And wait for the tsunami to take you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Okay, last one. Wobby Wob is calling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Rob never told us he was attacked by a lion. Hello. Is this Rob? It sure is. You have a half of a moose rack behind you. So this promises to be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
I don't think we've heard a moose story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah. Wow. Well, first of all, Rob, where are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Okay. Bucks County. That's on brand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Oh my God, you're an anoronda. What is it called? Adidarod. Adidarod?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Oh, wonderful, wonderful. Really quick, how do you travel up to Alaska with that many dogs? With a truck and trailer?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Boy, you got to be into it, man. That's a lot of commitment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
And can I quickly ask, has Bucky now got antlers and is he 200 pounds? Like how big is Bucky and how formidable has he become?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah. We should add too, right, moose have terrible eyesight. Isn't that part of the reason they're aggressive? They don't see you, and then all of a sudden they see you, and it's a little shocking to them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah, there's males they've shot that are 2,000 pounds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah, not a great game plan, but I understand you're under a lot of stress. Yeah. And aren't these dogs protective of you? Weren't they inclined to go after the moose?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Oh, yeah. They accidentally give themselves away sometimes, parents, when they're trying to play it cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah. In the past, the two stories that I'll always end up telling at a dinner party is the grizzly bear attack and the shark attack that we've heard. And I'm proud to say there's now a third attack that I've been repeating a lot that comes from this episode. Animal attack goes hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
It didn't puncture your skull, though? No, thankfully. Oh, I thought he put his finger fucking knuckle deep into your brain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Well, in her defense, if my child, while I'm not around, gets gored by a deer, I'm like, fuck that. Get that deer out of there. Why do they have a buck rutting in the backyard?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Is it kind of standard in Hill Country? Maybe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Okay, so Bucky left. Were the grandparents sad? Did everyone miss Bucky? Or in a week, they're like, oh, yeah, I forgot we even had that. Why did we have that? I'm sure they were just more mad at my mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Oh, good. And do you think you'll also get a t-shirt?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
A will to make everyone happy. But what a clever marketing ploy that would be if we were that calculated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Because I think a lot of people came to your defense and bought it just to defend you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
That too. But also I think some people are like, I got to support Monica. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
All right. Well, lovely meeting both of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
She bought Cookie Boy to stick up for her sister.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
It is good. I never said it wasn't good. It was always a conversation about whether I thought I was false advertising. That's it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Hit the comments of this episode and tell us what shirt you want. Because we forget.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Oh, I want to hear all the details.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
In your reach out, you made it clear you were interested romantically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah, no. It shan't ever be listened to. Please enjoy Animal Attacks Part Something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Right, because he had to say, I have a girlfriend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Wow, I'm so proud of you. How did you phrase it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Oh, you're like half in, half out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Also, he would ignore most people sending that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah, we can hear you, but... Can you turn your camera on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
There you are! I had work mode on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
We've never heard of a disgruntled competitor yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Like more of a participation trophy type situation. Yeah. Wonderful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
It is. Okay. Well, most importantly, you were attacked by an animal. Unless you were the animal that attacked. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Could go either way. Humans are animals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
But COVID was really something for you. Yeah, that's a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
You have a master's in emergency preparedness. This has to fall under that umbrella.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Well, just the bottom line is if it goes sideways, they have the physical ability to really harm somebody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
That's what all of us non-people on the outside are going. It's like, yeah, tigers could be great, but fuck, one goes sideways, they can kill a human. So this thing fucking latched onto your arm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
You got some real both sides punctures.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
You're getting mauled by a vicious animal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
What an eclectic group of shirts you have behind you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
They wish they were pit bulls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
People are going to be so mad at me right now. But does it cross your mind? Maybe I got to press charges because they don't have control of the dog. Is someone else going to get their arm bit? It gets a little murky for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Okay, and you're wearing those, what, on the weekend or for a specific event?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack II
Yeah. But it does paint a picture of where you're at. There's gunshot wounds in the lobby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. Today, our DIY project's gone wrong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
This has turned into a real commercial for the product.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Okay, so Christina, where are you at?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I'm thinking out loud that you were lucky that you probably landed in a hospital with a vascular surgeon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
God, are we the same person? You can handle this, Monica, but my God, for the listening audience, it's a good six inches of gash. It serpentines around into the hand, down the wrist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
If I were the Amazon person and I just arrived at a big pool of blood, I would open the box to see if someone had ordered bleach. Like if this was a murder scene and I was not complicit in the cleanup effort.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Okay, I want to tell you a quick story. It's not to equate your injury with any kind of property damage, but I think you'll just get a kick out of it because I bought a car in 2019. The previous version of it had gone up three times and I was able to get one. I got it just for an investment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I got the entire car covered in this thin see-through wrap so that it would never get any scratches or anything. And it's just going to sit in my garage. So I need to get my snowboard bag out of this loft above the car and it's raining outside. So I don't want to pull the car out into the rain because then that's its own thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
And then I determined, you know what, I can just get on the ladder next to the car and I can grab that bag. This is not a huge deal. What I didn't really think about was I had tracked some water in from coming from outside. I set the ladder up. So the ladder's now on some water, which I didn't really notice. And I'm pulling the snowboard bag out from on top of the car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
And all of a sudden the ladder starts slipping. And now I have this decision to make. If I fall, it's coming down on top of this car. So I have to, with all my weight, chuck the board from the air so it'll clear the car. And when I do that, I then fall off of the ladder and I shoot the ladder into the car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
that i'm trying my hardest to protect and it hits the mirror perfectly where the vinyl wrap has come together at a seam and there's a gap my first thought when i land on the ground i was like oh fuck i broke my rib on my bench okay oh my arm hurts and then i'm like oh my god did the ladder hit the side of the car and i'm looking at the side of the car no it's fine it's fine it's fine and then all of a sudden i see it and i took a fucking two inch chunk of paint out of the mirror and
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
And I'm like, there we go. I saved myself wiping the car down. And now I've got to go find a painter qualified to not take the value.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I destroyed the pristine value of this car. So, yeah, I really deeply relate to just trying to save a few minutes and really fucking regretting it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
There's a dude that I've been going to AA with for 22 years and his saying, and I appreciate it every single time, is cutting the corners the quickest way to the back of the line. Something like that. I've heard it a million times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Just don't do it. Yeah, you just always end up in the very back of the line. Well, Chris, delightful meeting you. I'm not shocked you're above average because you're from Michigan. Thank you very much, Paul. This is an absolute pleasure. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Yeah. Shortcut's the fastest way to the back of the line. I think that's what it is. Yeah, that's it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Beautifully. I don't want to give out your full name, Tanya, but it's criminal you're not a country western singer. That's the best country star name I've ever heard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
But she wasn't famous in the 70s, was she?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I just got a rebrand for us. I'm stealing it from Bad Sisters. I'll acknowledge where I got it. But from now on, I'm not 50. You and I are both mid-century. Boom!
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Right? Sounds architectural. I'm mid-century. Fuck, I love it. Yeah. Don't you dare, Monica. I'm going to make shirts that say mid-century. You are? Okay. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Three customers. We have a wide net. I'm kidding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
She's really relishing in her age privileges, isn't she?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Okay, hit us with your DIY story that went awry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
This is all screaming Mormon, the industriousness, the eight kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I couldn't be happier that Aaron got that kind of reaction. I love it. This is a perfect story. I guarantee he'll remember because J2C is so rare and coveted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Oh, that shot up and came down? Yep. Now he's repairing the roof.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
This is Nobel, the Nobel Peace Prize. He invented that blasting cap. So much of the earth was destroyed by his invention. He felt like he should take the money and give back. And that's what the Nobel Peace Prize is from.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
You didn't? That would have fast-tracked you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Oh, talk about saving a little money on a professional. And now you got to replace part of the roof.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Okay, so you have a DIY story that went poorly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
How did the remaining 59 holes get blasted?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Yeah, I'm glad everyone was away from the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
You left out that he's very handsome, too. Oh, yes, he is. I want to thank you for blowing up your entire yard and sending a rock into your roof because it made for a great story for us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I always said this wrong. This is always a hard- It's hard to say. I always wanted to say D-Y-I. Sure. I famously said that in front of somebody and they corrected me and I got humiliated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Once I get to Nashville, yeah, I might call on your services.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Great meeting both of you. Tanya, thank you for telling us that story. That was great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Sure. That whole story is appealing. I would love to get the permit and I'd love to have an excuse to use dynamite. I've always wanted to. Rob, have you wanted to be able to blast dynamite? Absolutely. I mean, I've shot firecrackers a lot. Yeah. Yeah. M80s and quarter sticks. You're always looking for a quarter stick in Michigan. What's a quarter stick? Quarter stick of dynamite.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Because we had another Chris today and I said, well, double Chris is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Okay, so you have a DIY story that went bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Okay, we've been down this road already.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Also, we don't have time with water gushing everywhere for anyone to come home from work. We've got to turn off the main water here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
My guess is it ran for a while after because he punctured the hot water heater, which holds like 100 gallons of water. So it was going to leak long after the water supply was turned off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I would too. My neighbor, I'm like, hey, you're not qualified to do this now. None of us have water.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
No, oh my god. Oh no. Just keeps growing in the whole town, doesn't it? Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
How fucked up was the ground underneath?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I mean, the theme of all these is like we're all trying to save a few bucks and it ends up costing way more than having someone else come in and just do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
A man's got to know his limitations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
More men need to really. I think they're taking bigger swings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Let me just listen to some of the previous callers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Well, dynamite makes an appearance. It does. You should know that. Someone decided they were qualified to use dynamite because they were able to get a permit for it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Well, I think the silver lining is that this all took place in Canada because if you had 60 American neighbors without water, I think someone would have come to your house to fight. Well, Chris, lovely meeting you. We love our Canadian neighbors so much and our Canadian arm cherries.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Thank you so much. It was great meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
All right, take care. I'm going to do these things. I didn't learn a lesson. I just want you to know I will still be trying to do all my own home improvement.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I wish. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna be humiliated by her. I'd be a sub. Baby girl. Yeah, I'd be her baby girl. I think everyone would. Yeah. Okay, let's see. There's maggots. I think I gotta warn. Oh, shit, don't say that. No, I think I gotta tell people what other things are here. Blood. Blood. Yeah, blood and maggots. Please enjoy. Do it yourself. Project's gone wrong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
It just leaked right through that, the sustainable fabric.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
And glue loves wood. All those nooks and crannies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
But they would have noticed the effort. Because a lot of times you're like, I don't know what the fuck that is, but boy, did it take them a while. And I applaud that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Yeah, I was thinking snails, but maggots, that's a bit worse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
You basically made like a habitat in your living room for maggots.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Imagine all that dampness also could have worked everything. I mean, you really did everything bad you could do to a hardwood floor, moisture, glue, dirt, maggots. It was a real fuck you to that floor. Really?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Was there a penalty at the end of all this? Did anyone get a bill?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Could you list, Monica, where is that in your top ten? Snakes out of your bottom, number one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
That's the worst. I guess you're right. When they slither out, you're kind of relieved, probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Might even tickle. Yeah, I don't know. Who knows?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I think the grossest part, everyone plug your ears, that's sensitive. But the grossest part is when you step on them, then there's mayonnaise on the ground.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I warned everyone to plug their ears.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Help me. Well, Christina, you sound very easygoing. Pretty laid back. That liberal arts college was the right choice for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
You would stress out about it at the time, but really to reduce your life to just four term papers every three months, like that's pretty manageable. And then the rest of your time, you don't give a flying fuck about anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
All right, Christina, nice meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Us too. Thank you, us too. I hope I bump into you at a food show. It's possible. I'm going to one with Aaron in March or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Okay, come over and lose your shit and join the J2C club.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
What do we know about him? He's such an enigma.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Also falling in love. Oh my God, what good lovesick music.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Pictures of You. Yeah, Pictures of You. Good job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Yeah, he was able to articulate heartbreak. So in the early part of your life, that was all romantic love. And now people are dying. It's just continued on the heartbreak.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Like those Holiday Inn Express commercials.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
It's like, did you go to a Hy-Vee League? No, but I flew into Atlanta one time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Okay, you have a DIY story that went awry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
I'm going to ask a dumb, dumb question, but you obviously already threw the circuit breaker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
Wonderful. What a bright smile. Did you just get your teeth zoomed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster
You knew immediately you had cut the artery? Was that obvious? There's blood everywhere. Going to save five minutes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous Best Of 2024.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Well, there's these weird videos where they come up on the side of the boat and they rub their nose in a weird way. And have you seen this? It puts them in a suspended state for like 20 seconds. They'll float back down and then they kind of come to something with their nose. There's so much stuff packed in the end of that nose. Anyways, you hit it in the jaw with your fingers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Hi, how are you? Is this Nick? This is, yes. I love that we're in your bedroom or a guest bedroom. I like that we're in a bedroom. We're rarely in a bedroom with anyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Impossible luck on top of impossible, terrible luck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
And did they get you on top of one of these surfboards? That must have been very hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
It's like you've got 14 huge punctures is what you have, right? I mean, that's how it does it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
No, you're in an ideal room already. There's a lot of soft fabrics around you. You don't want to be close to walls. Shocking. That's the echo chamber. So you're golden. You're wearing a soft sweatshirt, a hoodie. That's going to help. You have a little bit of stubble. That's going to break up the sound waves.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Before starting, ask your wallet if adding more joy to every day and every dollar is right for you. Listeners of Armchair Expert can claim an exclusive three-month trial subscription for free with no credit card required at www.ynab.com slash dax. That's y-n-a-b dot com slash dax. Life is short. Spend it well with YNAB. So is there an ambulance waiting when they get you to shore?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Well, I do have to put a little bit of a socioeconomic spin on this. Good place to get injured in Monterey where professionals go on their vacation. This happens at Where's Beach or Daytona. You might not have the same staff on hand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Where are you at, Nick? Sonoma County, California. Oh, OK. Are you in any tangential way associated with the wine industry?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
It's kind of crazy you lived that long. I mean, I just have you must have lost so much blood. They start pumping blood into you immediately.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, yeah, yeah. How long was the recovery from that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
And would you ever swim in the ocean again? No. Yeah, good. I'm so glad to hear you say that. I think a lot of you folks would be like, no, still love it. I respect the shark. I know. I'm back in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, there we go. Whoa, Steve. We've only heard one story comparable to that. We talked to a guy attacked by a grizzly bear once, and it's kind of on that level.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
And are you ever over at Sonoma Raceway? I'm not. I had a feeling you'd ask me about that. That's the site of my huge crash that caused all the surgeries. Hmm. So what are you doing now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Good. Yeah, good. Let's stay out of there. Oh, boy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Might even show up tonight during our slumber. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
No, Steve, we're born with a fear of monsters, and you actually got bit by a monster.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Stay out of the water. Yeah, will do. Okay. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye. From 721, Delivery Driver Stories. Hello. Hello there. Now, Rags, this is a great name. Is that your nickname or just one you made up for this interview?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Okay, now listen. Can I attribute this great vascularity in your left bicep to the fact that you're carrying a lot of packages? Or are you in the gym also?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, my grandpa... Sorry, go ahead. I'm going to tell you about my grandpa's, your time. You don't want to hear about my grandpa.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Well, he carried these 60 pound bags of flour at Wonder Bread for like 40 years. So his biceps were like fucking bowling balls and he never in his life lifted a weight. But what glorious biceps he had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Okay. So hit us with your crazy delivery story. Well, let me back up. Without saying who you work for, we've had a pizza delivery person. We've had a flour delivery. I would imagine for them, they're going to hit like 15 customers a shift. You must hit, what, like 40, 70, 100 houses a day or something?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, we do half of our fundraising between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Wow. Well, thanks for taking the time to tell us your crazy gym story. I'm sure you're busy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
You're constantly walking up to people's houses. I would love this, by the way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Do people ever tip? I have, but I don't know how common that is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
So I interrupted you. There's one that was crazy among I'm sure many you have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Hit us. Where does this take place? Are we in Sonoma? Does Sonoma have gyms?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, this sounds a little bit like a zombie apocalypse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, Charles Schultz Museum, home of Peanuts. And they had a nice pageant for a while, but that's been gotten rid of. You're so... Sorry, Nick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, this is where it gets even more fucked up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Emma's the secret weapon that no one meets. Yeah, she's incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Really quick question. This is such a low priority given what you're dealing with. But did it cross your mind like, well, I can keep this package?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
And was the theory maybe he dropped dead of a heart attack or had he injured himself on the saw?
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Best of Friday 2024
I know, but I want to get a rhythm going, Nick. I know. This is foreplay. I want to join sexual energies. You lost foreplay so much. Okay. Whatever. Do they do ice skating there anymore or no? They do. They have an ice skating rink. Okay. Charlie Brown, important person. Vince Giraldi, the holidays. Tis the season. Tis the season. Okay, sorry.
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Best of Friday 2024
My imagination might have ran away with me when I had already felt scared walking down. It's a very creepy property. Too many washing machines and rusted out cars and tractors. You see the dead body. You might think, is there a murderer in the house?
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Best of Friday 2024
Total sidebar. But on first glance, the thing about the cats, it feeds my narrative that I don't like cats and I like dogs. But then I was just thinking about this. If I died and Rob and Monica wanted to eat me... I'd also be extremely flattered by that.
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Best of Friday 2024
I got to say, of all our best ofs, I think... Armchair Anonymous lends itself very best to this format because it's just the banger story after another.
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Best of Friday 2024
I just think it would mean like you guys loved me so much you wanted to consume me after I died. No. Muscle's too tough. We wouldn't have anything to eat. Well, it would be terrible. There's no debate there. It's just, I think I'd feel flatter. If a cat ate me, I'd be like, you motherfucker, you never loved me. But what I'm saying is if you guys chose to eat me, I would feel very loved by that.
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Best of Friday 2024
So is this a part of your job you like too? If you're an accountant every day, yeah, you're going to come across some crazy receipts one day, but you're not going to probably wander upon a dead body with cats. I would like that part of your job.
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Best of Friday 2024
oh right this is a showstopper this was incredible yeah i mean fucking this is top five shit thank you let's just all agree that nothing will ever ever pass the woman in a marathon who shit herself and then had an orgasm i will never hear a story as long as i live i didn't expect to top that one yeah there's no beating that mine doesn't even hold that jockstrap for that one
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Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, she's the Jordan. Well, great meeting you, Rags. This was a party.
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Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, when shit gets too heavy for us, we have people we call, and then they show up and deal with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Well, great meeting you, Rags. I hope we're keeping you company on the road there. Yeah, you guys made my day. Okay, wonderful.
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Best of Friday 2024
We are supported by Tropical Smoothie Cafe. February is the month of romance, and to celebrate, Tropical Smoothie Cafe is remixing a classic with their fan favorite chocolate-covered strawberry smoothie.
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Featuring a delicious blend of strawberries, dark chocolate, white chocolate, banana, and nonfat yogurt, this crave-worthy flavor is only available for a limited time.
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Absolutely. This month, gift a loved one or be your own Valentine by indulging in refreshing tropical goodness. Because at Tropical Smoothie Cafe, it's always tropic time. Order ahead, take the scenic route, and earn rewards with the Tropical Smoothie Cafe app. Download it today. Visit TropicalSmoothieCafe.com to find a cafe near you. We are supported by Prime Video.
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You know that feeling when you go to log into a streaming service and you forgot your password? Or when you have to switch from app to app trying to find the movie you want to watch? Stop wasting time toggling between the apps and start watching the content you want to watch right away with Prime Video.
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On Prime Video, you can add over 100 subscriptions like Max, Apple TV+, and Paramount+, all in one app. That means more time watching and more time relaxing. I've got the perfect example. Armchair-y favorite, Matthew McConaughey, is in so many of our favorite titles. You could have a Matthew McConaughey marathon day.
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Best of Friday 2024
Start with True Detective on Max, then check out The Lincoln Lawyer on MGM+, and top it off with rom-com classic How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days on Paramount+. That's a good way to spend a day. You can watch all of those titles and more without ever leaving the Prime Video app. I think I may take a little Nicolas Cage binge on Amazon Prime.
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Best of Friday 2024
Oh, sign me up. Streamline your streaming today. Check out subscriptions on Prime Video. We are supported by Liquid IV. New Year's resolutions are often about creating new rituals for yourself. Mine is sprinting this year.
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Best of Friday 2024
They even have sugar-free flavors like raspberry lemonade and white peach. I love that piña colada. It is so delish.
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Best of Friday 2024
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New Year's resolution. Oh, was going to the gym?
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Best of Friday 2024
hello hello hi we have dueling dog pictures behind our heads you've got a golden retriever or two those are different yeah two nelly on the left i can't even tell left or right from your view but rooney is the other one one is like a sweet angel and the other is like crackhead they sound alternative rooney and ellie they sound like they're into alternative stuff
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Best of Friday 2024
Right. I would have guessed that because the care with which you've given these dogs names. Most people are just like, oh, fucking whatever. We'll call them Gus. This is meticulous.
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Best of Friday 2024
I hate Monica. Do you need a co-host? Do you need a new co-host, Nick?
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Best of Friday 2024
I hope you use Framebridge to mount and display those.
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Best of Friday 2024
Yeah. Okay, so Jane, you had one of your greatest fears come true. Is this true?
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Best of Friday 2024
Okay, we're excited. Oh, it's my favorite kind.
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Best of Friday 2024
Oh, she did. Yeah. I thought just you had him banged on the weekend and that had been a long time. That was an exciting timetable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
I just, I'm having Aaron weekly flashbacks, but please continue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
And even worse, I'd be like, oh, my God, panic. And then you'd be like, well, I only have so many followers. Probably no one saw. But then you're like, well, no, people are already warning us. The people I know have seen this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
I've seen that. When people I'm following go live, I get alerted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Oh my God. Well, he kind of killed it. Sounds like he was killing it. He's like, he's proud as a peacock. I'm glad your ex-boyfriend heard that. I brought it home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
But you know what's interesting really quick? So for me, on the outside, and acknowledging I'm a man, if I had to get caught having sex, that would be the version I'd want, which is like, I'm kind of a hellcat and a lot of fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Think how much different it could have gone. The conversation they could overhear is like, I know. Yeah, get lube. Oh, where is the lube? Oh, do you need a minute? Do I need to help? It could have been impotence and it could have been dryness and it could have been like maybe an ouch. Look, we all know how it can go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, you should have to, like, type in a code. You should give your password.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Oh. Like, it would get cut off. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Although now you're a registered sex offender. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah. It's fantastic. Did you happen to hear my best friend Aaron Winkley's story about being on a Zoom AA meeting in the morning and he had no idea his microphone on? Diarrhea. Yes. Yelling at his dog, coughing. Yeah. Yeah, I think about it all the time. That's worse because he was like as gross as he can possibly be.
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Best of Friday 2024
Since you have these two dogs, are you guys ever having sex and you look away from your husband, you notice one of your dogs just staring you directly in the eyes?
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Best of Friday 2024
Oh, we used to have a dog, Lola, that would like try to get right in the action. All of a sudden, you're like, what's with my leg? There's something hairy. Oh, man. Jeez, Louise. Oh, Jane, thanks for that.
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Best of Friday 2024
Triple fingers crossed. Thank you. All right. Great meeting you, Jane. Good luck with everything.
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Best of Friday 2024
Right next to where I grew up. Oh, Robbie Robb said that's right where he grew up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
At where, Fremd? Fremd. Fremd. Did you know Fremd High School?
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Best of Friday 2024
Maybe one day you'll have children that'll end up going to- Fremd.
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Best of Friday 2024
Bad, terrible name for a school. What kind of name is this? Yeah. It's like, is it Frend? Is not. Did they misspell Frend? It's a last name, William Fremd. Frammed. It's terrible.
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Best of Friday 2024
How did you spell that, Wobby Wob? F-R-E-M-D. Fuck that. Terrible. Okay. Tyler, please, you have a house-sitting story for us.
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Best of Friday 2024
I know it very well. Bob Odenkirk's from there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Oh, my God. Hold on. We were just handed photos of the scene. I don't think the listener can even imagine the amount of destruction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
That has happened in this kitchen. And I'm immediately curious how the fuck you slept through whatever happened. It's like a demo. It feels like. Yes, they were demoing the kitchen.
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Best of Friday 2024
Okay, wait. Okay, so the dog's freaking out. You look over. There's shit everywhere.
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Best of Friday 2024
Hold on a second. Tyler, what on earth are you going to tell them?
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Best of Friday 2024
Absolutely. I can see myself making the same call.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yep. Looking at these pictures again, we're going to have to somehow post them or something. There's no explanation. You got to have an explanation before you call Tim, right?
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Best of Friday 2024
Oh my God. It's like a poltergeist is in the house.
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Best of Friday 2024
You mean that other picture? Oh my God. Oh my God. Look in the garage. There's a fucking car buried in the corner. Okay. Okay.
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Best of Friday 2024
Well, can I tell you, Nick, the first thing I thought of when you painted this picture was how many times I've taken a hoodie off in the car and then miscalculated and realized, like, I don't have either arm now and I'm driving with my knee. And that's exactly what happened here. Wow. I got one arm out. Hold that, Nick. And sorry, Monica. Are there any girls around?
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Best of Friday 2024
So he blew through the side of the garage, not the garage door.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, like right there is a huge hole behind that bush.
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Best of Friday 2024
I cannot believe you did not wake up. How on earth, Tyler, did you not wake up?
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Best of Friday 2024
That's a joke you'd say to your partner. Like, you sleep so deep, a fucking truck could run through here and you wouldn't even wake up. Like, I even wonder if the dog hadn't been barking, if you would have just woke up the next day.
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Best of Friday 2024
Had you locked eyes with anyone and had anything in your mind going like, oh, I see you and you see me?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
They have cut their trip short, obviously, to come deal with this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
He was going another 30 miles an hour. Still wouldn't have woke up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Oopsies. That's a mistake that shouldn't really be able to be made because a gas line, if the thing's in line with the gas pipe, it's on. And if it's perpendicular, it's off. That's how they're made.
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Best of Friday 2024
Oh, he should have been more alert. Should have seen that curve coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
So he got arrested. Yeah. Well, hopefully he ended up in treatment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
It's a good story in an AA meeting. Did you get eyes on him that night?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Are we allowed to post those pictures? Do you think the homeowner would be fine with that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, I think we got to post those. I don't think anyone would realize how insanely damaging this event is. How funny that you're trying to make sense of the kitchen that literally just self-detonated.
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Best of Friday 2024
I'm so glad I saw it in the order I did. Yeah, that was great. Oh, this is great. Oh, Tyler, that's a fucking home run of a story. Yeah, man, all the drawers are thrown out. The island's been shoved forward.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Your explanation was smart, which is like, oh, there was a gas explosion. It does look like everything exploded off the wall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Me too. That wasn't my fault. Oh, thank God. Just a car drove through the house. What a blessing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Old fashioned way. Yeah. Okay. Oh, well, Tyler, thank you so much for sharing that story with us. That was great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Well, thank you, Zoar, for turning Tyler onto the show. And I'm so delighted you guys listen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Hi. Sorry. We were saying naughty stuff right as you signed on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
A lot of ingenuity happening. What do you do for a living?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Cool. Have you ever seen like the situation in the gang?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Were you ever curious when they were shooting that show to wander up there and see if you could see them? I was obsessed with them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
That's fair. Am I right to think that the season is coming to an end? Is it a good time for you or a sad time?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yes. So enjoy the craziest moments from 2024. We are supported by Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuaron's stunning Apple TV Plus limited series Disclaimer. The show's incredible cast includes Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline and Academy Award nominee Sacha Baron Cohen. Disclaimer is one of the most addictive and cinematic pieces of television you'll ever see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Your own. Oh, that would be a first. A proprietor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
How many rooms are there? I want to get like kind of an idea of what we're looking at.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
A lot of fun. Very nice. Really quickly, my grandparents owned a motel, and I was just telling Monica that my grandma many times found dead bodies. Does that happen to you?
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Best of Friday 2024
Okay, great. Great, great, great. Oh, sorry. Knock, knock, knock. There we go. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Ranging from just she's nosy or she's aggressive, loud.
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Best of Friday 2024
We are supported by ZipRecruiter. Oh, get recruited. According to research, a major challenge many employers face is the pressure to hire quickly. It's a tough hurdle to overcome. It's so time-consuming to search for great candidates and sort through applicants. Well, if you're an employer who can relate, I have a question for you. Have you tried ZipRecruiter?
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ZipRecruiter has figured out how to solve this very problem. In fact, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash DAX. ZipRecruiter smart technology starts showing your job to qualified candidates immediately.
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Best of Friday 2024
At this moment in your mind, have you tried to figure out? Because I'm immediately thinking this is the act of a super hammered person that didn't really know what they were doing. Not so much that they actually are a thief that wants this stuff. My guess right now is she woke up and was just as surprised as you are that all that stuff was in her room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Also, what the hell are you going to do with all this stuff? It's not like it's highly resellable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Or even a Simpsons cartoon like Homer Simpson on a treadmill. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
We're not going to call the cops. You're like, I'm not interested in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
It was that. It was someone walked in on their dad, pounding mom, bent over the bed. It was like 6.15 in the morning. And I said, well, no one would have anal sex in the morning, but now we're hearing this story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
So he stayed under your employ. Did you guys ever have any follow-up conversation about that whole sitch?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Well, I would say to him, listen, Carl, I'm going to let you work here, but you shouldn't have sex with the guests. That's off the table. But if it does happen, be mildly respectful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
This might not shock you, but in my 20 plus years in AA, this is the kind of story I hear. You know, this is generally someone's bottom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Thank you. That was incredible. What a morning you had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
And all the guests, they were delighted when they got their stuff back. Everything was fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Oh, God. That poor woman. She's really hanging on by a thread.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Now, did you also go take a look at the wreckage in the bed or did you take everyone's word for it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Your warm-up pants tore. Oh, yeah. Total rug burn. Oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Okay, sure. Well, so nice meeting both of you. This was incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Thanks so much. Take care, ladies. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
You're lucky they stayed on. You could have been in your skivvies. I imagine also people helping pull the hoodie off of you. Yeah. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
You're supposed to wear it, but nobody does. No one's ever going to wear that thing. And this is why you're supposed to wear it. What was the extent of the injuries? When you got in the car and the adrenaline subsided, did you start feeling like, oh, I got my ass kicked by that thing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
I wonder if maybe it was rolling, too. There could have been some. Oh, Nick, I'm glad you survived that. Luckily, nobody got to her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
What a great story. I'm sorry that happened to you. You really went through the spin cycle, as you said. I really did. Did you revisit exercise?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Did not jump on a treadmill for many years. Yeah, at least when you fall down there, you stay put.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
You're terribly cute, though. I think it works perfectly with what you're presenting. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Who do people tell you you look like? Munchie Cheese. You ever heard of those guys? Munchie Cheese, Munchie Cheese. They're so soft and cuddly. Munchie Cheese, Munchie Cheese.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah, we did. I think she had a Munchie Cheese.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Yeah. I don't get a lot of prompts to celebrities that I can think of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Did they like the story of the man decomposing at brunch in Canada? We haven't heard that one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
You should use that as punishment. If one of them fucks up, you're like, you get in that room and you listen to that nine minutes. And you listen to it over and over again. That's the most rough one. I'll bookmark that one for later. Okay, well, give our love to your babies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
And now, Disclaimer has picked up two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline, a DGA Award nomination for Alfonso Cuaron, and multiple Crafts nominations for the stellar group of award-winning artisans. Disclaimer is streaming on Apple TV+, and you can learn more at appletvplus.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
All right, thanks, guys. Take care. From 759 Near-Death Experiences.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Can you hear us? Yes, I can. You can hear me, eh? Yeah. Oh, you're Canadian. No, but good guess. Oh, okay. You threw an A in there, didn't you? Did I hear an A? You did. Can't tell you why. Are you married to a Canadian? I'm not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Okay, Steve, you have a near-death experience. And you've made it, because we're talking to you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Unless we talk to a medium. We talked to someone beyond the grave. Set the scene for us. What year is this? Where is it at?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
I just don't associate that with seafarers. That's an interesting mashup.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
And really quick, did you immediately recognize it as a great white or was it taking you a minute? Like, is that a whale? Is that a this? Or do you immediately know what it was?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Your mind goes very quickly at that moment. Do you get to the point where you surrender? You're like, I'm going to die. This is it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Best of Friday 2024
Tell me this now. You work at the aquarium. I had always heard you want to hit them on the nose. You went lower jaw. That's what I could reach. If you had had your druthers, is the nose the right thing? I don't know. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman and Aaron Weakley. This is a fucking nuts episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
And did the power of choir heal all wounds?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Okay, I got a one-second story for you. It's about my brother. He was out of town on business. He's eating at a Taco Bell. He's by himself. He hears a collision. He looks out the window at Taco Bell, and there's a man that somehow has crashed his motorcycle but is on top of it as it slides, slides into the lawn of the Taco Bell, and the motorcycle caught on fire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
It looks fun. Where do you live?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
And gas was getting everywhere and the guy was on fire. And my brother ran out of Taco Bell. He took his shirt off to pat the guy down. But my favorite part of the story is my brother said, I'm like batting this guy out. And all I can think is I got to get my shirt back on. Even while he was actively rescuing someone, he was like really insecure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh, gosh. Yeah, I kind of want to live there. Do you love it? I like it. But we're full, so don't move here. Oh, I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
He would not have taken his shirt off otherwise in front of Taco Bell. Yeah, a little bit of personal sacrifice. Yeah. I just think it's so human to be saving someone's life and thinking, fuck, I got to get this shirt back on before anyone looks at my belly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I wonder if his penis got burnt in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I'm glad you had the presence of mind to just check. Or maybe it couldn't be avoided.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Because his boyfriend found someone with an even bigger penis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Thank you for telling me that detail.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Although, who was just telling us that lives there that they like Californians?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
It's a bummer. It's like the gym that way. You got to keep going. Can't get the perfect abs and then quit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Did you like the Nikki episode? Nikki Glaser?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I love how open she is about all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
They had some distinction between what groups they liked. Okay, so you have a first responder story. Sure thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Well, thanks, Eliza. This was a delight. Nice meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Thank you guys so much. Bye. Hello, is this Daphne?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Are you allowed to tell us what state you're in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh, okay, great. Okay, so you have a first responder story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Can I ask what led you to the job in the first place? I'm a little bit curious about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Are you a bit of an adrenaline junkie?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
But that's like asking us if we watched a show about podcasting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
What is the average career expectancy? I don't feel like I see a lot of older EMTs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Hurry. A horse trots out of the bedroom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
No! This is bringing me back to that bar in Canada.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh, wow. Okay. Do you guys remember that one? Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Okay. Okay. Squish, squish, squish. Different colored legs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh, my fucking... This is like as close as you can get to discovering a zombie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
And then there's a horse in his bedroom with human legs. Did he just swap them? It was a transplant?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
So his fucking foot is falling apart as he walks?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
How old were you at this point?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Some people are just born blessed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Can I ask what his demeanor is? Because I have a story very similar to this from an ER doctor I know who had someone get brought in that was a shut-in. And they had a lot of necrotic flesh. And I don't think they knew. They were kind of just embarrassed. Like, what was his vibe like?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Did he acknowledge that his legs were dead?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh, okay. It only works if you have another, there's no other A24V.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
On your birthday, but it's the July 2nd. Cancer that makes J2C so elusive. April 24, I guess you could be, but what's the sign for April?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
He might have been a little disassociated, like, let's just get through this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I would have said, no, you're going to the one down the road.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Do you say hi? You don't say hi.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
All right, Christian, sorry we ate up so much of your time with that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
What about the puke? Did homeboy clean up his own puke?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Yeah, you got to call dispatch and go like, hey, we need about an hour to clean up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
And we need to fire Mike and send him to fucking Boca. I can't believe you didn't quit your job after that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I mean, do you? I can't imagine you think like, I'm going to show up and someone's legs are going to be falling off real time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Our last question, because when we interviewed nurses, they all have a foreign body and rectum story. Did you respond to any of those?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
It's got to be empty, I would guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
That seems craziest to me because the fluid could pop up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Maybe they put a champagne bottle in there. Then you pop the cork and it explodes right when you're. That sounds divineful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
But someone did have a wine bottle and you put them face down on the stretcher, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Did they make any explanation as to what had happened or no? Just I need to go to the hospital.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
There's a Sedaris story about the people say they tripped and fell. And he's like, I'm so clumsy. I've fallen down naked many times, never stood up and there was a candle in my ass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Are you done with that line of work?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Well, Daphne, this was a delight. This is among the very worst stories we've heard. What an accomplishment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I'm going to take it. I'm choosing today to take it. My self-esteem is good. Wow. And I'm going to go. All right. That's great. Well, thank you. This is a real barn burner, as we say. High watermark for Armchair Anonymous. Nice meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Is this Grant? This is me. Where are you from, Grant?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
He doesn't even know who you're referencing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
So you have a first responder story. Yes. I hope it's okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
You can bleed out. Your body's opened up to the world at that point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh, that's the nightmare, seeing your bones stick out of your leg.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh, my God. Biggest left turn ever. She was probably apologizing why she killed her. I'm so sorry. I really want a million dollars. I was shocked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Presumably. Yeah, she broke her leg in half.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh, wow. You think she's just trying to get some money?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
They were fucked up, which is why she was kind of handling it so well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Wow. Are you at all considering going to the trial? No, because you don't live out there anymore?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I'd be so intrigued to find out what's going on with this person. Why is she so nice? Boy, when they say, like, you never know, she would be the last person you would have guessed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Wow. Murder. Boy, I did not see that coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
The Dateline. America's Sweetheart Murderer. This would be a good Dateline. You're right. Yeah. Hopefully they'll interview you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Fooled. Fooled. Fooled. You got fooled. Are you still in the EMT game?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
We shouldn't put it out and you shouldn't listen to it. This is first responders. And we did hear a story that rivals the very worst of stories we've ever heard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
One slipped through. Are you chomping at the bit to go home and watch ER in The Pit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh my God. That's so interesting. They're doing regular drops for that show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
We have a mixed feeling about The Delayed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
We'll save this for the, yeah. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh, this seems impossible without losing him and him flying down the ladder and taking people out. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
It's fucking insane. I'm thinking of the thing when she described him walking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Fucking momentum. Well, think if you were on a seesaw and the seesaw went up at 60 miles an hour. Because that's how fast the car's probably tumbling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I've seen a lot of videos of people getting thrown out of vehicles because dumbasses that off-road don't wear a seatbelt. And I've seen that a bunch. It's crazy how easily the body just flies out the window.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
No. No, but if you're mid-crash, do drink a fifth of Jack really quick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
It's fucking wild. Boy, first responders. I mean, you know, they see it all, but they see more than you think they see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Don't you like how gangster Christian is? Like, I like these EMTs. They're just like, let's get going.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Now, have you ever been anywhere post this career and some shit's gone down and you've got to get involved? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
That's wild. What a thing. Great meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
All right. Take care. Take care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh, Monica was just stranded there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Yeah, you're going to have to for the arm cherries because they were pretty invested in that. Oh, my God. There was a lot of people wanting an update when you guys have lunch and get married and have a family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Can't eat, can't drink, can't operate a vehicle. You have to be in a padded room to listen to this with nothing sharp around. Don't enjoy first responders.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Maybe live stream the lunch. Okay, so you have a first responder story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
There's a can of gas in the mix, too? That the guy's holding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
If I was witnessing this tableau, I have no guess at what's going on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Normally, I'm like, oh, I can see what's happening here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
You have fun stuff behind you. Yeah, what's happening? You know, Bizquick, Fallout.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Brian, you've got a choir show to see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dak Shepherd and I'm joined by Lily Padman. And we're here today to learn about people who have dated criminals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Before starting, ask your wallet if adding more joy to every day and every dollar is right for you. Listeners of Armchair Expert can claim an exclusive three-month trial subscription for free with no credit card required at www.ynab.com slash dax. That's ynab.com slash dax. Life is short. Spend it well with YNAB. We are supported by Liquid IV.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
New Year's resolutions are often about creating new rituals for yourself. Mine is sprinting this year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
They even have sugar-free flavors like raspberry lemonade and white peach. I love that piña colada. It is so delish.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
That's 20% off your first order when you shop better hydration today using promo code DAX at liquidiv.com. Okay, so when you read that stuff, you're like, holy smokes, what do you do next?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Did it cross your mind to alert law enforcement like, hey, this dude is trying to get people to go on this bike ride. He's clearly courting a victim. Oh, I don't mean to make you feel guilty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Have you looked them up? How long ago was this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, he did. So he's likely in jail currently, I would hope.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, my God. How can you admit to kidnapping and not be in jail?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. OK, so ladies and dudes do a double check. Once you get that number, run it through Phoenicia's system and make sure they have no record of kidnapping.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
You know, dudes weaponize those good looks. You look at a lot of these serial killers and they're quite handsome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
New customers on first three-month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. We are supported by Peloton. Peloton can keep your goals on track no matter what season of life you're in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Because if a gargoyle invites you on a bike ride, it's easy to say no thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Aww. You're playing it very cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh. We should start a kids version of Armchair Anonymous. That would be hilarious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Hello. Hello. Can you hear us?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Okay, wait, what's VPR? I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
You know all about Vanderpump Rules?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Okay, so Tom and Ariana, somewhere in the vague Pacific Northwest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Can I ask really quick on the dating profile, what was it that caught your attention?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Was he the opposite of the six-year-long boyfriend?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Do you remember how much it was for?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, I have a great reason. Your grandfather just died. Your mother is super sick. You're in over here. You need comfort. Any little burp of comfort you're going to seek.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Or if you just want to try a new trainer, Peloton has world-class instructors to keep you motivated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I can't imagine your possessions at 22 were all that valuable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
It's like robbing Goodwill at this point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
It is. The whole instructor part and the class.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Peloton is everything you've ever wanted to try whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power with Peloton at onepeloton.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
What if you came to find out they were just there to execute a deep clean? They're like, we got to get everything out to shampoo these carpets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Did you have a sense that if you asked Tom to leave, he wasn't going to comply? Like, did you feel like you had lost even the ability to get rid of him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Yeah, yeah. And isn't it crazy we take on the shame of having not... advocated for ourself, yet we're so clearly the victim. But it's hard to not feel some weird shame. I think that's why criminality can persist in the way it does.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
He's like a genius detective all of a sudden and thinks he's really figured something out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
It's like a Guy Ritchie movie. The guy also really wants to teach someone martial arts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
for check fraud. This is so bizarre.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Did you ever find out through the grapevine what happened to Tom? He couldn't have been long for this world and freedom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
You're not generally choosing that life path because things are going well and you're feeling good. Kind of an AA thing, but it's often helpful to remember that the people that you resent and have harmed you, they're the ones that will live with their mistakes. You don't live with their mistakes. You live with your mistakes and people live with their own mistakes. And the bill comes due.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
No one really gets away with anything. Maybe they don't go to jail. Maybe they don't die. But the suffering is going to be there. You can't avoid that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Halfway between Detroit and Toronto, home of McAdams.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Somebody's listening. They're like, I know they're going to have a, if you've been trampled by an elephant prompt someday, just rest assured every prompt will come.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Yeah, I'm glad you lived through it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
ZipRecruiter has figured out how to solve this very problem. In fact, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash DAX. ZipRecruiter smart technology starts showing your job to qualified candidates immediately.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash DAX right now to try it for free. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash D-A-X. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. We are supported by Quince. You know, Kristen's been ordering a ton from Quince.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Yeah, and I told her, you know, they're a sponsor. And she couldn't believe it. Being stylish and comfortable allows you to feel your best, making you ready to tackle anything that comes your way. That's where Quince comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Hello. Sorry, I was just polishing off my pre-workout drink. How are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Wonderful. It looks like you're in a yurt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Let's pray there's not a structural collapse mid-story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Brittany, where are you in the world?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
The home of my brother. Beaverton's lovely. It's wonderful. Okay, so you dated a criminal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Spoiler alert. It's all women who dated male criminals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Okay, so you dated a criminal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh my God. Please walk us through it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, okay. The lying, cheating bitch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
She's crazy. You lied about the floor, but you were right about the ex.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Now, really quick, from Friday till Sunday, is your attraction to him staying completely consistent and strong? Is it growing or is it dissipating? Are there other things where you're like, ah, he's not as great as I thought?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Well, in addition to being an associate professor, he's also a master mechanic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
He's still there a month later.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Really quick, and this is not to try to shame you for not poking holes, just a genuine curiosity. Once it had gone beyond two weeks, which was the initial concept, which is spring break or whatever the break was, what was his explanation for why he wasn't returning?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Brittany, can I ask you a quick question?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
You got a little emotional at that part. And I'm curious, when dad enters the equation, are you so ashamed he knows this? Is that why?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Can we also add, you're in Canada. You're no stranger to people drinking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
There are a lot of plot twists in this thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Do we know what his drug of choice was?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Did you ever reach out to the ex-girlfriend who warned you to find out what she had gone through?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I would be very curious to know how similar her experience was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
It's a mother and son con operation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Well, you would have gone, mom's dad. Boy, she's a bitch and she's nuts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And was he arrested just from the skipping bail on the previous thing or were there new charges?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Yeah, I mean, he's probably had 12 more years of being a scoundrel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
You're right, though, Monica, if we want to attempt to be as generous as possible. How fucked up was his childhood that his mother has enlisted him in her criminal pursuit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I said it. And then I went on to say I was delighted to see that one of the arsonists here in the city was a female.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I think that's the most gruesome part of these experiences is like trying to parse out what was real and what wasn't real. And then ultimately... You're trying to answer the question, did he actually like me or love me? Somehow you're trying to hold on to building a case for that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
So you need him to have been truthful about some portion of it so that the other thing, you're just forced into that position.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
It changes your worldview a bit, right? And it scares you about your own ability to protect yourself. It makes you feel more vulnerable in the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I'm the lead character, motherfuckers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, man. I do think this kind of experience does ruin a lot of people. So I'm happy for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Thank you. Well, Brittany, this has been a delight. And what a series of twists and turns.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And now I have somebody if I need to investigate anyone in the Pacific Northwest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
If you ever start investigating Dave Shepard for something, just do me a solid and overlook it all. Don't take any cases against my family members up there. I promise I won't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
All right. Well, wonderful meeting you, Brittany. Thanks for telling us that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
All right. Take care. There's a couple patterns here, right? We saw right away. There's something about a long-term breakup and then the rebound that seems to be a little fertile for something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
In high school, it's like they had their first...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
kind of really innocent relationship and then the next one you're a little vulnerable for whatever reason very again this sense of am i worth loving probably not because this other relationship didn't work so you're just looking for confirmation i only speak for myself when you're young and you're in these long relationships and it follows that pattern that relationships follow which is like the good chemicals have worn off the excitement has worn off and now it's just that here and now chemicals
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And you're a little bored with the person. And I can imagine your natural response to that is like, I need someone more exciting. The problem was not that that's the pattern of relationships. It's that, oh, I need someone a little more exciting next time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Cry on other people? Yeah. Yeah, that's a bummer. You know, I met someone at the Golden Globes of all places, a woman who said, hey, I want to thank you for that narcissist episode. It helped me realize that my mother is a narcissist and answered a lot of things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
So I guess my only hope for this would be if you're in a situation that is mirroring any of these details, the quicker you pull the plug, the better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
It is. Well, I love you and I'm really glad that no criminal has ever preyed on you, Monty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Fingers crossed. Yeah. Is that a New Year's resolution to not ask me to knock on wood? Because that was a knock on wood moment if there ever was one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Good luck getting some money out of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
They used the door handle. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I do. I do. I do. We got to take what little we can get. I know. We got such a bad scorecard. I know. You know, anything that right sizes the –
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
What was the extent of his injuries while he was in the hospital?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, hold on. That's not where my, my mind went to. He had been stealing from everyone in the apartment. They thought you pushed your boyfriend out the window.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Yeah. Yeah. Women just do different kind of weird stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Yeah. Statistically speaking. Statistically. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this is, you know, this ranges from comedic to insane to absolutely terrifying to bozo town with the whole gamut. So please enjoy Dating a Criminal. We are supported by Mint Mobile. It's time to leave your overpriced wireless plans jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I put you through hell, but let me give you two of your three on your list.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, Monica, on behalf of all addicts, I'm sorry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I'm sure you learned a ton. Did he go to treatment? How did he end up getting clean?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Did he ever give you an amends?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, man. Well, I'm sorry you went through that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I might have helped get him sober, though. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, well, Monica, I'm sorry you went through that. But also, you know, if you're laying on your deathbed in 80 years and you have literally nothing of excitement to look back on, I don't know that that's a win either. So you got a chapter in your life that was harrowing. Is that a positive spin?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Well, it's lovely meeting you. I want you to stay warm in this. What are they calling this one? It's some kind of cold snap. You know this, Monica? Home in all the countries and some crazy. Yeah, I heard that. Maybe even, is Georgia cold?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
All right. Well, Monica, happy new year. We're wishing you all the best.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Well, let me just list the things I love about Arizona. Of course, home of Flaky Jake's. If you listen to the show, you know that's my obsession. But also, you can drive a dune buggy down the highway there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Okay, so you dated a criminal, which is very exciting. So exciting. So exciting. Please walk us through it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Hold on. I want to take you bike riding at night by a canal. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
That's one step away from I want to take you on a date next to a six foot hole I dug.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Well, first of all, I just want to applaud your boundaries. I think a lot of people, when meeting someone that's gorgeous, they're trying to go along with anything just to keep everything moving forward. And so I'm already pretty impressed. Although I also hope you end up on this bike ride so we know what happens on it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, really quick. How do you find that info out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Did they match who he had said he was?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Oh, wow. Someone smart should put that in a one-step app.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Yeah, safety screener. And then you can type in someone's name. And then it does all that stuff for you and just gives you a laundry list of what they've done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
It's that bit of brightness and refreshment we need when the days are shorter and darker during the winter months. Transport me to a tropical beach with the sun shining and the sound of ocean in the background. What a dream. And Tropical Smoothie Cafe just released two brand new Tropic Bowls, the Dragon Fruit Bowl with goji berries and the Acai Bowl with Nutella.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined in absentia by Monica Padman. Today's Armchair Anonymous is kind gestures from strangers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
No. I was going to suggest she has to poop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah. She was like, I'm not going to make this 30 minute walk. So we have to get there fast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, that's your theory on why she was high tailing it. Mine was more like, if you got a squirt in the woods, you would just squirt in the woods. She's not going to take a shit in the woods next to her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
And she chose a clearing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Okay, meaning her person?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
And that's assuming she's had her last wave of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
It's a horror movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Are you under a bunk bed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, what a good Christian woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
You're at like a desk situation?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah, there's only so much you can do without a shower.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Did you guys discuss? Did she go like, yeah, I fucking ate some shrimp tacos.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
What part of the country are you in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I got to commend her on her work ethic. She didn't fucking bail.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I wonder if the couple, though, on their stroll up, when they pass that little clearing, they're like, did you fart? That could have also unhinged the engagement. If she was like, God, Brad always...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
We're doing this nice thing and you can't even not fart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Or he's like, oh no, she smells. Should I do this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Wow. Oh, I love that. I was not expecting a poop your pants story in the middle of gestures from a stranger. So what a blessing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Okay, please tell us about your kind gesture from a stranger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I'm trying to think. I would say, yeah, I have stuff in the car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
You can come grab it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
No, no. I would help, but I wouldn't go the steep way. Because I'd be like, I might fall and die.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I would have been like... No, because then she would have thought that was a scam. I was going to say, I would say, what's your car? Give me your keys. I'm going to run down and grab them out of the trunk. And I'll run back up. But then she probably would have been like, oh, this whole thing's a scam to steal my car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Super sophisticated ploy to steal a car. And you've left someone behind as a witness, too. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, Chelsea, that was great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
This looks like everyone's sharing a coffin. And are you a Kentucky native?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
The bluegrass. Well, it's lovely meeting all of you. You too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Hello? Is it Janae?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
And where are you at, Janae?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Okay, so you received a kind gesture from a stranger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Did you know him prior to working with him? Were you guys friends before?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, my gosh. How wonderful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah, that's spectacular. And you still love the house? You've been there for four years?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
That's wonderful. Well, if you sell it, make like a huge profit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Not shocking because one of the greatest gifts of generosity I received was when we were stranded at the airport in Boston and those kind people in Wellesley hosted all of us. That was mass holes going against the stereotype.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Did you watch the Jerry Springer documentary by chance on Netflix?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, I got to tell you just the funniest. A, if you watch it, you'll be like, I can't believe that was on television. And we just accepted that. That's one shocking thing. But then the other funny thing is they had a rule on Jerry Springer. No guests from Boston.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
That was like a hard rule. Yeah, because they had so many guys from Boston come on. They were either lying or they had made up their story. They just wanted to get on TV and raise hell. And so I think that's a real feather in the cap of Boston. All Bostonians banned from Jerry Springer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
How old is the gentleman?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
What guests brought you in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I was just telling my mother-in-law, who's a nurse, that there's nothing more dependable than the nurse prompt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
It's a good one. Well, thank you so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Thanks for having me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Hello. How are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Where are you, Georgianne?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, that's a feather in y'all's cap.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Okay, so you were the recipient of some kindness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Well, as soon as you said this, I'm back in fifth grade watching it live in my classroom, and I'm terrified for what's coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
You guys weren't watching it live.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, I I know a yellow page.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah, and Joanna, just quick backstory. So for me, it would just be red flag galore. I would have so hard of a time accepting that this could be true. Monica, would you be skeptical or where would you be at?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
You're right. It can have a real lasting impact.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah, what a hero she is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah, that's pretty radical. That's a beautiful story. What a day that was. Because we watched it live and every class was watching it. All of the teachers started crying. The explosion was one thing that was alarming, but it was seeing all of our teachers, which we didn't think, cried. That was really unsettling. I was like, oh, the adults are really, really all scared right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Well, Georgianne, that's a very sweet story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah, let's get them all in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
The notion you thought you were going to botch this, that was incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I'd be skeptical, but I would progress.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, this family, y'all made our day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Okay, well, thank you. You truly, truly made our day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Take care. Oh, man. Oh, sweet family. That was fucking delightful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
That was a nice family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Hey, you intelligent, beautiful woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Listen, I don't want to go to space.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
No, me neither. Well, I used to want to until we interviewed the astronaut, and I found out it's not pleasant up there. Headaches, can't sleep, bursts of gamma rays in your eyes. They're closed. You can't shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah. I loved this prompt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
And it has made me feel like I want to do something very nice for someone. Yeah. Today. But I am going to the Beyonce concert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
That's a good thing to do for Beyonce.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
That's something, that's a kind gesture I'm doing for her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
What if Beyonce was on a podcast about kind strangers and she said, this girl Monica, I didn't even know her and she bought a ticket to come see me perform. And she bought my merch and she cut in line. Cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Okay, yeah. This isn't a good day for me to do it. I'm probably going to receive a kind gesture from somebody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah, you're going to do a little taking today probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
No, I'll buy everyone in line a shirt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
All right. Probably a big lie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I know. I just realized that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
All right. Well, I think you're a kind stranger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I think you are too. You know what I like to do? This is nothing, but in LA, because we have a lot of parking meters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
If I see that one's out. Oh, you can slide your credit card in there? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, that's really nice. You know what I make a habit of doing is if I have to fart and I'm about to get on an elevator, I fart in the foyer before I get in the elevator.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
as an act of- Oh, that's so nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah. My wife doesn't extend that kindness to strangers. She'll toot right in the elevator.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Because she knows they'll blame me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
You love that, huh? That's so funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
You know Rob's got my numbers sometimes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah, he sure does. They like it. All right. Well, I think that's it for Kind Strangers. That was great. I loved it. That was really lovely. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Love you. Love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
And if that sounds too PG rated, I will assure you that there is a gift within these kind gestures in the form of an unauthorized evacuation. So it's going to deliver on all fronts. Please enjoy kind gestures from strangers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Really quick, how do you get that list of who's been arrested the night before?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, wow, wow, wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Richard did? He never returned to his practice?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
But your mind went to a great place, Monica, which is, is he okay? And my mind went to, uh-oh, he had to run from something. This is Jacksonville, Florida. So maybe he was representing some kind of a drug cartel situation and he had to make himself scarce.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Maybe he's a witness protection now. Could be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
And then it expired and he moved back to Jackson? Yeah. Really quick, when he disappeared, how did you know to stop coming to work?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I don't know why that reminds me of I worked at a fabrication place in high school when I was 15. My boss called me into his office and he said, hey, it's your birthday Friday, right? And I said, yeah. And he said, it's your birthday. Don't come in. And I go, oh, okay, great. And then he goes, yeah, and just call Monday and we'll see if we have any work. I was like, wait a minute.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
He's like letting you go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
He fired me under the guise of you can have your birthday off. Are you still playing music?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Well, Joanna, so nice to meet you. And that's a really great story. And it's positive and it never turned dark.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I hate that I'm now this person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, you're putting on the Dax hat?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
A little. I'm like, maybe he was on drugs and manic or something. He used his mania for good. It's a little on a tear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
It's inconsistent for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
But you do paint a good picture. Let's just say everything went sideways. I fucked up everything and I was divorced. I was loaded. I think I would hate myself. And if I could help a stranger, it might buy me little periods of feeling okay about myself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Well, and then that's okay. That to me isn't fine. But if he was bipolar or something and then it was in his mania. Also, that's fine if he did. I came out ahead. It was still a very kind gesture regardless.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I'm just delighted he never got pervy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
That's all we care about, really.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
That makes me so happy. I never talk about that movie, but I really do think that's the most fun I've ever had playing a character. That's the only time I got to play just a straight prick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
No, this was more fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Oh, that's so sweet. Thank you. That's a kind gesture.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I'm kind of nervous about him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Well, I just am sad he dropped off the map.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
It is interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Do you think the kid had a disease?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I'm just, something happened here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I just took a lover. Well, how about this? He went to visit her. And as he already said, he's loaded. He's going to spend two weeks with her. And then he was like, I have the option to just be around my daughter. And maybe she had a family. And he just decided, I'm going to be present. And there's a grandkid in there. What am I going home to? More money?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I know there's a grandkid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Because he's visiting his daughter and the daughter has a baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I don't. I'm just saying that's a good scenario.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Well, he was only like 48.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
He had a kid at 20. His daughter had a kid at 25. The child's three years old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Wow. All right. Maybe that is what happened. I hope so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Yeah. I'm glad he was dad hot. Rob, do you think you're dad hot? You're way beyond dad hot, I'll just say. I don't even know what it means. I do. It means you're fine looking, but you're a dad, so you're trustworthy and you've got some brownie points.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I think it actually means you were hot and you're aging nicely, but you're older.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I think it means you were a pass in high school, but now you've demonstrated that you're very responsible and competent, so that ups your attraction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
People can weigh in on what they think the definition of dad hot is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Try to define dad hot for us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
And then baby hot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
And then tell us what hot baby looks like. Toddler hot is. Hot toddler. Hot toddy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Hot toddy. Do you think that's what it stands for? Oh my God, that's disgusting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
We are wonderful. What a glorious recording instrument you have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
And Chelsea, would it be fair to assume all this gear has driven you nuts over the years, but now it finally has come to benefit you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Okay, so where are you, Chelsea?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Are you watching Chase for the Crown? It's about the Triple Crown. It's on Netflix. It just came out. It's about horse racing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
That's why I bring it up because it makes me want to go to Louisville so bad because it's so freaking green and hilly and beautiful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Should I go? Is it a great time?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
I should have built a house there instead of Nashville.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Do you have any lakes?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Okay, I feel less bad now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Okay, that'll work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, so you were the recipient of a act of kindness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
What was your degree in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
What if you said photography?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Kind Gesture from a Stranger
Okay. She's going rogue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Buck Rogers, and I'm joined by Jean Lightyear. Today is children's birthday parties run amok.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Okay, you have a crazy birthday party story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
He's a rascal. This house he built is so weird. And now this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yeah. How are they going to go back to sleep after this? Even if it's explained to me at that age, I then go, well, this family is crazy. I don't want to be here. Ghosts or no ghosts. These folks are nuts. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Oh, my God. He thought it was your 16th birthday party, not yours. He got a little confused on your age. Yeah, he got overly excited.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Oh, no. You think it reeks a little? I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
That's definitely big brother energy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
It's over the top. It's over the top. Monica doesn't know it. She has a very fluid definition of big brother energy. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Allie, you're delightful. And I'm so jealous of where you're at. I want a trip to Rhode Island.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
All right. Nice meeting you. Bye. Bye. Hi, Taylor. How are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
In BFAW. What grocery store were you at?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yes. We met so many babies on that trip. I know. I saw. Little baby tour. The only thing you were robbed of, not that you would have given a shit, but that was the only stop we made that we weren't driving the bus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yeah, that's fair. I had parked it in the barn and I didn't want to deal with trying to find parking for it. Were you someone who got a picture that Lincoln took?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Shout out Ruthie. Yes. Okay, so you have a crazy birthday party story?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Can I stop you? We've heard three stories, and they've all been 20 years ago or 22 years ago. It's very interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Also, I'm going to add seven years old is pretty young for skating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Well, I won't because she's so good. But imagine Khaleesi skating right now. It's not like anyone's super agile yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
You must have been fucking slain bartending at the Abbey. Were you just living your greatest life? Yes. It was good that I got out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yes, I've had a lot of stitches in my life and none of the cuts hurt. But man, when they swirl around that needle to get it to swell up so they can get the sutures in, that is murder. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Oh, I was very fearful your little seven-year-old fingers were going to be on the ring.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
That's helpful. But then another few skaters come by and they chop it up even smaller, right? It started as half a finger, now it's thirds. Then you start puzzling it together. Well, the fingernail goes on the end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I have the fingernail. They'll start there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Oh. I can't believe you still have your fingers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
No, running over a little child's fingers with ice skates on, I would be more panicked than the kid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Have you done a lot of ice skating since then?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Might not be your sport. Yeah. Did you ever get fucked up in gymnastics?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
You knew you weren't going to that next level.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Monty, did you ever break anything?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
But not a full sever, like a tear?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I think I'd rather have a broken bone than a ripped hammy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Well, Taylor, it's nice to see you again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
That's our dream. Yeah, our dream is that people see each other in the wild and then become friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
All orange cherries are. All right, well, give her our love and great seeing you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Is that a common name growing up or no?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Oh, wow. Probably an outdated baby names book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Right. I went straight to baby naming, but outdated because it's at a garage sale. Yeah, I think that's the way to do it. Where did you grow up?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
They're bunk. Interesting. What's the vibe where you're at? Is it rural?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Haven't been, but I know this is where all the people vacationed in the Gilded Age. The camps were there and stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Okay, so you have a crazy birthday party story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Let's be honest, the moms. I'm sure that's whose numbers you had. That's more exciting to think one of the moms is an ex-con than the dads.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
This is his dream fucking invite to a kid's birthday party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yes. A bowling alley. There's alcohol. Oh, my God. This is like the dream scenario.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Okay, time for me to take. Oh, boy. Okay. Yep. It's Zoe's eighth birthday. And Zoe's being very sassy in the photo. She's so cute. She's got hands on hips. If I were this violent pedophile, even I would be smart enough to go, this feels like entrapment. Clearly the government's running a sting on me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
You're inviting this monster into your world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Of course. No way. Well, look, you're a convicted fucking offender and you get this sassy invite to an eight year old's birthday. This is entrapment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
That's a great question. I'm sure he's not allowed to be within X amount of feet of a school and a playground, but I don't know about a bowling alley or a birthday party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I don't. Well, this is a bigger and dicier question. Okay. I'm curious because we often hear rape's not a crime of sex. It's a crime of control. I don't know what mentally is going on with the pedophilia world, but you would imagine as someone's sexual desire declines with age as happens, does that all go away or is it still such a mental sickness question? Is it even related to your sexuality?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I don't know. We'd have to ask this gentleman. Well, I shouldn't call him a gentleman. If there's anyone we cannot call a gentleman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
That's a pricey, yeah, you're spending $600, $700 for those little girls to have dinner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
And you did. You went down the rabbit hole of his crimes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I stand by the decision to give you the photo because you want to keep your eyes peeled at the party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
This is a fucking bizarre turn of events. This is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no reason to unleash all this fear among them. Is it going to help make the situation safer? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
They might even not bring their kids. There's already a cop involved.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I want your friend now to receive a text intended for him. That's what's exciting. If it's one number off, she should keep her eyes peeled for some suspicious meetups.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yeah. She could alert the police.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Well, Ariana, I'm really sad I missed this party because it does look like a blast. Was it a great party?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Oh, cool. Smoke a little weed. Pop on Netflix.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
That's a bummer. We have pedophiles. With all the fucking peculiar human antics, that one is like, oh, fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
What a fucking terrible experience on planet Earth. Happy birthday, everybody. It's your birthday. Happy birthday. Do you have a crazy birthday story?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
The only one I remember is I got to go to McDonald's once and I got to invite like three kids from my neighborhood. And I invited Betsy Goodwin, who I had a crush on. And I got some present. My mom would remember the details more because she really didn't like her after this. And she said she would marry me if I gave her one of my presents. And I did. Oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
No, we got married and were divorced.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I used to be a real patsy, a putz.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
All right. Goodbye. Love you. Bye. Do you want to sing a tune or something? Or a theme song? Oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Although a lot of these stories, the parents are terrible. You know, it bounces back and forth nicely. Please enjoy Crazy Birthday Party Stories. Can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yeah. I don't know if anyone's ever sounded better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Oh, it's actually on her head. Like a hat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Which is ironic because you're in pursuit of performing. These are these weird contradictions we have, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
What a restaurant. I want to go so bad. I want all this. I don't care how bad I feel the next day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yeah, you're literally the worst server ever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Okay, good. He's blasted enough. He's seeing the humor in it. I, again, run away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
He's surrounded by all these little girls and this woman. And then he saw another man enter and have the same terrible luck he has. He's like, I know, brother. I know what it's like to disappoint these gals. I do it daily. Here's 40 bucks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Right. It's not your fault she's got terrible balance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Well, I don't think the chair was the issue as much as do not hand her something that weighs a third of much as her body mass and put her in a precarious. It's one or the other. Either have her hold the dessert or get her up on the chair, but not both, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Did mom sign the tip on the master bill? Did you get a pretty shit tip aside from the 40?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Maybe that dessert that almost gave her a concussion. Thank God the fucking thing was in a plastic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yeah, if you would have looked down, there was blood everywhere. You could be telling a much different story. Exactly. Time that you murdered a 10-year-old at her birthday party. Different prompt. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yes, thank you, Justin. Thank you for having me. Can I go yell at my husband, bring him in here? Yes, of course. Hi, what's your name? Mark. Are you from the UK? I'm British.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Well, you guys, congrats on this beautiful family. Thank you. All right. Be well. Take care. Thanks for having me. All right. Bye. Nothing cuter than hearing your name from a little baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
He said Manka? Yeah. Does he say Monica or does he say Manka?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Because my kids did Manka a bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Mama Ma. That was Delta. Mama Ma. I wish this was a fact check so I could tell you Delta's most recent story. I'll say in a nutshell, the errands are in town. She's not been around the three of us. She's just meeting Tyrell for the first time. I'm going to put her in bed last night. And she goes, Dad, do you think Tyrell ever feels left out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
And I said, oh, that's such a beautiful instinct to worry about that. But I don't think so. We've been all really great friends for 35 years. And I think he's maybe a little shyer. And she goes, OK, did you ask him that? Are you assuming that? And I go, fuck. I'm assuming it. Do you want to go ask him? And she goes, yeah, let's go talk to him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
So we went downstairs and the errands were downstairs watching TV. And we said, Tyrell, can we ask you a question? And then we got this question out and he was like, oh my God, thanks for worrying about that. I have a relationship with each of them individually. And then when they're together, this new person emerges and I just enjoy watching and I'm glad I don't have to talk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
So he just like walked through the whole thing. I was like, oh, thank God I assumed correctly, but she was right. I never asked him, but I assumed that was the case.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yeah, to the Reckless Unicorn.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Would it cover the whole floor of a bedroom? Huge. I got it for my husband for Valentine's Day. It's like four blankets in one. Oh, wonderful. Like 20 by 20 maybe or something. Yeah. And where are you? I'm in West Orange, New Jersey. It's like right outside New York City. That's my first time hearing West Orange. You'll be happy to know, Monica. I can't say anything about the geography of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
What job are you running out of your vehicle? I'm so interested.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Wow. You thought you had your dream job, but you don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
What state are you in? Actually, hold on. I'm going to guess space nothing more than there are two buildings behind you that are clapboard and they look like they're from the 1800s. So I'm going New England. I'm starting in New England. Are you in New England?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I'm just learning. You can do whatever you want. OK, Justin, you have a crazy children's birthday party story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Did you appreciate that one? That was fun because that's just a building in the background.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
It's the yellow and red house and the deep BG. That's a giveaway. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
It's a bonus. But I can definitely imagine for your parents, as I would get older and have kids and have this experience with my kids, it would retroactively make me go like, oh my goodness, our child's out there. We must... see that child.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
That's a lot. I'm not shocked they were looking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
When you're there for the week teaching, they give you a hotel room?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Listen, you're lucky you never dated him. That's really, this is the most important part.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Because you would meet them and you would feel this crazy familial thing that you would not chalk up to that. And it would be very confusing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Well, it's really great news that he ended up with a wonderful family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
He's like, I'm good on the sisters. Is there a cool brother I can hang with? So have you guys become close? We would.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
And do they have a sweet relationship?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
And do his adoptive parents feel at all threatened by any of this or they're totally cool with it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I'm really glad you didn't date. Just really keep coming back to this. Yeah, just circle back to this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Yeah, let's do it in your teen years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
That's right. Just have a child that's a cyclops and then ask yourself, why did that happen? Worth it. Oh, well, Brooklyn, that was kind of an uplifting story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Good. Don't stray. We don't know how we'll hold up to competition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Thank you. We aim to. Delightful meeting you for real.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
How could they even go bad? They're always going to probably be this, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Can only hope. Well, you got a twofer coming up next.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Oh, two people. Wow, this is a first.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Dating your brother. What if you found out you weren't related to your brother and then started dating him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Old me would have needed that, not new me, because I don't blow my nose anymore and I don't cough anymore, no matter how bad I want to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
i've always been so attracted to you and i haven't been able to figure it out that would be a story is that siblings found out they weren't siblings and promptly started dating but really we know that's not gonna happen because the pheromone exchange yes you mapped each other's smells and stuff ew hello hi hi is this big a little a r-o-n it is Erin, you'll be our first dual caller.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Is there a Jessica also joining us?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Now, this cool painting behind you, there's a butterfly, an airplane, and it looks to be flying over like Mexico City or something. What's happening in this photo?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Okay, a lot is riding on Jess's appearance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Well, don't sell yourself short, Aaron.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Okay, Jessica has joined us. Jessica, the painting collage, what city are that butterfly and that airplane above?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Yeah, I don't think I have yet since I've sat down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
What is the relationship here between you and Aaron?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Oh, this is going to come up. Oh, we're excited. Let's jump in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
This is such a couple already, though, because she's like, you're facing the wrong way. And then he's in charge of tech.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Yeah, but we're going to lose something from it, probably. I bet the guest feels more comfortable that I'm so gross and disgusting. Like, oh, cool. It's laid back. This guy's a gross monster.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Oh, so 104 trips. Probably a little less than that. I tried to do this at UCLA because they were paying good money for UCLA sperm. And I went in and did a deposit. And then they said, your sperm count isn't high enough. So you're more virile.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Were they looking for a cab driver living in mom's basement when they
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Hold on one second. I do want to ask, when you spit in the test tube, what would have been your guess of how many kids resulted from these 100 plus or minus trips?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I'm a tank top, I suppose. Okay, so you have a 23andMe and or slash DNA story. April, let us have it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Yeah, he's going to live six years longer because of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
You're on your first date, but you already have a child that's 11 years old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Can I ask quickly how your ex-wife felt about you connecting with Aaron?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Wow. So how long have you guys been together now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Wow. Oh my God. So you ended up, Aaron, raising your daughter from 11 on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Although if we are led to believe what we learned about Mendelian... Punnett squares. Yes, the two greens and the blue should have all been recessive, and we shouldn't have been able to have brown eyes with that mix.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
And from what you've already told me about her personality, it's on brand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Well, this might surprise you that the most shocking part of this whole story to me is that they keep the sperm for so long. I would have thought I either had kids in that window of time I was jerking off at the place. I would not think there could be a 20-year span.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
That's allowed. We know how to do that. Well, you guys, this was delightful. What an interesting story. What's the name of the New York Times piece and the BBC piece in case people want to read it? I think that might interest people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
But since brown is dominant, you have to have two little bees to get blue. So the mom had two little bees and the dad had two little bees. No one had a big bee to give. Again, they might have oversimplified it for us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Oh, that's nice. I like that. That's tasty. I like your title, though, a lot, Jessica. I don't know if that was a first draft.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Well, wonderful meeting both of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I guess that sperm stays good for a fucking goat's age, huh?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Yeah, it's great. Taylor, can you hear us?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
You're going to have to call us back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
These are the new colds. They're for three months. That's just how the fucking colds are now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Okay, so you have a wild DNA story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
And are you guys identical or fraternal?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I know I'm caught between. So my brother was really, really challenging. And now that I think of his story and I write about it, I realized he really needed someone that had a lot of capacity to help. I just feel bad for both people in the story. Like I feel bad for my mom and I felt bad for my brother. So you probably needed a lot of help.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Also, Jack guy sounds like a term, like a certain kind of guy, like he works at a guy. Well, that would be great. But I was thinking more like he works at a mechanic shop, like he's jacking up cars or like a different industries for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
And did he and the friend girl have any children?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
This is dynamite. This is the most I've retold.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
You told your brother, obviously he already knew at this point. Oh, wow. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
So your mother was carrying two different people's child.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Well, do you know, though, the other fives, have they done Ancestry? None of them have. We don't know how much Jack was in or out of the picture.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
The NCS was one night and then the next night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
There's a lot of permutations here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Okay. So have you discussed any of this with your mom?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
What does that mean? She knows a lot of code words.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Oh, oh, sure. Like a wobbly H, sawhorse. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
He's like, okay, I don't need to talk to you, but is your sister going to call? Because I need to tell her I don't want to talk to her either.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
So, yeah, what impact does this have? Because we've talked to some people today who have had this experience and some of them are like, doesn't matter. It's cool to know. And that's still my parent and I don't really care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I can't imagine, though, that she assumed the twins were from two different men, even though she had sex with two different people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Shout out. Well, lovely meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I feel like we need to do this again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Four for four. They also grew in intensity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
There was like a natural progression that felt scripted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Bonne amie. Vos joie de vivre. Faire les fous français. Faire les mes bouches.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I feel like now I'm not anyone's, don't you? All those stories make you feel like, oh, shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Yeah, are you my mom? Are you my mom?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
It could be mother, but. It's mother. Fuck. Sorry. Yeah, that's so formal. Sorry and thank you. No wonder people said no. They're like, you're stuck up. I'm your mother. I'm your mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
The little bird asks a bulldozer if it's his mother.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Oh, I've walked everyone I've seen since this episode through this episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Yeah, because you're like, I'm an adult now. I can handle it if you had a fling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Yes, I was going to say your results, independent of any other information, are useless. You need your three sisters to take it or your mom or your dad. The only thing you could have done is figured out through this cousin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
few oh my god i mean really all of them are incredible but there's one that is it seems impossible and it's yes 12 people maybe this has happened too yes this is an incredible over-delivered episode please enjoy crazy dna testing stories hard times come and go good times take them slow
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
What would be more confusing, your little sister's aunt? Wow. I got to try to figure out that on the family tree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Clearly she was still actively married to your dad because kids came before and after. It was an extramarital experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Oh, wow. Yeah, she's horny. Of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I got to really work through if I found out Delta wasn't biologically my daughter. Obviously, I couldn't love her less. Nothing there would happen. But would I have any heartbreak that I have nothing to do with that magic?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
You know, I just adore her so much, I don't think I'd really give a shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Correct. And I almost think... I would be grateful that Kristen had chosen what she did because I feel this way about her and I love it so much. And I think I would agree with the decision. But we're not divorced. And your folks were divorced when you told them this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
He's still living in another reality.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Oh, my God. The cliches are coming through.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Well, you have a great attitude about all this. You just took it as I was validated. I knew. So it's a victory. I don't feel sad about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
And I'm going to flex. I'm not really, but a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Good luck with the rest of your week of teaching.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
You know, I know enough to know I don't really know how I feel about it. But certainly when I think about it, it wouldn't bother me either.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
And you and I both are so identical to our dads. And that's the only one you can find out. Then your mother has a type. Because she obviously fucked a guy that was identical to your dad. And same with my mom. That means she fucked my grandpa or something. Well, I'm just saying I'm such a shepherd. It's insane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I think I'm right about that eye thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
I think there are more genes than just one to determine eye color. So I think it was given to us a little simplistically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Beautifully. What name are we going to use for you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Okay. You ready for a wild one? Yeah. Brooklyn.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Hello, April. Are you in a hotel room?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
You have a candle. You've set the scene.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Are you just out of a treatment? Are you just out of a Swedish or a deep dish?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Are you allowed to tell us what part of the country you're in Brooklyn, even though we're using a fake name?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Oh, you're probably six hours away. Worth the drive, in my opinion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Someone wrote in the comments they didn't acquire Cedar Point. They merged. And the current CEO is the CEO of Cedar Point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Everyone shut your mouth. Okay. Sorry, Brooklyn. Okay. So you're in New Jersey and you have a tasty DNA story because you don't want to use your real name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
Which one do we need to know the most?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing
They tend not to. That's the problem with those.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. We are supported by Audible. Audible's best of 2024 picks are here. Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best in audio entertainment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Would it be disrespectful if I'm enjoying a snack while you guys are singing? I'd prefer it. Okay, great. Dinner theater.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Hannah, do you want to do a musical at any point?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
That's almost a huge burn, but I... It wasn't a burn.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Did you go to the thing Kristen went to? Which one?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Mama had the best week of her entire life. She almost didn't come home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
12 years younger. On those FaceTimes, I was like, oh my God, mom's 26 right now. Look at her. Your face, yeah, was so youthful. You were with all your Broadway friends. That does something so special to you. Yeah. It's very, very sweet. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Trusted brand. I just got a black puffer that's so sleek, and I got a very earth-tony fleece.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Learn more at Columbia.com. We are supported by Pokemon and their incredible Pokemon trading card game. The Pokemon trading card game is a gift this holiday season that will delight gamers, collectors, and Pokemon fans alike. Parents, maybe you grew up collecting Pokemon or watching the show on Saturday mornings. Well,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
They come in a variety of cool and captivating styles created by different artists, so there's something for everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Find gift ideas for all ages and at every price point at tcg.pokemon.com slash holiday. Should we... I think we should hear... Are you guys ready to play your song? I also have one quick question ergonomically. Is it easy to... to sing seated? Is that not a challenge?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
You've got on your knees. That's a compromise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And you've got a built-in excuse. I was sitting. Can you imagine what that would have sounded like if I was standing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Just in case. Really slather it on guilt-free.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
What's your sister's name? Allie. She must be a genius. She really loves this show. She loves this show. She sounds so smart and compassionate and evolved.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Okay, so you know, I want to make it very clear. You're my all-time queen of the bell, the ball. You're the number one singer in my heart of all time. So you know that. But I do need to talk about Emma's voice for a second.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
No. You're like a racehorse. Racehorses, they can like, can it walk? I don't know. And then all of a sudden it fucking takes off and it's just like... Or like a car, a motor, you guys will know, with a huge cam. It sounds like it's not even going to roll. And then you hit the gas and it's fucking out of there. There is something so... Just... Powerful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And it just like, it just shoots into the air. It's really, I love it. I don't think I heard you sing enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
You can't teach timbre. No, can't teach timbre. No, that's what they say. Can't teach timbre. Can't teach timbre. Can't teach timbre new tricks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Jacob, are you in need of a hat? Are you still pushing your merch brand?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
because we talked about the fact that I was walking by UCB, you were sitting behind the counter and I walked in and you were currently listening to that song at work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
He had diarrhea is what I remember from the story. Yeah. Justin Timberlake had her explosive diarrhea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Have you guys ever heard my version? I have to cover my face because it'll make everyone uncomfortable. This is like a real Monica. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Okay, welcome everybody to the Christmas episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
You searched timbre, I think. Best timbre.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Okay, so we have really fun guests. Of course, people will know you, Anna Kendrick. People know you, Kristen Bell. People are going to, a lot of people will know you guys, but a lot of people will be meeting you. Yeah. Gabe Gibbs. Yeah. I got to see you for the first time perform. What were you guys doing? What was that called? A cabaret show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
It's about goddamn time, Rob. That is the gift, yeah. I ride him like a rented mule, so he deserved that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Gabe, do you have a favorite Christmas present you remember from your childhood? in Michigan on Big Beaver Road, Exit 69 in Rochester?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And you had a big old crush in sixth grade, early developer. Timber was coming in nicely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
G2G. And I imagine then too, you had some limited data on your hands.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
You had a fucking Dyno? Remember Dino GTs? Yeah, you're a dick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
No, kids had mongooses and they wanted dinos. Cool, yeah. What did your old man do for a... He sold insurance. Oh, I bet he did quite well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And first check in the great category is you're a Michigander. Yeah, baby. Yeah. If the hat didn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
It's a light bulb, right, that cooks the food?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I'm bad at birthdays and Christmas as if there's a bunch of other gift opportunities. You're just straight across the board bad at gifts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
We have been on vacations to places that she's like, I'd like to go to Colorado once. We've been a couple of times, you know, that kind of thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And where are you from in Michigan, Gabe? I'm from like Rochester area. Right. Yeah. We talked about that. Exit 69, Big Beaver. That's right. That was your exit. That's right. That's a for real thing. It is. Anna, you don't know that about Michigan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Oh, and there's a dinner involved, and you go to his apartment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
By far, and I just shout out to Laura LeBeau because we were broke as hell, but she went hard on Christmas. We had great fucking Christmas. She would go in debt, and she always gave us a good one. And I must have been five because we lived in this shithole. And I came out, and there was a plastic IndyCar the size of this table. It probably would be a Power Wheels now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I don't know if that was the brand back then. But it was a little car I could drive. And I drove it until the battery's dead. Then I charged it. Then I drove it. And then I drove it. And the embarrassing part is I drove it way too long. Then we moved into a neighborhood and I was still, I was driving it at like 11.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Sometimes I'd get nostalgic and I would drive it down my neighborhood street and I would be super embarrassed, but I still would do it. Yeah. I just, the steering wheel broke and I steered it with pliers for a while. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
No, that was my worst present because my grandpa, Papa Bob, he bought my brother and I these Firefox remote control cars. We wanted them so bad. And then my uncle and my brother played with them before Christmas for so long that they were broken and then put them in the boxes and we unwrapped them. And they were broken. And then they were sold out of Firefox. And then this is my chandelier.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Big Beaver Road is exit number 69 on I-75.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
My what's the sleds name? You know, Rosebud. This was my Rosebud. And Kristen found a Firefox on eBay or somewhere and got it for me for Christmas. And she healed that wound. And it broke within 10 minutes of driving. So I can't even blame my uncles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yeah, yeah. They were the Easy Bake Oven of the RC car world, for sure. Okay, what other songs do we have?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
So fucking many. I told you this. Someone was having a very emotional moment on the couch. And the second they were having this emotional moment, the crickets started.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Good idea. Well, let's have a snake in here. We're just wandering around the podcast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Do you not know what Monica's number one fear in life is?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
A snake coming out of your, going up your butt from the toilet bowl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
He's upset about the election, he's on strike.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Like a stunning new full cast production of George Orwell's 1984. This is the one I am most excited to indulge myself with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And then where are you from? I'm from South Florida. You are? Yeah. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Jacob Jeffries. Yeah. And you and Wobby Wob already know each other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I got to give a personal stamp of approval. It's so good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
With cutting-edge genetic testing and biomarker analysis, you can create a health plan that is tailored just for you. As you know, we're both in this study now, And I've been going back to 23andMe and ordering different results, which is so cool. It's all sitting there for me to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yeah. She said rainbows really know how to fly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
She was lost. That gets you out of the copyright issue. Just throw rainbows in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
We were talking about whether a Brazilian had the landing strip or not. And then somehow we learned, this was just a couple weeks ago, that Wobb gave himself a landing strip just to make Natalie laugh. Wobb, in the comments, I'm sure you've seen people love that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And they kept it too. They're like, Mike, she said rainbows, right? Yeah, just keep it. Okay. Well, I think,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Do we want to do our culinary surprise? I just want to say that we were talking yesterday in a fact check and I was lamenting about how bad I am at giving gifts. And then Monica said, well, think of secret turkey so fun because you have to make it. And then I thought, OK. That's what I'm going to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
So we'll all go outside. There's a buffet set up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And we'll make a plate, and then we can eat in open presence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Now, full disclosure, I have helped for Kristen's Christmas. I don't want to act like she has a stylist, Nicole, who has the best taste of any person in the world. Everything Nicole gets, Kristen wants. So three years ago, I was like, hey, Nicole, since you know what she's going to want, could you help me?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
So I have a lot of help, but I still, I feel unethical about that, so I still get some stuff on my own. So if this is a miss, it's because Nicole had nothing to do with this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Is Wicked Theme for your... Now that's where Carly comes in, I think, because I just did the rap job, and I did not affix the ribbon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
It was a total trap. I walked right into it. And then shout out Carly for putting out the buffet outside.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
She made the garlic bread. I made the spaghetti sauce.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yeah, he's a wascal. OK, so we're going to sing a bunch of songs. We're going to learn some backstory on Christmas, favorite presents, that type of thing. We're going to eat a lot of cookies and sweets. Wobby Wob, of course, always makes really delicious cookies and Rice Krispie treats. And then I have a surprise to a culinary surprise. And so we'll be breaking to chow down at some point, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yeah, it's some collab between Panda Prank and Nike.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I should just return the rest of your presents, actually.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
If you loved them so much, you'd be putting them on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
They do one-off designs of existing brands, is my understanding of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yeah, because now I'm in their algorithm because I bought one pair of shoes, so I see every single pair of shoes they design, and they're all pretty cool. Nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I have a present? You got a present. What the heck? Also, I learned at the buffet bar that you're in Wolfpack, which I can't believe I didn't know that. That's so embarrassing to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
We have three world-class present givers in this room right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
No, no, no. This is awesome. Thank you so much. I couldn't live within five miles of Emily Burger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I would be dead within six, seven years, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
The biggest beaver you've ever seen. I love beavers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Anna, you're not going to like this, but... Oh, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And then we'll do a gift exchange. And that's the run of the show. So what I would love to do, instead of trying to describe, Gabe, your genius, I would love to start with a little taste of your focus as a musician.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
You don't need to bring anything. Yeah, I'm not doing your Christmas show. You're doing our Christmas show. We were interviewing you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
You were talking about going to your audition in your combat boots.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And I said... I know what this is. Yep. And it broke my heart that you wouldn't have the best boots a lady can have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Now, watch how nervous Kristen is because she was a part of me looking online for these.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yeah. And there were ones I liked where she was like, absolutely not. And then I just waited until she left and then I decided.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
They were not. They were a compromise, but I still love them. They're perfect. They have fur. They're fur. The boots with the fur.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And I said, my girl can't ever wear the, oh, loved it. It's a great brand, Payless. It's just, Docs for me were the thing. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I also have to say one thing. I bought you something. Thank you. It says it came. I searched the entire house today. It's not here. I reordered it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
You're a woman of means. You can buy your own shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Also, huge shout out to Wobby Wob because the garage looks insane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Let's get you seated for this birthday boy. You got your own song, but that's not where it ends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Okay. I'm excited to see how Mama handled this. I just want to say for this one, Kristen spent at least seven and a half hours on the phone this week and was unsuccessful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
It's so fun. It's so close. Your kids will love it. There's a little slide. The fucking buffet is the best in the biz.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
That's for me. That and the big one. That and the big one. And what's that for money? Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Don't worry about the armchair expert wrapping paper.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Who's, again, I got to say, when I said there's three exemplary gift givers in this room, Wobby Wob is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yeah, that's what on a set it would be. When you get that stupid fucking shopping bag.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
It's the nesting doll. It's a skeleton inside of a sand people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And thank you, Lincoln and Delta. I stole the tree out of their bedroom and they don't know that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Now again, if you're listening, you can't smell it. And even if you're watching, you can't smell it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Flamingo Estate, Los Angeles, California. Ooh, these are really nice. You know about these? What is this? It's olive oil.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
It pairs nicely with elk. Mine says Wabi Sabi for Wabi Wabi.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
It's a lot of protein. And now I'll get a little omega in them too. And let's both say something at the same time. Three, two, one. For the listener, I almost kissed Rob's lips. Here we go. Ever since I learned about that landing strip, I'm just having the most confusing feelings about you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Oh, Rodman and Isaiah Thomas, 88-89. Pissed it. You were too young, but that was the team. Oh my God, that's so cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Oh, this is great. Oh, I got a piggy. Whoa. Oh, great, and this has Yeti wrapping paper, not to be confused with the cooling brand. An actual Yeti. Does it smell?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I'm going to, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to play a game where you guys will see it first.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Guessing on your reaction, I'm going to see if I can figure out what it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Okay, so Gabe, it seems like it might be a bad car accident. Is that what it is? Someone eating a corpse?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Oh, wow. It's a pencil drawing? It's beautiful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Sorry, before we kick off, just a quick vote. I know where you two stand, but are you a white light or a colored light person on your Christmas tree? Ooh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Your eyes aren't that good. How'd you get that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
No, you got it. But we both know you and I are blind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Oh, my God. That's gorgeous, Wobby Wob. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Thoughtful son of a bitch. Three, two, one. Three, two, one. We say something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
All came out in the wash. Okay. So, we've had our pasta. We've had some desserts. It's time to land the plane hard with some more music. So, musical director, what's our next offering?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I don't even like that song and I loved it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
You were doing like the Apple photo thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Stronger for it. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. No, I had a great fucking year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
We had a lot of fun trips. Kids just get more and more and more interesting and funny and more fun to be around. Yeah. We had a great year work-wise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
We're going to bring in a closer, closing pitcher. And this, a lot of people know Perfect Ten Charlie, and they know he's married to Erica, and they've met Perfect Ten Charlie on here, and now you're going to get to meet Erica on here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
She's a boss bitch. She's tough, cool, radical, the kind of gal that Kristen falls in love with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Hi, Erica. Welcome to the program. We gave you an intro, but you weren't in the room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
We're saying your praises. Pull that mic a little closer to yourself. Okay, hi. Although you got a big old fucking powerful... That's right, I'll turtle it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
He's going to what? Anyways, in our intro, we said people know Perfect 10 Charlie. Yes, yes. And now the beautiful bride.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Takes a big woman to live up to those looks, and boy, does she do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
They're bullies though. That's the only thing I don't like about them. They're always shoving guys in lockers. And then singing about it. Okay, I also just want to say, for my money, this is my favorite Christmas song in the world. This is number one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Oh, that's too much pressure? Okay, I just broke one of the rules. That's all right. Theater rules.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
It's the one to watch. Yeah. It's who brought you to the party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I'm going to tell one second story. This is my mother encouraged me to do this back in the old days. I was trying to explain this to our children and they could not conceptualize what I was saying. I was like, girls, there was only three channels. That's it. And if you didn't see it, you missed it. And there was no way to record it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
and these bastards in Detroit, you had two, four and seven, they would counter programs. So you'd have the Grinch on channel two at eight and you would have Charlie Brown on channel four at eight and you had to fucking pick and you were seven and it was not cool. And my mother said, you should write a letter to the stations. And I did, I wrote a letter to the stations and they did not respond.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
But I do think streaming might be a result of that letter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Well, there's so many good ones on the list.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Oh, right now, Charlie Brown's on Apple Plus, and I think everyone can watch it for free right now. I think that particular cartoon can be watched on Apple Plus for free.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Now we're talking. Apple Plus. Now Christmas is here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
It is. Good job. This was Kristen. You guys just did this in your choir class. So she's just coming off of hearing it with like 25 of you singing. So I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart because I know that's not how you wanted to do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
You got a bogey too, right? You guys all have a guy no one knows, which I love. Now you probably do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I can't go to my AA meeting anymore, but that's okay. I'm sure we've prioritized the right thing in the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I'm so glad you guys have that. Kristen's always so happy when she comes home from that. It's so nurturing to her, her beautiful little soul. Mama, thank you. You put this whole thing together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
You rehearsed. You swindled everyone into coming and doing this. And thank you so much for doing that. Erica, thank you for popping by. Gabe, thank you so much. Jacob, come on now. You've been more excited. Hannah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Of course I am. All right. I love you guys. Merry Christmas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
May everyone get a dino this year. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
So the thing I hope people are tracking is like just a month ago, Anna said, you know, Kristen texted me and I really felt bad. I ghosted her because I was just nervous. And then we fixed that. And then you guys started texting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I love Audible. I swear by Audible. I can't wait to listen to the Orwell 1984 off this list. I'm also doing Fleas by autobiography right now, which I'm obsessed with. I can't get enough Audible in my life every night. Go to audible.com slash DAX and discover all the year's best waiting for you. That's audible.com slash DAX.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And now you're singing together. I have so much optimism about where this is going. Now we find out about this spectacular design Christmas display.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Did I pull out some of my eyebrows this morning? No, I didn't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
She wanted to brag that she helped kids today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Oh, that's sweet. Okay, Gabe, why don't you rock our world a little bit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
And they're on your Instagram. You have the most entertaining Instagram posts. Of all, what do people go to for that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
It's so good because it's also really great. It's great that something's really funny and also really great. Thank you. So what is your background? Have you been on Broadway?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Okay, this is great because people may remember a while back, you and I have debated which is better, acetaminophen or ibuprofen. We sure have. So for me, particularly headaches, I got to go Tylenol.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yeah. And then now you moved to LA, how many years ago?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yes. Okay, I have a favorite and I've requested that you play it and I think that's next.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Those are the bits. And there's a couple thousand of them on his Instagram. So cool. Kristen spends a good hour and a half every night on her little space age mat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Okay, so we've got quite a few Christmas songs to get through and quite a few great singers. So I think we should hop into- Switcheroo? Yeah, let's do a switcheroo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
You're so playful when you say if you've got a big one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
I was praying you'd say it. I'm not allowed to say it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yeah, you won't even play. What about for headaches, though?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Exactly. We just have not yet talked. In 17 years, we've not gotten around to ballet yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Other than the fact that I was in ballet for some period of time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, a tiny, I had one recital, and my dad, who was never around, did come to that, and he watched the thing, and then when we were leaving, he said to my mother, okay, that was his last recital. There's no more of that. How old were you in Michigan? I similarly. I was probably seven. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
The gods have intervened, and we have a perfect solution. Motrin and Tylenol have finally settled the great debate by teaming up and introducing Motrin Dual Action with... Tylenol.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Holiday Spectacular 2024
Yeah, that's something you could do in 1982. You could unilaterally say, and that's a wrap on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a dad that's not around, but I still have this veto card.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Buck Rogers and I'm joined by Monica Lightyear. What would the holidays be without crazy holiday stories on Armchair Anonymous?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Okay. So you throw sand under the bus. Of course. Okay. That's what he's there for.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Let them pick out what they wanted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Yes. People get cancer diagnoses. Those are worse. But. When you have just spent this much time getting the gifts, then wrapping them, then putting them perfectly in the thing, there's a lot that's going wrong at once. You've wasted all that time, all that money, and then you have Christmas morning coming. So there's a lot there to be frustrated with. Third option, I would have just gone cash.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Okay, Santa brought cash this year. He wanted you to know you're old enough to go shopping, like made a whole thing about that. Just spent like in a pinch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
We'll wrap each bill individually.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Tracy, where in Canada are you? You have the most specific accent, and I'm so curious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I had a weird hunch, because it's almost got a hint of Scottish in it, doesn't it, Monica?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
And home to the cutest dogs ever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Yes. Thank you, Tracy. And sorry that you guys went through that. I love that the perfect buzz with the snowflakes turned immediately to a hangover. That's kind of my favorite part because I know that moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
But I do like Motrin for muscle pain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Yeah, you won't even play.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Sure. Do a few check-ins with those gifts leading up. Well, Tracy, that was a delightful story. Thank you so much for telling us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Sure, of course. Hello, Sean.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
What about for headaches though?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
You were being a very nice gentleman and taking the trash out. This is not on you. And it's not on Tracy, but it is on Tracy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Well, it's lovely meeting both of you. Yes. Have a great holiday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
All right. Bye-bye. Yeah, they have like almost Irish accents. The dad did too. All right. Let's talk to Lori. Hi. Is this Lori?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Hi, Dax. Monica, nice to meet you. Are you in your office?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
And what's your university poster I see?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
In Ohio still, not in Kentucky.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Oh, beautiful. And that's the home of Josh Hutcherson. Do you know that actor? He's a Northern Kentucky boy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
The gods have intervened and we have a perfect solution. Motrin and Tylenol have finally settled the great debate by teaming up and introducing Motrin dual action with Tylenol.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Okay, so you have a crazy holiday story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Yeah, I feel like that would be a good crowd to stumble into. They're like older gals who are making an effort to stay healthy. They're probably engaged in a lot of ways in life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Oh, they were doing stealing before the reveal. That's different. That is interesting. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I think they may have. Why just use one when you can have both? The pain-targeting strength of Motrin united with the pain-blocking power of Tylenol. Ibuprofen is the active ingredient in Motrin, and acetaminophen is the active ingredient in Tylenol. Motrin plus Tylenol brands provide over 100 years of combined pain relief experience in one product.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
You can say a bullshit from other people's houses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
This is not what I thought.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I thought it was a dildo. Oh, for sure. No. That's where we were going.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
You knew it was. Who would give someone an obligation?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Okay. So this is healing, maybe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
we are supported by quince tis the season of holiday gifting but finding the perfect gift can be pretty overwhelming for timeless gifts made from premium materials at an affordable price quince has your back quince lets you treat your loved ones and yourself to quality essentials like their mongolian cashmere sweaters which start at just 50 that's an elevated gift at a
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
price that won't break the bank or for more winter coziness try their super soft fleece sweatpants or their packable puffer jackets both perfect for anyone who's traveling for the holidays yes okay they also have they're called ultra stretch point p-o-n-t-e straight leg pants and they are really really great they're great for travel they're very cozy
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Gift luxury this holiday season without the luxury price tag. Go to quince.com slash dax for 365-day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash dax to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash dax
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Whatever your needs, Tylenol and Motrin are here to help. Fast-acting, long-lasting. Buy Tylenol, Motrin, and Motrin Dual Action with Tylenol on Amazon or at a store near you. Use product only as directed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Now you have someone else's ashes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Right. If she was 58, you thought she was 70.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
We'll get Mark all spread out over the... Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Oh, my God. Oh, it was a prank.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Yeah. Did you laugh with relief at that point? Like, oh, thank God I don't have to spread this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I admire this woman because when the present was opened, everyone got uncomfortable. And that was an opportunity if she was losing her resolve to go like, I'm just kidding. It's from, you know, but she resisted and she let everyone walk away thinking she was nuts. The commitment to this bit is really admirable. We must tip our hat to her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
But she was intrinsically motivated, which we would all aim to be. She just knew in her own heart, this is hilarious. They all think this is real. That's next level. That's like Andy Kaufman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I kind of like her. I would have been friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Baller prank, especially at an all ladies, some widow Christmas party. Yeah. Yeah. That's something you might expect at a fraternity or the Friars Club. Sure, sure. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Well, Lori, we're grateful that you told us that. I like that woman. This now past woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Rest in peace. Spunky gal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Well, happy holidays to you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I hope you get a legit present this year at White Elephant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
All right. Take care. Okay. Last one. David. Bring us home, David. Oh, can you hear us now? Hey, how are you? Wonderful. How are you, David?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Yeah. So David, I had moved into a house. It was completely empty. I didn't know what to do. I just started surfing around the internet, looking at images I could order. And I stumbled upon this one. I'm like, I love that great Dane. And I have another one that matches and it's a whippet. Oh, yeah. Best Frisbee dogs. Sure, sure. They're lightning fast. Where are you at, David?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I live in Gilbert, Arizona. Where's that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Hi, Tracy. Nice to meet you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Okay. Very similar vibes to Detroit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Both heavy industry towns with a lot of drinking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Funny you say that. Oh, ding, ding, ding. It's what this story's about. Okay, wonderful. Please tell us about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Oh, lovely. Right. So he chopped a little hole by the ladder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I think they put too much wood. You tell me, do we know post-mortem what happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
And what's your journey? What happened with your drinking?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I can really relate to the scene you were at. I was at a lot of those scenes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
That was a hot car in the day, the Pathfinder. Yeah. Everything burned.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Hello, Bridget. Did you say Bridget and Crystal? No. Correct. Hello to them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Yeah. What a great story. I'm really there. It sounds like a Michigan party or two I've been to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Hold on a second. You do not look nearly old enough to have had a 13-year-old in 2004.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
All right. Take care, David. Bye. I love that the swimming under the frozen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
It was a red herring. And for people who didn't see the photo he put up, there's just one little hole chopped by the ladder. So they're swimming under the ice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
We thought for sure this was a drowning story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Everyone, the tequila and the keg is here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
More wood, more plunging, more, more, more, more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Let there be a warning of the holidays that are upon us. Keep your eyes peeled for.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I guess with a prompt like crazy holiday stories, it's going to be. It does make me miss Grandma's on Fire, Nana's on Fire story. Remember that one?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
And Nana was fully ablaze. It wasn't Nana. It was like Mimi or something cute.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
We have. These holidays, they keep producing terrible stories. All right. I love you. Happy holidays, everybody. Jingle, jingle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Also, you're looking very foxy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
They got them. They're going to keep coming. These are great. Hopefully they'll get you in the mood. Let me just quickly glance and make sure no animals have died prematurely. No, that's fine. Yeah, I think we're good here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
They never hurt. It's a big deal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Nothing's scarier than a crawl space.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Yeah. Going to the holiday strong with crazy holiday stories. We are supported by Audible. Audible's best of 2024 picks are here. Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best in audio entertainment. Like a stunning new full cast production of George Orwell's 1984. This is the one I am most excited to indulge myself with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
And we chucked all your presents. We had gotten you all the stuff you wanted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
You've wrapped up a bunch of bullshit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
He liked the 10-year-old comic books.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Well, there's so many good ones on the list.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Trusted brand. I just got a black puffer that's so sleek, and I got a very earth-tony fleece.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I'm ready for it, and I'm going to be adorned in Columbia sportswear. From snowy trails to city streets, Columbia has you covered. Their OmniHeat Infinity jackets are the gold standard in warmth, pushing the boundaries of innovation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Inspired by space blanket technology, OmniHeat Infinity uses an expanded pattern of metallic gold dots to reflect more body heat, delivering instant warmth without compromising breathability. With Columbia's OmniHeat Infinity, you'll feel the difference as thermal reflective technology wraps you in warmth, whether you're hiking mountains or conquering your daily grind. Learn more at Columbia.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
I love Audible. I swear by Audible. I can't wait to listen to the Orwell 1984 off this list. I'm also doing Fleas by autobiography right now, which I'm obsessed with. I can't get enough Audible in my life every night. Go to audible.com slash DAX and discover all the year's best waiting for you. That's audible.com slash DAX.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
We are supported by Pokemon and their incredible Pokemon Trading Card Game. The Pokemon Trading Card Game is a gift this holiday season that will delight gamers, collectors, and Pokemon fans alike. Parents, maybe you grew up collecting Pokemon or watching the show on Saturday mornings. Well, how fun would it be to bond with your kids over Mewtwo's psychic prowess?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Or how Pokemon can evolve from a cute Charmander to a fiery flying Charizard? Games are such a great way to get the whole family together. And if you don't already know how to play, no worries, because it only takes minutes to learn. Plus, Pokemon cards are not just fun to play with, they're also a joy to collect.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
They come in a variety of cool and captivating styles created by different artists, so there's something for everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Find gift ideas for all ages and at every price point at tcg.pokemon.com slash holiday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
She likes that she was thought of by Santa. Yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
That's informative. Maybe we put too much effort into it. Just wrap shit up, dump it under the tree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Holiday Nightmare II
Okay, this is great because people may remember a while back, you and I have debated which is better, acetaminophen or ibuprofen. We sure have. So for me, particularly headaches, I got to go Tylenol.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard, joined by Lily Padman and Aaron Michael Weakley. Hello, baby. Hello, baby. This is a long time coming. Crazy Cedar Point stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, okay. Like Tower of Babel. I don't see that. Having sex with angels.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, a welcome home present. Are you in Michigan?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
And did you grow up in that area that you're currently in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, so this Cedar Point story took place in the last three years?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Hot off the presses. Please tell us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I would have started on The Blue Streak or Gemini, but I don't know millennial.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
They didn't rename the Magnum to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
OK, I won't get bogged down in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
That's what I like. I don't need loopy loops, but I like a nice tall drop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah, this is what happens when you're in the back seat of an F-16. You get a ride with like the Blue Angels. Everyone in back passes out because the pilots have developed their leg muscles so good. They force the blood up into the upper body. She needed a G-suit is what she needed. We got to get her back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Does she get lightheaded when she stands up?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
The younger one needs now to get on that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Did she hit any other coasters or that was it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I would hit the Gemini if you go back. That's a great ride. The big wooden roller coaster. The G's are very manageable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I weirdly saw some graphic when you signed on. It would be a cheat. Does it say Wyoming? It did say Wyoming, but my shirt might help. We got a Michigan shirt on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
She stayed conscious throughout that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, congratulations. She's ready. Well, Julie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I was just at Disneyland with my recently turned 12-year-old. There's a Guardians of the Galaxy ride, and it's like the demon drop, but it bounces up and down. It goes up, you stop for a second, then it drops. That I did one time. She talked to me and do a second time. I said, I don't think it's a good idea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I went a second time and midway through, I was like, nope, this was a big, big tactical blunder. Yeah. And then about 40 minutes to shake that off where I just didn't feel right. You know, I can't do it anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Okay, I will do that before my trip.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
That's a great idea. I even talked about taking Dramamine, but I didn't. All right. Well, Julie, there's a lovely meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I hope you have a wonderful summer with your chilies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
What is it? I don't know how to tell you this. Go ahead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
No. Monica, you're out of your depth right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
It is. In the same way, Monica, I'm going to compare it to like a 60s Mercedes. Yeah, it doesn't perform like the new one, but there's a nostalgia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
There's a feel to those wooden roller coasters that is very specific.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I maintain it's probably the best wooden roller coaster ever made.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
You didn't know that was Michigan? Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah, it's not painted like the Six Flags ones. It's a nice natural wood. You'd like it. Here is Katherine. Could be Katherine Hahn, Ohio native.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, my goodness. My old stomping grounds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I got it. I got it. Do you ever eat at Frito Misto? It's Italian. That's the only place I crave when I go back to Santa Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, get the pink pasta. Add some goat cheese and pine nuts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, it's incredible. And the garganzola salad. Don't miss that. So how did you end up at Cedar Point? You must not be from Santa Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Well, but that's a three-state area, minimally, and folks from Ontario, probably even Canada. All right, where are you at in Michigan?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Well, I do see a ton of church groups there when we go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
No, I think most of these that we're going to hear about were built after my tenure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, for the ones that didn't make it down to Florida?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Well, can I ask a quick question? Did any of the boys on the trip complain of a wet butt cut? Did you hear any murmurings of that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah, the wet butt and the preceding wet butt cut is pretty common for the young men.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I just knew that was in the stew here, Monica, is trying to paint a full picture of what they're dealing with, with the heat, the nausea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, you filled the floor of the Millennial. Okay. Yes, I did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
OK, so you've got a Cedar Point story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
So a puke, a bawling, and then a lot of accusations. This guy must have wanted your number so bad. Irresistible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
That's not going to do it. He needs a mop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah, you got to be a bad motherfucker to ride in millennial force.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
She thought maybe you were going to pass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Very thoughtful, actually. Yeah, but the crush is there. Yeah, well, that's over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Now, am I wrong? I feel like you can get out to the beach at Cedar Point. You wouldn't know. I would have gone and tried to hang out at the beach, but I'm not sure if you can exit or not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Rob, will you Google if you can access the beach from Cedar Point? This would be a TBD. Don't worry. I'm not going to make Catherine hang around to find out. But that would have been a great place to recoup on the hot day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yes, fresh sea air. I'm so sorry. What a terrible trip. So you don't love Cedar Point, I can't imagine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
And you know you're really susceptible to peer pressure, so you really can't put yourself in the situation again. We learned a lot of things on this day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah, but it all worked out for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I was right. She could have gone out to the beach.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Put her toes in the water. Cooled herself down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
She has a time machine. She goes back. I'm not going on the Millennium whatever it was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
hello hi where are you at bill i am on long island in new york oh nice oh there's a popular netflix murder doc about girls that were abducted in long island oh yeah the uh serial killer oh my god what if it was you no bill's a good man what if it was right in if you're a serial killer And are you from Long Island? I am. And how'd you end up at Cedar Point? That's quite a hike.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I don't think that was around in my era.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
My last trip there was around probably 2001.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I'm going to have to look at some photos. At any rate, you heard of the grand opening. And at that time, was it the tallest or something in the world?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
That is so Cedar Point. You want to ride the second highest? You want to ride the second fastest?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, okay, but nothing from the brass at Cedar Point?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Okay, set the scene. What year? What month?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
And the duct tape held up on all those highway speeds? Yeah, it held the whole ride home. Fortunately, it didn't rain. What did your aunt have to say when she saw the vehicle?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Okay, wait, I think we have a photograph. Oh, this is the gang, the Canadians.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, cool. Reunion. Okay, well, that answers my question. You're definitely up to go back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah. Takes me back. Borrowing an aunt's van and the whole nine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah. All right, brother. Well, nice meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
All right, you too. Thanks so much. Bye.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Do you remember how offensive it was when David Ferrier did a whole episode on Disneyland with all of his judgments and he had never been? And I said, how could you do this piece and not go? And we went and what happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
He loved it. One of the favorite places he's ever been in his life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
All I got to say is before you levy your verdict, you need to go to Cedar Point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
We just talked about bucket lists. Maybe you should add it to your bucket list.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
That should be the requirement of any well-rounded bucket list is there's something on there you don't want to do, but you know you should.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Or going to Cedar Point in this case.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Aaron, do you have a crazy one? A crazy one? Yeah, I don't have a crazy one. I just have the wet butt cuts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
I imagine those rides could take a pretty good tornado. It might be interesting to be up at the top strapped in because you can't get sucked into it. You're strapped in. And if the ride's not coming loose, this could be the one way to experience the eye of a tornado safely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yes, that you take out of the big machine. I would make a piece of it and put it between my butt sheets.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Sure, good. This is the commitment you get at Cedar Point. You got to keep those lines moving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, my God, because, Monica, Cedar Point is huge. I cannot put too fine a point on how big it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah, you have to. I never had that any other place in my life. I've been to Disneyland a bunch of times that have never gotten a wet butt cut. It turns out it's not a good fix either. No, that rough recycled paper just tears up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
You just had to go to the assigned pickup time that evening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, let's take a look. Oh, yes. You are such a sweet young man, it seems, from this character.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah, there's some debris flying through the air. They really took their time on this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Where the fuck were they when the tornado hit? How could they have not been aware that the tornado had hit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
No, definitely not. I think they were rolling around in that tent a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Wow, Chad. Well, I'm pretty jealous of that. I certainly feel like I wish I would have seen a tornado at Cedar Point. You're combining two of the most exciting things in a young child's life all at once.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
If someone's top had been ripped off in the middle, I'm sure that would have been like triple whammy. Unexpected nudity and a tornado.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Oh, I would love that. Yes, yes, yes. Not me pooping my pants though. Well, Chad, thank you for that. Makes me want to really watch the Doppler radar and plan a trip when I think there's a high probability of a tornado.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah. Well, we don't have any wet butt cut stories, but we do have four crazy Cedar Point stories. Please enjoy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yes, of course. I like that the door needed to be guarded.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Big fan. My wife is actually a bigger fan, so she's going to be super jealous today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Nice meeting you guys. Have a great rest of your day. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
You thought he looked like Matt Damon?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah, sure. You're not going to be with us for most of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
It's a great theory, but I will say I've just read, there's a bunch of articles came out in the last few weeks about belief in Christianity having plateaued off and increased even a little bit. We had been in this really steady decline for a long time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
And weirdly now... It's kind of back, they're saying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
So probably right, yeah. Wow. But I mean, it had been decreasing long before phones, of course, but also, yes, because of phones.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Yeah, it fell off a cliff. Hockey stick curve.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cedar Point
Hello. How's it going? Good. Now you have the Mandalorian and Stranger Things posters behind you, but they don't look issued by the studio.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Not that I've ever made that mistake and had my dog run outside without me or screamed his name repeatedly over and over and over again until I found him. Or, you know, to check that the guy who asked you out is an armcherry first before you agree to go on a date with him. Sage advice. Essential. Checking first is smart. So, check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
You're in good hands with Allstate. This content is intended for audiences in the U.S. only. Savings vary. Terms apply. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Northbrook, Illinois. We are supported by BetterHelp. The start of the new year brings you 365 blank pages waiting to be filled. What do you want your 2025 story to be? Maybe you're ready for a plot twist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Or maybe there's a part of your story you've been waiting to revise. Think of therapy as your editorial partner helping you write new chapters and become the author of your own life. I know for me, I want 2025 to be filled with a lack of codependency.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yes. If you want to start your therapy journey in 2025, join BetterHelp's over 5 million users worldwide. BetterHelp is fully online, which helps make therapy affordable and convenient. You'll have access to a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. And you can easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. Write your story with BetterHelp.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
And Squarespace has all the tools you need to create and sell your own online course. Start with a layout that fits your brand, upload videos, and customize everything with next generation editing technology. create engaging lessons your audience will love, then add a paywall and set the price. Take what you know and turn it into income. We use Squarespace to make our lovely website.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
And highly functional. Yes. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to get started, go to squarespace.com slash DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash DAX to get started today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
We can see you. Success.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Good. I feel like Monica was probably right. While you were gone, we guessed at your age.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, good. Congratulations, Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Do you talk on the phone a lot for your job?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, that's so cool. Where at? What state?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, guess? I would guess Wyoming. Montana. Montana.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Don't fucking celebrate too hard. They're neighboring states.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
There's only like three options too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah, it could have been Idaho, Wyoming, or Montana. A 33% chance. How long have you been doing that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
And let me ask you this. I don't want names. I just want to know, have you had celebrity clients?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah. Celebrities love fly fishing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
You've never seen either of them prowling the streets?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
So let me ask you this, though. Do you fly fish in the winter?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Okay. So you take the winters off, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Okay. Do some people bounce back and forth between ski stuff and fly fishing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Okay. Let's talk shit. Set the scene for us. What happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Can I ask a quick question? What had you eaten earlier that morning?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Carbs. But no fish for breakfast, nothing dicey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Right on cue. Or probably simultaneous to you starting to exert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
oh no and if you had to guess no one's gonna like this part but i must know if you had to guess at the volume would you say there's like a pint glass in your shorts more or less about a pint glass yeah oh so a lot of pickles i'm just gonna keep sprinting i feel good now right of course you got it all out and i can feel my shorts are just soaking wet oh
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
You just ran right off the track. But listen, you have the heart of a champion. I love that you didn't let that get in the way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
What do they say? Like better to be quiet than open your mouth and confirm that you're dumb or something. There's some fun saying about talking too much, but in your case, way better to roll the dice and think like people might be curious why you ran away or stay and let them know exactly what happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Well, how did you perform?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, great. So it was a good, good start.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Why didn't you just go grab your sweats?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
No, everyone's panicked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Her little baby with her. I can only imagine how young you sounded when you were actually 17.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, my God. This is awful. High school. Oh, how many people do you think were in attendance?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, you didn't stick around. You want to get out of there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah, you're the first person we've ever interviewed that shit themselves in front of a huge audience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
You're watching your body move. Yeah. And was there any follow-up with the team when you guys got back together? Did it spread pretty quickly?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Did you have a lover at the time? I did. How did they feel?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, in my school, the entire school would have known within an hour. People have been like, do you hear the relay team got fourth in states? Yeah, well, I heard one of our runners shit themselves. I think Grace.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah. There's numerous videos of marathoners coming across the line.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Eating happy eggs are a great way to start your day or switch it up and have breakfast for dinner. Frittatas, quiches, omelets, whatever you're making with eggs, happy egg will elevate your dishes and make them taste even better. I love these. I'm a sucker for that deep, deep orange yolk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
It's a common thing. I'm really proud of you. You kept your head in it. You kept it floored. I really admire it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Well, Grace, I love this story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
I would imagine sometimes you're out on that boat for a long time fly fishing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
But waiters are ideal to shit yourself in. You're wearing a toilet, basically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
One of his quadrillion great quotes. He's like our Churchill.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
hi hi there what name are we going by today i was hoping you guys would pick for me okay you look very much like my aunt and her name was sue it's not a popular name anymore is it okay it's not really popular but that's okay i'll take it it's not popular but it's Yeah, what about Susie? Like Susie Q's.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah, that's a great hostess product. Susie Q's. Did you ever eat those, you guys?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
I mean Susie Q's. It was a bit of a chocolate dark devil's food cake, then a huge dumping filling of the Twinkie filling, and then another chocolate long cake rectangle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Really good. Okay, so we're going with Susie. Again, it's very promising that you want a fake name because hopefully that means this is hugely embarrassing. That's the goal today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh my God, I can't wait. Yes. All right, hit us with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Hi. Today we have our very favorite prompt. We try to use it sparingly, but every time we use it, I go, I don't know why we don't use it more because this one, this one somehow blew past episodes that can't be blown past.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, congratulations. That's great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Crack open happy with happy egg. You'll find them in the yellow carton. Visit happyegg.com slash dax to find a store near you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
We've been together for almost three years. Can I apologize for one second because I want to work through Monica's reaction. Monica, don't you think that's preferred to wood shit? Like at least it was sexy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
No, she just came like a racehorse. She just said like a racehorse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
But I'm him, right? I'm downstairs and I see this wonderful climax and then it's super wet. I mean, that's a pretty natural conclusion is like, maybe she squirted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Well, you're in a trusting, loving relationship. yeah well it didn't sound like it didn't bother you i know what it is you did his voice and you made him sound like a dumb dumb i think that's what monica's being yeah okay yeah maybe i'm not i'm not very good at replicating his voice
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Well, I know you said, why is it so wet?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Wait, hold on. I'm shocked you didn't hear it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
It is. Wow. Oh, Susie, what an experience. If you love iPhone, you'll love Apple Card. It comes with the privacy and security you expect from Apple. Plus, you earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, which can automatically earn interest when you open a high-yield savings account through Apple Card. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Subject to credit approval, savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Apple Card and savings by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City branch. Member FDIC terms and more at applecard.com. We are supported by Prime Video. You know that feeling when you go to log into a streaming service and you forgot your password?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Or when you have to switch from app to app trying to find the movie you want to watch? Stop wasting time toggling between the apps and start watching the content you want to watch right away with Prime Video. On Prime Video, you can add over 100 subscriptions like Max, Apple TV+, and Paramount+, all in one app. That means more time watching and more time relaxing. I've got the perfect example.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Armchair-y favorite, Matthew McConaughey, is in so many of our favorite titles. You could have a Matthew McConaughey marathon day. Start with True Detective on Max, then check out The Lincoln Lawyer on MGM+, and top it off with rom-com classic How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days on Paramount+. That's a good way to spend a day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
You can watch all of those titles and more without ever leaving the Prime Video app. I think I may take a little Nicolas Cage binge on Amazon Prime.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, sign me up. Streamline your streaming today. Check out subscriptions on Prime Video.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah. Spatter analysis like they do in a murder scene. Holy shit. Wow. You covered the room. You painted the room, as they say. And what's your first thought?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Hello. Jonathan, are you standing on a box or are you six foot eight? You're close. I'm just north of six nine. Holy smokes. Congratulations. You're above the doorframe. Thank you. Worked on it my whole life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
That there was an explosion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
It sprayed up into my asshole and then out of my asshole.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, you got a real issue on your hands because I imagine your goal now is to somehow escort him out of this room and clean it up and he never sees a thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yes, they smell something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
No, you got to get in there because they're going to track it all over the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, no. This is as bad of a scenario as you can get yourself into.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Wow, so he's dry heaving in the shower. Now what's happening with the dogs? Have they gotten there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
How many years did it take you to hit 6'9"? Probably 23, but I'm 33 now. And did you make use of this height? Did you do anything that lent itself? Did you play basketball or anything?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah. And you're also like, where do I begin? Do I clean myself up, put on clothes in case parents come home, then begin cleaning? Do I start cleaning now while I'm still naked?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah. Jack, take your time. We need a little time right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
That wasn't his choice. You don't choose to throw up. He's not like, you know what? I'm going to throw up right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
But he regrouped and he got himself together and he knew I got to support her now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah, be careful who you judge. That's the lesson of this story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, fuck. Yes, of course. It's very close.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Wow. Well, you dodged a bullet. And I'm glad. The gods just wanted to smite you a little bit for being judgmental, but they didn't want to give you a continued condition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
So I bet you'll probably never have sex if you're sick again. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah. You just can't roll the dice. Yeah, it's like, you know, shame me once. Once your body betrays you that way, rebuilding trust takes a while.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Good. Your sister's got her head in the right place.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Well, listen to me, Susie Q. This is in the running for the best one I've ever heard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
The fact that it was all over the room is so powerful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Now, you guys, the marinara is great. But, of course, I went in my head, too. If you can imagine putting a one-gallon can of paint – on a stool and then taking a sledgehammer and just fucking smashing it that to me is what i'm seeing that amount of spatter and yeah
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, that's a great point. Yeah, it kind of raises the stakes. It will. It plays an adjacent role. Okay, great. Walk us through this unfortunate and fortunate event. So it took place in 2010, 2011.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Right. Okay. So this is a 20 out of 10. Oh, what a good one. I'm very proud of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
I promise you many, many people are going to go, oh, thank God. I'm not the only one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
This is the power of sharing trauma.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, boy. Well, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. That was spectacular.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
I think even if you have a pretty good appetite for these kind of stories, that one's going to test some people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Right. It was her larynx.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah. It's a gal in thin cotton, kind of baggy, but short shorts. It's CCTV. It's like being filmed in the grocery store. And she rounds this, it's either a frozen food, like one of those up to your waist frozen food.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah, it's like an island in a kitchen kind of a situation, but it's like probably three feet off the ground. And she comes around the corner and she just quickly squats. She takes her terrycloth shorts, pulls them to the side, and does a squirt like a goose.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
It's so foul. But it's not quite honest, honest. It's in between. And then she just gets right up and strolls away. You and I luckily had the same conclusion, which is like, no way that's the first time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
So much muscle memory. Like the way she squatted, got that thing to the side, squirt, and then stood up and walked away. I was like, oh my God, she's doing this all the time, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, she could have. She could probably do it while walking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Of course. Let's forget that that's coming. And let's first talk about the fact that this is a ding, ding, ding for Monica and I, because we were just talking about the dreamiest hair that her baby could have. And you literally have what we were both at least. This is exactly what I was 100 percent. This is the most gorgeous hair a human can have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
The other piece of the puzzle for Monica was dimples.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
can't wait a lot of things in childhood i didn't love about myself and i've grown to love so thank you yeah yeah yeah well i was just talking to my daughter about this she was telling me people have freckle filters now and i'm like that's so crazy because people with freckles hate freckles and people without freckles want freckles and i said you know the headline is you want what you don't have absolutely okay station walk us through this very human experience there's nothing to be nervous about anyone who says they haven't shit their pants is a liar
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
People really in the comments were like, what are you talking about? We're not going to hear every detail of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
I always say this when I go back home to Michigan. I'm reminded that young people run everything back in Michigan. So you go to a Dairy Queen, sometimes there's no one there over 14.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Ugh, there's a nightmare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Guys, I was on the verge of asking what it felt inappropriate. I'm like, doesn't the period also, you often have some butt stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
The system's a mess. Yeah. It's in disarray.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, my God. Because you already have this fire burning at the front of the store.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
No. Oh, no. Why? Worst color imaginable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
You'll walk right by the problem where people are gonna be like, hey, what's she doing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
No, why? Why? This tastes too much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
If you were doing your best thinking and you weren't panicked in your amygdala, you probably could put all that together. That would be the move. Come up with the mop bucket and then just, whoa! And you sit. But you're screaming like, oh no, I'm falling. But you sit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Jonathan, can I just, I know you probably get so sick of talking about your height, but what I'm immediately concerned about is that grill top was probably built for someone that was five, nine. I imagine cooking on that grill was probably terrible on your back. Did your back kill when you would have shifts?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
These are all the details.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Because they're visibly now wet because they're khakis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, man. That could have also been under the heading, like, tell us about the worst day of your life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
There's too many things going wrong at once.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
perfect storm and you know i wouldn't have had to go out there if the milkshake hadn't fallen that's why i like this prompt you deal with people dying in your life that's horrendous there's all these things you deal with but i would argue you'll never experience anything on planet earth that's as bad as having a pants full of shit and trying to figure out how the fuck to get out of the situation that's about as high stakes as it gets
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Well, it's also a character builder. It is. Because you really find out what you're made of and you find out, I can survive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah, I'm a little welled up. You did so much better than I did with Lisa. Well, it's her compliments. It's probably easier for me to hear. But yes, that was great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Okay. I just, I got worried about you. Okay. So you're popping noodles on this grill top.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
You brought up my daughters and now there's tears streaming down my face. Thank you. Thank you. Stacia, you deserved that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
We should have had a dad just like me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Well, when I adopt you, I'll be your dad. Well, you'll be my grandchild at that point as well. Oh, that's true, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
You've completely fucked me up, so mission accomplished. Thank you for listening to us. We do not deserve you. No, no, we don't.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Well, thank you. That was a really nice Christmas present to me and I think to Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
All right. Well, I pray I bump into you in Tennessee.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
All right. Great meeting you. Bye. Bye.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, boy, she got us, huh? She's very sweet. Every one of those stories was dynamite.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
I don't ever want to go to the well too often, but I got to say, this prompt always delivers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
That's why I said I don't want to go to the well too much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
You've just spent a lot of your time crossing this building. At this point, you're probably thinking like, God damn it, if I just head home, I might be there by now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
And we think, what would I cause the least collateral damage? You're about to shit in public in a closet, but you're still a gentleman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
These are decisions to be made and they were not made in time. It sounds like you had decision anxiety or decision fatigue. But I also want to point out, because I know you so well, Monica, when you heard that the cork popped, I felt like you got a little PQ. Did you get it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
I'm even like thinking about trying to develop a friendship with the last person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. No, let's not just clock out. Your pants are full of shit. We want to lock the doors somehow. We want to turn them inside out, get it in that bucket. Maybe, I don't know, we're going to try to mop up the inside of the pants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
I might just spend the whole evening dealing with this. But did you make any attempt to fasten the ends of your pants? I shoved the bottom of the pants into the shoes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Also, can I add again? I know I keep talking about your height, but it's like, you're not able to blend in. Whatever you're doing is going to be observed. If you got a crazy walk, people are gonna be like, look at that tall guy with the crazy walk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
I know, but still, I thought you were dying. So we'll see. But may you find your way to heaven. Take him into your heart. In his name we pray. He has risen. Yeah, this one is fucking unhinged. Can we say that? I guess we can't say crazy, but can we say unhinged?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
That's where the danger comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Well, at first glance, I was like, this is crazy. This is you. It's your fault. And now you're trying to shirk your responsibility. But what I will say in your defense is other people ate the same noodles that fucked up your butt. So maybe multiple people shit their pants that day. That's a good argument. And you already said it's a huge school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
I just think if you have 46,000 students, probably on any given day, one or two people have shit their pants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
No, he's fine. He's fine. He probably got a lot of attention, got a date.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Really quick though, I have follow-up questions. How did they know it was shit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
It was like on his shoe. Oh, okay. That makes a lot of sense. I bet people would have assumed someone brought a dog in. But the dining common?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
It's so, so good. Please enjoy Potentially Our Best Unauthorized Evacuation. We are supported by Quince. You know, Kristen's been ordering a ton from Quince.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
No, it's you. And I'm your defense attorney. I need you to shut up and let me paint the case for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
And by the way, we'll probably have a prompt in the future that's like, tell us about a crazy way you broke a bone. We might talk to Mark.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
That would be pretty funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Okay, it's all coming clear to me now. Does he remind you as well of that great comedian?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yep. Do people tell you that? Yeah. That's flattering.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
He's hilarious. Yeah, he's also really good looking. I'll take it. Okay. Well, we'd love to talk to your wife. I want to see what kind of gal you wrangled with this wreckage in your past. She's pretty cute. It's going to lower his head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Well, we heard him killing her. We've never seen her. Oh, there's a child.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Who's this little redhead?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
No one. Don't worry about it. Princess Anna's husband. That's who daddy's talking to. Big fans of Frozen over here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Well, you guys, happy holidays. What a great story. He almost killed a man by shitting his pants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
We reunited during college. At a bar in your hometown or at a reunion?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Yeah, and I told her, you know, they're a sponsor. And she couldn't believe it. Being stylish and comfortable allows you to feel your best, making you ready to tackle anything that comes your way. That's where Quince comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Can I say that's a great group. If you're going to meet someone at a bar, do it at a trivia night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Do you guys continue to compete in trivia? Not as much. We have two little ones now, so it's harder to get out for trivia nights. Yeah, you're fucked for about seven more years. It's a good trade-off. It is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
All right. Take care, you guys. All right. Bye-bye. Bye. What a great little... He was hilarious. We love him, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
I know. Little redhead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Let's get that video cracking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
You know, your voice without video accompaniment, you could be nine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh, Rob says disconnect and reconnect. See if that works.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Hopefully see you in a few.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
Oh. I think she's 13. I think she's 6. No wonder she can't figure out how to get the video to work. She's 6.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
It's like one today. That'd be funny if we had a baby call up. I pulled my pants one minute ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation
We are supported by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like you know to check your sunroof first before driving through the car wash. Like you know to put the leash on your dog first before you open the door to go for a walk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. Today is crazy public transit stories. And let me just glance about these. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Okay, another great option. Yeah, that's a cool option. Okay, so you have a public transit story. She knows once we get on cars, we could never come back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Okay, so I'm co-signing on this plan, but are you not thinking you'll surface from that station and the gates will also be locked there? Again, reiterating that I'm 22.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
What other choice do you have? You're not gonna sleep on the ground.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
This is one of the most Boston stories ever told.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Yeah, because now you don't give a fuck about spending money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
I would have been having those same Superman flashbacks. I can see it very well. And anytime I think of being in a subway tunnel, I think of Lex Luthor. Monica, did those ring a bell? Did you ever see those ones, the early Superman?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Gene Hackman was Lex Luthor, and he had this incredible lair under the city. It was gorgeous. He had like a supervillain cave attached to the subways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Well, you're so honest because you could have easily said you closed the deal. He just demonstrated some integrity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Yeah. Well, Matthew, this has been a damn joy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
And if you want to do a drum solo, I'm also up for watching that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Oh, good. So nice. That's flattering.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Oh, I love that. Send away. Yeah. It's like a multi-level marketing system.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Well, it's delightful to meet you guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Hello. Oh, you have the robot. We both have the robot on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
I'm trying to make some conclusions based on your wardrobe. I do think you live somewhere that's cold.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
And do you know why it's called the L?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
That's right, and his name starts with an L. It stands for elevated train, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
You're not impressed. I'm looking right at your face. Oh, you weren't even listening. You already bailed out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
You go through like his greatest hits in your head.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Who's your number one celebrity crush?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Okay, let's get to your elevated train story that Monica was not impressed with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Netflix? They ought to put Netflix in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Okay, late 30s. All right, so not like a 60-year-old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
No one's going to enter the lactation room, that's for sure. That's a safe place.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Oh my God. You're being chased now. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Did you have a grilled cheese while you waited?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
People watch TV at work, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Okay, so you have a public transit story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
You're happy as fuck and they're mean mugging.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
So this is kind of a meet cute as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Yeah, it's kind of a double whammy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Tell us about an unlikely friendship that's emerged.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Rob, write that down, Rob. Was that a wrap on the L for you? Or are you like, yeah, I'm not doing the L?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Fuck. Look, maybe I want to start riding that L. Thanks for sharing. Thank you for that story. It's delightful to meet you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Yeah, this is great. All right. Well, lovely meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Bye. That's your nightmare, that story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
It's a blessing that Detroit doesn't have mass transit. They have this thing called the People Mover, but no one would ever ride it. It goes like three blocks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
I bet you could make $1,000 right now. I bet you would pay nearly anything for that sweatshirt. You could probably name your price right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
That's a cool sweatshirt, though. I would want it, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Arizona would have been a top guess for me, given the blanket behind you. It's got very Arizona vibes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
We had one of our favorite trips there. Okay, so you have a public transit story. I can't imagine what state it took place in, given those options.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Yeah, the heel particles that are entering the atmosphere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Did he do both heels or just one was bothering him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Trying to think what I would do. Okay, hey, bud, could you cheese grate your feet outside of the bus? I think maybe I'd have to ask. If I saw it in the air like that, that would freak me the fuck out. Yeah, when things get atomized. People do that shit on airplanes. That's what's incredible. I follow an account on Instagram.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
I wish I could remember the name of it, but it's like passenger shaming or something like that. And it's people cutting their fucking toenails on a flight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Yeah, this is much worse than toenails. We should add that to our thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
grated skin chunk of skin yeah i'd rather eat grated i want to get on with a battery-powered dremel and just start grinding my toenail i have to grind all the time because it does there's powder everywhere disgusting i did end up buying a pass after all Well, you get what you pay for. Well, Katie, thank you. I'm sorry you were subjected to that, but you have a good heart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Oh, my gosh. Happy birthday. What's his name?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Happy birthday. Get the fuck out of here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Yeah. Thanks for chatting with us. Yeah. Thanks, Katie. Great meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
What a cute sweatshirt. That's going to haunt you, isn't it? It's all you're thinking about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
You didn't even know about it in an hour.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
So now there's going to be a very expensive sweatshirt because you're going to have to go to goddamn Tokyo to get this thing. We've got some Tokyo listeners. I'm sure that'll go for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
We should ask Eric retroactively. Do I know someone that's there right now? Everyone's there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
I think the exchange rate is beneficial currently. Well, I've had some wild public transits. I had the guy ask if he could smoke, and then he smoked crack. And then the guy that wanted to fight me when I rode my bike and brought it back and get action packed down there. All right. Love you. Love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Well, I'll tell you, subways are hot spots for action.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
You don't know what you're talking about, mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
You threw that advice right out the window as soon as you got to Madrid. Like, what's the gapiest bag I can carry?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you, it made me want to use more public transportation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
I'm missing out on a lot of stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
One was wild, right? One almost made you throw up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
No, I think she's trying to hide the money in her vagina. Oh!
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Well, she just thought, okay, I'm going to put it here. No one's going to search me here. I doubt it made it into her vagina. That would take a minute. Sorry, Jess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
There's a lot on the plate of the teachers. They got a bunch of teenagers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
This woman's manhandling her vagina with a fistful of stolen money. What a thing to explain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Did they ever retrieve the money from her vagina and return it to you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
That money still spends. I would want it back. Wow. So that was it. And then normally if you were home, you'd probably have to go into court and testify against them. But you're leaving the country. So you never heard anything about it again?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Was your PE teacher feeling wonderful after that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
He earned that free trip. Shout out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Oh, thank you. We're so delighted you're a part of it all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Test, test. We hear you, but we can't see you. Hold tight. Here we go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
What kind of kit are you playing? Tama. Oh, nice. I'm going to say that your shirt is of a VW thing. That is correct. What? Are you so impressed, Monica? Do you know what a thing is?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit
Well, okay, show her the whole shirt now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
the punchline was so lost it was so sad i was really expecting more of a place of glory and i got a whimper yeah when you gotta explain like oh did you see so it's like mow this because we because we mow lawns and then the arrow though is because it's kind of a reference like suck my dick but it's also i'm quitting and they're like get out no you're fired actually you're fired for that joke nobody even
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Oh, well, it's great to have a job like that because then you go like, I really got to figure something out other than this. It's a great motivator.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Everything is just easier the rest of your life. Yeah. I appreciate the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
It's great meeting you. And you've really inspired me to do this Iowa trip.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Yeah. Well, great meeting you, Jim. Thanks so much for telling us that story. Thank you, guys. All right. Take care. Hello.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Beautifully. What fake name do you want?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Oh, that's a great name. I have a niece named Zoe. Do you remember the first Zoe? I do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Oh, that's a good one. Great one. I think the first one was Zoe Bowie. David Bowie's kid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
And wouldn't you leave it to David Bowie to come up with that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Are you allowed to tell us where you're at?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
That's a weird kink. Yeah. Like I love sleeping in public on a dining room table.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Were the tips gathered in like a tip jar on the counter or left on receipts?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
What? What a great left turn. They were in a chicken carcass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
That's not good yummy stuffing just to warn everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
This is like an episode of Parks and Rec or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Yeah, some good food out there. That sounds yummy. Yeah. If you don't get a stray $100 bill in your sandwich.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Oh, Derek, Derek, Derek, Derek. This is not an acceptable tactic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
The health department finds a big wad of money in the chicken carcass. They're going to be like, you guys can't serve.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Did you at least get that tip money that had been missing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
I kind of think the guy that was sleeping on the table inside was Derek's brother.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
what was going on with them you know like you can be really mad at them as you have you're entitled to be but also some people's lives are so terrible you're like oh they're already paying the price for this mania there's like no way there's any joy happening when they get home from work and he's dealing with linda who stole all the tip money well what's your taste i think she stole it because she's bawling the second she heard about it right i think she was trying to squirrel away some money to get away from derek
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Could be. And he was gaslighting her saying, you stole it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Unless she was trying to squirrel it away to make her escape. Well. Like Julia Roberts in that movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
don't feel bad we do not know the details no maybe the shutdown was she finally got out of there and then he's like i'm not gonna run this thing by myself is like they are not able to conduct business Or she made her a big escape and she's got a new healthy lover.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Oh boy. Do you go back to the town? Have you ever bumped into them?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Oh, well, Zoe, that was really bizarre in a great way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
That'll get you here for sure. Well, it's lovely meeting you, Zoe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Have fun in Ireland. Are you drinking Guinness and Beamish and all the fun beers?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Well, you know, Guinness in either Bailey's or Kahlua and a little Jameson is called an Irish car bomb. And those are fucking outrageous. They taste like a milkshake.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Give that a couple of bangs. All right. Wonderful meeting you. Have fun. You too. Thanks. Bye. What happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Oh, Huxley looks perfect. I want to hold Huxley.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Look, he's just staring up at his mom. He knows that she's got all the things he needs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Or take a nap? Oh, he's got a little turtle jammies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
He's in the bag of potato phase. He's so cute. Do you see he looked like a little sack of potatoes when he moved around?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Are you allowed to tell us where you're at in the country or would that be too incriminating?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
I went to Hershey as a kid. Very fun. Have you been there, Monica?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Yeah, all over the town, the little street lamps are Hershey Kisses. Did I make this up? I feel like I took a boat ride on chocolate and there was chocolate rollers that you could see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
We might have just done the free ride. You got to go there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Oh, really? Where people would throw the balls? Yeah. Oh, wow. Were you a teen? That'd be fun to meet boys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Today's Armchair Anonymous prompt was, I quit. Tell us a crazy I quit story. Now, guess what? You can finally listen to this one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
You're hitting all my erogenous zones right now. Kmart, Hershey. Yes. Blue Light Special.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
You're going to retire at 16, basically. Correct.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Sure. Well, you were too hurt. Every time you walked by that aisle, you probably shuddered.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
I love that you threw yourself down one of those. I mean, what a preposterous plan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Gotta make sure you don't have a spinal injury.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
That's okay. She went home. She felt good. She told her husband, this poor young teen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
They should not have them up on those ladders. That should be something for adults.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Well, Roxanne, delightful meeting you and your little baby. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
That's so funny. When you said you moved to Florida, I was like, do we have any addiction? I'm smelling some addiction, but that's great. I didn't ask you, but I felt like I saw you at sea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
I'm not ready to diagnose myself with ADHD, but I do wonder, I certainly enjoyed cocaine more than everyone else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Yeah, that was probably a good choice for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Well, congrats. That's great news. And now you got a little baby. So all the promises are coming true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
I wanted to hold that little baby. Me too. The way she passed him on, his shape was a ball. If you lift an adult up, they straighten out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
She gets going. She'll just throw anything in the recipe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Yeah, they do look delicious. All right. All right, love you. Love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Yeah, I wouldn't mind if he had a broken arm or something, to be honest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
This isn't necrotic flesh. So sorry. She can't stop thinking about hearing the necrotic flesh story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Yeah, you can listen to this one. There's, let me hold on, Heidi. Well, yeah. Yeah, there is some, I guess, light animal cruelty, but the animal's dead. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So other than that, I think you're free to listen. Please enjoy I Quit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
He's the reason you're in a pickup truck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
I know. That scarred you. I'm sorry, Kaylee. Stop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Because she doesn't know what you're talking about. I know you're referring to Mitch McConnell's sister-in-law.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Oh my God. Now it's like a Disney movie where the puppy gets separated and goes down the river.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Yes. Yeah, you're trying to kill you twice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Was she like, honey, is it the diarrhea? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Yes. Two strikes. Did Trevor reach out after the second one?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
I'm glad he's not an Uber driver. All right. Or a chauffeur. That was a great story. Two rollovers within two weeks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Yeah. Well, if it got you mad enough to go, I fucking quit. They pushed you to the breaking point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
And the nurse team, winners. And Emily. All right, well, we adore you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Right. Or lakes or rivers. You stay very clear of ponds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
I would still be paying for that. You would be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
What a beautiful, robust set of headphones you're wearing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Jim. Hello. How are you guys doing? Good. And are you a cyclist or just a fan of like French posters?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Tom Arnold did this several times, I believe. It's a big event, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
You just camp on people's yards and it's a big old party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
You're like invigorating a dream. I think I want to put it on my list of things I want to do to do that bike ride. That sounds so fun. I would recommend it. I love it. I'm doing it after the great loop. Okay. Tell us about a time you quit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
Big props and shout outs and thank yous to Scotty. Okay, Kaylee, what did you quit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: I Quit
This is a seminal experience for a young man. I went to work at a race shop at 15 and I was working with all like 38 year old dudes. Yeah. And the stuff I was hearing and the jokes they were making to me, I was like terrified half the time I was there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Randall Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Lilly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
You're going to repent this Valentine's Day. Please enjoy Bad Proposals. Cole?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yeah, I'm glad you sent pictures because this is really a hard to believe. Oh, my God. And you're now, I would imagine, husband has. Yeah, they're very scary masks. For anyone that thinks these were like Amazon.com fucking masks. No, these are Atelier bespoke masks. Your husband has the most nervous laugh smile on his face looking at you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Do you start thawing as you see it's your own friends?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yeah, what does that group of folks do between October and the following October?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
That's one step away from choreographing a car accident. Like you get T-bone and then the ambulance comes into your mom and dad and they've got you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Really ups the stakes in a hurry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
You have the most adorable, nervous smile in all those photos. Like, is she going to get over this? Oh my gosh. I was worried.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
It's delightful to meet you guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yes, unbelievable. I was completely on the hook. Did not see it coming. Monica got it. She was a little ahead of me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Take care. I went into a whole, like, I totally believe these crazies live in that barn waiting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Sound is dynamite. Connection is a little iffy. Are you far from your Wi-Fi? Because we might have to piss Monica off and get you out of the closet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
You would. Well, you don't know. I don't know. You're right. But when you get scared.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yeah. You wouldn't be hated. Then you're surrounded by love, family and friends and champagne. All the stuff they wanted. Just had to get through this other part first.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
You're feeling like life is so short. You get the chainsaws going in the background. Oh, hi. Hi. Jessica, where are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yeah, we just go up there on your own and get the fucking shot and then come home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Now we're getting a nice tour of your home. I can go to the home office here. Somehow got worse. I hate to say this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
At any point, are you getting the least bit suspicious?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
This is not my dream proposal situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
We've lost the visual of you. Can I ask one last thing? Would you be willing to go to that first room you walked into?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
You're walking into your shared future together. The other thing is if I'm this person, I want a sincere yes. That's what I'm in the market for. I don't want anything coerced. Like people who ask people to marry them in front of huge crowds. I'm like, don't they realize the person kind of has to say yes. And in this case, yes. Even if you wanted to say no, you're like, I'm going to say no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
And then we're going to be on a fucking four hour hike in the middle of the night on this mountain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Right. Not now. It means like later.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Probably picked the wrong girl for that whole exercise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
No, no, I know. He wanted the gal we talked to who is a riverboat guide. He's picked the wrong partner for what he wants to do. Oh shit, are you guys happily married? You're not married. Okay, I gotta panic. You hold up your hand like, oh fuck, you're happily married. But you know, like you're giving signs the whole time. You want someone that wants to hike up to the top of this mountain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Oh, sorry. Our apologies. Sorry. Now we've got great image. We've got great sound. Hi. Tell her we say hi. She's stressed. She says hello. All right. Now we're talking. Cole, where are you? I'm in Billings, Montana. That explains the spotty Wi-Fi.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
So what happens when you're in the hotel room and you're crying?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Oh, it's beautiful. He was onto something with the photo. So at first I was like, that's so cute. He figured out how to light the ring from the box so you can see it up there. But now I realize, no, no, that was always going to be a part of the photograph.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
I think in those situations, their subconscious figures out how to get them out of it. If they themselves can't, you end up having an affair. Something materializes. Your subconscious saves you somehow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Well, thank God it wasn't post-marriage and kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
And did he find an outdoorsy gal?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Here's a question in your analysis. Looking back, what was it that you think he represented that you had decided? Oh, I'm supposed to be with someone like this. Like, what story did you have? Why was he the person you were supposed to be with at that time?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Do you think it's possible that when someone has great dreams and aspirations, but they have some fear preventing them, pursuing them, and then they meet someone who's already so clearly on a trajectory that just folding into that feels like a great way to not have to confront those fears?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Well, good. And you got a really beautiful photo out of it. I mean, there's no arguing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
I'm glad no one died on this hike, a nighttime hike.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Well, Jessica, yeah, lovely meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Oh, beautifully. Cole, you're our second Cole today and we don't generally have Coles. Really? Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
You're a strong man. You've got broad shoulders. Are you doing something physical?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yeah, you're either going to be a failure or not based on this arbitrary goal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Are you lifting incredibly heavy test tubes all day?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
It was hard. Okay. The prompt was bad proposals. Proposals gone wrong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Cole, hit us with this bad proposal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
And does it cross your mind? I don't care what they steal, but don't steal this ring.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
It says a lot of things to me. It means, okay, there's a human here. They want me to know my suffering is going to be over soon. I wouldn't think he's going to kill me. I would think he's letting me know we're going to be in and out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Oh, mama mia. It's not a graze because it definitely entered, but you can see it entered and exited.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Boy, thank God it was aimed just that inch to the right because it didn't get any intestine or anything. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
But oh my Lord. I mean, this is like tied with that crazy bear attack or shark attack. This goes some places.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
But still. This one last thing, sir, before we get you to some medical treatment. We just got to embarrass the fuck out of you for a minute.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Oh, I bet she thought it was so sweet though. She's already worried about you. And then you look at her and you say, I was there to get a ring.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Who all got hit? You, the one robber who was on top of you died.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Are you resentful at the jeweler for escalating it to a gun battle? I hate to be judgmental of anyone when I wasn't in that situation, but I feel like they could have maybe just gotten out with all the jewelry and no one would have been in the emergency room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Well, unfortunately, the fact that the jeweler had the gun is kind of what led to all the shooting. I can't imagine those guys were trying to get murder on top of robbery for no reason.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
That feels like a minimal gesture when their employee came on fire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Oh, that cheese soup they make is delicious. That Marie Callender's isn't even there anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Just meeting you, you don't deserve to go through this. Like this should happen to me because I'm always sticking my nose into things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Well, you're a bright man. You're a chemical engineer. I think keistering it during the move would have been preferred to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
You're the first person we've talked to who's been shot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yeah, we're delighted that you listen. Thanks for indoctrinating your husband to us. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
It certainly did. Almost every kind of story was within proposal. You don't know what you're going to get. You don't know. It makes me think you could throw out any prompt like, tell us a story about Tupperware. And then it would be like a skydiving disaster story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Okay. Okay. Similar to all these stories. It's funny how us guys, we go get a ring and then we're going to try to plan some time. So you have this thing for a while. And I had the great luxury of having Nicole in my life. So I took Nicole to the ring store and I said, I want to say first, which one, but I want to then know what one do you think she'll like?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
And she said, there's two I think she would love. And I said, okay, great, don't say. And then I said, I like that one. And she got really excited. And she said, that was my favorite of the two.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
So that was lovely. I get the ring. I've told the story. I was about to get my credit card. What is this weird feeling? I have a very familiar feeling. It's a weird feeling, specific, specific. Oh, it's the moment you tell the tattoo artist after you look at the transfer. Yes, I'll take it. And you go, okay, this is for life. Cut to, it's in my pocket of one of my jackets in my closet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
And my plan was to go to this restaurant we had gone to early on. The first place I said, I love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Stanley's. It was her restaurant. And so I was going to say, let's go to Stanley's, which would have already been suspicious, but maybe it'll have been a gesture. So that was going to happen, I guess I had thought, sometime in January. And it was Christmas Eve and my mom had flown in and we had both just got back from Michigan and we had this really, really wonderful Christmas Eve.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
And then we were laying in bed and I thought, oh, I'm going to try to recreate all this lovely feeling I'm having right now at this restaurant in three weeks instead of just taking this moment that I feel like it should be. I was naked. I walked to the closet. I got the ring out of my jacket. She's like, why is he going to the closet?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Then I came back to the bed and I kneeled down on one knee naked. And then she started hysterically crying. And I asked and she said yes, but she had cried so loud and long that the next morning getting coffee when I saw my mom in the kitchen, she said, oh, sweetie, what happened? Did you guys have a terrible fight? I heard Kristen crying last night. I was like, oh, it was Christmas morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
She thinks we got into a real dust-up last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
It just gets more and more intense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
And then the last one is a nail biter. Wow. Wow. This is a banger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Now I'm smarter than you. I'm wise to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
At any point, do you think the Lord is telling you just not get married to this woman?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Okay, great. Yeah. Happy Valentine's Day. May your heart be full of love and merriment. And in his name we pray. He has risen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Cole, do you recognize you're an interesting mix of brilliant as hell and dumb as fuck? I would say that's spot on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Okay, that works. More of a PG version, but yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
She must be thinking there's a lot of red flags.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
I'll try not to. Yeah. I mostly think of my mom always would ask me to be her Valentine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yeah, and so I'll ask the girls to be my Valentine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Oh, well, thank them for us. All right. Great meeting you. Nice to meet you guys. Thanks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Oh, so that would go perfectly into your fruit aesthetic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Get out of there. I don't care what audition you have. Are you in California?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
He's doing voice work up there. That's interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Okay. So you have a bad proposal story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Yeah. Did your dad ever ask you to be his Valentine? Of course not. Yeah. Did you guys do Valentine's Day?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Can you tell us what the Trail of Terror is?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
Would she get you a box of chocolate?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
My mom would get us a box of chocolates.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals
But I'm not going to get my kids anything because they're already spoiled. They already have too much chocolate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by the Duchess of Duluth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Well, I'm also wondering if she's just hammered. Is she just an old drunk? Does she get shit face and come up with these crazy ideas and she's got to get over to your property? And it could be a lot of things. It's the guns that really turn into something that needs to be taken seriously.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Visit klaviyo.com to make every moment count. We are supported by Audible. Audible's best of 2024 picks are here. Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best in audio entertainment. Like a stunning new full cast production of George Orwell's 1984. This is the one I am most excited to indulge myself with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
You know what we need societally? We need some rung between jail and total freedom. You're not rounding them up and throwing them in a like mental institution, but there's gotta be like a state run kind of retirement home we could put you in. Some option that's not incarcerating them, but also this gal probably needs some supervision.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
You're Yosemite Sam on your yard popping off pistols.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, wow. And you still live next to her. So there's more to come.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I hope you'll write us if there's any update in this story because I have a bad hunch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I mean, you're still right next to each other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, boy. I'm sorry. Last thing you think you're going to be living in fear of is an old, old lady.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Well, Katie, I wish you a ton of luck with Miss Grendel. Glendal. Glenda. Miss Glenda. Miss Grundle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, good job. Take more people on car rides.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Well, great meeting you, Katie. Be well and good luck with her. All right, you too. All right, bye. Bye.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Staying cozy in the winter months is essential, and therapy can be a great way to bring yourself some comfort that never goes away, even when the seasons change.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Well, if you've ever been considering starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's completely online, so it's easy to integrate into your schedule. BetterHelp is flexible, too. It's easy to book or move appointments on their platform. And if the therapist you're matched with isn't the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Find comfort this December with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash DAX today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P dot com slash DAX. We are supported by Audible. Audible's best of 2024 picks are here. Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best in audio entertainment. Like a stunning new full cast production of George Orwell's 1984.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
This is the one I am most excited to indulge myself with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Well, there's so many good ones on the list.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I love Audible. I swear by Audible. I can't wait to listen to the Orwell 1984 off this list. I'm also doing Fleas by autobiography right now, which I'm obsessed with. I can't get enough Audible in my life every night. Go to audible.com slash DAX and discover all the year's best waiting for you. That's audible.com slash DAX. Maya, Mia, Maya, Miramara, Miranmar. Hello.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
It's Mia. I threw that out there as an other option.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
It sounds like someone's using an electric toothbrush behind you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Welcome to our world. Every time we start to record, it's like, oh, they're going to mow the grass right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
No, no, we'll party. People are used to hearing a bunch of shit. Okay, where are you at, Mia?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Well, there's so many good ones on the list.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I just have to say there's something crazier about that than even fucking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, wow. He's eating her out from behind. Can I ask one question about the neighbor? What age would you say she was?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I love Audible. I swear by Audible. I can't wait to listen to the Orwell 1984 off this list. I'm also doing Fleas by autobiography right now, which I'm obsessed with. I can't get enough Audible in my life every night. Go to audible.com slash DAX and discover all the year's best waiting for you. That's audible.com slash DAX.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Okay. Not 60. No. I feel like that would be really relevant. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, wow. Yeah. They're kinky. You think this is a kink?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Well, pretty high if you get eaten out in the lobby. Yeah, pretty high someone's going to see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I don't feel like these people ever get paired with the right people. Like I would have been the dream neighbor for her. I would have been very encouraging of this behavior. I would have thought it was spectacular. You never get the neighbor you want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
They don't. They want me to be shocked and horrified.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
So did it ever escalate beyond the getting eaten out in the foyer of the building?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I'm going to go out on a limb and say she might have also had a little bit of a drinking problem herself. She might have. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Okay, wow. What are the odds? Mia, that was incredible. I'm sorry you witnessed that. And I'm also jealous that you witnessed that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yes. Oh, my God. Oh, no. He's so cute. Do you have the roundest cheeks, Crosby? Hi, little buddy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, my goodness. Hi. Congratulations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Could be on the cover of like American, that's too outdated, American Eagle. Abercrombie? Yeah, Abercrombie family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
All right, well, nice meeting all of you. Congratulations. Take care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
He was so cute. Chew on the cheeks a little bit. Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp. I like to chomp on cheeks. Do any chomping on Delta's cheeks when you had the chance?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Chomp, chomp, chomp. Hello? Can you hear us?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Can you hear me? Yes, we got you. Is it Eric? It is, yes. Okay, wonderful. I'm loving the room you're in. It's throwing me back to my uncle's rec room in the basement of the house. Very wood. I love it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
And is this the home in which you had a crazy neighbor or does it predate this house?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, my God. Like maybe she had gifted that to the previous owner. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, wonderful. Home of Mr. Clinton, yeah?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Anonymous. Today is crazy neighbor stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Of course. Are you in Little Rock?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, okay. So that's a beautiful part of the country.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
What kind of fucking psycho are you? Were you able to identify the carcass immediately? Or did you know what kind of animal?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Ozark's a party, right? I need to get out there on a boat at some point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah. Did you grease this kid 10 bucks or anything?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
WabiWab made our website using Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. What I love about Squarespace is aside from the functionality, it's just so visually pleasing. And Rob was able to whip this up in no time with all the incredible templates that were available to him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, boy. Yeah. Why? You just like the name?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Well, and minimally you go, hey, this is escalating. So they were shouting from the fence. Now we've got carrying attached to the bumper. What's next? Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Do you think they called her and said, hey, take your foot off the gas on your neighbor? We're aware of what's going. Why do you think it stopped and she didn't continue to escalate?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
You're absolutely right. Okay, so you have a crazy neighbor story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah, they didn't want to take it with them. I wish I could talk to her because my big curiosity now after hearing the whole story is, were they slashing prices on a broom, dustpan, frisbee combo? And she's like, I'm going to pick up five of these and I'll give them out. Right. Or is every time someone moves and she's like, oh, I know the perfect thing to get. And then she goes and gets a new one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
When you move out, that would have been great if you left it next to the other one. I did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
It's kind of like a horror movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I'm always encouraged when women turn out to be shitty as well, like men are, because we're just so universally shitty. It's nice when women are shitty. And I'm delighted that we have a couple of stories now where the perpetrator is a crazy lady. And then this wearing the nightwear out, that's a guaranteed part of the pattern, right? Same with our last person who dealt with a crazy gal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Well, Eric, great meeting you. What a bizarre and interesting story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I hope you guys take a million more road trips.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah. This is the gal from Texas who's very hospitable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah, what was it that Randy had done that made you want to turn homicidal? Great question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah. I think the rate of alcoholism in all law enforcement is really tragically high. It's a rough job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Well, it's delightful meeting both of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, I loved it. He sucked us into his rhythm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
And what time is it getting dark?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
So you have a crazy neighbor story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
You're with your friends, Monica and Dax and Wabi Wab.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
And of course we do. Of course we do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Can I ask really quick how many people live in Ottawa? How populated is the town you're in in this story?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I'll just throw a party in your living room, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Sure, as an ambassador of the family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
When you're listening to people talk about their crazy neighbor, you realize how stuck you are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Not even thinking about it had taken many steps.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
You're in a position where you're trying to assess who is just a little nuts, but not actually violent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I was going to blow up the building.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, wow. Well, Sarah, I'm glad you got out unscathed. That's a very stressful and long time of being stressed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I hope you move to like 12 acres and you're just in the center of it with a huge buffer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Well, lovely meeting you. Sorry you went through that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
If I can create a crow of its quality, then it'll end up on a sherp. That's a hill I've got to climb still, the Crow Hill. All right, well, be well and great meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
All right, take care. This brought back a memory because, you know, I lived in the same apartment for 10 years. So I saw a lot of people come and go. And I had a dude that lived below me and across the hall. He had just gotten out of prison. He was originally from Hawaii. And this is the gentleman that I smoked crack with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
one night well we got in a fight then we smoke crack and for the next six months that he lived there before i believe he went back to prison i would be in bed and there'd be a knock at my door at like three in the morning and i would look out and he would be in the stair landing smoking crack and knocking on my door and i would look through the peephole and he'd say i see you peeping
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
And I'm like, oh, jeez, man. I just fucking got out of here. And he'd be up there for 30 minutes banging on my door, smoking crack. That was a rough six months.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
There's a weird detail, but he had given me his rice cooker when we were...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
That long TV. And then at one point he was at the door and he wanted his rice cooker back. And I'm like, I do want to give him his rice cooker back. But I also don't want to interact with him because he's smoking crack in the hallway.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I put the rice cooker on his doorstep the next day. That's what I was going to say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
All right. Well, I love you. Love you. You just had a neighbor interact with the cops.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah, yeah. I have them stacked up here, but I'm going to wait to reveal it. Okay. Because you tell me to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah, yeah. What about when you walked out of your old apartment and Sean Penn was in the driveway?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
That makes up for all the other stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, so you saw Zac Efron as well?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Oh, but it was worth it. It was worth it. So exciting. That's funny to be living in like an entry-level apartment and walk outside and Sean Penn's hanging in the driveway.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
We had that with Dennis Rodman when we moved to Costa Mesa. Oh, really? He was dating one of the girls in the apartment complex.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah. And you'd see him? Occasionally, yeah. Hard to miss, Dennis Rodman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
They come true every second. All right. Love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
They're inches from you in some cases. If you're in an apartment, you're like, oh, my God. Literally two feet across my door is someone I love. Don't ever want to be around again for the rest of my life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yes, I've got a photo of your open floor plan living room with a dinette. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
And were the cops able to see that when they arrived?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Miss Glenda is dancing around with a gun. What? That'd be a great title for a short story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
It's like a mix of a comedy routine and scary.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah. If I'm the law enforcement, I'm like, I can't really put these three new pieces of evidence into one cohesive thought. They seem very unrelated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
That was kind of you. I would have objected.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah, a lot of these things blur with stalking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
They have the same feeling. You can't get rid of them. You cannot get rid of them. Please enjoy Crazy Neighbors. We are supported by Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps brands build smarter digital relationships with their customers. And here at Armchair Expert we know a little something about how challenging that can be. Here's how Klaviyo does it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
She also has a pistol. So she's got a rifle and a pistol. She's very well armed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
That's it. Just a reminder. Hey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah, did he ever return? Whatever happened to him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Okay, maybe there was no husband.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah, it's just men don't get them generally. It's more of a female thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
I'm now allowing myself to look at all the photos. I assume this is from the incident.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
And so for the listener, Katie has done a perfect job describing her. She does look like a character out of a Wes Anderson movie or something. There's one where she's got her wrists bent. Like she's almost a little over it. Okay. So she starts ringing the bell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Their unified data and marketing automation platform turns customer data into personalized connections to make every moment count. across AI-powered email, SMS, analytics, and more. Klaviyo powers smarter digital relationships for more than 151,000 successful brands, including Hedley & Bennett, Fishwife, and Dagny Dover. Build smarter digital relationships with your customers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
Yeah. The description I left out is it looks like there's a zombie circling your house. That's actually what it looks like. Like there's an undead trying to come in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
A very arbitrary system we have here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
You can't prove she shot through the window, even though we know she shot through the window.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Sure, one of these jerks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Me too. I'm so proud of you. Way to handle your business. If I'm your father, I go, good for you. When the dirty work needs doing, you roll up your sleeves and you get it done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
I want to see it so bad. Don't you, Monica?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Here's the disgusting part about me. If I did that same thing, I would want to see it again maybe a couple weeks later. I would be like, I'm going to go look. Because you might build it up in your head like a fish you caught.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
It wasn't really as big as I'm remembering it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yeah, that's a good start. Did the hydrocodone thing ever pop up again? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
You've done a lot of things right. Ever get back on the motorcycle?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Don't shame me. I feel that subtweet there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Well, Ashley, this has been a blast. Yeah. Thanks for chatting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
We like new listeners.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh, man, that's really lovely. Well, lovely meeting you. Thanks for sharing all that with us. All right. Have a good one. Bye.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Hi, Noah. How are you? Hi, how are you guys doing? Good. I'm so intrigued by all the different posters on your wall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
That's twice today. We had a Franklin Village person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Okay, so what did you do that you haven't told your parents about?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
He rested midway up the stairs, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Really quick. What could feel worse than getting sympathy that you don't deserve? It really puts you into the headspace of these people with moon childism because I feel so guilty. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Why do you have such a stylish microphone?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
You believe your own story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh my God, call 911. Oh boy. This is like the girl who staged the slip and fall at Kmart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Sure, sure, sure. Let's not get hung up on that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yeah, you're past the point of no return.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
The history of animation or history, and then also we do animation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Well, you're playing non-responsive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Well, hold on. She kind of deserves this. When you put this much stress on your kids to get Bs, look what lengths they'll go to. That's how strong the stress is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh, what did I just hear? I just heard an interesting factoid about Walt as you do. Where was he born?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Guess that wasn't the thing that I heard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
The famous heart attack.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
But she fucking nailed it. Did you see that? Probably even knows his birthday. When was his birthday?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh, my Lord. Did she not? She never put two and two together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
She deserves it, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Wow, that's a great story. You just won, won, won.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
No, of course not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
He knows he's a rascal. It's that rascal smile.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Wilco would be upset.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yeah, that's not the kind of thing they condone. David Lynch wouldn't be very proud. He might be. He was a rascal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
I like that he had to unburden himself while stoned like Rolf Skolnikov. I have to get this off my chest. Well, no, that was great. I'm happy that you did all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Wow. This is very timely. I'm taking my daughter to Disneyland on Friday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Our pleasure. Great meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Nice to meet you. Where are you from?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Okay, a Garden State and a South Carolinian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
He's like, he's a winner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Like he's a liar, but he's a charming liar. That's right. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
You're up. Well, nice meeting you guys. Yes. All right. Take care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
That could happen to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
I could see myself going for it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
No, I do. I wouldn't want any of that. I'd want to get out of the thing I had to get out of. And then that would be the consequence of it is that I'd have to receive all this sympathy for something I didn't deserve.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
My goal there is for them to go like, he's so stoic. Look how much he bled. I want admiration. Try to be very honest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
And that's my whole move is I don't tell her I was bleeding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Do you live in California?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yes. I wanted it to be seen. And then I wanted to hear that they admired my stoicism in the face of being injured. I don't want sympathy. But you can understand that, right? Like her arm broke in half and she didn't even flinch. She just calmly went to the hospital.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
We find you amid many pillows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
It's good. I like it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Are you at an Airbnb?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
How do you like Phoenix coming from Vancouver? That couldn't be a more opposite environment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
You're scaring people. I guarantee he'd be first in line to have your cuisine. So you're making different dishes and a lot of them have weed in it. As the meal progresses, you're getting a little stoned and then more hungry. So by the time dessert hits, you're like, fucking bring this shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Okay, this is an interesting prompt. I don't know that I even understand it, which is exciting, but this is haven't confessed to parents.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Wow, what a neat niche you've found yourself in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
What's your signature dish? What's the one you're most proud of that people rave about?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
You got no beef with the citizens, I hope everyone knows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
You're dead right. It does over-index, given the fact that there's less in Canada than California. It's pretty wild.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Okay, so you've got a story to confess there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
They took away trick-or-treating. That's harsh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh my gosh. And is there any threat of your parents listening?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Haven't confessed to parents.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh, what a great plan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
It's a way for people to believe themselves. Okay, where are you originally from?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh, oh my God. Oh my God. Yes. God bless your parents. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. There's so much here already.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
The notion that it was a good idea for you to put a firework in the toilet inside your house. This is like, if you got a 13 year old boy at home, anything's on the table.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Like I can see that making sense to me, but why would that make? And then another thing, shame on your, you should have known where the fucking shutoff valve was. You got to teach your kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
There's a fucking nozzle behind the toilet and you crank it to the right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Well, they should, though, because you get in these situations where flooding can occur. Then the real damage starts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
You just threw your hands in the air. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
All right, hit us with the Bakersfield story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Sounds like it. He's got a buddy sleeping over. He was allowed to trick or treat. By the way, I can't even believe they're asking. It's so obviously you. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Now, let me ask you this. If he hadn't broke the computer monitor, do you think you would have confessed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh, yes. This is really for Blair. Happy birthday, Blair. I'm so sorry that Travis... perpetrated all this on you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Well, Travis, thank you for that. That was great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Some parents will be hearing this story, I guess, for the very first time. It's an interesting way to get something out there. I like that we're providing a safe place to admit to your foibles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Travis, thank you. I'm so delighted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yeah. Take care, brother. Nice meeting you. Thanks, guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
The only one of these that I would think the parent actually didn't know would be Noah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh, the shit. I guess they don't think it's her. You're right. But they won't care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
But the heart attack, the mom's still going to go, that could have bankrupted us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Had you gotten drunk at this party?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yeah. Okay. So different person returning than had left. Very competent Tom Cruise person made their escape. And now Mr. Bean's returning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
The dingle didn't work? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
That removed a screen from the window?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
That would have been a big red flag.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yeah, when your kids suggest like, I bet it was a squirrel, you're like, okay, so you did it. That's fine. Let's talk about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yeah. I hope everyone felt lighter after this. Some are probably scared. Yeah, of course. There's a couple of winners in here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh, squirrel adjacent theory.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Closed the window behind themselves, but then didn't replace the screen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
We get a real rascal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh. I wonder if he knew.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yeah, we deal with a real rascal on this one. This was super fun, and I can't see any reason why we wouldn't permit people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
I'm leaning towards that. What?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Well, maybe they just don't want to talk about it at all. Kind of like if you think your wife fucked somebody and you're like, I actually don't ever want to talk about it. I'm just not going to bring it up. And I might have been suspicious for months. But then once I think it happened, like, I actually don't ever want to talk about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Okay, there's that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Or they're just like, it'll be more of a punishment for her that she has to continue this preposterous lie. Maybe they're amused by you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Okay, this is confusing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
How did they get in originally? Just the front door was unlocked during the day while you guys were home?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Maybe if you have parents, you shouldn't listen. So everyone without parents, go for it. Yeah, feel free. All right, enjoy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yeah, like I could see, I wouldn't buy that story for a hot minute, but I might also not even deal with it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Nope. Well, Brie, I'm excited to hear what the reaction is if it does get to them now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Your dad's been peddling this story. What if his only resentment is like, damn, that's one of my best stories. I just told it last week at the bar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
He has a lawsuit against him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
It seems like you're not a troublemaker anymore. You seem like you're really sorted.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Where I'm from, Milford's a little bit Bakersfield-y. I know about just having to get into some shit because there's nothing else to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
All right. Well, lovely meeting you, Brie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Now I'll wave if I see you in the neighborhood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
All right. Take care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
But picture him coming in the house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
He wears a suit a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
You want to hear something even more random?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
So Rowan Atkinson plays Mr. Bean. Two funny things. He does a perfect Martin Brundle impersonation. And when he was interviewed on the Formula One grid by Martin Brundle, he's doing Martin Brundle to him. And Martin doesn't realize it, but it is identical. So it's just two Martin Brundles speaking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
He's the big commentator on F1. He has such a distinct delivery. And Rowan is just doing him to him. And he doesn't realize it. It's one of the funniest clips I've ever seen. Secondly, he bought a McLaren F1 for $750,000, the road car. He crashed it two or three times, and he sold it for $12 million. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yes, even with the crashes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Yeah, Rowan's in a rat race.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Also, you look like you are a star of Dallas. You've never seen that show because you're too young.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Did you watch the Netflix show about it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
How exciting. The newer Netflix one, they do show that other show quite often.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Double dipped on these reality shows. And who loves Bavarian Motorworks in your household?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
First of all, so sorry to hear that. You look very young to have lost a husband.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Secondly, is it get the service situation working correctly? Is that the first step?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Okay, Ashley, you have a story. Does it take place in Dallas?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh my gosh, I was staying at the Embassy Suites.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Street bike or dirt bike?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Sure. You're on opiates. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Okay. Okay, great. Now it fit in a solo cup.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents
Oh, okay. Wow. Okay, great. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Mrs. Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
This is now like a sexual fantasy. Like this changed from an exam to like you're the hot doctor who's got her lab coat open.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Start with True Detective on Max, then check out The Lincoln Lawyer on MGM+, and top it off with rom-com classic How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days on Paramount+. That's a good way to spend a day. You can watch all of those titles and more without ever leaving the Prime Video app. I think I may take a little Nicolas Cage binge on Amazon Prime.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yeah, and I told her, you know, they're a sponsor. And she couldn't believe it. Being stylish and comfortable allows you to feel your best, making you ready to tackle anything that comes your way. That's where Quince comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Oh, sign me up. Streamline your streaming today. Check out subscriptions on Prime Video. We are supported by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like you know to check your sunroof first before driving through the car wash. Like you know to put the leash on your dog first before you open the door to go for a walk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Not that I've ever made that mistake and had my dog run outside without me or screamed his name repeatedly over and over and over again until I found him. Or you know to check that the guy who asked you out is an armcherry first before you agree to go on a date with him. Sage advice. Essential. Checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
My conundrum if I were you is like, do I get back in my clothes right now while she's out getting this gown and then she'll give me the gown and get back on my clothes or just stay in this coat that's not mine?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
A lot of my patients wear my clothes. That's what I was hoping for.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
And a stethoscope in the pocket.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Did you keep her as a gyno?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
A, I love this story, but also this wouldn't make Dax's top 2000. I mean, you really didn't do anything wrong. There was no gown and you took the next best thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Okay, good, you just disproved my thing, because I gotta say, there are some prescriptions I've been on in my life where I'm like, guys, what are we doing? We know this is a lifetime prescription. Why on earth do I need, I'll give you an example. Like, I used to be on Propecia, which blocks testosterone from making your hair fall out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Well, I'm not going to decide I want my hair to fall out at any point. I don't understand why I got to go see someone every year when we know I'm going to be on this thing forever. Side note, I'm not on it anymore. But there's some that I'm just like, why do we have to do this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Every couple years sounds doable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
But again, yeah, birth control, for me, it's like, yeah, you're going to be on it until you want to get pregnant. What are we talking about? Now, you should get exams, but the prescription part, to me, is a side issue. Right. Okay, well, I've bared my grievance about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
I think you should have been able to keep your birth control going from college indefinitely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Well, it's great meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yes, great to have all three of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Shout out Carly for getting those out in time. That's great. Okay. So you embarrass yourself. I'm not surprised. It's hard to make it through life without doing that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Can I ask where were you in the country? Yeah, it's in Orlando, Florida. Oh, okay, great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
But really quick, when they did that, did you feel any relief? Like, oh, my God, I have full lungs again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
What is causing this? It sounds like you have some kind of perforation and some kind of lining or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
So the penis, Monica, it protrudes from the front of the body.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Sure. Oh, I thought the heart rate spike was a result of the climax. Right. But just as you were nearing it, you were really.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Oh, my God. So you're pooping in a bucket. These gals are hanging with you. They're young and beautiful. And then you get caught doing that. Well, what a trip to the hospital. So what was the ultimate solution for this lung condition?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Nice to meet you. Okay, quick question. You have the hanging shoe rack device that I also have on my closet door, but I can no longer shut my closet door. Do you have the same issue?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
I know for me, I want 2025 to be filled with a lack of codependency.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yes. If you want to start your therapy journey in 2025, join BetterHelp's over 5 million users worldwide. BetterHelp is fully online, which helps make therapy affordable and convenient. You'll have access to a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. And you can easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. Write your story with BetterHelp.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Just Kleenex. And then wrap a bunch of clean Kleenex over that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Wow, Monica, what a great question. I, too, wouldn't have expected that from you. Well. Yeah, that does sound more like one of the. Curious. But I just didn't even want to think about that because then it goes right into the shame of being a boy and I'm like, hide that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Hi. Today is embarrassingly caught. People caught doing embarrassing stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
So you were caught doing something embarrassing, which is just delightful for us and probably terrible for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Don't you dare say that, Adam.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
That worked out so perfectly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Is it comfortable? Do you like it? It's got a nice weight to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Well, can I tell you, they were gone in, I think, 14 minutes. So you must have been like right when it opened up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yeah. So he's ADHD and you're OCD.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
i have very mixed emotion about these limited release sweatshirts which is like i'm so happy for the people that get them and i'm also so sorry for the amount of stress we cost people i really don't know what to do about it but it looks gorgeous i'm so glad you got one let's just focus on the fact that you're a winner and you got it monica i just finished or both of you guys but i just finished the episode with phoebe oh when i heard that he was gonna be on i'm like
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
This is a big week in the household. You got the sweatshirt and you're on Armchair Anonymous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
You guys are a party. We love you. Thank you so much for calling in. That's a great story. Have a good one, guys. Take care. I mean, come on with these armcherries.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
I remember that being really, really fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Oh, wonderful. So she's there. We'll meet her at the end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
OK, perfect. What's her fake name?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Okay, wonderful. Axel Rose. Alex and Rose. Just change one letter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yeah, how do we feel about him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Drinking in a field. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Oh, you initiate this. This is great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Can I quickly ask how old the older friend is? Because there's a zone where it's fine and then there's a zone where I'm concerned. How much older?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
This is not a 35-year-old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Great. You're experimenting and trying things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Oh, God bless. Do them all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yeah, sure. Check them all off the list. Can't think of a better place than someone else's backseat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Oh, my goodness. And he's in your butt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
I don't know. I want to know what position we're finding everyone in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yeah, yeah. Compromised position.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
They want to eat your food. I mean, a lot of people would be asked not to cook.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
It stays on for a minute.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
What happened? Did someone drove their car into the back of the Range Rover?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
God bless. What a good spirit. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Well, let's get your sister in here. Give her one of your pods so we can meet her. Hi, what's your fake name? You're Rose. Actually, we assigned you a name and you didn't even know it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Are you younger or older sister?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Well, you need to rack up some embarrassing stories so we can call back and talk to you about something embarrassing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Can I tell you my favorite part of that story?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
She did not have to tell us about the butt stuff. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
I was glad. That makes me feel like she knows the name of the game here on the show. It's like we get the whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Big time. First time doing that and then you get plowed into by the bat. I love that she liked it. Yeah, yeah. She wanted to get back at it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
It's a life affirming story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Embarrassment is endearing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
That's your number one. Was this a hard episode for you? Because that's your Achilles embarrassment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
You want to remind everyone about when you walked into the glass?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Was there a door next to the glass and you just thought you could cruise through and you didn't see the glass? Oh, my God. What's great is there's a very seminal moment in your life. And I can just vaguely remember. All I remember is that you were upset. Wasn't Murvac around for this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Oh, we love you if you crash into a million glass walls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
What did you think you were showing him? Your coupon?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
You started hearing what he was seeing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
You hold it up to a young man at the register?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yeah. That's right. So a mix of embarrassing and hot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
He chose and you chose. We're not going to address this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yeah, he could definitely end up responding to a prompt that was tell us about something insane that happened at work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Well, but here's here's how delusional and eager I am as a young man. I would have thought like, OK, I see you're trying to let me know you are ready to party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Listen, we run another deal on Tuesdays, which is I get off at six.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Okay, now I have a follow-up question, and it's very invasive, so you can definitely choose not to answer it. But my curiosity is, you were watching it on your phone at some point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Is that something you did at work?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Cautionary tale and a sponsor. Let's tell them about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yeah, that was a gift. When you're a teenager and an attractive woman shows you her pornography, there's not much more you can ask for. Especially at a boring shift. There was no one in there. He's not even busy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
It's a win across the board.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Well, Sabrina, it's lovely meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Well, thank you. We're delighted you're listening to all of them. It's very flattering. And please keep at it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yeah, I'd be so happy if that had happened to me at work as a teen. I'm trying to think if I did any forward-facing. I didn't. I worked for my dad swindling people out of money for Hugs Not Drugs, and then I worked for my mom all through high school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
As an adult. I would love it if at my host stand that had happened, for sure. But I think I liked it more in high school. Right. And that's a very exciting ordeal in high school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
I had my job working for GM.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
That's a good question. We dealt with all these journalists. Every single automotive journalist in the country we would work with pretty regularly. Some of them I had really great relationships with and they were really, really fun. But we had a woman in particular who was clearly a drug addict. And we were constantly dropping off and picking up cars from her house. And...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yeah, it was pretty strange. You never really knew what was going to happen. Because you'd go up to their door, get the keys, and then take the thing away, maybe drop something off. And yeah, she would be in crazy outfits. Sometimes the car would be parked half in the yard. There'd be weird things in the car. And it was a little bit of a roulette.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
You always wondered what was going to be happening when you went and picked up this car. And you also wondered, when is she going to total one of these cars?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
You had a couple customer service-y jobs in high school, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Well, law firm seems fertile for some shit. Was she a litigator?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Okay, not like criminal defense. Because if you worked in an office that's specializing in criminal defense, I bet you'd have all the stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Now we can hear you beautifully.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Not Dana White. Different Dana. I need to see more of your shirt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Okay, it's great. I just had to see the bottom half. I like it quite a bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Kind of by Gary a little bit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Oh, wow. You could be part of that riddle. If a plane crashes in your backyard, where do you bury the survivors?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
The punchline is you don't bury survivors, but you start thinking about should it be Indiana or Illinois and you get really bogged down in that. Okay, so you have an embarrassing story, probably multiple embarrassing stories. We all have many, but one in particular you're going to share with us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Right. Are we religious or just afraid to talk about sex?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Yeah, right. You're on the opposite trajectory here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
Slash guilty, maybe like these people are dying to have a kid and I'm trying to prevent that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Embarrassingly Caught
In ideal conditions, it's still showing your vagina to a stranger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Mon Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Okay, really quick. So this has huge overlap with this doc I saw about Synanom, which was this offshoot of sobriety a guy invented in Venice. And he had this thing called the game, and it's how the group therapy worked, and you attacked each other. And then all these people wanted to be a part of that organization that weren't drug addicts. And then all these civilians joined up in the Bay Area.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I just wonder if there's any bleed out of this. Yeah. Do you know the history of this religion?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
How many parishioners were at the church, and then how many kids were you in school with?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
And is there any visible impropriety? There's no multiple marriages happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
How many boys your age were in your school?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
And did you have a crush on any of them?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
And how much natural questioning did you have?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
For the listener, you're on stage. It's a good-sized stage. We've got a lot of huge pictures of biblical paintings behind you being put on a projector. Now that I see the stage, I'm assuming the music portion is like the attractive part of the religion. Like if you were to observe this, you'd be like, oh, yeah, they're having so much fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Were you guys inviting non-church members to witness the music?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
When your dad told you you were all leaving, did he give an explanation as to why?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
You were clutching your pearls a lot? Exactly. Oh my gosh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Really quick, did dad find his way to another fringy religion?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
And what about your siblings? Did they transition well into the worldly world?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Does it diminish your confidence in your ability to evaluate reality?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Do you like Megan Phelps Roper? Have you heard her talk at all?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
She was in Westboro Baptist, that wild Baptist church that holds the terrible signs up at funerals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Oh, wonderful to meet you. You're my first Taj. Is this a family name?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah, of course. Hi, handsome husband. Oh, there's a cat in the mix.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah, I think that's what happens with one cat. They're like mogwai. All of a sudden you have five. It's like they got wet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah, it's good to get someone that really was like brainwashed and had to do a lot of stuff because then just doing normal stuff feels like nothing. That's like a hack.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Well, it's so nice meeting both of you guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
All right. Take care. Hello. Is this Anna?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Hi, Anna. Nice to meet you. I love your floral wallpaper.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
This may or may not shock you, but of the three people we've spoken with, two are from Portland.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
A lot of them are. Yeah, Northern Cal we had, and then now two Portlands.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Oh, yeah, that too. Okay, Anna, please tell us your experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
No, I've never heard this, but I like the name. It already is ominous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
And did it have a founding charismatic leader?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
And did the people around you immediately accept it? Or did you have people that were still calling you Cassius Clay? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Oh, that's a great place to change your name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
When you'd go to church or you'd see the service, how tied to Christianity was it? Was the Bible still being primarily used, or had he deviated so much that a lot of what you were learning had nothing to do with the Bible?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah. So what was novel about the Mormons is that the parishioners could receive revelation. That was the appealing part, as I understand it. But in this sect, they could at least receive revelations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Well, it's like Joseph Smith's revelations that a man should have multiple wives once he was busted having sex with a young woman that lived next door. That's interesting timing of that revelation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Great, and really quickly, on the Zapper, I'm guessing it was a pre-existing product that this was an off-label use for, or did someone invent this thing within the church?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
So simple. It's crazy how these doctors thought of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Not when you do first and last name. Mon Padman? That sounds like Monsoor Padman, which is pretty cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Oh, Jesus. Okay, you could juice it up a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I'm thinking of basically the lie detector device that's been rebranded within Scientology where you hold the handles and you get an e-meter. You did it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
How could we have done all this Scientology? Wait, you should be a caller.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah, but this needs immediate attention.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
So you were doing the zapper 20 minutes a day?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
It could be butt skin. Yeah, anally. Butts. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Someone knocks on the door and walks into this scene. OEM, this is an original manufacturing. This is a hybrid. To do what? To kill the parasite?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Sure, sure. You've got it on your cheeks or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
They've been on mom's bottom cheeks. At 13, how do we get out of this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I want to hear about yours. So someone taught you and it was taught with the intention of the life practice more than a pursuit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah, how is this celibate command working out? Is there celibacy within the marriage?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
You're not thinking when you're driving through St. Louis Abyssal, that's the home of Cal Poly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Do we really think George and Fullerton has all the answers? And he never got busted having multiple lovers? Most of these founders.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
To be honest, why else deal with all the obligations of having cult followers if you're not having sex with them?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
What's the point of power if not sex with hot people?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I mean, that's what power is about, really.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Quickly to tie this bow on it, your friend's wedding. So she was a member of the church and she presumably left as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah. What a group to get together with. Well, Anna, nice meeting you. Thanks for telling us that story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
You have a very cute sweater on. And do you go by something shorter than Francesca? Because I can go all the way with Francesca. But do you have like a nickname?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah, what age do you think you get to when you finally start liking all this cute stuff your parents did?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Do you do any breathing exercises or anything?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Okay, where are you? Are you in Portland, Oregon?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Oh. Okay, so you've got a cult story, Francesca. Fran, Frankie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
What if I said Frankie and she just started bawling?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Okay, good. You just need to ask and then I'll officially say yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
They're so cute. They look like they're on either a Seals and Croft or a Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon album.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Okay, so those gorgeous young people, they found their way into something. What was it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Okay, now tell me why you think that's a good overlap. Right out of the gates, I would go like presence is required.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
How many folks were in attendance normally?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
And was it held in a church or what kind of space?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I just remember being a kid sitting in church and going like, I don't know. Were you having any battle?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I see. Was it Christianity linked or no? Not
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Oh, my God. OK, this again is like the game, this kind of group participation therapy where you call out each other's character defects.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah, that was what was happening in the game is like you want to sit down with the gun loaded to direct at someone else to get the heat off yourself. So you're like incentivized.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Maybe it is good. Monty Padman, that sounds crazy too. These nicknames when they're in conjunction with your full name maybe don't work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Free bad teaching. This is what we offer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Oh, that's the cruelest thing you can do to a kid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Do you know what it was that your mom was getting out of it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah, there's a spirit of harmony and collaboration. It doesn't work if someone's steamrolling. Okay, I like that. Me too. Alas, this episode, though, is about cults.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Well, but as we've already acknowledged, they are culty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Oh, they decided to extend some compassion in the wake of that? Or did they feel guilty?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
And he was just a terrible person. What age were you when that happened?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Well, 14th century doctors don't really know yet about small cell carcinoma. The irony to the spirit being invoked somehow would have some elevated something because they were a 14th century doctor. Like nobody on earth right now would be as bad of a doctor as a 14th century doctor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Even though he only dealt in bloodletting and probably leeches.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Did you end up having a relationship with your dad?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Francesca, you have been dealt quite a fucking hand. My Lord, the fact that you're in that cute sweater and put together. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Did he ultimately leave the cult? Will it be a critical look at the cult?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I want to see Trina's show. I wish she would just do it at a black box theater so I could see it as like a one woman show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
If we're to just look at the pattern of history and acknowledge it as real, my hunch is Stephen was somehow... Pulling the strings of this whole thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
This is a terrible false equivalency, but we've talked about it on here with other improv people. A lot of comedians have certain characters. I have a couple of them that when I start talking like them, they have a whole language that I don't necessarily have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
It's true. The second I'm talking is Frito. All of these thoughts are just very quickly there. They're not my normal thoughts. I've not even tried to embrace that in a way that would be my identity. But I understand the notion of feeling like you're creating things that aren't really yours. Does that make sense?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
For her to buy into it. I don't think it'd be that hard to buy into it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Oof. I'm impressed you've made it out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Well, Francesca, thank you for sharing all that with us. That was heavy. And I'm sorry for all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
What you would hope people would hear is there's such a pattern to all this stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
The group criticism. If any of these things are happening in your book club, you know, maybe the book club is a
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah, you have exceptionally white and nice teeth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I want to see you channel and talk in tongues. I want you to lose your marbles a little bit for an hour every Sunday. I would go to your show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
No, you wouldn't. You'd be a warlock from the 14th century.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I was exposed to some weird stuff. I went to church on Sundays, two different religions, whatever, that's standard. But my father was also quite woo-woo-y, right? Like through AA, he found ACOA, Adult Children of Alcoholics, and then The Course of Miracles. And then all of it's fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
But I was in a basement with him where a guy's like making someone hold something, then pushing on your liver, and then pushing the arm down. And a lot of the people that are in AA are there, and they're kind of intrigued by it. There's crystals. I don't want this to sound like a pat on the back to myself or casting any shame on anybody. But I'm just not very susceptible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yes, in fact, applauded critical skepticism.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
If someone offers you a vegetarian dinner, just run.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I'm not suggesting that I too couldn't be this way. I just am remembering that I was in lots of different situations where I was like, this is horseshit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
They shouldn't invite me in because I'll probably be like, hold on. How do you know about that? That wasn't invented at the 16th century. I'd like bust the 14th century doctor. Then everyone would stand up and go, oh my God, the spell's been broken. Thank you, Dax Shepard. You are our new leader.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I am the leader of the truth. I have a proprietary understanding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Get off your clothes and let's talk about your spirit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
But not Indian, because you said his name was...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Ooh, D.D. Shepherd. That sounds fun. Today is part two of one of our favorite prompts ever. Escaping a cult.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
So he's going by this other name. He's not Indian. I thought Indian when I heard the name. And I thought meditation, but no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
How many folks were at this initial free vegetarian dinner?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Oh, okay. There's some critical mass. If you show up somewhere to see a spiritual guide and there's three people, you're like, well, this guy's bunk. A hundred, you're like, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
If you are starting a call, stock it with some extras, even if you don't have that many followers, maybe get some hourly folks to build out the audience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
That's quite a thing to observe. Are you not terrified? It was subtle, almost like you're having a dream.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Some patterns. And maybe if you recognize that one of these things is happening in your life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Okay, so two of the 12 were accounted for between he and Vayu.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
If you get invited to a vegetarian meal, you're dust. No, but I will say it made me think there's a lot more than I'm aware of. I just stupidly assume I'll see a doc about them if they're real. Exactly. It makes me think you're bumping into people all the time that probably were raised in some of these fringy religious tradition. Yeah, cults. Oh, I am a pussyfoot and around about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Once you left, did you keep following this person and what was happening?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah. They're going to have a harem. They're going to have some nice cars.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I think it's hypnosis. Because you hadn't eaten the vegetarian meal prior to seeing all that or had you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Wow. Did you know anyone that stuck with that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Those lottery documentaries fascinate the hell out of me. I've seen a couple. Talk about be careful what you wish for. There's almost no good stories in those.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
No, I shouldn't say that. There's just an incredibly high rate of people filing for bankruptcy. There's a lot of stress with their family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
I don't get it. Standing in line for the punch. Oh, oh. Very literal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
It's a pun. That's good. Well, Taj, this has been a delight meeting you and hearing your story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah, on shrimps. And you stare at any given thing long enough, you'll just see something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Yeah, I think they definitely chalk that vegetarian meal. And to their credit, mushrooms are vegetarian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Mushroom medley. Hi, how are you? Good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Good. Is this a beautiful photo of you and your lover engaged in play on the beach?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Oh, that's cute. It looks like you're either doing hacky sack or you could be doing the kid and play dance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
Okay. Cause you're playful and you taunted him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
You don't look nearly old enough to be engaged 17 years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Cults II
And are you allowed to say the name of what the religion was?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Rothers. I'm joined by Buck Rogers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Why? What? He's panicked like he's going to drown. So he's like trying to grab onto something. This is why you don't rescue a drowning swimmer, by the way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Yeah, that's the move is you got to knock the person out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Did he get it over? Because that's its own challenge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
oh yeah he's like how am i gonna tell my brother i lost his son out on this river This is a mess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Yes. And we can see you too. We can see you. You're in a tent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Let's relieve you of some guilt. You're doing a quick analysis, whether one of you can live or none of you can live. I think that's the right math to be doing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh, okay. Yeah. Billy's on his own.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
You kind of want Billy to be punished a little bit. I know. That's diabolical. I know, I know, I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
I don't know how you guys do it. I just don't know how rules are followed. Okay. So we're calling you Taylor. That's very promising. And why did you pick Taylor as a code name?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh, no. Yeah. What's next is the bears. You feel so validated, right? To just avoid the nature.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Because you're like, there's no way I'm getting back in the water.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Okay, hold on. Everyone's going to hate this. Make an argument for him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Look, everyone's fucked at this point. Let's just say no one's day is going as planned. So he's like, okay. I have this woman on board. Is it going to be easier for her to continue thinking her husband's safe?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
You could have just said eight-year-old daughter and we would have known the rest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Sure, sure, sure. They were on vacation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
They were looking for you to help them find Old Faithful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
That guy is up and down. He's like saying you're not qualified, you're a quitter, and then he's offering you a job. I mean, he's really got to get his narrative straight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh, Brennan. Have you ever gone rafting again?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
That sounds like a terrible honeymoon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
He flipped it. He drove it straight into the jump. Flipped it. He's like, I'll be alone with her in no time. Exactly. He's got to get rid of his uncle and nephew.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
He went back to Utah, he told me. He's getting this annulled. Well, it's nice meeting both of you. I'm sorry that was your honeymoon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Fuck yeah. Keep it nice and safe. But you might fall in love with your masseur.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Yeah, that's the kind of risk you'll take on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Okay, so Taylor, you have a wild card story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh, wonderful. Okay, so you have a wildcard story. So this could be anything. Could be a ghost story. We don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Now she's speaking your language.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Are you camping or are there lodges along the way?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
And you're going pootie in the woods and stuff?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Can I tell you, you will not be in trouble if you don't stick to the timeline.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
And hope a lion didn't leap out from behind you. And how do you wipe?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Just so you know, there's no threat of trouble. Speak for yourself. Okay, yes, that's true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
And have you gotten down? No, she's... Okay, but hold on. Have you gotten fully nude?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
You made a pinching sign. Did she pinch your breasts?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Elizabeth, what's your comfort level? Because again, we've talked about this in previous massage episodes. I can see myself succumbing to whatever. I could lock into like, I'm going with this. You know, where were you at mentally when she was on minute eight of your breast massage?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
I don't want to dwell on your assault, but I am curious. Was she going to try to finger you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
And at any point were you going, oh, wow, my professor's a pervert. She likes a neurotic massage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh, my Lord. She might have just been a fucking perv. Did you talk to your professor about it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
What would you have done on the breast part?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh, that was great, Elizabeth. That was great, thank you. Real twisty and turny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
That's what birthed the idea. I was getting a massage at a hotel, and I'd seen all these older men there on lover's weekends with their wives. And I thought, all these guys are on Viagra and Cialis. Are they becoming erect in these massages? That's what it started as. Are you sure? Yes, that's 100% what I started thinking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
What are all these guys who are all bumped up on CLs in Viagra for the weekend doing in these massages? Are they getting boners? I don't remember. You don't remember that part? I remember that. I kind of remember that. I think it's because everyone but Monica remembers it. You just scrubbed it from your memory. Yeah, that's probably right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
So nice meeting you. All right. Bye-bye.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Help me through. Help me with the math of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Today is Wildcard. Yeah. Dealer's choice, chef's kiss. Yes. Pick your poison.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Lilibet. We learned that on The Crown?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Why'd I forget that part? Because I'm bad with names. Cassandra?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Beautiful earring. Very eye-catchy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
No way. Amazing. Where do you live?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
We just talked to an armcherry that's from Salt Lake, and their story took place in Montana.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Okay, so you have a wildcard story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Buried alive. In thick, heavy dirt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh, my God. So this is a severe, crushing amount of weight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
And really quick, when you tried to move your hands up to your mouth to create that air pocket, could you move your body at all or you cemented in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
This is the nightmare of all nightmares. As someone who's claustrophobic, you're having a hard time breathing, right? Yeah, I can't breathe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Are you optimistic during this, or are you starting to get concerned you're going to run out of time?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh my gosh. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Sim, sim, sim, sim, sim.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
It's like you got hit by a train. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
That's the worst. I'm going to have a nightmare tonight. Yeah. You can count on it. Has the rest of the life been a joke? Like, well, I've already been through the worst. I got that out of the way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
What a story. Oh, man. Well, that delivered. Thank you so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great meeting you. Take care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
I'm starting to agree with you. I was against you and now I don't ever want to leave the safety of my bedroom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
These were scaly. Yeah, they should have been called scaly cod.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Life is a box of chocolates, as F. Gump said. I'm glad you're safe. I have a lot of gratitude for our safety.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Lungs burst. How do your lungs burst when you carry on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Roll of the dice. That's what Jess says all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Well, hold on. Necrotizing fasciitis? That means necrotic flesh. Is it dying necrotic flesh?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh, my God! I've heard of this on the news. I didn't think I'd ever meet anyone in real life. It's a streptis bacteria, isn't it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
It was cool. They should do it more like Russian roulette where you hold a toy pistol to your.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
the same thing that this woman had okay and can i ask is the source of it your finger you cut or the shot it was the shot i sent emma pictures i'm not sure if you want to jump ahead oh i do it's that time that whole pile the whole pile oh my lord oh Holy fuck, America. This is horrifying. Guys, you have to imagine. This is one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life. Oh, my.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh, but you have a smile on your face. Guys, you need to know it is virtually a football taken out of her upper arm. So they went in there and they cut that area out to get to all the bacteria.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
I'm going to be honest with everyone. This one leaned very medical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
painful you feel under medicated throughout this whole story i want to be their advocate you need a massive dilaudid you need some fentanyl i was on dilaudid but my fever wasn't going down and the pain medicine was probably helping but it felt like i was burning from the inside out this is horrifying i bet you felt like i did in mexico city but for days
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
I don't think you can feel worse than I felt for those eight hours. Well, let's hope you don't get this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Well, hold on. No, don't. No, no, don't. Oh, I'm only going to ask, were you 20 at the time? Was he like a 20 year old dum-dum?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Yeah. Don't listen. I think it's a skip. Yeah, don't listen. I think it's a skip. This one's a skip, everybody. So skip it and we'll see you next week. So have a great day. We'll see you next week. We'll see you next week for a different one. I loved it, though. Yeah, me too. This was wild.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
It was starting to eat right there. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh, Taylor. Sometimes life is just insanely unfair. You didn't even like do anything wrong while you cut your finger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
A lot of silver linings here. Boy, that fucking sucks. I'm going to put that in the top five worst injuries I've ever seen. And I've seen like a guy's leg come completely off in a snowmobile accident.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
wolf, bear, whatever. The bear attack.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Should we have a banquet for like the most injured armchairs?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah, thanks, Taylor. That's incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
You can't even post that picture.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Oh, explore it with like spelunking tools. You could definitely rappel down into this gash. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
I hate when people get sick at the hospital. It's so fucking common. They say it's like the most dangerous, but there's so many bacterias and viruses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Is this Brennan? It is. That's a great name. I don't think I've ever met a Brennan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Sometimes it's spelled with an A and not an E. Okay, so you've met other Brennans. Yes, but not in the same spelling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
They put the wild in wild card. All right, please enjoy Wild Card. Number seven? Yep, we've done seven. Holy. This is the seventh wild card?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
The Aaron Winkley's of the world. He went to an alternative high school. You could smoke cigarettes in class and stuff. It was real Lucy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Okay, so Brennan, you have a wild card story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
He was challenging your masculinity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
Can't be right, but I must be wrong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VII
So the boat did a wheelie. It went straight up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Kaylin, can you tell us why there's so many names for this? There's an optometrist, an ophthalmologist, and what did you, obstetrician? What did you just say?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
You were 10 or 11 and he's what, 13 or 14? I was like, how young is this dad? Exactly. No, he acts like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Oh, right. So he's like my age now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Oh, wow. And Kevin Garnett is there now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
No shit, you're dealing with three of the top 40 players of all time right there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Something tells me you're going to be grateful for that later in this story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
It might be a bad burger. Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah, yeah. And you're 15, so you've passed the threshold where you'd be a little kid that they'd feel bad for. You're a woman enough that it's just fucking disgusting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah, right. If you were 11, people would be like, oh, sweetie. But if you're pushing five foot two, people are like, fuck this. This gross bitch. This nasty bitch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
This story is filled with twists and turns because even when he said go. Yeah. I thought, oh, he's going to hang back and watch the game. But no, he's behind her. And then he's like, fuck, I'm going to hit this merch stamp. No, that's to get her a shirt. You have a good dad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Probably spent a lot of money on those seats. He wants to be good so bad. That's that tension.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Well, I think you got lucky because food poisoning for me, it's certainly not just one trip.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
That's what they have perfected over the time they've been in business. They know how to give you just a very cute. Just a quickie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
And does the ophthalmologist, would they perform a surgery on your eye?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
I'll take that. I guess that's a lesson.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Clutching at straws, but sure. Yeah. Well, Katie, it's lovely meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Ophthalmologist. Is that what it is?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
And how's that going? Do you like it? We're tough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah. Yeah. It's not for everyone. Like when you hear Gabor Monte, you're like, my man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Well, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. Sorry on behalf of all of us, Alex.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah. Wonderful. All right. Well, nice meeting you. Take care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
And James and the Giant Peach, you know, was originally going to be James and the Giant Raspberry?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah, I just heard this. What's his name? Adol?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Did he write that? Yeah. What a prolific...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah, it should have been a cherry. Oh, it might have been Michigan's cherry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
I've heard it said that way, but it just is weird to me that everything's opt-a, but then we go opt-thuh. Whatever. You've heard me complain enough about the product. So you're obviously in Canada. Did this sport event take place in Canada? And now I regret not wearing my maple leaf sweatshirt that I wear quite often.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Hi. Hi. Your shirt says, In My Wonder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah, it's one thing to get like a dusting every 10 years, but to get eight inches in Florida is wild.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah, there's not a single snow plow in the whole state. That's what's funny when it happens in these places. There's just nothing. You just have to sit there and wait for it to melt. Okay, so Emily, please tell us about your sporting event story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
He has a terrible opinion on what the outcomes of these things will be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
People will cheer. They'll be delighted that a guy got turned down and slapped in public. It's going to be a blast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Well, I think they do on occasion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah, I think around 50,000 we could safely say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Today we have sporting event disasters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah, every gal in that arena wanted to marry him all of a sudden.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
I can totally see that being on the news at all five.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Did the roommate expose himself as always knowing that was going to happen in his celebration of how great it went?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah, it's pretty Greek tragedy. Yeah. Oh, my God. Emily, how long did it take you to recover from that experience?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah, which you had 17 natural lights. You were right back in business.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
I don't think it was safe for you to be at those games anymore, to be honest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
I love that the grandmas were confronting you in the bathroom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Very memorable. Well, Emily, thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
that e cubed yeah all right take care emily love you guys thank you so so much bye I think that happened to the best person imaginable. Yes. Like you would have. I can't even imagine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
You would have never been in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Okay. Made the impossible possible. Hello. How's it going? Great. You want a fake name, which I'm always excited about. Is your real name George or your fake name George?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
I might intermittently call you Yorgo, the Greek pronunciation of George. Just look for that. Where are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Okay, good, good, good. Okay, so you attended a sporting event. I like to think you might be liable for something if you want a fake name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
There's a criminal element, but luckily it's all okay in the end. All right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Oh. Perfect game. At the Coliseum or at the Rose Bowl?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
It's a little bit of a bait and switch. But it sounds like from your perspective, you'd rather go to a hockey game anyways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
It is a big deal. That's the thing with these dealership sweepstakes. Somebody's buddies can always win, I think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
There's no mean Canadians. This is on a sliding scale. I kind of feel like Canadians might think of the Maple Leafs as a lot of Americans think of the Yankees. They got too much money and they got too much upper hand. Is that fair?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
I can jinx them, as just happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Oh, no, you should. You should. You're allowed. This is your opportunity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Carrying the burden of that. You'd be inclined to think maybe these are really only about sports.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
I'm dying to know what they were doing when they weren't in those seats.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Exactly. It's a little hard to get that up there. They don't do that there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
What noble men. Big, big noble men.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
But these go in some turns. We have some twisty turvies by the end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
For people who've not been in a lot of fights, this is the worst imaginable situation. You do not have high ground. You have low ground. Much easier to punch down with your weight on somebody than to punch up. Okay, so ill-advised plan from the get.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
And you're pregnant and you're one foot away. What's your husband's reaction?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
He's got to be kind of conflicted because common sense is you would go to the side of your team that you're both rooting for. But clearly the transients are assholes. You know, do I help the Maple Leafs guys who are my opponent or these knuckleheads who have started this? Right. You're a bit of a moral conflict here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Well, they have because they're wearing the outgroups jersey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Buckle up. Please enjoy Crazy Sporting Event Stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
People always wonder when you watch a fight, within seconds, people have their shirts off. You know they didn't stop to take it off. There is some bit of magic there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Or even make your way speedily out of the crowd.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Can you imagine being that guy and stepping up to like 15 full grown men fighting, thinking, oh, my God, my job is to make peace right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Maybe even some Super Bowl tickets. Oh, my God. Yeah, but it all came full circle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Okay. Did you feel any responsibility to tell the police, hey, the two transients started this? Like these three guys were kind of stand-up dudes and they're in an unfortunate situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
So probably they reduced the charges. That feels unjust.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
You know, I got to be honest in my many, many situations and crowded bars where this kind of thing happens. It's not your stereotype of who starts. It's not the big guy. It's the little motherfucker who's got to prove something. He and his buddy who feel little, they got to pop off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
They just did some blow on the bathroom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
It's very messy situations. Well, I'm glad you got out of there without catching an elbow or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Arthur, thank you for listening, Arthur. You must be a very bright boy. Well, Caitlin, thank you for that. That was a great story. It was wonderful meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Oh, beautifully. And what a lovely inviting sweater you're wearing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Where are you? It looks like there's files everywhere or lab results.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Katie, yeah, it feels like we're joining you on a set almost.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Yeah, it does look like you could definitely shoot a scene from that 70s show in there as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
And then really quick, the curtain, it seems to be like James and the Beanstalk type foliage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Sports Event
Okay, so you had a sporting event story. Where are you at, really quick?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Miniature Mouse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Sure. Did you find out if he had any priors for cold-cocking strangers in public?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
But you didn't? You did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Even when you call her an umpire, I lose track of it. She shouldn't even be called that, but yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I'm picturing a 62-year-old man on the weekend making 20 bucks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
We have a friend who's almost permanently at a little league game. He's got two boys. Two weeks can't go by without him reporting on some dad who goes berserk. It's crazy to me that people don't enter going like, okay, we know the bad thing. I can't be that dude. It's not like we don't know about this archetype.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
The majority of people don't win the championship.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Monica wouldn't know what that's like.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I know what it's like to be a loser. Yeah. Well, Matt, that was delightful. I'm sorry you got tagged, but also I'm glad I got to hear about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
And this is a very weird thing to say, but I also think it's good for a man to get blasted once in the face before they die. You know, we should all have had that experience. I mean, not really, but also I kind of feel that way. It was eye-opening. You live in fear of it your whole childhood, and then it happens and you live.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, I hope you guys have a really nice holiday season. Okay, you too, brother. Take care. Bye-bye.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I know. I looked over and you guys were giggling to each other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Right. That's what I'm saying. It's like, I can only speak as being a boy. You're seeing your buddies get punched all the time. You're so afraid of it happening. And then it happens and you're like, that's okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I don't want to punch you at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Just Vinny. When I was a kid, probably. Can you imagine if someone punched Vinny?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Well, only if he was afraid of it and he lived in great fear of it and then it happened and he was like, okay, I don't need to worry that much about that. It's not a big deal. Only in that scenario. It's a very specific set of guidelines I want Vinny to get punched under.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Now, what I liked, and I know you guys didn't have this, but we had pom-pom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
And they came out at halftime. They weren't there on the sidelines bouncing around during the game, but halftime came and they put on a full dance routine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Nice to meet you. Where are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay, yes. Monica's on a pun kick right now. This is like the third in a row. I swear we had very little Oklahomans and now we've had like three in a row.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Oh, thank you. So are you the parent of a Little Leaguer? No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
But you have a Little League story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Oh, wonderful. It's a personal story. First of all, can I see your t-shirt?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
And that was Sassy Feld was one of the premier members of that team.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Oh my God. I've never seen that. That's incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
We encourage people to make as much shit as they want. We're not litigious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
All right. So yeah, hit us with Little League.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Mm hmm. Yeah. Standard fare.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I had a hunch maybe dad might say, why don't you beam him? But continue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
And then maybe you could even be compassionate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
He sucks. Now he's insecure. So he's got to make other people feel bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
You did. And you liked that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Monica's upset, but continue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay. All right. Well, this is about Little League coaching disasters and we have four of them coming your way. All of them are pretty PG. You might want to skip it because there's really nothing to see.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay, so now did it turn, Monica? Are you still in?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Oh, good, good, good, good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I hope that's the last time he opened his mouth to a girl. But I'm afraid it maybe got worse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I know love's the answer, Monica. It's hard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
You're kidding. You got to give us a little more than that. Under what circumstance? I got to love this left turn.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay. Now we, okay. I like the idea that you shouldn't listen no matter what.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Oh, this piece of shit. I mean, the bar is fucking low. No, he sucks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I love that you hooked up with him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
It's really funny you would bring this up because I didn't foresee this would ever be a thing that I would have to deal with having girls, but I'll leave them for you to guess. But one of them has a classmate that keeps touching her inappropriately, and she has told her very directly, do not touch me. Again, I'm going to be a little sympathetic. This girl's probably got something going on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I don't know why she is this way. Oh, it's a goal doing it? I have to assume something's not great at home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
And they're young. And I said, OK, well, here's what we're going to do. We're going to make the teacher aware of this. And that is step one. And if it does not correct itself, you have my full blessing to do whatever you want. If someone's ever touching you inappropriately, whatever has to happen, I stand by you in this situation. So weirdly, that just came up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
But you don't want someone to touch your body if you don't want them to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Again, it breaks my heart because I think this girl's probably already got some stuff going on. So I don't also want her to get beat up. But I've seen Delta go after her older sister. And I mean, that's... It's obvious. Yeah, it's kind of obvious. I've seen Delta go after her older sister and I have had the thought.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I hope no one ends up on the other end of her because she is a feisty motherfucker.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Oh, Megan, what a story. Yeah, that was fantastic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Oh, my God. Congratulations. That's so beautiful. Yes, yes, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
How liberating is that, huh? To finally stop carrying all that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Way worse. That's the big gift, right? You can show up for people. That's right. Thanks for telling me that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, you really hate that boy. Was it you? Really brought up some stuff. No, I didn't talk to girls like that. I was a nice boy-ish.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
You're a worthy adversary. Now, you know, I say I don't like when people spell standard names differently. I'm really enjoying the spelling of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Right? That's good. I reversed my position. Reverse back. Hello.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I was just saying, Maddie, I generally don't like when people spell a standard name differently, yet here I am. I love M-A-D-I.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay, Maddie, you have a Little League story?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Really quick, why? Is that where George Washington is? What's there? Why is it academically hard?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, he might get some PTSD. Maybe he's been in one of these situations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Well, hold on. Don't worry yet. Don't worry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I can picture it perfectly. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay. Did you call him Tiger?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Can I ask, are you in a lake or a river?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Champ, okay. Please enjoy Little League Coaching Disaster Crazy Stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I'm going straight to gators.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Can I ask a quick question? Did he even bring a flashlight? Did he shine a light at the boat to see if water was coming on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Hi there. Hi. How you doing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
At any point, did anyone think to row to shore and get off the fucking boat?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Right, because you've been bludgeoned into submission by a coach.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, the military is dicey because sometimes you have to break that chain of command.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
A bunch of young girls dying. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Some dishonorably discharged cadet is screaming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
How many girls are in the boat?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Oh, wow. They had nine girls in their kitchen trying to warm up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Now, how did you guys perform that year? Sounds like you had gone through hell and back. Maybe you would be great after all that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Luckily, it didn't go in the direction you were fearing it would.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
No, even before that. You heard 26.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
So at least that wasn't on the table.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
You think he grew up and wanted to take out his frustration against women?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Wow. Well, you made it. I'm sure you guys had a blast ripping him apart every time he wasn't looking or listening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Well, Maddie, what a disaster. Thanks for telling us that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
All right. Nice meeting you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Bye. Hello. I'm going to cry. Don't cry yet. Cry at the end. Save it for the end. What name are we going to use?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay, Mary, Mary. We love when someone wants a fake name. That feels like it's very promising. Like maybe there's residual legal issues or something. Mary, are you allowed to tell us where you're at or do you think that'll be too revealing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
That works. That's enough of a stereotype as I need.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
If you're the parent, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
It's hard to be present with T-ball when you have this other life happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Do you want to draw a picture for us and we'll describe what we're saying?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
He thinks he's texting with just one member of this group text.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, so he met some other t-baller mom and then he now thinks he's got a side thing going, but he accidentally, he went to her name, Gail, and then got too hasty because he's in the mood for third base. And then he fires off a text and he didn't realize it was the one where they list all the options.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
No one knows what to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
She must have felt so self-conscious. You're also going through a divorce. I feel like all this would just be so hard to deal with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Like, yeah, I'm going through a divorce. Yes, my husband's clearly on the warpath. And now you all know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Did this prompt make you wish you had played Little League baseball?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay, two questions. Did your ex-husband respond ever after he realized what he did?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
And did you sidebar with him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay. Now, how did that conversation go?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
How many years ago was that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I can't imagine the searing heat that would shoot through my body the second I realized I had done that. I can't imagine a more embarrassing thing to all the parents. Yeah, as much as you suffered, I guarantee he too, probably.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I doubt he high-fived anyone after that. Did he remarry?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
A couple of times. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Weird question. Did any of the fellow T-Ball dads see this as a door opening opportunity for you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I could see someone going like, ah, this poor gal. She's got embarrassed by her husband.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
You want to get frisky too to show them?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
No, out of generosity and kindness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay. You don't like that one bit. How long have you been listening?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Oh, that makes me so happy, Mary. Oh my God. What a story. Thank you so much for telling us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
If you could see her face, what a sweet lady.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Hi there. Oh, wow. Immediate connection.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
The last person that deserves to be on that text chain.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
That was a hell of a week of her life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Do it. What do you say? Men are terrible?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, we didn't have any ladies who really shit the bed ethically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, I just think if you just live in the sports world, you're just with other boys and men all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Almost never happens. Hey, I do what I can to help you out. And you sound phenomenal. Are you a podcaster?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay, this is great. You know who I think are the most evolved? Soccer players.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Because that was kind of the alternative sport when I was growing up. If you weren't like a jock jock, but your parents wanted you on a team, that was kind of what you did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
What do we think is the worst? Chess players. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Arrogant. Know-it-alls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Well, it would make a bit of sense that as you chart the violence of the sport.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's not terribly hard to imagine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
You're probably over-indexing in testosterone. You've been told to be tough nonstop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Well, I love you. And I'm just so grateful that my kids aren't currently yet in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Although someone is trying out today for something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah. It didn't take. Well, no, it was just, I think that team only assembled to play a couple games, and then they did that. It was like her school.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Well, that was when she was a baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, yeah. That's back when we were in the phase of, like, they have to be in something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
And then why, I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah. All right, love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
No. Me neither. I went to a ton of Little League games because I supported Aaron. I would go to all his games.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
It's mechanical, yet it's not automated, so you still have to load it. A person has to pull it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
And can there be a strike or does it always throw a perfect ball? Oh, God, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Oh, wow. You made it to the state tournament.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Well, I was going to say, given the fact you made the top tier with a losing record tells me that there are a handful of teams that want every fucking match and then everyone else is kind of normal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I'm about to enter that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, where Lincoln goes to a school that has sports and I get emails inviting to sports. She's not even on, but should we go support the school? And I very much want to. I think that sounds really fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, you can come. They need support.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, sure. Also, though, Minnesota honor policy works probably in Minnesota. Not everywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
I don't even know that there's cheerleaders.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Oh, no, this poor 13-year-old. This poor 13-year-old girl.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
No, no, when you get a third person out, you automatically get five runs. We won by six points.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay. I don't even know if there is. I'm just, if ever there wasn't going to be one at an all-girls school, I feel like maybe that would be the place.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Let's just get clarification for you. You like competitive cheer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Yeah, your three backfired on you. You went to three. He went to 17. He went to 17.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Sure, sure. Been there. And it takes you a good 20 seconds before you put all the pieces together. Like, okay, huh, I was standing. I'm laying down. Oh, and I heard a crack in my head. Oh, right. I've been punched. Oh, here we are. Right. You got to kind of like catch up to what's happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
So you're not, you don't really want gals.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Little League/Coaching
Okay, but it wouldn't be a part of the sports game I'm going to see, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Mrs. Mouse. Hi. Meet cute part do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Well, yeah, I was gonna say, how connected are you still to your class? Have you gone to a reunion and found out that 30% of the people were married to their match?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Oh, well, it looks great. First of all, where are you other than this cute cave?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Oh, my God. By Aaron Weakley. Do you ever see Aaron Weakley?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, Sean's kind of a storybook figure, right? I didn't think... You didn't think they existed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
You're right. 6,000 interviews later, we've met one. So...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Me too. I'm sorry. I asked that question. I just always marvel that my eighth grade girlfriend, she broke up with me in ninth grade for another guy. And she is still with that guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
But Beverly Hills is tiny. I love Beverly Hills. That's such a secretly great place in Michigan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
I guess I'm just too greedy of a pig. I needed to experiment everything. Yeah. Okay. You guys, so nice meeting you. I'm really heart warmed by this. Yeah, me too. Yeah. I feel good about humanity right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
All right. Great meeting you guys. You too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
I do, too. I have a bad view of the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Well, a little bit. Hello. Hi. Where are you, Julie?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
London, Ontario. You got it. Home of Rachel McAdams.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Okay. Tell us your meet cute story. What year?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
What do you guys have there? You have like a little arena or something?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
It's all about the yards, Monica, in Beverly Hills.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
If you're someone who your big hobby in life is seeing live events, good place to move.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
How late is late? When's he get there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Do you know the history of why it's called Beverly Hills? Does it predate
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Most generous case I could make is they thought she left the bar entirely. She was hammered. And they're like, well, fuck, we better grab her stuff and she'll surface.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Got 30 or 40 red flags to hit you with. I want to get them out quickly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Can I add one thing? If you knock a guy out on the sidewalk and you're trying to not get arrested, don't carry a long board because they go, yeah, it's a guy carrying a fucking obnoxiously long skateboard and no one else is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
You had to. Okay, Heather, you have a meet-cute story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Did he tell you why he was there? Was he also a witness to something?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
He remembered your name? Oh, that's impressive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
You're having a hard time computing all the coincidences.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Even when you told me that he said some guy tripped me on my skateboard and we got in a fight and I knocked him out. Even when I heard that, in my mind, I was like, probably something inane happened and you overreacted and punched a guy. So when you got to hear Curtis's side of the story, what was it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
You're making a strong case to moving to London. It's like the bar's let out and it's chaos. Jay-Z's there. I know. It's incredible. Come join us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Think about his versions even more, Sam. Like something terrible happened to him, but it resulted in the greatest thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Well, Julie, what an adorable story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
We did. Some guy walked through a fucking plate glass window and fell down two stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, Rob, flag that. You got it after staircase sex. We're going to put out a prompt. Tell us about a staircase fucking that went wrong. Do you think anyone's going to submit to that? Do you think people have tried to fuck on a staircase?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, just tell us about time. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
You're reminding me. I had sex in the stairwell of the Luxor Hotel when I was 23. But not on the stairs. Not on the stairs, leaning against a railing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Well, you acted so shocked when I... I did, but I had not even thought of stairwells. Have we already put it on our list to do the foreign bodies and the colon thing, whatever that official term was? Because I was just reading a Sedaris story and he said that he has a couple different nurse and doctor friends and that they all have the stories too. And he has a whole thing about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Well, you're delightful. And I think you are a very good ambassador for London, Ontario.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Okay. That's the goal. All right. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
So maybe this is a prompt for you. Tell us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
And I'm going to immediately throw Rob under the bus because he said Leah out loud. Why did mom and dad choose Lee? Is there a story behind it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Oh, back-to-back Canadians. Are you currently in Canada?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
What's Greenfield? How close is that to Boston?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, that's an incredibly beautiful part of the country. Okay, so you have a meet-cute story. Where does it take place? What year?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
This is where the boy got poop on the staircase.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah. Nice mix of marijuana and cigarettes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
He was super charming and he's very tall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
I want to enroll there. I'm going to move to London, Ontario and then commute to Amherst.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, you're about to quit tomorrow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Can we digress for one second? I can't think of anything more fun than being at this college and being able to stumble and drunk between 11 and 2 a.m. and fucking eat a bunch of diner food. Fuck with your buddies. I didn't have that experience. That's really fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
A little bit of poop coming out of his pants. Not quite that tall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Is he related to the Elephant Man? Wasn't his last name Merrick?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Oh, Herrick. Sorry, I went with an M. I understand it's a lot to take in with the letters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
How soon do you explain to him what he's just fallen into?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Is he a student at this point? I've never known a student to have a dog on campus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
I feel like it's part Trey, but it's part Dew.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Half Doberman, half bloodhound. This is a big dog.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
I got to say, I'm now staring at your face extra scrutinizing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, you're fucking lucky. That's a big mouth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, they kind of are palate cleansers. They're uplifting. They're hopeful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Even more shots needed now, but continue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, we needed it because we had animal attacks, and we've had shit in your pants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Can I ask at this point how much you like Brian out of 10?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Oh my gosh. How long did the dog last throughout this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
He could smell that there was a love connection and that they were going to be together forever. And he was a little drunk from the champagne water he drank out of the bong. Of course, yeah. I know that was two different parties, but still.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
There's a whole host of depravity, really.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
It's interesting you said, I put my hand up and touched the wall. When you said it, I thought that's an interesting detail. Is that foreshadowing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
It was. Yeah, you must ask yourself, had he not bit your face? And both of you are not asking for anyone's numbers. Like, neither of you are pursuing this with any kind of gusto. Had the dog not intervened and caused this walk home and the ice pack, I don't think we're here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Could be called armchair depravity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Well, you got to give credit where credit's due. I must. That's also another ethos of yours. Well, Heather, it's lovely meeting you. I'm delighted we've got a Michigander in the audience. We don't talk to nearly enough people from Michigan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, before we go, if you had to guess what the best amusement park in the world is, what would you say?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
but it's not. It's called Armchair Anonymous, and this is Meet Cute Part Two. Please enjoy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
I don't think that one makes any sense.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
We're definitely going to have to do an armchair trip there for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
The T-shirt, and you put it over your pillows. Yeah, you smell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, I'd be really curious if we could get an evolutionary biologist to explain why that is. Do we not smell as good? Is it more important for a female throughout history to be able to identify her partner? There has to be an explanation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, I agree. All right, we have a pair. Oh, fun. Ah, you're in two different locations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
But wait, are you in the same home?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Really quick, why does one go on vacation to Colorado Springs? Is there an activity you both love that's available there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, and you'll hike in the snow?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Someone did fall. They were embarrassed and they're being kind and not telling the story. Okay. Sean and Megan, who begins?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, yeah. Greatest place on Earth?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so funny that you don't get intrigued. Has there ever been a topic that's so unanimously loved we've ever brought up anywhere?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
You can't even ask people, do you like Coca-Cola, and get this level of approval.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
That was closer for you guys, right, King's Island? Yeah. The Beast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
There must have been one 11th grader that was like a future Bill Gates. Who could orchestrate this whole thing? Is that person now a billionaire?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
By the way, if I had designed this test, I would have rigged it where everyone got me in their top five.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
It also begs the question, is your perfect match someone that's got the same interest in you? I don't think so. I think your perfect match is the opposite of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
All in marching band. It was off to a great start, but then you're like, oh, this is a very small pool of people that he's the hottest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Hottest guy in the marching band. That should be your autobiography, Sean. I know, it really should.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Oh, I believe it. Looking at Sean, I believe that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
I would say for people who watch that Kingdom show, the lead of Kingdom, very handsome dude. Frank Gorillo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Oh, awesome. Now, Sean, and I don't want to jump ahead, but was she on your list?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
And did they say Megan's the hottest chick on the math team?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
I can only imagine how unruly everything, no one learned a fucking thing for the next week and a half as they try to get married. Okay, so it parts and you see Sean and you're like, schwing, wow. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
Your Audi is a very good roller skater.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute II
So nothing happened. You guys met, but you didn't pursue it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
No spoilers. Here's Roy Choi. We are supported by the Lenovo Yoga Aura Edition, imagined with Intel. You know we love chatting and learning about AI here on the show. With the incredible advances in tech and AI over the last couple of years, you need a laptop that can keep up. Great news. Lenovo and Intel have joined forces to engineer the best laptops in the industry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Although I do have a friend who's Chinese who moved here when she was 10, and she was like, I could not fucking tell one white person apart. So that's also a thing. Oh, is that a thing? Yeah, in fact, we even had a female black professor who studies this, and she said all in-groups can't recognize out-groups. Really? Yeah, so black folks think white people all look the same.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
White people think Asians look the same. Asians, when they first get here, think we all look the same. And by we, I mean white people I'm speaking for.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
But anyway, yeah, it is a phenomenon that we all experience. It's like we get really, really acute wisdom of differentiating our group because we're around it nonstop. And then we don't have much experience with other groups.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, they've certainly. We're the worst offenders because we then take that and then we build a whole system off of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, you pay a different price because the white people are the key holders to every opportunity, whereas it's not reversed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, well put. The other thing I found really, really fascinating, and again, I was in this class in 99, so we were not very far off the L.A. Rodney King riots.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And so much of that, I feel like, was explained in this class. One of them being this... intense tension between often Korean store owners and black customers in these neighborhoods. And they broke it down in the simplest ways. Like the way you show respect in Korea is to not engage eye contact, is to be quiet, is to basically answer when asked a question.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Like that's how they would show respect to a customer that comes in the store. And then for the black community, it's literally the opposite. It's just a tinderbox of cultural differences between
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And so you were in that. You lived for periods in South Central. And what was your personal experience? I just get along with people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Those kids were being kids and you were betraying your people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
How many places did you live, do you think, between arriving at two years old and then, let's say, going off to the military school? Eight to ten, yeah. Now here's a really easy theory to concoct. I moved a ton as well. And I crave control like you can't imagine. Do you think cooking was like, oh gosh, here's this eight by eight area that I am in total control over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And I know what the outcome will be if I do it correctly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
A ton of the hip hop that I love that came out of L.A. in the late 80s, early 90s is just chock full of negative Asian stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
As opposed to thinking like, I insist on weaving these together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Let's add that this normal system to deal with that, you're not included. Nor were black folks were included. So a white person instinctually, they know to call the cops.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah. I'm curious what owning the restaurant in Anaheim was like. Were you like, oh, great. This is a gateway to peace. Or were you ever like, fuck you. You're the same fuckers that are yelling and saying shit behind my back. And now you want to come and enjoy this insane food and act like that ain't the case.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I am totally shame-ridden to report that in Michigan in the 80s, if people went out for Chinese food, you'd hear several of the families trying out their Chinese accent. You'd see people taking pictures that were offensive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, where I'm from in Michigan, my introduction to someone speaking in an Indian accent is a cartoon version, which we've actually had a lengthy, yeah, we had Hank on to go through that whole thing. And I, again, I'm embarrassed to say that had I not had a best friend who was Indian and really learned the story and really learned how few people represent her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Until Mindy arrives, it's like, who's Monica on TV? The studios, networks, all these people, they had a market-driven assessment of everything, which is like, well, who's going to go see this? And they were wrong. John Chu's a friend of ours, Crazy Rich Asians, enormous. Everyone was wrong, as it turns out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
What percentage do you know of the U.S. population we could consider Asian? Well, when you say Asian, you have to consider Pacific Island. You have to consider India. I will not consider India. That's a longstanding debate. He always wants to separate that. I carve them out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
An eighth Filipino. So his, what is it? Twelve and a half. Twelve and a half. So his wife is half Filipino. So his son is 25%. And since he's his dad, he's 12.5%. I hate this. That's not how it works.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like you know to check your sunroof first before driving through the car wash. Like you know to put the leash on your dog first before you open the door to go for a walk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
You know, Kristen's been ordering a ton from Quince.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Not that I've ever made that mistake and had my dog run outside without me or screamed his name repeatedly over and over and over again until I found him. Or, you know, to check that the guy who asked you out is an armcherry first before you agree to go on a date with him. Sage advice. Essential. Checking first is smart. So, check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
You're in good hands with Allstate. This content is intended for audiences in the U.S. only. Savings vary. Terms apply. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Northbrook, Illinois.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, and I told her, you know, they're a sponsor. And she couldn't believe it. Being stylish and comfortable allows you to feel your best, making you ready to tackle anything that comes your way. That's where Quince comes in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
So in your really interesting story of moving everywhere, having all these different interests, making dumplings at eight, mom selling her own signature brand of kimchi around. Yeah. You first go to Korea out of college or before college?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
They don't speak it. Once mom hits that certain pitch in her voice, you start understanding whether you know the words or not. You're pretty sure on what's being said.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
It sounds like you were already so immersed in the culinary culture that going there must not have been that big of or was there still another level that you were made aware of once you were there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
My order, I can tell you right now, there was a Jack in the Box in my house in Santa Monica. And five nights a week I was in there ordering the ultimate cheeseburger and then six of those tacos with the fucking buttermilk dipping sauce. And I'd go sit in my Lazy Boy and just get myself into a food coma and pass out. That's it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
What do you think is happening with the younger generation? Because I have a theory on it. People love to write these articles like the millennials care more about avocado toast than owning a home. And on the surface, you're like, okay, so I guess the implication is they're economically irresponsible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
But the older I get, I go like, oh, no, no, these are people who have chosen experiences over objects. Yes. And that's what's scary to everyone, actually, is because our economy runs on selling objects, not experiences. I know you had Dave Chang. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, it was like the first punk rock Asian food offering.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I didn't know what he was going to do. Me neither. I got scared. I had nothing planned. I winked it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
When I grew up, there was a class aspect to it that, of course, I rejected. So it's not just that I didn't think that was a good use of my money. It also represented to me elites like, oh, these fucking idiots are spending six hundred dollars on dinner. Like there was a whole chip on my shoulder about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Exactly right. Yeah. So like we would have the once a year nice meal. And then, of course, when we would go there, I would feel less than the whole time. And yeah, I've never felt that way walking up to Momofuku or any of these places. I don't get that anymore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And the staff, I sometimes would be like, got this fucking waiters treating us like we don't belong here. That was another, I don't know if that was in my head or it was happening or a combination of both.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And I think the staff has increasingly felt cool that they're doing it. Not that they're like, they too should be blue chip family, third generation wealth. Absolutely, yeah. Like they've got a different swagger, which is cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Boy, I've really kind of under, I don't want to say undervalued, but under-recognized how much of our culture is driven by food. Of course, I always think of film and music and fashion, but... I don't think I've really incorporated as much how food drives so much of this. Well, I come from a foodless culture is probably why.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah. And that kind of like changed the course of your life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Rathers, and I'm joined by Minister Mouse, the Duchess of Duluth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, you can get into thousands of dollars of troubles. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, wow. Did you have the obsession? I read Dostoevsky's The Gambler. Now, I have had every addiction, but that one, for whatever reason, blew over me. You're lucky. I'm so fucking lucky.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
In The Gambler, the component I was missing that I couldn't latch on to was at least the book claimed this obsession with getting even.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
They've done all these adrenal studies too that gamblers are getting their biggest high when they're losing the most. Yes. Which is fucking so abstract for a non-addict.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, the sex chinchilla. Okay. That's grown on you a little bit, hasn't it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
The other thing that I think that addiction has over all others is the financial pull. It's like there's no way in which I can construct some fantasy where I'm going to go get the money back I spent on Coke.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Also, you're in the judgment business. So you sit down at these tables, you have this added ego going like, well, five of these guys are much dumber than I am.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, you're right. Like they make you really angry for a while and then just who has the energy? You don't have the energy. Yeah. I think we've talked about it, but like when you catch yourself putting energy into staying mad...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, this is in the era where most of those were generating like 10%, mid-90s. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Like, a lot of times it's just a runaway freight train in your head, right? And then I did this, and then I did this. For some reason, I can see it in my mind when I'm like, well, now I'm actively trying to remember.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, leave the world as you found it or better. And just so people understand the power of the Kogi truck who don't live in Los Angeles, on Parenthood, basically we all took our turn ordering the Kogi truck. Everything was commemorated with the Kogi truck. I remember you guys on my calendar. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I remember those days. Yeah. Parenthood. Probably driven by Mae Whitman. I bet she brought us to the Kogi.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Just if you've not had one, I'll put this up there with the Emily Burger, which is you're eating these tacos because it's Mexican-Korean fusion. Yeah. You're having this beef that's been marinated in a way you're not expecting in a taco. The onions taste different. Like, yeah, when I'm eating that, and this was before I was really even into food, this part of me starting to be into food is like...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Holy shit. Everything that's on this thing isn't there to look like something. I can taste each thing. That's new.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, yeah. All of us. Someone who doesn't do that, a nice, nice boy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Okay, so I once watched you with Favreau. You made him a grilled cheese. I'm assuming it was on The Chef Show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Roy Choi. Roy Choi is a restaurant entrepreneur, an acclaimed chef, and a best-selling author.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, right, right, right, right. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I got to say, I've had this moment twice. Monica and I had it while watching Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Where they were in the Italy episode. And we started looking at each other like, we're going to do this, right? We need to get on an airplane tonight. Yeah. And then that grilled cheese, I was like, I think I'd cut my pinky off to taste that grilled cheese right now. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yes. It was one of these heart connection ones.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And the care that went into it and the amount of butter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I think. He has several restaurants, Kogi BBQ, an incredible restaurant, best friend at Park MGM in Las Vegas. But most importantly, he has this tremendous show called Broadcast. Broken Bread, and it is out now. Season two, that's an Emmy Award and James Beard Award winning series that looks at food and how interwoven it is with culture. And it's fascinating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
But I can see the connective tissue, which is for 35 years, we eat all this processed garbage food. Everyone's putting on weight. So now we're on this mad grab to figure out how to not get so overweight. So then butter's ruled out. Salt's going to lead to hypertension. All these things, it's like, no, no, eat shit with real ingredients.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
You can probably have that much butter and things will be okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, Dolby Atmos. The grilled cheese is cooking in all corners of the room. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
John is like the most willing pupil in the world. And he's fucking been rewarded so greatly for it because he can go to you and say like, I don't know shit. Teach me how to do this right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yes, it's incredible. He was going to do a project at one point and he actually called me, which was great because I got nothing to teach him. Yeah. But he was doing something based on early hominids and he knew I was an anthropology major. He's basically like, what textbooks do you have? And let's chat. And this was the first time I kind of got to have that role for five minutes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
But yeah, within 10 minutes, like he's got it. He's got it. Almost annoyingly so. Well, this was four years of my life. I'm glad you got it. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
It's very impressive. Oh, fuck him. Yeah. All right, let's talk about your show. You are in second season of Broken Bread, and your show has a really kind of noble pursuit in what you're covering and what things you want to expose. And we've touched on a few of them, but right out of the gates of the first episode, you go down to, is it 26th Avenue? Night Market.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And I guess just if you could really quick, what happened in the pandemic to the restaurant business? Completely folded. Do we know what percentage of restaurants went out of business?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And it's kind of, he uses it as a route into healing, connection, wonderful stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I remember having this in the early 2000s when Roscoe's had declared bankruptcy. I was like, I've never been there where there wasn't a 30 minute wait.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
What is the side of the equation that's so fucked up? Is it that we don't pay enough for food? Or is it that the food, I kept hearing in the episode that the food is really expensive. What part is broken in the equation?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Absolutely. Wow. Aren't all things? Yeah. Please enjoy Roy Choi.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And I'm right in that. I think restaurants are the highest fail rate of any business people start.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And who's the guy who owns Shake Shack and those other restaurants? Danny Meyer. Yeah, so what do you think of his approach? I remember seeing a 60 Minutes on it where he got rid of tipping at the things and the food just cost more.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I'm glad you're here to talk about this because I also don't think this is a problem many people are just aware of to be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I had a pair in high school that I just want more than anything. Do you remember the Air Escapes? Yeah. Yeah, they were kind of like Air Force, I guess. And mine were kind of a gray and a blue and a white. I just keep waiting for them to come out with those.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
honest yeah I watched this 60 minutes just a few weeks ago and it was about 20 million Americans quitting their job between January and February and the number one was hospitality that was the biggest sector that lost employees and then construction oddly was in there which is generally pretty high paying but do you think that we're at a kind of unique time where no one wants to fucking do these jobs anymore and that the leverage is going to
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Or, you know, like what L.A. Unified does, and I might have this wrong, at least when my ex-girlfriend started teaching at Crenshaw High, was you get some mortgage deals. For teachers, there's some help from the government to live in the areas where they teach. Otherwise, no one in L.A. that's teaching could live in L.A.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
You just wonder if like that could fan out to a lot of things we value and we want.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, I'll tell you, as a staunch capitalist, the part that makes a ton of sense to me is Apple made the best mousetrap. They should be worth a trillion dollars.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I know, it's even hard to find a picture of those things because they also came in brown and white, and I really would love the brown ones. I've looked for them many times.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I'm for that. But they couldn't have made that mousetrap in India. They couldn't have made it almost any other country. That's why we have 80,000 of those companies and most countries don't have any. So this country is a place where that can happen because it has an infrastructure, it has a university system, it has employees, it has all this stuff. That needs to be recognized.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
On some level, it would just be dishonest to not say that the system itself helped create this trillion dollar company and that some part of that trillion dollars needs to continue to nurture the system that can allow more apples.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I don't want the government owning fucking chip manufacturers, but I do want the people who've profited from this amazing system to keep the system working in a healthy manner. Because I think without it, we won't have those...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, I want someone to do some hard science of what the earned credit would be. Like if they wanted to launch Apple anywhere else in the world, what incurred expenses would they have also generated? And I'm not even asking for all that, but like maybe half of that we put back in the system.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
My last question on this is, have there been any movements so that multiple restauranteurs can co-op themselves so that they can can have the leverage when they're ordering the beef and they're ordering the vegetables.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Let me drop a little seed for the air decks. I want to ask you about it because I imagine we're coming from a semi-similar situation, which is like, I wanted Jordan so fucking bad. Of course, we couldn't afford him. And I was in an interview in Detroit five years ago. The person interviewing me had on a brand new, beautiful set of fours.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Even the cooks, you would think, like, before this was told to me, I would have assumed they were the highest paid people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
We were talking to Dan Savage kind of privately and he was talking about servers in Austria for some reason. And that when you just pay those people an appropriate hourly wage and they have healthcare and they have leave and they can have children, you stop being patronizing to them
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
oh you know this this kind of fake niceness that people have because we all can feel the guilt of it we know so it's just like you know would it be crazy if just everyone got paid a real thing and it wasn't like each table was just do or die they like me they don't like me i'm gonna make no money or a ton of money like any other job just like every time you did your job every time i did a line acting yeah they came over i don't know it's a little cuckoo
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
things you've said those things right yeah well I just want to say your show has a ton of great episodes that explore all kinds of fun things from seed to table we talk about the sovereignty of seeds which is so fascinating that's a I think a topic you would really enjoy on this podcast get some specialists in here we're on the verge of losing seeds
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And is this where, as I understood, I saw some 60 Minutes on it or something, where it's like Roundup has a seed that Roundup works perfect for. I'm sure a lot of companies do this, so I'm not singling anyone out. But then some of that seed will blow into another farmer's field, and that seed actually has a trademark on it. Yes. And so now they sue them for that. Yes. This is how it works.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And I was like, oh my gosh, you've kept those that beautiful? I'm sorry, they were fives. And he goes, no, they're like a month old. They just came out. And I was like, hold on a second. I literally had no idea. He goes, oh yeah, go to this thing. And in the interview, I hit send and bought like three pairs of the ones I always wanted. And now I just can't fucking stop. There you go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Are they heirlooms? Heirloom seeds. If you're listening and you've never had an heirloom tomato like a real one, it looks grotesque. It looks like a spoiled brain out of an elephant maybe. It's not going to draw you in with its convolutions. Fucking taste one of those things. Oh my God. You can't even say that that's a tomato and the other thing I get is a tomato.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, as we're finding out, like we're having all these autoimmune diseases as a product of a lot of this stuff. So now that'll get confronted. Eventually they'll acknowledge, oh, this gives it. And then so they'll steer it to, you know, we'll have another product to solve the first problem. Absolutely. And that's what the seed protectors are fighting. Oh my God. So cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And then you got Chuck D and Lamerit Park, which is so cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, and then your children are born without any of that generational wealth. Any generational wealth. Yeah, it has to start there in many ways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh my God, I forgot that you guys are... Cohorts. Yeah, yeah. Peers in the food space. Well, listen, man, I'm so happy for you that as a man with many addictions, you've somehow figured out the same thing I figured out, which is you just get to go hang out with all these people you're probably super fascinated with. And that's your fucking quote job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
So tip of the hat to you and to me and to Monica. Yeah. So great to finally meet you and hang. And I wish you a ton of luck and everyone should find and record and watch. You might have an Audibody experience. Don't rule it out. Broken Bread season two, check it out now. And if you want to learn more, please go to brokenbread.tv. That's so simple to remember, brokenbread.tv.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I think you can go there and get activated if you want to get involved in some of these issues you cover. And Roy, what a fucking delight. Thank you. I hope next time we meet, we're eating something. Yeah, please. And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate, Monica Badman. I can't believe you dress as a teddy bear now. This is your new look, teddy bear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
No, Theodore Roosevelt, who was a hunter. He was on a big hunt, and he didn't have the heart to kill this certain bear they had cornered.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And then the newspapers made fun of him. And they said, Teddy's bear got away or whatever. And then they started making adorable little bears as if to say, like, it was so cute he couldn't shoot it. So that's why they're called, they were Teddy's bear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, I read a... I'm trying to think where I just found this out, but I did tell the girls that. And then it led to a little six-minute history of Theodore Roosevelt. And at the end of it, Kristen said... You just know that much about Teddy Roosevelt? I was like, no, no, I read a great biography on him. In fact, I only remember six minutes of what was an incredibly awesome 25-hour biography.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
But incredible life, Theodore Roosevelt. Yes. He was a sickly boy. He was very sickly. He had asthma quite bad. And he wasn't allowed to play with other boys. And he was weak. And he became a learned man. He went to college and whatnot. And at some point he was like, I hate this. And he went out to a ranch in the West. And he became a cowboy for years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yes, and then a cowboy. And then very strong and gained his confidence. And when he came back, people could not believe what happened to Teddy Roosevelt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yes. Well, maybe six times. He was a sickly boy and he completely got over his asthma and he was strong as an ox and a very principled man and very strong. And he'd overcome that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Three countries had given up. Many different companies had gone bankrupt. And Teddy said, we're fucking doing this through hell or high water. And he did it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I want to add it's always Roy Choi. When we did Best of that year, you were like, I don't really care who you guys pick. We've got to have Roy Choi. So I'm just curious.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
We have a new armchair baby. A new armchair submarine sandwich.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Can we know his name? Yeah, it's Vincent Gregory. After Vincent D'Onofrio. D'Onofrio, if you're listening, congratulations. Big fans, big fans. Vincent's an awesome name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Also, legendary motorcycle company from England, the Vincent Black Shadow, the most valuable motorcycle in the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, because he was 12.5 with Calvin and then another 12.5. You're right. He's 25. So now he's matching Calvin and Vincent.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Was there anything though as like a junior high kid that you wanted that you couldn't have that you've now gotten?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Of course we did because he and Roy are both Asian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
So 62.5, so he's... But then do I gain more? Oh my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Then you're... Oh my God. Someone needs to crunch these numbers. Yeah, so Robbie's now up in the 28%, 30. All right. You're closing in on Natalie. I love it. You're going to leave her in the dust.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Hold on, though. Hold on. I just found an error in that. He does not, Vincent did not get your 12.5%, okay? Okay. Because, see, because Natalie cannot be made more Asian by the children. So if you were 12.5 and then you made Vincent 28%, then that would make Natalie, we can't have her going up, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, because it's only fun if the Chicagoan becomes Filipino. It's not fun if the Filipino becomes more Filipino.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Close. Polar bear. Okay. Polar bear is what my mom's always called me because my hands and feet were so big. And I had lots of posters of polar bears and a polar bear stuffy that I loved. Okay. Guess what I read the other day? What? You're going to fucking shit your little polar, your little teddy bear outfit. Yeah. All polar bears are left-handed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yes, it's in this great book. Lincoln's got this series of books. It seems like something I would have bought her, but I didn't. She found this on her own, and she ordered all of them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
It's versus versus. So Komodo Dragon versus King Cobra.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Polar bear versus grizzly bear. Who would win in a fight?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And then in route to this hypothetical fight, you learn all about the animal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yes. And we learned in that book that all polar bears are left-handed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
You're right. I knew a lot about polar bears before.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I wonder what if I read a thing that says they were all dyslexic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I can't even remember who they gave it to. I think they gave it to the polar bear, but they fucking gave the victory over the Komodo dragon to the King Cobra, which is preposterous. Really? Yes, absolutely preposterous. A fucking Komodo dragon is like 600 pounds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
No, they're quick. But more than anything, their skin, they're nearly a pachyderm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Pussy pack? Pussimus pachydermis. That king cobra is not even going to penetrate that scaly skin. Also, the fucking Komodo dragon has poison of its own. Its whole mouth is poisoned. You can smell them for so long away because they're poison's bacteria. They let all the meat they eat rot into a gross poison so that when they bite an animal, it goes septic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
So anyways, I do think they gave it to the polar bear. It's a really interesting matchup. You want to know why?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Now the polar bear is the tallest bear on earth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Which they do. They go up there. Sure. Look at me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
So the grizzly is eight feet tall. The polar bear is 10 feet tall. But the grizzly, because it hibernates, they can get up to, I forget what it is, maybe 1,400 pounds or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Whereas the polar bear is like maybe 900 or something, whatever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
It's not as heavy. So the grizzly bear is more mass, but the polar bear is taller. But now what you have in the polar bear's arsenal is that it only hunts. It doesn't eat foliage and shit like a grizzly bear. It just kills things. The grizzly eats salmon. It'll eat a caribou if it gets hands on one. But mostly it's eating a ton of berries, honey, right? Less of its life is spent in combat killing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Now, on the other hand, grizzlies' claws are much bigger. There's so much stuff to consider.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yep. They're all brown bears. The brown bear can go by brown bear, grizzly bear, Kodiak.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Polar bear is just polar bear. But its name, Ursula, it's like Ursula Maritimus or something. It's the water bear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Beautifully white. In fact, Monica, they're translucent. That was in the book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, but when all laid, and their skin's black.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I'm not lying to you. These are the facts from the book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
You do. And brown. You're brown. That's right. And I... And you're a bear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
You're a teddy bear. So polar bear, grizzly bear, teddy bear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Because they're so cute. They roll down the hills. They're smaller. They eat almost all berries. What about a panda? Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Pandas are too boring for you. They're not playful enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
At the zoo, you're right. They're very active at the zoo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I don't. They do. They love cats. But I guess I'd love to know the demographic of these discovery shows about lions. Like, I want to know male versus female. Who's watching? Who's watching?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
We love The Daily. Also, people were like, when we had our birds aren't real, arm shared in dangerous, people were like furious. Why? In the comments. Why? This was already on the Daily. I was like, okay. We also have guests that are on other shows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, yeah, you and I share the addiction thing, and I can't wait to talk about that. It's not often that my guest has also smoked crack, so it's like, right? Yeah. I can't imagine you get interviewed by a ton of people that have smoked a good deal of crack either.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Some were just like that. Okay. And then others were like, get real, guys. We already know this is fake. It was on the, you know, it was more of like an angry. What was clear is that the people who commented, as always, had not listened to the episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, right, right, right. It's interesting. Okay, good. Let's do this. Let's dance. You know, I'm the first person to be really critical of men. So much of what we do is toxic. It's controlling. We've been the dominant gender and women have paid the price. They sat at home and cleaned and gave us kids and we did whatever the fuck we wanted. And as long as we were making money, that was the deal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Terrible. But when it's time for the men to show up, we also need them. For sure. And it's time for the men. And this is the thing we do good. Like, it's our time. Unfortunately, the world isn't such that everyone can stop having that role. There's still Russia. There's still North Korea. So this is the part of my opinion. It's like, yep. There's a bunch of terrible shit that go along with men.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Also, when there's a bobcat in the house, it's time for us to do our thing. This is what we evolved to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I guess I'm speaking more broadly as like, I don't totally disagree with the policy that yes, women and children, I believe should leave. And I believe the men should stay to defend the country.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Actually in position to... To look back on it. Because that really weeds out the recreational users in the attics. It does.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, no, but they should be running supplies. They should be grabbing the other guys who want to kill people, ammunition. They should be pulling people out of rubble and helping with medical stuff. Like there's a role for many, many people in a war other than shooting people. And just like I would say to a woman, like, well, here's the shit deal of being a woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
You don't have to. But if you're going to have a child.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
That's one of the downsides of being a woman. It's like you're going to have to pass this thing through your body.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And the downside of being a man is when your village is being attacked and they are trying to steal all your women and children, you are the person that's got to fight. You're physically bigger. You've evolved to do this. This is your time to do your thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, you're right, because I don't mind that there's women staying to fight. I think that's radical. There's many women staying to fight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
My thought, though, is this. If they did that, right, they're like, men who aren't into it, bail. And now... There's the 1% who literally don't think they can run water to people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And I'm not judging. I don't know what I would do. I'm not in judgment. But I'm saying let's start with saying the person doesn't want to go to Russia and live in Russia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
If they don't want to live in Russia or be under Russian rule, and they want the Ukraine to remain an independent state, they have to participate in that. Right. Or surrender and move now to Russia. Does that make sense?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I mean, I'm harsh. I'm trying to get this a little black and white so we can proceed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
But I'm only getting to the point where if you do believe Ukraine should be defended... It's not okay for you to bail. So you're the 1% who's decided absolutely there's no service you can provide or you're too scared. Now, when they let that 1% out, one strata up from that that thinks they mostly don't want to be there, they see all these dudes running. There's kind of no shame to it. They join.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Now everyone's running away from the thing. And then Russia got Ukraine. So that's what I'm saying. You're working backwards from do you want to keep Ukraine independent? If you do, I think there's probably only one way for them to have a shot. And it's not half the men deserting the country.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And I think as soon as you let some of the men desert the country, just more will follow because they won't be embarrassed anymore. It's the worst of all options, which is a fucking human conflict with death and weapons. But if you're even going to do it, you must work backwards from how it could possibly be successful. And it's not to willy nilly let some people decide and some people not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
There's like a certain reality to the situation, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I guess the other option, let's look at all the options. You could say like everyone in Ukraine should just get up and leave. They should go to all these other countries so that no one dies and say to Russia, here you go. Now you have Ukraine. We don't want to live under your rule. We'd rather live in Poland or Hungary or all these places. Now all those countries have to deal with that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
That's a side note. Those people now, they had a life in Ukraine and we don't know that they'll have a life elsewhere. Sure. So they're not just maybe giving up this piece of real estate. They're giving up like their whole life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Right. So what's the other option? The other option is try to resist and make it go on so long that the sanctions have enough time to truly cripple the place. That just involves everyone's got to fucking get ugly now. I don't know. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Right, so like you wish we were doing more. But I don't. I wish we could. I know, I know. If they didn't have nukes, we can't initiate, even, I mean, you wanna be as dark as you can get. You have to let Russia take over Ukraine before we have nuclear genocide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
But I do think, I think this is the strategy, which is hopefully goes on long enough. It's embarrassing enough that the will of the Russians becomes very obvious. They don't want anything to do with this. This was a huge mistake. Everyone's fucking broke. And they fucking, they revolt and they get rid of that bozo. Oh, did you hear this cool thing that Elon Musk did?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
He brought internet to the Ukraine? Yes. Someone from the Ukraine trolled him. He was like, wow, you're going to space and you can't give us internet? Ah. He responded, Starlink will be up in five hours. He had already been working on it. No way. So fucking Elon Musk put internet in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
So that's it. You just had a nice seven day run. Yeah. Oh, wow. It was like a vacation in Cancun. That's incredible. I have to say you found yourself in the perfect environment because you do not want to be like day six of smoking crack in the wilderness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah. Ashton and Mila have a really cool thing. They're matching up to $3 million for people who will go and do that for the humanitarian side of it. Wonderful. She's Ukrainian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
The part that blew my mind was the gambling thing. It was so fun to get to talk to somebody that had a gambling addiction. I don't really have, I have zero experience with it and it was illuminating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Even, waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror and saying, I hope today's the day I get even.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yes, and also all I need is five bucks to do it. The endless belief that that could happen again. Oh, wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh yeah. We had a heartbreaking situation. We did. That was painful. I didn't like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, my unit shut off. But yes, we were going to get a Sedona update from you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I saw a picture of you. There's now a treasure trove of pictures of you that, like, should be posted but won't be. Oh. So I saw one last night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
There's a little mouse asleep on a bus with a white claw on her hand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Okay. Well, mom didn't. Mom has it on her phone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And I said, this would be a great post, but money wouldn't like it. There's a couple of things going on there. Go ahead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
You are, because you're curled up with your head on the window sleeping. And for whatever reason, the angle, you look so tiny. It looks like a kitty cat sleeping on the bus. And then you have a white claw in your hand. I do. It's so adorable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Right, because you were having a little bit of motion sickness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
It says a lot, because you were riding with me the last time you went up that mountain, and I was driving a quadrillion miles an hour.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, geez. This is, by the way, you're not going to let us post this thing. You're going to read a 20-year-old article of me, and I'm embarrassed already. Do you want me to not? No, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Women love that. They love it. You guys love that, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, God, no. I go to movies. I see meself. Me not feel better about meself. Me think we will feel good, but feel bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I'm still saying that. I need some new material.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
It's just your truth. I thought I'd eat cupcake all day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, this is to promote hit and run. That's okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
White privilege. That was before I knew it was white privilege.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, kind of. I think these are all the same stories I just still say.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
What year was this? It was 94. 94. I was just going to say, I was living in downtown Detroit in 94. And yeah, it was just ubiquitous. Yes. It was rare to see somebody not struggling with addiction out on the street. It was heartbreaking, but I didn't feel so bad because I was partaking. So who cared? I think we should just start first and foremost with you were born in Seoul.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, see, he's trying to get me to shit talk. Oh. All these, see, this is what I'm talking about, print. He's, right now, he's like, how do you explain Ashton's success? A, why does that need explaining? You're not asking me to explain Brad Pitt's success.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, I don't think. But I always answer with you. This was the thing. The people wanted to hate Kutcher. Especially these journalists. They wanted to say he was only there because he was good looking. And they wanted to catch me doing that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
He's only here because he's good looking. What if I said that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Mom and dad met here, but mom's North Korean, dad's South Korean. Then they moved to South Korea, had you, and then you now come to L.A. at two?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
No, I've lost some stuff. Thank God. Most of it, I'm just embarrassed with how much I'm recycling shit from nine years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Okay, well, okay, that's a positive. Yeah. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Well, that's a nice way to look at it, but I think I'm right about this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
There was a moment where I was more famous for having dated famous people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Which I get it. And that's why Stern wanted me on. That's why Stern was willing to have me on. I was this guy like, why was he dating her and her and her? And that hopefully I'll come on and talk about those people that are much more famous than me. So that's also happening. Sure. Luckily, I got on the stern and he just liked me and was fascinated by my drunk log.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Playboy is they want me to dish on celebrities. And I know it too going in. So it's like I'm being protective and that's why it infuriates me. Well, you'll get to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And that had changed by Parenthood. But if you're the quote dude from Punk'd who's dating Kate Hudson, people are like, what the fuck?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I think he's saying, do you want to fuck your co-stars?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
He wasn't expecting that. He didn't want me to be like, no, I find it damaging because I...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
The old house, when it was four bedrooms, had this really small bathroom that when you sat on the toilet, I couldn't sit on the toilet. My knees would hit the wall. So I'm like, I was a bachelor. So I ripped that fucker out. And I've always wanted a floor-length urinal. So I had a floor-length urinal. And when my buddies would come over, I'd fill it with ice like they do at nice restaurants.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, my God. And it was auto-flush and everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Doesn't that sound great, Rob? That sounds nice. Yeah. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
See, again, why are you bringing up Travolta? Go ahead.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I like Travolta, though, for the record. He's a sweetheart.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
So I imagine the part. I don't see, or maybe you. Oh, maybe they took it out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
No, maybe they took it out for this because it's now online.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
No, no, my issue is they didn't say those names. And then he put, you've been with, whatever question it was about stars. Yeah, yeah. We go back to that question. It was like maybe 12.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, wow. That's weird. So what is that question?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And then I just go like, well, I guess my secret's dancing and blah, blah. So it looks like I didn't correct...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
That was taken out. I know I went apeshit and my publicist called and was apeshit. Yeah. So I wonder if in subsequent things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Okay. Interesting. That's the only explanation. All right. Well, now I'm fine now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
We didn't learn one thing about me, though. We already know this about me, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah, and I said... So you used to say coeds. And coitus. I used to say coeds. You still say coitus. I still say coitus. Okay, so just coeds. I got to get that back in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
We have about 4% Asian and 2% Indian. 19% Filipino, 10% Vietnamese. Filipino is number three? 19, yep. Ding, ding, ding, Rob. Congrats. I got two of the top three in here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Huh, that's interesting. I thought Hawaii is very high concentration of Japanese people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I don't know why I thought that. No, because... I know why I thought that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
No, you go. No, I don't have... I don't know what you're saying. I think because Japan was so talked about in the 90s as being this economic power. So I think just... Oh, I see. You know, it's like a lot of, you don't hear about Myanmar ever, former Burma.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
When was the last time you heard about, you know, you don't hear about a lot of these countries. These don't make headlines, but we were obsessed with Japan the way we're obsessed with China in the 90s.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
They're not escaping. They don't need to leave. Yeah. Really good point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Minus 30% of that from India. Nope, we're including this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Just overachiever, overachiever. Well. Always. Okay. I guess we're going against what stereotype we're trying to break, which is the model minority, and you shouldn't feel bad for them, which is not the case.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
But also, they came... It's all about, too, what we let in, right? Exactly. So, like, the Philippines, the reason they're all nurses is because we said we'll let all the nurses in from the Philippines. And y'all...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah. And we said, you can come on in if you can do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
When I was famous for 30 seconds and they invited me down to the Sugar Bowl to go out on the field for Nokia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
They said, you can come down first class tickets for you and friends. So I brought Aaron and Adrian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And Bree and I went. And this is, remember, on my birthday. And I went to a slot machine. Not a slot machine. A video poker. And I got a Royal Flush.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I didn't want to insult you, but I also didn't want you to be left behind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
This is not ringing a bell. And then we were all staring at it like, oh my God, Royal Flush. This is like three grand or whatever. And then we just stared at it and stared at it like, why isn't it paying us? Oh no. Why isn't it paying us? And then I hit the like, the button. What? I didn't save them all. I didn't think to save them all because it was already the perfect thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
None of us thought so. Oh no. And it just redoubted me a shit hand. So that's a once in a lifetime occurrence. You'll never forget that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Then Aaron and I were on the balcony and we were throwing the beads, but we were purposely throwing them in the horse poop because all the horse cops were pooping all over the thing, purposely throwing them in the horse poop to see if people would pick them up and wear them. And they did. And it was a great entertainment for us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
But back to part of the thing was like, would you want to eat at Emeril Lagasse's restaurant? I forget the name of it. And we said, of course we'd like to go. We went and I said, can I get the bam? And he fucking came out of the kitchen and dropped our dishes and gave us the bam. What do you mean what?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
He said it. He dropped our food. Emeril. Emeril.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yes, well, it's because it's a big, big week there and he was at his own restaurant.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Whenever Punk came out, by the way, I'd never seen him say bam. I just knew, you know how you know things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Oh, man, that's why it's so hard to get a loan for one. You do look like a cosplay person. I know I said that the last time you wore this, but you really look like a furry person. Is that what they're called? Sure. They go to a convention. Rob, you know all this stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Furry's a sexual thing. Yeah. Right, yeah. But they go as creatures, right? And they rub up against each other?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And for furry play, I think. Yeah, I guess. Why do you think it's called furries? Because they're wearing little bear outfits like this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Ooh. Yeah. Ooh, ooh, ooh. That has to be the sector that was hit the hardest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And they're done. That was a big one. And I loved it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
It's an awesome episode. It is. It is. That gambling thing for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I'm assuming that it comes out kind of sealed where the crack is. So you can just lace those together and hope for the best. It's a surgery, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Yeah. I think about it often. Like I'm constantly talking about addiction to people and occasionally we'll be talking about gambling. And it's like half of what I understand about the whole thing is from him. The notion of looking in the mirror and going, we just have to get even.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Somehow you put all these ugly freaks together and there's some beautiful people. Absolutely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Okay. And then in your childhood, they own a liquor store. They had a restaurant. They had a dry cleaning spot. They ultimately went into jewelry, starting with door to door and then becoming a successful business. And you also move nonstop.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
I took an LA geography class in college. The Koreans have a pretty damn good network once you're here, right? Like the whole Alhambra area, they loan within their community and they help people start businesses. And there is a nice network for Koreans.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
There's a few different minority groups that America doesn't seem to have much compassion for. Jewish folks, because in general, the Jewish folks they know were their doctor or they've done well in this country. A lot of people have those experience with Asians as business owners or classmates. And then they ignore this whole other section.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And they seem to have a lack of compassion, which we extend to everyone else who's a minority group.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
Right. We're only thinking, and I'm going to be speaking way too broadly and generally, but we are only thinking of the Japanese student visa. We're not thinking of the Hmong or the Southeast Asians, or we're not thinking of any of those people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Rerelease: Roy Choi
And if you've traveled Asia, each place is different as imaginable, really. It's very different.