0
SPEAKER_01
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m Dax Shepard.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m joined by Lily Padman.
0
SPEAKER_03
Hi there.
0
SPEAKER_01
How you doing?
0
SPEAKER_03
Pretty good.
0
SPEAKER_01
Did you have a good Halloween?
0
SPEAKER_03
The best.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh, perfect.
0
SPEAKER_03
The best ever.
0
SPEAKER_01
The best of all time.
0
SPEAKER_01
Good, good, good.
0
SPEAKER_01
This is a sweet episode.
0
SPEAKER_01
This is kind of like when I got to interview my mom.
0
SPEAKER_01
This is my idol, my hero, my best friend, Tom Hanson.
0
SPEAKER_01
I talk about him a lot.
0
SPEAKER_03
Comes up all the time.
0
SPEAKER_01
He even came up with other people.
0
SPEAKER_01
Robert Downey had a lot to say about Tom Hanson.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yes, Kimmel.
0
SPEAKER_03
He came up on Kimmel s.
0
SPEAKER_03
He comes up, and you guys get to meet him today.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s pretty universal when he comes up, too.
0
SPEAKER_01
Everyone loves him.
0
SPEAKER_01
Always makes me happy.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yes, Tom is one of the greatest entertainment lawyers to ever live, to ever do this.
0
SPEAKER_01
He s just as good as it gets at that job.
0
SPEAKER_01
And, of course, he s my best friend.
0
SPEAKER_01
It was so fun to get to talk to him and hear, you know, new stuff.
0
SPEAKER_03
That s fun.
0
SPEAKER_01
It was.
0
SPEAKER_01
I didn t know all that immigrant stuff was really fascinating.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, we got a good history.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
Well, I hope everyone enjoys, as much as I do, Tom Hanson.
0
SPEAKER_01
You gotta scoot all the way to the corner.
0
SPEAKER_02
Oh!
0
SPEAKER_01
I know.
0
SPEAKER_02
I know, we have the rules, I know.
0
SPEAKER_00
Technical joy for the people in charge.
0
SPEAKER_00
And the mere guests.
0
SPEAKER_03
Tom, you came in Eric Richardson style with your iPad.
0
SPEAKER_03
Eric doesn t travel anywhere without his iPad.
0
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know if I would want to do any research about my copious life and all of the things I ve forgotten in the last six months.
0
SPEAKER_01
Some of it a blessing, some of it a curse?
0
SPEAKER_00
It s a little bit of both, you know?
0
SPEAKER_00
Why do you have all those warships on there just to keep making sure you don t accidentally torpedo the wrong aircraft?
0
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
0
SPEAKER_01
I don t want any friendly fire to happen on my watch.
0
SPEAKER_03
It s a cheat sheet.
0
SPEAKER_00
Are we recording?
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we re always recording.
0
SPEAKER_00
The mysterious part is why in the world anyone would want to interview me other than the fact that I m your pal and you seem to mention me from time to time, which is my only.
0
SPEAKER_00
Claim to fame.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s not your only claim to fame, for starters.
0
SPEAKER_00
Certainly among young people.
0
SPEAKER_01
Listen to me, Tom.
0
SPEAKER_01
I know you don t listen to the show, but do you know on Thursdays is experts, so we regularly talk to attorneys and professors and academics, so it s not people that are just losers like in film and television.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re very par for the course, and I would even say more, because you are a famous lawyer.
0
SPEAKER_03
Except, so we did, that was the plan.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh, but you are Monday.
0
SPEAKER_03
But we have now moved you to Monday, our celebrity slot.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
0
SPEAKER_00
You must have been a dearth of good.
0
SPEAKER_03
It is a strike.
0
SPEAKER_00
What exactly?
0
SPEAKER_00
Penny Youngman was not available?
0
SPEAKER_03
No, because Dax s mom came on the show and now Dax s dad is on the show.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
0
SPEAKER_00
Chosen dad.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s very charming.
0
SPEAKER_00
I think maybe the real dad was probably more amusing.
0
SPEAKER_03
I mean, I have heard some stories.
0
SPEAKER_00
I ve only met him a couple of times.
0
SPEAKER_03
You got to meet him.
0
SPEAKER_00
I did.
0
SPEAKER_00
He came to his house, to the meeting.
0
SPEAKER_00
Came to my house, and he was hilarious.
0
SPEAKER_00
You can be, you know, fully honest.
0
SPEAKER_00
You can be rude.
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, no, I m trying to remember exactly the context, but he was asking questions that were completely unrelated to what we were all doing.
0
SPEAKER_00
In the middle of sharing, where d you get that watch?
0
SPEAKER_01
I know exactly what you re thinking of.
0
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, this is a little bit common in Michigan AA.
0
SPEAKER_01
People chat a little bit while you re sharing, because in Michigan AA, or at least all the meetings I went to, you come in, they read all the stuff, and then you break off into tables.
0
SPEAKER_01
And what s really cool about that is often the tables are set up like that s a step one table, step two.
0
SPEAKER_01
If you want to talk step four, you sit at a step four table.
0
SPEAKER_01
And then each table has a leader.
0
SPEAKER_01
This is where it got confusing for my dad.
0
SPEAKER_01
I see.
0
SPEAKER_01
So the leader shares first, and then it s tons of crosstalk.
0
SPEAKER_01
Just a little chat-a-thon there?
0
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_01
Which, suffice to say, is not how our meeting works at all.
0
SPEAKER_01
But you re right in remembering that he was abnormally engaged.
0
SPEAKER_01
conversationally with people he had never met.
0
SPEAKER_00
I think I brought my uncle too, and he did the same thing.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s always interesting to meet someone who s as legendary as, Bob s his name, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
Dave.
0
SPEAKER_00
Dave, I always screw up his name.
0
SPEAKER_01
Well, you always call Barton Bart, which amuses me to no end, my stepdad.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, who s also nameless Dave.
0
SPEAKER_01
We ll talk about him later.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_01
I know exactly.
0
SPEAKER_03
I can t wait.
0
SPEAKER_03
So many pins.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s always interesting.
0
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to forget this one.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m sorry, but this is the funniest joke Tom has ever made.
0
SPEAKER_01
I think about it once a month.
0
SPEAKER_01
I laugh.
0
SPEAKER_01
As you know, I assisted Barton in his past.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
Heavily assisted.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so my mom had a boyfriend for a minute that I didn t really love.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I was kind of venting to Tom about this new boyfriend that I didn t like.
0
SPEAKER_01
And he says, well, does he know what you did to the last?
0
SPEAKER_01
I actually said, does he know you killed the last guy?
0
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
0
SPEAKER_01
And then I think the next day you called me and you were like, was that an okay joke?
0
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, oh my God, I m still laughing about this.
0
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t exactly appropriate, but part of what has bound us together in this bizarre friendship is that we can be somewhat inappropriate at times, but we re smart enough to do it in the correct environment.
0
SPEAKER_01
Until today.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re easing your way out of this job, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
You re softly retiring.
0
SPEAKER_01
I still have a bit to go.
0
SPEAKER_01
So your cancellation is significantly more serious.
0
SPEAKER_00
You clearly have to spend a lot of money to finish this house.
0
SPEAKER_00
So just in deference to Monica, who has to look at this shit pile here,
0
SPEAKER_00
Just being able to finish it someday so she can look out of her glorious window and not see 1,800 disabled vehicles.
0
SPEAKER_00
The clampets.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, definitely the clampets.
0
SPEAKER_00
What would you be the, it s not the Beverly Hillbillies or the- A little bit.
0
SPEAKER_00
I think so, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but it s not the neighborhood, so it d be the Los Feliz.
0
SPEAKER_00
We have to come up with a- Degenerate title for you.
0
SPEAKER_00
Hillbillies, pigs.
0
SPEAKER_00
But what s great about it is you re a hillbilly, but you can function okay.
0
SPEAKER_00
Like Jed never really made the leap.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re right.
0
SPEAKER_01
He never became self-actualized.
0
SPEAKER_00
He never was able to have an interview with Bill Gates.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
0
SPEAKER_00
He always lived in doggies.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was always the same.
0
SPEAKER_01
And he continued to drive that old pickup truck around Beverly Hills.
0
SPEAKER_01
He never upgraded the way I did.
0
SPEAKER_00
And you know, he had so many opportunities to do so.
0
SPEAKER_00
He did.
0
SPEAKER_00
You re a little bit more like Jethro, I think.
0
SPEAKER_00
Sort of got with the program and you got a cool car.
0
SPEAKER_00
One foot in Kentucky, one foot in LA.
0
SPEAKER_01
Nice haircut.
0
SPEAKER_03
You spent the summer at Martha s Vineyard, so.
0
SPEAKER_01
I know.
0
SPEAKER_01
Definitely losing my hillbilly status.
0
SPEAKER_01
You are.
0
SPEAKER_00
That is not a hillbilly.
0
SPEAKER_03
That s points off of hillbilly.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s not a hillbilly hang up.
0
SPEAKER_00
But you are reasserting your hillbilly credentials with the Tennessee place.
0
SPEAKER_00
Aren t you going to have like a go-kart track?
0
SPEAKER_01
Enormous pyrotechnic display on 4th of July.
0
SPEAKER_01
Got it.
0
SPEAKER_00
Are you going to have a pontoon boat?
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh God, yes.
0
SPEAKER_01
Way too much motor on back is the point.
0
SPEAKER_00
Good, good.
0
SPEAKER_00
You re kind of, and the great thing about it is I think they modeled it on you in the beginning of Idiocracy.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know, the parallels between the highly educated family.
0
SPEAKER_00
You could have been, had it gone a different way, the model for that other side.
0
SPEAKER_01
The football player.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
with the truck and the 400 children and the whole thing and somewhere along the line there was a strange evolutionary break that sort of took both of us to some degree out of this kind of protozoan stream that would have ended us up living if we were lucky.
0
SPEAKER_00
in that Quonset hut that we long for.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s evolutionary.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s genetic.
0
SPEAKER_00
We re like salmon that want to return to our river.
0
SPEAKER_00
We want to return to a Quonset hut.
0
SPEAKER_00
We want to go home.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
0
SPEAKER_01
And start a religion.
0
SPEAKER_01
We ll get into that.
0
SPEAKER_01
In fact, maybe we ll hopefully get some recruits.
0
SPEAKER_01
Let s start at the beginning because you just mentioned it, which is, I think when we first met, we wouldn t have known this about one another, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
I met you
0
SPEAKER_01
You just mentioned before we started recording that you re two days away from 20 years.
0
SPEAKER_01
Correct.
0
SPEAKER_03
Congratulations.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
So fucking amazing.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s impossible.
0
SPEAKER_01
Amazing.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s impossible.
0
SPEAKER_01
It is.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
And you rolled up to this meeting and I want to say you were driving an S class at the time.
0
SPEAKER_01
Of course I was.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I thought, look at this rich asshole.
0
SPEAKER_03
How old were you?
0
SPEAKER_01
Well, it was 20 years ago.
0
SPEAKER_01
I was 28.
0
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, 28 years old, and he rolled up, and his hair is so thick, as you re now looking at, Monica.
0
SPEAKER_01
His hair was so thick.
0
SPEAKER_00
Gorgeous.
0
SPEAKER_01
Darker than, too.
0
SPEAKER_01
To be envied.
0
SPEAKER_01
And he is in this S-Class Mercedes, kind of like a tycoon s car.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, oh, this is a rich guy.
0
SPEAKER_01
But then, slowly, as I heard you share over the years, I was like, hold on a second, this guy s also a clampet.
0
SPEAKER_00
You have to clamp it from a different part of the southern San Fernando Valley.
0
SPEAKER_00
You re from Reseda?
0
SPEAKER_00
Correct.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was born in Van Nuys.
0
SPEAKER_00
Never lived in Van Nuys.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was taken home to the house that I grew up in.
0
SPEAKER_00
And never left?
0
SPEAKER_00
Not until my parents moved out and left me there.
0
SPEAKER_00
That was a whole different story.
0
SPEAKER_01
But I mean, you had the house the whole childhood.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
And what was Reseda like in the 50s?
0
SPEAKER_00
Working class, very white.
0
SPEAKER_00
Most of the dads worked in the defense plants because there were all the aircraft plants.
0
SPEAKER_00
Douglas, Lockheed were all over the place.
0
SPEAKER_00
There were car plants.
0
SPEAKER_00
They had a Chevrolet plant.
0
SPEAKER_00
They made Chevelles in Van Nuys.
0
SPEAKER_00
They made Chevelles in Van Nuys?
0
SPEAKER_00
They sure did.
0
SPEAKER_00
I had no idea.
1
SPEAKER_02
Right on Van Nuys Boulevard in kind of Sherman Way, Roscoe, and there was a rail line, and they would actually take the Chevelles out to various parts of the world.
1
SPEAKER_01
Dropped one off in Livonia, Michigan to my father his senior year, 68 Chevelle.
1
SPEAKER_02
Probably did.
1
SPEAKER_02
They were still making them.
1
SPEAKER_02
I think they made Camaros there at one time.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, really?
1
SPEAKER_02
It was a very working-class environment.
1
SPEAKER_02
Most people owned their little houses.
1
SPEAKER_01
They were kind of post-World War II bungalows?
1
SPEAKER_01
A hundred percent.
1
SPEAKER_02
Ours was, you know, tract houses.
1
SPEAKER_02
That was the beginning of tract housing.
1
SPEAKER_02
We lived in a 1,500 square foot house that my father bought on the GI Bill.
1
SPEAKER_02
because he was in the military.
1
SPEAKER_02
The reality there was the dominant events of most everybody s parents  lives were the Great Depression and World War II.
1
SPEAKER_02
Most parents were born in 1918 to 1923, so they were all eligible for military service.
1
SPEAKER_02
They all ended up scraping through the Depression.
1
SPEAKER_02
A lot of people, not as many as in the Central Valley, but a lot of people who I grew up with, parents were from the Dust Bowl.
1
SPEAKER_02
was from Arkansas and Oklahoma and came out because there was farming in the San Fernando Valley.
1
SPEAKER_02
Isn t this unimaginable, Monica?
1
SPEAKER_02
It is.
1
SPEAKER_02
And to add to it, it s kind of inconceivable to me even to think about it.
1
SPEAKER_02
I don t have a grandparent who was born in the U.S.
1
SPEAKER_02
My grandfather was named Rangwald Hansen, born in Norway, came here with his brother and sister
1
SPEAKER_02
when he was four.
1
SPEAKER_02
It was interesting because I tried to find him on the Ellis Island website.
1
SPEAKER_02
I figured how many Rangwald Hansons?
1
SPEAKER_02
Couldn t find him.
1
SPEAKER_02
And my great-grandfather s name was John, and there were a bunch of John Hansons.
1
SPEAKER_02
And then there was my great-grandmother s name was Caroline.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I looked that up and I found her.
1
SPEAKER_02
And she came in, in like 1902,
1
SPEAKER_02
with my grandfather who was four and his two younger siblings by herself.
1
SPEAKER_02
Oh my lord.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I then saw the ship she d come in.
1
SPEAKER_02
She was from the town of Arendelle.
1
SPEAKER_02
No, no way.
1
SPEAKER_00
From Frozen?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
Oh my gosh.
1
SPEAKER_02
They grew up in Arendelle.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so I traced the ships.
1
SPEAKER_02
And about a month later, my great-grandfather came, and I asked my uncle, who was the last surviving member of that generation, I said, was there some story about them not being able to come together?
1
SPEAKER_02
And he said, yeah, selling their property, and there was a hangup, and he had to stay.
1
SPEAKER_02
Ship only ran once a month, so he had to stay an extra month.
1
SPEAKER_02
And you think about, she was 28, spoke not a word of English, and came into the U.S.
1
SPEAKER_02
by herself.
1
SPEAKER_02
They ended up in Chicago.
1
SPEAKER_02
My great-grandfather was a coffin maker, so he was a master carpenter.
1
SPEAKER_02
My grandfather grew up in Chicago.
1
SPEAKER_02
He met my grandmother on a wrong number.
1
SPEAKER_01
Which back then was like G18 or something weird?
1
SPEAKER_01
Correct.
1
SPEAKER_02
They were in Chicago, and they started chatting, and she was the youngest of her family.
1
SPEAKER_02
She was actually just barely born in the US, conceived in Sweden, and came over.
1
SPEAKER_02
And their story was their boat hit an iceberg and sank.
1
SPEAKER_02
And everybody got off, but her father came off only with his money belt and nothing else.
1
SPEAKER_02
So they had to start completely over in Chicago.
1
SPEAKER_02
So they met in a wrong number.
1
SPEAKER_02
She was 16.
1
SPEAKER_02
He was like 20.
1
SPEAKER_01
But 16 back then was like 31, just to be clear.
1
SPEAKER_01
She was like behind that she didn t have any kids yet.
1
SPEAKER_02
They met and they kind of got married secretly and, you know, all these stories and he died in her arms.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that s my romantic story that brings tears to my eyes.
1
SPEAKER_02
How d everyone get to California?
1
SPEAKER_02
Well, during the war, my grandfather, he was a milkman.
1
SPEAKER_02
He started with a horse and wagon and the horse would know where to stop.
1
SPEAKER_02
It was, you know, like that.
1
SPEAKER_02
And then he also sold railway tickets as a part-time job in the lobby of the Drake Hotel, which if you ve ever been to Chicago is one of these, it s like the Miramar downtown or the Biltmore downtown.
1
SPEAKER_02
And they had a ticket office for the railroad.
1
SPEAKER_02
So he saved money and he was pretty industrious.
1
SPEAKER_02
And at some point when the boys were in the war, my uncle and my dad, dad was in the Navy, my uncle was in the Air Force, they heard about California.
1
SPEAKER_02
So my grandfather at that point was probably about 45.
1
SPEAKER_02
And he and his brother-in-law decided they were going to go to California and buy some property and they were going to farm it.
1
SPEAKER_02
And this California was going to be good someday.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s going to be a good investment.
1
SPEAKER_02
So right near the end of the war, they moved lock, stock and barrel with my uncle who was younger and my aunt who was younger, bought about 80 acres together.
1
SPEAKER_02
They built two houses.
1
SPEAKER_02
The boys came back from the war.
1
SPEAKER_02
My dad had a job in Chicago.
1
SPEAKER_02
He was a machinist.
1
SPEAKER_02
And my mother, who was from Sydney, Australia, they met during the war, spent one winter in Chicago and said, we can either move to California where your parents are, or I can move back to Sydney.
1
SPEAKER_02
So my sister was born in Chicago and then they moved to California in 1946.
1
SPEAKER_02
And the boys and my grandfather, my great-grandfather, built the house.
1
SPEAKER_02
And this house was there until 1977.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I could pace the floor.
1
SPEAKER_02
I can tell you where everything was.
1
SPEAKER_02
I can describe every wall in it because it was this magic place.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I would go help my grandfather in the chicken ranch and go scrape the poop and get the eggs.
1
SPEAKER_02
And my grandmother was the grandma that every single one of her grandchildren would tell you, I was her favorite.
1
SPEAKER_00
Every one of them.
1
SPEAKER_02
She was that grandma.
1
SPEAKER_00
Isn t that the goal for everyone to think that about themselves?
1
SPEAKER_02
She was just the greatest.
1
SPEAKER_01
I can t even begin to describe.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s so common.
1
SPEAKER_01
My affinity is for my Papa Bob, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
And my Grandma Yoles.
1
SPEAKER_01
They re just saviors.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they were, as I think grandparents get to do, it s kind of a second chance.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like, they got to raise my brother and I in a way that maybe they were harder on my dad and my uncle.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s weird.
1
SPEAKER_02
As time went on and I got older and more perceptive and paid more attention, I became very close with my father s youngest brother, who passed away last year.
1
SPEAKER_02
The best one of the bunch, in my opinion.
1
SPEAKER_02
It sort of reaffirmed some of my senses that my grandma was not crazy about my dad.
1
SPEAKER_02
He was not her favorite, and I think he knew it and kind of felt it.
1
SPEAKER_02
There was one daughter who was completely doted over and took advantage of it and created some resentment within the family, but it was such a magical place for me.
1
SPEAKER_02
I could ride my bike from where we lived, it was 10 minutes away by bike, and there were geese and ducks and sheep and boarded horses.
1
SPEAKER_01
It makes me think of when you re reading like the Cornelius Vanderbilt biography or the Titan Johnny Rockefeller and that these guys had stables in Manhattan.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, Vanderbilt used to love to race him.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, he sure did.
1
SPEAKER_01
He was really competitive and he always one of the fastest horses.
1
SPEAKER_01
He and Rockefeller, Rockefeller almost killed himself a few times.
1
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes racing randoms with his fucking racehorse.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of funny because it s the original car.
1
SPEAKER_01
Rich dudes have always wanted.
1
SPEAKER_01
Of course.
1
SPEAKER_02
When you read some of the Sherlock Holmes novels, when somebody comes to Baker Street, he looks out the window and he sort of judges them by how fine their carriage is.
1
SPEAKER_02
A fine pair of sleek rones.
1
SPEAKER_02
Clearly a man of means.
1
SPEAKER_00
what it was like for your dad if he felt that growing up to then see your grandmother so affectionate towards you like that was triggering either good or bad I don t know it s hard to tell trying to review your parental scenario even when you re an old geezer is complicated you know my parents
1
SPEAKER_02
had a complicated relationship.
1
SPEAKER_02
Everybody has a complicated relationship.
1
SPEAKER_02
But my mother came from poverty in Australia.
1
SPEAKER_02
She was one of five kids.
1
SPEAKER_02
She was the oldest.
1
SPEAKER_02
She had to quit school when she was like 14, go to work.
1
SPEAKER_02
And they got divorced when I was in my 30s.
1
SPEAKER_02
Like, oh, light went on.
1
SPEAKER_02
That answers the question.
1
SPEAKER_02
Right.
1
SPEAKER_02
because they were never terribly affectionate.
1
SPEAKER_02
They didn t fight a lot, only a couple of times, but there was always like, this doesn t feel quite right.
1
SPEAKER_02
And sort of the light went on and, you know, unfortunately when your parents get divorced, one of them in the least has to tell you a lot of stuff you d really prefer not to know.
1
SPEAKER_02
Like your father wouldn t pay to have the dog you loved fixed and put her down and supposed to pay for the, it s like, I don t really need you.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t need more ammo.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t need more ammo.
1
SPEAKER_01
The chamber is locked.
1
SPEAKER_02
But my mom, I think one of her big motivations was to escape this bad situation she was in, in Australia, where she really had a heavy burden for a woman of her age.
1
SPEAKER_02
And she was very smart, very attractive.
1
SPEAKER_02
And my dad, I think, promised her the moon.
1
SPEAKER_02
You ll never have to work.
1
SPEAKER_02
And my dad couldn t keep a job until he got a job at the post office.
1
SPEAKER_02
never was ambitious until my mother drove him to it.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I think he lived in a constant state of someone being disappointed in him.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I think that wore on him as time went by.
1
SPEAKER_02
You know, and he drank, and can you tell if your parent was an alcoholic?
1
SPEAKER_02
I think so.
1
SPEAKER_02
He drank every day and he got weird sometimes.
1
SPEAKER_02
I would occasionally have to go out the back gate over to the bar, the Mountaineer, the beer bar, and drag him out of there.
1
SPEAKER_01
You could support or shatter.
1
SPEAKER_01
I have this weird stereotype about postal employees.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s
2
SPEAKER_00
to pass this test.
2
SPEAKER_00
There was a pretty lengthy test of your intellect to become a postal employee.
2
SPEAKER_00
So a lot of people found their way there that were inordinately smart to have a job that wasn t going to have any real growth to it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you think that s consistent at all?
2
SPEAKER_00
Because your dad had to be fucking smart as hell.
2
SPEAKER_01
He showed no interest in any intellectual pursuits whatsoever.
2
SPEAKER_01
Really?
2
SPEAKER_01
None.
2
SPEAKER_01
Didn t read, didn t watch the news.
2
SPEAKER_00
So do you attribute all of your curiosity to your mom?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I don t even know most of them because they stayed in Australia.
2
SPEAKER_01
A phone call to Australia was a huge deal in the 50s.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, it was really expensive.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was like seven or eight bucks.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that was a lot of money for people in the 50s.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I don t really have that much contact.
2
SPEAKER_01
My dad just was not ambitious.
2
SPEAKER_01
He was a guy who just wanted to get along.
2
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, so many people of that generation, having lived through the Great Depression and World War II,
2
SPEAKER_01
I just want to get along.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t want any fucking action.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was the 50s.
2
SPEAKER_01
There was no reason to raise your head above anybody else s.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think they were just so happy to be okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I think the really relevant thing, because this is one of the many things I ve kind of looked to you for guidance on, is
2
SPEAKER_00
Suffice to say, you had a tough relationship with your dad, for whatever reason.
2
SPEAKER_00
You guys butted heads a lot.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes, we did.
2
SPEAKER_00
I guess, what was your reaction to that?
2
SPEAKER_00
You were... You know, again, is that a... What word would we use?
2
SPEAKER_01
I would say, I was more than that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Insufferable, would we use that word?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I was in Suffolk.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was this weird thing and it was this combination of things which is I was the worst listener the world s ever known as far as I can tell.
2
SPEAKER_01
I didn t want to hear anything from anybody.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because you knew it already?
2
SPEAKER_01
Because I decided I knew it already and I was busy talking.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was so, which I still am to a large degree.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if it s clinical ADD, but my attention span is very short.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was a good student.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if I m any smarter than anybody else.
2
SPEAKER_01
You are, you re not gonna be able to say it, but you re insanely, insanely smart.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I was really, really good.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is what distinguished me from my derelict friends who I ve told you about.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Is I was really good at doing what school was asking you to do.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was very good at that narrow curve of learning, which involved some memorization, some analysis, some logic.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was really good at it, and I finished work very quickly, and I was bored as hell, so I disrupted everything.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you were drawn.
2
SPEAKER_00
So this is another similarity.
2
SPEAKER_00
We love other shitheads.
2
SPEAKER_00
We love other scumbags, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like all of my friends are the same as me.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re all divorced kids.
2
SPEAKER_00
They like to get into some shit and get into an alley.
2
SPEAKER_00
You had that too, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
You re drawn to.
2
SPEAKER_01
That came later.
2
SPEAKER_01
In the early days, I was not big.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was a petite individual and I was very emotional.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was very poor at accepting criticism.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I would react violently to things I didn t like.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I did a fair amount of stalking of other kids when they sort of represented something that was standing in the way of what I wanted to do that very second.
2
SPEAKER_01
From like the third grade on, I was always in trouble because I just couldn t do it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was just too wound up.
2
SPEAKER_01
And since they d had all those tests, they decided I was being smart wasn t my problem.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so they had me tutoring other kids and it just didn t work.
2
SPEAKER_01
And finally this one teacher, again, thanks mom for telling me all this shit, said either he goes into the next grade or he has to get another teacher, I can t do it anymore.
2
SPEAKER_01
So they skipped me in the middle of the year.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, they moved you up a grade?
2
SPEAKER_01
And you were already small.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was already young.
2
SPEAKER_01
My birthday was like two days ago.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I was at the end of October.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
So then they moved me up a grade.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I was a year younger than most of the people.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the real difference was between 11 and 13.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s huge.
2
SPEAKER_01
That was later on.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because, you know, the girls are mature and, you know, I was this pipsqueak.
2
SPEAKER_01
So they moved me up in the middle of the year.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I got bullied for a while until I reacted.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the way I would react to bullying was ranting and raving, eviscerating people verbally.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
They put me into this class, and I m sure they did it on purpose.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was a man teacher, first man teacher I ever had, and he was tough.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he made me write on the blackboard thousands of times, I will not.
2
SPEAKER_01
He made me take it home, so I would write, I, I, I, I, I, I will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will
2
SPEAKER_00
The assembly line.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were harassing me on the school yard shortly after it and I went into a tirade of profanity that was like unbelievable.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the teacher hears me, brings me back in and he gets out a piece of paper and what he used to do was write on a piece of paper, this is what you re going to write 10,000 times.
2
SPEAKER_01
But no, dear Mr. and Mrs. Hanson,
2
SPEAKER_01
I was a combat Marine in Okinawa, and I never heard language coming out of a wounded soldier like I heard out of your son today.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, my.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because I m sure I used some of my choice or things.
2
SPEAKER_01
But then I ended up deciding it was easier to be a bully.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I found some bullying techniques.
2
SPEAKER_01
And once I got out of that particular grade,
2
SPEAKER_01
It was okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
The theory with everybody was once I got into middle school, which was seventh grade in those days called junior high, they had periods.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you d have an hour of class.
2
SPEAKER_01
They figured that that would help me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it did because I got to get up and have a different move around, et cetera, et cetera.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it was a big change in me getting in trouble with the teachers because I wasn t as wired.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they weren t spending eight hours with you.
2
SPEAKER_00
They were spending an hour.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and what was really different is in those days they put you in these limited classes with a bunch of other smart kids.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I was in the same academic classes with the same 20 kids from the 7th grade virtually to the 12th grade.
2
SPEAKER_00
These were not obviously the bullies.
2
SPEAKER_00
These were the eggheads.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, these were mostly the AKs and the Socs.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if they had that expression.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Greases and Socs.
2
SPEAKER_01
Who were the cool kids and ran for public office.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wore sweaters and were polite and stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
Drove Thunderbirds.
2
SPEAKER_01
Not in my school.
2
SPEAKER_00
Nobody drove Thunderbirds in my school.
2
SPEAKER_00
In Outsiders, they did a socialist drive.
2
SPEAKER_01
There was only one guy in high school, and I was thinking about this not too long ago.
2
SPEAKER_01
His name was Ed Reed, and he was like a grade ahead of me.
2
SPEAKER_01
He was a very handsome guy, very stylish.
2
SPEAKER_01
Worked out of Continental clothes and everything, pointy shoes.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he drove two different cars to school.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you did a fleet already?
2
SPEAKER_00
In high school.
2
SPEAKER_01
One was a 62 Impala convertible.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, baby.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the other one was a XKE.
2
No!
2
SPEAKER_00
He drove a Jaguar to high school in his second car.
2
SPEAKER_01
And occasionally, he would ride into school with a female teacher in a little Porsche.
2
SPEAKER_02
No, no, no, no, no.
2
SPEAKER_02
This guy was so cool.
2
SPEAKER_01
He was the coolest.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wonder where he is.
2
SPEAKER_01
Ed Reed.
2
SPEAKER_01
He was just very suave.
2
SPEAKER_01
He was like very Italian looking.
2
SPEAKER_01
Ed Reed.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that was much later.
2
SPEAKER_00
That was so funny.
2
SPEAKER_00
How did you, oh, Monica, were you watching this?
2
SPEAKER_02
No, yeah, I was, but I keep asking dad questions, but I m just curious.
2
SPEAKER_02
Do you think he was jealous of your intellect?
2
SPEAKER_01
He was intimidated by me to some degree, but he was mostly angry because my mom loved me and didn t love him.
2
SPEAKER_00
God and his own mom.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I would have hated your guts.
2
SPEAKER_00
You kind of deserve this wrath.
2
SPEAKER_01
And neither one of them.
2
SPEAKER_01
Look, you know, it s funny because you have refrains, your parental refrains come in.
2
SPEAKER_01
I supported my mom for the last 15 years of her life and she lived in a place.
2
SPEAKER_01
When I was over there one time, this was not long before she passed away, and she said, Oh, you were such a difficult child.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I said, mom, I ve been hearing that shit for the last 60 years.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to ever hear it again.
2
SPEAKER_01
And she was like, wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t think your parents even know the kind of impact.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I was branded in my own mind as this difficult kid.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s how I looked at myself still to some degree.
2
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, I m sure I was.
2
SPEAKER_01
But you needed help.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re a child.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m sure they would have riddled the holy crap out of me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you would have had the whole pharmacological toolkit at your disposal.
2
SPEAKER_00
Believe me, I did.
2
SPEAKER_00
You found it.
2
SPEAKER_00
We laugh at that, but it s fucking true.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s part of the recipe.
2
SPEAKER_00
You needed relief.
2
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
2
SPEAKER_00
By the time you re in high school, probably, you re ready for some relief.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, my high school career, I told you I went into all these cool kids, and I really tried to be a cool kid.
2
SPEAKER_01
I tried to run for student office, always defeated.
2
SPEAKER_01
I tried to have a girlfriend, always rejected.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I would act out my rejection.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the end of junior high school, I didn t get invited to one graduation party.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was really bummed because I had tried so hard to be one of the cool kids.
2
SPEAKER_01
Really quick, this is unimaginable to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because I ve known you for 20 years and everyone s so attracted to you.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s really hard to make peace with that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was probably four inches shorter than I am now, maybe five inches shorter than I am.
2
SPEAKER_01
And more to prove?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, just a child.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I ve mentioned my friend Jim Titus before.
2
SPEAKER_01
Jim Titus was one of the celebrity junior high school kids because he was a child actor.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow, and he was very smart, but in the eighth grade he was in the Twilight Zone
3
SPEAKER_00
Zone, which was the most popular show for kids of that age.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he got to have long hair because he had a letter from his agent.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it was bleached blonde.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so he was quite a celebrity and he was always in trouble and he took great joy in being in a troublemaking exhibition.
3
SPEAKER_00
I had one class with him
3
SPEAKER_00
So I was in Carpinteria State Park camping in our trailer, in our family trailer, and he was there too.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I kind of recognized him.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s when we became... Both from TV and school.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, really quick, this was one of my questions that I don t think I ve ever even asked you, but what was it like growing up in the shadow of Hollywood?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because A, you love movies and it was so close, but I have to imagine it also felt like it was in another fucking planet.
3
SPEAKER_00
Completely other.
3
SPEAKER_00
Hollywood, it was a foreign country.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it was so far away.
3
SPEAKER_00
You didn t go beyond your little town.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right, but you were enamored with it already.
3
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know anything about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was enamored with the product.
3
SPEAKER_00
I loved movies.
3
SPEAKER_00
And interestingly enough, you watched him at the Reseda walk-in, which is the star of Boogie Nights, which I ve talked to PTA about it a bunch in the day.
3
SPEAKER_00
And at one point he wanted to sort of buy it and turn it into like a new Beverly.
3
SPEAKER_00
But my movie diet was that and what 30s and 40s movies were shown on television.
3
SPEAKER_01
I am curious at what point you decide you might have a role in show business, but certainly not then.
3
SPEAKER_01
Very, very much further on.
3
SPEAKER_01
You just had this weird kid who was a movie star at a campground.
3
SPEAKER_01
He wasn t really a movie star.
3
SPEAKER_01
When you re in that grade, that s a fucking movie star.
3
SPEAKER_00
Twilight Zone?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
The episode was called The Crazy World of Horace Ford.
3
SPEAKER_00
There was one year of Twilight Zone, one season where there were hours.
3
SPEAKER_00
And this is one of the hour shows.
3
SPEAKER_00
And this particular show was about a toy designer played by Pat Hingle.
3
SPEAKER_00
He was a character actor.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s enamored of his old childhood neighborhood.
3
SPEAKER_00
So he keeps going back there and then he goes back there and he sees a kid that he knew.
3
SPEAKER_00
He says, hey Joey, try to chase him, he can t get him.
3
SPEAKER_00
So he goes back a couple of times to keep seeing the kid.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the final scene, he goes back and he reverts to his kid person, and that s Titus.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then the other kids knock the living shit out of him.
3
SPEAKER_00
They beat him up.
3
SPEAKER_00
He imagines he was one of the guys, and in reality he was an ass bite and they kicked his ass.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so it was very famous.
3
SPEAKER_00
He was my key.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, he smoked and hitchhiked and all this stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
And also now, is hippie culture starting to bubble up?
3
SPEAKER_00
Not yet.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not yet.
3
SPEAKER_00
Just gangster culture at this point.
3
SPEAKER_00
So he had a whole other group of friends who were in my school.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so by the time I got to high school, I had been so rejected by all the smart kids, but I was still in class with them.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I really started hanging out with Titus and these other guys.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s your Aaron Weakley.
3
SPEAKER_01
75% of your stories involve Jim Titus.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Some of them are horrifying and some of them are hilarious.
3
SPEAKER_00
And most are both.
3
SPEAKER_00
There was a very charismatic bad kid who had a 1935 Ford panel truck with a Chevy V8 in it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he was very charismatic, very criminal.
3
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, that sort of began.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was sort of law-abiding, and my parents were very law-abiding, and that was not part of the deal.
3
SPEAKER_00
First time my parents got really bad at me, we went to a surf movie in the panel truck.
3
SPEAKER_00
We didn t get back till like 1 in the morning.
3
SPEAKER_00
My parents were so pissed.
3
SPEAKER_00
No cell phones, no nothing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, what are they gonna do?
3
SPEAKER_00
So that was the beginning of my parents may be concerned.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then shortly after that, I had my first real drink with those guys, with this group of guys.
3
SPEAKER_00
I thought it was terrible.
3
SPEAKER_00
I blackout drunk, threw up on my father and, you know, that was that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t like it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I didn t like the lack of control.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then I had to live this dual life, which was went to school every day.
3
SPEAKER_00
I got good grades.
3
SPEAKER_00
I like school.
3
SPEAKER_00
I like learning.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was fun.
3
SPEAKER_00
and had no social contact with any of these kids in my classes.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, as time went on in high school, my friends got deeper and deeper in the shit.
3
SPEAKER_00
Most of them got kicked out.
3
SPEAKER_00
They would kick you out to another high school, and you d go there for a while, and if you made it, great, then they d kick you to another high school.
3
SPEAKER_00
And after that, they d make you go to something called continuation school, where you just sat.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because you had to go to school until you were 16 or 18.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I got more and more isolated in school where I would go to class, but my friends weren t there.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was the beginning of that dual life for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was this kind of bad kid in some ways, but I was a smart kid as far as the school was concerned.
3
SPEAKER_00
And on the few occasions that I got in trouble with my derelict friends, you know, I d get dragged in and they d basically say,
3
SPEAKER_00
They would protect you a little bit.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re one of our success stories, so.
3
SPEAKER_00
Don t let us catch you.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
3
SPEAKER_00
When does drug use start?
3
SPEAKER_00
Shortly after I get my driver s license in October of 1965.
3
SPEAKER_00
And needless to say, I m with Jim Titus.
3
SPEAKER_00
I d been hearing talk of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was just weed at that point.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was really illegal.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was a felony.
3
SPEAKER_00
They put people in jail for just having a joint.
3
SPEAKER_00
And our idols, of course, were Gene Krupa and all the other big drug addicts.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I was over at this older guy s house, and they had weed.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I was very nervous about smoking weed because I only had alcohol.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t like to drink.
3
SPEAKER_00
I didn t like the taste of beer.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they had some pot, a couple of hits, and it was like, wow, this is cool.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not out of control.
3
SPEAKER_00
I drove home.
3
SPEAKER_00
I really enjoyed driving home.
3
SPEAKER_00
I only had my license for about a month.
3
SPEAKER_00
But it really was a cool sensation, and I liked it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Move your mic a little.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re a little off mic.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want to have rational deniability about all this drug stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you listen closely, what I actually said was, it was very interesting because here s a generation of kids who s been raised by parents who are law abiding, who cut their grass, paint their houses, don t turn left on a red light.
3
SPEAKER_00
And all of a sudden into this comes
3
SPEAKER_00
drugs.
3
SPEAKER_00
It starts seeping in, not just into the pop culture, but into their kids  lives.
3
SPEAKER_00
For the first time.
3
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_00
And at the same time, you ve got the Vietnam War starting to percolate.
3
SPEAKER_00
Some of the anti-war movements are just beginning to trickle out.
3
SPEAKER_00
You have a completely different attitude about sex.
3
SPEAKER_00
Liberated, we might say.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the sexual revolution in some ways preceded the women s movement of equal rights, but the beginning was, well, you know, this is kind of fun.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s kind of harmless.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I don t know what the big fucking deal is.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know why we would go to hell over this.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the slut shaming and everything, which exists to a degree these days, was, you know, if a girl had sex with her boyfriend, she was a slut.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
That was all happening kind of at the same time.
3
SPEAKER_00
And my parents, most of the parents, had no clue how to deal with this.
3
SPEAKER_00
There was no idea that maybe this was the new normal.
3
SPEAKER_00
This was bad.
3
SPEAKER_00
There was no question.
3
SPEAKER_00
They thought it was bad.
3
SPEAKER_00
And look, from an actual point of view, the problem in my
3
SPEAKER_00
area in my generation, and particularly in my working class environment, was that there was no education about drugs.
3
SPEAKER_00
No one knew shit about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everybody started smoking pot and said, hey, this is pretty cool.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t have a hangover.
3
SPEAKER_00
Don t crash the car.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t punch anyone at a bar.
3
SPEAKER_00
Maybe I should try some pills.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so this is all right.
3
SPEAKER_00
The progression was pills.
3
SPEAKER_00
People were taking uppers and then they started taking downers.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then the psychedelics and LSD was sort of in the news and it was legal for a short period of time.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was not a controlled substance.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s such a classic.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a famous first episode of the new Dragnet TV show.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was totally right wing, and it was all about LSD, about wasn t it legal, blue boy.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the great story is that Titus and I were watching it in my room with my TV, and my parents were watching it in the next room on their TV, and we re like hooting and hollering and laughing our asses off.
3
SPEAKER_00
My parents were like, what were you watching?
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, we were watching a comedy special.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was a big divide.
3
SPEAKER_00
We didn t know how to deal with it with our parents.
3
SPEAKER_00
We were also 15, 16, and 17, and our parents had no idea how to deal with it.
3
SPEAKER_00
One of my best friends, he was older because he was in the right grade, and his mother found a bag of weed, and they turned him into the police.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh my god, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
He was 18, but we were still in high school.
3
SPEAKER_00
But that was not considered insane.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, because if they murdered someone, I guess we have to turn him in.
3
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know what to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, they re terrified.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s just, yeah, be generous.
3
SPEAKER_00
Don t know what to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So for me, it was a breach that I never could return from, particularly with my father.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was so dire and it lasted longer than it should have because they threw me out and then I moved back.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I wasn t very sympathetic about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
One of the things about getting sober is you look at your side of the street and I was not a easy piece of work.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, I would hate to argue with you.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you were fucking 17, no one wants to argue with you.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s why you re a great lawyer.
3
SPEAKER_01
It must have been torturous.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I went from there validating.
4
SPEAKER_00
Victorian kid to this tattooed Harley riding junk.
4
SPEAKER_01
Let s fast forward to that really quick.
4
SPEAKER_01
So we start with marijuana.
4
SPEAKER_01
We get into psychedelics.
4
SPEAKER_01
We end up shooting dope.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we do.
4
SPEAKER_01
Which is crazy.
4
SPEAKER_01
Crazy.
4
SPEAKER_01
What was working when it worked?
4
SPEAKER_01
Just hearing your story, it s like, well, obviously you wanted
4
SPEAKER_01
companionship so fucking bad.
4
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
4
SPEAKER_01
And this was the group that brought you in.
4
SPEAKER_00
They thought I was funny.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re even protective of you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Very much so.
4
SPEAKER_00
Several times my ass was not kicked when it should have been.
4
SPEAKER_01
It should have been because of my wise mouth.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
So that s so obvious to me.
4
SPEAKER_01
But then also the drugs themselves are probably giving you some relief or some comfort.
4
SPEAKER_00
So here s my life.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m a really smart kid and I am working as a junior high school janitor.
4
SPEAKER_00
My boss is a recently retired warrant officer from Vietnam who does not care for my hair length.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I am working from 2 in the afternoon to 10 at night and I have become a zombie and I am living in this world where nothing looks good.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m just waiting to get drafted to go to Vietnam because I wasn t going to school anywhere.
4
SPEAKER_00
I went to college for a year and a half and I m living with my parents and I have no hope and the dope
4
SPEAKER_00
makes everything good.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re protected.
4
SPEAKER_00
Tolerable.
4
SPEAKER_00
More than tolerable.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s the great thing about opium.
4
SPEAKER_00
You don t care.
4
SPEAKER_00
You could be hanging upside down from a flagpole somewhere.
4
SPEAKER_00
In a state of elation.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a wonderful drug.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s a reason that people do it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was just miserable.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was completely unfulfilled.
4
SPEAKER_00
You were not living up to your potential.
4
SPEAKER_00
You had no purpose.
4
SPEAKER_00
I didn t even care about my potential.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then I had another job.
4
SPEAKER_00
where I worked during the day.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I drove a little delivery van from North Hollywood to where the Beverly Center is now, three times a day through Laurel Canyon.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I picked up Frank Zappa hitchhiking.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it was like 1968, so it was hippier than shit.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is like Laurel Canyon s golden era.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was the absolute golden era.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
park the truck in San Vicente Park behind West Hollywood.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I d go back and lay on the mailbags and shoot dope.
4
SPEAKER_00
And when I crashed the truck for the third time, they kind of let me go.
4
SPEAKER_00
So my level of companions dropped and dropped and dropped and dropped.
4
SPEAKER_00
And by the time I was getting close to being done with all this stuff, I was hanging around with some really raspy individuals.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I was in a house and they had been selling dope from the house.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the cops came, took everybody to jail, including me.
4
SPEAKER_00
and charged me with possession of heroin.
4
SPEAKER_00
What age are you at this point?
4
SPEAKER_00
I m 19.
4
SPEAKER_00
Just turned 19.
4
SPEAKER_00
And a couple of days in Van Nuys jail, and there wasn t any there.
4
SPEAKER_00
They found cut, so they were really mad.
4
SPEAKER_00
And there was a tiny bit of a reefer in one place, and they basically charged about four or five people who were in the house, including me.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think I was charged with
4
SPEAKER_00
being in a place where marijuana was being used, which was a felony.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
4
SPEAKER_00
I went to trial.
4
SPEAKER_00
My parents, God bless them, paid for a lawyer.
4
SPEAKER_00
I got out of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that was kind of the wake up call that this is not what I want.
4
SPEAKER_00
I didn t want the establishment, but I didn t want this.
4
SPEAKER_00
This was criminal low life.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was just dark and weird and hopeless.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Nobody was going anywhere good in this group.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
My sister by that time, who had had a failed marriage, had moved down to the marina and was living on a boat with some hippies.
4
SPEAKER_00
And there was a vacant boat in the neighborhood.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I moved down, just disappeared.
4
SPEAKER_00
Geographical cure.
4
SPEAKER_00
Correct.
4
SPEAKER_00
Still smoked pot, still took psychedelics, but no more skag anymore, no.
4
SPEAKER_00
And met some fairly interesting people.
4
SPEAKER_00
The most interesting of which was a woman who was older than I. We started fooling around.
4
SPEAKER_00
She asked me if I wanted to go to Europe with her.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I was 20.
4
SPEAKER_00
at this point.
4
SPEAKER_00
I d lived down there for a while.
4
SPEAKER_00
And she was the interior designer for a big home builder.
4
SPEAKER_00
So she would design the interiors of all the model homes.
4
SPEAKER_00
And she was well-educated and artistic and all that stuff.
4
SPEAKER_00
And she basically said to me, just pay for your ticket and I ll take care of everything else.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I dropped everything.
4
SPEAKER_00
I went to Europe.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was there for a year with her.
4
SPEAKER_00
A year.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
She was 30.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was 20.
4
SPEAKER_00
Turned 21 there.
4
SPEAKER_00
Incredible.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I love this.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Good for her.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m really waking up to this.
4
SPEAKER_01
She also liked girls too.
4
SPEAKER_01
Wow, she was doing a lot of- She was way ahead of her time.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s a lot of woman for a 20-year-old.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
That was successful.
4
SPEAKER_01
She was called Marianne Day.
4
SPEAKER_01
I lost track of her.
4
SPEAKER_01
I hope she hears this and will reach out.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I can testify that I ve heard many times fondly of this year in Europe.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, it completely changed my life.
4
SPEAKER_00
I had no idea the world that existed out there.
4
SPEAKER_00
outside of Reseda, and outside of dope, and outside of cars, and dumb shit.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so, she was very well educated, and we would go to every museum, go to opera in Vienna, no TV, no radio, books, everywhere you could get a book.
4
SPEAKER_00
I bought a full set of Dickens in London, a used set, read like every Dickens book.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if we were going somewhere, like we were going to Spain, so I read Michener s Espana, or I ll Dress You in Morning, all these bullfighting things.
4
SPEAKER_00
Never went to a bullfight.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I just had no idea.
4
SPEAKER_00
You woke up.
4
SPEAKER_00
Completely woke up.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Lots of people were traveling, English, Aussie, Americans, but different kinds of people than I d been exposed to.
4
SPEAKER_00
People who were well-educated, came from big cities, lived big lives.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I got really, really, really motivated.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I realized that the best thing for me to do was to come back.
4
SPEAKER_00
One of my closest friends, I was the best man at his wedding.
4
SPEAKER_00
He was a fabulous guy and it breaks my heart every day.
4
SPEAKER_00
Died in Vietnam right before I came to Europe.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was already scheduled to go.
4
SPEAKER_00
So when I left, I did not want to come back.
4
SPEAKER_00
This bad knee had been the reason I didn t go.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I was cool, but I didn t want to come back.
4
SPEAKER_00
He was dead and he overdosed.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he was one of my bad buddies, but who was one of the smarter.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was bad.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I figured at some point I could come back, get an education, and then go live somewhere else.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I came back.
4
SPEAKER_00
I moved into a big old rundown house in the San Fernando Valley.
4
SPEAKER_00
I had no money.
4
SPEAKER_00
I went to a junior college, Pierce College, in the valley.
4
SPEAKER_00
Rode my bike every day.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was 22.
4
SPEAKER_00
Having had the year I d had, it was like I was a different kind of creature than most of these 18-year-old kids who were going to junior college because their parents wanted them to.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I zipped through that place and then transferred to UC Santa Barbara and became a film student.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that was the beginning of me even having an inkling that there could be a career, not as a business person, but... Oh, I m so sorry.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s okay.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s so spooky for Halloween.
4
SPEAKER_00
I love it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Spooky setting.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that was just the beginning of, oh, there s actually a world out there where people pay attention to movies, but it was French movies of the thirties and Italian neorealism and all this stuff.
4
SPEAKER_00
I had a ball.
4
SPEAKER_00
I had started dating this woman up there whose father was a lawyer down here.
4
SPEAKER_00
So we were pretty serious and lived together for a while and stuff.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I got to know them pretty well.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he said, have you ever thought about being an entertainment lawyer?
4
SPEAKER_00
And I said, well, what in the world is that?
4
SPEAKER_00
And he said, well, you know, you re an asshole and you like to argue and you like movies.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is made for you.
4
SPEAKER_00
So he said, there s a whole group of lawyers who represent actors and writers and directors and they negotiate deals.
4
SPEAKER_00
He wasn t one, but he was a West side lawyer.
4
SPEAKER_00
So he knew all about that.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that was the first inkling that maybe there was a career there.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s funny.
4
SPEAKER_01
I want to pause to just say, we all love this story that we re self-made, but it s just so crazy.
4
SPEAKER_01
You think of without the trip to Europe, where the fuck are you?
4
SPEAKER_01
You don t date a woman whose father advises you.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s nuts how many things drop into your lap.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I ve tried to, over the last five or six years, reach out and acknowledge that.
4
SPEAKER_00
For example, one of the only good jobs I had during this period of time was I was the maintenance man s assistant at what is now the W Hotel on Hillgard.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was a co-ed dormitory for UCLA.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
1970.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I lived in the marina then and rode a motorbike every day and had really long hair.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I was very popular there and really had a good time.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that was a great job.
4
SPEAKER_01
I really enjoyed that.
4
SPEAKER_00
I really enjoyed that job.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the irony is years later, a young lawyer came to interview with us to get a job.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m talking to her.
4
SPEAKER_00
What did your parents do?
4
SPEAKER_00
He s an accountant, he does his own business.
4
SPEAKER_00
And where d they meet?
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, they were working at this dormitory in Westwood.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I said, yeah, I was the maintenance man there.
4
SPEAKER_00
No way.
4
SPEAKER_00
I thought there was a certain amount of joy of hiring somebody who s the daughter of somebody who s a student there.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s crazy.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_00
Anyways, there was a young woman there who I was friendly with, and her father was a doctor, and he really gave me great advice about the draft.
4
SPEAKER_00
I looked him up.
4
SPEAKER_00
He was in Santa Barbara.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s a psychiatrist, and I sent him a note.
4
SPEAKER_00
He was very respectable.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was a hippie.
4
SPEAKER_00
Couldn t have been a nicer guy about it, and I sent him a letter that meant a lot to me, and blah, blah, blah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And like three days later, the daughter calls me, who was visiting, and said, my dad just got out of the hospital.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s like in his 90s.
5
SPEAKER_02
And it really meant the world to him.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I did it with the lawyer who got me out of the rap.
5
SPEAKER_02
And he didn t remember me.
5
SPEAKER_02
You were one of 700.
5
SPEAKER_02
Of course.
5
SPEAKER_02
And a woman who gave me a scholarship in law school, same thing.
5
SPEAKER_02
It takes a village.
5
SPEAKER_02
And so many things happened.
5
SPEAKER_02
that any one of which had gone the other way, we re not talking about.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, you know, dead.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I put myself in a bunch of ridiculous situations and sometimes my feeling of a higher power is that there was something that was saying, maybe there s something worthwhile.
5
SPEAKER_02
So many others more deserved than I ended up on the pile.
5
SPEAKER_00
You go to USC, you go to law school, you pass the bar in 78, and then you start working as an entertainment lawyer.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m going to fast forward through what you would be uncomfortable acknowledging, but one of the very best careers one s had in this, you ve had an incredible career.
5
SPEAKER_00
And as Downey said, when he was on here.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re the only person he knows that no one has a bad word to say about.
5
SPEAKER_00
You represented Robert Downey Jr.
5
SPEAKER_00
through quite an exciting ride.
5
SPEAKER_00
I have.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, you ve been on the whole... I ve been on the whole ride.
5
SPEAKER_00
Stephen Colbert, John Wells, who wrote and show ran ER for years.
5
SPEAKER_00
Steve Kloves, which wrote every one of the Harry Potters.
5
SPEAKER_00
Not all but one.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sorry, all but one.
5
SPEAKER_00
Wait, wrote all... Yeah, the scripts.
5
SPEAKER_00
The screenplays.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I was like, excuse me, I have a phone to make.
5
SPEAKER_00
We thought it was maybe Joe.
5
SPEAKER_00
Something about that.
5
SPEAKER_00
But you know, I didn t know much about him until I was reading about you today.
5
SPEAKER_00
But forget he wrote those Harry Potters.
5
SPEAKER_00
He wrote Racing with the Moon, which is like my favorite.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he wrote and directed The Fabulous Baker Boy, which was great.
5
SPEAKER_00
But John Waters, like you either in life you get Robert Downey Jr.
5
SPEAKER_00
or you get John Waters.
5
SPEAKER_00
You don t get both.
5
SPEAKER_00
You don t get the two most psychedelic.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exciting.
5
SPEAKER_02
Well, and David Lynch, too.
5
SPEAKER_02
David Lynch.
5
SPEAKER_02
For years and years and years.
5
SPEAKER_02
So when I was in law school going to the movie place, on midnights it would either be Rocky Horror Picture Show, Eraserhead, or Pink Flamingos.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I thought, well, I got two out of three.
5
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
5
SPEAKER_01
Totally.
5
SPEAKER_02
If you would have said to me, well, I m watching these trailers for these movies that someday I d represent these directors.
5
SPEAKER_02
And not just represent them, but know them pretty well.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s an intimate relationship of a different kind.
5
SPEAKER_02
You know, you re very involved in their whole lives.
5
SPEAKER_02
And specifically at moments of, like, great fear?
5
SPEAKER_02
Crisis.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s interesting, obviously, with Robert having gone through his ups and downs.
5
SPEAKER_02
Unfortunately, some people in the entertainment business have encounters with the criminal justice system.
5
SPEAKER_02
And it s terrifying.
5
SPEAKER_02
And the only lawyer they know is you.
5
SPEAKER_02
For you not to be there, to be the liaison between them and the criminal justice system, even though you re going to hire a lawyer for them, you know, it s really important.
5
SPEAKER_02
Because that s a terrifying experience that you face the possibility of going to jail or having trouble and the impact now that it has on your career.
5
SPEAKER_02
So a lot of stuff we did with Robert, which was interesting, was really finding a way to get him back to work.
5
SPEAKER_02
That was some of the satisfying stuff I ve done.
5
SPEAKER_00
You must be absolutely heartbroken watching this kid.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, I love his unlimited talent and he s such a beautiful kid.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s gotta be fucking heartbreaking when that all goes down.
5
SPEAKER_02
But like anything else with addicts, at some point you got to say to yourself, I can t, I got to get off this ride or I can t change it.
5
SPEAKER_02
Right.
5
SPEAKER_02
I m powerless.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I had one of his agents called me once and said, Oh, he s really off the rails and you got to go over there and get him to stop doing it.
5
SPEAKER_02
Number one, I m fucked up.
5
SPEAKER_02
Get it in the bag.
5
SPEAKER_00
Someone needs to come over here.
5
SPEAKER_02
Well, that was one of the ironies, which I ve talked about is being in these meetings and sort of coming up with all these plans and being all self-righteous and having to slip into the bathroom and pop a Vike.
5
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God, what a mess.
5
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_02
Wait, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
So how d we get there?
5
SPEAKER_00
So that s great.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you re successful from whatever it is, 70 on with opiates.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re off those.
5
SPEAKER_00
You drank a little bit.
5
SPEAKER_00
Didn t like cocaine.
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe smoked weed or whatever occasionally.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
The genie was back in the bottle for a very long time.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, because I substituted the roar of the crowd, the peer group love, the name in lights, the money.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, validation.
5
SPEAKER_00
The beautiful wife.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
The kids, nice house.
5
SPEAKER_00
While you re building this incredible career in law firm, you partner up with Judy, your wife, who s also a fucking gangster.
5
SPEAKER_00
Gangster.
5
SPEAKER_00
Talent manager.
5
SPEAKER_00
First woman in the CAA mailroom.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_02
She was Ron Meyers  assistant.
5
SPEAKER_02
Left CAA at the height of its power with Mike Ovitz and started Intertalent, which was the precursor to Endeavor.
5
SPEAKER_02
Ari was there.
5
SPEAKER_02
Patrick Weitzel was her assistant.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, no.
5
SPEAKER_02
So she s a badass.
5
SPEAKER_00
She s a bad motherfucker.
5
SPEAKER_00
Much tougher than I am, as we all know.
5
SPEAKER_00
Of all these similarities, you and I both
5
SPEAKER_00
Picked.
5
SPEAKER_00
Tough ladies.
5
SPEAKER_00
Little, deceptively.
5
SPEAKER_00
Same with Monica.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like, oh, look at this little creature, this little woodland creature.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
What is she, five foot?
5
SPEAKER_00
And then next thing you know, you re like, oh, fuck.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and we all know that it s the right thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
It is the right thing, especially for you and I. It is the only thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
But yes, you have this incredible wife and partner, and then you have these two beautiful kids and this very enviable career.
5
SPEAKER_02
You should feel great, right?
5
SPEAKER_02
I did for a good period of time.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
And you know, you wake up one day, and I don t know if you had these kind of fantasies.
5
SPEAKER_02
When I was like in law school, I d imagine being at a party and saying, yeah, well, I was a film student, but now I m an entertainment lawyer.
5
SPEAKER_02
And that would make you feel great!
5
SPEAKER_02
Yes, yes.
5
SPEAKER_02
And you would be fulfilled.
5
SPEAKER_02
You know, I am a combination podcaster and car mechanic and I feel absolutely fabulous.
5
SPEAKER_02
And so you had this fantasy
5
SPEAKER_02
that you would feel differently.
5
SPEAKER_02
And it s not conscious when this is going on.
5
SPEAKER_02
And probably 20 years in, I d certainly hit a level of success that was so beyond anything I could have ever imagined growing up in Reseda, California.
5
SPEAKER_02
I remember so distinctly being a kid and looking in the mirror and saying, the year 2000, I ll be 51.
5
SPEAKER_02
What could possibly happen?
5
SPEAKER_02
And I remember year 2000, it was like, great.
5
SPEAKER_02
I could have never imagined this, but why do I still have this longing?
5
SPEAKER_02
Why am I not ridiculously satisfied with everything?
5
SPEAKER_02
Why am I still searching?
5
SPEAKER_02
What is it I m searching for?
5
SPEAKER_02
Around the same time this started happening, I had a back injury and I started taking Vicodin.
5
SPEAKER_02
And it was like, yeah baby, this is my old friend.
5
SPEAKER_02
Completely manageable, I d go to work every day and I would take him for a while and then I d stop for a while.
5
SPEAKER_02
I d take him for longer.
5
SPEAKER_02
Take them less, and then I found out you can get them on the internet.
5
SPEAKER_02
That was the problem.
5
SPEAKER_02
Once I found out I could get them on the internet, and I didn t have to go beg every fucking doctor I knew, then it was easy.
5
SPEAKER_02
My poor receptionist at the office probably signed for thousands of vitamins.
5
SPEAKER_02
So it just became my medicine.
5
SPEAKER_02
I drank a little bit, but the problem, of course, is that it may keep out the pain, but it keeps out the joy, too.
5
SPEAKER_02
You live in this cocoon, and I had these beautiful daughters and this big life, and I was so dissatisfied.
5
SPEAKER_02
I was so soul dead.
5
SPEAKER_02
And the more I withdrew, the more Judy wanted, and it was this really
5
SPEAKER_02
difficult time in our marriage because the more she would reach out I would pull in and she s the child of alcoholics and her pattern was to really engage with her mom and have a big fight and then make up and that s how they felt better and for me I would just get more and more withdrawn so a few crisis ensued and then 20 years ago coming up in a few days
5
SPEAKER_02
And I just thought, maybe this marriage isn t gonna last.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I have these little kids.
5
SPEAKER_01
How old were the kids?
5
SPEAKER_02
They were 12 and 9.
5
SPEAKER_02
They knew that shit was happening.
5
SPEAKER_02
I moved out for a while and said to myself, I probably need to at least get this shit out of my system.
5
SPEAKER_02
To evaluate your life.
5
SPEAKER_02
To at least evaluate what I m doing here.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s not just me, it s these kids too.
5
SPEAKER_02
The most beautiful too, little girl.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re pretty good girls.
5
SPEAKER_02
Now I have a granddaughter, so it s even better.
5
SPEAKER_02
That was sort of when I met you.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I was still in rehab, and they brought me to this outside meeting, and here was this tall, gangly, wise ass.
5
SPEAKER_02
His name was fucking Dax.
5
SPEAKER_02
What the fuck a name is that?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, strange.
5
SPEAKER_00
Stage name?
5
SPEAKER_00
I think it s like a porn name.
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe the guy s got these tattoos, I m sure.
5
SPEAKER_01
On a motorcycle.
5
SPEAKER_00
The motorcycle would have been a killer.
5
SPEAKER_00
That was the only thing I had to check in with a positive, probably.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you d like that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, you didn t talk about motorcycles.
5
SPEAKER_00
When we met, I think I had about three months, and I went away to do Without a Paddle.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you got fucked up again.
5
SPEAKER_00
And at the end of that movie, I went out for a while.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then you didn t come back in for a while.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was like maybe three weeks.
5
SPEAKER_00
Then it came back and got another couple, three months.
5
SPEAKER_00
Then I went out to do the press tour for that movie without a paddle.
5
SPEAKER_00
Then I went off again.
5
SPEAKER_00
So right when you entered, I was kind of ahead of you.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I kept getting three months and going out for a month and getting three months.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then finally, September 4th, virtually when you were about to have a year, I came back for the final.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I think at that point, the meeting had moved to my house.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think largely ambivalent about you.
6
SPEAKER_01
We re separated by a few years.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re a lawyer and I was an actor.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I think when I started coming to your house, so much magic started happening for me.
6
SPEAKER_01
To get to hear you share for 20 years has been incredible.
6
SPEAKER_01
I admire you so much I loved the way you could talk with such honesty and how much you embraced your character defects yet you did it in a smart and controlled way and looking at your life you have these fucking daughters and this wonderful wife and
6
SPEAKER_01
I slowly just started admiring the fuck out of you.
6
SPEAKER_01
We have this saying in AA, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
Which is find someone that has what you want and ask them how they got it.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re the probably only person I ve ever been able to surrender to and say, I want exactly what this guy has.
6
SPEAKER_01
I want to sound like him.
6
SPEAKER_01
I want to be as honest as him.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I want to walk kind of shamelessly through all the shitty parts of myself.
6
SPEAKER_01
And the way you would talk about your regret of how you treated women.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m like, Oh my God, that s me.
6
SPEAKER_01
The fuck that s me.
6
SPEAKER_01
I can relate to that so much.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re like a decent fucking human being who, you know, does bad shit occasionally does bad shit.
6
SPEAKER_01
I just started falling in love with you.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then thank God for some reason, you were kind of taking a shine to me.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then pretty soon into that, we start.
6
SPEAKER_01
Paling around like it s weird.
6
SPEAKER_01
We both love motorcycles.
6
SPEAKER_01
We love cars.
6
SPEAKER_02
That was the first breakthrough.
6
SPEAKER_02
This was the greatest Monica you ll appreciate this.
6
SPEAKER_02
So we are kind of.
6
SPEAKER_02
getting a little friendly at the meeting.
6
SPEAKER_02
And it turns out we like motorbikes.
6
SPEAKER_02
And I say, I get this great ride up in the Angeles Crest.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s really a fun ride.
6
SPEAKER_02
And let s meet at this gas station at whatever.
6
SPEAKER_02
Sunland Boulevard.
6
SPEAKER_02
11 o clock.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
So I get there and he s not there.
6
SPEAKER_02
And all of a sudden I hear he s riding his GSX 1000, which is like a 180 mile an hour motorcycle.
6
SPEAKER_02
I hear this roar coming down the street and he comes sliding in like 20 minutes late.
6
SPEAKER_02
And he s so humiliated because he s gone the wrong way.
6
SPEAKER_02
He s, he s ridden at like 180 miles an hour.
6
SPEAKER_02
And it s like, then I love the guy.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
It was so important for him to get there on time.
6
SPEAKER_02
And we took this ride and he liked the fact that I actually knew how to ride a motorbike.
6
SPEAKER_02
Like a motherfucker.
6
SPEAKER_00
You still do.
6
SPEAKER_00
You guys still ride.
6
SPEAKER_02
He s too fucking busy now.
6
SPEAKER_02
The problem is our curve is going in the opposite direction.
6
SPEAKER_02
He wasn t married.
6
SPEAKER_02
He was a barely employed actor.
6
SPEAKER_02
Whenever I was available, he was like, yeah, let s go.
6
SPEAKER_02
I was like, I ve got 14 appointments, I m having my hair done, I m having my toenails clipped, I m getting another tattoo.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s unbelievable.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s very interesting, men, particularly men like us, have been conditioned in a way, working class guys, that we have to be tough, that we have to know the answers, and my job,
6
SPEAKER_02
I know the answers.
6
SPEAKER_02
I tell people to do stuff, they listen to me.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m that guy.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m not the guy that shows weakness, that shows concern, that shows pain, that shows fear primarily.
6
SPEAKER_02
You know, the response that we were conditioned, if you were afraid, fight.
6
SPEAKER_02
Physically, verbally, sneakily, passive-aggressively.
6
SPEAKER_02
So the difficult part, and I think one of the reasons we ve been attracted to each other and we ve communicated is because we really don t want to continue
6
SPEAKER_02
that thing as guys who were lethargos in their youth and were not particularly nice to women because we were so fucking insecure and just wanted the love and the selfishness.
6
SPEAKER_02
You know, our job is to raise these daughters and to raise these daughters in a way that they have decent relationships with men.
6
SPEAKER_02
That s something we talk about a lot because there s a couple of us who have these girls.
6
SPEAKER_02
The goal is to raise self-sufficient, strong girls.
6
SPEAKER_02
You know, this one, she s got her jumping motorcycle off over the Caesars Palace fountain.
6
SPEAKER_02
So it s important for us to do that.
6
SPEAKER_02
And we can only do that if we re honest and vulnerable and decent with ourselves.
6
SPEAKER_01
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you dare.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, the universe gifted us really strong wives, gifted us little girls, gifted me you.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re one of my people I would have written a letter to, but I m doing it publicly right here.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I just want to talk about a few moments over the last 20 years.
6
SPEAKER_01
One of the things I thank you for is a share you had about your dad.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I don t really know what motivated it.
6
SPEAKER_01
What year did he die?
6
SPEAKER_01
Like two months before I got sober.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_01
Clearly it was before my dad died, which we re coming up on 11 years.
6
SPEAKER_01
You had a share that went something like, I have spent my whole life blaming him for everything I don t like about myself.
6
SPEAKER_01
And he s been fucking dead now for five years or whatever it was.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you re coming to terms with there s no one even here to blame.
6
SPEAKER_01
At what point is this going to be my responsibility?
6
SPEAKER_01
And then for whatever reason broke through to me so much.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, my dad s going to go away.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m blaming him for everything I don t like about myself.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I m going to be left with this and that s on the horizon.
6
SPEAKER_01
So how do I want to kind of act?
6
SPEAKER_01
I just don t know that I go and I spend all that time with him as he s dying.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I don t know that I do all those things without hearing that.
6
SPEAKER_01
Small for you, but for me, put me on a path that probably
6
SPEAKER_02
Prevented what would have been my greatest regret if I had stayed angry remember we were together when you found out your dad was sick We had that beach house and you would come down to hang out and you got the call that your dad walked outside Yeah, yeah, and I came back in I sent my dad a letter before he passed away sort of saying I did blame him for everything and it wasn t fair I think I had this fantasy that we all have and I was still using that he would at some point
6
SPEAKER_02
say to me, I was a rotten father.
6
SPEAKER_02
I was really terrible to you.
6
SPEAKER_02
You re a great guy.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m so sorry.
6
SPEAKER_02
I wish I would have been different.
6
SPEAKER_01
I blew it.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
And when he died, that possibility went away.
6
SPEAKER_02
And that was when it got the worst.
6
SPEAKER_02
And I was in rehab two months later.
6
SPEAKER_02
The sort of pressure we put on ourselves to sort of have, certainly in my era, the fantasy dad.
6
SPEAKER_02
It was like TV shows of father knows best and stuff that your father was a cleaver.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it was the font of all rational reason and you d go to if you were ever in trouble, just was not my experience.
6
SPEAKER_02
And there s almost part of it I felt ashamed of, but I didn t have that experience.
6
SPEAKER_02
And so when he passed away, any chance of that being the resolution went over.
6
SPEAKER_02
But, you know, it s interesting.
6
SPEAKER_02
I ve gotten so much from you, too.
6
SPEAKER_02
To have some kind of a mirror, in a way, that s different because
6
SPEAKER_02
Look on the outside, you re a big, good-looking, strapping guy.
6
SPEAKER_02
You re as funny as anybody.
6
SPEAKER_02
You re as quick as anybody.
6
SPEAKER_02
You can fend people off emotionally as well as anybody, but to know what s underneath and to have been able to do that.
6
SPEAKER_02
You know, I don t have very many friends, and you certainly don t make friends in your 50s very often, particularly intimate friends.
6
SPEAKER_02
to be able to have as much fun as we have in our completely shallow and preposterous.
6
SPEAKER_02
We re like two 13-year-old boys when we get out there.
6
SPEAKER_02
You have no idea.
6
SPEAKER_02
When we get to Wrightwood, watch out.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s ridiculous.
6
SPEAKER_01
We get to the Big Bear Cafe.
6
SPEAKER_02
Well, the best part was we went for a motorcycle ride with the esteemed actor Edward Norton, and they only recognized Dax.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s why we like it so much right now.
6
SPEAKER_01
This is our town.
6
SPEAKER_02
Oh, no I ve had this whole thing with this whole evolution of Dax because we would go to Wrightwood and the only people who would recognize him were the Complete slackers who were like riding up looking for a new fan belt for their snowmobile.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely
6
SPEAKER_00
Have you ever been to the Sand Dunes?
6
SPEAKER_00
Has Tom ever been to the Sand Dunes?
6
SPEAKER_02
No, we went in Idaho to a Sand Dunes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, got it.
6
SPEAKER_00
To St.
6
SPEAKER_02
Anthony.
6
SPEAKER_02
And his presence spread through the camp like crazy that he was out there.
6
SPEAKER_02
But now it s a much more sophisticated crowd.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s like the armchair-y.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
They re a very intellectual set up.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s a whole different deal.
6
SPEAKER_02
When I first met him, it was even before parenthood.
6
SPEAKER_02
So it was really a punked crowd or a let s go to prison crowd.
6
SPEAKER_02
So it was a very different crowd and it was like snowboarders short of binding.
6
SPEAKER_01
You got a little scared when you got recognized.
6
SPEAKER_01
You thought this could go any way.
6
SPEAKER_01
Anything s on the table with this guy, I can tell.
6
SPEAKER_02
So we have this weird relationship.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s like we ve known each other since we were kids.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I feel like at the old house once, probably when I was babysitting, Dax was like, oh, my best friend s coming over.
6
SPEAKER_02
I was like, oh, cool.
6
SPEAKER_00
We re going to go ride motorcycles.
6
SPEAKER_00
Such an old man.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they didn t say it, but then you arrived, and I was like, oh, this is Dax s best friend.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s crazy.
6
SPEAKER_00
How cool.
6
SPEAKER_00
You guys are going to go ride motorcycles.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s been so great to watch your life get big, too, because none of this was supposed to happen.
6
SPEAKER_02
This was not in the cards.
6
SPEAKER_02
When they were dealt at the Van Nuys Maternity Hospital or Dog Shit Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, these were not the hands that were dealt.
6
SPEAKER_02
And what s weird about our relationship is in spite of the fact that we re different in age and he s very sophisticated and groovy now,
6
SPEAKER_02
It s like we ve known each other for 50 years.
6
SPEAKER_01
We ve done so many fun things.
6
SPEAKER_01
Motorcycles to Death Valley.
6
SPEAKER_01
We ve gone to MotoGP together.
7
SPEAKER_00
Wyoming, even two years ago, we re on some donkey trail you found, riding motorcycles.
7
SPEAKER_00
People are crashing every five feet.
7
SPEAKER_00
The only people we re running into are people who have been living on a motorcycle for nine days on the Appalachia Trail.
7
SPEAKER_01
You actually had to dig me out of the snowmobile center.
7
SPEAKER_00
Snowmobiling, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve gotten you to go snowmobiling.
7
SPEAKER_00
That was an exhausting day for me.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it was.
7
SPEAKER_01
It was an exhausting day.
7
SPEAKER_01
I ve had to explain to the Home Owners Association what that bus was doing in my driveway for two weeks.
7
SPEAKER_00
Or the pyrotechnics show I put on.
7
SPEAKER_01
They re convinced that maybe the ghost of Waylon Jennings is visiting.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, he might have.
7
SPEAKER_01
A five-piece band looking at the backside of me, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
My favorite is, on a greyhound bus, I ve been riding these highways.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m glad that you found your job as a podcaster, as opposed to a country singer.
7
SPEAKER_00
One other thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
So that gift you gave me, sharing about your dad, I think really, really impacted how I ended my relationship with mine.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m glad.
7
SPEAKER_00
I know you did.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then the single greatest thing that s ever happened in my life is named Lincoln Bell Shepard.
7
SPEAKER_00
And she was made in your guest bedroom.
7
SPEAKER_00
In Wyoming.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, but fortunately not by me.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, who knows?
7
SPEAKER_00
Who knows?
7
SPEAKER_00
I could have had the... However she arrived, I ll take her.
7
SPEAKER_00
It feels so perfect for me that we conceived this little girl at your house.
7
SPEAKER_01
It seems so perfect to me.
7
SPEAKER_01
that this person I met 20 years ago has been able to create this fabulous life filled with love.
7
SPEAKER_01
And that s really what we wanted through all this other bullshit was love.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s what we wanted.
7
SPEAKER_01
And you ll have it forever.
7
SPEAKER_01
I mean, my daughters have their own lives, but the love
7
SPEAKER_01
And I m convinced that your kids give you back in their adulthood, the time and love you gave them in their childhood.
7
SPEAKER_01
That if you didn t spend time with your kids.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s like a one for one.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s a one for one.
7
SPEAKER_01
And that s because you re putting fucking love in the bank and you re going to get it back.
7
SPEAKER_01
And these girls will be attached to you and Delta will tell you to go fuck yourself from time to time.
7
SPEAKER_01
She better.
7
SPEAKER_01
And you will be tickled that she does, and Lincoln will stand by you when you do your second prison term.
7
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s ultimately what matters.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s the real legacy is our kids.
7
SPEAKER_00
And by the way, you know the cool testament, and I ll give my brother this compliment too, but certainly with you.
7
SPEAKER_00
your girls who are now women, Rosie and Charlotte, that was another thing Krista and I both were like, how do we get this?
7
SPEAKER_00
Because when we started hanging out with you and going on vacation, the girls were like 12 and 14.
7
SPEAKER_00
We went to Rosie s graduation.
7
SPEAKER_00
We watched them grow up and become women.
7
SPEAKER_00
And they re everything you d hope your kids would be.
7
SPEAKER_00
And Krista and I both were like, what did they do?
7
SPEAKER_00
How did they do it?
7
SPEAKER_00
This is exactly what we want.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think the testament to it is the men they ve liked are fucking great dudes.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve got to meet them.
7
SPEAKER_00
My brother, his three daughters, they ve never been with a man that wasn t head over heels in love with them.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s just what they expect.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s incredible.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I hope we do it without judgment.
7
SPEAKER_01
You know, I always felt love was conditional as a kid.
7
SPEAKER_01
I always felt if I behaved
7
SPEAKER_01
I would be loved, and my sister suffered from that a lot.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I think with girls in particular, you have to teach them that love is not conditional.
7
SPEAKER_01
They don t have to do what we want to be loved.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s interesting, and I think about this, because I am an analog guy in a digital age.
7
SPEAKER_01
I was formed in the 50s and the early 60s.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think you re pretty much formed by the time you re 15 years old, in terms of the way
7
SPEAKER_01
You ve been indoctrinated.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re formatted.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I lived in this homogeneous, white environment where half of the jibes that people would use against each other are completely horrible.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
And it s interesting, because I interact with so many younger, well-educated people in work, how different it is, and in ways that I never want to offend anybody and never want to hurt anybody s feelings, and sort of navigating
7
SPEAKER_01
the world for someone like me who doesn t want to be a jackass.
7
SPEAKER_01
Of course.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s not a throwaway that I say, I was looking at you and trying to model my own behavior in my marriage because you certainly didn t.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I did a little bit because my mom was such a boss, but the men couldn t handle it.
7
SPEAKER_00
So they split, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
So you never saw a husband and wife where the wife had the power and generated the money and you would know how to
7
SPEAKER_00
behave in that sense.
7
SPEAKER_00
It just didn t exist when you grew up.
7
SPEAKER_00
And even me in the seventies, every dad on my neighborhood called the shots.
7
SPEAKER_00
They showed up from work.
7
SPEAKER_00
Everyone did whatever he wanted.
7
SPEAKER_00
The food was on the table.
7
SPEAKER_00
He fucked off on Sunday to play golf.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like I don t have an example of how to live co equally with a powerful woman.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re my example.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like that s why I ve had to look towards you and you are doing it completely from scratch.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s interesting because my mom was certainly the more powerful person in our family, but she didn t have leverage.
7
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, I think if she d had leverage, she would have ended the marriage very, very early on.
7
SPEAKER_01
But she was a woman in another country.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I think it had a bad impact on us because we had this happy facade and it wasn t
7
SPEAKER_01
It was a house of horrors, you know, because you feel it when you re a kid, when there s tension in your family, you know it s there.
7
SPEAKER_01
But it was trial and error with me, because I certainly dated, and women either wanted to take care of me or worship me.
7
SPEAKER_01
And neither one of those was very exciting to me.
7
SPEAKER_01
I meet Judy, and she s this ambitious... She can take you or leave you.
7
SPEAKER_01
She likes you.
7
SPEAKER_01
You re charming.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
But she ll be fine on her own.
7
SPEAKER_01
And she tells me right off the bat, I don t really want a boyfriend.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, boom, I m in love.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, because I m really busy, and I m going to be an agent, and I m doing this.
7
SPEAKER_01
The funniest thing she said to her roommate after the first date, she said, I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_01
I ll sleep with him, but I m not going to be with him.
7
SPEAKER_01
He talks too much.
7
SPEAKER_01
What would she write?
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s funny.
7
SPEAKER_00
Last, last, last two things.
7
SPEAKER_00
One s just one more.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
7
SPEAKER_00
You brought Mark into my life.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I had therapy this morning at 9am.
7
SPEAKER_00
He said, how are you doing?
7
SPEAKER_00
I said, well, I m interviewing Tom today.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, oh my God, that s going to be great.
7
SPEAKER_00
Are you excited?
7
SPEAKER_00
And I said, I m excited, but Tom s nervous.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I want to take care of Tom.
7
SPEAKER_00
I want to make sure he feels safe and comfortable.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then we just kind of start talking about you for a minute.
7
SPEAKER_00
And of course, he s handcuffed because he s your doctor.
7
SPEAKER_00
So first of all, thank you for Mark.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I think I started in a place.
7
SPEAKER_00
of trust with him that I could never start in a place of trust with someone.
7
SPEAKER_00
I trust you so much.
7
SPEAKER_00
You ve rolled in when I was relapsing and took charge of the situation.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, OK, yeah, whatever he says I m doing.
7
SPEAKER_00
The fact that you trusted him and I trust you so implicitly started me so far down the path that I don t think I could have ever gotten to on my own.
7
SPEAKER_00
And that s been life-changing, Mark.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s so wonderful.
7
SPEAKER_00
But in that we were talking.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I said, I realized you can t even really talk about Tom other than to say that he s smart and you like him.
7
SPEAKER_00
I said, and you know, that s one of the things I most admire about Tom.
7
SPEAKER_00
When I think of the things that were aspirational to me about you is that I ve known you for 20 years.
7
SPEAKER_00
We ve spent so much time together all over the world.
7
SPEAKER_00
You have never said one thing about one of your clients ever.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I wanted to know some shit.
7
SPEAKER_00
There have been times, you ve had some clients that were in hot, hot water.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I m thinking like, I would not mind knowing the behind the scenes of this situation.
7
SPEAKER_00
And we re best friends.
7
SPEAKER_00
You have never, ever violated that privacy that you have.
7
SPEAKER_00
You have such discretion.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the reason that s admirable to me is that I m such an approval junkie.
7
SPEAKER_00
You have something tasty to offer.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re an approval junkie.
7
SPEAKER_00
But you ve never violated that.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I ve always noticed it.
7
SPEAKER_00
And it s been aspirational to me because I too have some secrets to trade and I have some fun people in my life that I could get my own approval through.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you ve really been the model for me that I need to get it another way.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s got to be sacred.
7
SPEAKER_00
You make people laugh.
7
SPEAKER_00
You can do that just about on cue.
7
SPEAKER_00
So lean on that.
7
SPEAKER_00
OK, now the last thing I want to talk about, because I hate this, but you re at a stage that you re about to teach me a lot again, and you re already starting to.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve been watching it, and I ve been absolutely amazed with the grace and the acceptance you seem to have.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re detaching your identity from your job, which is crazy.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s a very scary, especially for you, 45 years,
7
SPEAKER_00
to detach your identity from that job and to back off from it.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then you ve told me numerous times over the last year, you re like, yeah, I m slowing down.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like I can t recall shit the way I did.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t have my superpowers.
7
SPEAKER_00
Motorcycle rides are a little dicier.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re like moving through that right now.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you re doing it seemingly quite graceful.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I m just curious what the experience is like of doing that, because it s the thing I m now going to model.
7
SPEAKER_01
This is what we lead up to our entire lives.
7
SPEAKER_01
The diminution of our capabilities in our eventual death.
7
SPEAKER_01
A movie I love is Lost Horizons.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if you ve ever seen it.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s based on a novel from the 30s, Frank Capra directed.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s a wonderful movie.
7
SPEAKER_01
And it s about a guy who is a very powerful guy.
7
SPEAKER_01
He ends up crashing an airplane in the Himalayas and he finds Shangri-La.
7
SPEAKER_01
And you can live for a long time there.
7
SPEAKER_01
And there s a dialogue where the Dalai Lama is asking him to stay, the Great Lama.
7
SPEAKER_01
You know, you re a relatively pale man now, but you ll have a slow diminution of your facilities as time goes on.
7
SPEAKER_01
And if you stay here, you ll live for hundreds of years.
8
SPEAKER_01
And that really struck me when I heard it 50 years ago in that line that no matter what you are at any given point, at some point, and we ve lived in a business where you ve seen an awful lot of people who should let go before they did, and it s tainted their existence.
8
SPEAKER_01
Part of it is sort of, what do I want?
8
SPEAKER_01
My identity and my success didn t fix me.
8
SPEAKER_01
I learned that lesson the hard way, as you know and with you.
8
SPEAKER_01
So one, I m lucky.
8
SPEAKER_01
I like to do a bunch of other stuff.
8
SPEAKER_01
I like my old cars.
8
SPEAKER_02
This motherfucker, Monica, he can get on the backside of a headlight of a 60s Jag and polish that thing for eight hours.
8
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God, like a Beckham one mushroom at a time.
8
SPEAKER_01
How awesome was that documentary?
8
SPEAKER_01
It s so good.
8
SPEAKER_01
I loved it.
8
SPEAKER_01
Me too.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I ended up loving Victoria.
8
SPEAKER_00
Me too.
8
SPEAKER_01
Because I had a very different attitude about her.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I didn t know anything about how they hated him for- Oh my God.
8
SPEAKER_01
Two years, and they called him every name in the book.
8
SPEAKER_01
And this sort of thing that that s all he d done since he was 10 years old.
8
SPEAKER_01
And it was a wonderful documentary.
8
SPEAKER_01
But you see a guy like that, who is one of the greatest players in the world, who s finding peace in something as silly as making up one s own time.
8
SPEAKER_00
And so part of this is,
8
SPEAKER_01
I m lucky.
8
SPEAKER_01
I have these other things I like to do.
8
SPEAKER_01
I have this family I love.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m watching this grandchild, which is amazing.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m probably going to go there on the way home.
8
SPEAKER_02
I m going to add my kids call him Uncle Grandpa.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, because he wants to be an uncle.
8
SPEAKER_02
He wants to be my brother.
8
SPEAKER_02
But unfortunately, he s Grandpa.
8
SPEAKER_02
So he s Uncle Grandpa, that s the compromise.
8
SPEAKER_02
Uncle Grandpa is the most enthusiastic human I ve ever seen around kids.
8
SPEAKER_02
I love kids, they re so much better.
8
SPEAKER_02
He s on the fucking trampoline with the kids.
8
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God, me either.
8
SPEAKER_00
Delta s always trying to get me on that trampoline.
8
SPEAKER_01
So look, I think it s been a conscious decision of sort of trying to let go of that being my identity.
8
SPEAKER_01
Not of it being my job, because I think as long as I do it as a job, I need to be all in.
8
SPEAKER_02
You need to be great at it, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I m not gonna be crummy at it.
8
SPEAKER_01
You know, if I get to the point where I m crummy at it, I m gonna quit before then.
8
SPEAKER_01
But it s simply acknowledging, you know, God grant me the serenity, accept things I cannot change, I m gonna get old.
8
SPEAKER_01
At some point, I m gonna die.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s just the nature of the beast.
8
SPEAKER_01
So my goal now, and to be rational, is you think, I have time, that s what I have.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s my most important commodity.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think I have enough dough,
8
SPEAKER_01
It s the one thing that I can t control.
8
SPEAKER_01
So why not do it in a way that s going to be the most satisfying to me?
8
SPEAKER_01
You know, sometimes I just like to sit around.
8
SPEAKER_01
I just like to fart around.
8
SPEAKER_01
I have a little chair.
8
SPEAKER_01
I ll put it in my driveway where it s sunny and sit in the sun for 20 minutes.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s just great.
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t have any guilt.
8
SPEAKER_01
Worked really hard my whole life.
8
SPEAKER_01
I am as self-made as you can be, because none of us can be.
8
SPEAKER_01
We ve had so many breaks along the way.
8
SPEAKER_01
One of the things we get from this program, if we do it right, is grace.
8
SPEAKER_01
We get to aspire to a state of grace, a state of equilibrium, where our lives are in balance.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we re in symmetry with the stuff around us.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I think it s all because we were desperate enough
8
SPEAKER_01
to decide that what we were doing wasn t working.
8
SPEAKER_01
I would have ended up divorced in some apartment building, younger, this ugly, meaningless life.
8
SPEAKER_01
Soulless life.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Soulless life.
8
SPEAKER_01
One of my favorite lines, you know, Lincoln says in the second inaugural address, the better angels of our nature.
8
SPEAKER_01
I just love that.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think the better angels of our nature will guide us if we allow it to do it.
8
SPEAKER_01
And the hardest part for me is ego, like somebody else I know.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think I ve told you that a few times, haven t I?
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t need the recognition anymore.
8
SPEAKER_01
It won t fill me up.
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t need that part of it most of the time.
8
SPEAKER_02
Progress, not perfection, baby.
8
SPEAKER_02
Right.
8
SPEAKER_02
You know, my favorite Lincoln saying is, no man s memory is good enough that he can afford to lie.
8
SPEAKER_02
That s a fucking, that s a great, that one hits home.
8
SPEAKER_02
As you know, as I found out quickly in my relapse, there s just one line.
8
SPEAKER_02
That s all we re going to tell.
8
SPEAKER_02
And my God, does that turn into like 20 by the end of the day?
8
SPEAKER_02
And then you re like, you got so much shit to keep track of and it s all bullshit.
8
SPEAKER_02
So it s hard to remember.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that was a really salient.
8
SPEAKER_00
On that note, I want to thank you because when Dax is in that mode, protection mode, I would say, there s maybe two people that he can hear, maybe one person and it s you.
8
SPEAKER_00
So I m very grateful for you that you re in his life and tangentially in my life.
8
SPEAKER_00
It feels like a nice safety net.
8
SPEAKER_02
I miss you.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I miss you too.
8
SPEAKER_02
Your life is big.
8
SPEAKER_02
The only flaw in this love affair is we started at different times.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s true.
8
SPEAKER_01
Hopefully you ll take care of me.
8
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I cannot wait to change those diapers.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think about it daily.
8
SPEAKER_02
No.
8
SPEAKER_02
Well, listen, if I could have gone shopping or even better gone into a lab and design the dad I wanted, you re the one.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I have appreciated that.
8
SPEAKER_02
Not only have you given me so many fun times and advice, you don t let me get away with shit either.
8
SPEAKER_02
I appreciate that.
8
SPEAKER_02
You re the last person to be charmed by.
8
SPEAKER_02
Which is helpful.
8
SPEAKER_02
You re like, yeah, buddy.
8
SPEAKER_02
I wrote the book on this charming thing.
8
SPEAKER_02
You can fucking leave that at the door I wonder if we are as charming as we think we are to each other for sure.
8
SPEAKER_01
I find you impossibly charming I m convinced and this is interesting because of the generation gaps I think I m charming as fuck in the office and I m sure that when I walk away I
8
SPEAKER_01
I love that guy.
8
SPEAKER_01
Doesn t he have a great place in Wyoming?
8
SPEAKER_01
It s probably a middle ground, right?
8
SPEAKER_01
I m mad at Charlotte because she got me addicted to this TV show called Below Decks.
8
SPEAKER_01
Have you ever watched it?
8
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yes.
8
SPEAKER_01
They were a sponsor, too.
8
SPEAKER_00
On Bravo, right?
8
SPEAKER_00
Or something like that.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s incredibly addicting.
8
SPEAKER_01
And what happens is, you know, it s from the crew and the captain s point of view.
8
SPEAKER_01
And you ll see some Tom Hanson guest being, oh, my lord.
8
SPEAKER_01
And then, you know, they ll turn around and the crew will be going,
8
SPEAKER_01
I m convinced that maybe some of my charm has fallen on some deaf ears.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s like, who is this old geezer?
8
SPEAKER_01
The part of it s weird about getting old is you still have the same kind of emotional response that you had when you were 15.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s why I m convinced you re locked into place by inertia at that age.
8
SPEAKER_01
And everything you do after that, you have to kind of chip away at whatever you ve been cast as.
8
SPEAKER_01
And you were cast as a brawling 12-year-old.
8
SPEAKER_02
I accumulated all the habits I ve been trying to break by 18.
8
SPEAKER_02
Sure.
8
SPEAKER_02
From 18 to 48, I ve just been trying to get rid of these fucking habits I picked up before I even left Michigan.
8
SPEAKER_02
Well, Tom Hanson, I love you so much.
8
SPEAKER_02
Me too.
8
SPEAKER_01
I love you.
8
SPEAKER_02
I love you so much.
8
SPEAKER_02
One of my greatest things that ever happened is meeting you 20 years ago, and I adore you, and I can t wait to be a part of the rest of everything.
8
SPEAKER_01
We re going to do it.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Can I do any commercials?
8
SPEAKER_01
What are your sponsors these days?
8
SPEAKER_01
Tell me about your sleep number bed.
8
SPEAKER_01
Do you like it?
8
SPEAKER_01
Love it.
8
SPEAKER_02
I put my wife on 40.
8
SPEAKER_02
Do you want to publicly say how good I am on a motorcycle before we sign off?
8
SPEAKER_01
I will say that Dax is extremely, Dax is one of the few people I don t mind driving in a car with.
8
SPEAKER_01
He s an excellent driver, he pays a lot of attention, he can drive anything.
8
SPEAKER_01
One of my real
8
SPEAKER_01
Character flaws is I m not good at backing up a trailer.
8
SPEAKER_01
And in fact, I ve seen Dax Volunteer to a third party who was struggling with a trailer to back it up.
8
SPEAKER_01
He can put that thing right up your ass That s not a character flaw it might be a I
8
SPEAKER_01
Mine is a character.
8
SPEAKER_00
Logistical flaw.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s shameful.
8
SPEAKER_01
It is shameful.
8
SPEAKER_01
For me, Motörhead is that growing up the way I did is shameful for me, to not be able to back a trailer up.
8
SPEAKER_02
A man can t launch a boat in the one shot.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s bad.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s a bad look for us.
8
SPEAKER_01
He s admirable, don t you think?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I do.
8
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of admirable characteristics.
8
SPEAKER_01
I do think.
8
SPEAKER_01
The thing that gets him in trouble
8
SPEAKER_01
We can be off recording now if you want to.
8
SPEAKER_01
Go ahead.
8
SPEAKER_01
The thing that gets me in trouble is because, honestly, and this will sound very bragging, we are both capable at a lot of different things.
8
SPEAKER_01
Capable.
8
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t mean we re smarter or better, but we can do a lot of stuff.
8
SPEAKER_01
We can fix stuff.
8
SPEAKER_01
can drive stuff, we can do stuff, and that makes us believe sometimes that we are capable of handling things that we re not capable of handling, like emotional stuff, and particularly like drugs and alcohol, and that we can control everything else in our lives.
8
SPEAKER_01
So why not this thing?
8
SPEAKER_01
I can just do this little thing, and I m so good
8
SPEAKER_01
and so capable that I can do this.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I don t have to tell anybody about it because nobody s going to know.
8
SPEAKER_01
And we like secrets.
8
SPEAKER_01
Secrets are big for guys like us.
8
SPEAKER_01
And that s when we get in trouble.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I think the reason I can talk to you about it is because I know it.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
I know it viscerally.
8
SPEAKER_02
You grab me around the collar, but it s never like I m not also guilty.
8
SPEAKER_02
There s no judgment.
8
SPEAKER_01
And it s not an indication that you re anything other than fabulous.
8
SPEAKER_01
We have weaknesses, and part of it
9
SPEAKER_01
it is, our strengths are our weaknesses.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s exactly the world we live in.
9
SPEAKER_01
And when you re really capable at most things you try, you think you re capable at everything.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it s ego.
9
SPEAKER_01
So too bad you have to be a drunk to have this life.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s ironic.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, I do think it s been nice.
9
SPEAKER_00
We ve had so many people on this show who Dax knows from Sobriety.
9
SPEAKER_00
Everyone who comes on this show is hyper successful by the terms that society deems success.
9
SPEAKER_00
And to know that all of you guys have struggled with this in a room together, talking about your character defects and stuff, I think is so important because a lot of people have this idea about addiction and who falls into it and the type.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I think you guys just shatter it all the time, which is very good.
9
SPEAKER_01
I never connected to anything before that.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I didn t know I was looking for it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I didn t think I was a drug addict.
9
SPEAKER_01
I thought there was weakness attached to it, you know?
9
SPEAKER_01
And I always thought, particularly because of my experience as a young person, I mean, I knew what a dope addict was.
9
SPEAKER_01
They were the guys who were fucking in jail and living in the cardboard boxes, and they didn t live in a house in Bel Air.
9
SPEAKER_01
We have a great group too.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
Are you gonna be around to give me a kick next Wednesday?
9
SPEAKER_01
Of course I would.
9
SPEAKER_01
Make the trek to Jeff s house?
9
SPEAKER_01
Yes, of course.
9
SPEAKER_01
I would love that.
9
SPEAKER_00
Ooh, what kind of cake?
9
SPEAKER_01
Carrot, I hope.
9
SPEAKER_00
Ooh, yum, that s your cake.
9
SPEAKER_00
I like carrot cake.
9
SPEAKER_01
I do like carrot cake.
9
SPEAKER_01
How is Dax s group of lovers and sycophants?
9
SPEAKER_01
Are they doing okay?
9
SPEAKER_01
My children?
9
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
9
SPEAKER_01
They re thriving.
9
SPEAKER_01
Children of the corn.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s Halloween, they re in costume every day.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m talking about all your adult children, too, all your followers.
9
SPEAKER_01
You re like the Jim Jones of Los Feliz.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well, that s the goal.
9
SPEAKER_02
We didn t even get into the religion we re starting.
9
SPEAKER_02
No.
9
SPEAKER_02
We re always looking for big swaths of land out in the high desert.
9
SPEAKER_02
You know what Charlie Manson s scene was like?
9
SPEAKER_02
You know, just that without the murder maybe?
9
SPEAKER_01
You know, I just missed Charlie Manson.
9
SPEAKER_01
Did I tell you that story?
9
SPEAKER_01
No.
9
SPEAKER_01
So there was a period of time where this one friend of ours was getting kilos of weed.
9
SPEAKER_01
I was like 19.
9
SPEAKER_01
And he would come over.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ve lived with my brother-in-law in this house.
9
SPEAKER_01
He would come over there and we d break up the keys and stuff.
9
SPEAKER_01
And he said, so why don t you come and check this place out?
9
SPEAKER_01
There s a bunch of crazy chicks and stuff.
9
SPEAKER_01
So he was getting weed.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I would have gone.
9
SPEAKER_01
It just was the timing.
9
SPEAKER_01
Years later, he told me it was the Spawn Ranch in Chatsworth.
9
SPEAKER_01
So my head could have been buried in the Santa Susana Pass somewhere.
9
SPEAKER_02
You could have been Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time.
9
SPEAKER_02
I probably would have been Tex Watson.
9
SPEAKER_01
I would have probably fallen right into it.
9
SPEAKER_01
He s very charismatic.
9
SPEAKER_01
I would have been worshiping Charlie.
9
SPEAKER_01
Can you imagine?
9
SPEAKER_01
All that crazy stuff.
9
SPEAKER_02
I love you.
9
SPEAKER_02
Thanks for doing this.
9
SPEAKER_02
It means a lot to me.
9
SPEAKER_02
I love you.
9
SPEAKER_02
Love you too.
9
SPEAKER_02
Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.
9
SPEAKER_02
You just did a whole interview with your headphones off.
9
SPEAKER_02
I took them off.
9
SPEAKER_02
And it made me so nervous.
9
SPEAKER_02
What was the experience like?
9
SPEAKER_02
Was it different?
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, you know, I m on a roll because yesterday I did synced without my headphones on because we wore Halloween headbands.
9
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I needed them visible.
9
SPEAKER_02
Right.
9
SPEAKER_02
And today you have a bow, which is why.
9
SPEAKER_00
Today I have a bow and a top knot.
9
SPEAKER_02
Right.
9
SPEAKER_00
I wanted the top knot in front.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
And the headphones just wouldn t stay.
9
SPEAKER_02
No.
9
SPEAKER_02
We might need kinds that like attach in the back.
9
SPEAKER_00
So I took them off.
9
SPEAKER_02
You took them right off.
9
SPEAKER_02
And what was the experience like?
9
SPEAKER_00
Felt great.
9
SPEAKER_02
It did.
9
SPEAKER_02
I don t like it as much.
9
SPEAKER_00
I know you don t.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yesterday, even though you don t like talking about.
9
SPEAKER_02
No, I ve surrendered.
9
SPEAKER_00
Okay, great.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yesterday was Halloween.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yesterday was Halloween.
9
SPEAKER_00
And you did your hayride, which was incredible.
9
SPEAKER_02
Did the hayride.
9
SPEAKER_00
And you got a lot of cheers for your driving that last you through the year.
9
SPEAKER_02
Which made you nervous.
9
SPEAKER_00
You banked them for the year.
9
SPEAKER_02
You said it made you nervous.
9
SPEAKER_02
It was perfect timing because you walked up to the window of the car and someone was telling me,
9
SPEAKER_02
how blown away they were with the turn into the alley.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I said, jokingly, because you were standing there, well, yeah, it s the number one thing people like about me is my driving.
9
SPEAKER_02
And then you said, oh boy, this is potentially a destructive activity you put on.
9
SPEAKER_02
I know.
9
SPEAKER_00
And look, the other thing is, I don t want to be untruthful.
9
SPEAKER_00
It is extremely impressive.
9
SPEAKER_02
Mm, thank you so much for that.
9
SPEAKER_00
I also don t want to feed.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you know, it s hard for me.
9
SPEAKER_02
You know, it s funny, though, if we think about the things that people could hang their self-esteem on, there s certainly worse ones.
9
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s kind of innocuous.
9
SPEAKER_02
I know this little guy, he thinks he s driving around people and the people really love it.
9
SPEAKER_00
But it s no.
9
SPEAKER_00
And they do love it.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s not the problem.
9
SPEAKER_00
The problem is that you think that s your value proposition.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well, depending on what the circumstances are, if we got to escape a city under attack,
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
Then it s a pretty big value for me.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s a cool part about you.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s a trick.
9
SPEAKER_02
I heard a few people say I like Dax so much more after seeing this.
9
SPEAKER_02
Lies, lies.
9
SPEAKER_02
I was ambivalent about him until I saw him enter that alley.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God, it was so fun.
9
SPEAKER_02
It was so, so fun.
9
SPEAKER_02
I love that holiday.
9
SPEAKER_00
Me too.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God, it s so fun.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s a good time.
9
SPEAKER_02
I like that it starts early.
9
SPEAKER_02
That s a neat part of it, because it s a school night.
9
SPEAKER_02
So the party started at 4 p.m.
9
SPEAKER_02
People were pretty busy at five.
9
SPEAKER_02
The weather s perfect this time of year.
9
SPEAKER_02
The doors are all open.
9
SPEAKER_02
You go in and out of the house.
9
SPEAKER_00
So nice.
9
SPEAKER_02
And there s little pockets of people, and everyone s a monster or a ghoul.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well, actually, in this case, it looked like Hogwarts.
9
SPEAKER_00
It really did.
9
SPEAKER_02
The house was Hogwarts.
9
SPEAKER_00
It really looked like Hogwarts.
9
SPEAKER_00
I did think, when I parked a street over, that walk,
9
SPEAKER_00
It was humbling.
9
SPEAKER_00
The walk from the car to the house.
9
SPEAKER_02
In your outfit?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
Tell me how.
9
SPEAKER_00
At four o clock.
9
SPEAKER_00
It was so embarrassing.
9
SPEAKER_00
I felt so embarrassed.
9
SPEAKER_00
You did.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yes, I did.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God, you looked so cute.
9
SPEAKER_02
Tell people your character.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was Rita Skeeter, the gossipy bad journalist.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yes, and you had your own journalist pad, which is an actual pad you had back in college.
9
SPEAKER_02
That s right.
9
SPEAKER_02
Man, I don t like a pad, man.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
9
SPEAKER_00
An APU reporter s notebook.
9
SPEAKER_02
You would have been the perfect reporter because you re a pad man.
9
SPEAKER_02
You got your pad.
9
SPEAKER_02
Padman the pad man.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was a good, I was good in those classes.
9
SPEAKER_00
I bet you were, you re good in all the classes.
9
SPEAKER_02
That s the risk of being great at everything is like, it s not very exciting when you re good at one.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s not true, I am not.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m so bad at drawing.
9
SPEAKER_02
Drawing?
9
SPEAKER_02
You re a pretty good drawer though.
9
SPEAKER_00
No.
9
SPEAKER_02
I ve seen you draw, you re pretty good.
9
SPEAKER_02
No.
9
SPEAKER_00
You saw me draw one picture of Wobby Wob.
9
SPEAKER_02
Really good job.
9
SPEAKER_02
And you did it quickly.
9
SPEAKER_00
I did it really quick.
9
SPEAKER_02
Under the gun.
9
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, in PR, since I had double majored in PR, I had to take a lot of journalism classes.
9
SPEAKER_00
And so we had these reporter s notebooks and I, for some reason, still have one.
9
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I brought it as part of my costume.
9
SPEAKER_00
But I had to walk, and so I m in this bright green, satin green,
9
SPEAKER_00
skirt top thing, a blonde wig, bright red lipstick.
9
SPEAKER_02
White face.
9
SPEAKER_00
I did not go in white face.
9
SPEAKER_00
I ve decided not to do that.
9
SPEAKER_00
I opted out of that.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I had this huge bowl of dip.
9
SPEAKER_02
Right.
9
SPEAKER_00
Lob and a dip, Alice and Roman shout out.
9
SPEAKER_00
Got a lot of compliments on the dip.
9
SPEAKER_02
Good, good.
9
SPEAKER_00
Are you starting to think that- I was gonna force you to eat it, but I forgot to tell you to eat it.
9
SPEAKER_02
Maybe you ll start thinking the number one thing people like about you is your chef skills.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m starting to think that.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you re building a good repertoire.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I m cooking for some gals tonight.
9
SPEAKER_00
You are?
9
SPEAKER_02
What are you making them?
9
SPEAKER_00
I think I m gonna make this, I don t think you re gonna like the sound of it, but the taste is, no, it s a chicken, rice, pumpkin, yeah, I thought that might get you, kind of soup thing.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s gonna be really good.
9
SPEAKER_02
I know what that is.
9
SPEAKER_00
You do?
9
SPEAKER_02
I do know like a cinnamon-y, kind of pumpkin-y chicken rice soup.
9
SPEAKER_00
I ve never made it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s Molly Bawes, and it s a very popular recipe on her site, and it s festive.
9
SPEAKER_02
Is there any cinnamon in it?
9
SPEAKER_02
Did I make that part up?
9
SPEAKER_00
Actually, no.
9
SPEAKER_02
There s no cinnamon?
9
SPEAKER_02
Mm-mm.
9
SPEAKER_02
Okay, cinnamon.
9
SPEAKER_02
We have our own cinnamon.
9
SPEAKER_00
We sure do, a little cinny.
9
SPEAKER_00
I wonder how his Halloween went.
9
SPEAKER_00
He didn t stop by the hayride.
9
SPEAKER_02
Why not?
9
SPEAKER_00
I don t know, but I didn t see him.
9
SPEAKER_02
You know he was somewhere super interesting.
9
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
9
SPEAKER_02
He was just on his street with his neighbors, he said.
9
SPEAKER_00
He has a lot of good friends in his neighborhood.
9
SPEAKER_00
Of course he does.
9
SPEAKER_02
Already more friends in his neighborhood than we have in our neighborhood.
9
SPEAKER_00
So the walk is just one of those every, I look so stupid.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was so embarrassed and I felt like I looked so stupid.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh, wow.
9
SPEAKER_00
On my own.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s one thing if you re with one other person in costume.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yes, then it s neutralized.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yes, but by yourself and someone was walking their dog and they were looking at me,
9
SPEAKER_02
But they knew.
9
SPEAKER_00
They knew, but of course, and there s like a little smile on their face, because everyone s embarrassed for everyone.
9
SPEAKER_00
We re just adults in character.
9
SPEAKER_00
It is embarrassing.
10
SPEAKER_00
But beautiful too.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I could have strolled down any street in my Dumbledore.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you didn t even look like, no, regular Dumbledore.
10
SPEAKER_02
Door, no F. Yeah, you really want to say Dumbledore.
10
SPEAKER_02
I think I said it all last night.
10
SPEAKER_00
You did.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, Dumbledore.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I d stroll around anywhere.
10
SPEAKER_02
In fact, the more out of place, the better.
10
SPEAKER_02
Like if they put me in downtown LA, that would ve been really funny.
10
SPEAKER_02
That s the difference between you and I. But you didn t, you say it didn t look like me.
10
SPEAKER_00
It really didn t.
10
SPEAKER_02
It freaked you out.
10
SPEAKER_00
I had a little bit, I felt a little bit like when Delta looked at you after you shaved your beard when she was three and she said, you don t look like my daddy.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, crying.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s how I felt.
10
SPEAKER_02
You did?
10
SPEAKER_02
Oh no, you were scared?
10
SPEAKER_00
You don t look like my best friend.
10
SPEAKER_02
And my character was, ho, ho, ho, happy Halloween.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_02
No, merry Halloween.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes, you made him into a Santa.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yes, because I felt very much like Santa.
10
SPEAKER_02
I had a big white beard on and long white hair.
10
SPEAKER_02
And you- Couldn t see a fucking thing.
10
SPEAKER_00
You had a spell you did.
10
SPEAKER_02
Mm, I did.
10
SPEAKER_02
Shall I say it?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_02
Fortimus Eruptus.
10
SPEAKER_02
And that would cause the person with the new curse on them to fart unexpectedly.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_02
It was all for the kids.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it was quote for the kids.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_02
Me included.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
So it was a lovely, lovely evening and it is a ding, ding, ding because the car skill.
10
SPEAKER_02
Oh yeah, and I want to add a piece of this behind the scenes, BTS.
10
SPEAKER_02
So John O. Yang is the greatest neighbor any human could have.
10
SPEAKER_02
He is so on top.
10
SPEAKER_02
He runs the neighborhood.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like in an official capacity.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and it s laborious.
10
SPEAKER_00
I feel so bad for him.
10
SPEAKER_02
Me too, what a thankless job.
10
SPEAKER_02
So I don t wanna bother him at all, he s so busy.
10
SPEAKER_02
And it s a volunteer job, it s so nice.
10
SPEAKER_00
I know, he s so nice.
10
SPEAKER_02
But I did go, hey, if it s not too much, because I don t have the full email list for the neighborhood, but he does, could you bless everyone, just ask that they don t park, just in these two places.
10
SPEAKER_02
I can make it through anywhere, except for the very top turnaround, and then the area right before the alley, because I gotta swing very wide to get in.
10
SPEAKER_02
And so he was immediately had a map, you know, he s the best.
10
SPEAKER_02
And then so I didn t even trial run it.
10
SPEAKER_02
I m like, yeah, John sent that email.
10
SPEAKER_02
I saw the email.
10
SPEAKER_02
I m sure everyone saw the email.
10
SPEAKER_02
And then I first time out, I ve got 25 people in the back and go up to the top.
10
SPEAKER_02
No problem.
10
SPEAKER_02
There s no cars.
10
SPEAKER_02
Great.
10
SPEAKER_02
Everyone read the email.
10
SPEAKER_02
Then I m coming up to.
10
SPEAKER_02
The alley, and that s the point of no return.
10
SPEAKER_02
It s either exit the neighborhood onto Los Feliz Boulevard in a trailer that s three X overweight of what it was designed for.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_02
And there s a fucking red car right where I need to be.
10
SPEAKER_02
And I m like, oh no, here we go.
10
SPEAKER_02
Leap of faith, let s commit, let s commit.
10
SPEAKER_02
So it was much harder this year.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I didn t realize that part.
10
SPEAKER_02
Was in previous years.
10
SPEAKER_02
I had to be way over to the left, then go to the right and just very little.
10
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God.
10
SPEAKER_02
But of course I loved it.
10
SPEAKER_00
I know.
10
SPEAKER_02
Cause I was scared.
10
SPEAKER_02
I was a little scared.
10
SPEAKER_02
I m like this, cause again,
10
SPEAKER_02
I can t imagine anything more humiliating for me, not for a normal person.
10
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
10
SPEAKER_02
But if everyone s back there partying, look at that thriller, thriller.
10
SPEAKER_02
Whoa, stop, stop!
10
SPEAKER_02
The notion of hearing a bunch of people go, stop, stop, stop!
10
SPEAKER_02
I would get out of the car and just walk into Los Feliz Boulevard and get run over.
10
SPEAKER_02
It s the most embarrassing thing that could ever happen to me if I scrape the trailer across something.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh.
10
SPEAKER_02
So I had those stakes and that anxiety.
10
SPEAKER_02
So every time we entered without incident, it was this huge burst of relief.
10
SPEAKER_00
It is incredibly impressive.
10
SPEAKER_00
I can t do that, I don t think, in my regular car.
10
SPEAKER_00
It really is.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s an insanely tight corner.
10
SPEAKER_02
You re about six inches on either side of the
10
SPEAKER_02
the wheels of the trailer.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s really impossible, and you do it, and it is impressive, but I don t like that you would walk into traffic over... I couldn t face my children.
10
SPEAKER_02
My children were on board.
10
SPEAKER_02
Can you imagine how embarrassed they d be?
10
SPEAKER_00
No!
10
SPEAKER_00
Can you imagine?
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God, the priorities.
10
SPEAKER_00
This is crazy.
10
SPEAKER_02
I gotta go out with honor.
10
SPEAKER_00
This is how different we are.
10
SPEAKER_00
You re happy to walk around as Dumbledore.
10
SPEAKER_02
I d walk around naked around town.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and I don t want to walk a very short way in a costume.
10
SPEAKER_00
And yet, I m happy to scrape up any old thing I m in.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yep.
10
SPEAKER_02
Don t matter.
10
SPEAKER_02
It s also arbitrary.
10
SPEAKER_02
You just pick.
10
SPEAKER_02
You pick the things you care about.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, my identity is not connected to how well I drive at all.
10
SPEAKER_00
I could care less.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, but you re a good driver.
10
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s nice.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you are.
10
SPEAKER_02
You are a good driver.
10
SPEAKER_02
It s kind of shocking because you have such little interest in cars and stuff, yet you are a good driver.
10
SPEAKER_02
You re very confident.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m confident, but I do, I hit a lot of curbs.
10
SPEAKER_02
Well, that s going to happen in a city with curbs.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I don t care though.
10
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t bum me.
10
SPEAKER_00
It only bums me out if it like, you know, scrapes up the car, which sometimes it does.
10
SPEAKER_02
On the occasion I scrape a rim, I have to go into this immediate, like I have a protocol for that.
10
SPEAKER_01
What?
10
SPEAKER_02
Because I will kill myself over that.
10
SPEAKER_01
Dax!
10
SPEAKER_02
So I go, I m back in and I go, oh, like even by myself, I m like, oh my God, I m not supposed to do that.
10
SPEAKER_02
And then I go, you can t look at it.
10
SPEAKER_02
Get out of the car right now.
10
SPEAKER_02
Walk.
10
SPEAKER_02
Don t look.
10
SPEAKER_02
Go about your thing.
10
SPEAKER_02
If you see it, it s going to ruin your day.
10
SPEAKER_02
Like it s, it s huge.
10
SPEAKER_02
I ve got to go through all these steps.
10
SPEAKER_02
I basically ignore it for two days before I look at what I did.
10
SPEAKER_02
Cause it s just too much.
10
SPEAKER_01
That might be a guy thing.
10
SPEAKER_01
I m the same way.
10
SPEAKER_01
Mine are fucked.
10
SPEAKER_01
And it s like,
10
SPEAKER_01
I think about it every day.
10
SPEAKER_01
Because I m also like a parallel parker from Chicago.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes, you re supposed to.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s really fucking hard.
10
SPEAKER_01
And the curbs are so high here too.
10
SPEAKER_02
I know, I gotta say that s my favorite thing about my Raptor is the tires are so big that I can just, when I parallel park, I just purposely hit the tires on the thing and that doesn t matter.
10
SPEAKER_02
The rim s way above it.
10
SPEAKER_02
And I m like, oh, this is the move for LA.
10
SPEAKER_02
You parallel park so much.
10
SPEAKER_02
I bet, I would love to see data on this.
10
SPEAKER_02
I bet this is the number one parallel parking city because there s more drivers.
10
SPEAKER_00
I bet.
10
SPEAKER_02
And people, so you re doing it all the time.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and this is an Easter egg actually to an upcoming Flightless Bird.
10
SPEAKER_00
David does an episode on car, driving.
10
SPEAKER_01
Cars is what he calls it.
10
SPEAKER_00
Cars, but it ends up being a parking episode.
10
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_00
And it really is interesting to actually start paying attention to how many cars are just fucking parked everywhere.
10
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, in LA specifically, you have to parallel park so much.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_00
And it was the bane of my existence when I first moved here, because I couldn t, I barely could do that on my driving test, and then I never had to do it again in Georgia.
10
SPEAKER_00
You don t have to do it.
10
SPEAKER_02
Right, you pull into parking lots everywhere you go.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
It was so stressful.
10
SPEAKER_00
I remember I was meeting a bunch of new friends.
10
SPEAKER_00
Uh-oh.
10
SPEAKER_00
at the Melrose Flea Market.
10
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_00
And that is a hectic area over there.
10
SPEAKER_02
Oh, it is, it s a shit show over there.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I had to park and I was just driving and driving and hoping and hoping there d be a spot I could park at that wasn t parallel parking.
10
SPEAKER_00
This is like 15, 17 minutes in, I m just gonna be, I m late.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then finally there was a parallel, I have to parallel park.
10
SPEAKER_02
You gotta just commit.
10
SPEAKER_00
and it is so hard and so scary and cars are waiting to go and there s a man standing there watching.
10
SPEAKER_02
Oh boy.
10
SPEAKER_02
This is the worst experience.
10
SPEAKER_00
There s nothing worse.
10
SPEAKER_02
I see this all the time.
10
SPEAKER_02
A bystander gets involved.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, to like direct.
10
SPEAKER_02
Oh, yes.
10
SPEAKER_02
And they re always, they position themselves between the car.
10
SPEAKER_02
Like if the person lost control, they would lose their legs for sure.
10
SPEAKER_02
Like they re standing in a very bad spot.
10
SPEAKER_02
They haven t figured out how to get in the person s mirror so they can see their hands.
10
SPEAKER_02
And now they re yelling and it s a strange, and the person was already self-conscious.
10
SPEAKER_02
Like anytime I see that, I m like, oh my God, I know you re trying to help, but this is, no one wants this.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s so bad, yes.
10
SPEAKER_00
I would say the percentage has gotten a lot better over time, but 20% of the time I pull up
10
SPEAKER_02
You go for it and abort.
10
SPEAKER_00
I abort 20% of the time.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then I just drive and drive.
10
SPEAKER_00
Scares me still.
10
SPEAKER_02
I won t abort as you would expect.
10
SPEAKER_02
I know you won t.
10
SPEAKER_02
I love parallel parking.
10
SPEAKER_02
In fact, let me ask you this.
10
SPEAKER_02
By the way, your car might even have it.
10
SPEAKER_02
If you had one of those cars where you can hit the button and it parallel parks for you, would you use it?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes!
10
SPEAKER_02
Okay, I wouldn t ever.
10
SPEAKER_00
I know you wouldn t.
10
SPEAKER_02
I ve been in cars, and I m like, if the fucking automated thing crashed the wheels, then I wouldn t even know what to do with that anger.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, really?
10
SPEAKER_00
You wouldn t be able to punt it?
10
SPEAKER_02
No, because I d be like, fuck me, there s no one to even yell at, and who s taking responsibility for this?
10
SPEAKER_00
Just the notion of- But you could just be like, oh, this fucking stupid automated car.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_02
I wonder if they ever do.
10
SPEAKER_00
Crash?
10
SPEAKER_02
They don t.
10
SPEAKER_00
They just stop.
10
SPEAKER_00
Even my car, if I m doing something it doesn t like, it just stops.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yes, I turn that off on my car.
10
SPEAKER_00
I don t like that.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s very- Charring.
10
SPEAKER_00
Very charring.
10
SPEAKER_02
You feel like you got in an accident.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_02
Yes, yes.
10
SPEAKER_02
Because when I first got my car, I like the late break.
10
SPEAKER_02
I m like in a Formula One race.
10
SPEAKER_02
So I m late breaking up to lights and behind people.
10
SPEAKER_02
The car thinks I m crashing like five
11
SPEAKER_02
That s why I had to turn it off, because I m late braking so much, it constantly thought I was getting in a car accident.
11
SPEAKER_02
And then it slams on the brakes, and I think, oh my God, I hit, like, it makes you think you hit it.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s what I, this happened when I was parallel parking the other day.
11
SPEAKER_01
I don t know why, but yeah, it like slammed shut, and I definitely thought I hit the whole side of my car.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_01
And then I kept parking, and then I went to look, and I was, I had plenty of space.
11
SPEAKER_02
No problems.
11
SPEAKER_01
It was no problem.
11
SPEAKER_02
You know, one thing we didn t talk about that I wanna talk about, because A, it was just such a fun time, and then B, it gave me so many feelings, but we went and saw the Groundlings put on something that s called, what is it called?
11
SPEAKER_02
One Night Only.
11
SPEAKER_01
One Night Only.
11
SPEAKER_02
And it s a tradition, and what they do is they come together and they learn a Broadway musical in a day.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_02
And this time they learned chorus line in a day, which is not possible.
11
SPEAKER_00
It s crazy.
11
SPEAKER_00
It s crazy.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s not possible.
11
SPEAKER_00
They did it for charity.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yep, to help out our crew members.
11
SPEAKER_02
And we went and Kristen was in it.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_02
And we sat next to each other, which is really fun because I always like knowing what makes you laugh.
11
SPEAKER_02
Also, half of them I ve now known for 25 years.
11
SPEAKER_02
They re my friends and I don t get to see them very often.
11
SPEAKER_02
And
11
SPEAKER_02
a bunch of things were happening.
11
SPEAKER_02
One was just, boy, oh boy, what a special experience I had.
11
SPEAKER_02
Because I was just reminded, what it brought me back to is not the shows, it brought me back to rehearsal night, when everyone puts up the sketch for the first time, and how hard they made me laugh.
11
SPEAKER_02
Like, I ve never laughed harder in my life than watching those sketches.
11
SPEAKER_02
And that, the first hour and a half of that show, I could not stop screaming, laughing.
11
SPEAKER_02
It made me so happy.
11
SPEAKER_02
And then I was like, oh, and we re all getting older.
11
SPEAKER_02
But we re all doing it still.
11
SPEAKER_02
I mean, they re doing it still.
11
SPEAKER_02
And that felt really wonderful.
11
SPEAKER_02
I was like, I was so happy for all of them that they figured out how to keep doing it forever.
11
SPEAKER_00
Keeping that joy.
11
SPEAKER_02
And then, and this is my soapbox, and this is not shade to any other comedy troupe.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but be careful, because I m coming at you in a second.
11
SPEAKER_02
I know, because I love UCB.
11
SPEAKER_02
I love UCB, and I love so many of the performers in there, and some of the quickest-witted people I ve ever witnessed.
11
SPEAKER_02
But I will say, UCB was a movement.
11
SPEAKER_02
Let s just say that Groundlings all of a sudden took a real backseat.
11
SPEAKER_02
Like, it wasn t the cool place anymore.
11
SPEAKER_02
Like, if you came to LA, you probably went to UCB over Groundlings, whereas when I came here, you would definitely go to the Groundlings.
11
SPEAKER_01
Right.
11
SPEAKER_02
So they just kind of went out of favor for a while, comedically.
11
SPEAKER_02
And I was watching and what I had so much pride in was these fucking groundlings commit like no one else commits.
11
SPEAKER_02
That s the thing they fucking do.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_02
With the characters and the commitment and the all in.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_02
Just fuck it.
11
SPEAKER_02
I m going all the way.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s such a unique groundlings thing.
11
SPEAKER_01
It is because I would disagree with you.
11
SPEAKER_01
Like when I came out here and knew I was going to do a comedy school, it was still like, which one do you do?
11
SPEAKER_02
Right.
11
SPEAKER_01
But it just became more tailored.
11
SPEAKER_01
It was like, if you want to do SNL or like characters, you go Groundlings.
11
SPEAKER_01
Like that s the way, if you want to do improv and like be very shiny there, you go UCB.
11
SPEAKER_02
But also the makeup of the SNL cast started changing dramatically.
11
SPEAKER_02
It became largely UCB recruits.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I guess that s true.
11
SPEAKER_01
And also then UCB started developing a lot of sketch stuff too.
11
SPEAKER_01
So then it moved into that a little bit.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_02
But most of the work done at the Groundlings is character work.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_02
You know, above improv work.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s all character work and writing.
11
SPEAKER_02
And so I just was like, no, no, this is spectacular.
11
SPEAKER_02
I know it went out of favor for a minute, but I was like, you re just never going to see humans commit like they do at the Groundlings.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s fun.
11
SPEAKER_01
It was really, really fun.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
I wondered if you felt
11
SPEAKER_01
Anytime I m in any comedy live, especially one of these schools performances, I get so nostalgic.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yes, it s such a special experience.
11
SPEAKER_01
I feel so grateful.
11
SPEAKER_02
And Kristen, she came home from it, you know, and she s like,
11
SPEAKER_02
That was its own experience.
11
SPEAKER_02
Like I ve had the Broadway one and that s a super supportive group.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_02
But she said this was a whole other, she said like right before the show starts, everyone just came up to me and said, hey, I got your back.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you touch everyone s backs on their way out and you say, got your back.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s a thing.
11
SPEAKER_01
And it s real.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s real.
11
SPEAKER_02
You re in it together.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_02
There s no individual shining.
11
SPEAKER_02
There s just like, we re all in this together.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s really special.
11
SPEAKER_00
It really is.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I just that night I was like, just filled with gratitude and emotion and just happy for everyone.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I know.
11
SPEAKER_02
What a great way to spend your time on Planet Earth.
11
SPEAKER_02
Being silly.
11
SPEAKER_01
Just laughing.
11
SPEAKER_02
Literally, my main focus is to be silly when I get to be silly.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it s the best.
11
SPEAKER_01
It really is.
11
SPEAKER_01
Lots of talented folks out there.
11
SPEAKER_02
I then also, to be honest, so I had all this gratitude.
11
SPEAKER_01
I know it s coming.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, what am I going to say?
11
SPEAKER_01
I know exactly what s coming.
11
SPEAKER_01
So unfair.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yes, it s not fair.
11
SPEAKER_02
This fucking business is not fair.
11
SPEAKER_01
Right, it s so unfair that there s all these people bursting with talent to share and they don t get to.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s not false modesty for me to say.
11
SPEAKER_02
Vastly more talented than I am on stage.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, survivor skill.
11
SPEAKER_01
There s survivor skill sometimes in these circles.
11
SPEAKER_01
I have it a lot, too, where I m like... And then you wonder also, are they like, why her?
11
SPEAKER_02
Sure, sure.
11
SPEAKER_01
How d she get that?
11
SPEAKER_02
I think they think that about me, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
You are exposed to so many people.
11
SPEAKER_01
When we watch Beckham and you re like, that person s meant to do that, they were born to do that.
11
SPEAKER_01
There are people at these schools, they re just born to make people laugh.
11
SPEAKER_01
and then you feel it s an injustice, they don t get to do it.
11
SPEAKER_01
But that s also our- Baggage.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s our baggage and that s wrong.
11
SPEAKER_01
They do do it.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s what they re doing.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s not pity.
11
SPEAKER_02
I wanna be very clear, like there s no feelings of pity towards anyone.
11
SPEAKER_02
I m just projecting my own obsession with financial security and it breaks my heart that someone that s that talented, that dedicated, put in the time, put in the, minimally they should be very safe financially.
11
SPEAKER_02
That s really what I would want for anyone.
11
SPEAKER_02
to be able to generate, you know, enough to live comfortably when you can t do that anymore.
11
SPEAKER_02
But they re going to be doing it forever.
11
SPEAKER_02
That s what I like.
11
SPEAKER_02
I really walked away also going like, oh, no, no one s ever turning this off.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
It s really cool.
11
SPEAKER_01
OK.
11
SPEAKER_02
Who s this?
11
SPEAKER_01
This is for Tom.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s why it was a ding, ding, ding for the driving.
11
SPEAKER_02
Oh, yes.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_02
Because Tom and I love driving.
11
SPEAKER_01
And you you both think it s part of your identity.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yes, yes, yes.
11
SPEAKER_01
It was really cool to get to have him on.
11
SPEAKER_02
Did you like it?
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I did, I did, I did.
11
SPEAKER_02
He s very charming, isn t he?
11
SPEAKER_01
He is very charming and it felt, when I was editing it, I thought,
11
SPEAKER_01
man, this person, this life is as interesting, if not more interesting than so many of these celebrities we have on, right?
11
SPEAKER_01
And we have them on and it s wonderful and great, but it just was a reminder that everyone has a story.
11
SPEAKER_02
I know, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
And it s not worse than this celebrity story.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s sometimes way better and more interesting.
11
SPEAKER_01
And so, I don t know, I just, it was a good reminder of that.
11
SPEAKER_01
If you re feeling less than or something, you re not, your story is as full as all of these peoples.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, we re just way more interested in the monkey who has the status.
11
SPEAKER_02
We ve even had a couple that I would ve labeled as borderline boring, but they were very big stars and people loved them.
11
SPEAKER_02
And I get it, I m the same way.
11
SPEAKER_02
If I could hear Nicolas Cage talk about really anything, I wanna listen.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I m turning a corner on that because I m really feeling there s a level of toxicity happening in the world.
11
SPEAKER_01
I do think celebrity gets tied into that in some way, or people look to celebrity or feel that they attack celebrities in a very specific way.
11
SPEAKER_01
All of it, that I just think it s bad.
11
SPEAKER_02
They re not supposed to talk, they re supposed to talk.
11
SPEAKER_01
But in the article by Taffy,
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, Taffy.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Taffy.
11
SPEAKER_01
She says a line that I cannot believe.
11
SPEAKER_01
I have never put two and two together.
11
SPEAKER_01
She says something about how celebrities, aka the people we choose societally to celebrate.
11
SPEAKER_02
Ooh, celebrate celebrity.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s where that comes from.
11
SPEAKER_02
Don t even, never made that connection.
11
SPEAKER_01
Never made that connection in my life.
11
SPEAKER_02
I don t like the word, like I run from that word.
11
SPEAKER_02
So you never explored what it actually means.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s so accurate.
11
SPEAKER_01
And I ve never heard it like that, but it actually gave me a lot of compassion for what it is and why they do what they do to celebrities, which is the thing I hate.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s because we ve decided you re worthy of celebrating.
11
SPEAKER_02
Right, and now you gotta live up to it.
11
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
11
SPEAKER_01
If we re gonna say you re worthy of celebrating, then you gotta be worthy of celebrating.
11
SPEAKER_01
And then that can lead to a lot of- It s a trap.
11
SPEAKER_01
It can be a trap and it can be destructive, but it makes more sense to me.
11
SPEAKER_02
It just makes the person more and more two-dimensional, if that s the request.
11
SPEAKER_01
It does, but it also, it makes it a little more understandable for me right now, who s like very shocked and scared of the way people are reacting to celebrities.
11
SPEAKER_01
It contextualizes it a little bit for me of like, there s some pain and hurt.
12
SPEAKER_01
when they ve chosen to celebrate a person.
12
SPEAKER_00
Betrayal.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they feel betrayed.
12
SPEAKER_01
Not that they should because everyone s just a person, but I got it a little more when I, good old Taffy.
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean.
12
SPEAKER_00
God bless Taffy.
12
SPEAKER_01
She keeps it real.
12
SPEAKER_00
She delivers, yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
Well, back to the Tom having an interesting story.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
I ve loved a lot of interviews of people who I admire and look up to, but the most impactful ones in my life are like episodes of Radio Lab, Blame, like certainly, or I always talk about Raymond Carver as a writer.
12
SPEAKER_00
Like I actually am far more interested
12
SPEAKER_00
in pops of excitement within the mundane, or these moments of beauty in an otherwise not beautiful world.
12
SPEAKER_00
Real life.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
Ooh, I think I wanna do that.
12
SPEAKER_01
I m gonna give you homework.
12
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_01
By next fact check.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Monday.
12
SPEAKER_01
Well, Thursday.
12
SPEAKER_01
Now you re doing it.
12
SPEAKER_01
I want you to come to the table with your top five
12
SPEAKER_01
podcast episodes of all time, like ranging all the podcasts.
12
SPEAKER_01
God, that s so hard.
12
SPEAKER_01
I know.
12
SPEAKER_00
You have to or you get an F. And also, what if it s one that s like serialized?
12
SPEAKER_00
Like I- It can be.
12
SPEAKER_00
I do the whole podcast?
12
SPEAKER_00
No.
12
SPEAKER_00
Like how would I isolate one episode?
12
SPEAKER_01
Episode three of Siri.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
12
SPEAKER_00
Well, I would do, I guess episode one of Dr. Death.
12
SPEAKER_00
I just don t know how I would pick within Dr. Death.
12
SPEAKER_00
You got to.
12
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_00
To me, I got to go over like, between now and Monday, I ve got to listen to all my favorite podcasts all over again.
12
SPEAKER_01
You don t have to listen, you just have to remember.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_01
Because I also like doing this with TV shows.
12
SPEAKER_01
I ask people this a lot, like, what are your top five favorite TV episodes of all time?
12
SPEAKER_00
Episodes.
12
SPEAKER_00
I don t feel like I d be good at this game.
12
SPEAKER_00
Really?
12
SPEAKER_01
It s such a fun game.
12
SPEAKER_00
I don t know that I remember specific episodes all that much.
12
SPEAKER_01
I do.
12
SPEAKER_00
You do.
12
SPEAKER_00
What s your number one?
12
SPEAKER_00
The Red Wedding.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, that s a memorable episode.
12
SPEAKER_01
Game of Thrones is tricky, because there s a few you could pick.
12
SPEAKER_01
But I have to say, as much as I love that show, there s no Game of Thrones on my list.
12
SPEAKER_00
Right.
12
SPEAKER_00
Friends.
12
SPEAKER_01
Friends is really hard to pick.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
But it s also like,
12
SPEAKER_01
It s not what s my favorite show, it s what individual episodes that I think were just done perfectly, had a crazy impact.
12
SPEAKER_01
One is the bomb episode of Grey s Anatomy.
12
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_01
You probably haven t seen that.
12
SPEAKER_00
But there was a first kiss or something.
12
SPEAKER_01
No, well, my favorite sex scene is also in Grey s Anatomy.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, that s what I was thinking.
12
SPEAKER_00
I m hung up on that.
12
SPEAKER_01
That whole episode is also, that s high up there.
12
SPEAKER_01
That s the one where Denny dies.
12
SPEAKER_01
Spoiler.
12
SPEAKER_01
But there s a bomb stuck in this cavity in this person, basically.
12
SPEAKER_01
And Meredith puts her hand in or something.
12
SPEAKER_01
In their cavity.
12
SPEAKER_01
And then now she s,
12
SPEAKER_01
basically like she s gonna die.
12
SPEAKER_01
I kind of, to be honest, I kind of forget.
12
SPEAKER_01
But I remember that it was so enormous.
12
SPEAKER_01
I felt so moved emotionally, but also I was so scared.
12
SPEAKER_01
And then there s this song in it that this Michael Stipe and- Oh, REM.
12
SPEAKER_01
and Coldplay.
12
SPEAKER_00
Are they Athens?
12
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
12
SPEAKER_00
They are, right?
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, so that s one of my fave TV episodes.
12
SPEAKER_01
Also the episode, well, this is more of a scene, but I ll count the episodes.
12
SPEAKER_01
The episode of Parks and Rec where they are trying to
12
SPEAKER_01
get across a skating rink to get to this red carpet so that she can make a speech.
12
SPEAKER_01
And they re all just walking completely normally on ice.
12
SPEAKER_00
On shoes or ice skates?
12
SPEAKER_01
On shoes.
12
SPEAKER_00
Okay, right.
12
SPEAKER_01
And it is so brilliant, because they re not doing anything but trying to get from point A to point B. Sincerely trying.
12
SPEAKER_00
Sincerely.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
No hamming it up.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, is it brilliant.
12
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, it s just a really fun exercise.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I don t know why that s not easy to access for me.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
But this kind of makes a little bit of sense, because I have this certain kind of memory that s good, but I don t remember plot lines as well.
12
SPEAKER_00
And then Kristen has this terrible memory, but she remembers every plot line.
12
SPEAKER_00
If she saw that episode, she d be able to go through everything that happened.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, she would.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s freaky.
12
SPEAKER_00
And then song lyrics, and I feel like there s two- It s parts of brains.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I agree.
12
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, okay, so five podcast episodes by next week.
12
SPEAKER_01
TBD, Easter egg, come back for that.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I was hugging Ana Gabay last night and somehow my mint came out of my mouth and got wound up in her hair.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh my.
12
SPEAKER_00
And then I had to like detangle my, I just felt so bad about it.
12
SPEAKER_00
There s so much gross stuff going on with my mouth.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s amazing anyone tolerates me.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s amazing your breath is so good.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I feel lucky.
12
SPEAKER_01
Do you think part of it s because you don t, how was your breath when you drank?
12
SPEAKER_01
Do you think it was worse?
12
SPEAKER_00
Well, I also smoked, so.
12
SPEAKER_01
Right, how was your breath back then?
12
SPEAKER_00
I was always neurotic about my breath, that s all I know.
12
SPEAKER_00
I constantly was like, I had tricks to smell my own breath.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s very hard to smell your own breath.
12
SPEAKER_00
What you gotta do is you pop your jaw up and down.
12
SPEAKER_00
You cup your hand over your mouth and your nose.
12
SPEAKER_00
I m kind of cupping over.
12
SPEAKER_00
And then you pop your mouth, while you re sniffing in, you go.
12
SPEAKER_00
You can really get your breath if you do that.
12
SPEAKER_00
Try it right now.
12
SPEAKER_01
Wait, how do you do?
12
SPEAKER_00
You start sucking in your nose.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s like a computer hard drive.
12
SPEAKER_00
And you re like, you re forcing air out of your mouth with a physical act, because you can t breathe out.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you re breathing out of your mouth?
12
SPEAKER_00
You can t breathe out, because you re sucking in with your nose.
12
SPEAKER_00
You re smelling in, and then you re, like, the way you would put air into a room with a door by waving a door back and forth, you re moving your chin up.
12
SPEAKER_00
I m not smelling it.
12
SPEAKER_00
Watch my mouth.
12
SPEAKER_01
I know, I m doing that.
12
SPEAKER_00
I don t hear any popping from your lips.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh, there we go.
12
SPEAKER_00
Did you get any?
12
SPEAKER_00
Not really.
12
SPEAKER_00
That means your breath doesn t smell.
12
SPEAKER_01
Well, I also have a cold, so my nose probably isn t good at smelling right now.
12
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so.
12
SPEAKER_00
I guess Rob and I are gonna have shake turns, sniffing, opening your mouth like a lion and then sticking our nose.
12
SPEAKER_00
What could make you more nervous?
12
SPEAKER_01
That literally, never.
12
SPEAKER_00
I know, even if I felt like my breath was good, have you guys put your nose inside my mouth?
12
SPEAKER_01
No, absolutely not.
12
SPEAKER_01
That is an episode of The Office where Dwight smells Michael s breath and he does just put his nose straight in his mouth and then he says, good, not great.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s not what you wanna hear.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s not, it s not.
12
SPEAKER_00
That means bad.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
You gotta learn how to, and this is how it is in Japan.
12
SPEAKER_00
Like Japan, there s a lot of really subtle stuff.
12
SPEAKER_00
We ve learned this on a couple of different episodes, but there s subtle ways.
12
SPEAKER_00
They re very reluctant to say no directly.
12
SPEAKER_00
So there s like, there s a thing where they won t look you in the eyes, but if they look you in the eyes and say yes, it is a real yes.
12
SPEAKER_00
But similarly, when you re asking someone some feedback, that s very sensitive.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
Anything short of like enormous expletives is probably not great.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
Like, oh, it s fine.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s it s fine.
12
SPEAKER_00
That s not bad.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s bad.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, God.
12
SPEAKER_00
How s this outfit?
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s fine.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s probably not a great breath.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
12
SPEAKER_01
Do you think, okay, because I think if I smelled someone s breath and it was totally neutral, I would say it s fine.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s nothing.
12
SPEAKER_01
You might be able to say- I guess maybe a better choice would be, oh, I don t smell anything.
12
SPEAKER_00
I don t smell anything.
12
SPEAKER_00
I believe that.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay, but you wouldn t say it s great because that means it s minty.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and I want to be clear.
12
SPEAKER_00
I think because I m so obviously not afraid of confrontation, people might assume that I m okay with something like that.
12
SPEAKER_00
I am not.
12
SPEAKER_00
I cannot tell someone they have bad breath.
12
SPEAKER_01
I know.
12
SPEAKER_00
Or that their vagina smells or something.
12
SPEAKER_00
Okay, obviously.
12
SPEAKER_00
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
12
SPEAKER_00
No, because this is what I want to say.
12
SPEAKER_00
I would not, like if I met someone that I really liked but their breath was horrible, I wouldn t have the gumption to confront that.
12
SPEAKER_00
I would just move on to try to find someone else.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh sure, no, it is a deal.
12
SPEAKER_00
Right?
12
SPEAKER_00
You can t do it.
12
SPEAKER_00
What do you mean confront it?
12
SPEAKER_01
It s not, no, it is a deal breaker.
12
SPEAKER_00
And you can t really say anything.
12
SPEAKER_00
You can t say anything.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s too hurtful.
12
SPEAKER_01
But even if you say it, it s over.
12
SPEAKER_01
The attraction s over, it s done.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
It sucks, but that s, it s also pheromones.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but there was a girl I liked that- Had bad breath?
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh, well, okay.
12
SPEAKER_01
It was, say bad breath.
12
SPEAKER_01
She had bad breath.
12
SPEAKER_00
She had bad breath.
12
SPEAKER_00
But I liked her, but I couldn t, I can t, I couldn t do it.
12
SPEAKER_00
And by the way, she might not have had bad breath to everybody.
12
SPEAKER_01
That s what I mean, pheromones.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yes, that s right.
12
SPEAKER_00
There s no accounting for pheromones.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay, but you ve had a range, right?
12
SPEAKER_00
of smells?
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yes, this girl, she was beautiful.
12
SPEAKER_00
She was so beautiful.
12
SPEAKER_00
She was very fun.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we dated for a little while and I totally would have kept dating her.
12
SPEAKER_01
Really?
12
SPEAKER_01
You think you would have married her?
12
SPEAKER_00
Her vagina smelled.
12
SPEAKER_00
And she was so hot.
12
SPEAKER_00
That like only if you were down there with your face?
12
SPEAKER_00
No, when I was having sex I could
13
SPEAKER_00
You could maybe get through it.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
13
SPEAKER_01
If it was that.
13
SPEAKER_01
No, it was, it was, I couldn t escape it while we were having sex.
13
SPEAKER_01
Really?
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, I just can t do it.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I don t, there s nothing they can do about that.
13
SPEAKER_02
I know.
13
SPEAKER_02
No, you can t.
13
SPEAKER_02
You can t.
13
SPEAKER_01
I think it has a lot to do with what you eat.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
What I ve been told by gals who have told me that they, you can change the flora of your vagina.
13
100%.
13
SPEAKER_01
And what bacteria is in your vagina is important too.
13
SPEAKER_02
Microbiome.
13
SPEAKER_02
Microbiome s huge, what you eat, even if you eat something for dinner, sometimes.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s there.
13
SPEAKER_02
It s there, yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
Semen will do that too.
13
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, exactly.
13
SPEAKER_02
It s all the gut.
13
SPEAKER_01
I ve always heard that about semen.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I smelled my semen many times.
13
SPEAKER_01
No, not smell, taste.
13
SPEAKER_01
Okay, I ve only tasted it a few times.
13
SPEAKER_00
No, when I had my wisdom teeth taken out, I was told to have pineapple juice and pineapples.
13
SPEAKER_00
A lot, that it would help with the bleeding.
13
SPEAKER_00
And Natalie said there was a noticeable taste difference.
13
SPEAKER_02
But in a good way?
13
SPEAKER_00
In a good way.
13
SPEAKER_00
She s like, you should have pineapple more.
13
SPEAKER_02
Pineapple is supposed to be good for any of your bodily fluids.
13
SPEAKER_01
Oh, everything.
13
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, for women too.
13
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
13
SPEAKER_02
Pineapple, lemon.
13
SPEAKER_01
Oh, maybe I should start banging some more pineapple.
13
SPEAKER_02
Not that anyone s eating my sperm, so I don t know.
13
SPEAKER_02
Ew, eating sounds like it s chewy or something.
13
SPEAKER_00
I just waited for it to solidify.
13
SPEAKER_02
Oh, God.
13
SPEAKER_02
Wait, also, it s not like every partner of yours, well, correct me if I m wrong, both of you, has the same smell.
13
SPEAKER_01
No.
13
SPEAKER_02
Breath or vagina.
13
SPEAKER_01
No, that s right.
13
SPEAKER_01
Or armpits.
13
SPEAKER_02
Or armpits, yeah.
13
SPEAKER_02
And belly buttons and stuff.
13
SPEAKER_01
Ass.
13
SPEAKER_01
Farts.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_02
So do, now, hmm.
13
SPEAKER_01
What question do we have?
13
SPEAKER_01
Tom Hanson will be so happy that this is part of the fact check because what we barely scratch at is Tom is the biggest pervert in the world.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s why, that s the only thing when I left, like when we left the interview, I was like, that was really lovely and I was really happy that he was so comfortable and it was great.
13
SPEAKER_01
The only thing I thought is I wish they got a little more taste of is like, what our real bond is, is he and I are just like two 10 year olds.
13
SPEAKER_02
He can t.
13
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, he can t.
13
SPEAKER_01
No, he can t.
13
SPEAKER_01
But we have so much fun being
13
SPEAKER_02
He did say that, but he didn t display it so much.
13
SPEAKER_02
But when you have this range of partners, is there like, I like them all the smells, but they re different?
13
SPEAKER_02
Or is it like, this person definitely has a better smell than the other?
13
SPEAKER_02
I m talking people you re in love with, not just partners, but people you ve been in love with.
13
SPEAKER_02
Is it, oh, okay, this is this person s smell, I love it.
13
SPEAKER_02
Now over here s this person s smell, I love it.
13
SPEAKER_02
Or is it like, yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
Well, I would add a third bucket somehow, which would be almost no smell.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s neutral enough that it doesn t really register.
13
SPEAKER_01
You couldn t rank it.
13
SPEAKER_02
But don t you think we all have some smells?
13
SPEAKER_02
Kristen has given me the best compliment ever of my whole life.
13
SPEAKER_02
She said, I have no smell.
13
SPEAKER_01
Right, I would agree.
13
SPEAKER_02
Like in general, she s like, I never smell you.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and Kristen doesn t really have the smell either, which is great.
13
SPEAKER_01
Well, I don t wanna say great, because I ve liked the smell of people too, a lot.
13
SPEAKER_01
It can make me horny as hell.
13
SPEAKER_02
Sure, that s what the whole point of the smell is.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so it s not to say that presence of odor is inherently bad, it s just like- Yeah, it s just when it s bad,
13
SPEAKER_02
It s bad.
13
SPEAKER_00
If it s bad and strong.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
Or even the good and too strong can be.
13
SPEAKER_02
Oh, that s an interesting spin.
13
SPEAKER_02
I think you re just saying that.
13
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if I ve heard, I mean, if it s good for me.
13
SPEAKER_00
Has anyone said it smells too good?
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, I can t stay that way.
13
SPEAKER_00
Our nanny wears really strong perfume.
13
SPEAKER_02
Oh, perfume is different.
13
SPEAKER_00
But the perfume smells fine.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s just good, it s a nice perfume.
13
SPEAKER_00
I got you.
13
SPEAKER_00
But it s very strong.
13
SPEAKER_00
I got you, that makes sense.
13
SPEAKER_00
So I could imagine a partner if it s that strong.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, if you can smell from across the room.
13
SPEAKER_00
But it smells good though.
13
SPEAKER_00
And everyone s clothed.
13
SPEAKER_01
You d like it.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s true.
13
SPEAKER_01
I d wanna get in there.
13
SPEAKER_01
Exactly, it would make you want.
13
SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, that is one of the reigning theories of pubic hair, you know that?
13
SPEAKER_01
The whole reason we have pubic hair above our genitals is that the pheromones get on the pubic hair and the pubic hair dispenses the pheromones.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s a way to dispense pheromones.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s what it s there for.
13
SPEAKER_01
Because if you look at where hair is generally, it s a lubricant.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s in your armpits where the crease of your arm rubs a lot, so it acts as a lubricant.
13
SPEAKER_01
It d be great between your thighs to have, because that s also you need, you know, there s friction there.
13
SPEAKER_01
But above this big tuft of hair we all have, if we re lucky, what s it there for?
13
SPEAKER_01
What s it there for?
13
SPEAKER_01
And then the reigning theory is it is to disperse the pheromones.
13
SPEAKER_02
That s funny, I would imagine it to be the opposite, that it would stop the smell, it would suppress the smell so that you don t get eaten by bears.
13
SPEAKER_01
No, I think the smell would like evaporate into the air.
13
SPEAKER_01
Instead, it s like living in all now this new surface area.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s just increasing surface area by 10 million percent, right?
13
SPEAKER_01
Because each strand has got its own surface area.
13
SPEAKER_01
So it s just covering much more surface area that interacts with the air and disperses.
13
SPEAKER_00
Is it not like eyelashes and eyebrows like to keep things out of your eyes?
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s right.
13
SPEAKER_00
Your genitals from bacteria and like a wall that and that makes total sense.
13
SPEAKER_01
If we had hair around the tip of our penis where urethra is, where we d be taking in the dirt.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you don t have any.
13
SPEAKER_01
We don t have.
13
SPEAKER_01
Well, both.
13
SPEAKER_01
You don t have it on the mouth.
13
SPEAKER_01
You don t have it in your vagina or in the inner labia.
13
SPEAKER_01
You have it on the majora.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
And then you have it on your mom s pubis.
13
SPEAKER_02
A couple hairs.
13
SPEAKER_01
Sure, you re gonna have some errant hairs, but they re not gonna be in your anus.
13
SPEAKER_01
No.
13
SPEAKER_01
Right, but those are, you know, we can kind of see the function of all these things, but eight inches above your penis, it s the pheromones.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s a disperser.
13
SPEAKER_02
I don t know, I m on the fence between you two.
13
SPEAKER_01
All right, well, that ll be your homework, so I m gonna come up with my five.
13
SPEAKER_01
Oh, no, I have enough homework.
13
SPEAKER_01
You need to do a little research on pheromone disbursement.
13
SPEAKER_02
No, no, no, no, no.
13
SPEAKER_02
Wait, so you guys kind of didn t answer.
13
SPEAKER_02
Are you ranking it?
13
SPEAKER_02
Then you added a third option of no smell, which I don t even, I don t.
13
SPEAKER_01
So this weirdly dovetails in the previous kind of debates we ve had or conversations, which is, I don t rank.
13
SPEAKER_01
I loved Carrie.
13
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I loved Brie.
13
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I love Kristen.
13
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
13
SPEAKER_01
They re just, they re different and they can t really be made relative to one another.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think I agree, as long as it s not bad.
13
SPEAKER_00
I think that s the only time you would rank it.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
13
SPEAKER_02
Oh, wow, okay.
13
SPEAKER_02
Anyway.
13
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, there s a wide range.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
Sounded like a little goblin there.
13
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s still a little cold.
13
SPEAKER_02
So I have zero memory of how we got here on this topic.
13
SPEAKER_01
How did we?
13
SPEAKER_02
Tom.
13
SPEAKER_01
Started with breath.
13
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I spit my mint out into Anna s hair.
13
SPEAKER_01
Anna s hair, yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yes, and then it s shocking I don t have bad breath, right, because I m chewing tobacco and stuff.
13
SPEAKER_02
Yes, but you have great breath.
13
SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much.
13
SPEAKER_01
You do.
13
SPEAKER_01
Right back at ya.
13
SPEAKER_01
Rob too, never smelt Rob s breath.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I ve never smelt your breath.
13
SPEAKER_01
We re lucky, because we re in a tight little area.
13
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_02
Oh, it d be so bad.
13
SPEAKER_01
I don t know how we d deal with it.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I wouldn t fire anyone over it.
13
SPEAKER_01
I would just quit the show altogether.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we d have to stop.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I would just quit everything.
13
SPEAKER_01
We d have to just stop.
13
SPEAKER_02
Okay, now, oh, we have to play something.
13
SPEAKER_02
Something amazing happened.
13
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, thank you, thank you, thank you for remembering.
13
SPEAKER_01
Okay, it s on my phone.
13
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so just to set the stage for you, I m downstairs on Saturday watching qualifying in the basement and Lincoln runs downstairs and she s already screaming as she s running down the stairs.
13
SPEAKER_01
Like that s how excited, something huge just happened.
13
SPEAKER_01
Of excitement.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, enormous and she s yelling,
13
SPEAKER_01
They re talking about you on High School Musical.
13
SPEAKER_01
They re talking about you.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I go, what?
13
SPEAKER_01
They just said your name on High School Musical.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I immediately, I m like, Oh God, they probably made fun of me.
13
SPEAKER_01
Of course, they re teasing me.
13
SPEAKER_01
And my poor daughter had to hear it.
13
SPEAKER_01
So, and I m kind of lazy because I m in the middle of qualifying.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I go,
13
SPEAKER_01
Wait, what do you, and she could barely remember exactly.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I go, we go upstairs and record it on my phone and then show me what it is.
13
SPEAKER_01
And then she came down and she showed me this and she s the happiest she s ever been towards me.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s the first time she s been enormously proud to be associated with me.
13
SPEAKER_01
It was the best moment of all time.
13
SPEAKER_01
This is it.
13
SPEAKER_01
This is from High School Musical 3.
13
SPEAKER_00
You didn t have a problem with me kissing a certain 2010s TV star during the reunion song though?
13
SPEAKER_00
The only 2010s TV star I m friends by is Dax Shepard and I m pretty sure lives in the attic now, so.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s so, so amazing.
13
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I think it s like, it s, it s out there with like being on Letterman or something.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yes!
14
SPEAKER_00
And that it s like somehow, for me what s cool is that- The writers like the show.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, or like that they think it s a good enough joke, like a quote, ubiquitous enough joke to have like the attic?
14
SPEAKER_00
To say I m in the attic?
14
SPEAKER_01
Yes!
14
SPEAKER_00
That s crazy.
14
SPEAKER_01
I want to just, I want to thank whatever writer put that in there.
14
SPEAKER_01
Some writer likes the show.
14
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s really sweet.
14
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that made my weekend.
14
SPEAKER_01
That s awesome.
14
SPEAKER_01
She was so excited.
14
SPEAKER_01
It was so funny.
14
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I would have been so excited.
14
SPEAKER_01
It popped up on her favorite show.
14
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much High School Musical 3.
14
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so he mentions the Drake Hotel in Chicago.
14
SPEAKER_00
And when he said that, I know that a lot of people listening are gonna have the same thought I have, which is My Best Friend s Wedding, one of my favorite movies of all time.
14
SPEAKER_00
At the beginning of the movie, they meet at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.
14
SPEAKER_00
So it was really- And they say, Chicago with the Drake Hotel.
14
SPEAKER_01
Oh, so it was nostalgic.
14
SPEAKER_01
It took you back.
14
SPEAKER_00
It did.
14
SPEAKER_00
Made me want to rewatch.
14
SPEAKER_01
I haven t yet.
14
SPEAKER_01
You haven t yet.
14
SPEAKER_01
My prediction is you will, and you will six times.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yep, you got it.
14
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
14
SPEAKER_00
Okay, when I was listening back, his voice sounds so much like Robert Downey Jr., so much.
14
SPEAKER_00
It does?
14
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and cadence, and it s very similar, and they re friends, so I wondered what- For 35 years or something.
14
SPEAKER_00
Right, maybe there was a- Shared.
14
SPEAKER_00
What s it called when like, a molting.
14
SPEAKER_01
Oh yeah, yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
Combining, conflating?
14
SPEAKER_01
Molting.
14
SPEAKER_01
Molting.
14
SPEAKER_01
Okay, we like molting.
14
SPEAKER_01
Molting is shedding your skin.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s kind of what I mean, and then it gets on you, and then it gets absorbed.
14
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well, probably Downey has stolen some of his stuff.
14
SPEAKER_01
I ve stolen some of his stuff.
14
SPEAKER_01
He s great.
14
SPEAKER_00
Transferred.
14
SPEAKER_01
transferred, cross-pollinated.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
We didn t get a full dose of it.
14
SPEAKER_01
But the two things about Tom that I find impossible are there has yet to be a book I ve ever brought up to him that he hasn t read.
14
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
14
SPEAKER_01
I mean, not one, not a single one.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then he s read 10x that, whatever I ve read.
14
SPEAKER_01
And he ll have not read it for 25 years.
14
SPEAKER_01
Like, I had read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which is like one of the most dense books on the planet.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
I just randomly was like, you ever read this book?
14
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then he just basically goes through the entire book from memory 20 years later.
14
SPEAKER_00
It s amazing.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s really outstanding.
14
SPEAKER_01
He s got the best memory.
14
SPEAKER_01
Now, one thing that he won t like, I ve said so many nice things about him.
14
SPEAKER_01
I got to tell one story of his, where he was bested, which I didn t think I d ever see.
14
SPEAKER_01
So I know a lot about cars.
14
SPEAKER_01
I know probably one 10th as much as Tom knows about cars.
14
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
14
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
14
SPEAKER_01
And so I got invited to Jay Leno s garage and my first thought was, can I bring Tom Hanson?
14
SPEAKER_01
So I asked if I could bring Tom and Jay was like, of course.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then those two, oh my God.
14
SPEAKER_01
I wish there was a video of this.
14
SPEAKER_01
Those two started going off, you know, cause we re going through and looking at all the cars, Tom knows all the cars, but they started getting, oh yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
And it had this a single barrel Weber pea shooter.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then Tom would go, oh yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
And it had the vacuum secondaries, no mechanical secondary.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then,
14
SPEAKER_01
They would talk and then I noticed Tom ran out and Jay Leno kept going.
14
SPEAKER_01
And that was the moment I was like, okay, Jay Leno might be the most encyclopedic person on planet earth with machines.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
Because he out Tom Hanson, Tom Hanson, which I d never seen, never thought could happen.
14
SPEAKER_01
That s huge.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of a big shout out to Jay Leno.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it is.
14
SPEAKER_01
I mean, he knows every single bolt that s in every single engine ever made.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s incredible.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s wild.
14
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
14
SPEAKER_00
Okay, for people who don t know, which is probably a lot of people.
14
SPEAKER_01
How into that story before you tuned out?
14
SPEAKER_01
How far did you make it?
14
SPEAKER_01
Do you remember?
14
SPEAKER_01
I think you ve told that story.
14
SPEAKER_00
You have, I do already know it.
14
SPEAKER_00
And then mixed with all the car detail, it was pretty early.
14
SPEAKER_00
Which is like, how long is it gonna go?
14
SPEAKER_00
How many details will we get?
14
SPEAKER_01
Anxiety.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so for people who don t know, which is many people, understandably, Tom told us that he was explaining Judy s career a little bit and how,
14
SPEAKER_00
unbelievable it is.
14
SPEAKER_00
It s very admirable.
14
SPEAKER_00
And in telling that, he said Patrick Whitesell was her assistant.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
14
SPEAKER_00
That is bonkers.
14
SPEAKER_00
Patrick Whitesell, for people who don t know, is Matt s agent, Matt Damon s agent, and Ben, probably.
14
SPEAKER_01
Ben, I thought they were with Ari, but maybe one s with one and one s, Wahlberg s with Ari, I thought, but you re probably right, you re probably right.
14
SPEAKER_00
I know he s Matt.
14
SPEAKER_00
I mean, they all also, people have multiples.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well, for people who, again, no one will know this or care, but there was an agency called Endeavor, and it was started by Ari Emanuel, which people came to know from,
14
SPEAKER_00
Entourage.
14
SPEAKER_01
Entourage, because that was Mark Wahlberg s agent.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then Patrick Whitesell.
14
SPEAKER_00
Well, yeah, the Jeremy Pippen character is based off of Ari.
14
SPEAKER_01
Is based on Ari, and I think he s named Ari.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then Ari Emanuel, which is incredible, is his brother.
14
SPEAKER_00
Rahm Emanuel.
14
SPEAKER_01
Rahm Emanuel was the Chicago mayor.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then the third brother was the Surgeon General or something.
14
SPEAKER_01
Or he was Obama s doctor, personal doctor at the White House.
14
SPEAKER_01
Those are the three boys, the Emanuels.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and there s a good book on them.
14
SPEAKER_00
Oh, there is?
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I forget what it s called, but yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then Adam Vennett.
14
SPEAKER_01
So those three, Patrick Whitesell, Adam Vennett and Ari Emanuel started Endeavor, which then merged or they bought or whatever happened.
14
SPEAKER_01
They became WME, William Morris Endeavor.
14
SPEAKER_01
And they re the big rival to CAA.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
And yes, he was Judy s assistant.
14
SPEAKER_01
He s also devilishly handsome.
14
SPEAKER_00
Right.
14
SPEAKER_00
And I think he actually came up on our episode with Matt about how handsome he is.
14
SPEAKER_00
I remember us talking about that.
14
SPEAKER_00
But anyway, he s huge.
14
SPEAKER_00
He s an enormous agent.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
One of the top five.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
And he was Judy s assistant.
14
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s incredible.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
All right, let s see.
14
SPEAKER_00
Well, oh, is it today?
14
SPEAKER_00
Wait, when did we record with him?
14
SPEAKER_00
Last Thursday.
14
SPEAKER_00
So today is the day that Tom gets his cake.
14
SPEAKER_00
And are you gonna go?
14
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I m going.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
I already told Kristen that I will be.
14
SPEAKER_00
You have to go.
14
SPEAKER_00
Make sure he gets his carrot cake.
14
SPEAKER_00
That s what he wants.
14
SPEAKER_01
He wants carrot cake.
14
SPEAKER_01
All right.
14
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for that.
14
SPEAKER_01
I think I might ve forgot, but I wonder if my other friend who hosts, there won t be 16 carrot cakes there.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well, check with- Tom s very loved in our group, as you can imagine.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
He is very, very loved.
14
SPEAKER_00
He says he wants carrot.
14
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well, I ll make sure he gets some carrot cake.
14
SPEAKER_00
He s got a little sweet tooth.
14
SPEAKER_01
I said- Happy carrot cake.
14
SPEAKER_00
Happy carrot cake day to him.
14
SPEAKER_00
I will.
14
SPEAKER_00
One last thing.
14
SPEAKER_00
We talked about the postal service, the stat.
14
SPEAKER_01
And I keep perpetuating this.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you have a whole theory.
14
SPEAKER_01
I got a whole story about it.
14
SPEAKER_00
But what you did say is that you have to take this test to pass, to become one.
14
SPEAKER_00
And okay, I have a friend who just applied to work at the library, a librarian, front desk.
14
SPEAKER_00
And she had to take an insane two hour test.
14
SPEAKER_01
Like the LSAT.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and you had to show your computer around the whole room to make sure that you weren t cheating, like no calculators, you weren t allowed to have anything, and she didn t pass.
14
SPEAKER_01
She didn t.
14
SPEAKER_00
No, and she s very smart.
14
SPEAKER_01
Right.
14
SPEAKER_01
Now imagine what the Postal Service Test is.
14
SPEAKER_00
No, for me it s, what the fuck are we doing that we re making it that, if my friend can t get a job at the library,
14
SPEAKER_00
when we walk around and say, like, people can just get jobs.
14
SPEAKER_00
No, they can t.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well, not at the library.
14
SPEAKER_00
But you should be able to get a job at the library as a front desk employee.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well, what s crazy to me is you re gonna have to pass this test that would get you into graduate school, but then you re gonna get a very, very modest wage for it.
14
SPEAKER_00
That s what I m saying.
14
SPEAKER_00
This is an entry-level job.
14
SPEAKER_00
They re asking like the best of the best.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
people entry level should be able to get it.
14
SPEAKER_00
I think you get benefits.
14
SPEAKER_01
I hate to speculate this, but I think a lot of these early and now vestigial policies were when they were singling out how to exclude people.
14
SPEAKER_00
They were, that s my whole point.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they wanna like figure out how to not have certain people there, and they just figure out what thing they can.
14
100%.
14
SPEAKER_01
What hurdle they can present.
14
SPEAKER_01
That makes it look like it s even, but it s not.
14
SPEAKER_00
Exactly, that was my main takeaway is, oh, this is an old racist,
14
SPEAKER_01
Exclusionary.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, practice.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
It s so crazy.
14
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, I just hated that.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was kind of like, you know, there was a competency test given in the South during Reformation to get your voting rights.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
You know, you had to be literate or you had to be this.
14
SPEAKER_01
I was like, why?
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
14
SPEAKER_00
What does that have to do with anything?
14
SPEAKER_01
I can show up, I can vote.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we have not only calculators, we have, you don t have to do anything.
14
SPEAKER_00
You type in numbers, it comes up with, like, there s nothing.
14
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t even acknowledge the reality of the world we live in anymore.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s like a test from the 80s.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I just thought that was shocking and alarming.
14
SPEAKER_01
I want to take the test now.
14
SPEAKER_01
Do you want to see if I can pass?
14
SPEAKER_00
I won t pass.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well, you don t know that yet.
14
SPEAKER_00
I probably won t.
15
SPEAKER_00
Let s get our hands on this task.
15
SPEAKER_02
Okay, we ll do it on here.
15
SPEAKER_00
All right, two hour fact check.
15
SPEAKER_02
And I ll read Taylor Swift s commencement speech.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
15
SPEAKER_02
So that s gonna be it.
15
SPEAKER_01
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
15
SPEAKER_01
I love you.
15
SPEAKER_02
Love you.