Rob Lowe

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome.

[1] I tried to go extra low.

[2] Did you?

[3] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[4] I'm Dan Shepard.

[5] How low can you go?

[6] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[7] That's low.

[8] Let me try.

[9] It sounds like a little kid tries to make an adult voice.

[10] It does.

[11] I don't want to go to school.

[12] That's about the best I can do.

[13] Welcome, welcome, welcome.

[14] That's a whole different thing.

[15] Yeah, that's a different thing.

[16] Okay.

[17] Boy, I'm sorry, Roblo.

[18] Roblo, well, your name, the audience didn't hear your name.

[19] Oh, miniature mouse padman.

[20] Minter mouse pad.

[21] Today we have Roblo.

[22] You know Roblo, God damn.

[23] If you don't know Roblo, throw your phone out the window.

[24] Well, no, just get to know him.

[25] No, if you don't know him, crash your car into a telephone pole.

[26] Oh, my goodness.

[27] Roblo is an actor, producer, and director.

[28] He's also a damn good writer, as we'll get into.

[29] He has won two Screen Actors Guild Awards been nominated for six Golden Globes and nominated for a primetime Emmy.

[30] He's been in some of my favorite movies, of course, outsiders at the top of that list, which we talk a bunch about.

[31] There's so much tasty gossip in this episode, more than normal.

[32] It is.

[33] It feels like you're getting a real inside scoop on some old Hollywood tales.

[34] Yeah, I really loved talking around.

[35] And he has a podcast as well.

[36] You can listen and subscribe to literally with Rob Lowe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and all your major podcast apps.

[37] That is coming soon.

[38] So keep your eyes peeled for literally with Rob Lowe.

[39] Please enjoy Mr. Rob Lowe.

[40] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and add free right now.

[41] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[42] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[43] So where are you at Monocito, where are you at right now?

[44] I'm up in Montecito, where I live, and I'm hunkered down with my wife and my two boys and one of their friends.

[45] And we've been like, you know, we're just counting the days.

[46] I know I am, but I think we're both addicts, right?

[47] So we love isolation anyways, right?

[48] Last night, everybody's making a part.

[49] puzzle and I was like, good night.

[50] I am off to isolate.

[51] Yeah, I'm like you.

[52] If isolation were in the Olympics, I'd be Michael Phelps, multiple gold weather and in isolation.

[53] Yeah.

[54] But did we have different things?

[55] I really enjoyed the powder variety of that, cocaine.

[56] Were you, were you a powder variety?

[57] I like the old school references.

[58] Tutski, Bolivian marching powder, schnay, Schneid, Gack.

[59] Oh, Gack.

[60] Gack was always such the gross.

[61] Like Gack came out right before everybody started doing speed, right, I think.

[62] Right, right, right.

[63] You had money during your addiction and I was pretty broke, so I was getting mostly Gack with a lot of gasoline in it, I think.

[64] Yeah, the baby diuretic was always my go -to.

[65] Oh, good.

[66] So you had the whole cornucopia then, right?

[67] You enjoyed all the stuff.

[68] I enjoyed pretty much all of it.

[69] But like anything else, for me, it always started with that first Hineken or whatever it was.

[70] Like, it was like, I'm just having a beer.

[71] It's Monday night football with the boys.

[72] I'm just having a beer.

[73] Then, you know, two days later, I'm still staring at the screen, but there's nothing on it.

[74] Same, same, same, same.

[75] I'm like, I'm going to have a beer while I cook dinner and then literally cut to three days later.

[76] Like, did I even finish that dinner?

[77] Did we eat it?

[78] Well, you know you didn't eat it.

[79] That much, I didn't do that, right?

[80] And then, yeah.

[81] It starts at something really social, and then I always found myself, you know, the end of it, just firing off emails, you know, four or five page emails, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, so much to say, so eloquent, so articulate, brum.

[82] It's like the scene in Jerry McGuire.

[83] Yes.

[84] He's all screwed up and he writes something and he can't take back.

[85] Did you ever write anything to anybody that you regretted?

[86] Almost all of them.

[87] And in the clear light of day, I was like, no one wants to be this intimate with me. No one wants to hear this sexual of thought.

[88] Yeah, none of it was within the parameters of what a normal person wants to hear.

[89] See, I got lucky in that I got out of the game before Coke was really cheap, before there was Viagra, before there was gnarly sleeping pills easily available, and before FaceTime and all of that.

[90] Because that combination, yeah, would have killed me. Oh, I just missed it, man. there would be a video record trail of all of my middle brain reptilian thoughts and actions documented forever.

[91] There's no question about it.

[92] Yeah, no, it's, I look back on it and go, I'm actually glad I did all that.

[93] I really am, because I got it all out of my system and I learned so much and it makes me laugh.

[94] And a lot of it was fucking awesome.

[95] Or we wouldn't have done it.

[96] Yep, agreed.

[97] I want all those memories.

[98] I just don't want to do it anymore.

[99] 100%.

[100] How long ago was that?

[101] You have a long.

[102] time right if things go to plan i'll be 30 years in may fucking a dude that is amazing thank congratulations yeah so over the 30 years so i've been clean for about 15 and a half years and some things have come out where i'm like dang i think i would have enjoyed that now so i'm curious like ecstasy wasn't a thing right 30 years ago do you do you ever feel sad that you didn't i took a stab at it but the problem it was new by the way i was shooting a movie in Dallas, Texas, called Square Dance.

[103] The nightclub that was there was called the Stark Club.

[104] Oh, that's a very famous, very famous, and there's a documentary, but they, they would give you ecstasy when you walked in the door.

[105] What?

[106] Yeah, it was not illegal, and it was like invented, and I'm going to get this wrong, but it was like invented in some laboratory there, and it was meant as a mind awakened, but it was not illegal.

[107] And it was at the very, very beginning.

[108] And I went there, of course.

[109] And they would hand it out to you.

[110] But that was its earliest iteration.

[111] So I always wondered, did they make it better?

[112] Did they make it worse?

[113] Good for you.

[114] Good for you.

[115] So yes.

[116] So I happen to know the history of it because I'm a junkie.

[117] And the Germans invented it, right?

[118] Part of their war reparations is we got all the patents to their medicine.

[119] And so it was just that formula for MDMA was sitting in a book.

[120] Someone decided to concoct it.

[121] They tried it.

[122] They thought, oh, this has therapeutic.

[123] purposes.

[124] They started using it in Texas for therapy, and then it made its way to that nightclub you went to, you lucky motherfucker, unicorn.

[125] And then it took off.

[126] But I took ecstasy, right?

[127] So it was probably cut with meth quite often or heroin or whatever.

[128] But now I understand Molly is just pure MDMA.

[129] And I have friends that say there's no hangover.

[130] And I'm like, are you kidding me?

[131] I could have that experience and no hangover.

[132] That exists a date.

[133] I know.

[134] The other thing I always kind of liked a little bit, like only a once or twice a year was magic mushrooms because I laughed and laughed.

[135] Yeah.

[136] There's also part of me that's really into, what is it, where it goes down to the rainforest and does.

[137] Oh, ayahuasca.

[138] I think it'd be fun to see visions and learn about the universe of secrets, right?

[139] I agree.

[140] I agree.

[141] You know, I'm on the fence, you know, because Michael Pollan wrote this great book about it.

[142] And there are definite therapeutic, you know, advantages to that, to diminishing your sense of self.

[143] I do think, I mean, I don't trust myself to administer it, but, you know, I could see not being very judgmental if someone did it with a therapist and stuff.

[144] Well, there's also a school of thought that it helps addiction in some way.

[145] I know people who've tried it in that capacity, but the people that I know who've done it and gotten a lot from it were the people who are doing as a sort of spiritual mind awakening, zen, meditation, whatever the hell kind of thing.

[146] But I also don't want to be like the story that I always heard.

[147] I don't know if it's true is that Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys literally took one hit of acid and was never the same.

[148] Right, right.

[149] One.

[150] You never know what's in the stew, right?

[151] All it takes is one bad incident and you're done.

[152] I mean, that's, how old are your kids, by the way?

[153] Because I'm wondering what you tell them about drugs because I've been through it with my boys.

[154] I'm so glad you just said that because I was going to ask you the same thing, which is I am pro my children doing mushrooms at some point.

[155] I do think it, well, A, there's a lot of different studies that have pretty conclusively shown that you have long lasting creative advantages, right?

[156] Like people who have done mushrooms have markedly more creativity that last.

[157] So, yeah, I guess I'm going to tell my girls to do shrooms and to smoke pot and to drink and just don't do cocaine or open.

[158] If you don't do those two things, you'll likely be able to do all the other ones for the rest of your life.

[159] But if you get involved with those two, it's probably going to end the party, or at least it did for me. How about you?

[160] What's your stance?

[161] Well, I agree with all of that.

[162] The wild card, though, is Adderall.

[163] Because that's what kids today are doing is, like, they tell me that why would we do Coke when we can do Adderall?

[164] And everyone has it, right?

[165] And everybody has it.

[166] And, you know, like from my oldest son, Matthew, it saved his life.

[167] studying.

[168] Literally, he, I mean, went to Duke, graduated there, went to Loyola Law School, graduated there, passed the bar.

[169] That kid doesn't pass any of those tests, for sure.

[170] Yeah.

[171] Without at all.

[172] It's a great thing, but it's so easily abused.

[173] And they're doing it, for sure.

[174] Now, do you think you had any ADHD or any of that stuff growing up?

[175] Oh, for sure.

[176] When all my kids got tested with every battery of everything you could, I made the mistake of doing it as well.

[177] Uh -huh.

[178] And part of it was...

[179] an IQ test.

[180] And an IQ test is a whole thing.

[181] It's like not the version we were given, if maybe you were given it in school where it's like five pages and it's kind of over.

[182] It's like seven different tests and it's very, very, very in depth.

[183] And it turns out I have the mental capacity of like a nine -year -old.

[184] No. Oh, no, I'm telling you, I should never have done it because had I known what my eye, what my IQ is, I would never, I wouldn't leave the house.

[185] I'd be like, what's the point?

[186] I'm not gonna amount to anything.

[187] I'm never gonna be able to accomplish anything, but on a certain part of it, I was like superhuman.

[188] Right.

[189] Superhuman.

[190] Like the other, I've never seen anybody test this high in this one.

[191] And then in the other, he was just looking at me like all the sort of spatial stuff where it's like a giant game of Tetris.

[192] And I'm like, I don't know how to put that shape.

[193] with that shape.

[194] It was really insane.

[195] That kind of begs the question.

[196] I always wonder, I mean, there's clearly, and I'm not making a case against it, but there's clearly advantages to labeling kids things.

[197] But at the same time, I worry what labels do.

[198] So to your point, if you found out when you were 18 that you, you know, you were scoring in ninth grade level, you know, wouldn't that have limited you?

[199] Wouldn't you have readjusted your sights?

[200] It is not just that.

[201] It's the ignorance is bliss thing.

[202] I mean, you know this stat, I'm sure.

[203] And whenever I tell other people that they're just shocked that in the Screen Actors Guild, right?

[204] Now, this is the Guild you're in, if you're lucky enough to be a professional actor, right?

[205] So in that guild, 99 % of the Guild does not make enough money to support themselves.

[206] Yes, yes.

[207] Now, if you'd have told me that when I was having to decide whether I was going to go to USC to study, you know, whatever it was going to be marine biology or whatever, or drop out to go do a movie, I'd have been like, maybe I better stick with this marine biology thing.

[208] Yeah, yeah.

[209] I totally agree.

[210] Now, on that topic, I have loved you as someone who grew up watching Youngblood, class.

[211] I'm like, yes, I want an older woman.

[212] I want my buddy's mom.

[213] I mean, whatever you were doing on screen, I'm like, sign me the fuck up.

[214] So I had that version of you.

[215] And then, as someone who loves to read Vanity Fair, they published an excerpt, maybe it was an entire chapter of your book stories I only tell my friends.

[216] That's one of the best things I've ever read in Vanity Fair.

[217] I was like, this motherfucker is a great writer.

[218] And what I gathered from reading it was, thank God it seems like you were a little aware of what an experience I'm having.

[219] Like it doesn't seem like it just blew by you, right?

[220] So I'm, of course, talking about you getting cast and outsiders.

[221] well first of all thank you for that and it's funny talking to a fellow actor there was a time when being on the cover of vanity fair was like you'd arrived it was on the list of winning this award and winning that award and you know throughout my movie career and even into the westway i'd never been on the cover of vanity fair and that i got the cover finally and it wasn't about acting it was about my writing yeah is one of the weirdest universe message things ever so i'm i'm really proud out of that.

[222] But yes, when I was going through the outsider's process, we all knew it was, I mean, first of all, look, it was Coppola.

[223] Right at apocalypse now was still in the zeitgeist, but the movie that was out at the time was one from the heart, which was really controversial on the cover of Time magazine, really expensive.

[224] He, you know, bet it all on it.

[225] It didn't really perform.

[226] And so he was the guy and, you know, the godfather, his body of work.

[227] And the notion that he was going to make a movie with nothing but young actors in it.

[228] My memory of it is auditioning for months, like months.

[229] And every single breathing actor that you remotely knew you would see there because everybody did it at the same time.

[230] And it was just, there would never be another casting situation like that because it's actually not allowed.

[231] You can't have an actor come in for nine o 'clock reading and not send them home until 10 o 'clock at night.

[232] You can't do that.

[233] You can't do Right.

[234] Francis was not a big rule follower.

[235] Yeah.

[236] The best time to work with anyone is you work with a genius that just got his ass kicked or her ass kicked.

[237] And like, that's when you want to work with that person.

[238] When they're on fire again to reclaim their brilliance.

[239] And that was that time.

[240] But I think what would be fascinating to people is, you know, you were born in Virginia and then you went to, did you do junior high in Dayton, Ohio?

[241] I moved from Dayton out here in the seventh grade.

[242] What age had you?

[243] you moved to Dayton, Ohio?

[244] Oh, I was six months old.

[245] So I was just literally born in Virginia.

[246] And my dad was, had graduated law school there.

[247] And they moved immediately to his job in Dayton.

[248] And that's really where I grew up until I was about 12 or 13.

[249] Okay.

[250] And now I was just up I 75, about three hours from you in Michigan.

[251] And so I have to imagine that the childhoods were somewhat similar, right?

[252] Like I got to, I got to imagine like brute strength ruled the day.

[253] Is that, is that accurate?

[254] Brute strength, tough skin, Levyon.

[255] I remember rolling into Malibu in the summer of 1976 in what I would have worn in Ohio at the time and just having people want to pound me because I didn't wear shorts.

[256] You didn't wear shorts in the summer.

[257] You were cut off Levi's, maybe.

[258] Yeah.

[259] Back where we came from, moving from Ohio to Malibu was insane because Malibu in those days was like, Lord of the Flies meets the ice storm meets ordinary people.

[260] people meets boogie nights, meets endless summer, but directed by swingers on blow.

[261] Okay.

[262] Now, so, and again, I'm going to be projecting a bit, and I'm going to make some assumptions, and I never mean to offend in this process.

[263] But I have to imagine, what a graceful relocation for you, because you're gorgeous and you're artistic, and that might not have been the best place for you to explore that, Dagen, Ohio.

[264] Here's what's interesting about it.

[265] and life is nothing, if not unexpected.

[266] You're right.

[267] But in Dayton, I had found my people.

[268] Like, I had found the theater group, and I was doing every young actor part.

[269] And then I moved to California, which you think would be a hotbed of it because it's near Hollywood.

[270] But in those days, you know, Malibu might as well have been five million miles away.

[271] It was before our business turned completely to feature young people.

[272] It was still an adult's only business.

[273] And they weren't having what I, I was pretty.

[274] I was like, Artie.

[275] And everybody there was like a rough hewn, blonde Adonis beach volleyball playing, you know, which I beach volleyball.

[276] What the hell?

[277] I'll play, you know, I'll play tackle football with you down at the school yard, but I'm not doing that.

[278] So it actually was even worse for me, weirdly enough, Oh, interesting.

[279] Yeah.

[280] And you went to Santa Monica High, right?

[281] I went to Malibu Park Junior High School.

[282] It's now the high school.

[283] And then Santa Monica High and a bunch of great, I mean, the Penns, Sean and Chris Penn were in my orbit.

[284] Charlie Sheen and Emilio, Robert Downey Jr. was in my history class.

[285] Whoa.

[286] Yeah, I just want to really, I want to just, for anyone who's not read your book or read that article, I happen to have a really great friend Larry Trilling who went to school there at that time as well and yeah he was telling me who the classmates were I think it's inconceivable to someone that lives in Michigan that you could be in a high school with fucking Sean Penn, Chris Penn the Sheen brothers and RDJ I mean that's bonkers and we didn't think anything of it and frankly I was the one who was really into acting already I'm trying to think of any of the of that group was they were sort of vaguely interested but I was, I fancied myself.

[287] And Sean Penn was in that bad boys movie quite young, wasn't he?

[288] Yeah, but that was still much later because he did bad boys right before I did class.

[289] Oh, wow.

[290] Who's older?

[291] Sean's older than I am.

[292] I think he's three years.

[293] Because he was never in my, let's see, yeah, he's three years older.

[294] Emilio was a two years older.

[295] Charlie was a year younger.

[296] I was Chris Penn's age.

[297] And Downey and I are exactly the same age.

[298] Okay.

[299] So imagine being a young lady.

[300] What was it history you guys were in together?

[301] What fucking class were in?

[302] Downie and I were in history together.

[303] Okay, not a chance any gale is learning a fucking thing about history.

[304] Nope, nope, no, no. Who would you look to your left at Rob Lowe or look to your right at Downey?

[305] It's not even fair.

[306] It's like, uh, no one cared.

[307] How is that possible?

[308] No one cared about me or him.

[309] They did not.

[310] Oh, wait.

[311] Is it because you guys weren't big beach bum thugs?

[312] We weren't on the football team.

[313] We were on the baseball team.

[314] We weren't beach volleyball players.

[315] We also weren't like gnarly weirdo whatever's either.

[316] We were just like regular, vaguely artistic.

[317] Frankly, a little bit of pleasures to have in class a little bit.

[318] Okay.

[319] Okay.

[320] I like the sound of all of this.

[321] I mean, Downey famously was in madrigal.

[322] which I love.

[323] Do you know what madrigals are?

[324] Did you ever have madrigals in your high school?

[325] No. It's, uh, this is how much public education has changed.

[326] It was a, a choir that sang only Latin hymns.

[327] Oh my goodness.

[328] Oh, of course.

[329] Yeah.

[330] Talk about niche.

[331] Can you imagine our DJ hitting that, uh, that kind of shit was brilliant.

[332] Well, he has an outstanding voice, so I can't say I'm that shocked.

[333] Yeah.

[334] Okay.

[335] So when you went on this audition for outsiders, are you seeing all these different classmates i assume that many of those guys all read for that as well no so what i was getting at was a lot of them hadn't made the choice to be pro actors yet like charlie was going to be a pro baseball player he could he could throw the ball in the high 80s at that point he was really really good i think sean was nibbling around the edges amelia was thinking about it and by the time outsiders rolled around he was definitely in the hunt but yeah it was crazy you'd like Mickey Rourke would roll in, stinking to high heaven on roller skates and in a fur coat or something.

[336] Yeah, and then you'd have like, you know, Scott Bayo from Happy Days would be doing a two -hander scene with, you know, the kid from E .T. It was insane.

[337] It was really crazy.

[338] So you were pretty darn close to Charlie, right?

[339] You spent a lot of time at their house and Martin kind of took you under his wing, as I recall in that.

[340] Because your parents got divorced, right?

[341] Is that preceded moving to Malibu?

[342] That's right.

[343] Yeah.

[344] So I We moved out with my mom and her new boyfriend, soon to be my new stepfather.

[345] And so did you think Martin was like just kind of hip to that and wanted to be, you know, extra supportive?

[346] You know what he was?

[347] He was the neighborhood cool dad.

[348] Like every neighborhood has that dad that like might bum you smoke.

[349] You know, if you're, if he's in the right mood, maybe he'd buy you some beer down at the market, maybe.

[350] Uh -huh.

[351] But for sure, always pick you up when you're hitchhiking.

[352] Sure.

[353] That was Martin.

[354] he was that guy yeah oh that's fantastic having come from dayton you had to be starstruck by the whole thing right that you like a year ago you're fucking doing god knows what in dayton and now you're sitting in martin sheen's living room and apocalypse now was just a few years ago i mean malibu didn't have that many famous people in it then so martin was very famous he was one the few actors that lived there but he was never around because he was doing this movie apocalypse now and so he was never around and then he came home from that movie Apocalypse Now and it was all very mysterious and Which in ways might have been worse than Vietnam itself for certain people.

[355] Well, for him, for sure.

[356] I remember when I got the outsiders, I asked Martin about it because he'd obviously been through the ringer with Francis and I said, do you have any advice?

[357] And he said, if Francis asked you to do something you don't want to do, don't do it I thought I don't even want to know where that's coming from but I'm taking the advice you guys what you shot that in Arkansas right Oklahoma oh Oklahoma Tulsa one of my favorite parts of your story is getting to the hotel checking in learning that Francis in his wisdom has given the socias the actresses they're in better rooms and they have more per diem totally and when you're checking in, you're checking in with the young Tom Cruise.

[358] Yep.

[359] And you, the room is not to his liking.

[360] Is that, is that how the story goes?

[361] Yes.

[362] That part of it was when we went to New York.

[363] All the LA people survived the LA auditions and then had the handpicked people had to go to New York to face the New York version.

[364] And so it was me and Tom Cruise and Emilio and C. Thomas Howell.

[365] And we got, first time I ever stayed at the Plaza Hotel.

[366] And we just, check in and Tom finds out that we're sharing a room.

[367] Okay, that's the...

[368] And just goes ballistic.

[369] And you know what?

[370] To me, what's great about the story is there's certain people who have always been who they are and that element of them has powered them to where they are today and the rest is history.

[371] And the notion that a 18 -year -old actor with a walk -on, part in endless love and like a seventh lead in taps yeah could have that kind of like wherewithal yeah you know i remember going wow this guy is the real deal i mean it made me laugh and it was gnarly but at the end of it you can't argue with the results he's at his eye on the ball since day one that's what i liked about it too it's like no one knocks on anyone's door and says hey you want to fucking be in 12 mission impossibles it's not how it works like those people they're that way and they make it happen i thought there's something you know oddly interesting about that i've gone down the rabbit hole recently of watching these um youtube behind the scenes of mission impossible all the stunts that tom's doing and top yes and i and it took me back man to being in the tulsa gymnasium where we had to learn to do back flips for for whatever reason and Francis had it in his head that he wanted us to do backflip.

[372] I mean, Francis had a lot of ideas that I don't know what was going on.

[373] But, you know, you've ever tried to do backflip?

[374] It's really scary.

[375] Like, you think you're going to fall and break your neck.

[376] It's not easy.

[377] I hold people who can do backflips on the same level as Rhodes Scholars.

[378] I literally, I think it's the most fantastic physical feat someone can do.

[379] And it's hard as fuck to learn.

[380] And Tom was relentlessly competitive.

[381] He ended up being the only one who can do it backflict.

[382] It is in the movie, The Outsiders, for no reason.

[383] Oh, I remember it.

[384] He runs out of the house and does a backclip for no reason just to do it.

[385] But that's what people who do backflips.

[386] That is what they do.

[387] They are for no reason.

[388] Yes, our friend Ryan Hanson does them every couple hours.

[389] It's a thing.

[390] There's also a really sweet fence stunt.

[391] And I want to say, was that cruise too or was that Swayze?

[392] Someone takes the fence and they do kind of a gymnastic move and then they, who was that?

[393] that's Patrick showing off his like gnarly gymnast ballet skills because it's got a little bit of a ballet undertone to it absolutely there's an elegance to it that's undeniable we were all trying to pull focus the movie is nothing but a bunch of like seven shots I remember when they were doing the first trailer they wanted to find close -ups of the actors and I only have like two of them in the movie.

[394] They could barely find one because everybody's in a three shot or a four shot.

[395] So everybody was doing everything they could to pull focus.

[396] Finally, I figured like I had this scene where I was in a shower and I decided to like do the whoopsie doodle, oh, my towel almost fell.

[397] Because I figured like that was my only quiver in my thing that I could do to pull focus.

[398] Well, the other thing I fucking love, I mean, the fact that you're like, Swayze had already lived 20.

[399] lives.

[400] Like he was already a carpenter, a ballerina, a football star, a gymnast.

[401] I was a nuclear physicist before I auditioned for Francis.

[402] I mean, like, I mean, I don't know how much of it was, here's the thing is, I know for sure some of it had to have been bullshit, but everything I ever checked on was true.

[403] You'd be like, wait a minute, he didn't qualify for the Olympics in archery, did he?

[404] And then you'd make a few phone calls and find out, yeah.

[405] I mean, he was, he could, there was nothing that man couldn't do.

[406] Nothing.

[407] Literally nothing he couldn't do.

[408] On Youngblood, he, he's one of those guys where like you, you get in the van to go to work and you realize they've been up all night, you know what I'm saying?

[409] But I'm like, what are you doing?

[410] He's like, I'm working on my music.

[411] And I'm like, okay.

[412] So he would like work on his music and do upside down pushups against the wall, you know?

[413] Like that was his, his jam at night.

[414] And he kept trying to get us to put this.

[415] song, she's like the wind in Youngblood.

[416] And we were like, not putting that fucking awful song in this movie.

[417] It's not happening.

[418] And two years later, it's a number one hit from Dirty Dancing.

[419] God bless him.

[420] Oh my God.

[421] Do you realize he's saying that song, Monica?

[422] I had no idea.

[423] I'm sure he did the sound engineering and everything on it.

[424] Wow.

[425] So, yeah, you guys did youngbloods together.

[426] Did you get on with him pretty well?

[427] I loved him.

[428] He was awesome.

[429] I guess he really looking back on it wasn't that much older, but he was married and he'd been married a number of of years.

[430] So his life to me seemed like two lifetimes ahead of where I would be.

[431] So I really looked at him much more like a brother or a father figure almost than a peer for sure because he'd lived a thousand lifetimes already by the time I knew him.

[432] He was an iron man. He would go and go and go and go and go and go and go.

[433] Yeah.

[434] Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[435] up guys, it's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good, and I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[436] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation, and I don't mean just friends, I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[437] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[438] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcast.

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[447] Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music.

[448] Now, around that time, was there someone's career you were emulating or that you wanted to be?

[449] Oh, yeah, I was a big Paul Newman guy.

[450] Oh, good fucking pick.

[451] And then, you know, there was a little, you know, a little bit of Redford, too, and Beatty.

[452] Paul's my favorite.

[453] He was my guy.

[454] He was what it meant to be an actor, a movie star, a public figure, all of it.

[455] He was my guy.

[456] Yeah.

[457] Those movies were so great.

[458] They made me want to be in movies of those movies.

[459] Yeah.

[460] Yeah, it's funny because, you know, your shit made me want to be in movies.

[461] And it all kind of, is it weird?

[462] It's got to be weird to, you look at people, right?

[463] And then you become those people.

[464] and yet you don't feel like you could possibly be one of those people, right?

[465] There's like some kind of level of fraudulateness that you feel.

[466] Oh, yeah.

[467] When you say that, I go, that's, well, he's clearly high again on something.

[468] That can't possibly be big.

[469] Yeah, you never think that you are in the category of your heroes.

[470] I don't think, I think that's possible.

[471] That's right.

[472] And don't you think, and this is part of a sobriety thing, an a -ish thing, is you have a fantasy, and then you think, well, when I become Paul Newman, or whoever, they'll be an accompanying feeling.

[473] I'm going to feel a certain way, and I'm going to look in the mirror and see myself in a new way.

[474] And then when you get there, and that has not happened, even on my lesser level, I certainly thought it'd feel a certain way that it didn't.

[475] And I wonder, do you think that's part of where addiction plays so perfectly into it is that you've gotten to this thing and you had this fantasy, now here I am and I have this in the bank account, and I'm on this poster, and yet where's the magic self -esteem I was supposed to get well that's when people go he had everything i don't understand how he could all he was famous and he was rich or she was famous and rich and how could she throw it all at whatever i go well that's exactly when you do it yeah it's exactly when you do it because it doesn't fix you you chase and chase and and when you get the holy grail everything's going to be unicorns and roses and it's going to fill that hole and then you you get on the cover of vanity fair you get that big movie or you get the big payday or you get the girl, you voice, like, whatever it is, and you're still the same person?

[476] Brutal.

[477] Yeah.

[478] I got to say, I mean, that is what led to my sobriety was like, I had every one of the things I had hoped to have, and I was at my most miserable point of my life.

[479] And that's when it gets scary.

[480] You're like, oh, I can't even tell myself, oh, if I just had that fucking job, I'd feel better, because now you know, no, nothing's going to do it.

[481] I think that's true for all of us.

[482] I mean, I know.

[483] Yeah.

[484] I know it is for me, and I've heard people over the years share that exact same story who've had success beyond anything even you and I could ever dream of.

[485] And they talk about it didn't fix that.

[486] I like to describe it.

[487] It's that vague feeling of either oncoming train, malaise, however you want to describe it.

[488] For me, that's what it feels like, for sure.

[489] Yeah.

[490] Now, another great thing about your story that I like and I can relate to is just the fucking ebbs and flows that are just unavoidable.

[491] And I guess if you have 30 years, you at least probably had some toolkit to help with that.

[492] But one thing I'll say about sobriety is it does teach you humility in a way that nothing else really can.

[493] Yep.

[494] And being humble can be the saving grace of a long career.

[495] that's going to have ebbs and flows.

[496] Yeah, I mean, like, I spent the 80s working on my career and I spent the 90s working on myself.

[497] And I got sober in the 90s.

[498] I got married in the 90s.

[499] I had kids in the 90s.

[500] And none of it happens without getting sober in the first place.

[501] And, you know, for me, what I've learned in recovery is so in my DNA at this point that every decision I make is through that prism.

[502] And it makes everything so much easier.

[503] It makes being quarantined that.

[504] It's literally we're now in a moment where it is this serenity prayer come to life.

[505] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[506] And so you and I are like, we have a PhD in this shit.

[507] A lot of people don't.

[508] Yeah.

[509] Yeah, all my online meetings, everyone's saying that nonstop.

[510] Like, oh, we kind of wired for this.

[511] We are wired for this moment.

[512] And also through the ebbs and flows of career, the sort of tools you learn in the program really, really help.

[513] I was always really aware that the good news is that you have ebbs and flows because that means you've survived long enough to have them because there are plenty of people who'd go through a hot streak and then it just kind of, that was all they had to offer.

[514] Yeah, yeah.

[515] So all my contemporaryish heroes, whether it's Travolta or Michael Douglas and, you know, guys who've been hot and cold and cold and hot and hot and cold and it just never changes, but they're always there and they're always great.

[516] And that's kind of what I like.

[517] Now, I would say it would be even more challenging for you, but I don't think anyone that goes into this has an easy time not making their identity the job.

[518] And I think it's compounded by the fact that literally when you're 19, the ride starts pretty much.

[519] And for the next 10 years, you're here for three months, you're there for three months, you're everywhere, right?

[520] So you're not doing any of the other things that people might do to acquire an identity or to anchor an identity.

[521] and then all of a sudden that identity changes, it has to be a very profound.

[522] Was that what the 90s was about, is learning like who you are aside from this job you've taken on?

[523] 100 % because for me it actually started at 15.

[524] I got my first network television series and I went from being the guy in high school.

[525] Everybody thought was a theater nerd to I remember vividly the day the show came out.

[526] We were in front of a live audience and then the audience was screaming for.

[527] me like the Thursday before they weren't screaming didn't know who I was the next Thursday they were screaming and crying uh -huh and I was exactly the same guy so from 15 then on to you know till I'm 26 it's just a whirlwind and I don't know anything about nothing until I get sober and then and then I learn who I am and that has been the greatest journey of my life for sure so I got to imagine being a husband becomes one of those identities being a father becomes one of those identities.

[528] What have you shifted around and made the kind of bedrock of who you are?

[529] For sure.

[530] It was husband because it all happened at the same time.

[531] So my wife and I married now 29 years.

[532] I got sober a year before we got together and then had our boys.

[533] And they're 24 and 26.

[534] And it's really based on family 100%.

[535] And a person of recovery, I try to be authentic to who I am.

[536] And then all the work stuff is really truly second.

[537] It really.

[538] really actually 100 % is.

[539] How long have you been up in Santa Barbara?

[540] Was that part of the...

[541] That was part of it.

[542] The minute we had our first child, Matthew, I think he was six months old.

[543] And I remember vividly, because we had to think about preschool.

[544] I remember it like it was yesterday.

[545] They were like, oh, you got to start thinking about preschool.

[546] I'm like, he's six months old.

[547] Well, that's the way it works here in L .A., you know?

[548] I mean, there's not so many preschools.

[549] And like, okay, and they gave me a list of the preschools that were the ones that you should go or whatever.

[550] And they're like, now, to get into this, one.

[551] You're really going to have to talk to Mike Ovitz.

[552] Mike Ovitz was like, he was the head of CAA.

[553] And I had this, I had this vision of my life where I would have to deal with the very same people that I deal with in my professional career every day at Little League, Christmas pageants, trick -or -treating.

[554] And I was like, if I have to trick -or -treat with my fucking agents, or if I have to trick -or -treat, or if I have to trick - have to coach, you know, the president of NBC's kid, I'm going to blow my fucking brains out.

[555] And I said, we can't live here.

[556] And we started looking for where we could live.

[557] And I've been up here ever since.

[558] I mean, it's probably a shortcoming on my part that I felt that way, but that's what I felt.

[559] I just didn't want show business and show business people to infiltrate every single element of my life.

[560] What is life like up there?

[561] How does it differ from L .A.?

[562] The number one thing I was struck by when I moved up here almost 26 years ago and it's still the same is you could go to the zoo with your kids, the beach with your kids, a meal out with your kids, a hike with your kids, and finish with a movie all in one day if you wanted to.

[563] In L .A., maybe you can get one of them done.

[564] Right, right, because of the tracks.

[565] and whatnot.

[566] Yeah.

[567] I mean, when you think about it, it's insane.

[568] Yeah.

[569] And then there's the beauty of it, the semi -rural, which I think is the Midwest in me, the sort of suburban semi -rural sprawl.

[570] And then it's a diverse group of people in terms of who is on the top of the pecking order.

[571] Yeah.

[572] Yeah, no matter what in L .A. By the way, it's no different than D .C. D .C. would be politics.

[573] And in the day in Detroit, it would have been whatever automotive.

[574] You know, L .A. is a company town.

[575] But up here, you have leaders, from all kinds of walks of life who are at the top of the pecking order.

[576] I'm curious how, through sobriety, how you navigate it with certain situations because you had a couple of tough ones.

[577] You had the sex tape, which was obviously...

[578] Ahead of its time.

[579] Stressful.

[580] Very out of it.

[581] It really, when I was reading about you, it said it was like the first celebrity sex tape.

[582] It was right ahead of its time.

[583] By the way, can I tell you, being first is overrated.

[584] I'm just here to tell you.

[585] It's overrated.

[586] But I want to know how you go from that, which I have to imagine, I can't even imagine what that experience is like.

[587] But then to take that experience and then go on S &L and kind of parody it, from finding out your fucked to going on S &L, what's the journey there mentally?

[588] Well, first of all, I, like I'm sure you, I worship S &L, right?

[589] I grew up every Sunday I would recite to my parents what happened on S &L.

[590] And they asked me to come on to do something around the tape, which they always do, whenever anyone shits the bed, you know, Lauren is the first on the phone to see if he can capitalize on it.

[591] And I was like, eh, I don't really want to do that.

[592] So I didn't.

[593] And then they called me back to host it.

[594] Now I was like, okay, I'll do that.

[595] And they had this idea for the open that I would get nervous before I went on because people were going to laugh at me because of the tape or that they weren't going to like me. And Lauren comes into my dressing room.

[596] It's like, oh, no, what tape?

[597] People don't even.

[598] Oh, no. No, no, no. People are tuning in to see what we're going to do with Oxford Blues.

[599] I don't even think they're aware of the tape.

[600] Really?

[601] Is that what you think?

[602] I'm like, oh, okay.

[603] And I feel better.

[604] And I go out and they go, Rob, Lowe!

[605] And I come out and the audience is, we've told them to be dead silent.

[606] There's no laws.

[607] None.

[608] And then I think it's Al Franken, stands up in the middle of my monologue and goes, I have a daughter.

[609] It was the hardest hitting, most brutal, but I loved it.

[610] It was so fucking balzy.

[611] And for me, what a lesson that I learned is, like, if you take a chance like that, by the way, my lawyers didn't want me to do it, my agents didn't want me to do it.

[612] Nobody wanted to do it, but I wanted to do it.

[613] And it started a relationship with Lauren and Mike Myers and Farley and Spade that brought Tommy Boy, Wayne's World, Austin Powers.

[614] None of that happens if I don't do that show.

[615] Yeah, and interestingly, like, you don't do that.

[616] I don't know that Mike Scher thinks, oh, let's bring Rob Loan to do comedy on Parks and Rec.

[617] You could trace it all back.

[618] All to that monologue, literally all to that monologue.

[619] Yeah, because how on earth do we know you're funny up to that point?

[620] Right.

[621] No, for sure.

[622] Do you think at all, like, having had fucked up, owned it, made amends, do you think, like, a little bit of that muscle memory was at least, semi -helpful in that period?

[623] Well, I guess you weren't sober yet.

[624] Yeah, no, I had another year of trying to do things my way.

[625] Sure, sure.

[626] Before I finally went, Uncle.

[627] And that's when you really learn all of those tools.

[628] But for sure, it's like, owning your mistakes is a huge thing in the world.

[629] It's a huge thing in growth.

[630] And it's part of becoming a man. And owning the mistakes of your 20s is a big thing for me, do.

[631] And I've tried to teach that to my boys as well.

[632] You've got to own it.

[633] Yeah.

[634] Yeah.

[635] So now West Wing, this is the other one.

[636] Now, you're dead sober for West Wing, obviously.

[637] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[638] And my understanding of West Wing was originally that show's supposed to be all you, mind you, I want you to know that Monica might be the biggest West Wing fan.

[639] I love it.

[640] She's watched the whole thing probably 12 times through.

[641] Love.

[642] But originally as designed, you're the lead of that show, right?

[643] Just undisputed lead in the traditional way?

[644] Sort of.

[645] I mean, it's an undisputed ensemble.

[646] That's for sure.

[647] There's no star.

[648] It's an ensemble.

[649] But I am the guy that got the show on the air.

[650] Right.

[651] And it's following probably if you're doing percentages.

[652] You're being followed the largest percentage of the time by design originally.

[653] Yeah, for sure.

[654] And first build and all of that stuff.

[655] but I always knew I was joining a team and that the design was, and I'll never forget, Martin has this great, by the way, I remember the day they came to me and said, how do you feel about Martin Sheen playing the president?

[656] I was like, are you fucking kidding me?

[657] You mean my second dad?

[658] Yeah, that had to be so delightful on so many levels.

[659] It was great because they had no idea, like the history that I had.

[660] So Martin and I could do a scene together and have so many years of history just by looking at each other.

[661] but I think they thought they were going to have Sidney Poitier as the president.

[662] Okay.

[663] And then it was not to be.

[664] And then it was Martin.

[665] And he was so great.

[666] And the pilot.

[667] And all we did was a pilot.

[668] We did the pilot and he had two scenes.

[669] And I was like, he's so great.

[670] Is he not in the show that much?

[671] And they were like, he's going to be like the neighbor from home improvement.

[672] Oh, wow.

[673] That's what they told me. That was the pitch.

[674] That didn't come to bear.

[675] No. It did not.

[676] Thank God.

[677] I don't think the show never would have happened without every single person who happened to have been a part of it being a part of it.

[678] Like if I'm not in it, it doesn't get on the air.

[679] If Aaron doesn't write it, nobody ever wants to do it.

[680] If Tommy doesn't direct it, it's not as good.

[681] I mean, it just everybody brought something really special.

[682] Yeah.

[683] And I guess what I gleaned from the fact that you then later worked with Sorkin on a play.

[684] Yeah, which was awesome.

[685] Was that even though it got dicey, you ended up leaving the show, right?

[686] And they gave everyone else raises but you, you said on Oprah, which I can only imagine what that would do to me as a fucking addict.

[687] Yeah.

[688] The fact that you didn't set T &T to the relationship is, I think, pretty impressive.

[689] Well, listen, we all had our moments.

[690] It was a very volatile.

[691] It's funny, you've been on a thousand sets.

[692] And the energy and atmosphere of each set, I think is really unique to that show.

[693] And on the West Wing, I've never been on a show before or after with the level of intensity.

[694] intensity that that show had.

[695] And I don't mean this in a bad way, what I'm about to say at all.

[696] But it was not fun.

[697] Yeah.

[698] It was deadly, serious, but in all the good ways.

[699] And competitive, in all the good ways.

[700] The hours were horrendous, right?

[701] Horrendous, horrendous.

[702] You'd watch the friends come in and their jaguars and their bentley's and their fucking Porsches and they'd roll in.

[703] And we'd already be at lunch, they'd be showing up.

[704] Then Jennifer Aniston would get in her Vespa and drive off, and you'd be like going into your 17th meal penalty and golden triple hours.

[705] The first year of West Wing, every Friday, we left the lot as the sun was coming up on Saturday.

[706] Oh.

[707] Every single Friday.

[708] By the way, we're in a soundstage.

[709] We're not moving around.

[710] They're not explosions.

[711] Yeah.

[712] It's the same.

[713] I've found now that I have two little kids, I'm not as fun to be on set with anymore because I want to get home and see my kids.

[714] So I got to imagine it had to be compounding that to have kids during that.

[715] And I lived in Santa Barbara.

[716] I commuted.

[717] Yeah.

[718] Oh, boy.

[719] It's brutal.

[720] Yeah, right.

[721] And so I start evaluating how they're laying track to me not seeing my kid or not getting to read to them at night.

[722] And now the weight I'm putting on the way they're laying track is absurd.

[723] Like, I really got to please myself because the stakes are so high now.

[724] And it all come full circle because now I'm on 911 Lone Star and we light and shoot that thing like it's a movie every day.

[725] And because my kids are out of the house.

[726] Yeah.

[727] And because my wife has a job.

[728] I'm like, yeah, no, we should do 17 takes this.

[729] You know what?

[730] We should maybe think about doing an angle where we take this wall out and really get in there.

[731] I'm a completely different person now.

[732] Oh, that's so comforting.

[733] Because I'm like, am I just a fucking brat now?

[734] I mean, I think I am largely a brat, but, you know, funny enough, we were both shooting on Disney Ranch like a month ago, and I was having so much fun guessing what your scene was about because there was a combine.

[735] There was a huge combine in the middle of this field.

[736] Every time I go to my trailer, I'd see this combine and I'm like, I have to imagine someone has been sucked into this combine.

[737] And Rob is extracting this person from a combine.

[738] Was I right?

[739] Bingo.

[740] Oh, my God.

[741] Oh, that's wonderful.

[742] You work with Liv Tyler on it.

[743] Yeah, Liv.

[744] Oh, Liv is the best.

[745] She's so great in it.

[746] Okay.

[747] So before we get to 911, Lone Star, which I want to get to, did you have a blast on Parks and Rec?

[748] Because that show was so fucking, you're in like one of the annals of great comedies.

[749] You know, I feel really lucky that I will put, and I say this with all possible humility, I will put the West Wing and Parks and Recreation up there.

[750] for drama and comedy for anybody to see.

[751] And, you know, Mike Schur told me that when they were figuring out what Parks and Rec was going to be when it was maybe a spinoff of the office, which is what its original Genesis was, their favorite show was West Wing.

[752] Ah.

[753] And they were like, okay, so West Wing's our favorite show and it's a drama.

[754] What is the West Wing if it's a comedy?

[755] Oh, no kidding.

[756] Yeah.

[757] And so if the drama in the White House, the comedy is in the Parks and Rec Department in Plenty, Indiana.

[758] Yeah.

[759] God, he's a genius.

[760] Oh, yeah, Monica's, I'm really jealous because my wife's in love with him because he's her boss.

[761] And Monica's in love with him.

[762] Because he's perfect.

[763] And I can't compete because he's just a better person than I am.

[764] So I got no real defense.

[765] You're screwed, dude.

[766] He's smarter than you.

[767] He's nicer than you.

[768] He's more educated than you.

[769] There's nothing.

[770] And, you know, I worked with your lovely wife for a couple episodes on perks.

[771] Oh, yeah.

[772] Yes, yes.

[773] You guys were the beautiful.

[774] I think the conceit was she was from the town where all the good looking people are from.

[775] Yes.

[776] And there was a very rich town and they couldn't go through austere measures or something.

[777] Yeah, we had a blast together.

[778] It was so fun.

[779] Yeah, she's annoyingly nice to be around, right?

[780] That bitch will fucking, you yell action.

[781] She'll give you the best take of the day on take one and time to move on.

[782] Oh, no, for sure.

[783] For sure.

[784] She's like an acting robot.

[785] By the way, I love acting robots.

[786] I kind of consider myself an acting robot.

[787] Like, they know if they put me at the end of the call sheet, they're going home.

[788] Yes.

[789] And I wear that as a badge of honor.

[790] I really do.

[791] And West Wing was like that.

[792] And Parks and Rec, like assassins, just ringers.

[793] Do you know what I mean?

[794] You set that camera up and they are bringing it.

[795] There's no finding it or, well, I thought we might try this or like a huge, embarrassing whiff and then crushing it on the next day.

[796] Just boom, boom, boom.

[797] And I love people who work like that.

[798] I love it.

[799] Yeah, it's fearless, right?

[800] I kind of, I'm drawn to that fearlessness.

[801] I'm attracted to it.

[802] Okay, so you wrote a second book, Love Life.

[803] When did that come out?

[804] I feel like Love Life was five years ago, probably.

[805] Okay.

[806] And that book I have not read, but I really am going to read it because it's about sex and love and addiction and all the stuff I'm pretty excited about.

[807] And more of a deep dive of the insanities of our business.

[808] uh -huh uh -huh one of my favorite chapters is what they don't teach actors in acting school that they really should teach them about being in our business yeah hit me with one of the ones that they they don't teach us which is the notion that you have your big scene you've auditioned for it five times it got you the job and now it's time to do it and you get on the set and they tell you it's going to turns out we're going to do it after lunch right right And then after lunch comes along, they, because they're running a little behind.

[809] So it's probably have an update for you in 40 minutes.

[810] Then 40 minutes comes and they're like, okay, we'd like to bring you down for rehearsal.

[811] So they bring you down for rehearsal and then they light it.

[812] And then they go, hey, there's a problem with a generator.

[813] So we're looking now that it's probably going to be about another 35 minutes.

[814] Great.

[815] And they go, hey, we'd like you to go back to makeup and hair and get freshened up because you had your makeup done seven hours ago.

[816] So you go and do that.

[817] and then you come back to the thing and now they're pounding on the going, we're ready, we're ready, like it's your fault.

[818] Oh, yeah.

[819] Like they're waiting on you.

[820] That's right.

[821] Your 30 second trip is everything all of a sudden.

[822] Yeah, so now it's, by the way, it's daylight contingents.

[823] You're on the cliff and the sun is setting.

[824] And now there's about, they go, okay, we got about 20 minutes of sunlight, so we really got a hustle.

[825] And again, you're like, I know, I've been ready for 12 and a half hours.

[826] And they do one take and you crush it and you're so excited.

[827] And you look over it, the boom guy and he's shaking his head he goes no good for sound he's like what they go yeah we got a dog bark like fuck so then now you do it again and so anyway you end up with this brilliant scene and you get a take and a half maybe a minute and a half to do it with all the pressure in the world on you like it's your fault no one ever tells you that that's what your career is going to be they never tell you that ever oh i couldn't agree with you more put me in a little aluminum cube and let me think for 12 hours.

[828] I'm going to have some theories at the end of this 12 hours, and none of them are going to resemble reality at all.

[829] It's so true.

[830] It is real.

[831] Yeah, what could be worse than an addict alone with his thoughts?

[832] Oh, what could go wrong?

[833] Yeah, totally.

[834] Oh, it's dangerous.

[835] Okay, I also want to know really quickly.

[836] You had a reality show with your boys with Matthew and John.

[837] Oh, it's my favorite thing.

[838] Dude, they pay.

[839] made me to go around the country with a souped -up raptor with my boys looking for ghosts, Bigfoot, supernatural adventures.

[840] It was, we talk about it today, my boys and I, it will be the time of our lives.

[841] It would be our favorite memories of our life.

[842] And, you know, just being idiots and talking shit to each other and being with each other.

[843] and maybe we found stuff on some episodes, and maybe we didn't in others.

[844] And it was just an absolute blast.

[845] It's called The Low Files.

[846] And it's, I think you can, I know it's on YouTube and it exists out there, but I absolutely love that show.

[847] I love doing it.

[848] It was a gift.

[849] What's it like when you work with your wife?

[850] Heaven on Earth, because we've been interacting for 12 years together.

[851] And, well, Monica knows she writes all these commercials we do.

[852] And we get there and we can, we can first trip out.

[853] almost every take be us and she's my favorite scene partner for sure generally our desires are opposing just in life we have two little kids I think all family vacations should be off -roading she does not think that you know just generally we have man yeah for sure so we have opposite agendas and anytime we work together we're like oh this is lovely we have the exact same objective we want this thing to be great we want to get out early we want it like it's a great opportunity to have aligned goals with the people you love.

[854] But when you live under a house, it's endless compromise.

[855] What are we going to eat?

[856] No, I don't want pizza, all this bullshit.

[857] So I got to imagine with your boys, to share the same goal of like, let's make this fun, great show.

[858] It was probably awesome.

[859] It was really great.

[860] And it's more than anything, it's just a great snapshot of our lives together and our relationship.

[861] I would do 17 seasons of the low files.

[862] It was my favorite thing ever.

[863] Okay.

[864] So as we talked about, 9 -1, One, Lone Star.

[865] Was there any talk, were you nervous when they approached you?

[866] Like, you guys know we're not, I'm not going to move to Texas.

[867] So the West Wing is over.

[868] I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do next.

[869] There's a lot of interest in what I might do next.

[870] And I've got a lot of choices.

[871] And it's a really great time.

[872] But a heady time and a lot of stakes trying to figure out my next thing is.

[873] And there's a show on the air called Nip Tuck.

[874] Ryan Murphy creates.

[875] And I'm like, that's the kind of show I should be doing.

[876] Why can't I have a character like Dr. Christian Troy?

[877] I would crush that character.

[878] I want to meet this guy, this Ryan Murphy guy.

[879] I get a meeting with Ryan.

[880] I sit there and go, this is what I want to do.

[881] I want to do something like Nip -Tuck.

[882] I mean, that character is perfect for me. And as I'm talking, the color is draining from his face.

[883] I said, Ryan, is everything okay?

[884] Is Rob, don't you know that I wrote that for you?

[885] No. I said, what?

[886] He goes, oh, yeah, of course that character resonates for you.

[887] I wrote it for you.

[888] So it turns out my agents never gave it to me. Oh.

[889] The thinking was it was on FX.

[890] FX had never done a scripted show.

[891] That show defined FX.

[892] Defined it.

[893] Ryan, as Ryan said, I wasn't Ryan Murphy yet.

[894] And I never saw it.

[895] So fast forward to 18 years almost later, they go to Ryan and say, we want to do another 911 iteration.

[896] Do you have an idea of what that might be?

[897] And God bless Ryan.

[898] And he goes, I don't.

[899] But if I did have one, it would be Roblo as a fireman who cares greatly about his skin care.

[900] And that was the genesis of 911 Lone Star.

[901] So when it did come to me, I was able to tell them I'm not moving to Texas.

[902] Right, right, right.

[903] That's wild.

[904] You did remind me of one thing I wanted to ask you about.

[905] Does it at all pain you?

[906] So do you know he was offered McDreamy's role in Gray's Anatomy?

[907] I did not know that.

[908] Do you sit at home and go like, fuck, I would have made nominally $80 million.

[909] Does that pain you?

[910] I love that you came up with 80 because that's about what I came up with too.

[911] I was trying to do the math and I think it is about 80.

[912] I think it is.

[913] Yeah.

[914] Don't you think?

[915] Yes, I do.

[916] And I'm not quitting to go racing.

[917] I'm still on it now.

[918] Like I'm on it this week still.

[919] If it's me. You're making $750 an episode.

[920] and you got some ownership.

[921] So I, so here, and this is thing that really is true is I do not regret it because I wouldn't have done parks.

[922] Uh -huh.

[923] And if I, if you said, hey, you can have grays or parks on your filmography, I'm taking parks 10 out of 10 times.

[924] Mm -hmm.

[925] And the other thing is that people forget about is like, if it's me, it's me. but they got to kind of rediscover Patrick.

[926] That's why they called him McDreamy.

[927] I bet you I don't have anywhere near the impact on that show that he did because people know what they're getting with me. With him, it was this whole discovery and they're like McDreamy.

[928] Yeah.

[929] You're right.

[930] It was a story.

[931] And in fact, I never even watched that show, but I was thrilled because I can't buy me love was like my movie.

[932] What a fucking movie when he was a kid.

[933] And I just always, as I got older, was heartbroken like, where the hell that guy?

[934] go he was my favorite and then he pops back up and the motherfucker is handsome is all hell i know he's very nice whenever i see him he tips his hat and goes thanks for the 80 million my last question is you now have a podcast correct is it out yet it is not out yet we had planned to launch in may but now with the issue with getting people in and social distancing we may push a little bit And I have been having a blast doing it.

[935] It's seeing and listening to people like you inspired me a ton.

[936] Oh, thank you.

[937] Because look, we, I don't know about you, but I grew up loving, watching people I was interested in, tell a 20 minute story if they wanted to.

[938] Like coming on the Tonight Show and fucking crushing.

[939] Or the Playboy interview when that was a thing.

[940] Like it was like, I loved them.

[941] Right?

[942] I mean, now we have Howard Stern, who I love.

[943] but like there's room for more than that there are very few places and now with you and some of the others there are places that people can come on and let their hair down be who they are so i i have had a ton of my friends on it's been awesome and i can't wait for people to to listen it's called literally with rob low literally with rob low who's been your favorite guest so far uh gosh i had a blast with spade david spade was really really amazing Maria Shriver was fantastic.

[944] Gwyneth Paltrow was great.

[945] And these are all people I have really long, long histories with.

[946] Yeah.

[947] So we get into some deep dive shit that is like it's not, you know, I don't need, look, I don't want to have Chris Pratt on and ask him about Guardians of the Galaxy.

[948] Right.

[949] Enough people can do that, do you know what I'm saying?

[950] So when I have people on who I know and I love and I've worked with, It's very odd and random, and I think that's what people are interested in.

[951] I just love this format.

[952] I'm so grateful that we live in an era where this exists, and the barrier to entry is so small.

[953] Well, and also you're so authentic in a world where there's a whole segment of our business that is less and less authentic by the day.

[954] Authenticity means something.

[955] It's like the two books that I read.

[956] Like you can't write books that are successful that are, memoirs if they're not authentic if you're if you're not willing to let people in on a real way yeah it's it's the same as the pod for me the podcast is a natural extension of writing the books or doing my one -man show that i tour the country doing which is also an extension of storytelling to people in an authentic way yeah i noticed when i looked you up that it had like the first thing that came up was all these events like i type in your name and it gives me Wikipedia and all this stuff but then immediately goes to events and I was like oh you do some kind of live thing and then I was thinking oh you must have had to cancel all these that's a bummer yeah so you do a one man show what's that called it's called stories I only tell my friends live oh oh I like it in I started thinking about writing a third book and instead of writing a third book I wrote this show so what would have been the third book is this show yeah I just tell the stories of the third book and then I do a Q &A at the end.

[957] And really the truth of it is, if I were honest enough and had the balls to do it, I would just say it's my stand -up because that really is what it is.

[958] Right.

[959] That's really what it is.

[960] Yeah, yeah.

[961] Because the stand -ups I love are really personal.

[962] You know, they're funny, but they're also about something.

[963] Yeah.

[964] You know what I mean?

[965] So that's really what it is.

[966] It's a lot of laughs, man. It's fun.

[967] Yeah.

[968] Oh, I would love to see that.

[969] And I think you're right.

[970] I think the reason it's easy for me and probably for you is I go to a, a room with strangers and I tell them that I hate my wife's guts because she leaves doors open then I realize I'm this and that and you know like letting out some of these imperfections and finding that oh it's nothing to be embarrassed about it's something that people ultimately relate to you about like more often than not I say something I think is I must be the only piece of shit thinking this and then I say it and then all the other piece of shit's nod their head and I go oh we're all pieces of shit who are we fucking putting on this play for who is perfect that we're pretending we're keeping up this veneer for, because everyone I meet is a fellow scumbag.

[971] You know, it's hard to get through this ride on planned earth without being a fucking shithead sometimes.

[972] I say the same thing to people in that people who have been on the journey of recovery, we've, we have, if we've succeeded at all, we've learned how to get real at the drop of a fucking hat.

[973] Yeah, yeah.

[974] Well, man, I wish you a ton of luck.

[975] And again, great, great talking to you.

[976] Thanks a time for doing this via Skype.

[977] And I hope to see you on yours, not literally with Rob, Thank you guys.

[978] You guys were awesome.

[979] All right, next time you're pulling someone out of a combine, I'll come say hi.

[980] You do that.

[981] All right.

[982] Bye.

[983] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[984] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[985] I smell more than that on there.

[986] What do you smell?

[987] Okay, we're smelling our microphones.

[988] right now.

[989] Yeah, because we've been using the same microphones for two years now, and I just decided to check in and give mine a whiff.

[990] And there is a smell there, but it's not foul.

[991] It's just, it feels lived in.

[992] I guess like a couch at Grandma's, at a good smell in Grandma's house.

[993] Okay.

[994] Well, I just smelled it, and I don't smell anything, and I have a super sense.

[995] I think so.

[996] Of a smell.

[997] Mine?

[998] What do you go?

[999] It could smell better, I guess.

[1000] Well, that's what I'm saying.

[1001] There's something there.

[1002] Yeah, sure.

[1003] I went to a store and I smelled this microphone.

[1004] I'd be like, why are you selling used?

[1005] Like this is used.

[1006] Yes, that's what I'm saying.

[1007] Okay, it has a history.

[1008] A patina.

[1009] A gustatory patina.

[1010] So it's 93 slash 95 degrees.

[1011] And you had that fucking audacity to turn off the air condition in your apartment.

[1012] It got freezing.

[1013] I put it too low because I don't have central air.

[1014] I just have a box.

[1015] Conveniently located in the kitchen.

[1016] Yeah, which is it doesn't help anybody or anything.

[1017] And it got too cold because I left it on for too long.

[1018] And then I had to turn it off.

[1019] I think you had like an iron dip in your bloodstream or something.

[1020] Are you talking about my period on here?

[1021] Oh my God.

[1022] That could be it.

[1023] You're experiencing your flies.

[1024] And people don't know about our joke about the flies.

[1025] Yeah, they're going to be.

[1026] I think they're going to be bummed.

[1027] There's a lot of things that I get caught saying, like, it makes it to the light of day that I say.

[1028] And it sounds terrible.

[1029] I loved when Kristen was pregnant and I said she looked like a chubby third grader which she loved it.

[1030] Why a third grader?

[1031] Because her face got really round and she just looked super young.

[1032] Oh.

[1033] And so she loved it.

[1034] She thought it was so funny.

[1035] But I think she said it in an interview and then people tweeted me like, how dare you try to make your wife feel fat?

[1036] Oh, I thought they were going to get mad about the fact that you were attracted to a third grader.

[1037] No, no, no. Well, I wasn't saying I was horny.

[1038] It's just a cuteness factor.

[1039] No, but you've also said that you love.

[1040] You were horny when she was pregnant.

[1041] Yes, side note, I thought it was very interesting.

[1042] My wife's complete body change.

[1043] That was fascinating.

[1044] Right, right.

[1045] But now I'm afraid the flies thing may fall into the same thing where someone's going to go.

[1046] How dare you say that about someone's menstruating?

[1047] It started very organically, right?

[1048] Just on your period one time and you were like lamenting about it.

[1049] Yeah.

[1050] We were joking that there were flies around me. Following you.

[1051] Yes, because of the period.

[1052] And so now we call it my flies.

[1053] Anyway, it's no holds bar on this thing.

[1054] Oh, happy Monday.

[1055] Okay, can I take one second?

[1056] Yeah.

[1057] Okay, so some folks made us a video and it was insane.

[1058] It was.

[1059] It was so beautiful.

[1060] It was really, really beautiful.

[1061] And it made me cry a bit.

[1062] And then I sent it to my mom because she was mentioned and she had a nice cry.

[1063] this video was, I guess, because of 200 episodes?

[1064] She wanted to send a thank you, which was so nice.

[1065] Yeah, and again, what did you feel like?

[1066] Like, when you were watching it, people were talking about how aspirational you are as a woman and stuff.

[1067] What kind of feelings did you have?

[1068] Just so much gratitude for all of the people that take the time out to listen to us talk about flies.

[1069] Sure, sure.

[1070] Menstrual flies.

[1071] So I felt grateful.

[1072] I, of course, felt undeserving.

[1073] Yes, that's what I was hoping you'd say.

[1074] I know, I know.

[1075] I knew that's where you were leading.

[1076] Oh, you did?

[1077] Yeah.

[1078] Yeah, I just felt like I'm not worthy of this at all.

[1079] I know.

[1080] I felt like you were, like the things they said about you.

[1081] I was like, yeah, she deserves that.

[1082] I felt that about you.

[1083] That's crazy.

[1084] It can feel so small when it's just us in the room talking.

[1085] It feels so small.

[1086] It is.

[1087] And it's just us chatting with another person.

[1088] and it's tiny.

[1089] And then when you feel and get to see the reach, it's overwhelming.

[1090] It is.

[1091] It's some people going like, I got sober.

[1092] It's such a...

[1093] They changed their life.

[1094] Oh, it's so unbelievable.

[1095] We cried.

[1096] Anyways, I just wanted to thank Amanda, Jessica, Morgan, Jessica, again, Bridget, Courtney, Kelly, Heather.

[1097] There were some beautiful comments from Stacey, China, Maria, Shannon, Heather, Megan, Caitlin, Allie, Melinda.

[1098] Jamie, Sarah, Meredith, Amanda, Taylor, and Zachary.

[1099] It was so beautiful.

[1100] And then just special thanks to Kelly for getting that to Monica and just organizing and orchestrating the whole thing.

[1101] It was very, very moving.

[1102] Yeah.

[1103] Thank you.

[1104] Thank you.

[1105] And we don't deserve it.

[1106] But we'll carry on anyways.

[1107] Yeah.

[1108] We'll keep doing it.

[1109] Despite the hot box and the flies and the -well, what's the hot box?

[1110] You turned off the air.

[1111] Oh.

[1112] Well, hotboxing conventionally is when you roll up the windows in a car and several of you smoke a joint.

[1113] and you get the whole car filled with joint smoke.

[1114] And then you're getting a little secondary buzz from the hotbox.

[1115] I thought it was a fart.

[1116] You can also hotbox an area, yeah, with a fart.

[1117] That's true.

[1118] And then I also, you know, to be honest, you were talking about the flies.

[1119] So I thought you were talking about my vagina.

[1120] As a hot box.

[1121] Crossing the line.

[1122] That is crossing the line.

[1123] I would never say that.

[1124] Ooh.

[1125] Okay.

[1126] What a fact of house cleaning.

[1127] So we were starting a conversation before this, and you wanted to wait and have it on the fact check.

[1128] Yes, we were doing it genuinely and earnestly.

[1129] And I said, let's convert this into content.

[1130] Yeah.

[1131] And it has nothing to do with Roblo, but we will get to Roblo.

[1132] Yes.

[1133] It was because we were talking about libertarianism.

[1134] Mm -hmm.

[1135] And you identify with many of the tenants.

[1136] Of the tenants.

[1137] I used to be a declared libertarian.

[1138] On my voter registration, it said, libertarian.

[1139] Although, I always voted for a Democrat, for whatever that's worth.

[1140] Okay.

[1141] Sorry, go ahead.

[1142] No, but you align with a lot of those principles.

[1143] Yeah.

[1144] And you find yourself relating to a lot of those.

[1145] And when we had Andrew Morantz on, who wrote the book about the online extremists.

[1146] Exactly.

[1147] And he did a lot of research with a lot of white nationalists and all right people.

[1148] He referred to a libertarian to white nationalist pipeline.

[1149] And it's a thing.

[1150] Right.

[1151] It's a legit thing that happens.

[1152] And I remember hearing that, wow, I felt a lot of things when I heard it.

[1153] But one was, oh, I wonder if Dax hears that.

[1154] And if it's sparking anything for him like, ooh, I'm not saying all libertarians become white nationalists.

[1155] But it is a common way for people define white nationalism is through libertarianism.

[1156] Yeah, so we got to be really careful with the way we say these.

[1157] Okay.

[1158] Because what you're saying is true, but okay, so all mass shooters are white males.

[1159] I mean, there's a couple of exceptions.

[1160] Right.

[1161] All mass shooters are white males.

[1162] All white males are not mass shooters.

[1163] Of course.

[1164] Right.

[1165] So that's really important.

[1166] So a lot of white nationalists were former libertarians.

[1167] Yes.

[1168] Which has no bearing on how many libertarians are white nationals.

[1169] I would just say that.

[1170] But what's way more interesting, I think, than that is, you said rightly, like, does that give you pause?

[1171] It should.

[1172] If you find out a group you're a member of or previously a member of.

[1173] You believe a lot of the things they believe.

[1174] Make a leap into this very dismal group.

[1175] Should you question like, oh, what is that?

[1176] And why was it?

[1177] You know, why?

[1178] Yeah, because you never want to be in the same group as white nationalist, obviously.

[1179] I would hope not.

[1180] Yeah, it goes without saying.

[1181] But I said, you know, what's interesting is it doesn't give me pause, because I think people are attracted to libertarianism for two dramatically different reasons.

[1182] Okay.

[1183] And that's where I said, oh, let's put a pin in it and explore it here.

[1184] So I think a lot of the people on the pipeline to white nationalism who are former libertarians are also libertarians, I think there's two kind of big groups in the libertarian party.

[1185] One is I hate government.

[1186] I want the smallest government possible.

[1187] Government shouldn't be telling us how to live.

[1188] I mean, there are libertarians that don't want an FAA, which is insane.

[1189] They don't want someone controlling the air traffic.

[1190] Just let the business sort it out.

[1191] It's insane.

[1192] Let people be.

[1193] Yes.

[1194] And then it's just a sliding scale.

[1195] Then there's people that don't want regulation of utilities.

[1196] And then there's people, you know.

[1197] And so whatever that spectrum is, let's say it's zero to 10 on the libertarian spectrum.

[1198] I think the best I was maybe a four on the financial government side, but I was a 10 on civil liberties.

[1199] If anyone doesn't know what a libertarian is, the tenets of libertarianism is there's two sides of this party.

[1200] The belief that you should have civil liberties, so it doesn't matter if you're gay, you should have all the rights as anyone else.

[1201] No one should tell you whether you can get a medical procedure.

[1202] You have liberty in all of its senses.

[1203] You can be exactly who you want to be.

[1204] You have autonomy.

[1205] Autonomy, yeah.

[1206] And conventionally, that's a very progressive.

[1207] So the thing that generally Democrats are proud of themselves about, as they should be, is that they believe in civil liberties.

[1208] And then conservatives claim that they pat themselves on the back is that they are fiscally conservative.

[1209] They are worried about us spending and becoming this enormous monolith government that's just blowing all the citizens' money who is making it all.

[1210] So they believe in liberty over your finances and in the small government.

[1211] So I'm attracted to that.

[1212] I'm attracted to liberty.

[1213] I'm attracted to freedom of self, self -possession.

[1214] I believe in all those things.

[1215] You're type 8 on the enagram.

[1216] We'll get to that.

[1217] Yes, yes.

[1218] But I think there's a lot of people that are attracted to the party simply because it's anti -government.

[1219] If you hate the government, which I don't, that's not why I was attracted to libertarianism.

[1220] But if you hate the government, odds are, in my opinion, you feel left out of a system.

[1221] The reason you don't like the system and you want the system dismantled is that you feel excluded from the system.

[1222] If the system's working great for you, Nobody who's benefiting from a system wants to dismantle that system.

[1223] Well, that's not true.

[1224] We learned from him.

[1225] He told us, and I believe him, because he was in the trenches, that a lot of people you wouldn't expect, and a lot of people who have great jobs and are benefiting from society.

[1226] That's most certainly true, what he's saying.

[1227] Yeah.

[1228] I don't think that's the majority.

[1229] I think it's the exception.

[1230] Regardless, you could also be financially fit and feel excluded by society.

[1231] Sure.

[1232] Anyways, I think there's a contingency within libertarianism that attracts people who feel excluded by the system.

[1233] So their answer is dismantle the system.

[1234] Another pipeline, other than white nationalism, is a lot of libertarians find themselves in these groups that hate the government.

[1235] And they take stands to not cooperate with the government.

[1236] They won't carry a license.

[1237] They've been in shootouts with law enforcement.

[1238] So that subset of libertarians, I think, are people that feel very excluded by the system.

[1239] And so when I see that that's a pipeline, that doesn't surprise.

[1240] me, but yet I have no fear that I'm heading towards there because I don't have a hatred of the system or feel alienated or excluded by it.

[1241] I think it's very generous of you to give them the benefit of the doubt that it's because they're feeling excluded.

[1242] I do think many of them can and do, but I also think a lot of it has to do with control and feeling like things are out of their control and things have been in their control for a long time, a lot of white male, that's a lot of these people.

[1243] And they're women, too.

[1244] They've been the dominant, hegemonic group for a long time, and then they feel like they're losing that.

[1245] Anyway, it doesn't scare you, which is fair.

[1246] Let me ask you this.

[1247] Do you believe in liberty, like the concept of liberty?

[1248] Yeah.

[1249] Freedom and.

[1250] Of course.

[1251] So you do, you prioritize liberty as well, but somewhere, it's a ratio, as it is for all of us, or equality is also on the table.

[1252] Yeah.

[1253] And equality often comes at the expense of liberty.

[1254] There is, you know, when we had Ezra on, he was talking about this, and he said they don't have to be.

[1255] They don't have to be.

[1256] So right now in COVID is a perfect example of liberty versus equality.

[1257] So people's liberty is being limited right now.

[1258] They are being told by the state to not leave their house.

[1259] And they're doing that to protect the masses.

[1260] They're not doing it per se to protect themselves because they are probably not in the target range of who's susceptible.

[1261] to dying from COVID, but they're doing it to protect the group.

[1262] Right.

[1263] It all is some ratio you believe in that you feel good in your soul with.

[1264] Well, I don't think you can have liberty if you don't have equality.

[1265] If things are unequal and people are at the bottom, they don't have liberty.

[1266] Those people don't have liberty.

[1267] If someone else is in control of them or has power over them, they don't have it.

[1268] So I think you have to have equality in order to have liberty.

[1269] Unless you are a...

[1270] Barack Obama.

[1271] No, unless you are...

[1272] Well, I'm just saying there are examples of people that are in the zip code underprivileged that do rise out of it.

[1273] Look, I'm not going to make a case that it's working.

[1274] I'm not.

[1275] But there are many cases you can point to that demonstrate you can move out of everything.

[1276] And the beauty of why that is, is liberty, is that there isn't any kind of institutional law against some group of people.

[1277] Now, there was, there was slavery.

[1278] But currently, there's no law in place that would prevent someone from being upwardly mobile in their socioeconomic, in their education.

[1279] So the state isn't trying, there's no caste system here.

[1280] Well, officially.

[1281] But unofficially, things are happening all over the place that make it impossible for people to rise out of their circumstances.

[1282] Yeah.

[1283] And even if not impossible, three or four, five or ten times harder than someone else.

[1284] Yes.

[1285] Yeah.

[1286] Yeah.

[1287] I concede that entirely.

[1288] So I listen to Joe Rogan's podcast today.

[1289] One of the things he was talking about is China and how they handled their pandemic.

[1290] And that's great.

[1291] There you see the upside of not having liberty.

[1292] So if you don't have liberty, you can control the masses and you can get them to cooperate with you.

[1293] And that has a value.

[1294] We just saw it.

[1295] There is a value to it.

[1296] And there is a cost to it.

[1297] So you're always trying to evaluate where are you on this spectrum?

[1298] The notion that anyone is all the way on the quality side or all the way on the liberty side, no one is.

[1299] Even someone who believes in equality the most, and you present to them, well, we should right now put all the money in America in one pool, divvy it up and hand it out so every human in America has the exact same amount of money.

[1300] Almost no one's saying yes to that.

[1301] Agreed.

[1302] But that is equality in its purest.

[1303] Yeah.

[1304] I'm just saying we're all on a scale.

[1305] Of course.

[1306] You were asking me, do you believe in liberty?

[1307] Right.

[1308] And you do, which is clear.

[1309] Yeah.

[1310] And you also believe in equality.

[1311] Yeah.

[1312] And you prioritize equality more than liberty, generally when we have conversations.

[1313] Well, it depends.

[1314] Again, I don't see them at odds in the same way you do.

[1315] So it's going to be hard to have this conversation in this way.

[1316] I find them to be very connected.

[1317] And I think equality leads to liberty for people who don't have it.

[1318] And I care about that.

[1319] Mm -hmm.

[1320] Me too.

[1321] I personally am not worried about white straight men's autonomy going away.

[1322] I don't think it's ever going to go away in this country, and I'm not worried about that for them.

[1323] I know they, some of them are, and that's what leads to a lot of these groups.

[1324] But I'm more concerned currently about the marginalized groups.

[1325] So again, so here's a perfect example where they can't coexist, which is, so if we're trying to prevent white nationalism, which obviously is a goal we should have, and we're trying to bring up marginalized groups.

[1326] We should not be allowing the furtherment of narratives that oppress them.

[1327] So many people that would put equality significantly higher than liberty would limit free speech to help curb that.

[1328] They'll start by saying they shouldn't get a permit for a clan rally or they shouldn't get a permit for a white nationalist rally, right?

[1329] Okay.

[1330] Like that we should limit that free speech because we have this other goal of making sure that we're not perpetuate.

[1331] the marginalization of minority groups.

[1332] Those two things can't exist at the same time.

[1333] They can't work in harmony.

[1334] Well, if something is violent, that's different.

[1335] Well, but then that gets very great.

[1336] Did it incite violence or was it violent?

[1337] Is standing up with a megaphone yelling the N -word violent?

[1338] No, could it incite violence?

[1339] Maybe.

[1340] Now, is the problem on the person who committed violence after hearing that?

[1341] It's very murky.

[1342] but most certainly in this case you're going to have to kind of pick whether you believe in liberty or equality in this moment or you're going to have to not pick you can believe in both you're going to have to prioritize one or the other and that's what's fascinating about the ACLU often they're defending the Ku Klux Klan so that they can have rallies because they believe in civil liberties and the right to say something completely abhorrent wrong and reprehensible in public if they want I don't know that anyone's saying that shouldn't be lawfully allowed.

[1343] But they're saying we're going to protest it and we're going to publicly shame those people for saying those things.

[1344] Well, right.

[1345] So there's some people that protest and there's many that try to get the university to not allow someone to speak.

[1346] So to actually take away the right.

[1347] And there are many people that are actively petitioning the government to not allow them to have rallies legally.

[1348] So they're not just counter protesting.

[1349] They're trying to get their, actual from the government, they're liberty limited, which again, I understand why they want to do that.

[1350] Yeah.

[1351] It makes total sense.

[1352] I agree with them.

[1353] But I happen to think the downsides of free speech are most certainly worth the upsides of free speech.

[1354] And you just can't have it all.

[1355] You can't have China when you want to be China and then the U .S. when you want to be U .S. Just because some people are trying to get people to not speak at universities once every, however meant we can count on two hands, how many times that's happened.

[1356] I don't think.

[1357] in this country we're at a risk of losing free speech.

[1358] That's at the point I'm making.

[1359] I'm making a point to you that some people are prioritizing equality over liberty.

[1360] I was giving you an example of how they can't exist simultaneously often.

[1361] Okay.

[1362] I mean, I believe in free speech.

[1363] I don't have any problem with anyone saying anything.

[1364] I think it's fine for them to say it.

[1365] And I think it's totally fine for a bunch of people to come after that person and use their free speech.

[1366] Yeah.

[1367] You and I are in agreement.

[1368] But there are people to the left of you.

[1369] And that's who I'm talking about.

[1370] Yeah.

[1371] I guess I just wonder, trying to turn it around and think, what do I agree with that could lead to something that I really don't agree with?

[1372] Right.

[1373] And do I have that?

[1374] Am I a part of something like that?

[1375] I'm just trying to look inward and see.

[1376] It's just interesting.

[1377] Yeah.

[1378] So what's interesting is I'm reading a great biography, won the Pulitzer Prize.

[1379] Oppenheimer.

[1380] He had up the Manhattan Project, you created the atomic bomb.

[1381] He was a professor at Berkeley.

[1382] He was a communist.

[1383] And guess what?

[1384] A lot of the left was communist back then.

[1385] Okay.

[1386] In 1930.

[1387] Because we didn't have all the examples of the experiment.

[1388] So at that time, it was just a theory, a very compelling theory.

[1389] And he was a communist.

[1390] And many of his colleagues were communists but it doesn't work as an economic model for all the reasons you've all pointed out you can't have a centralized decision making about selling goods and services so it was wrong but but it was learned that it was wrong and it was the people on the left who wanted it and we probably would have wanted it you and i if we were alive in 1930 because we're on the left currently we probably would have been in that group maybe yeah and we would have been wrong and the system would have yielded a ton of atrocities.

[1391] So that's an example of something that was really well -intentioned, and Marxism is beautiful in concept, and then it doesn't work in practice.

[1392] And we could have been on the wrong side of that history.

[1393] Sure.

[1394] But as soon as it starts proving itself to be wrong, I would hope.

[1395] That we would have pivoted?

[1396] Yeah, I don't really...

[1397] You just said you're trying to think of a way that a belief you have could have gone wrong.

[1398] And I'm pointing one out where it's the ultimate measure of equality, which is communism and Marxism.

[1399] But I'm not for the ultimate.

[1400] That's not my sensibility.

[1401] I know it's not.

[1402] That's what I like about you as a liberal is you don't want a completely socialist economy.

[1403] You don't want that.

[1404] And I don't either.

[1405] And I think most Democrats don't, as it turned out in the primary.

[1406] I don't think so.

[1407] Yes.

[1408] But you can see what I'm saying, right?

[1409] That there are tenants that we're wrong about on the left.

[1410] That progressives are wrong and people chasing equality have been wrong in the past.

[1411] I think extremes are the problem, not liberty or equality.

[1412] It's just once you're like all in on one and one only is where issues start appearing.

[1413] And I think then what takes over as well is just identity.

[1414] Sure.

[1415] And then it's not even about the thing anymore.

[1416] You're defending your identity as a communist, as a socialist, as a nationalist, as a nationalist, as a populist.

[1417] You know, I think that's when it gets dicey.

[1418] Now you're just following a party line because you're committed.

[1419] Mm -hmm.

[1420] Roblo.

[1421] Rob Lowe.

[1422] I'm glad it was a long fact check, though, because he was a short episode.

[1423] Yeah, that's true.

[1424] Rob Lowe, he talks about the Stark Club in Texas.

[1425] That's where he tried Ecstasy.

[1426] But there's a documentary about the Start Club.

[1427] Oh, we should watch it.

[1428] Yes, it's called Sex, Drugs Design, Warriors of the Discotech.

[1429] Ooh.

[1430] And it's a documentary about the notorious start club, so -called, because it was the first major project by legendary designer Philip Stark in the U .S. Oh, I don't even know who Philip Stark is.

[1431] Me either.

[1432] But maybe we'll find out if we watch the dock.

[1433] Hey, Google.

[1434] Aww.

[1435] What if we got back to the attic?

[1436] There was a ton of microphone babies.

[1437] Everywhere all over the floor.

[1438] They had reproduced it.

[1439] Oh, you just got a shock.

[1440] They kind of grossed out by that, like walking in and seeing so many tiny mics.

[1441] Like little pods.

[1442] Well, like little cockroaches.

[1443] Oh, they're that small?

[1444] Yeah, I don't like that.

[1445] I don't like the thought of that, even though I love Google.

[1446] Okay, so history of MDMA, you talked about it a little bit.

[1447] Yes, a German chemist discovered MDMA.

[1448] Whoa, do you know what it stands for?

[1449] There have been times where I knew what it stood for.

[1450] It hit me. It's going to take me a second.

[1451] This is maybe the longest.

[1452] Methylhydroxy.

[1453] Methylene, Dioxy Methamphetamine.

[1454] Boom.

[1455] Methylene, Dioxy methamphetamine.

[1456] Wow.

[1457] That is hard.

[1458] That is, I think, maybe one of the longest words I've ever seen.

[1459] Oh, wow.

[1460] Let me count how many letters it is.

[1461] This would be an amazing Scrabble word.

[1462] A billion points.

[1463] 29 letters.

[1464] It took all my willpower not to be a dick.

[1465] 13, 17, 1, 8.

[1466] Thank you.

[1467] I appreciate that.

[1468] Yeah, boy, it took everything I had.

[1469] Methyline, Diokone, methamphetamine or MDMA.

[1470] Thank God they shortened it.

[1471] It would not be a popular drug.

[1472] If people had to pronounce that to their drug dealer to get it, no way.

[1473] It's not working.

[1474] In 1912, while developing other medicines that could stop bleeding, so these German chemists discovered it when they were trying to find these other medicines that were supposed to stop bleeding, the substance they discovered had unique psychoactive properties.

[1475] The pharmaceutical company Merck patented MDMA in 1914 as a compound that could have pharmaceutical value.

[1476] In 1985, the DEA declared an emergency ban on MDMA, placing it on the list of Schedule 1 drugs, defined as substances with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.

[1477] MDMA has remained a Schedule 1 substance since then, with the exception of a brief period of time between 1987 and 1988.

[1478] The year I was born.

[1479] My best year in my life.

[1480] Yeah.

[1481] So you said, as you say, that people have done mushrooms, have markedly more creativity that lasts.

[1482] There's a so many articles about this people can go down the rabbit hole if they want one made a major publication that was like new york times is she there's a lot of talk about microdosing and creativity and so i'll read this because this is the most recent study on it and it's in a lot of articles but this was one specific article science article psychedelics aren't legal in the u .s but the laws are more lax in netherlands where this guy homel and his colleagues conducted their study there their magic mushrooms or any mushroom containing the psychoactive compound psilocybin are banned, but magic truffles or sclerodia.

[1483] Ooh, scrotum.

[1484] Oh, my God.

[1485] Which are an underground portion of the same fungus are legal.

[1486] I have to say it again.

[1487] These sclerodia, that can't be right.

[1488] Sclerotia contained the same psychoactive psilocybin as a more familiar above -ground mushroom.

[1489] The researchers were invited to do the research by the psychedelic society of the Netherlands, which was conducting a micro -dosing event.

[1490] Because people who signed up for the event had already paid the organizers and expected a dose of real drugs, Hamel and his team couldn't ethically make a control group and give them fake shrooms.

[1491] Oh, that's funny.

[1492] So, but they could test participants before and after they took the mini -dose of psychedelic truffles.

[1493] The researchers asked 38 participants to do three short -written tests before they microdosed.

[1494] One was a brief intelligence test.

[1495] Another tested convergent thinking, a compound of creativity that involves solving problems with just one solution.

[1496] In this test, a participant would be shown a grid of pictures with objects.

[1497] Then they had to pick one object from each row and describe their commonality.

[1498] A sink, a horse, and a bathtub, for example, would all have water in common.

[1499] The final test focused on...

[1500] Did you say a sink, a horse and a bathtub?

[1501] A sink.

[1502] I might have.

[1503] I'm sorry if I did.

[1504] A sink a hose.

[1505] I'm like, what?

[1506] I'm going to have to take shrooms to figure out.

[1507] out what a horse a sink.

[1508] Sorry, I probably misset it.

[1509] A sink, a hose, and a bathtub.

[1510] The final test focused on divergent thinking or the ability to come up with many possible solutions to a problem.

[1511] Participants were given a word, either pen or towel, and told to come up with as many uses for that object as they could think of.

[1512] For a pen, Hamel said, this could be as dull as right with it or as wild as stick it in the right eye of your boss.

[1513] That's what I would say.

[1514] Yeah.

[1515] Wait, I'm not your boss in this scenario?

[1516] After taking a dose of around a third of a gram of magic truffles, the participants took different versions of these same tests.

[1517] The results show that after the microdose, intelligence did not change, but both divergent and convergent thinking improved.

[1518] The researchers reported.

[1519] This was a surprise, Hamel said.

[1520] The difference could be in the dosage rather than the substance, said study co -author, with recreational dosages.

[1521] people report an almost dreamlike, unconstrained thought process.

[1522] This might be great for brainstorming, but not so great for a more structured problem solving, she said.

[1523] Because there was no control group, it's impossible to say for sure whether the microdose was really the reason that creativity went up.

[1524] People might have learned how to do the test from the first round, though that is unlikely, Hamill said.

[1525] A practice round isn't known to improve people's scores on these kinds of creativity tests.

[1526] Alternatively, people might have simply expected to become more creative because they'd had a similar experience with magic mushrooms before or the idea that this was going to cause creativity.

[1527] But still, Hamel said those expectations would be based on a real effect of the drug.

[1528] Creativity is highly situational, Moreno told live science.

[1529] Psychedelics might help, but then so might changing up one's office layout or going for a hike.

[1530] There are too many variables in the actual work world to assume that microdosing makes a key difference, he said.

[1531] Yeah.

[1532] It's interesting.

[1533] It is interesting.

[1534] the article I had read was more about people who did big doses earlier in their life and it was more a survey of people who had done it and like what jobs they had and what kind of measure of creativity like they said and I think this is what I've said to you in the past you just have no idea what they would have been without it right there's no way to know you're right okay well we talk a little bit about backflips I didn't get to chime in I wanted to and I wanted to brag and you didn't brag for me which you should have that I used to do backflips.

[1535] I don't understand why you don't still.

[1536] Why would you let that go?

[1537] No, no, no, no, no. You don't understand.

[1538] It requires so much physical prowess to be able to do that.

[1539] Oh, I know.

[1540] I think it's the most impressive feat of strength.

[1541] But I don't have those muscles anymore.

[1542] Let's get them back.

[1543] It took me so long to get them in the first place and then I'm never getting those back.

[1544] It's all in the abs.

[1545] Yeah, it's core, right?

[1546] Core, core, core.

[1547] It's all in the abdomen.

[1548] If you and Ryan could do a backflip presentation at all these families.

[1549] vacations.

[1550] What a great time.

[1551] I wish I could still do it.

[1552] I really, really do.

[1553] Maybe we'll learn together when my hand heals.

[1554] I think I want to do a backflip before I die.

[1555] I think that's a goal.

[1556] That might be 20 -21's goal.

[1557] What if you die doing it?

[1558] No, I won't die.

[1559] Well, you could.

[1560] You could definitely land and break your neck.

[1561] It took me so long.

[1562] I didn't have the muscle capacity despite my elite muscle mass to do it.

[1563] It took me a long time to build up that ability.

[1564] I crashed and burned so hard so many times.

[1565] Oh my God, so many times.

[1566] And the day I finally landed my first one, it was such a big deal.

[1567] And the whole squad was there and everyone cheered.

[1568] And then the coach sent out an email.

[1569] Oh, wow.

[1570] Monica did a backflip.

[1571] And she sent it out reminding everyone that hard work pays off.

[1572] Right.

[1573] It was one of the biggest accomplishments.

[1574] What if it said, like, what if to prove that point she leaned into some stuff that wasn't entirely true in there, like Monica, are least physically talented member has accomplished what if she had to sandbag you it was pretty much true of the people who made matt we didn't call it that but that is what it was i was definitely the least capable of tumbling and so i had to really work extra hard to be able to do it because you had like you had to do like squad tucks sure backflips and you got there and i did i don't I think I've ever felt more proud.

[1575] Oh, that's your number one accomplishment.

[1576] I really, it's not my number one accomplishment, but it's definitely the time I felt the most proudest for you.

[1577] True pride of my, I was just proud of myself.

[1578] Yeah.

[1579] It never felt like that since.

[1580] Even when we won as a team, I was so proud of us and I was excited, but it was a different thing.

[1581] I don't, A, I don't know if I've ever had that, but the only time I can think of that I might have had something close to it was when it went in Rome when it was like time to look the way I was supposed to look and I did.

[1582] Sure.

[1583] And I didn't think I could get that way.

[1584] And I just was like, oh my God, I did it.

[1585] I did all the things you have to do.

[1586] That's so outside of my.

[1587] It's when you feel like you're defying the rules of your body in that case.

[1588] Or who you are.

[1589] Yeah, which I do think taught me perseverance and like there really aren't limits.

[1590] Right.

[1591] Yeah.

[1592] My thing was I used to during that movie, I would jog every night down the West Side Highway.

[1593] And I would run like four or five miles, which I can't run.

[1594] In fucking high school, I was like the mile, I'm going to get a note from my dog.

[1595] I am not in the drip long.

[1596] And I would just be trotting along going, who is this guy?

[1597] Who's running at midnight five miles?

[1598] I know.

[1599] I loved it.

[1600] I got to try to get that back.

[1601] Okay, the rich town in Parks and Rikas, Eagleton.

[1602] I didn't even have to look that one up.

[1603] I'm sure, yeah.

[1604] And that's all for Robert Lowe.

[1605] Oh, what a blast he was.

[1606] And I'm sure his podcast is going to be great.

[1607] He was great.

[1608] Yeah, he's fantastic.

[1609] Yeah.

[1610] All right, I love you.

[1611] Love you.

[1612] Take care.

[1613] Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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