0
SPEAKER_01
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m Dan Rather and I m joined by Monica Monsoon.
0
SPEAKER_02
Hi there.
0
SPEAKER_01
Today we have, I think this is worth saying, and I think we said it probably in the fact check.
0
SPEAKER_01
But of the six years we ve been recording here, there s been work being done on the house.
0
SPEAKER_02
Sure.
0
SPEAKER_01
And none of the folks that do work on this house have been excited by a single guest ever, or at least that we ve known about.
0
SPEAKER_01
They ve never cared once, to my knowledge.
0
SPEAKER_01
Even when David Letterman went and talked to them personally.
0
SPEAKER_02
That s right.
0
SPEAKER_01
And there was a line for this gentleman in the driveway when we got out that was just epic.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, everyone wanted to take a picture with him.
0
SPEAKER_02
It was really cool.
0
SPEAKER_01
I think he might be the most famous person we ve ever had in here in real life.
0
SPEAKER_01
Like when you see him in the power in real life.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_01
And a friend of mine that worked with him also said this about him, that like, you re walking down the street with him and it s like you re with King Kong or something.
0
SPEAKER_02
Well, he does say it in the interview, which you ll hear, like, he s very protective of his whereabouts.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_02
He wants to protect his wife from that.
0
SPEAKER_02
And then that made sense, right?
0
SPEAKER_02
That like he s sort of ambushed.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so John Cena, he is an actor.
0
SPEAKER_01
He s a 16-time world champion wrestler.
0
SPEAKER_01
He s currently on Peacemaker, which is great.
0
SPEAKER_01
He was in The Fast X. He s in another Fast series.
0
SPEAKER_01
He s in Argyle, The Suicide Squad, Vacation Friends, and he has a new movie out now called Ricky Stanicki with Zac Efron and Andrew Santino.
0
SPEAKER_01
So funny.
0
SPEAKER_01
So please enjoy John Cena.
0
SPEAKER_02
♪ He s an armchair expert ♪
0
SPEAKER_02
You look so nice no one dresses up for us
0
SPEAKER_01
I made sure.
0
SPEAKER_01
So we were texting before you got here.
0
SPEAKER_01
You said, Hey, can you do this one thing?
0
SPEAKER_01
And I said, Oh my God, I d love to.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I ll trade you for a photo of us lifting in black mold paradise.
0
SPEAKER_01
But he says, give me a little challenging with the wardrobe.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I was thinking, Oh, he s probably got a sweater on or something, but no, by God, you re in a beautiful three piece suit.
0
SPEAKER_02
Thank you so much.
0
SPEAKER_02
So nice.
0
SPEAKER_02
We should have got the memo.
0
SPEAKER_02
Although you re wearing a nice button down.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s my very special button down.
0
SPEAKER_01
Really quick, where are you staying while you re here?
0
SPEAKER_01
Where do you stay when you re in L.A.?
0
SPEAKER_00
So, if I tell you that, then everybody s gonna find me.
0
SPEAKER_02
We ll cut it.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
No, that s okay.
0
SPEAKER_00
I lived in L.A.
0
SPEAKER_00
before all this, back in 2000.
0
SPEAKER_00
So, whenever I stay here, I got a few places I can call home that nobody ever finds me.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh, okay, great.
0
SPEAKER_01
So you have like a two-prong celebrity.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s maybe even four-prong, I don t know.
0
SPEAKER_00
So it s a fork.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s a fork.
0
SPEAKER_00
Very kind of you, thank you.
0
SPEAKER_00
Everybody tells me to fork myself, so I m good.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay, you ve done it successfully.
0
SPEAKER_01
You have many, many rivulets, avenues.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so I was working with somebody who had worked with you on something.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I can t even remember what it was.
0
SPEAKER_01
But they were saying, oh, you got to see him around children.
0
SPEAKER_01
You can t really imagine how fucking popular he is with children.
0
SPEAKER_01
Like if you re walking down the street and some kids see you.
0
SPEAKER_01
So you keeping your location private, is that more for adults or for kids?
0
SPEAKER_00
I never blame anyone for wanting to say hello, but at the same time, I travel with my wife, we go everywhere together, so I certainly value her safety and well-being, and one of the promises I made to her on the altar was, I will never put you, or I ll do my best to not put you in an undue harm s way.
0
SPEAKER_00
So, a lot of it is just about genuine safety, and it s not to say that everyone out there has bad intentions, or we would ever run into someone bad, but you also never know when someone feels threatened.
0
SPEAKER_00
If my wife, who is my travel partner and partner in life,
0
SPEAKER_00
now feels unsafe or uncomfortable to all these new places we go, I got another hurdle to climb in my personal life.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s just an exercise in the strength of boundaries and the value of boundaries.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay, I dig it.
0
SPEAKER_01
But you are in town for how long?
0
SPEAKER_00
Until this is over.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, really?
0
SPEAKER_00
You will jet out of here?
0
SPEAKER_00
This is the last stop on a press tour for Rikki Snikki.
0
SPEAKER_00
Okay, well, I really like that.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, we like endings strong.
0
SPEAKER_00
Knowing that the end is near is helpful.
0
SPEAKER_00
Seeing that finish line, man.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
sprint towards it.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah yeah it is a good feeling so thank you for ending my day.
0
SPEAKER_00
I have high hopes coming in and man you already hit it out of the park with a coffee so we re good.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay great and as I told you embarrassingly I had just gone to get lunch in my 454SS and I was gonna pull it like where it goes kind of hidden by the AMG.
0
SPEAKER_01
I was like I think I ll leave it in the driveway in hopes that John will see it and get excited.
0
SPEAKER_01
This is beautiful out here.
0
SPEAKER_01
Thank you the address is 454SS.
0
SPEAKER_00
No, it s a petrolhead paradise out here.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m so glad you noticed.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, cuz I have gathered I think we all know about each other right dudes in our business who are also into cars I think word travels fast and I don t know if that s because we re Crazy and there s only a few of us or I think it s the way the car culture figures itself out in my perspective People appreciate cars and they re willing and open to share it.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s often a topic of common conversation.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yes
0
SPEAKER_00
It s one of the few things dudes can get in a parking lot and chat about.
0
SPEAKER_00
I think that spreads fast when someone is a car person.
0
SPEAKER_01
This is how neurotic I am about it.
0
SPEAKER_01
Like, I m reading all about you today, and I just happen to stumble upon that when you arrived here, you were in a 91 Lincoln Continental.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, great, there s a story about him living it.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m not even interested.
0
SPEAKER_01
I love those 91 Continentals.
0
SPEAKER_00
Big enough to sleep in.
0
SPEAKER_00
And comfortable.
0
SPEAKER_00
Even for a big boy.
0
SPEAKER_00
Did you do that?
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, but it was my choice.
0
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to.
0
SPEAKER_00
I had a roof over my head in Massachusetts.
0
SPEAKER_00
My dad was like, ah, it s not working out for you.
0
SPEAKER_00
Come on home.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m like, no.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m going to rub two sticks together and see if I can make fire out here.
0
SPEAKER_00
So it wasn t like I got thrown out.
0
SPEAKER_00
I just had no money, and I had to make a choice whether to go home or stay here.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I chose to stay here, and that was my bed for a little while.
0
SPEAKER_01
Do you ever have fantasies about hunting that car down?
0
SPEAKER_00
Not that one.
0
SPEAKER_00
So that one was a joint purchase where my dad gave me a little bit and I got a little bit.
0
SPEAKER_00
I got my first car at age 14.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was a 84 Cadillac Coupe de Ville.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh, beautiful.
0
SPEAKER_00
Smoked the tranny by 15, so that was already gone.
0
SPEAKER_00
Uh-huh.
0
SPEAKER_00
I had a 69 Nova after that, a 66 Chevelle after that.
0
SPEAKER_00
Rocked a mid-90s Cavalier for a little bit.
0
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
0
SPEAKER_00
S10 pickup.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was always trading and bartering.
0
SPEAKER_00
And every car had been a joint venture of my dad would match my in.
0
SPEAKER_00
We re talking 750 bucks, so it wasn t major.
0
SPEAKER_00
He did the same with a Continental.
0
SPEAKER_01
Really quick, really interesting choice.
0
SPEAKER_01
For a man with modest means who needs some dependability and gonna cross the country, you definitely put style above function.
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, it s a comfortable car, so I knew I was gonna spend a lot of time in it.
0
SPEAKER_00
You see a lot of those cars, they re town cars, they re chauffeur cars, so you know they can go high miles, and that was kind of what I had into it, and I had all the options that I wanted.
0
SPEAKER_00
Everything in there is power, everything in there is comfy leather.
0
SPEAKER_00
I want one so bad.
0
SPEAKER_00
The next car I bought was an 89 Jeep Wrangler, and I bought it from Seaside Motors 2 over in Santa Monica, and I bought it with my own money, and I still have that car today.
0
SPEAKER_00
I ve changed the configuration of the garage many times.
0
SPEAKER_00
That has never left my side, and it never will.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s my Lincoln Continental, my 67.
0
SPEAKER_01
I had it when I moved here.
0
SPEAKER_01
I sold a really dependable Honda Civic to get it.
0
SPEAKER_01
It was a dumb, dumb choice.
0
SPEAKER_01
A great choice.
0
SPEAKER_01
Well, there was a moment in my life where there was a billboard on Sunset promoting Hit and Run, and it was my Lincoln, who s been my eternal girlfriend since I moved to L.A., and I was like, goddamn, this is good.
0
SPEAKER_01
That was probably my happiest little moment seeing the billboard, that the Lincoln was on it.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s funny, you re like, man, have you ever thought to chase it down?
0
SPEAKER_00
I m lucky enough to know, hey, don t sell the first one you ever bought.
0
SPEAKER_00
There s cars I ve turned over to new owners that you get a little bit of seller s remorse.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, like giving a dog away.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_00
I ve wanted to chase down a few, but fortunately, I ve not had to chase down the first one I ever bought.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay, this area you lived in Massachusetts, it s only like a town of 4,500 or something?
0
SPEAKER_00
Now it is.
0
SPEAKER_00
When I was growing up there, it was whispering at a thousand people.
0
SPEAKER_00
If you land in Boston, you look at Massachusetts on a map, and you drive as far north and as far east, you follow the water as you can until you are stepping in New Hampshire.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s where we re at.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so beautiful and bucolic and rolling hills, green.
0
SPEAKER_00
The port city next to it, called Newburyport, is a famous shipping town from before the birth of America.
0
SPEAKER_00
And they ve done a great job of preserving the town, obviously, so it s all brick and all pre-American Revolution.
0
SPEAKER_00
There are homes back there from the 1600s.
0
SPEAKER_00
Your next neighbor s acres away.
0
SPEAKER_00
The high school houses three towns because one town s not enough students.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was an interesting place to grow up.
0
SPEAKER_00
My parents had five of us.
0
SPEAKER_00
We were just left to our imagination.
0
SPEAKER_00
Five boys, too.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re the second oldest?
0
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_01
In my town, not too dissimilar.
0
SPEAKER_01
We were at 5,000.
0
SPEAKER_01
I thought 10, but Monica found out it was really 5,000.
0
SPEAKER_02
It s much smaller.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s right when it transitions from kind of suburbs out of Detroit into straight up farmland.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so in that town, very blue collar town,
0
SPEAKER_01
When there was a family of five boys, they got progressively crazier and crazier, where the baby, the fifth boy, was very dangerous.
0
SPEAKER_00
Was this the pattern in your house?
0
SPEAKER_00
No, I think we were all equally insane.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, my parents, I don t know why they kept trying.
0
SPEAKER_02
They were going for a girl?
0
SPEAKER_00
They were.
0
SPEAKER_00
They were.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I think at five, they were just like, that s it.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
When are you going to listen to the man upstairs?
0
SPEAKER_00
No, we were bad kids.
0
SPEAKER_00
For sure.
0
SPEAKER_00
Were you?
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
And it didn t unravel as it went down.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was pretty bad and led the charge.
0
SPEAKER_00
We just realized that they d only catch one of us.
0
SPEAKER_00
And how much older is your older brother?
0
SPEAKER_00
My older brother is going to be 50 this year.
0
SPEAKER_00
I ll be 47.
0
SPEAKER_00
And then it s 46, 44, and 41.
0
SPEAKER_02
Oh, your parents.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
Let s be honest, your mom.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh yeah.
0
SPEAKER_02
Let s call it like it is.
0
SPEAKER_01
I was trying to be nice.
0
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
0
100%.
0
SPEAKER_01
Now your dad, this is a fun factoid, he was actually an announcer for wrestling at some point.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s what he ll tell you.
0
SPEAKER_00
There s no record of that.
0
SPEAKER_00
Okay, great.
0
SPEAKER_00
I will say my dad is a showman.
0
SPEAKER_00
He started the drama club at community college in Beverly, Massachusetts that he attended.
0
SPEAKER_00
He wrote for the school paper, directed plays.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s where he met my mom.
1
SPEAKER_00
directing a production of Streetcar Named Desire.
1
SPEAKER_00
He s always been a showman and he s always wanted to show off his skills.
1
SPEAKER_00
My dad hasn t lost that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Good for him.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_00
So what was he doing to clothe and feed these five mongrel children?
1
SPEAKER_00
He was a real estate appraiser by trade and I gotta tip my cap to the old man, a damn good one.
1
SPEAKER_00
He taught seminars throughout the United States on his trade and he really found a home in valuing property.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then what did mom do?
1
SPEAKER_00
Stay-at-home mom.
1
SPEAKER_00
My family had their first child in the early 70s, so it was a typical family construct.
1
SPEAKER_00
My mom is college educated.
1
SPEAKER_00
She was in the banking business.
1
SPEAKER_00
She did a little bit of international philanthropy.
1
SPEAKER_00
Her and my dad settled down, and that was kind of it for her.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right.
1
SPEAKER_01
And going through school, you re following behind.
1
SPEAKER_01
My brother s five years older, so I didn t...
1
SPEAKER_01
deal with this terribly, where you were like inheriting whatever first impression?
1
SPEAKER_00
I dealt with it, man.
1
SPEAKER_00
My brother was like a true nerd.
1
SPEAKER_00
And this is at the height of the 80s, like Revenge of the Nerds.
1
SPEAKER_01
Sure, the real kind of nerd.
1
SPEAKER_00
Not Silicon Valley billionaires.
1
SPEAKER_00
Our town wasn t yet at the Revenge of the Nerds sort of state.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I inherited.
1
SPEAKER_00
Life was tough for my brother in high school.
1
SPEAKER_00
Not only was he an introvert and interested in computers, he s also gay and being gay in the 80s in a small town in Massachusetts.
1
SPEAKER_00
Man, that s an uphill climb.
1
SPEAKER_00
Was he out?
1
SPEAKER_00
He just had a lot of character traits that weren t in the cool kid group.
1
SPEAKER_00
And he s also holding this secret that he can t tell or talk to anybody about.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I really feel for what it must have been like for him growing up.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I also inherited that chapter of his social construct.
1
SPEAKER_00
And man, it got me to learn how to lose a few fights.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
So conventionally you had hoped your older brother would step in to defend you.
1
SPEAKER_01
Was it a role reversal?
1
SPEAKER_01
Did you feel inclined to want to protect your brother?
1
SPEAKER_01
Were you protective of him?
1
SPEAKER_00
That sort of behavior started like at 10 years old for me.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I don t think I understood what was going on.
1
SPEAKER_00
Kids are harsh and they form cliques real fast and we always just hung out with each other.
1
SPEAKER_00
So there s enough of us to have a basketball team, which means we could do whatever we wanted.
1
SPEAKER_00
We want to play football or baseball.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s enough of us.
1
SPEAKER_00
So we didn t feel we needed anybody else, and our next-door neighbors, like I said, were acres away.
1
SPEAKER_00
So if we could make it through school and get back to the house, all is fine.
1
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
So you guys were each other s best friends?
1
SPEAKER_00
We were close, I think, by default.
1
SPEAKER_00
But then social circles started to form for me around 10, 11, and 12.
1
SPEAKER_00
I took on the role of, hey, if you say something to the younger brothers, I will do my best to throw myself in harm s way.
1
SPEAKER_01
Uh-huh.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, this is going to stop here.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
Listen, I don t know if it s a rural thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if it s a blue collar thing, but yeah, violence was a daily thing all through growing up.
1
SPEAKER_01
Kids just fought nonstop.
1
SPEAKER_01
They got picked on tremendously.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s you and I s perspective.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t think you can geocyte that.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think in the inner cities, there s probably some brawls going on too.
1
SPEAKER_01
For sure.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m only curious why it s like my wife, she went to school more in the city or in the hinterland between the two.
1
SPEAKER_01
And she s like, no, there would be a fight like once every six months at my school.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, oh no, there was a few a week and then some were scheduled for Friday night at the Milford Cinema.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s like three o clock high.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes, always.
1
SPEAKER_01
Every day was three o clock high.
1
SPEAKER_00
Every day was three o clock high.
1
SPEAKER_00
What s that?
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a movie about a kid having to stand up to a bully and it s a day in the life of a school day counting down to three o clock.
1
SPEAKER_00
He knows he s going to have to fight the bully.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he s going to get the shit kicked out of him.
1
SPEAKER_01
Got it.
1
SPEAKER_01
What a movie.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, we had like my bodyguard because it was so ever-present.
1
SPEAKER_01
You were like the fantasy would be someone would come and stick up for you.
1
SPEAKER_01
Revenge of the nerds, as we said.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I know you got your first bench at 12.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s because it s getting my ass kicked.
1
SPEAKER_00
Starting at 10.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s what it was motivated at.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you thought, if I could get big, people will stop fucking with me.
1
SPEAKER_00
Leave you alone.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_00
That actually happened.
1
SPEAKER_00
Kids would beat me up at 12 and 13, and then junior high and high school were on the same property.
1
SPEAKER_00
The building of junior high would be my left hand, as I m making this explanation for your viewers, and the high school would be my right hand.
1
SPEAKER_00
They re both on hills, and you have to go to the valley.
1
SPEAKER_00
My bus was on the high school side, and some of the seniors  bus was on the junior high side, so you have to walk by the elder statesman.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
1
SPEAKER_00
And every day, man, I got my ass kicked.
1
SPEAKER_00
Or at the very least, it was a,
1
SPEAKER_00
strong nudge so I go tumbling down the hill again.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_00
I never fought back, but I never acquiesced.
1
SPEAKER_01
I know exactly who you were.
1
SPEAKER_01
So many kids had to occupy that exact zone.
1
SPEAKER_00
I got made fun of for the way I dressed, the music I listened to, the people I associated with, my older brother.
1
SPEAKER_00
I turned it up.
1
SPEAKER_00
I never backed off.
1
SPEAKER_00
You never silenced who you were.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then when I was 15, when the yield of three to four years of constant strength training and eating right in the middle of adolescence takes place, I walk into physical education class with now seniors who are pushing me down the hill
1
SPEAKER_00
and they were kind of looking at me like, are we going to fight in the locker room?
1
SPEAKER_00
And I remember specifically one kid who literally spearhead the anti-John movement in junior high.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I closed my locker door and he s next to me.
1
SPEAKER_00
We re looking at each other like, is it going to go down?
1
SPEAKER_00
And for some reason at 15, I summoned up the situational awareness to be like, hey man, we re good.
1
SPEAKER_00
Don t worry about it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that was it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Not only did he never pick on me again, I really never got effed with again in high school.
1
SPEAKER_00
So it worked for you.
1
SPEAKER_00
It took a whole lot of perseverance and a whole lot of failure and losing fights.
1
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, eventually they stopped.
1
SPEAKER_00
Eventually they got another target, I guess.
1
SPEAKER_00
How were you educating yourself on what to eat and what to do?
1
SPEAKER_00
The Wheater weight bench that I got came with a display of how to use all the attachments.
1
SPEAKER_00
And before I could get any sort of information like a muscle and fitness or flex or an Ironman magazine, it started with that.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then once you get the muscle and fitness, there are adverts for, hey, this is Mega Mass 2000, or Heavyweight Gainer 900, or in the 90s, this is Metrix, and this is Myoplex, and Mesotech.
1
SPEAKER_01
Creatins just coming out.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
I started when nothing was available, but then shortly after that...
1
SPEAKER_00
Everything became available and strength and science especially applicable to sport I remember quitting baseball at 15 because my varsity coach said don t work out because it s gonna ruin your swing and I Handed him my uniform that day.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was like I m gonna go back to working out Yeah, it was very obvious to you what you wanted to do
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Were you also playing football in high school?
1
SPEAKER_00
There was no youth football in West Newbury.
1
SPEAKER_00
The first time I put on a pair of pads was 15 years old.
1
SPEAKER_00
So we tried to discover how to play the game.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we d played pickup football, but tackle football, full contact is a different sport.
1
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, I started at age 15 and that s when I really knew I ve been working out for self-defense, but this is applicable in sport.
1
SPEAKER_00
All the coaches are like, man, we can do something with you because you re strong.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was head and shoulders above the rest of my classmates because I was the only one that took care of myself.
1
SPEAKER_01
And did girls respond to this transformation?
1
SPEAKER_00
Hard to say, which is the secret element of what did it.
1
SPEAKER_01
The intoxicating cocktail that became 15-year-old John Cena.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s hard to say.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, let me ask you this.
1
SPEAKER_01
Did girls in junior high not notice you, and then did they notice you in high school?
1
SPEAKER_01
I think that s an accurate statement.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s an accurate statement.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay, where does Schwarzenegger fit into this?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because for me, again, I m two years older than you.
1
SPEAKER_01
I saw Conan the Barbarian at a drive-in when it came out, and I was like,
1
SPEAKER_01
What on earth is this?
1
SPEAKER_01
I hadn t seen a Mr. Universe competition or anything.
1
SPEAKER_01
I just couldn t believe a real human was him.
1
SPEAKER_01
I became so fascinated with muscles in that moment.
1
SPEAKER_01
Who was your kind of gateway?
1
SPEAKER_00
I remember seeing Commando on VHS.
1
SPEAKER_00
There we go.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s true Arnold being Arnold.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes, seminal film.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and all that stuff is whimsical, but then you learn, oh man, he was a bodybuilder before.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think it s when I jumped into like the periodicals to be like, oh, this is how you get that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right.
1
SPEAKER_00
Who was the King?
1
SPEAKER_00
Coleman or has already gone to Jake?
1
SPEAKER_00
No, honestly, when I started, man, it must ve been like Sean Ray.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re talking 1986, maybe Flex Wheeler, pre-Dorian Yates.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was still the eighties wave of bodybuilding.
1
SPEAKER_00
But you weren t specifically aiming yet to be a bodybuilder, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
It was just a very functional choice.
1
SPEAKER_00
Don t get your ass kicked.
1
SPEAKER_00
And is there a way to do it without violence?
1
SPEAKER_00
Sports happened out of that, and that was an opportunity that was like, yeah, let s pursue this.
1
SPEAKER_00
This ll be all right.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then you go to Springfield College, and there you play football, and you re a center, and you re the captain of the team.
1
SPEAKER_00
Eventually, after four years of trying there, yeah, my peers voted me as somebody to go out and call the coin toss.
1
SPEAKER_01
And now it s a very important role, as we just saw in the Super Bowl recently.
1
SPEAKER_01
Did this built-in community of dudes, I feel like that would have been very cathartic if you were feeling a bit alienated in junior high.
1
SPEAKER_01
Imagine the captain s one of the popular players on the team.
1
SPEAKER_00
Social acceptance is a really interesting thing.
1
SPEAKER_00
I would like to think that we all want love in our life and I think acceptance is a gateway drug to that of like, hey man, you re cool.
1
SPEAKER_00
All right, there s a connection there.
1
SPEAKER_00
So of course I was searching for something like that and found it in sport and wasn t ostracized for who I was or how I behaved.
1
SPEAKER_00
Before going to Springfield, I lived at high school for two years.
1
SPEAKER_00
I went to Cushing Academy as a boarding student.
1
SPEAKER_00
That was just 400 of us as 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds living there with each other.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, were you chewing tobacco?
1
SPEAKER_00
Everybody else was.
1
SPEAKER_01
Everyone else, you weren t doing that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Everybody else.
1
SPEAKER_00
I picked up leaf tobacco for a brief period of time in WWE.
1
SPEAKER_01
You were a good boy, yeah?
1
SPEAKER_00
I think I had great respect for the opportunities I ve been given.
1
SPEAKER_00
Was I a good kid at home?
1
SPEAKER_00
No.
1
SPEAKER_00
Because I rebelled against authority and wanted to do things my own way.
1
SPEAKER_00
Was I a good student?
1
SPEAKER_00
No.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was a good student when I was told there was opportunity and reward for being a good student.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was a D.F.
1
SPEAKER_00
student when I applied to Cushing Academy and like a non-varsity athlete.
1
SPEAKER_00
They promptly rejected me and the Dean of Admissions, Wayne Sanborn, I ll remember it like it was yesterday, he said, if you get your grades up to A s and B s and you can varsity in two sports, we will reconsider you to go through the application process.
1
SPEAKER_00
In one year, I turned the ship around, varsity lettered in two sports, A, B student.
1
SPEAKER_00
I came back, had to do the whole process and then they said, we ll accept you and we also realize your family is broke.
1
SPEAKER_00
We re going to give you an opportunity.
2
SPEAKER_01
So this is a school coming out of pocket for me.
2
SPEAKER_01
So now somebody has bet on me, just like my first football coach bet on me.
2
SPEAKER_01
I d jump in front of a train for that guy because he s like, hey man, I know everybody else is kicking your ass, but I see potential in you, I m gonna bet on you.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I think I ve always had great respect for those who are willing to bet on me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, also the way I ve heard you speak about your father in interviews, you seem to have a very sweet respect for him and appreciation for him.
2
SPEAKER_00
Work in progress.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay, great.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because I locked horns with my dad all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, me too, man.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I can t stand authority.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s really rough for me.
2
SPEAKER_01
I guess I m okay with the construct of authority, as long as it has a decent why.
2
SPEAKER_01
And a lot of the parental why is because I said so.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that shit don t mess with me.
2
SPEAKER_01
I believe everything in life should have a good explanation.
2
SPEAKER_01
You and I are in lockstep on that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I need to believe in the plan a little bit.
2
SPEAKER_00
Even if I don t believe in it, as long as I understand it, all right, I m backing down.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because obviously you had coaches and you must have been a good athlete to the coaches.
2
SPEAKER_00
You could deal with it when there was a reward at the end of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
2
SPEAKER_01
And again, these are people who vouch for me.
2
SPEAKER_01
Although I had a conflicting relationship with my dad because he was never an athlete.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you think it was insane that you were getting so built?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Was he embarrassed by it?
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m just starting to lay the foundation with my dad where we can breach into this stuff.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I do love him, and I want to walk the talk.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if I love him, I want to get to know him, and I want to do my part to bridge our relationship.
2
SPEAKER_01
These are little nuggets that I can t wait, but I still got a little work to do before that.
2
SPEAKER_00
You don t want to speak for him on that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know yet.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve read Arnold s books, the two that he wrote early in his bodybuilding career.
2
SPEAKER_00
Everyone thought he was a freak.
2
SPEAKER_00
His parents were like, what the fuck?
2
SPEAKER_00
This is insane.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, this is not an honest day s work.
2
SPEAKER_00
It reeks of vanity, maybe.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of things that a parent might, in the earlier days, before people made careers of it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, even if you can make a career of it, that s still a person s perspective.
2
SPEAKER_01
This reeks of vanity.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
For you, I think it reeked of safety.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, but then, of course, when you start getting big as a young man and you re physically bigger and stronger than all your peers around you, you re still figuring out life.
2
SPEAKER_01
You don t have the wisdom to understand what s going on.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it can put you in funny situations.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s empowering.
2
SPEAKER_01
Can be.
2
SPEAKER_01
Thank God I was always put in a bigger swimming pool.
2
SPEAKER_01
Every time I think I got it figured out, I get dropped in a pool where kids are getting drafted into the NHL and going to Division I programs.
2
SPEAKER_01
After that, I get dropped into Springfield College as a 19-year-old, where the 22, 23, 24-year-olds are far stronger just because of the amount of time under tension.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I get dropped into Venice, California, which is like, man, I think I ve done good with this natural body.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I quit.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m done.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it can be a blessing to always be sort of at the bottom and climbing.
2
SPEAKER_01
Or just to never be the biggest fish in the pond.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was always grateful to have the timing in my life to have strong male mentors and not to be the biggest fish.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, because when you re the biggest fish in the pond, you re kind of inclined to stay in the pond.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s good living.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it is.
2
SPEAKER_00
It can be a little bit of a trap.
2
SPEAKER_00
To stay in that comfort zone.
2
SPEAKER_00
What I m trying to lay cable for is you ve navigated a lot of super alpha worlds.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so I m really curious how you ve navigated it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it would start in high school and it would then be very present on a football team.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a very alpha world.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re really big.
2
SPEAKER_00
When you were greeted with intense alphaness, what was your response to it generally?
2
SPEAKER_01
Oddly enough, in reflecting on past experiences and trying to live in the present, when you recreate history, it s never really true.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s just your version of it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think I ve always had a good idea of knowing the room, and I ve always been able to ask myself, where s the win?
2
SPEAKER_01
So it s okay that you re not the leader of the Lord of the Flies.
2
SPEAKER_01
Where s the win in that?
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t need that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just want to be able to do the thing I want to do.
2
SPEAKER_01
My goal was never to be the number one thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was an offensive lineman.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that position, by and large,
2
SPEAKER_01
You never get talked about.
2
SPEAKER_01
Every day, you do all the boring practice.
2
SPEAKER_01
You call the coin flip in your case.
2
SPEAKER_01
The very last year.
2
SPEAKER_00
That was my nugget.
2
SPEAKER_00
Hey man, you ve been playing with us for four years.
2
SPEAKER_01
Why don t you go out and talk to the referee before the game?
2
SPEAKER_01
You re never talked about in the paper.
2
SPEAKER_01
No one ever discusses you.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I played at a Division III school, so it s not like I was searching for glory.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just wanted to go out and play.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
But you also had
2
SPEAKER_00
A chip on your shoulder about never being subjugated again, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
Not living in fear of any other men.
2
SPEAKER_00
The one thing I did is I never fought back, but I also never stepped back.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I don t think I was ever in fear.
2
SPEAKER_01
I still went to the bus every day.
2
SPEAKER_01
I never went to the principal.
2
SPEAKER_01
I never asked for security or any of that stuff.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was never afraid of it because I had been getting the shit kicked out of me for 10 years.
2
SPEAKER_01
Little did they know I had four brothers.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ve been losing fights for a decade.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s all right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
You d already experienced the worst of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was survivable.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
But yet, you don t have a chip on your shoulder about bullies?
2
SPEAKER_01
No, because of golden moments, like as a 15-year-old in that locker room, where the bully is looking at me afraid, going, are we good?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, yeah, man, we re good.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then seeing him melt away, just realizing how difficult it is to figure out.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m not perfect.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ve been on both ends of that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Those are really choices outside of my value system that I feel bad about.
2
SPEAKER_01
I can understand both sides, and I can understand the motivation of both sides.
2
SPEAKER_01
I want to put my arm around a bully and be like, hey, man, what are you doing?
2
SPEAKER_01
What s really going on in your life?
2
SPEAKER_01
You want to talk to somebody about it?
2
SPEAKER_01
It sucks that that happens and social behavior, especially on young people is tough, but I never was like, fuck them.
2
SPEAKER_01
We re going to get those guys.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, as you navigate life as a boy, you do start putting two and two together.
2
SPEAKER_00
Generally the bullies have the shittiest fucking house life.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like in elementary, I was a bully.
2
SPEAKER_00
I hate it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was, but I was big.
2
SPEAKER_00
I felt powerless at home.
2
SPEAKER_00
And when I got to school and we were on the playground, it s time to wrestle.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m like, oh fuck, I am not powerless.
2
SPEAKER_00
This feels very good.
2
SPEAKER_00
And as my life got better, I was less like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
You get out of Springfield and you, how soon move to LA?
2
SPEAKER_00
The day.
2
SPEAKER_00
I need to get out of West Newbury, man.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you have no fantasies of playing football professionally?
2
SPEAKER_01
Nope.
2
SPEAKER_01
Being famous, playing football, none of that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have a degree in kinesiology.
2
SPEAKER_01
A lot of students at our time would spend their spring breaks in Cancun or Daytona Beach.
2
SPEAKER_01
I went to Los Angeles to try to see if I could land an internship.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I did.
2
SPEAKER_01
I landed an internship with a company.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were installing fitness equipment.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if you bought a bunch of stuff from, at the time, Cybex.
2
SPEAKER_01
Shout out Cybex.
2
SPEAKER_01
They would drop the equipment off at this warehouse and the warehouse would install it.
2
SPEAKER_01
So they were installing large footprint gyms, private gyms, kind of like what Sorenx or Rogue will do today.
2
SPEAKER_01
They ll come and set up.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was like, man, I could use this to maybe get a job in the corporate world with Cybex.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I get a job where I have to wear a golf shirt every day, but I m talking about working out and selling fitness equipment.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is gonna be the sweet spot.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was bodybuilding and doing okay naturally.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was in a small pond and got dropped into a bigger pond as soon as I went to Gold s Venice.
2
SPEAKER_01
Not only is this not for me, but also I need to be here.
2
SPEAKER_01
I need to be around this.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I realized I was way out of my league, just like an offensive lineman in a Division III school.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you watch the Super Bowl, those guys are 6 7 , 330 pounds.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m 6 feet 250 at the time.
2
SPEAKER_01
You were humble.
2
SPEAKER_01
Not without aspiration, just realistic.
2
SPEAKER_01
And seeing everybody in Venice, I m like, okay, that s not why you were doing it anyway.
2
SPEAKER_01
I didn t start lifting weights to be Mr. Olympia.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just loved health and wellness, and I was fascinated by strength, and boy, what a place to do that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I also thought that, man, I could apply this expensive piece of paper here, and someone s gonna hire me if I m just around.
2
SPEAKER_01
The dots lined up, and I went out to California to try to apply my degree.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so, pretty quickly, that doesn t bear any fruit.
2
SPEAKER_00
No.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so how do we get into wrestling?
2
SPEAKER_00
By accident.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the job sucked.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was literally just a warehouse servant who folded moving blankets and disassembled old equipment all day and never left the warehouse.
2
SPEAKER_01
I never made it to the install team, I never talked to any corporate reps, and boy did I have a lot of hours and not a lot of pay.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was like, man, I gotta hold on this job to pay some bills, but I m gonna quit on this date.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I got a security job in Hermosa Beach.
2
SPEAKER_01
I would be the big guy at the door, making sure no fights broke out.
2
SPEAKER_01
Sparrows.
2
SPEAKER_01
Sharkey s, right next to Zeppy s Pizza.
2
SPEAKER_01
The pizza place fed me for free, which was great.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I got a job at Gold s.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was working at the nutrition store.
2
SPEAKER_01
I d kind of do odd jobs around there.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s why I slept in my car, because I could shower at Gold s.
2
SPEAKER_01
You got the whole locker room.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can get a locker or two.
2
SPEAKER_01
Nobody says anything.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m like, man, I gotta find direction in my life.
2
SPEAKER_01
Took the CHP exam.
2
SPEAKER_01
Failed.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I m like, well, that s out.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was about to join the Marines.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh my gosh.
2
SPEAKER_01
But every day I d be in gold, and every day talking to the guys in gold.
2
SPEAKER_01
And one of my friends, Mark Bell and his brother Chris, they were like, hey, we re training to be wrestlers over in Orange County.
2
SPEAKER_01
Would you do that?
2
SPEAKER_01
And it was the weekend I was going to join the Marine Corps.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh my Lord.
2
SPEAKER_01
A happy accident.
2
SPEAKER_01
Once again, opportunity being like, you guys, there s a school to do this?
2
SPEAKER_01
And as soon as I saw a ring, I was like, okay, this is going to be the thing that keeps me here.
2
SPEAKER_01
I now don t care what job I have because I ll deal with the Monday through Friday suck because I can be a character on the weekend.
2
SPEAKER_01
I never went out there being like, I m going to make it big in the WWE.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was like, I m going to wrestle at the flea market on Friday night.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then again on Saturday, we re going up to Northern California.
2
SPEAKER_01
And this is going to be fun.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I can pick out my outfits.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was working at the gym, so the suck really wasn t that bad.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I m working in an environment where I got friends.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have enough to eat.
2
SPEAKER_01
I got a roof over my head.
2
SPEAKER_01
I got a car.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I got fun for the weekends.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m just going to ride this out as long as it can go.
2
SPEAKER_00
Of the different categories that make a good wrestler, obviously there s a physicality to it, there is a coordination element I d imagine, there is some level of game plan like a quarterback, and then there s the improv and the character and the on the mic stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
Which of all those categories came easiest to you and which were you having to really apply yourself to be good at?
2
SPEAKER_01
So I still don t have a good grasp on knowing my own capabilities.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like always knowing my line and just towing it and trying to push it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Not saying like, oh I m going to the top rope to do a backflip.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
Where I have lordosis, so it s uncomfortable to go ass over tea kettle.
2
SPEAKER_00
What s lordosis?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s opposite of scoliosis.
2
SPEAKER_01
Over the years, it s gotten better, but 20s, I was like big booty out all the time.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s like sticking your butt out.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_02
So John, it s so exciting.
3
SPEAKER_02
I just got the full body scan and I discovered I have pretty severe scoliosis.
3
SPEAKER_02
I didn t know!
3
SPEAKER_02
Hopefully you can correct that.
3
SPEAKER_02
No, I think the ship sailed.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m 49.
3
SPEAKER_02
I don t know, man.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s never too late.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not so severe.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re not like hunched over.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not forward or backward, it makes a sharp right.
3
SPEAKER_02
It explains some things.
3
SPEAKER_02
Never too late, man.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh, every time I would do traps at the beginning, before I really committed to them, I m like, why is this the only thing that kills when I do it?
3
SPEAKER_02
Because everything s like this?
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, the whole body is crooked.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
What a finding at my late age.
3
SPEAKER_02
Have you done a full body scan?
3
SPEAKER_02
I have not.
3
SPEAKER_02
Does it interest you?
3
SPEAKER_01
It does.
3
SPEAKER_01
All of the ability to take your car into the shop, I use that analogy.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re not gonna invest in an automobile that you enjoy from car guy to car guy and just let it sit.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s constant carry.
3
SPEAKER_01
You bring it in for service even though it doesn t need anything, just to get a professional s opinion on, you re doing everything right.
3
SPEAKER_01
All that stuff about the human body fascinates me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s like, we re truly at a golden age of people using new methods to discover how to live healthier.
3
SPEAKER_01
And discover stuff early.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, man.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s really something of interest.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
So how quickly, cause you came out in 99 and then you get your first WWE, which was then WWF contract, I guess in 2001 or two.
3
SPEAKER_02
So it s a pretty quick ride.
3
SPEAKER_02
Maybe not at the time when you re 22.
3
SPEAKER_02
The contract might ve even came in 2000.
3
SPEAKER_02
OK, so how do we get from the Orange County parking lot flea market bonanza into that world?
3
SPEAKER_01
The WWE was actively recruiting for the first time, and that was that wave.
3
SPEAKER_01
Again, right place, right time.
3
SPEAKER_02
Can I pause you?
3
SPEAKER_02
You don t seem to have the same affinity for Schwarzenegger that I do.
3
SPEAKER_02
I can accept that.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s not true.
3
SPEAKER_01
OK.
3
SPEAKER_02
Arnold is an inspiration.
3
SPEAKER_02
I just think in different lights.
3
SPEAKER_02
OK.
3
SPEAKER_02
Hulk.
3
SPEAKER_02
So, I had a period where I fucking loved the WWE.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think it was WrestleMania V came to the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan.
3
SPEAKER_01
WrestleMania III.
3
SPEAKER_01
Three?
3
SPEAKER_01
And everyone watched that.
3
SPEAKER_01
You are not alone.
3
SPEAKER_02
Is that the one where Hulk had to body slam Andre?
3
SPEAKER_02
Yep.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh my god, what a time to get into that thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Wrestling was in the zeitgeist.
3
SPEAKER_01
Us being that age, very impressionable, and what a superhero story that was.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think the pinnacle of it for me is like, I already know Rocky.
3
SPEAKER_02
I love Rocky.
3
SPEAKER_02
Rocky s the toughest guy in the world.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then all of a sudden Hulk Hogan s in Rocky.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I m like, oh my God, look how big the Hulk is.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was so exciting.
3
SPEAKER_01
So was the Hulk a guy for you?
3
SPEAKER_01
As a young man growing up, of course, but then when you get into the profession and you want to make a name for yourself, you tend to look at different professionals different ways.
3
SPEAKER_01
I started liking other people s work just for what they had to offer.
3
SPEAKER_02
And what were the things they tended to impress you?
3
SPEAKER_01
Again, the physicality or the showmanship?
3
SPEAKER_01
I really always had a good grasp on working out.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t gravitate toward guys who were big.
3
SPEAKER_01
I watched guys who moved well, who spoke well, how they carried themselves, how they
3
SPEAKER_01
define their character.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do I like this guy?
3
SPEAKER_01
Do I hate this guy?
3
SPEAKER_01
Why?
3
SPEAKER_01
It wasn t like, man, I want legs like that dude, or I want to be able to do that move.
3
SPEAKER_01
You want the whole persona.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, just trying to make discoveries on what works.
3
SPEAKER_01
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, I was fascinated to find out, we had like three versions before we get to John Cena.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
We have the prototype.
3
SPEAKER_02
Half man, half machine.
3
SPEAKER_02
100% the shits.
3
SPEAKER_02
Because I m now realizing while I m sitting in front of you, you do bear a bit of a resemblance to Jean-Claude Van Damme and his prime.
3
SPEAKER_02
Appreciate it, man.
3
SPEAKER_02
He had played a cyborg.
3
SPEAKER_02
Was it before or after that?
3
SPEAKER_02
It was after that.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it was an idea from the kid who asked me to go down there.
3
SPEAKER_01
You ll be the prototype, half man, half machine.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because I d never had a drink before in my life at that point.
3
SPEAKER_01
All I did was like eat, workout.
3
SPEAKER_01
Alcoholism?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, not at all.
3
SPEAKER_01
No family history, none of that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t feel I needed it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Again, I went from being in no social circle to swimming in a lot of pools.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I didn t think I needed another vehicle.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was already a dumbass enough.
3
SPEAKER_01
I found out in my early research, alcohol denatures protein.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I was like, okay, well, if I m taking in 30 grams a day, I got to make use of the best of it because I just spent my allowance on this bag of weight gainer.
3
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is it safe to say you had like another addiction which was optimizing your body?
3
100%.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that had to take precedent over?
3
SPEAKER_01
You couldn t bring on any other.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
3
SPEAKER_00
Anything that would take from that.
3
SPEAKER_01
It influenced all the choices I made.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t think it was an addiction because I still had a successful life around it.
3
SPEAKER_00
For sure, no consequences.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but it occupied a lot of my time and curated a lot of my choices.
3
SPEAKER_02
Okay, so you had never drank.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, I worked security at a bar, dead sober.
3
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_02
Have you since drank?
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh yeah, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
As an alcoholic, I really am having a hard time not drinking by the age of 24.
3
SPEAKER_02
Okay, okay, okay.
3
SPEAKER_01
So at this point you have it, so you re the prototype.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they just thought because they saw me operate, this kid s a machine.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the kid was like, oh, you re half man, half machine.
3
SPEAKER_02
How did that manifest itself in your showmanship?
3
SPEAKER_02
Would you be on a mic at that stage?
3
SPEAKER_01
So it was just monotonous, horrible, move like a robot.
3
SPEAKER_01
The cool thing was I tried.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
The uncool thing was it didn t work.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right, so it s great though.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s great, John, because it s just like acting.
3
SPEAKER_02
You do these first acting classes.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s so fucking embarrassing.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re so bad, but then you re over it.
3
SPEAKER_02
You did the worst you could do and you lived.
3
SPEAKER_01
So the next one is Mr. P. I went from the flea markets of San Diego and the Mexican border to middle America in Kentucky.
3
SPEAKER_02
The Ohio Valley circuit.
3
SPEAKER_01
To the Ohio Valley.
3
SPEAKER_02
Okay, there s some history to this.
3
SPEAKER_01
Forgive my ignorance on wrestling, but I hear that a lot, Ohio Valley.
3
SPEAKER_01
Tennessee built that Ohio Valley and down into Tennessee was a very, very strong territory.
3
SPEAKER_01
It used to be like a cartel.
3
SPEAKER_01
Every place was run by a guy.
3
SPEAKER_01
They all would meet and fix prices and make sure if this is the champion and all that.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is the old days.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I watch a few docs on this, and these wrestlers would travel, they d go in and out of these different organizations, and they d be different characters.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so if I run Northern California, and I hear you are wanted in Texas, I ll run you into the ground for four weeks and then ship you off to Von Erickson, Texas, and they ll ship you back to Jerry Lawler in Nashville, and then you come out to work for Vince McMahon Sr.
3
SPEAKER_01
in New York, and then you go down to work for Billy Graham in Florida, and all these guys control the U.S.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then is it McMahon who unifies this?
3
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
So he s the first to make like a National League, an NFL of it all.
3
SPEAKER_02
Okay, so you re in the Ohio Valley.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s kind of big time, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
That s a huge step up.
3
SPEAKER_01
The next step is getting on television.
3
SPEAKER_01
The day I got my contract was the day I quit my job.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was still out in California at the time.
3
SPEAKER_01
But when I matriculated to like AAA baseball, I guess was the best way to say it, this could happen.
3
SPEAKER_01
How exciting.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was great.
3
SPEAKER_02
How frequently were you wrestling?
3
SPEAKER_02
Performing, maybe that was a better way to say it.
3
SPEAKER_02
Three times a week.
3
SPEAKER_02
And you re so young, it s not even, are you sore all the time or no?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, because there are different audiences that expect different things from you.
3
SPEAKER_01
Middle America wanted to root for the good guys and hate the bad guys.
3
SPEAKER_01
So some performances don t call for you to do a full on stunt show.
3
SPEAKER_01
Some performances call you for look like an idiot.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was a bad guy, so I was a perfect foil and I was not afraid to look stupid.
3
SPEAKER_01
And Jim Cornette and Danny Davis, two very wise men, shook the 50% man, 50% machine, and said, we re gonna still call you the prototype, aka Mr. P, and we re gonna put you with this character we have called the role model.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it was the typical trope of an in-shape guy, his name was Rico Constantino, being the role model for how you should live in society, and holding himself in a certain way, but then doing nefarious things in the ring.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, the classic bad guy.
3
SPEAKER_01
I love it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was his
3
SPEAKER_01
protege, so he would mentor me and tell me like how to look and how to lift and then how to be in the ring and then cheat to win and win at all costs.
3
SPEAKER_01
So these underlying things of like, we live a good life, don t we?
3
SPEAKER_01
And then be bad.
3
SPEAKER_01
They were fraudulent.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it s an easy thing and I could be more of myself and I could be goofy.
3
SPEAKER_01
They embrace that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh wow, you re gonna be a good foil for my good guys?
3
SPEAKER_01
Do all the crazy stuff you d wanna do.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it taught me to really swing big and not be under the construct of having to move like a robot
3
SPEAKER_02
You have a built-in broadness to the role, the archetype, that allows you to swing kind of big.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes, and I m also not the main attraction.
3
SPEAKER_01
The role model is.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re the comic relief almost.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
The jester.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_01
If I fail, it doesn t ruin the act.
3
SPEAKER_01
The role model can t fail.
3
SPEAKER_01
They had a lot of wisdom, they knew I needed a lot of work, and they put me in a situation where I wouldn t really fail.
3
SPEAKER_01
Or my failures wouldn t hurt their bottom line.
3
SPEAKER_01
Hats off to them for that.
3
SPEAKER_02
And now, when you become John Cena in the WWE.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m a forever WWE guy.
3
SPEAKER_02
How do we go from Mr. P to John Cena?
3
SPEAKER_02
And by the way, I had to educate myself on this, but you were a rapper.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s very Marky Mark.
3
SPEAKER_01
There was an edition of John Cena before that.
3
SPEAKER_01
An iteration?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes, indeed.
3
SPEAKER_01
Before you get on television with the WWE, they bring you up into the circuit and you do non-televised matches.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I had been traveling for a few months doing non-televised matches, but they send you to the TV broadcast anyway, almost like a player that would go on the bench for a football team, like, oh, this guy got hurt, get on in.
3
SPEAKER_01
And one day in Chicago, The Undertaker was sick, and they had no one to fill the spot, and in the middle of their production meeting, they said, what about the kid?
3
SPEAKER_01
And it just happened to be in a very small window of time where we had gone from outlandish characters like The Undertaker and Mankind and Stone Cold Steve Austin
3
SPEAKER_01
And there was a movement for more realism part of that movement was let s stop using gimmicky names and let s use their real name That lasted for like five minutes because then they realized we need to use a real name So Seth Rollins is Colby Lopez, but this is a great gimmick
3
SPEAKER_02
to you, don t you think, in retrospect?
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh my goodness.
3
SPEAKER_01
The time it s thrown in my lap because now we re talking is John Cena and that s really who I am.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
3
SPEAKER_02
We don t have to go like, well, fuck, I want to call him The Rock, but it s Dwayne.
3
SPEAKER_01
We know it s Dwayne.
3
SPEAKER_01
But dude, in 2002, I know what the prototype is.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m a young 20-something year old man.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t know who the fuck John Cena is.
3
SPEAKER_02
Of course not.
4
SPEAKER_01
So they tell me like, you re John Cena now, and you re a good guy.
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
Go out and do John Cena as a good guy.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I ve spent my life being a bad guy.
4
SPEAKER_01
I ve spent my life being a character.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now I m told to be myself and go out there and be a good guy.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what s going on.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is crazy.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is like getting a role in a movie, and they give you nothing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, they re like, be yourself.
4
SPEAKER_00
Go!
4
SPEAKER_00
What they give you is, get on out there.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s time to go.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I didn t have enough depth of field.
4
SPEAKER_01
They put little nuggets down.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, my introduction was, Kurt Angle made an open challenge, and I walked out.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s like, what makes you think you can be out here?
4
SPEAKER_01
And I said, ruthless aggression, which was a theme in the program at that time.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I slapped him in the face, and here we go.
4
SPEAKER_01
That was the only moment that I was either ruthless or aggressive.
4
SPEAKER_01
I just tried to be a good guy and do good moves.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I didn t understand that, okay, your character could be ruthless aggression guy.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I didn t lean into those notes at all.
4
SPEAKER_01
So that failed and I was about to get fired.
4
SPEAKER_01
When I knew I was going to let go, I started swinging a little big and I started hanging around the boys because the way I was taught in the Ohio Valley was keep your ears open and your mouth shut and don t ruffle any feathers.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re in a very alpha world.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that led to my peer group saying he never talks to us and he doesn t care about the business.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because you re supposed to go to the people with the wisdom and be like, what s the secret?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was told you don t ruffle any feathers and you keep your mouth shut.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is a catch-22.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Damn, I m in a bit of a situation.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
But then when they were like, hey, it s September, October, we re going to send you on this international tour to get you a paycheck.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then after that, you know, it s not working out.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I couldn t argue.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m like, ah, okay.
4
SPEAKER_01
But they started freestyling on the back of the bus and I just jumped in the circle.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that was your first time.
4
SPEAKER_01
That was my first time ever showing character or showmanship.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I hadn t been given that opportunity on WWE, but I understand why, because I d never earned it.
4
SPEAKER_01
The head of creative, Vince s daughter, Stephanie, happened to be in the front of the bus.
4
SPEAKER_01
And heard you rapping with the guys back then.
4
SPEAKER_01
And she was like, hey, how did you remember all that?
4
SPEAKER_01
I m like, no, no, you just make it up.
4
SPEAKER_01
She s like, would you want to do that on television?
4
SPEAKER_01
Sure would, because I know who the Marky Mark guy is.
4
SPEAKER_01
I know who the rap guy is.
4
SPEAKER_00
Was he an image in your mind at that point?
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh my god.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because when you walk out with the chains, I watched a clip of you walking out with a huge fucking bicycle chain around your thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, oh, it s Marky Mark plus 65 pounds.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I grew up on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
4
SPEAKER_01
And there s a beach there called Hampton Beach in New Hampshire.
4
SPEAKER_01
And there s a strip.
4
SPEAKER_01
I used to cruise there, I used to see these kids thinking that they were street hard.
4
SPEAKER_01
But like, we re from West Newbury, that doesn t exist.
4
SPEAKER_01
I know you re trying to express yourself and find out who you are.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I just burned that image in my head of, man, I would love to just punch that kid in the face.
4
SPEAKER_01
So because I wanted to punch him in the face, I m like, if I can do that, people want to punch me in the face.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s what I need to be.
4
SPEAKER_01
So at least I found, all right, I m not going to be a cool rap guy.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s why I m announced from West Newbury, Massachusetts.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right, to further embarrass how ridiculous this kid think he is.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
You discovered Elaine.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was given a chance that I understood.
4
SPEAKER_01
Go all into the rap thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
I dressed ridiculous, I act ridiculous, I started doing ridiculous movements, I started talking ridiculous.
4
SPEAKER_01
24-7, I was in the rap gimmick.
4
SPEAKER_01
They instituted a dress code in WWE soon after I changed my gimmick, and I raised my hand.
4
SPEAKER_01
I said, I m not doing it.
4
SPEAKER_01
In front of everyone, in front of my peers.
4
SPEAKER_01
I rebelled against authority because you guys are gonna kill my character.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re never gonna believe it.
4
SPEAKER_01
We re going from city to city to city and we re traveling with everyone else.
4
SPEAKER_01
We rent cars from everyone else.
4
SPEAKER_01
We go to the hotel with everyone else.
4
SPEAKER_01
We pull up to the arena and there are fans out there.
4
SPEAKER_01
I used to freestyle battle kids in parking lots in front of the arenas.
4
SPEAKER_00
Had you had any practice prior to this or did you just discover you can do this?
4
SPEAKER_01
It was a hobby at best.
4
SPEAKER_01
So as a teenager, I got beat up for listening to hip hop and I got beat up for dressing hip hop.
4
SPEAKER_01
That was not the music of the time in West Newbury, Massachusetts.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s always been something I ve been passionate
4
SPEAKER_01
And I found my few friends who were into it, and we would mess around with it as a young teen.
4
SPEAKER_01
Certainly when I got put into prep school, my roommate was from Compton.
4
SPEAKER_01
We immediately bonded, and then we got the hip-hop clique together.
4
SPEAKER_01
And during study hall, instead of studying, one of my friends had a turntable and a mic, and we d record our freestyles.
4
SPEAKER_01
Did you like ghetto boys?
4
SPEAKER_01
The Texas scene was all right.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was definitely more of a New York boom bap.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then when the West Coast thing hit with Dre and Snoop Dogg, it was a wrap.
4
SPEAKER_00
You never looked back.
4
SPEAKER_00
Never looked back.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so now you re rapping and now you re on TV and you re pulling it off and it s crazy and you ve got the fucking backwards hat You ve got the whole thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
Whatever you can imagine the ridiculous turn up to 11.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s a phrase you hear a lot in the WWE This is who I am just turned up to 11 right mine the knob broke
4
SPEAKER_01
The spinal tap, 11, we were gone.
4
SPEAKER_01
You went to 14.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so how long before that character evolves into the second iteration, really, of John, which was like a principled guy, loyalty?
4
SPEAKER_01
So I think that was 2006 or 7, and that was a personal choice because every night I have legitimate feedback on our consumers.
4
SPEAKER_01
Meaning by how they respond vocally?
4
SPEAKER_01
Not that.
4
SPEAKER_01
The rap guy was fun.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everybody was having fun.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because it ended up being like a punchline insult comic.
4
SPEAKER_01
I would go out and do five rhymes, make fun of the town, make fun of everybody, make fun of my opponent.
4
SPEAKER_01
When I became a good guy, I would just do five punchlines on my opponent.
4
SPEAKER_01
And everybody would be like, oh, this is fun.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is great.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, OK.
4
SPEAKER_01
But they were pushing boundaries.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because I knew that attitude would get response.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I would go push as far as I could.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I started seeing more and more families.
4
SPEAKER_01
You gotta remember from the 90s, the WWE labeled itself the Attitude Era.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it was TV 14, and it borderlined on some mature stuff.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was a fan of that, and I kinda kept that.
4
SPEAKER_01
But the WWE moved towards PG.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes, they weren t quite PG yet, but they wanted to move in that direction.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I understand why.
4
SPEAKER_01
Every night, you got data at your fingertips.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a family there, there s a family there, there s a little kid there.
4
SPEAKER_01
You see little kids wearing your stuff and your stuff is pushing the boundaries.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then I was like, you know what?
4
SPEAKER_01
I want to stop doing this.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I remember all the producers, it was my choice and everybody being like, well, it was a good run.
4
SPEAKER_01
What are you going to do now?
4
SPEAKER_01
But I had built a relationship with the audience enough where they kind of knew my value system too, because I had to start from the bottom and I wasn t like,
4
SPEAKER_01
You re our next superstar.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I wasn t kicking ass.
4
SPEAKER_00
You were forced onto everyone.
4
SPEAKER_01
I got my ass kicked.
4
SPEAKER_01
So my thing became like, take a bunch of punishment and never give up.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s kind of my value system too.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then I wanted to put hustle, loyalty and respect, which really hard work, loyalty and respect are right in my value lane.
4
SPEAKER_01
So as a young man, I got to take my background and it was a slow change.
4
SPEAKER_01
Started to wear a little bit higher jean shorts.
4
SPEAKER_01
Started to not wear the Reebok pumps.
4
SPEAKER_01
Started to wear t-shirts that fit.
4
SPEAKER_01
Started to turn my hat around and bend it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Changed the catchphrases and the designs of my merchandise.
4
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t a, now I m this guy.
4
SPEAKER_00
And how does that jive with the overall, because I think that s what s fascinating about what you re doing, is you re on a television show.
4
SPEAKER_00
And there are writers constructing the overall arching plot of this season.
4
SPEAKER_00
Who s going to be the champion?
4
SPEAKER_00
All these different things.
4
SPEAKER_00
How are you inserting your own agenda into their much broader plan?
4
SPEAKER_00
Or is their plan evolving pretty flexibly and are they very adaptive?
4
SPEAKER_00
I try to be the most adaptive.
4
SPEAKER_01
I ve always operated under the construct of, if I m not putting up the money, I m a piece on someone else s chessboard.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m a toy in somebody else s sandbox.
4
SPEAKER_01
How do I be that best piece?
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to, as a rook, become a knight.
4
SPEAKER_01
I just want to be a really good rook.
4
SPEAKER_01
As a firetruck in your sandbox, I don t want to become a shovel.
4
SPEAKER_01
But damn, I ll work hard to become that best firetruck.
4
SPEAKER_01
So your opponents and your trajectory changes all the time.
4
SPEAKER_00
When it does, you just have to react of like, what would the rap guy do?
4
SPEAKER_00
You just have to make the moment true for whatever the story they give you is.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, what would Superman do?
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s the North Star that I would use after the evolution of this character of like, put me with anybody.
4
SPEAKER_01
I can win.
4
SPEAKER_01
I can lose.
4
SPEAKER_01
I can have any opponent.
4
SPEAKER_01
I can be in any match.
4
SPEAKER_01
What would a virtuous dude
4
SPEAKER_01
who lives by the ethos of loyalty, hard work, and respect, who puts on his shirts, never give up.
4
SPEAKER_01
How does he give a post-game interview after the biggest loss of his life?
4
SPEAKER_01
How does he celebrate achievement?
4
SPEAKER_01
Is he humble?
4
SPEAKER_01
Like all of those things, you can get put in any situation, and the fans continue to believe because you re authentically self.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that was very different than what would the shit-talking rap guy do.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had a Sharpie in my shoes and signed the lens of the camera because I saw Terrell Owens do it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right, right.
4
SPEAKER_00
That wasn t something that I would do when I evolved.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so it seems when I m watching these clips, there s so much improv in this show.
4
SPEAKER_00
I have to imagine, do you know plot points?
4
SPEAKER_00
when you re in the ring, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
You know it s got to escalate to someone challenging someone, but is the rest of it pretty much just all off the dome?
4
SPEAKER_01
So it depends.
4
SPEAKER_01
The way I was taught, the way they used to work in the cartel era was you listen to the audience.
4
SPEAKER_01
And somewhere along the line, because of stunt and fight choreography and probably supply and demand our audience wanted to see bigger and better, a lot of folks will choreograph everything.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it makes for a beautiful exposition.
4
SPEAKER_01
I can remember everything.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m probably not good at choreographing everything.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if someone s like, hey, this is the four pages of match that I have.
4
SPEAKER_01
Let s do that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay, this is the partner I m with tonight.
4
SPEAKER_01
Time to study to pass the bar.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s like learning to play in football.
4
SPEAKER_01
or it s like learning a play in theater.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, hey, here s my script.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I operate under the construct of improv, where if you and I are both trained and we both make it to the major leagues, I know you can do 12 things.
4
SPEAKER_01
We don t even have to talk.
4
SPEAKER_01
I know you have these fundamentals.
4
SPEAKER_01
You ll be there and your timing will be there.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then we talk and be like, well, what else do you do?
4
SPEAKER_01
And you can tell me the special things that you do.
4
SPEAKER_01
And a lot of people try to put it in their play of like, I do this.
4
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no.
4
SPEAKER_01
What are the movements that you do?
4
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
5
SPEAKER_01
We ll figure it out out there.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I go out there with a time limit and an end.
5
SPEAKER_00
Are there visual markers to check in with where you re at time wise?
5
SPEAKER_01
Everyone is helping everyone.
5
SPEAKER_01
So the referees you can talk to and then every arena has a clock because it s a hockey arena.
5
SPEAKER_01
So every arena still has a high digital clock in the threes somewhere so you can see by that and they ll let you know if you re taking up too much TV time.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know what I didn t anticipate about all this that now that you re explaining it excites me to no end.
5
SPEAKER_00
There is no better feeling than when you re in a scene with somebody and it gets wild and you guys both know what you can do and it goes there and you crush like I bet the pleasure of it being so simpatico
5
SPEAKER_00
the ballet working, the improv playing off of each other, I bet it has to be like a great, great scene in a movie.
5
SPEAKER_00
Did it feel like a very shared, wonderful, like, oh, two humans have connected their minds and we acted in unison.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s a very special experience.
5
SPEAKER_01
So imagine that now.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I don t even want to say in front of a crowd.
5
SPEAKER_01
because the crowd is a mind that you connect with as well.
5
SPEAKER_01
They re the superstars.
5
SPEAKER_01
They run the show.
5
SPEAKER_01
They give you instant gratification of if the bits work or if it doesn t.
5
SPEAKER_01
But there s apathetic silence and then there s interesting silence.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s excitement.
5
SPEAKER_01
So they re co-writing the bit with you.
5
SPEAKER_01
They are.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s why I don t like to do the playbook.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m not knocking it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because it can t adjust for the real-time stuff.
5
SPEAKER_01
Dude, if we go out there and we do our first bit of choreography to apathetic silence, we are doomed.
5
SPEAKER_01
But if we have nothing and we have apathy,
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe if I turn the speed up, they ll get in.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe if I slow down, maybe I need you to do something big.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you can throw all of these lines in the water.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then when you get interest, what kind of interest do I have?
5
SPEAKER_01
Are they for the bad guy?
5
SPEAKER_01
Are they for the good guy?
5
SPEAKER_01
How do I need to curate this?
5
SPEAKER_01
I ve had people get married during my bits and worked it into the match.
5
SPEAKER_01
Fights break out in the stands.
5
SPEAKER_01
We work the fights into the match.
5
SPEAKER_01
Europeans love to bring the beach balls.
5
SPEAKER_01
We broke the beach balls into the match.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m basically saying to the audience, you want to be heard.
5
SPEAKER_01
I hear you.
5
SPEAKER_01
and I m making it all make sense.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s seamless.
5
SPEAKER_00
Got it.
5
SPEAKER_00
The parallels between stand-up and sketch.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s stand-up.
5
SPEAKER_00
Although it s also sketch or improv because there s two of you or three of you, the ref and whoever else is involved.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s why I get so excited when I talk about it because those moments in there when things go right or wrong, you talk to good sketch folks and good stand-up folks, they don t mind bombing every once in a while because it s really humbling.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it makes the highs higher.
5
SPEAKER_01
It makes the highs higher.
5
SPEAKER_01
And just the feeling of, man, we integrated everyone and told our story.
5
SPEAKER_01
So they ll say you have 15 minutes This is the end of the story arc where it looks like you re never gonna save the day and then at some point Triumphantly you somehow do it go figure out how that happens and you just get to go out there and make it up Oh, it s so great.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think I had stuck in my head Monica.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t know what presupposed opinions you brought into it
5
SPEAKER_00
I guess they thought, well, it s really hard on your body.
5
SPEAKER_00
It is.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a beat down.
5
SPEAKER_00
You travel nonstop.
5
SPEAKER_00
You do.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re a carny.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re probably dying to get out and become the rock.
5
SPEAKER_00
It would be the same as having a crowd at a stand up show.
5
SPEAKER_00
Letting that go is very enjoyable.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
So when you get approached then in 2006 or seven to do the
5
SPEAKER_00
Marine.
5
SPEAKER_00
The Marine.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m doing pretty good.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re doing great.
5
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re doing great.
5
SPEAKER_01
You are never shy for information or wisdom, my friend.
5
SPEAKER_01
I appreciate that.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t know about wisdom, but info.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, no, don t sell yourself short.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re a tremendous slouch.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so the Marine comes along.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re not hunting for that opportunity at that moment, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Vince McMahon has just decided to start a studio, and the first thing s going to be this movie.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if it was the first.
5
SPEAKER_00
They filmed a horror movie and the Marine at the same time.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, and it was supposed to be Stone Cold, and he bails two weeks out, and then they approach you.
5
SPEAKER_00
What s your initial reaction?
5
100%.
5
SPEAKER_01
But not because I want to be a movie star.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ve always been fascinated not only with wrestling and the art of wrestling, I ve been fascinated with the business.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, when I say I love WWE, man, I love it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, let me add, I think it s relevant now to people understand your place in the history of this organization.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re a 16-time champion, which is the record.
5
SPEAKER_00
You ve been doing it since 2002, and you re still present.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s not just yesterday.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s not yesterday.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re one of the longest-serving people to ever do it.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re the most championed.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re in the Hall of Fame.
5
SPEAKER_00
Not yet.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you re not.
5
SPEAKER_00
Not yet.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re going to save that.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s what the result of this will be.
5
SPEAKER_00
I hope so.
5
SPEAKER_00
I hope this is the swing.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I hope you thank us in your speech.
5
SPEAKER_00
I will.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ll come out as Mr. P. Right on.
5
SPEAKER_00
But you re one of the best that s ever done it.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s no reason for you to desire anything else.
5
SPEAKER_00
If anything, you just want to make that even bigger and better.
5
SPEAKER_01
That was the bill of goods I was sold.
5
SPEAKER_01
Hey, we re trying this thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
If we make you guys movie stars, more people will come to see you wrestle.
5
SPEAKER_01
So forget these arenas.
5
SPEAKER_01
We re going to run stadiums.
5
SPEAKER_01
Whoa, a hundred thousand people a night and all I got to do is go to Australia for four or five months and come back to the US in between to film TVs?
5
SPEAKER_01
No problem, let s do it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right.
5
SPEAKER_00
Is it going to be this circular self-perpetuating loop?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Those are the wrong reasons to get into being vulnerable in front of camera.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because I didn t go over there with the construct of like giving my whole self to a scene, and I always wanted to be in the ring.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I m suffering in Australia for these long 12, 15 hour days.
5
SPEAKER_01
You go from like, hey, you re on at 730 and you re done by 805.
5
SPEAKER_00
Also, what I already heard from how it works, the mechanics of it, you go from having great autonomy over what you do to none.
5
SPEAKER_00
You stand here, you look over there.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, look to the other side of the camera.
5
SPEAKER_00
Say these lines.
5
SPEAKER_00
You didn t say that word right.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s no feedback.
5
SPEAKER_00
Again, authority as well.
5
SPEAKER_01
Library quiet.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m in my mid-20s.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m riding this lightning bolt.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s something I ve always wanted to do and then it just gets taken away.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was literally commuting from Australia back to the States to film Smackdowns and then I go back to Australia to film the movie while I m doing the movie.
5
SPEAKER_00
Unreal.
5
SPEAKER_00
Was there any part of the first experience that did pique your interest?
5
SPEAKER_00
None.
5
SPEAKER_00
So then it comes out and it does well for what it was.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes, but you could see that it only did well because of whomever.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because you re jacked like a motherfucker.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, the WWE had a great fan base.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was a low budget action movie.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was a time where media was different.
5
SPEAKER_01
You still had to kind of go to the theater.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was like right at the time it was supposed to happen.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was a throwback B movie.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think you re grading on a curve there, but I appreciate what you re saying.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I just did a bunch of those under the construct of if one of these hits will be okay But I never wanted to go do that stuff.
5
SPEAKER_00
I always just want to be back in the ring Okay, so then once switched another big turning point is train wreck.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I m curious how we get to like yes I m gonna do this thing because ultimately it ll bolster the thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
I actually love when do you start going?
5
SPEAKER_00
Wait, I want to do this one of the last
5
SPEAKER_01
bad movies I did, I was like, man, I never want to do this again.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then I remember at WrestleMania in Houston, Texas, where a producer wanted to meet myself and my agent, now manager, and they got us into a room and they pitched us a movie called Maniac Cop 5.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you re talking B, this was down into the below F range.
5
SPEAKER_01
And we heard their pitch out, left the room, and I looked at him.
5
SPEAKER_01
We tell this story all the time.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m like, damn, we re never doing movies again.
5
SPEAKER_01
He s like, nope, we re never doing movies again.
5
SPEAKER_01
And he confidently, he didn t pat me on the back, no, just wait it out.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, we re never doing movies again.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s okay.
5
SPEAKER_01
We re going to find other avenues.
5
SPEAKER_01
So this is 2009, 10, I ve been on the road 300 days a year.
5
SPEAKER_01
Can I ask an inappropriate financial question?
5
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
5
SPEAKER_00
What level are people getting paid in this realm?
5
SPEAKER_00
In my realm or now?
5
SPEAKER_00
Your realm back in that day.
5
SPEAKER_00
Were you taking a pay cut to go do movies?
5
SPEAKER_00
For me, yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
An easier way for me to do it is to do comps, which is like, you guys are athletes that are seen in sold-out arenas.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the TV ratings have always been the biggest on cable.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like when Punk d beat WWE, MTV threw a party.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s the high watermark on cable was WWE.
5
SPEAKER_00
Bigger than the baseball games are shown on TBS.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
You guys aren t making what baseball players are making.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, but the revenue isn t the same.
5
SPEAKER_01
all of what Major League Baseball is making.
5
SPEAKER_01
You have to remember that WWE is MLB.
5
SPEAKER_01
So take all the teams, all of what they make, that s what you got.
5
SPEAKER_01
And there s also competition in Major League Baseball.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oakland wants to be better than the Dodgers, and Boston wants to be better than New York, so they re more willing to take risks and more willing to spend money.
5
SPEAKER_01
WWE s kind of the only place.
5
SPEAKER_01
They have a monopoly.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, because a monopoly is a situation where competition isn t allowed to exist.
5
SPEAKER_01
They put out a great product, but we ve had ECW, Ted Turner s WCW, currently AEW,
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, if you play for the Angels and they don t want to pay you your market value, you go to the Tigers.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s an option.
5
SPEAKER_00
You could go to EC, whatever you just said.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s not really a comp.
5
SPEAKER_00
It depends.
5
SPEAKER_00
And market value is what someone will pay for.
5
SPEAKER_01
But in a world where there s not 70 teams to bid on you.
5
SPEAKER_01
So that s the thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
But there also isn t the revenue of 70 teams.
5
SPEAKER_01
When you have 70 teams that are geocyte, New York fans are diehard.
5
SPEAKER_01
So are Boston fans.
5
SPEAKER_01
Multi-generational.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s a different model.
5
SPEAKER_01
So they re not generating even close.
5
SPEAKER_01
We re doing good, but it ain t Major League Baseball.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you can t look at a single data point like ratings and say like, that s it.
5
SPEAKER_01
We re doing good, but we ain t the NFL, we ain t Major League Baseball, we ain t the NBA.
5
SPEAKER_01
But guys are making a million dollars a year and above.
5
SPEAKER_01
So what I loved about when I came up was it was incentive based.
5
SPEAKER_01
You would get a certain guarantee, which was very healthy.
5
SPEAKER_01
But there wasn t a year I d made my guarantee.
5
SPEAKER_01
Profit shared in the attendance, profit shared in the merchandise sales, anything related to your IP.
5
SPEAKER_01
So that s pretty much it s like work hard for us and you will be rewarded.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s a number on paper where you re supposed to make come hell or high water.
5
SPEAKER_01
You blow a knee out, you re going to get your guarantee.
5
SPEAKER_01
But it was incentive.
5
SPEAKER_01
to work as many shows as you could.
5
SPEAKER_01
They paid me well for the movies, but I knew, like, I can sell tickets, I can sell these amount of t-shirts.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m losing money doing this.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right.
5
SPEAKER_01
That was another frustrating thing of, like, man, I just want to be back there.
5
SPEAKER_01
And also, WWE s audience is real quick.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you re off TV two weeks, they re on to the next new shiny toy.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of options.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re like, man, they re forgetting about me and somebody else is going to take the storyline.
6
SPEAKER_00
You really have a lot of anxiety that you re going to just be left behind.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s heartbreaking.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
I kind of always just wanted to be back there until my character never really had a chance to make a hyper change after The Virtuous John Cena.
6
SPEAKER_00
I was different versions of The Virtuous John Cena, but that worked really well.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they never decided to be like, now you re going to be the mustache twirling evil guy.
6
SPEAKER_01
Evil Hulk Hogan.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t mind doing the same act.
6
SPEAKER_00
ACDC, they play Thunderstruck all the time.
6
SPEAKER_00
But there were chances to do something different.
6
SPEAKER_01
You saw where this was going, and there wasn t much guesswork to predict where this was heading.
6
SPEAKER_01
At a certain point, you go, I m not going to be making that crazy character change.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I think that was what was exciting, of I m never going to be able to tell R-rated jokes here.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m never going to be able to even kick someone in the nuts.
6
SPEAKER_00
And now Judd Apatow wants me to be naked?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so it wasn t like oh this is gonna parlay into more people watching is like no man You ve had a good run.
6
SPEAKER_00
So by the time 14 happens I won the World Championship in 2004 a decade on tour not missing a whole lot of shows the checks don t bounce had you told me in 2014 we re gonna ride this out until you physically can t I was yes all in because it s never boring and the reason WWE is never boring is it s a different environment every night
6
SPEAKER_00
And I was dubbed the most polarizing character on WWE because as the virtuous guy you d think like people love the good guy No, people hated the good guy.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, they feel talked down to and I won a bunch They re like anybody else anybody but this guy so every crowd was different and it kept me present and it kept me on my toes You wanted to win them over every night.
6
SPEAKER_00
I imagine I just wanted to hear them the way I acted in front of a crowd that would sing my theme song instead of They would say John Cena sucks.
6
SPEAKER_00
I ve been a few times.
6
SPEAKER_00
They are ruthless
6
SPEAKER_00
Those are fun environments and that stuff never gets old, but someone was like hey, it s gonna be like two and a half weeks Come to New York.
6
SPEAKER_00
We re gonna do some crazy shit.
6
SPEAKER_00
Are you in?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and I presume you re already a fan of comedy Oh my god, once the WWE was like, yeah, we think you should do this I was like, oh, this is gonna be great hats off to Judd and Amy and everybody Well, they let you improv in the initial audition, which I think is such a kindness.
6
SPEAKER_01
They re awesome to work with
6
SPEAKER_01
Certainly for me, I m like, oh, they got this big-ass wrestler in this movie.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then I was like, oh, this motherfucker s funny.
6
SPEAKER_01
He s so self-deprecating, so willing to go for it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Perfect scenario.
6
SPEAKER_00
I haven t had a chance to do anything like this.
6
SPEAKER_00
I want to do it all, because this might be the one chance I get.
6
SPEAKER_00
Because it s never going to happen again.
6
SPEAKER_00
Because I looked at my buddy in the eye and said, we re never doing movies, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, we re never doing movies.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
OK, this is it.
6
SPEAKER_00
We fooled him once.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let s see what happens.
6
SPEAKER_00
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
6
SPEAKER_01
anxiety for you about having a pretty young fan base in an era where it had transferred to PG.
6
SPEAKER_01
Kind of juggling the tension of being very R-rated in movies and then very PG on TV.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m grateful for the way it is now that people are like, oh that is you, but it is you doing your thing and you re allowed to kind of live life outside of that.
6
SPEAKER_00
But this was also after
6
SPEAKER_00
10 years of me being on television, the wrestling fans want you to be who you are.
6
SPEAKER_00
They want you to show up and do a pose down and hit somebody with a chair.
6
SPEAKER_00
I d even argue they fucking hate actors.
6
SPEAKER_01
They offer you to come promote a movie at these events, and every time I watch the actors go up, they get so shit on, and I ve been asked to do it a bunch of times, and I m like, I m not gonna fly somewhere to get shit on like that.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yes, our audiences, they love their people.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think it s great.
6
SPEAKER_01
I just don t want to be on the business end of it.
6
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t sound very fun.
6
SPEAKER_01
They ll let you know how they feel.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they don t like Hollywood.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s pretty simple.
6
SPEAKER_01
Let s look at that, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
Because I don t want to say that no wrestling fan watches movies.
6
SPEAKER_01
I love how protective you are of all these things.
6
SPEAKER_00
You have a lot of integrity.
6
SPEAKER_00
People pay money to go into an arena to see wrestling.
6
SPEAKER_00
And in that show, where I paid whatever for this ticket, and I want to cheer and boo, and I have my sign, and I want to show that, you re going to give me a five-minute commercial on a movie I should see?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then Dax Shepard rocks out.
6
SPEAKER_00
What s this asshole doing here?
6
SPEAKER_00
And his interpretation of that is just a man who urinates constantly?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I don t think that they don t like movies, they don t like Hollywood.
6
SPEAKER_00
I just think they don t want their thing interrupted that they paid for.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, that s fair.
6
SPEAKER_00
Because a lot of our audience goes to the movies, and a lot of our audience is very supportive of my efforts, so I wouldn t be where I m at without them.
6
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so then you do Blockers in 2018.
6
SPEAKER_01
I just pray you love Ike as much as we do.
6
SPEAKER_00
Ike, if you re listening, I know you are.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s been too long since we ve had a sit-down with each other.
6
SPEAKER_00
I love that man.
6
SPEAKER_00
He is fantastic.
6
SPEAKER_00
Sharp, witty, but also a great human being.
6
SPEAKER_01
So 2018, you do Blockers and you do Bumblebee.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s your first franchise you drop into, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
This is the Transformer world.
6
SPEAKER_01
Are you adjusting at all now the sites?
6
SPEAKER_01
At this point, does The Rock s journey look attractive?
6
SPEAKER_00
At this point, I have great understanding and empathy of The Rock s journey.
6
SPEAKER_00
I called him out.
6
SPEAKER_00
Earlier when I was a full-time guy to try to get him for one of our most successful pay-per-views of all time Yeah, set up a year in advance, but boy did I do it the wrong way?
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you did the cornerstone of my argument was like you say you love the business and you re never around.
6
SPEAKER_00
What s your problem?
6
SPEAKER_00
You liar?
6
SPEAKER_00
Setting yourself up to be a hypocrite.
6
SPEAKER_00
I love the business.
6
SPEAKER_00
I haven t been to Raw or SmackDown in a long time.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
6
SPEAKER_00
Because life happens.
6
SPEAKER_00
This guy took a bet on himself, swung big, had the world by the bootstraps, and could have done anything in WWEF.
6
SPEAKER_00
But he s like, no, no, I m going to try this.
6
SPEAKER_00
And he actively wanted to tackle that.
6
SPEAKER_00
I more kind of, the phone kept ringing.
6
SPEAKER_00
Hey, do you want to tell another story as a weird character?
6
SPEAKER_00
Sure do.
6
SPEAKER_00
I thought this would be the last time you d call.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, you must be at a point now where it s like, yeah, my post-wrestling life will be acting.
6
SPEAKER_00
Still doing WWE.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I know.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I m saying at the point where you ve already alluded to in previous interviews and in this one, your body s not going to permit you at some point.
6
SPEAKER_00
I am 700 days away from losing my fastball.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s really close.
6
SPEAKER_00
The business has been good to me.
6
SPEAKER_00
I just want to do right and be good to the business.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to hang around for longer than I should just because my ego says I need to be involved.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s time.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the movies are more and more appealing.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, it s a place to be creative.
6
SPEAKER_00
I get to surround myself with wonderful people.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s led me here to sit with you.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the phone keeps ringing.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I can sit here across from you and say, I m going to do movies.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then the phone stops ringing.
6
SPEAKER_00
I got to pivot.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you re going to open a wrestling academy.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t put forth the money to do the movies.
6
SPEAKER_00
So as long as the phone keeps ringing, I m in.
6
SPEAKER_01
Right.
6
SPEAKER_01
So you end up in like three franchises in rapid order.
6
SPEAKER_01
Fast and Furious.
6
SPEAKER_01
F9 is your first one.
6
SPEAKER_01
Then you did Fast X or Fast 10.
6
SPEAKER_01
Fast 10, your seatbelts.
6
SPEAKER_01
Again, I m going to bring back my question about the alpha energy, because to drop into a franchise that they ve been doing for 20 years, it has its leader.
6
SPEAKER_01
There s an interesting dynamic, which is the guests are bigger than the alpha lead guy.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s a perspective.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, anatomically.
6
SPEAKER_01
When The Rock shows up, Vin all of a sudden looks like an average man.
6
SPEAKER_00
Dwayne s a big boy.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s a very big boy.
6
SPEAKER_00
He is a big boy.
6
SPEAKER_01
And he s big in all the ways.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
At least rumored that was a rough pairing.
6
SPEAKER_00
There s certainly rumors about that, I can t deny that.
6
SPEAKER_00
You have two very alpha-driven people.
6
SPEAKER_00
You get two, there can only be one.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s called Alpha for a reason.
6
SPEAKER_01
So did you enter the scene being mindful of that or you already have a playbook for that?
6
SPEAKER_00
Man, you got to remember, I got dropped into a locker room where generational vets.
6
SPEAKER_00
What d your dad do?
6
SPEAKER_00
Wrestle.
6
SPEAKER_00
What d your granddad do?
6
SPEAKER_00
Wrestle.
6
SPEAKER_00
I ve been in that environment.
6
SPEAKER_00
Know the room and just kind of adapt to what s going on.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m being invited into someone s home, into someone s family.
6
SPEAKER_00
And regardless of how they look physically in comparison to another human being, this is one IP.
6
SPEAKER_00
that has had nine installments, and it s an action movie.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s rarified air.
6
SPEAKER_01
No, it s never happened.
6
SPEAKER_00
At the very least, there has to be respect for that.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I think when you look at it through that perspective... You don t have any problem giving it up.
6
SPEAKER_00
No, and I also know I m a guest.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m not trying to get the sandbox.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s not my thing.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m grateful for what you ve given me.
6
SPEAKER_00
I just want to be the best fire truck I can.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay, now Suicide Squad, you joined the movie and now you re playing Peacemaker.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yep.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you told a great story about how you settle on what Peacemaker is.
6
SPEAKER_01
You had a bunch of different versions of it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I met with James.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s meticulous about who he works with because he wants everything to function well and work should be fun.
6
SPEAKER_00
One of the many things I love about him.
6
SPEAKER_00
We met, we hit it off, he offered me the part.
6
SPEAKER_00
I immediately said yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then I was like, hey, do you want me to read the comics?
6
SPEAKER_00
He s like, no.
6
SPEAKER_00
Doing it my way.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s already a fractured backstory.
6
SPEAKER_01
Anyways, it s been written by many different people with many different takes.
6
SPEAKER_00
So then I was like, okay, who is this guy?
6
SPEAKER_00
And the best I could do is this America Lee Ermey full metal jacket type disciplinarian who has this set of skills and feels as he d been wrongfully accused.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like Lee Ermey is really kind of an asshole in full metal jacket.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I came up with that of like, this is Peacemaker.
6
SPEAKER_00
The very first scene we all do is on the beach where Peacemaker s going back and forth with Idris s character.
6
SPEAKER_00
And James, because they built a beach, is on the other end of the beach sending in notes.
6
SPEAKER_00
And finally, there s a long pause.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, oh, what s going on?
6
SPEAKER_00
James comes out.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s like, okay, Peacemaker s like a douchey Captain America.
6
SPEAKER_00
And right there, it was like, do you want to be the rap guy?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yep, I know what the rap guy is.
6
SPEAKER_00
Just be a douchey Captain America.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s the best direction I ve ever- Douchey, bro-y.
6
SPEAKER_00
No problem.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s great.
7
SPEAKER_01
of what that is, and I ll try to do that. 
7
SPEAKER_01
And then we were like, listening to the same radio station.
7
SPEAKER_00
Do you get embarrassed in that moment?
7
SPEAKER_01
No, the embarrassment is if they kept all that stuff in and tanked the movie.
7
SPEAKER_00
I was mad, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s a very healthy perspective.
7
SPEAKER_00
But when you ve thought something through, committed to something, and then you re told, like, that s not working, I think it takes a lot of inner stalwartness to just go, okay, let me shake that off.
7
SPEAKER_00
Because that s embarrassing to me.
7
SPEAKER_00
Embarrassing?
7
SPEAKER_01
Sure, I tried my best and I was vulnerable and it didn t work.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it s a very vulnerable endeavor.
7
SPEAKER_00
My best isn t good enough.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it doesn t work.
7
SPEAKER_01
But any idea or construct should be able to withstand criticism or change.
7
SPEAKER_01
He gave me a good explanation of why.
7
SPEAKER_01
He didn t just go because I said so.
7
SPEAKER_01
And he explained it wasn t just douchey, broey Captain America because this is how we re going to play the story.
7
SPEAKER_01
This is how I want the character arc to go.
7
SPEAKER_01
This is where he has a moment of redemption.
7
SPEAKER_01
This is where we take it away.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s a good explanation, James.
7
SPEAKER_01
Let s rock.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I can t say, but my work, I put in all this time.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think you ve also earned a lot of confidence along the way.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think you ve earned some resilience.
7
SPEAKER_01
From failure.
7
SPEAKER_01
You get embarrassed.
7
SPEAKER_01
And again, I had... And you live.
7
SPEAKER_01
Tens of thousands of people tell me I suck night in and night out for a decade.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Me messing up in front of you guys and taking a big swing in front of 40 people.
7
SPEAKER_01
You re right, it does have a moment of like, ah, that bombed.
7
SPEAKER_01
It wasn t crushing in any way.
7
SPEAKER_01
If anything, he took the time to come out and help me, which he could have been like, okay, we got it, I m just gonna edit Peacemaker out.
7
SPEAKER_01
Right, or we re gonna have a long lunch tomorrow.
7
SPEAKER_01
I d much rather him communicate with me the problem and see if we can work on a resolve rather than edit the kid out of the picture.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay, and then just the last thing we gotta touch on before we make it to Ricky Stanecki is what a joy to see you in Barbie, the best movie of the decade.
7
SPEAKER_00
So much.
7
SPEAKER_00
So good.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean,
7
SPEAKER_00
What a fucking movie.
7
SPEAKER_00
This movie is so incredible.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve seen it three times with my daughters.
7
SPEAKER_00
I laugh hysterically.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s one of my favorite comedies I ve ever seen.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_00
Did you get it immediately?
7
SPEAKER_00
Like, I was thinking, Monica and I talked about this a lot.
7
SPEAKER_00
She s earned it for you to trust Greta.
7
SPEAKER_00
But still, there s many scenes where I m watching Ryan Gosling, like he is on a plastic set singing his heart out.
7
SPEAKER_00
This is a humongous swing, and it fucking worked perfectly.
7
SPEAKER_00
But the moment where you re joining into this bizarro heightened world, is it an adjustment?
7
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t originally cast.
7
SPEAKER_01
I ran into Margo by accident at a restaurant, and she came over to give me a hug.
7
SPEAKER_00
She s like, oh, it s great to see you.
7
SPEAKER_00
What restaurant?
7
SPEAKER_00
I want to run into her.
7
SPEAKER_01
Man, we were at The Core by Claire Smith in London.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh.
7
SPEAKER_00
We were shooting fast.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s supposed to be great.
7
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of wrestling in cars and now there s a restaurant.
7
SPEAKER_01
She s done quite well for herself over there.
7
SPEAKER_01
Great experience.
7
SPEAKER_01
Fast was shooting across the street.
7
SPEAKER_01
Barbie and Fast were shooting on the same lot at the same time.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
7
SPEAKER_01
I heard about Barbie.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m like, how do I get in?
7
SPEAKER_01
I ll dye my hair.
7
SPEAKER_01
I ll do whatever.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s a wrap.
7
SPEAKER_01
They start shooting.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m like, all right, whatever.
7
SPEAKER_01
I run into Margo by accident.
7
SPEAKER_01
She comes over, gives me a hug.
7
SPEAKER_01
She s like, you should have done Barbie.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m like, I tried.
7
SPEAKER_01
You guys wouldn t have me.
7
SPEAKER_01
She literally looks to the people she s having dinner with, which is the people making the choices, is like, put the kid in the picture.
7
SPEAKER_01
The next day I get a call.
7
SPEAKER_01
Hey, we have half a day s work for you as a merman.
7
SPEAKER_01
And everyone in my life who was responsible for decisions was like, I don t know, I think you re above this.
7
SPEAKER_01
I thank you for the perspective.
7
SPEAKER_01
We re doing it.
7
SPEAKER_01
It was awesome.
7
SPEAKER_01
I kind of knew the construct of the movie.
7
SPEAKER_01
And then when you walked and looked at the sets and the vibe on set, pink, everything, all the golf carts transporting people were pink.
7
SPEAKER_01
Everyone was in on the gag from day one and everyone was enthusiastic.
7
SPEAKER_01
You could tell at least you would get everyone s heart and soul.
7
SPEAKER_01
That puts you in a good position.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it s so good.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s so good.
7
SPEAKER_00
If I were you, I d just be so delighted.
7
SPEAKER_01
Oh, what a great opportunity.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, when I was younger, I would have been like half day.
7
SPEAKER_00
I would have gotten hung up on what your team was saying.
7
SPEAKER_01
Put me at 52 on the depth chart.
7
SPEAKER_01
Don t even put me on the depth chart.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ll take it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Uncredited.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay, Ricky Stanicki.
7
SPEAKER_00
So, this is a Peter Farrelly movie, which we haven t seen a Peter Farrelly movie in a while.
7
SPEAKER_00
I haven t seen a Peter Farrelly comedy in a while.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay, that s a good distinction.
7
SPEAKER_00
If you want an Oscar for Green Book, he s doing pretty good.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s a great point, but in a straight-up comedy, raunchy comedy... It s been a while.
7
SPEAKER_00
How do you come to be involved in that?
7
SPEAKER_01
So I think Pete s been trying to make this movie for 15 years.
7
SPEAKER_01
And again, I wouldn t first on the depth chart, 15 years.
7
SPEAKER_01
He s had a lot of people in mind to make the movie.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, can I just immediately give you a compliment?
7
SPEAKER_00
Your role in this isn t to be a huge guy.
7
SPEAKER_00
No.
7
SPEAKER_00
In fact, hope you would take this cast scene as a huge compliment, which is, if anything, it might get in the way.
7
SPEAKER_01
We actually had to address it in the dialogue in the movie in two throwaway sentences.
7
SPEAKER_01
I know it by heart.
7
SPEAKER_00
So if you re a drunk, why are you so ripped?
7
SPEAKER_00
Roids.
7
SPEAKER_01
A ton of them.
7
SPEAKER_00
I was addicted to those too.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
So it s great that we just address it and then it s gone.
7
SPEAKER_01
So you re not,
7
SPEAKER_00
wondering, why is this guy so fucking big?
7
SPEAKER_00
And he s a lounge singer and he s this.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m applauding you because you have this role almost in spite of your massive physicality.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then there s great fucking people in this movie.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_00
Zach s in it, Andrew Santino, who s so funny.
7
SPEAKER_00
Who is just so funny.
7
SPEAKER_00
Jermaine Fowler, also so funny.
7
SPEAKER_00
Jeff Ross, William H. Macy.
7
SPEAKER_00
I hate to ever say this, but you steal this movie like crazy.
7
SPEAKER_00
You are the star of this movie.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re so pleasant.
7
SPEAKER_00
Every time you arrive, it s like, oh great, yes, the yummy thing is now on the scene.
7
SPEAKER_01
Man, I gotta get better at taking compliments.
7
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_01
But also, the way the yummy thing gets yummy is everyone else playing their role to the best of their ability.
7
SPEAKER_00
Quickly, you are a drunk piece of shit in Atlantic City who s got a cover band.
7
SPEAKER_00
You do many impersonations.
7
SPEAKER_00
One man show.
7
SPEAKER_00
One man show.
7
SPEAKER_00
Everything s about masturbation.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yep, jizz jams.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and so they discovered early in their life that they could blame things on this- Imaginary friend.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, Ricky Stanicki.
7
SPEAKER_00
And now the bills come due, their wives are starting to get, and their partners are starting to get aware that something stinks, and they need Ricky Stanicki.
7
SPEAKER_00
And they just met this fucking weirdo in Atlantic City, and it occurs to them, like, let s bring this guy in.
7
SPEAKER_00
But then the cutest thing, and what gives this movie legs, is that you take it so seriously.
7
SPEAKER_00
We re not expecting that.
7
SPEAKER_00
You show up with the shakes, because you ve quit drinking for this.
7
SPEAKER_00
You ve learned impossible amounts of details about the backstory, enough so that you can confront the suspicions.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s kind of Chauncey Gardner.
7
SPEAKER_00
All of a sudden, everyone kind of starts falling in love with this guy.
7
SPEAKER_00
This is where it s great, but it s a problem.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s a big problem for the boys.
7
SPEAKER_00
For you, it s fantastic.
7
SPEAKER_00
You land a job making a quarter million a year out of it.
7
SPEAKER_01
And a movie ensues, and I certainly don t want to give it all away.
7
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of stories going on.
7
SPEAKER_01
The stories of the friends attaching themselves to this lie to remain friends and continue their love for each other, even though life happens.
7
SPEAKER_01
A lot of friend circles split up when you get older, because life happens.
7
SPEAKER_01
They ve kept themselves together and go on these amazing adventures because they have an out, Ricky Stanicki.
7
SPEAKER_01
And then major life things happen that you really need some more proof of why you missed this.
7
SPEAKER_01
And they get backed into a corner to having to produce this imaginary friend.
7
SPEAKER_01
And in the thing of keeping their lie alive, which is really toxic for the guys, I get the opportunity of a lifetime.
7
SPEAKER_01
So it s weird.
7
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of stuff going on at the same time.
7
SPEAKER_01
The movie is a fun ride because even the guys with a lie, you want to root for them to be redeemable.
7
SPEAKER_01
And of course you want to root for this down and out guy who s so passionate about jizz jams when he gets his opportunity and he starts
7
SPEAKER_01
crushing it like, oh man, this guy s a pretty good guy.
7
SPEAKER_00
But John, you see the obvious parallels here.
7
SPEAKER_00
Enlighten me.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re a wrestler.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re a 16 time champion.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you enter this world and lo and behold, you re hysterical and wonderful.
7
SPEAKER_00
And this character has no business coming in and tackling this mission.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then lo and behold, he s charming and likable and delightful.
7
SPEAKER_00
That is super nice to say.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, this is a very funny and real life parallel.
7
SPEAKER_01
This one is very close to me in many chapters, and I wouldn t just say
7
SPEAKER_01
transferring from your TV screen to a big screen.
7
SPEAKER_01
Wasn t supposed to play sports.
7
SPEAKER_01
Wasn t supposed to go to prep school.
7
SPEAKER_01
Wasn t supposed to get accepted to college.
7
SPEAKER_01
Wasn t supposed to be anything out in California.
7
SPEAKER_01
Wasn t supposed to make it in wrestling.
7
SPEAKER_01
Wasn t supposed to last a week.
7
SPEAKER_01
Are we ever doing movies again?
7
SPEAKER_01
Nope.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s out, and here we are.
7
SPEAKER_01
I hate telling the audience how to feel.
7
SPEAKER_01
I want them to watch the movie, be entertained, and take their own thing away.
7
SPEAKER_01
But what I really loved about it is Rock Hard Rod, a.k.a.
7
SPEAKER_01
Ricky Sineky s perseverance.
7
SPEAKER_01
The dude is passionate.
7
SPEAKER_01
He goes all in, and he just never gives up.
7
SPEAKER_00
He has the three tenets of John Cena.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, really?
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
And doesn t understand that he s a joke.
7
SPEAKER_01
Because he doesn t understand it and he passionately believes in it, to him it s not a joke.
7
SPEAKER_01
He gets a fan base of people that share his passion and believe in him as well.
7
SPEAKER_01
Pretty good parallel.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thanks, man.
7
SPEAKER_00
I appreciate it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I know you re proposing that you re just waiting for the phone to ring, but you re in a position, obviously, to craft some kind of balance, whether you re doing a superhero thing, and then maybe you want to do a comedy, and then maybe you want to do this.
7
SPEAKER_01
I am in no position to do that.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, how about this?
7
SPEAKER_00
Do you come off of some other things and think, oh, I want to go fuck around and be silly?
7
SPEAKER_00
Do you have that thought?
7
SPEAKER_00
Do you say to your agents, like, I would love to do a comedy next?
7
SPEAKER_00
Have you ever called your agent?
7
SPEAKER_00
You just wait for them to call you or her to call you.
7
SPEAKER_01
No, I spend most of my time with those guys.
7
SPEAKER_01
They re great folks, but I just operate under the construct of don t manifest anything.
7
SPEAKER_01
Just look at the cards you re dealt and how do you play them the best you can.
7
SPEAKER_01
So if I say I want to do a comedy, I don t want those guys shutting the door to everything else.
7
SPEAKER_01
I operate under the construct of we take all calls.
7
SPEAKER_01
You re going to be a merman.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I am.
7
SPEAKER_01
Where those guys, and I understand their perspective, this is beneath you at this point.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t believe that.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t believe anything s beneath me.
7
SPEAKER_01
We re going to do it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Any role in the best movie in the year is not beneath anyone.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I never want to be the smartest guy in the room.
7
SPEAKER_01
I want to work with people who make me better.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I ve had a lot of chance to be surrounded by folks who make me better.
8
SPEAKER_00
I m a cynic and a skeptic and I read this and I totally welled up today.
8
SPEAKER_00
I want to get a guess out of Monica.
8
SPEAKER_00
So when did you start working with Make-A-Wish?
8
2003.
8
SPEAKER_00
So he has the world record of making the most wishes come true.
8
SPEAKER_00
What would you think that number is?
8
SPEAKER_00
Oh God, 50?
8
SPEAKER_00
I would have been like, world records, maybe 50.
8
SPEAKER_00
That would be a lot.
8
SPEAKER_00
Over 650.
8
SPEAKER_00
Doesn t that make you want to fucking cry?
8
SPEAKER_00
Is that every day you re making a wish come true?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, what is the schedule of making these wishes come true?
8
SPEAKER_01
So it s never about the workload.
8
SPEAKER_01
The thing I find most surprising about that, and the thing I find most humbling about that, is you don t say, I ll just do them all.
8
SPEAKER_01
You have to be chosen.
8
SPEAKER_01
It has to be someone s actual wish.
8
SPEAKER_01
Because the charity is, you re up against a tough climb, what do you want to do?
8
SPEAKER_01
They have to say, I d like to hang out with John Cena, which is the most humbling thing I ve ever heard.
8
SPEAKER_01
And then for them to say it over and over and over again, I ll do as many of them as they want, but you got to also be chosen.
8
SPEAKER_00
So have you done every one you ve been chosen?
8
SPEAKER_00
I ve never turned one down.
8
SPEAKER_00
And what s the craziest lengths you had to go to
8
SPEAKER_01
The thing is, a lot of the crazy work is done by the charity, and that s why I m so supportive of the charity.
8
SPEAKER_01
They have admin people that raise funds and get the families to where they need to be, and I m the finish line.
8
SPEAKER_01
I get to see what their paper-pushing and hard work and effort does.
8
SPEAKER_01
I get to see smiles, I get to see hope, I get to see families take a day off.
8
SPEAKER_01
I can ask a child, like, hey, is there anything you want to see in the show tonight?
8
SPEAKER_01
And he d be like, you did this one move back 10 years ago in this match.
8
SPEAKER_01
No problem, I ve got you.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I know where they re sitting.
8
SPEAKER_01
WWE is the best for this experience.
8
SPEAKER_01
You can make it a long drawn out thing before the show, you meet the family.
8
SPEAKER_01
We have so much gear, especially me, and you just load them up with stuff and get them all hyped up.
8
SPEAKER_01
And then you re gonna go out there and you ve never been, my goodness, it s gonna be spectacular.
8
SPEAKER_01
And then they go out to this 10,000, 20,000 seat arena that s packed with energy and mayhem.
8
SPEAKER_01
and everything is shiny and new, but they come to see you, so when you re out there, and it s usually later in the show, you completely curate the experience for them.
8
SPEAKER_01
No one else is the wiser.
8
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
8
SPEAKER_01
Because they don t know the conversation we ve had.
8
SPEAKER_01
WWE s the perfect home to do it, and that s why they ve been working with WWE for like 40 years.
8
SPEAKER_00
Right.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s incredible.
8
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
8
SPEAKER_00
Now I want to ask you some geeky weightlifting questions.
8
SPEAKER_00
How many calories do you eat a day?
8
SPEAKER_01
Last year I was way over budget.
8
SPEAKER_01
I clocked in at around 3,500 a day.
8
SPEAKER_01
I try to keep it at 3,000.
8
SPEAKER_01
But went on a honeymoon for the first time.
8
SPEAKER_01
We found ourselves in some crazy restaurant experiences.
8
SPEAKER_01
So I keep track of calories, water, sleep, caffeine, and body weight.
8
SPEAKER_00
Okay, percentage-wise, do you have an exact breakdown of what percentage of protein you re trying to eat?
8
SPEAKER_01
No, because I m protein-focused anyway, so if I only limit myself to 3,000 calories, I know I m getting enough.
8
SPEAKER_01
Right.
8
SPEAKER_00
How much water do you drink?
8
SPEAKER_01
At least three liters a day.
8
Wow.
8
SPEAKER_00
Did you watch the Ronnie Coleman doc?
8
SPEAKER_01
Man, I didn t.
8
SPEAKER_01
I ve heard I should, and I will.
8
SPEAKER_00
I wish you had so much, because what I want to talk about, there was such a specific thing that happened in that documentary, which is, you know the state he s in.
8
SPEAKER_00
He s had like 13 back surgeries.
8
SPEAKER_00
I don t doubt that.
8
SPEAKER_00
He goes hard.
8
SPEAKER_00
He went as hard as anyone ever went.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
And he goes to the gym in the morning at 4 a.m.
8
SPEAKER_00
and he has to walk on Walker to get there.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it s clearly excruciating while he s doing it.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I don t think I ve ever seen a more glaring example of identity and this notion that for him, getting small s not an option.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s so baked in now to the identity.
8
SPEAKER_00
Do you ever think about that?
8
SPEAKER_00
Like the identity of being big and what point in your life that will start to...
8
SPEAKER_01
I really try to do a lot of work on self.
8
SPEAKER_01
And later in life, I think maybe starting probably six years ago, I had to take a cold look at myself in the mirror and realize that there s a lot of stuff to work on.
8
SPEAKER_01
And if I m willing to put all this work on my fitness and my physical health, why can t I work on myself spiritually?
8
SPEAKER_01
Why can t I work on myself mentally?
8
SPEAKER_01
One of those first pieces of work was you are not defined by this one lane of the highway.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yes, you ve done well and you re proficient and you have fluency there.
8
SPEAKER_01
That does not define you.
8
SPEAKER_01
And the second was, you re enough, dude.
8
SPEAKER_01
You might not be everyone s cup of tea, but you are a cup of tea.
8
SPEAKER_01
And don t ever feel as if your existence is anything less than enough.
8
SPEAKER_01
You re worthy of love.
8
SPEAKER_01
So those two combined things...
8
SPEAKER_01
allowed me to tell you that like, hey, I have to retire from WWE.
8
SPEAKER_01
But dude, that s what you re known for.
8
SPEAKER_01
It also can say, hey, one day the phone s going to stop ringing.
8
SPEAKER_01
When I don t do these interviews and no one cares anymore, it doesn t mean my life is over.
8
SPEAKER_01
That means my chapter in the book is over.
8
SPEAKER_01
I still have curiosity for life like you.
8
SPEAKER_01
I love to read.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m trying to learn to play music, study in language a little bit.
8
SPEAKER_01
My fitness goals have changed.
8
SPEAKER_01
It used to be be as strong as you can.
8
SPEAKER_01
Now the goal is work out when you re 90.
8
SPEAKER_01
Did you read Outlive?
8
SPEAKER_01
I haven t read it yet.
8
SPEAKER_01
OK.
8
SPEAKER_01
But if you recommend that, I m going to check that.
8
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s the greatest.
8
SPEAKER_00
Peter Attia, we ve had him on, and it s define the last 10 years of your life.
8
SPEAKER_00
What would you like to be doing in that 10 years and reverse engineer from there?
8
SPEAKER_00
And I think that also helps to say that chapters are going to close.
8
SPEAKER_00
A lot of the things you listed, though, they re occupational.
8
SPEAKER_00
That seems a little easier to separate than
8
SPEAKER_00
Again, you put on an armor at 15 and it has worked.
8
SPEAKER_00
In me, I m 49 and I m not in danger anymore.
8
SPEAKER_00
But I can t shake being 8.
8
SPEAKER_00
The notion of being small and vulnerable still scares me.
8
SPEAKER_00
Even as someone who s been sober for a long time and done therapy, the physical identity for me is very tricky.
8
SPEAKER_01
For me, not so much, because my goal is to just be healthy.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I ve also had to endure the humility of, you are not what you once were.
8
SPEAKER_01
Those are tough roads because I reflect a lot and I romanticize a lot.
8
SPEAKER_01
But when I went to do Hidden Strike with Jackie Chan, I moved to China.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I went to China at 250 pounds.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I trained for four months with his stunt team.
8
SPEAKER_01
And they don t care how strong you are.
8
SPEAKER_01
They care if you can kick your leg over your head.
8
SPEAKER_01
They stretched me like taffy and I did two practices a day.
8
SPEAKER_01
So I was doing much more activity I was in a foreign place.
8
SPEAKER_01
I could speak a little bit.
8
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t even in Shanghai or Beijing I was in like inner Mongolia.
8
SPEAKER_01
I was 25 pounds out there.
8
SPEAKER_00
Okay, great.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s the exact moment I want to know what was going on mentally when you went backwards I literally could see the kgs coming off the bar.
8
SPEAKER_01
I could see the plates coming off the bar.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah
8
SPEAKER_00
And do you have a bit of body dysmorphia?
8
SPEAKER_00
I certainly do.
8
SPEAKER_01
Certainly.
8
SPEAKER_01
But this was a great experience because it wasn t a move backwards.
8
SPEAKER_01
It was just a shift into another discipline.
8
SPEAKER_01
I became more flexible.
8
SPEAKER_01
I began to walk taller.
8
SPEAKER_01
I began to have less back pain.
8
SPEAKER_01
I began to have more range of motion.
8
SPEAKER_01
I was healthier.
8
SPEAKER_01
I had a new skill set that I didn t have before.
8
SPEAKER_01
I had a new respect for a new discipline that I didn t have before.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I could still squat.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s the thing you would want to hold on to.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s not bending on your back, but you can go down and you can go below parallel and you can come back up.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s not too bad.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that feels wonderful.
8
SPEAKER_01
Regardless of how big the armor is, the goal is just to walk tall, don t be all crusty like a guy who s fallen down his entire life, be healthy, keep track of everything, try to live a life where you can just enjoy life as much as you can.
8
SPEAKER_01
What do you weigh now?
8
SPEAKER_01
236 today.
8
SPEAKER_01
Did you go back up to 250 after the China?
8
SPEAKER_00
Nope, never.
8
SPEAKER_00
You never went back up?
8
SPEAKER_01
The highest I ve ever hit is 244, and that was after the honeymoon.
8
SPEAKER_00
Core.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yes, yes, but immediately, hey, we re gonna go hard and we re gonna go hard for an extended period.
8
SPEAKER_01
We re gonna take three months and just eat and not be very active.
8
SPEAKER_01
2.44 became, all right, here we go.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s time to even out the tables.
8
SPEAKER_01
So it goes right back to 2.38, 2.35, 2.36.
8
SPEAKER_01
I hover right between 2.30 and 2.35.
8
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_00
You re not gonna like this question.
8
SPEAKER_01
No, no, it s fine.
8
SPEAKER_00
I have to ask.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, go for it.
8
SPEAKER_00
Why do we enter the zone of self-exploration six years ago?
8
SPEAKER_01
I just had a situation where I had to take a look at myself.
8
SPEAKER_01
Like I thought I was doing good.
8
SPEAKER_01
There were markers you were looking at.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I guess there was another one six years earlier.
8
SPEAKER_01
All of it is connected to love and joy in my life.
8
SPEAKER_01
Where someone from the outside would like, he s got the world by the balls and I think I m doing it right.
8
SPEAKER_01
But are you lonely inside of that?
8
SPEAKER_01
like blow your brains out lonely.
8
SPEAKER_01
So both of those instances.
8
SPEAKER_01
When did you get divorced?
8
SPEAKER_01
I got divorced in 2011.
8
SPEAKER_01
The second six years before?
8
SPEAKER_01
You can theorize whatever you want.
8
SPEAKER_00
We can do math.
8
SPEAKER_01
But it was a situation where you think you re giving your all to something and you re doing it right.
8
SPEAKER_01
And something goes wrong.
8
SPEAKER_01
So something fails.
8
SPEAKER_01
And you got two choices.
8
SPEAKER_01
You can do this and blame everybody else.
8
SPEAKER_01
Or you can look in the mirror and say, okay, what have I learned?
8
SPEAKER_01
How do I be better?
8
SPEAKER_01
Where did I screw up?
8
SPEAKER_01
Both of those situations in my life, they re chapters of like leveling up to awareness of, hey, it s not really anybody else s fault, but you.
8
SPEAKER_01
And there are things you can control.
8
SPEAKER_01
And what do you really want out of life?
8
SPEAKER_00
And why are you doing this stuff anyway?
8
SPEAKER_00
Well, also, do you not have the same fantasy I had, which is like, if I became rich and famous and loved by all, I would never be lonely.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s not only just the loneliness feels X amount bad, but it s also the delusion of a fantasy.
8
SPEAKER_01
hit like a ton of bricks with, if you d asked me along my journey, what do you want in your life?
8
SPEAKER_01
It was very goal oriented.
8
SPEAKER_01
I want to be strong.
8
SPEAKER_01
I want to get this job.
8
SPEAKER_01
It was never, I want love in my life.
8
SPEAKER_01
And then that bold look in the mirror of, I want love in my life, starting with me, the guy looking back at me, regardless of if my hair is thinning on top, or if I get a little fat, or if I m not as strong as I was, or if I m not as crisp as I was, I love that dude.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I love him for his flaws.
9
SPEAKER_01
I love him for his mistakes, all of it in totality because I love him and I want to make him better.
9
SPEAKER_01
And he s worthy of love.
9
SPEAKER_01
Bingo.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like, yo, this is a fuzzy feeling.
9
SPEAKER_01
I would like this with my other connections in life.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s made me connect great with my father, my mom, my brothers, my inner circle.
9
SPEAKER_01
The sum of the five people I spend my most time around, I wear it on my values are stapled into my ring of gratitude and love and communication and vulnerability and honesty.
9
SPEAKER_01
Has it opened up your
9
SPEAKER_02
previous declaration to kids at all?
9
SPEAKER_01
No.
9
SPEAKER_02
That s great.
9
SPEAKER_02
I was just curious if that was a part of it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I appreciate the perspective.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s a tough hill to climb.
9
SPEAKER_01
People sometimes don t realize their parents shaming.
9
SPEAKER_01
Monica s on me all the time.
9
SPEAKER_02
This is a, I m in a position where it s like, I love this experience so much.
9
SPEAKER_02
So I m prone to share it.
9
SPEAKER_02
And it does feel often to people who choose not to have the experience, like I m shaming.
9
SPEAKER_02
I just am often sharing the joy it has given me.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then I get curious.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m so damn curious about life, and there s still so much I want to do.
9
SPEAKER_01
I realize that comes with a huge shift of your life.
9
SPEAKER_02
And like I said, I still... I appreciate that a lot more than someone who s like, no, I run this Fortune 500 85 hours a week, but I also think I m going to be a good dad.
9
SPEAKER_02
That s scarier to me.
9
SPEAKER_01
I understand exactly the commitment it takes.
9
SPEAKER_01
I don t understand what it is, but I know that like, hey, you have 24 hours.
9
SPEAKER_01
Now you only have three hours, if that.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, two.
9
SPEAKER_02
From 8 p.m.
9
SPEAKER_02
to 10 p.m.
9
SPEAKER_01
in New York.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you re not the only parent who said that.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s the constant theme is, it s the greatest thing in your life.
9
SPEAKER_01
And naturally, it comes with the biggest investment.
9
SPEAKER_02
Huge change, yes.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s consistent with everything in life.
9
SPEAKER_01
Everything else.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s gonna be the best thing you ve ever done, but you re gonna wholeheartedly invest in it.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s gonna be the hardest.
9
SPEAKER_01
Every one of the hardest ends up being the best.
9
SPEAKER_02
Appreciate the perspective, thank you.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, John, this has been lovely.
9
SPEAKER_02
We ve been texting with each other.
9
SPEAKER_02
Steve Agee, we ll give a shout out.
9
SPEAKER_02
I ve known Agee for like 28 years now.
9
SPEAKER_01
John Economos, you son of a bitch.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s who he plays in Peacemaker.
9
SPEAKER_02
He s the sweetest guy.
9
SPEAKER_02
I saw him last Saturday at Seth Green s birthday party.
9
SPEAKER_02
There s nothing funner than spotting that tall motherfucker somewhere and then saddling up next to him and letting him sarcasm all over you.
9
SPEAKER_02
Good dude.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well, it s been an absolute joy.
9
SPEAKER_02
I wish you dressed differently so we could get some squats in.
9
SPEAKER_01
They always say leave him wanting more.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that s true.
9
SPEAKER_02
You ll owe me that.
9
SPEAKER_02
All right.
9
SPEAKER_02
Be well.
9
SPEAKER_02
Everybody see Ricky Stanicki on Amazon Prime Video.
9
SPEAKER_02
Check it out.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s great.
9
SPEAKER_02
John is fucking spectacular in it.
9
SPEAKER_02
You steal the show.
9
SPEAKER_02
I know it s an uncomfortable comment for you to take, but I m going to make it again.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s a plug for the show and a great endorsement, so I ll take it.
9
SPEAKER_01
All right.
9
SPEAKER_01
Be well.
9
SPEAKER_02
You know this gate s up?
9
SPEAKER_02
You see that this gate is permanently up?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
So someone rammed it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Uh-huh.
9
SPEAKER_02
And then our fearless HOA leader reached out to me and said like, hey, does your camera, you know, does it see this?
9
SPEAKER_02
This is the pictures we got.
9
SPEAKER_02
A big rigmarole yesterday to get the footage and I m gonna send it to you.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh boy, okay.
9
SPEAKER_02
Is a David Ferrier doing it?
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh, that would be great.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh, okay, let s see.
9
SPEAKER_02
So you see the car blowin  down the middle of the lane, then locks up the brakes.
9
SPEAKER_02
Now watch this.
9
SPEAKER_02
For the listener, there s like, I don t know, four cars moving gently down the road.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s nine o clock at night.
9
SPEAKER_02
And then all of a sudden another car comes blowing up the middle lane, locks up the brakes.
9
SPEAKER_02
My guess is they hit someone and that was a hit and run.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well, because why else are they throwing it in reverse and then punching it backwards and then going into this neighborhood.
9
SPEAKER_00
Then they went back the same way they came.
9
SPEAKER_02
I know, I don t know if they were a little shook from the whole, but that s the kind of thing you see in a movie, right?
9
SPEAKER_00
That was weird, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
What s so funny too is, I get it, because I succumb to this all the time.
9
SPEAKER_02
Something suspicious happens and your first thought is someone s trying to steal from me or someone s trying to get one over on me.
9
SPEAKER_02
So the HOA just knows someone purposely rammed the gate and broke it.
9
SPEAKER_02
So I think they re very much assuming someone s trying to break in.
9
SPEAKER_02
to ransack houses or something.
9
SPEAKER_02
Like you get pretty certain of what the cause or motivation would be.
9
SPEAKER_02
And then you actually see the footage like, no, it s a maniac losing control of their car, then panicking, going in reverse, and then flooring it out of there.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s just not what you expect.
9
SPEAKER_00
But we don t, you can t see any driver s license plate.
9
SPEAKER_02
I knew that would be the case.
9
SPEAKER_00
Wow, that s crazy.
9
SPEAKER_02
Also, it wouldn t matter.
9
SPEAKER_02
The other sad reality is this illusion you would call the police and they would drop everything and start canvassing the city for this person that they now have a photo of.
9
SPEAKER_00
They can t just run a license plate and know what the address connected to it?
9
SPEAKER_02
for sure, and then it joins a list of probably a million license plates that have been recorded for various things.
9
SPEAKER_02
Certainly in any given day, some people shot at another person, someone hit a pedestrian.
9
SPEAKER_02
You go down the list, there s probably a thousand things that you need to go and look at.
9
SPEAKER_02
And like backing into this gate, my hunch is no cops ever driving to the home of this person.
9
SPEAKER_00
Unless, you re right, it was connected to something much more nefarious.
9
SPEAKER_00
I assumed it was a construction, mine or yours.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh, like it just, they weren t looking when they backed up.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, or like there was a big thing and it broke it.
9
SPEAKER_02
Or they got in a fight.
9
SPEAKER_02
I think, do you remember that story?
9
SPEAKER_02
The first house I ever, well, I ve only owned two houses, and so the other one that I owned.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
When I moved in there, I was having a bunch of work done, and I lived there, and like most people would have moved out during it, because I had just bought it, so it was like, tear out floors, everything.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I m in the bedroom and I hear, there s guys in the living room, the farthest away towards Los Feliz Boulevard, the old house.
9
SPEAKER_02
And guys are laying hardwood floor, I think, I think that s what they were there doing.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I hear, what?
9
SPEAKER_02
Fuck me, fuck you, motherfucker.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh yeah, motherfucker.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I hear,
9
SPEAKER_02
Two dudes collide.
9
SPEAKER_02
I m in my boxers.
9
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
9
SPEAKER_02
I get out of bed and run into the living room and two dudes are grappling in my house.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I have to break them up and force one of the guys to leave.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s odd.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I called the contractor.
9
SPEAKER_02
I m like, bro, two of your subs just got into a fist fight in my living room.
9
SPEAKER_02
Like we gotta,
9
SPEAKER_02
The bar s gotta be a little higher.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, pull it together a little bit.
9
SPEAKER_02
But then also the reality of like, people are only so professional.
9
SPEAKER_02
You get into some, you know, someone s been burbling up for four years between these guys, they don t care where, they could be in front of police.
9
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
9
SPEAKER_02
Once they flip into that amygdala, sayonara.
9
SPEAKER_00
Ding, ding, ding.
9
SPEAKER_02
Suck ass.
9
SPEAKER_02
Ding, ding, ding, suck ass.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
That was Fidel s guys?
9
SPEAKER_02
No, this was prior to Fidel being in my life.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh man.
9
SPEAKER_02
Fidel s guys would never do that.
9
SPEAKER_02
No.
9
SPEAKER_02
No, they re like the most professional and nice people.
9
SPEAKER_02
You know, they re the greatest.
9
SPEAKER_02
I miss all those guys.
9
SPEAKER_00
They are so nice.
9
SPEAKER_00
That ended on not so great terms.
9
SPEAKER_02
I apologized.
9
SPEAKER_02
It didn t end on bad terms.
9
SPEAKER_02
It just, they completed the house and I said, we re going to use someone else for the rest of it.
9
SPEAKER_02
not like you re bad or there was no fight.
9
SPEAKER_02
But yeah, I did fire them because they were going so slow.
9
SPEAKER_02
But I did recently, about three months ago, I reached out to he and Danny and I said, listen, I made a huge mistake and I m really sorry I didn t let you guys finish.
9
SPEAKER_02
I got nervous.
9
SPEAKER_02
The house was never going to be done.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s my fault.
9
SPEAKER_02
My apologies.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s nice.
9
SPEAKER_02
I d been meaning to make that for a year.
9
SPEAKER_02
It took me to muster up the courage to do it.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s so good.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m so glad you did it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Most people don t.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you just live with your embarrassment.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
You don t want to be wrong.
9
SPEAKER_02
You just kind of try not to think about it.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s one in the pile.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yes, I throw it in the pile of things I would take back.
9
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
9
SPEAKER_02
The take back pile.
9
SPEAKER_02
Did you finish Connections?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, did you?
9
SPEAKER_02
No.
9
SPEAKER_00
Not yet?
9
SPEAKER_02
I had such a crazy morning.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
So far, the three of us have got it.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh, without any mistakes?
9
SPEAKER_00
With no mistakes, and Callie didn t get it.
9
SPEAKER_02
Ooh, Max blown it yet?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh, while you were gone, you left the chat for a little bit.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
And while you were gone, shit really hit the fan.
9
SPEAKER_00
This is so funny because I hung out with Callie yesterday and we were talking about all these dynamics and how.
9
SPEAKER_00
How crazy has it gotten?
9
SPEAKER_00
What we have diagnosed is that this, that connection sort of brings everyone s shit to the forefront.
9
SPEAKER_02
To the surface?
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, exactly.
9
SPEAKER_02
You were miming surface, if you noticed.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was.
9
SPEAKER_02
You were bringing your hand up like the surface, okay.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was, but then I chose forefront, but surface was better.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I d like you to go push forward with your hand if you re gonna do forefront.
9
SPEAKER_00
Okay, I m sorry.
9
SPEAKER_02
All right.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so while you were gone, Max had a couple blunders and it was upsetting for him One time we were gonna hang out and she was like, yeah yeah, go ahead and come over around noon Just so you know, the vibe s a little weird, Max didn t get his wordle
9
SPEAKER_02
Cares a lot.
9
SPEAKER_02
Sure.
9
SPEAKER_02
Sure.
9
SPEAKER_02
I respect it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, me too.
9
SPEAKER_00
I respect it, too anyway connections is great and I did do today s and Well, I guess I can t start my morning at the morning because it really starts before that
10
SPEAKER_00
It starts last night.
10
SPEAKER_00
My cold hit a crescendo last night.
10
SPEAKER_00
So it was one of those nights where it s like, I couldn t breathe through my nose.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I was like suffocating.
10
SPEAKER_00
I was coughing a ton.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I kept Kristen up for, I don t know how long until she left, which she had left immediately.
10
SPEAKER_00
But she went to the middle bedroom.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I m up nonstop.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then unbeknownst to me, then Whiskers, our favorite three-legged friend,
10
SPEAKER_00
at 4 a.m.
10
SPEAKER_00
decided to just start barking out of control and then I guess Kristen got up and took him downstairs and he might have had like a Hershey squirt in the yard and put him back then 5 a.m.
10
SPEAKER_00
round two more Hershey squirt I think so all this to say Kristen didn t sleep
10
SPEAKER_00
So in the morning she was out and so it was just the girls and I and there were numerous problems.
10
SPEAKER_00
Some of them so endearing.
10
SPEAKER_00
One of them having like really hating their hair today.
10
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
10
SPEAKER_00
I relate so much.
10
SPEAKER_00
It is so insanely powerful.
10
SPEAKER_00
When you re younger and you re gonna go to school.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
And you think your hair looks terrible.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s devastating.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s bad.
10
SPEAKER_00
And she, so sad, like thinks they look terrible.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, oh my God.
10
SPEAKER_00
Honey, I relate so much.
10
SPEAKER_00
I used to look in the mirror.
10
SPEAKER_00
I would swear at my hair.
10
SPEAKER_00
I would throw my brush.
10
SPEAKER_01
Isn t there also like a really funny story, like a lore story about your sister and a hairbrush and like barrettes or something?
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, fuck, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
Carly, when she was, she had to have been in fourth or fifth grade.
10
SPEAKER_00
So this is, wow, yeah, right around the same time.
10
SPEAKER_00
We were all in Arizona, ding, ding, ding, I just told this about the Biltmore.
10
SPEAKER_00
We were there doing a car show, not staying at the Biltmore.
10
SPEAKER_00
And we all had to be,
10
SPEAKER_00
at the racetrack.
10
SPEAKER_00
And Carly was along for this, because my mom had no one to watch her while we were in Arizona.
10
SPEAKER_00
So we re all in a van, all dressed in our shows and shoots gear, waiting, and Carly will not exit the bedroom.
10
SPEAKER_00
And my mom is like honking and yelling, and then she like, and then my mom gets out of the car, she walks up the staircase, she peeks her head in the room, and then she says something to Carly, and then she comes out, and then Carly comes out of the
10
SPEAKER_00
The door shuts and she turns around and starts kicking it like a firefighter, trying to knock it down, screaming and fucking chucks her hairbrush at the door.
10
SPEAKER_00
It bounces off the door, over the railing, into the parking lot.
10
SPEAKER_00
And it was the most violent meltdown I d ever seen.
10
SPEAKER_00
She didn t break this door or her knee.
10
SPEAKER_01
All of her hair.
10
SPEAKER_00
What a temper.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s impressive to see that hatter temper when it blows.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s volcanic.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I don t think we had seen her deep V for years until then.
10
SPEAKER_00
You know, she was born with a V on her forehead.
10
SPEAKER_00
You know this about her?
10
SPEAKER_00
When she was a baby, whenever she got mad, this V in her forehead would light up.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like veins?
10
SPEAKER_00
Like fucking bright.
10
SPEAKER_00
They weren t veins.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s so weird.
10
SPEAKER_00
It was like,
10
SPEAKER_01
It was like a Voldemort skull?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
It was like a mix between a hive and what you would think is a vein, but they weren t veins, but it was, it would glow.
10
SPEAKER_00
My mom was, God, I m telling a story like Chris where I m just going back in time, but my mom was once pushing her through a grocery store in Michigan and this Native American dude came up to her.
10
SPEAKER_00
and was looking at Carly and said, oh, and he knew what that thing was.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_00
And he told her that that was a very powerful thing.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, my God.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s cool.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
In his community.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
10
SPEAKER_00
So we were like, oh, wow, she got some weird Native American superpower or whatever.
10
SPEAKER_00
But it went away.
10
SPEAKER_01
OK.
10
SPEAKER_00
And it was kind of in it was dormant.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then
10
SPEAKER_00
When she was kicking that door and throwing her brush, that thing was ablaze at like, yeah, probably 10 or 11.
10
SPEAKER_00
So anyways.
10
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, it runs in the fam, all to say.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I m trying to like, I m comforting her.
10
SPEAKER_00
I kind of get her back on the line.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m squeezing her and I m telling her, I said, you know, I used to, I used to just hate how I looked and I would have these meltdowns.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I said, but you know what s funny is I see pictures of myself when I was a kid and you know what?
10
SPEAKER_00
I looked the same all the time.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like I just always looked the same.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like I thought I looked so different day to day, but I really just looked the same.
10
SPEAKER_00
And she kind of, that comes kind of comforting.
10
SPEAKER_00
But again, she s on, she s, she s delicate.
10
SPEAKER_01
She s on tilt.
10
SPEAKER_00
So they go downstairs to eat breakfast and I m now, I m like, I gotta get a dump out before I drive them to school.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I m on the commode and then I hear all hell break loose.
10
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s a banger downstairs.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like fucking, I hear dishes breaking and screaming and swearing.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then I hear like bloody murder screaming.
10
SPEAKER_00
And all of a sudden Delta runs into the room and she is covered head to toe in milk.
10
SPEAKER_01
No.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it s all in her hair.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s dripping down her face like Carrie or whatever movie they drop the pig s blood on her.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
10
SPEAKER_00
Her clothes are completely covered in milk.
10
SPEAKER_00
Fuck.
10
SPEAKER_00
An entire cereal bowl was smacked up into her face and on her person and she was drenched.
10
SPEAKER_00
And it is now, we were to have left in two minutes to go to school.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I m like, oh, triage, what s next?
10
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, okay, baby, I m so sorry that happened.
10
SPEAKER_00
I started by getting a wet towel and damping it, and midway through, I m like, there s so much milk in the hair, we can t send her to school, it s gonna turn into cheese by lunch.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I get her into the shower, get her calmed down, get her into the shower.
10
SPEAKER_00
She peeks her head out the window of the shower.
10
SPEAKER_00
I need to take responsibility for this.
10
SPEAKER_00
She like owns that and I say, okay I m very proud of you for owning your side of it and I ll deal with the rest So then I go downstairs and of course the perpetrator of the crime is despondent because she knows she s in trouble But I just there s no time for trouble Wow
10
SPEAKER_00
I just put on a happy face.
10
SPEAKER_00
Let s go, love.
10
SPEAKER_00
Let s get you to school.
10
SPEAKER_00
Get in the car.
10
SPEAKER_00
I think she starts realizing, like, I m not gonna rake her over the coals over this.
10
SPEAKER_00
She had already scrubbed the floor from the milk.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then on the car ride there, I said to her, I said, you know, you ve really provided a service to me today.
10
SPEAKER_00
And she goes, what s that mean?
10
SPEAKER_00
And I said, well, look, a lot of times when people in AA relapse, let s say they have a couple of years and they relapse and they come back to their group to admit it, they enter thinking, everyone s gonna be disappointed in me and no one s gonna like me anymore or want me to be a part of this group.
10
SPEAKER_00
But what happens is when they tell us what happened, the rest of us have immediate gratitude that didn t happen to us that day.
10
SPEAKER_00
And we have this great reminder that like, yeah, man, it can happen even when you ve got a couple of years or you re doing all this stuff.
10
SPEAKER_00
And it s just, it s such a gift that they give us.
10
SPEAKER_00
And she s like, okay, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I said, so for me to see someone as beautiful as you and as flawless as you,
10
SPEAKER_00
look in the mirror and see a monster.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s such a service to me that, yeah, we all deal with that.
10
SPEAKER_00
Even when you re as beautiful as you are, you feel that way.
10
SPEAKER_00
And so we had that lovely moment.
10
SPEAKER_00
So then I drop her off and then I got to go back to the house and then get Delta back on track and get her.
10
SPEAKER_01
That makes me sad that would have I like the hair thing This is just different personalities, right?
10
SPEAKER_00
Like well, let s just be clear.
10
SPEAKER_00
The hair thing was Lincoln s issue.
10
SPEAKER_00
I know Fuck okay
10
SPEAKER_01
But the hair thing, I just always thought my hair was bad.
10
SPEAKER_01
Like even if it was, it was just always bad, right?
10
SPEAKER_00
Really?
10
SPEAKER_00
Because you have such good hair.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I thought you ve been grateful for your hair.
10
SPEAKER_01
I grew into being grateful for it.
10
SPEAKER_00
It was like too thick when you were younger?
10
SPEAKER_01
Yes, it was very thick.
10
SPEAKER_01
I used to get it thinned out.
10
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_01
with those scissors.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, where it cuts every 10th hair, they say.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I hated it, I hated it.
10
SPEAKER_01
It was like thick black hair.
10
SPEAKER_01
Uh-huh.
10
SPEAKER_01
No, but you know, you just learn to just like hate it, right?
10
SPEAKER_00
And then- You ll come to accept that you hate it.
10
SPEAKER_01
But if that had happened to me in the morning, like someone was angry and then I ended up with milk all over me, I would not have gone to school.
10
SPEAKER_01
I would 100% have been like, this- This day s over.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we re taking them all again.
10
SPEAKER_01
Maybe the whole week off.
10
SPEAKER_00
Call me in May.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
So it s just funny.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then so on a personal front, as it was all happening, I was starting to go like, fuck, now I m going to have to take two trips and I m going to have to sign her in.
10
SPEAKER_00
But I was stopping myself and I was like, we re doing this thing.
10
SPEAKER_00
I had a good attitude about it.
10
SPEAKER_01
Good, that s great.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, boy, I wish I could hold on to this attitude, which is like stuff rises up and you just walk through it.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s the like thinking about the fact that you have to do it that is kind of Buddhist, that s the miserable part.
10
SPEAKER_00
But in my mind, it s this thing, it wasn t what I planned.
10
SPEAKER_01
Totally, it threw off.
10
SPEAKER_00
My expectations.
10
SPEAKER_00
So all that to say I didn t get to play Connections.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh wow, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
But you will later.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I ll find a minute.
10
SPEAKER_01
You ll find a time.
10
SPEAKER_00
But also last minute, I got asked if I would do Kimmel today.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
Because a guest fell out, so.
10
SPEAKER_01
So you re gonna do that.
10
SPEAKER_00
Again, wasn t in my plan.
10
SPEAKER_00
I had a whole schedule for today, so that got thrown in.
10
SPEAKER_00
Then the morning, but then I had said to go, yeah, things are just gonna be fine.
10
SPEAKER_00
You re gonna walk through all the stuff.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s nice that you said yes.
10
SPEAKER_01
I was thinking about this because I canceled
11
SPEAKER_01
on someone and it was last minute.
11
SPEAKER_01
It feels so uncomfortable to let someone down.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I won t do it.
11
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes you have to, like if something pops up that s prioritized for your life, you have to, which was the case.
11
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, I don t know, it s a weird feeling.
11
SPEAKER_01
I think the busier you are, I think the older you get, you only have so much space for things and then you end up letting people down.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, one of two things happens.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes, you either let people down or I have come to be a little more ruthless about just saying I can t do something.
11
SPEAKER_00
Like I was supposed to have a call today with somebody and then this started getting bonkers with all the other stuff.
11
SPEAKER_00
So then I just said to them quite frankly, like, I m so sorry about this.
11
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna need a couple weeks, because I have to talk to other people about some other thing, like we just gotta kick this down the road.
11
SPEAKER_00
And that normally is really hard for me to do, but that s my adjustment as I get older.
11
SPEAKER_00
I think it s just going like, I don t have time, or it s gonna be a while.
11
SPEAKER_01
And that s sort of what I m like, that person s probably disappointed, but it s the right thing for you.
11
SPEAKER_00
Right.
11
SPEAKER_01
And so that s it.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s a weird thing to sort of reconcile that what s good for you might end up letting someone else down, but you have to still do that.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
That reminded me though, what did you think of Dune?
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I really liked it.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
I really liked it a lot.
11
SPEAKER_00
An impressive movie in its scale, no?
11
SPEAKER_00
Very.
11
SPEAKER_00
Like, whoa.
11
SPEAKER_01
Very epic.
11
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I m not a big sci-fi gal.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, not me either.
11
SPEAKER_01
But it was great.
11
SPEAKER_00
How bad did you want them to kiss?
11
SPEAKER_01
I did, I did really, no, I did.
11
SPEAKER_01
I did really want them to kiss.
11
SPEAKER_01
I also wanted more of- Her story?
11
SPEAKER_01
No, of just like lead up, I guess.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, there s so many glances.
11
SPEAKER_00
I thought they gave me so many beautiful, so many longing glances before they kissed.
11
SPEAKER_00
Like by the time they kissed, I screamed in the movie theater.
11
SPEAKER_00
I did, I like hollered and screamed.
11
SPEAKER_01
Wow, that s fun.
11
SPEAKER_00
And even a couple, one before where they were really close to kissing and they were staring at each other, I said, kiss her, it came out.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh wow.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
11
SPEAKER_01
I did really want them to kiss.
11
SPEAKER_01
It was mainly that one scene had so much sex tench, but I wish there were more scenes that had sex tench before that.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay, you wanted even more buildup.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I wanted a little more buildup.
11
SPEAKER_00
You wanted to be at the point I was at where I was screaming.
11
SPEAKER_01
I was like, ah!
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I was having those kind of moments.
11
SPEAKER_01
Well, they re both so beautiful.
11
SPEAKER_00
Fuck, you know, I gotta just applaud Chalamet.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Timmy.
11
SPEAKER_00
I think this is a testament to his powers.
11
SPEAKER_00
I think I m inclined to not like his archetype because he s a guy in school, like if girls liked him, they didn t like me.
11
SPEAKER_00
Like you either liked the smaller, cute boy, or you liked the big boy that was a little scary or something.
11
SPEAKER_01
Ding, ding, ding, John Cena.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, sure.
11
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna create a third category for him.
11
SPEAKER_00
But I guess that type of boy, so in my school growing up, and we were best friends, Joey Riccardi, he was like small and Italian.
11
SPEAKER_00
He was so fucking cute.
11
SPEAKER_00
In fact, he was dating Randy Hamona before I was.
11
SPEAKER_01
That was my type.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, a lot of girls like that.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
So I was inclined to be jealous of those kind of boys because like, I just, what am I gonna do?
11
SPEAKER_00
So like small, cute boys who are getting all the attention, I think I m inclined to not like.
11
SPEAKER_01
Even though that was your best friend?
11
SPEAKER_00
Well, I love him as a friend, but just threatened in mate selection.
11
SPEAKER_01
I see, I see, okay.
11
SPEAKER_00
Primitive.
11
SPEAKER_01
Just a very different type than you.
11
SPEAKER_01
So yes, that makes sense.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, like I can t compete.
11
SPEAKER_00
If you like him, then I m out of the runny.
11
SPEAKER_01
But that s not, also that s not true at all.
11
SPEAKER_00
I know, none of, none of, as you guys always say, all this is in my head.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, none of it s true.
11
SPEAKER_00
But this is what I have traditionally thought, oh great, she likes little cute pretty boys, not big ogres.
11
SPEAKER_00
So, big bad boy ogres.
11
SPEAKER_00
All that to say, I am in love with him.
11
SPEAKER_01
I know, everyone is.
11
SPEAKER_00
He is so fucking charismatic.
11
SPEAKER_00
I don t, I can t remember other than like young Downey.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
No, he s a movie star, I think.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, he s magic.
11
SPEAKER_01
Everyone loves Timmy.
11
SPEAKER_01
Do you know about this phrase?
11
SPEAKER_01
I learned about it on, I had heard it once and then they were talking about it on Nobody s Listening, right?
11
SPEAKER_01
Soy boy.
11
SPEAKER_00
No, that sounds like a pejorative.
11
SPEAKER_00
It sounds like they re calling someone gay without saying gay.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s not gay, but it is not masculine.
11
SPEAKER_00
But feminine.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s what your gen would have called gay.
11
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
11
SPEAKER_01
But our gen doesn t do that because we call gay people gay.
11
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s a bigger, fun topic, which is like, the names change, it s all mean.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s all about masculinity.
11
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
11
SPEAKER_01
There s always a word in society that is labeling men who aren t very masculine.
11
SPEAKER_00
To emasculate men.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
And I guess right now it s soy boy, but I think some people are embracing soy boy.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s also a category of like a type, like a Timmy.
11
SPEAKER_00
But Timmy s not a soy boy.
11
SPEAKER_01
That type.
11
SPEAKER_00
Heroin chic.
11
SPEAKER_01
A little bit heroin chic, but I do think, I think it s bad.
11
SPEAKER_01
Like, I just think it s bad.
11
SPEAKER_01
I don t think we should be participating in soy boy.
11
SPEAKER_01
So I m just saying that.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s all part of a system that does two things.
11
SPEAKER_01
It emasculates men.
11
SPEAKER_01
It also is equating feminine qualities with bad for men.
11
SPEAKER_01
And it s just like bad across the board.
11
SPEAKER_00
Well, let me ask you this.
11
SPEAKER_00
Do you believe there s a utopian future where heterosexual people aren t attracted to masculinity and femininity?
11
SPEAKER_00
Do you think that s a potential reality?
11
SPEAKER_00
So for like a heterosexual female to not be attracted to masculinity and for a heterosexual male to not be attracted to femininity.
11
SPEAKER_01
If we re gonna say Timothee Chalamet isn t like a cliche masculine man, then yeah, we re already living it.
11
SPEAKER_01
He s like the most, like everyone just thinks he s so hot and attractive and he is.
11
SPEAKER_01
And do you mean physically or do you mean personality?
11
SPEAKER_01
Because there are traits that are generally stereotypically associated with men that nowadays a lot of women have.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I guess what I m just asking is that, is it not implicit in heterosexuality that you re attracted to the opposite sex?
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but the opposite sex is...
11
SPEAKER_00
is fluid now.
11
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot there.
11
SPEAKER_01
Like the reason people were, I mean, I don t know, I don t know any of these women, but I assume the reason people were attracted to you was not because you were so masculine, it was because you were nice.
11
SPEAKER_01
It was actually because of your feminine traits, stereotypically.
11
SPEAKER_01
People were like, oh, this is fun.
11
SPEAKER_01
And like, he s funny and he s nice to me.
11
SPEAKER_00
I can partially agree with you.
11
SPEAKER_00
I think people came for the masculinity and stayed for the sensitive femininity.
11
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s so individual.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s really hard.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s just so individual.
11
SPEAKER_00
It is.
11
SPEAKER_01
I am, generally speaking, not, on face value, attracted to a hyper-masculine man.
11
SPEAKER_00
Right.
11
SPEAKER_00
I guess, yeah, then you get into like, what are you defining as masculine?
11
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
My definition, which is in the credo of Ted Seegers, is the masculinity that I think is worth defending, supporting, and encouraging, which is provide and protect.
11
SPEAKER_00
I think those are virtues that a man should aspire to have.
11
SPEAKER_01
But provide.
11
SPEAKER_00
And protect.
11
SPEAKER_01
In what way provide?
11
SPEAKER_01
Like, all across the board?
11
SPEAKER_00
Provide and protect, take care of the ones that you love.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s also a huge feminine trait.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s why this is so fascinating.
11
SPEAKER_00
I m just talking about men and what I would advise young men to not let go of.
11
SPEAKER_00
I don t think it has to be positioned in opposition to femininity.
11
SPEAKER_00
I m just saying what I think are qualities we should hold on to.
11
SPEAKER_00
And I think, in general, women are attracted to a man who will provide and protect.
11
SPEAKER_01
But I think people across the board generally, like regardless of gender, are attracted to providing and protecting.
11
SPEAKER_01
And when it s men, they re attracted to women who provide for their family and are like mama bears.
11
SPEAKER_01
There s that element of it.
11
SPEAKER_01
I think everyone wants to be protected and in certain men it might look different.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so for me, I m not worried that my partner can provide and protect.
11
SPEAKER_00
I very much want my partner to nurture in love.
11
SPEAKER_01
Which is, to me, another version of it.
11
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
11
SPEAKER_00
You re like providing and protecting the emotional health of the people around you.
11
SPEAKER_00
I m looking for, I m not looking for me, I m looking for a counterbalance.
12
SPEAKER_01
that makes up for all the things I m not strong in.
12
SPEAKER_01
So when I m forming a partnership, I don t need two people that are like me.
12
SPEAKER_01
And I don t think it s unevolved of me or people who desire that to be me.
12
SPEAKER_01
want that.
12
SPEAKER_02
I don t think it s unlawful.
12
SPEAKER_01
I don t know that it s something that needs to be transcended.
12
SPEAKER_01
I think there s a ton of stuff we do that needs to be transcended, like our status obsession and our, you know, a bazillion things we do as social primates, but I don t see that symbiosis is something that we should aim to transcend.
12
SPEAKER_02
I don t either, but I don t think.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I m not saying you are.
12
SPEAKER_01
I m not, I m not challenging you.
12
SPEAKER_01
I m not positioning anything I m saying against you.
12
SPEAKER_01
I m just telling you how I feel about it.
12
SPEAKER_02
Well, this is all sort of makes sense cause.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, cause yes.
12
SPEAKER_01
Talk about masculinity and the conventional.
12
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
12
SPEAKER_02
Seeking out a conventional armor.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, John, John Cena, very nice person.
12
SPEAKER_02
One thing I wanted to address, some people have been wondering about the, if you hear popping sounds, it is your nicotine mints.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, oh, that s another.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, there s a couple mysteries I end up solving individually on comments, but for Armchair Anonymous, and I think we ve already said this, but the song at the end that was improv d, the last line is, on the fly, I rhyme dish.
12
SPEAKER_01
on the fly.
12
SPEAKER_02
What do people think it is?
12
SPEAKER_01
They don t have any clue.
12
SPEAKER_01
The guesses that they make are the best acorns ever.
12
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
12
SPEAKER_01
And of course, I can barely understand it, and I said it.
12
SPEAKER_02
Right.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s a very confusing, and rindish is not a word we use.
12
SPEAKER_02
No, it s not.
12
SPEAKER_01
But I know that plagues a lot of people.
12
SPEAKER_01
What is being said at the end of it?
12
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_01
Now they know.
12
SPEAKER_01
God, now that we re on this path,
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, oh, oh, a lot of people pointed out, and I stand corrected, I said Volkswagen.
12
SPEAKER_02
Uh-huh.
12
SPEAKER_01
I was like, why is there two Vs?
12
SPEAKER_01
And they said actually in German that V, which is variable, is actually an F in that case.
12
SPEAKER_01
So it s Volkswagen.
12
SPEAKER_01
When you re in Germany, it s Volkswagen.
12
SPEAKER_01
So the V is an F, or for us it would be an F. And the W is a V?
12
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God, that is complex.
12
SPEAKER_01
But it kind of weirdly makes more sense to us in a literal sense, because it s the people s wagon.
12
SPEAKER_01
It was like the car for the proletariat.
12
SPEAKER_01
That was the intention of VW.
12
SPEAKER_02
I like that.
12
SPEAKER_01
So if you think of it as like Volkswagen, it s very literal what the thing is.
12
SPEAKER_02
I like it.
12
SPEAKER_01
For the folks, the common folks.
12
SPEAKER_01
I ll probably get corrected on that.
12
SPEAKER_01
That s my interpretation of it.
12
SPEAKER_02
So he was the captain of his football team.
12
SPEAKER_02
Uh-huh.
12
SPEAKER_02
And he was joking that he got to do the coin toss and that was really it.
12
SPEAKER_02
And then you said it can be important.
12
SPEAKER_02
You said it was important in the Super Bowl this year.
12
SPEAKER_02
Why?
12
SPEAKER_02
I didn t know why.
12
SPEAKER_01
Why did I say that?
12
SPEAKER_01
Now we re so far from the Super Bowl, I can t remember.
12
SPEAKER_01
Did they go to overtime in the Super Bowl?
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they did if you win the coin toss you get to pick whether you re receiving or the direction you re going It s just you can do that or you can pick right so there is a Statistical advantage to choosing it one way knowing there s gonna be four quarters, but the fact that they went into a fifth quarter There s a new coin toss and oh there is yeah Okay
12
SPEAKER_01
But what happened in that?
12
SPEAKER_00
Well, there was a new coin taught in the rules of overtime is if you score.
12
SPEAKER_01
The other the other person gets possession.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but if you take a field goal Yeah, the other team still gets possession and they know they either need to make a field goal or go for the touchdown So they re right.
12
SPEAKER_00
They do have an advantage having the ball second knowing what they need to do.
12
SPEAKER_01
There we go.
12
SPEAKER_00
So if if It was what the 49ers if they would have known that Kansas City was gonna get a touchdown that second drive They wouldn t even kick that field goal.
12
SPEAKER_00
They would have just gone for it on fourth, right?
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh Just pull something
12
SPEAKER_01
I have an itch.
12
SPEAKER_01
You have an itch.
12
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_02
He ran into Margot Robbie at Core.
12
SPEAKER_02
Oh, here they are.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, speak of the devil.
12
SPEAKER_02
He ran into Margot Robbie at Core by Claire Smith.
12
SPEAKER_02
That s a restaurant in London.
12
SPEAKER_02
And I think I said Michelin starred, and it has three Michelin stars.
12
SPEAKER_01
It does.
12
SPEAKER_01
Where was it that I just, oh, I sent you a thing.
12
SPEAKER_01
There is a, this is very exciting for Ted Seekers, there is a five Michelin star restaurant in New York.
12
SPEAKER_01
I don t think.
12
SPEAKER_01
I sent you the name of it, didn t I?
12
SPEAKER_00
I think three is the most anyone has though.
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think so.
12
SPEAKER_00
I think it s a five star Michelin rated.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that makes sense.
12
SPEAKER_00
Five Michelin stars.
12
SPEAKER_01
I don t know how to pronounce it, is it Young Sick?
12
SPEAKER_01
It s J-U-N-G-S-I-K.
12
SPEAKER_01
Korean restaurant.
12
SPEAKER_01
And guess what they serve on the menu?
12
SPEAKER_02
Ted Seegers?
12
SPEAKER_01
Ted fucking Seegers at a Michelin star.
12
SPEAKER_02
That s amazing.
12
SPEAKER_01
I gotta tell you, there s so many fun things.
12
SPEAKER_01
You get used to certain wonderful things.
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
Right, like you see yourself on a billboard when you re an actor.
12
SPEAKER_02
I was just about to say, yeah, like when you saw the Lincoln on the billboard.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and there s like, those are very exciting moments.
12
SPEAKER_01
And then there is a point if you do it long enough that you see yourself on a billboard and you don t really even think about it, which is crazy and a shame.
12
SPEAKER_02
Another thing we should transcend.
12
SPEAKER_02
You don t even think about it when you see, I mean, I don t know.
12
SPEAKER_02
I ve never, we had a billboard once, but I don t think I could drive by and not, but maybe.
12
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
12
SPEAKER_01
At some point, if you re in 30 movies, those movies get billboards and you somehow or just somehow became white.
12
SPEAKER_02
That is so odd.
12
SPEAKER_01
I m not proud of it and it s not like a brag.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s just like, it s so weird.
12
SPEAKER_02
You could look at it as a brag or as not a brag.
12
SPEAKER_02
Maybe it s worse if every time you see her like, oh my God.
12
SPEAKER_02
I m a movie star.
12
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s kind of like when Christina Applegate said they were pulling into Fox and the Doors song 20th Century Fox was on and she was like, yeah, that s me.
12
SPEAKER_01
And her friend was like, okay, it s happening.
12
SPEAKER_01
So it s a very precarious tightrope you re walking.
12
SPEAKER_01
But you do get used to stuff and that is the nature of it.
12
SPEAKER_01
At some point I have gotten nervous, like, well, I don t want
12
SPEAKER_01
I don t want that to be the case.
12
SPEAKER_01
I want to get excited about stuff and I don t want to be that way.
12
SPEAKER_01
So, but what s weird is so Ted Seegers is like a whole new chapter because it s like a business that I started with Aaron and Aaron.
12
SPEAKER_01
And yeah, when I see it on the menu of a Michelin star restaurant, I get this like incredible swell of happiness.
12
SPEAKER_01
and excitement, like, oh, this thing we thought of at a Traverse City fucking restaurant, visiting our friend Jack is on a menu at this place is like really fun and exciting.
12
SPEAKER_02
That s so fun.
12
SPEAKER_02
Is there a high watermark?
12
SPEAKER_02
Is there like the Lincoln on Sunset Boulevard billboard for Ted Seegers?
12
SPEAKER_01
For Ted Seegers?
12
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
I guess I have a few fantasies.
12
SPEAKER_01
The thing I want that s so lofty is I hope
12
SPEAKER_01
Like if it became an actual big brand, like one of the big beers, I want a seaplane.
12
SPEAKER_01
No one has a seaplane.
12
SPEAKER_01
So I want an old fashioned seaplane that only lands on the water.
12
SPEAKER_01
And so everywhere we go to promote Ted Seegers, we can only go places where we can land on the water.
12
SPEAKER_02
This is- So is it gonna have Ted Seegers on the plane or something?
12
SPEAKER_01
Haven t you seen it?
12
SPEAKER_01
I had one mocked up.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay, can I show it to you?
12
SPEAKER_02
Oh God, yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh God.
12
SPEAKER_02
I just.
12
SPEAKER_01
What?
12
SPEAKER_01
It s a little plane, it s not like a giant problem.
12
SPEAKER_01
That s the problem.
12
SPEAKER_01
No, it s enormous.
12
SPEAKER_02
A little plane is bad.
12
SPEAKER_01
I found one for sale.
12
SPEAKER_01
These planes aren t expensive.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay, I m gonna send you right, oh shit balls.
12
SPEAKER_02
Well, I don t like, it doesn t sound safe if they re small and inexpensive.
12
SPEAKER_01
This thing can land in the water.
12
SPEAKER_01
Now, Greg Davis, who s a genius, he is the person who makes all of our creative stuff.
12
SPEAKER_01
He s so fucking good.
12
SPEAKER_01
He mocked this up.
12
SPEAKER_01
All right, look at your phone.
12
SPEAKER_01
If anyone really wants to see this, it s in my Instagram.
12
SPEAKER_02
Oh, that s cool.
12
SPEAKER_02
For the listener, it is branded.
12
SPEAKER_02
It s red.
12
SPEAKER_01
The whole thing says Ted Seeger s all over it.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s gorgeous.
12
SPEAKER_01
And it s a huge four propeller, old fashioned seaplane.
12
SPEAKER_01
And my more immediate goal is my 1980s Zephyr station wagons almost done being built.
12
SPEAKER_01
And that is already the same white as the cans.
12
SPEAKER_01
And so I m going to put the Seegers logo on the hood and on the back, Ted Seegers racing.
12
SPEAKER_01
And I want to get that thing out and do some racing in it so that Ted Seegers has a race team.
12
SPEAKER_01
These are all super dumb, small things.
12
SPEAKER_01
But when I grew up seeing Budweiser, what was cool about Budweiser, they were the original Red Bull.
12
SPEAKER_01
They did the Budweiser hydroplane boat races on Detroit River.
12
SPEAKER_01
Budweiser meant high-octane racing.
12
SPEAKER_01
So I want to reclaim that for Ted Seegers.
12
SPEAKER_01
But we don t have the money to do any of this stuff, so really it s going to be me racing my station wagon in a class that I can t compete in.
13
SPEAKER_00
but just, I want there to be Ted Seegers racing.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s, wow, that s a big goal.
13
SPEAKER_01
These aren t the answers I thought you were gonna say.
13
SPEAKER_00
What were you thinking I might say?
13
SPEAKER_01
I was more like, at your favorite restaurant.
13
SPEAKER_00
All time hamming it on tap.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, on tap, on tap at your favorite restaurant.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s on tap at places, which is fun in Detroit, yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
Shout out to Aaron too, because we don t know what we re doing.
13
SPEAKER_00
I think I ve made that abundantly clear.
13
SPEAKER_00
We literally don t know what we re doing, but Aaron had the idea to send it.
13
SPEAKER_00
He s like, you know what?
13
SPEAKER_00
It s so good and I believe in it.
13
SPEAKER_00
I m going to start sending it to all these really esoteric beer critics.
13
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
13
SPEAKER_00
And one of the main dudes sent him a message and he goes, I have 180 beers at my store.
13
SPEAKER_00
This is the only one I m drinking period.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s so exciting.
13
SPEAKER_00
So that s, that makes me like insanely excited and happy.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s cool that people that like beer actually are like, Oh no, no, this, wow, this is the best NA.
13
SPEAKER_01
Good.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yes, it does taste really good.
13
SPEAKER_01
Not that I,
13
SPEAKER_00
have a huge history of.
13
SPEAKER_01
When we were in India with Phil, we were at an agricultural event and he was trying these protein heavy rice options.
13
SPEAKER_01
It was really cool.
13
SPEAKER_01
We tried them also.
13
SPEAKER_01
We liked it.
13
SPEAKER_00
Low glycemic index and double the protein.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yes, and you could tell a difference, and I couldn t, in taste.
13
SPEAKER_00
And we ate before him.
13
SPEAKER_00
We were there before him.
13
SPEAKER_01
Before he arrived.
13
SPEAKER_00
And it became a big, we were excited to see, basically he was gonna have to be a tiebreaker.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, because you were like, he s definitely gonna know the difference.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I said, I don t know.
13
SPEAKER_01
He did not know the difference.
13
SPEAKER_00
He did not.
13
SPEAKER_01
He didn t taste the difference, but he said, I mean, they taste the same to me, but I m not a rice aficionado.
13
SPEAKER_00
Definitely went your way.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
I could taste the sugar in the other one.
13
SPEAKER_00
The other one has way more sugar, the first one.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s so funny.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we had a traditional one, then a midway point, and then this now super rice.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I loved it, and I ve come home and tried to find it.
13
SPEAKER_00
I can t get as good as that one was, but I have found one that has got like half the glycemic index and 56% more protein, and that s the rice I eat now.
13
SPEAKER_00
So cool.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, if you could make rice a superfood.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
13
SPEAKER_00
Stand back.
13
SPEAKER_00
John, we re not doing a good job.
13
SPEAKER_01
No, we are.
13
SPEAKER_01
There s only one more.
13
SPEAKER_01
Ronnie Coleman.
13
SPEAKER_01
Had 13 surgeries, has had 13 surgeries.
13
SPEAKER_00
Ooh.
13
SPEAKER_00
Ronnie Coleman s a Easter egg because we have a guest coming up where we talk about Ronnie Coleman a lot.
13
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
13
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so the Make-A-Wish, he has over 650 wishes.
13
650.
13
SPEAKER_01
I was just, oh, when we were in the South at Easter,
13
SPEAKER_00
I was telling that story from, I won t name the restaurant, but a famous hot chicken restaurant in Nashville.
13
SPEAKER_00
It was when Huey and I were first falling in love.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God, what an incredible story.
13
SPEAKER_00
So Huey and I are maybe on our third date ever and we re eating on the deck of this restaurant and the owner comes out and he comes up and he says, excuse me, are you Dex?
13
SPEAKER_00
And I go, yeah, yeah, I m Dex.
13
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, oh, great, great, great.
13
SPEAKER_00
Listen, we got a girl inside, a crippled girl, and boy, she d just love to meet you and take a picture.
13
SPEAKER_00
And she s real crippled, and if you could come in and take a picture with her, that d be great.
13
SPEAKER_00
She s just in the corner, this crippled girl.
13
SPEAKER_00
He said crippled.
13
SPEAKER_00
like 15 times in two minutes.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, I m like, can you still say crippled?
13
SPEAKER_00
And you have to imagine what I m picturing as I walk into the restaurant, because I ve heard the word crippled 15 times.
13
SPEAKER_00
You and I go in and there s like a 12 year old girl with a cast.
13
SPEAKER_00
She has a fucking cast on her leg.
13
SPEAKER_00
But we got a cripple girl.
13
SPEAKER_00
It sounded like she was dying.
13
SPEAKER_00
And that then led to, somehow, like Huey and I were telling that story at Easter, and then I got to bring this up, this John Cena thing.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I m glad you just said 650, because I m like, guess how many he s done?
13
SPEAKER_00
People are like, you know, they go crazy.
13
100.
13
SPEAKER_00
I m like, no, 600.
13
SPEAKER_00
So I m delighted that I got that.
13
650.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s even more.
13
SPEAKER_00
But then what s funny is you re in a position where I think they are weirdly assuming that I just haven t volunteered.
13
SPEAKER_00
So I had to explain to them, you have to be picked.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s what was so endearing and sweet about it is he was just like the honor of being requested that many times.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s huge, and it is.
13
SPEAKER_01
Before John, the second was someone who granted a 200.
13
SPEAKER_00
Right, I know, he s three acts, the record.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s so, it s so sweet.
13
SPEAKER_00
That s a cool record to have in life.
13
SPEAKER_01
God, it is.
13
SPEAKER_01
Like, you really did something right.
13
SPEAKER_01
Anywho.
13
SPEAKER_00
What a good boy.
13
SPEAKER_00
John Cena.
13
SPEAKER_00
John Cena, yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
I know.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
We said it in the intro, but he had a lot of people who wanted to take his picture here at your house.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
About the construction workers.
13
SPEAKER_00
I would kinda like to, I would like to shadow him walking around the street.
13
SPEAKER_00
I kinda wanna see.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think it really is an intense life.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, what s The Rock s life?
13
SPEAKER_00
He s got like the mega movie stardom and the mega WWE stardom.
13
SPEAKER_00
He seems to do it just effortlessly.
13
SPEAKER_00
The Rock, both those guys have incredible attitudes.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
Fuck.
13
SPEAKER_01
We d love to have The Rock on, The Rock, if you re listening.
13
SPEAKER_00
You out there, Dwayne?
13
SPEAKER_01
But The Rock doesn t still wrestle, right?
13
SPEAKER_00
I think he occasionally pops in.
13
SPEAKER_00
In fact, he just had a post.
13
SPEAKER_00
I was so confused by it.
13
SPEAKER_00
Cause it had a tone that is not Dwayne Johnson s.
13
SPEAKER_00
Like Dwayne Johnson s so positive.
13
SPEAKER_00
And this post was like, this happened after they cut the cameras and I don t even care.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I m glad they caught this.
13
SPEAKER_00
It had this crazy tone.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, this does not sound like him.
13
SPEAKER_00
And then I realized, oh, this is, he s like promoting some weird rivalry with WWE.
13
SPEAKER_00
And he like switched personas on me.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I had to keep up.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s crazy.
13
SPEAKER_00
I love The Rock.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he s back, 2024.
13
SPEAKER_00
The final boss.
13
The final boss.
13
SPEAKER_01
I ll go.
13
SPEAKER_00
Have you been?
13
SPEAKER_01
No.
13
SPEAKER_00
I went with Charlie and someone else.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s so loud.
13
SPEAKER_00
You ve never heard anything louder in your life.
13
SPEAKER_00
I thought that was Monster Jam.
13
SPEAKER_00
No, this makes Monster Jam.
13
SPEAKER_00
seem like a symphony.
13
SPEAKER_00
It is so loud.
13
SPEAKER_00
You ll never see an audience more into something than WWE.
13
SPEAKER_01
I don t think I can go anymore.
13
SPEAKER_00
I m busy.
13
SPEAKER_00
Okay, you re gonna cancel last minute?
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I m gonna let everyone down.
13
SPEAKER_00
All right.
13
SPEAKER_01
All right, well, good luck tonight.
13
SPEAKER_01
Have fun.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh, thank you so much.
13
SPEAKER_00
Love you.
13
SPEAKER_01
Love you.