Morgan Neville (documentary filmmaker)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert experts on experts.

[1] I'm Dan Neville and I'm joined by Monica Morgan.

[2] I loved this.

[3] This was really, really fun.

[4] You didn't, did you?

[5] Did you go watch the doc?

[6] Not yet.

[7] Oh, you better buy time for the fact check.

[8] The fact check, I will.

[9] Okay, don't fuck this up.

[10] Oh, my gosh.

[11] You're tired a lot and you're watching a lot of TV, so get this in the mix.

[12] Morgan Neville is our guest today.

[13] He's an Academy Award -winning documentarian or a documentary filmmaker.

[14] Take your pick.

[15] That's the best.

[16] I mean, wow.

[17] Yeah, it's pretty bonkers how many of his docs I had seen and not really tied it all together.

[18] You may recall if you listen to the Letterman episode, he was the director of the Letterman doc about you, too, that Letterman was referring to as Morgan Freeman.

[19] Yes.

[20] But alas, it's not Morgan Freeman.

[21] It's Morgan Nebel.

[22] Incredible movies, Roadrunner, that beautiful Anthony Bourdain doc.

[23] 20 feet from stardom, that's the Academy Award winner.

[24] Won't you be my neighbor?

[25] beautiful, beautiful doc.

[26] Best of Enemies, Bono on the Edge, as we just discussed, and a new documentary out right now on Netflix called The Saint of Second Chances that he co -directed with Jeff Mulberg.

[27] Now, this is the most twisty -turning, fun, feel -good doc I've seen in years.

[28] It's so fun and positive.

[29] I liked it so much.

[30] I hope everyone checks it out.

[31] Please enjoy Morgan Neville.

[32] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to armchair expert early and ad -free right now.

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

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

[35] He's an upsharexby.

[36] We're picking out candles together right now.

[37] You and Morgan?

[38] Yes, and Rob.

[39] Great.

[40] Where have you begun looking?

[41] I mentioned the H -24 makes film genre -themed candles.

[42] Oh, fun.

[43] And they sent me a documentary candle.

[44] Yes.

[45] So now we're browsing all the genres of candle.

[46] What does the documentary?

[47] Desperation is what I say.

[48] Steamy herbal, tart, nostalgic, yet vivid.

[49] You were addressing a strong food smell in here?

[50] Yeah.

[51] It smells like I just walked into like a Thai restaurant in New York City.

[52] Yeah, it smells strong, so I've lit this candle and that's what started this whole thing.

[53] Morgan, welcome.

[54] Thank you.

[55] You know, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I wouldn't have been able to just know your name off the top of my head.

[56] But when I was looking at the amount of movies you've made that I've loved, It's pretty outstanding.

[57] You are very prolific.

[58] But I've been an independent filmmaker for 30 years, which means you just hustle.

[59] This summer is 30 years when I started my first film.

[60] Wow.

[61] And for the first 15 years, nobody cared.

[62] Yeah.

[63] Documentaries were not cool in the least.

[64] They were like the spinach of filmmaking.

[65] And then people started to like documentaries.

[66] How do you explain that?

[67] I mean, for me, it feels like you had such limited distribution options.

[68] Basically, it was PBS or maybe HBO.

[69] Yeah.

[70] And that was about it.

[71] And then theatrically, that's dicey as well, right?

[72] There were a few rare films like Roger Me or Fahrenheit 9 -11, you know, the Michael Moore things or maybe Man on Wire.

[73] There were kind of a few moments where people thought, oh, docs might do something, and then they just kind of receded.

[74] But there was home video, and there were ways to kind of stitch together money to make films.

[75] And I ended up making a lot of music films because I could get music films funded, different ways.

[76] Because at least you know there's some kind of an audience.

[77] sometimes it'd be labels, sometimes it would be broadcasters.

[78] You know, I did a bunch of American masters and things, and Hank Williams and Muddy Waters and stuff like that that I was into.

[79] And I was just a music geek, and I figured out, you know, if I was the music guy, then I could at least make music films.

[80] And I did that for a long time.

[81] This has nothing to do with anything, but you just said Hank Williams.

[82] Have you seen there's an Instagram account?

[83] I'm sure there's many.

[84] And one's called, like, I ruined it, I think.

[85] And with AI, this gentleman, he's a bazillion songs.

[86] But the one I saw was Hank Williams singing N .W .A. Oh, my God.

[87] And there is no possible way you wouldn't know it was Hank Williams.

[88] Singing all the lyrics to NWA.

[89] It's so mind scrambling.

[90] I'm going to go watch that.

[91] Yeah, yeah.

[92] It's incredible.

[93] I just learned of this two weeks ago in Michigan.

[94] And then I watched it.

[95] I was like, how on earth this is happening?

[96] And it's just seamless.

[97] Any curiosity you've ever had like, God, I wonder if Rolling Stones would have done at James Taylor's song.

[98] You could fucking do it.

[99] I know.

[100] You don't like it.

[101] I like it a little.

[102] but I mainly don't like it.

[103] Okay, a little bit, but overall, you don't like, overarchingly?

[104] Because I don't want us to be able to say, like, a Morgan Neville movie about this water bottle, and then it's perfect.

[105] Like, it's not fair.

[106] Well, I guess if you own the IP and you can just churn out, like, if Morgan did have the ability to type in my style movie.

[107] Oh, that's true, if you were doing it.

[108] And then it came out exactly how he'd make it.

[109] It's funny because when I did the Hank Williams documentary, there are only needs.

[110] nine minutes of footage of Hank Williams that exist in the world.

[111] Video or film?

[112] A film of him.

[113] So I made a 100 minute film.

[114] That's tough.

[115] Having nine minutes of footage.

[116] So did you do a lot of illustrations?

[117] Well, I had a lot of photos, but then I was shooting all over Alabama and Tennessee.

[118] And then I actually got Hank three, his grandson, to kind of hang out in a trailer and play music, and I shot all this stuff with him.

[119] So he kind of stands in for his grandfather.

[120] Did you reach out to Hank Jr?

[121] I did, but he didn't pick up the phone.

[122] Yeah, he's a wild guy.

[123] Bosephus, he's Mercurial.

[124] Yes.

[125] Of the nine minutes that existed, was it all just one, or did you have multiple, like was it all at Grand Ole Opry or something?

[126] No, he was on a TV show, the Kate Smith show, and there were like him doing two songs there, and then there were a couple of snippets of home movies of different things, him and the Louisiana Hayride and him playing at like a state fair or something.

[127] He was insanely young, right?

[128] What did he die at, 28 or something?

[129] 29.

[130] Yeah, what a legend at 29.

[131] I mean, it's incredible what he did.

[132] But the thing everybody forgets is when he died, everybody was shitting on him at the time.

[133] Basically, he had just been fired by the grand old opery.

[134] He had just gotten divorced.

[135] Nobody really wanted to be around him.

[136] And the moment he died, everybody said, oh, Hank was going to come back next week.

[137] No, we were getting married again.

[138] Suddenly in death, everybody embraced him.

[139] Well, and hence the name of one of your films.

[140] They'll love me when I'm dead.

[141] They'll love me when I'm dead.

[142] Orson Wells.

[143] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[144] Which is true.

[145] It's a good career move.

[146] It is.

[147] It's a great way to rehab your public image.

[148] That's what Gore Vidal said about Truman Capote.

[149] When he heard he had died, he said, good career move.

[150] Oh, my God, that's great.

[151] Okay, so that was another great movie of yours, Best of Enemies.

[152] Gore Vidal and William Buckley were like on opposite sides of the political spectrum.

[153] And they would have these many debates.

[154] Yeah, so in 1968, ABC, who was like the distant network at the time that had no money, couldn't afford to do gavel -to -gavel coverage.

[155] So they get these two guys who hate each other, political opposites, and put them on television every night of the convention to argue with each other.

[156] And it becomes such a phenomena that they start doing it again and again, and everybody imitates it.

[157] And now that's how we have the debates?

[158] That's now basically cable news, you know, people just arguing with each other.

[159] But their level was...

[160] But their level was incredibly high.

[161] Wow.

[162] Yeah, it'd be like if Adam Grant was fighting with, I don't know, who are the right -wing equivalent is, but like top intellectual, yeah, but like really premier intellects of the time.

[163] It's a crazy story.

[164] I loved making that film, but I used to work for Gorbadole.

[165] You did?

[166] Yeah, my first job out of college.

[167] In what capacity?

[168] I was his fact -checker.

[169] No way.

[170] His Monica?

[171] Yeah, we have a fact -check on this show after each episode, yes.

[172] Oh, really?

[173] Yeah, but I'm not very good.

[174] With decreasing.

[175] Well, I say that very.

[176] It's hard to do.

[177] Dude, there's so much out there.

[178] I have to say being Gore Vidal's fact checker was maybe the worst job I've ever had.

[179] Because he spouted so many facts?

[180] Not only did he have facts at his fingertips, which were amazing, this is before the internet.

[181] I mean, he would remember passages for memory, and he'd maybe miss a word or two.

[182] So my job was to call him in Ravelo, Italy, on the phone, and say, Gore, actually, the word is this.

[183] You know, and then I'd hold the phone away from my ear as he screamed.

[184] He probably didn't love being corrected, even though he hired you to do that.

[185] If you know anything about Gore Vidal, he did not like to be correct.

[186] How did you get that job?

[187] How random?

[188] I went to work at the Nation magazine, and he started writing for the nation, and they assigned me to Gore.

[189] And they kind of said this is about as difficult as fact -checking is going to get.

[190] Oh, wow.

[191] They haven't tried to fact -checked Dax.

[192] Well, that's why I'm very Gore -Videl in that way, then I spout a lot of facts.

[193] Far lower level of accuracy, I'm sure, than Gore.

[194] Let's start in L .A. It's always weird to me when someone is from L .A. Yeah, my mom was born here.

[195] Is she first generation Angelino?

[196] Yeah, my grandparents were born in the Bay Area.

[197] Okay.

[198] But California going back.

[199] My mom was born in Glendale.

[200] And what did she do?

[201] She helped my dad run an antiquarian bookstore.

[202] What does Antiquarium mean?

[203] Used books, but like fancy used books.

[204] Oh, like signed and manuscripts and vintage.

[205] This is Monica's new obsession.

[206] She's obsessed with getting a Harry Potter first edition.

[207] I'm trying to get some first editions of lots of books, not just Harry, but yeah.

[208] Our house was shelves.

[209] room, floor to ceiling, except the bathrooms.

[210] Mom wouldn't let my dad shelve the bathrooms.

[211] And then our vacations were basically going to places that had bookstores.

[212] And sometimes we'd be in a tiny town and my dad would go into a store.

[213] He'd say, oh, I think we're going to be here for four hours.

[214] Because he'd be combing for everything.

[215] Because suddenly he's like, I found something.

[216] This is my dream life.

[217] To be married to that person or be rummaging through.

[218] On this ride on all vacations, like going into a little bookstore.

[219] It was actually kind of amazing.

[220] And my dad became friends with lots of writers and he started a little press.

[221] where he would publish books.

[222] When he opened his bookstore, the opening day, Charles Bukowski came and did a reading at my dad's bookstore.

[223] Okay.

[224] Do you know how obsessed I am?

[225] He stayed at our house.

[226] Wow.

[227] Oh, God.

[228] Wow, you have no idea what you just stumbled on.

[229] I'm going to try to not talk.

[230] Just know that he did most of his writing three blocks that way.

[231] I know.

[232] Which is crazy.

[233] And then even crazier, we have an investment duplex for like 10 years.

[234] It's next door to his childhood home that every single story from his childhood's written about.

[235] Just all by accident, and he's always been my favorite.

[236] That's amazing.

[237] I would imagine this bookstore is in some of his writing somehow.

[238] As soon as you said he started a small thing, I was like, oh, Black Sparrow Press, it makes me think of Bukowski.

[239] Black Sparrow Press was based in Santa Barbara.

[240] John Martin, who ran Black Sparrow, was in Santa Barbara, where we moved when I was a kid, and we lived there for a number of years.

[241] Oh, really?

[242] And so John Martin was a friend of ours, and my dad became friends with Chuck, as I called him, Bikowski.

[243] And the first time my dad really hung out with him He was doing like a poetry reading or something in a coffee shop And somehow they ended up on a bender My parents and Bikowski Right Well now really quick was your dad a pro or was he out of his depths He was totally out of his depths Okay My dad was good He was minorly But he wasn't Bikowski No who is, yeah Who is not since Gary Busey maybe He's the only person he had match him So I was a kid They came back to our house and kept drinking and we had a pool table and they were shooting pool sounds like who's afraid of Virginia whoa totally Bikowski is like ready to pass out so my mom puts them into a guest bed and apparently Bikowski was so used to getting rolled by other hobos or whoever hobos that like on autopilot he would take his keys in his wallet and hide them so he then wakes up at like 6 a .m. And doesn't know where he is and so he goes and he can't find find anything.

[244] So he goes wandering through our house and he wanders into my parents' bedroom.

[245] Oh my gosh.

[246] And says, my name is Charles Bikowski.

[247] If you can just give me my keys in my wallet, I will leave you.

[248] Oh, yeah, he lost the whole night.

[249] Lost the whole thread.

[250] My mom gets up and goes, no, Chuck, it's fine.

[251] She puts him back to bed.

[252] And then at breakfast, suddenly Bikowski's there with his wife beater, t -shirt, with stains all over it, sitting there and I'm like, who is this guy?

[253] Like mom, dad, who's the weird guy at the breakfast table?

[254] And that was my introduction to Bakowski.

[255] Wow.

[256] Oh my God, what a story.

[257] Why haven't we made this doc?

[258] I know, I know.

[259] Bukowski.

[260] Yeah, you might.

[261] Do you know what people would cooperate in that doc?

[262] Like, Sean Ben's obsessed with him.

[263] Oh, just typewriter.

[264] The list goes on.

[265] I know.

[266] I mean, there have been a couple great ones.

[267] Taylor Hackford made one in the 70s.

[268] I don't know if you've ever seen it.

[269] I've seen a couple.

[270] It's always a bummer because there's a lot of terrible footage of him that exists.

[271] Yeah.

[272] He was rough with women and it's on film.

[273] It's gnarly.

[274] I hate it.

[275] Yep.

[276] His voice doesn't match what I want it to be from reading him.

[277] Yeah, exactly.

[278] His voice is so not what you're expecting.

[279] The actual tone of it?

[280] I'm going to be doing an impersonation.

[281] I'm Mickey Rourke who did a great impersonation of him in Barfly.

[282] You can close your eyes if you want.

[283] Oh, your wife's cunt smells like carpet cleaner.

[284] That was a line from Barfly.

[285] No, I remember that.

[286] You remember that?

[287] That's a very memorable line.

[288] It's not that I don't like people.

[289] I just seem to feel better when they're not around.

[290] Yeah.

[291] I tried to put him in my first documentary.

[292] which was this Mondo L .A. history documentary called Shotgun Freeway, drives through Lost L .A. He was sick at the time, and he ended up dying while we were making the film.

[293] Oh, really?

[294] Yeah.

[295] So this is all post -making Barfly in Hollywood.

[296] Yeah, so this is, you know, 93.

[297] And he loved driving in L .A. that was one of his obsessions, right?

[298] Yeah.

[299] That whole documentary was me trying to understand L .A. history.

[300] I mean, I was a kid from L .A. who went back east to college, and I would talk about L .A. history.

[301] You went to Penn, yeah?

[302] I went to Penn, but.

[303] But people would laugh at me when I would say things like L .A. history.

[304] They're like, oh, that's an oxymoron.

[305] No, that does not exist or L .A. culture.

[306] Yeah.

[307] So I had a serious chip on my shoulder.

[308] Sure, naturally.

[309] So I've made three documentaries about L .A. history.

[310] I'm always like, you don't think there's history in L .A. Let me show you.

[311] Yeah.

[312] There was a teacher I fell in love with at UCLA who taught L .A. Geography at a few different L .A. geography classes.

[313] And I found it to be insanely fascinating.

[314] It's a crazy fascinating history for.

[315] city.

[316] I love it.

[317] My whole theory on LA history is it just doesn't look like normal history.

[318] It's not that it's not history, but most urban histories are like a couple hundred years based around a city hall and power.

[319] And all the cities, the 18th, 19, 20th century city halls are right next to each other and it's this power brokers and Tammany Hall and all these things.

[320] Yes.

[321] L .A. is like a really wide, shallow pool.

[322] And so the amount of water is there.

[323] It's just really, really thin and really wide.

[324] So the kind of history you're going to have in San Pedro versus Van Nuys versus East L .A. They're totally different experiences of cities.

[325] And they all kind of exist in parallel with each other.

[326] But they don't really talk to each other very much.

[327] His reigning theory was like, L .A. is a town defined by booms and bust more than any other city in America.

[328] It's had so many waves of booms and busts from oil to motion picture, you know, mass agriculture, all these different huge booms and busts that are pretty fascinating.

[329] It's amazing if you really look at it, how fast L .A. grew.

[330] Up until World War II, it wasn't even the biggest city in California.

[331] San Francisco was.

[332] But it doubled in population every decade for six decades in a row.

[333] Uh -huh.

[334] Which is crazy.

[335] Okay.

[336] Did you happen to listen to the Letterman episode since we were promoting your movie?

[337] I did.

[338] In fact, I think right after you taped it, I got a call from Letterman's manager saying, hey, we just did this podcast and Dave kind of butchered your name.

[339] I hope you don't mind.

[340] I was like, mine.

[341] I love it.

[342] It became a very funny.

[343] Butchered.

[344] It turned you into Morgan Freeman.

[345] I became Morgan Freeman, okay?

[346] But I enjoyed that so much.

[347] The Bono and the Edge, a sort of homecoming.

[348] Blast to make.

[349] It must have been you're with Letterman in Ireland, and then Glenn Hansard's there, and then you're at a bar, and they're all playing.

[350] That was magical.

[351] It was really one of those moments.

[352] You're like, I can't believe I'm in this room.

[353] I can't believe this is happening in front of me. You must have felt like you teleported into another life.

[354] I've had that experience a lot.

[355] I'm sure.

[356] I've been really, really.

[357] fortunate.

[358] But that was one of those things.

[359] It came up that Dave wants to do something with Bono and Edge and they don't know what it is, but they want to play some music and they're revisiting their catalog and what's it going to be.

[360] And what I often do when I start a film is the first thing I did is I just said, hey, let me just sit down with Dave and talk.

[361] So I sat down a room like this, recorded it.

[362] We talked for two hours and I talked about everything from like, what music do you like?

[363] You know, I found out that Dave used to play drums.

[364] He still has drums in place, which I've never seen him do.

[365] I know.

[366] I know.

[367] I know.

[368] Dax, you forgot to talk to him about that.

[369] I know.

[370] But also, he's like a huge reggae fan, huge Marley fan.

[371] Oh.

[372] And he and Bono, of course, connected over all that because of Island Records and all that other stuff and that he used to go jogging to you too.

[373] But then he said, well, I've never been to Ireland.

[374] I was like, wait, you've never been to Ireland?

[375] Yeah.

[376] It's like, well, that's what this is.

[377] We've got to go to Ireland and just make a documentary about it.

[378] As opposed to, like, his normal show, I was like, let's just approach it differently where we're kind of going on this journey with you.

[379] Okay, so one of my questions, I don't think I asked him.

[380] We talked about this moment in the film, but I have three favorite moments of that movie, in that bar, because there's a look on his face that's just never been seen.

[381] It's him with, like, insane wonder and humbled by what he's seen, and it's so outside of his own specialty to just be vibrantly alive out loud, unselfconsciously.

[382] It was great.

[383] I mean, the thing I told him was you're used to being the host you're the guest.

[384] Right.

[385] And it's like a different thing for him.

[386] This kind of event in the bar was put on for him.

[387] And I think he understood that.

[388] He was like, this is for me that this is happening.

[389] Then the other one is also a moment of great humbling, which is when the edge starts playing streets have no name.

[390] Yeah.

[391] That guitar thing.

[392] I think it overwhelmed everyone there, right?

[393] I'm sure you clearly Dave.

[394] That was incredible.

[395] For people who haven't seen it.

[396] Well, he just, yeah, he starts playing the most probably iconic riff of the catalog, and he's listening to it live and being played in front of him by the edge.

[397] And I think he's like, I can't believe I get to witness this.

[398] Yeah, I've done a lot of films about really talented people, and I feel people have superpowers sometimes.

[399] Yes.

[400] That was one of those magic moments where you're like, oh, this person has this power.

[401] They seem normal, and then they do this thing.

[402] You're like, oh, my God, that's not a mortal thing.

[403] That's not something we can all do.

[404] Third thing, and actually, this is my very favorite.

[405] How much were you intending on getting of he and Glenn Hansard interacting and then how much did you end up getting?

[406] Did that alter from like what you thought you were going to do and what ended up happening?

[407] Well, yeah, you don't know what's going to happen.

[408] Everything's a flyer.

[409] I'm a huge Glenn Hansard fan.

[410] I've seen him and I'd seen the frames.

[411] I'd seen swell season.

[412] Dave was like dimly aware.

[413] And then immediately.

[414] And then they had this like little love affair.

[415] Yes.

[416] It was incredible.

[417] And to me it's so obvious why, which is they're polar opposites.

[418] One guy is like all intellect and control.

[419] And the other guy is just like walking around as this six foot three heart with limbs in his fucking eyes.

[420] And he was a guest star on Parenthood.

[421] So I spent a week with Glenn in a studio just acting and shooting the shit.

[422] And yeah, the eyes in just the humanity.

[423] Sweetest guy just humbled and wears his emotions on his sleeve in a way that is not Dave at all.

[424] Yes, opposite of Dave.

[425] And being so attracted to it and drawn to it.

[426] And the fact that he just ended up taking a. train ride with them forever and all these different things.

[427] I loved that part.

[428] It was great.

[429] I mean, that was just one of those things that was kind of magical.

[430] And then we get to the train station at the end at the station in Dublin and they have one of those pianos set up, like a public piano that's chained to the thing so people can go sit down and play.

[431] Very Irish.

[432] Yeah.

[433] And Glenn starts playing in the station.

[434] The whole station gets quiet.

[435] It was just like one of these.

[436] Like, oh my God, I can't believe this.

[437] No, you're right.

[438] It is a superpower.

[439] It needs to be treated as such.

[440] Yeah, I mean, the first time I really clued into it is when I did the film 20 feet from stardom about backup singers.

[441] I'm embarrassed to say I haven't seen that.

[442] Oh, my God.

[443] And that won't you earn the Academy Award for them.

[444] Yes.

[445] But it's about these people who are basically the best singers on the planet.

[446] Yes.

[447] Uh -huh.

[448] They're better than the famous singers because these people have to nail anything, anytime with no preparation and no support.

[449] They have to be a piano.

[450] They have to be, like, in tune.

[451] They're magically talented.

[452] And I realized I'd be talking to some lady and And I'd say, oh, yeah, well, how did that go?

[453] And then they would sing something.

[454] I'd be like, oh, my God.

[455] Yeah, you can do that on demand?

[456] So I got to the point where I was constantly being like, hey, how did that go?

[457] Because as soon as any of them opened their mouth and started singing, you just got the shivers.

[458] Yeah, it's probably one of the very coolest things humans as an animal can do.

[459] Like, open their throat and let out emotion and feeling.

[460] Did you know when you were making that?

[461] Like, this is going to win an academy.

[462] Like, can you tell the.

[463] difference when you're in these processes.

[464] When you're making a stinker versus an anatomy award?

[465] You've certainly made a stinker, haven't you?

[466] You've made like 50 movies.

[467] I've made some that were maybe less successful, but some are cult records and some of the screen records.

[468] It's fine.

[469] That's my Velvet Underground album.

[470] I just finished the Mike Nichols book.

[471] He made a lot of stinkers.

[472] Yeah, you did.

[473] You could be a genius, isn't that great?

[474] I loved it.

[475] I'm a huge Nichols fan.

[476] But when you make a film you don't know, you think you're going to like it, but I swear on films like 25 from Starry, the number of people that were saying, oh, you're making a film about back up singers.

[477] Really?

[478] Okay, good luck with that.

[479] That sounds interesting.

[480] Uh -huh.

[481] When I did the Mr. Rogers film.

[482] Same thing.

[483] Really?

[484] What?

[485] What?

[486] You're going to do Captain Kangaroo next?

[487] Like, the kind of skepticism.

[488] I want to meet.

[489] Whoever said that's pretty funny.

[490] I know.

[491] Well, also, it's a embarrassing for him.

[492] You know, it's a very familiar phenomenon.

[493] In retrospect, everything is a success.

[494] But when you're making it, you don't know.

[495] All right.

[496] Let's have two provocative dances.

[497] One is, okay, they're the best singers on the planet.

[498] Yeah.

[499] Oh, I can't wait for this.

[500] Can you?

[501] I bet you can.

[502] I already.

[503] know what it is.

[504] This obviously hits close to home because my wife and I sometimes debate because she is classically trained and she knows what a good singer is and what good singing is.

[505] I don't.

[506] For the most part, musical theater singers are perfect.

[507] They hit the notes perfectly.

[508] But my point is like, yeah, but Bob Dylan blows them away.

[509] What are we saying good singer is?

[510] Adel, I don't, maybe someone's better in Del. I don't think so.

[511] But you have to have the fingerprint.

[512] You have to have the personality.

[513] Those are really relevant.

[514] To me, it's not notes.

[515] No, it's not just notes.

[516] Really, that film becomes an exploration of is how there was a world of backup singing in the 50s and like the Raycon of singers and the Hollywood Angelic, the perfect kind of soft choral sound.

[517] And these were all white ladies who sight read perfectly.

[518] And part of what 20 feet tells is there was this revolution in the 60s.

[519] The studios in L .A. in New York that started taking singers out of the churches in South Central or New Jersey.

[520] That's where Sissy Houston and Dionne Warwick and here in L .A., Mary Clayton and Darling Love, and these people who are like amazing gospel church singers as rock and roll started happening they're like why don't we get these guys and darlene who's one of the stars of our film legend of legends of singers said they're these white ladies we called them the readers because they could read sheet music and we couldn't but we pretend that we could but when we got in there and started singing they liked what we were doing so much that they became what the backup singers became and they sang on pretty much every 60s hit on everything from sam cook to frank sinatra and there is soul.

[521] It does not feel like it's from a computer or AI.

[522] And like these people do have really great individual voices.

[523] And a lot of times what they had to do, you know, part of the art of backup singing is sublimating the character of your voice into the blend and trying to become one with other voices and creating something, which is part of what the gospel tradition is too.

[524] So I think really the lesson of that film is less talent or even quality of voice and more all the other things that show business is about which is about perseverance luck timing packaging yeah because a lot of these women were so talented they had stabs at solo careers they put out records they just didn't connect for all kinds of different reasons it's not that they couldn't have been another great star 100 % okay now here's the other one i want to dance about i loved won't you be my neighbor thanks i wish i had seen it more recently but i remember thinking then he was gay yeah we talk about it i haven't seen it in a long time yeah i haven't No, so Francois, Officer Clemens, the black police officer in the neighborhood, who was gay and openly gay, and it's part of one of the stories of the film said that he had talked to Fred about it and that Fred was definitely not gay.

[525] And I have no position and zero evidence.

[526] Who knows?

[527] In another era, maybe he would have a different sexuality, but in the life he lived.

[528] Yeah, and I guess you could say, like, why do I even care to have that part examined?

[529] But I also think it is a very relevant part of the story.

[530] In the same way that some people in the 60s and 70s that were like, well, I can't live the life I'm designed to live.

[531] So what version am I going to live and what one can maybe help me achieve this goal of denying this whole part of my life?

[532] And I felt like that's part of that story.

[533] But he would have had to have acknowledged that in order to be able to get there and he didn't.

[534] I want to be ultra clear that what I'm about to say is I'm not talking about pedophile priests.

[535] But I am saying that a lot of gay men found themselves in clergy just because, because they were going to have a wonderful excuse for why they didn't have a partner.

[536] I'm not talking about the pedophiles that went there to pray on children, but I'm talking about the people that had to hide from their sexuality.

[537] And we've interviewed several now openly gay men who had been considering the clergy, because it's a good place to hide.

[538] Yeah.

[539] And I mean, Fred got married early on and became a pastor.

[540] And part of what I think we asked in the film is Fred certainly presented a different version of masculinity that we hadn't really seen.

[541] and certainly a very different version of parenting and fatherhood that we had never seen before and kind of trying to model that.

[542] Which is beautiful, yes.

[543] Because it's deeply empathetic and understanding.

[544] And I think a lot of people just said he can't be this guy.

[545] He can't be a straight, dad.

[546] There's got to be something dark and tortured without him.

[547] I think part of it is just like he can't be that way.

[548] And I'm not saying that he maybe didn't have struggles in some very personal way.

[549] But there was zero evidence of that.

[550] I talked to everybody, you know, and I read his letters.

[551] We did a lot of work on it.

[552] And so it's not up for me to judge.

[553] And at the end of the day, I don't think it changes anything about what he put out there in the world.

[554] Well, no, it doesn't change anything of his work.

[555] It's beautiful.

[556] And it was my childhood as so many people that saw it.

[557] And I dreamt of a man that nice in my life.

[558] My stepdad's weren't like him.

[559] My male teachers weren't like him.

[560] I think that's part of why it's hard for you, though, because you didn't know men like that.

[561] I knew one man like that.

[562] Who were straight.

[563] Mr. Wood.

[564] Right.

[565] Yeah, yeah.

[566] He was very much like Mr. Rogers.

[567] And then as I became an adult and I reconnected with them, he's like, you know, after I was your fifth grade teacher, I came out.

[568] I was the first openly gay principal and then superintendent.

[569] Maybe that's it.

[570] It's more than that.

[571] It's not that I think a straight man can't be soft and gentle and kind and patient.

[572] He certainly set lots of people's gaitar off, no doubt.

[573] Right.

[574] Which is why you then look into it.

[575] I would more, I wouldn't be more interested at story -wise.

[576] because it would make me even that much more sympathetic to my hero, that at the time he was alive, he had to live that way.

[577] If that was part of it, that would be a compelling and sad part of his story.

[578] And this is a man we love, I love.

[579] So that's why I would want to know, I guess.

[580] But that kind of undercurrent of sadness, I don't think it was there.

[581] It wasn't there.

[582] I just don't think it was there.

[583] Me, you would have found it.

[584] I feel like.

[585] Am I the first person to say this?

[586] People have been saying that forever.

[587] We talk in the film about all these theories that he always were, sweaters because his arms were tattooed all the way down, that he'd been a sniper, an assassin in the war, and he was great at shooting guns.

[588] Like, Fred never touched a gun in his life.

[589] Right.

[590] But that he can't just be this guy.

[591] And that probably is a big part of my baggage, which is like, what's the catch?

[592] What's the catch?

[593] Why is someone so nice and kind?

[594] It's funny because particularly spending a lot of time at Pittsburgh shooting the film, everybody in Pittsburgh had Fred Rogers stories.

[595] Did they?

[596] Day one, first shoot, I get in a cab.

[597] I say, take me somewhere, and he said, what are you doing?

[598] and I'm saying, I'm making a documentary about Fred Rogers.

[599] And he turns around, looks at me and says, don't fuck this up.

[600] Oh, that's great.

[601] It's like, okay.

[602] Like, people in Pittsburgh are very protective over Fred.

[603] Yeah.

[604] But the stories I kept getting again and again and again and again were somebody saying, oh, I was in an elevator with him.

[605] And I said, oh, hi, good to meet you.

[606] And he said, are you doing okay?

[607] And I said, well, I just had a rough morning.

[608] And then he sat with me for an hour and talked.

[609] Story after story after story of him doing these things, like, way above and beyond what normal people would do.

[610] And that's part of what Fred really was is he was a minister.

[611] And he was ministering to people through television, through children, but in real life, whenever he could minister to people, he took that opportunity.

[612] Maybe this just speaks to my ultra -low opinion of heterosexual men.

[613] I mean, it's hard.

[614] You were exposed to a lot of nefarious men, so you go in feeling like that.

[615] Yeah.

[616] I know one.

[617] You know a Mr. Rogers type?

[618] Not exactly, but I have a friend to everyone for so long, and still a lot of people do think he's gay and he's not.

[619] I know what you're talking about, and yes, and I would say, if I were saying what I'm saying about Mr. Rogers about a current person, I would think it's really shitty of me because I would have to believe your friend.

[620] I have to take someone at their word.

[621] In the 60s, I don't know if I got to take someone at their word, that stakes are so high to admit that.

[622] It's a different time.

[623] Yeah, so it's like it is a different context for me to be suspicious.

[624] For sure.

[625] I mean, it's interesting that one of the stories we tell in the film is Francois Clemens, who was a gay actor who played this role of the officer, and he's the one who shared the little kiddie pool and they put their feet in together so they could have their feet in the same water.

[626] But he tells the story that when he came out and started going to gay bars and Word was getting out, and Fred said, you can't do that because we have sponsors.

[627] It's a kid show, and they had a fight about it.

[628] And Fred later admitted that it was a mistake that he never should have done that.

[629] Many of their best friends were in the...

[630] gay community, and Fred became a big advocate for gay causes later.

[631] At his funeral, we have that scene where the Westboro Baptist Church are protesting his funeral, in part because he had been so supportive of gay causes.

[632] Oh, we interviewed Megan Phelps.

[633] Roperer.

[634] I don't know if you know her story.

[635] Yeah, I do.

[636] I do.

[637] It's incredible.

[638] It is incredible.

[639] The fact that she found her way out of that.

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

[641] We've all been there.

[642] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose.

[643] are inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[644] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[645] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated.

[646] Or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their their ceilings.

[647] Hey, listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[648] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[649] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[650] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[651] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon Music.

[652] What's up, guys?

[653] This 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?

[654] every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[655] And I don't mean just friends.

[656] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

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

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

[659] Okay, another one I loved, I want to bring out.

[660] We're going to get, don't worry, to the saint of second chances.

[661] Take your time.

[662] I love Roadrunner.

[663] Thank you.

[664] What I really appreciated is, it was such a celebration of what a beautiful guy he was.

[665] Give more context.

[666] It's called Roadrunner, a film about Anthony Bourdain.

[667] Oh, my God.

[668] You watch it, right?

[669] I called you and I'm like, you got to watch this immediately.

[670] That was you.

[671] I didn't even realize.

[672] That really sat with me for so long.

[673] Yeah, well, try making that for two years.

[674] I can't imagine.

[675] Kind of the emotional journey you go on making something like that is so hard.

[676] Yeah.

[677] And, you know, we've interviewed a lot of his peers, different chefs.

[678] Sure.

[679] You've known him, and it's just unanimous.

[680] They all loved him.

[681] I had read Kitchen Confidential when it first came.

[682] came out.

[683] Yeah, me too.

[684] Here's my lens I can't get out of, which is I'm an addict.

[685] So I read Kitchen Confidential.

[686] I find out he's a junkie.

[687] You know, he says he's a junkie.

[688] And then I watch that show sometimes.

[689] And I'm like, this dude can drink casually?

[690] That's unexpected.

[691] Yeah.

[692] He drinks a little more than casually sometimes too.

[693] Yeah.

[694] I was just a little bit like, oh, that's interesting.

[695] We're at least told you're probably never going to be able to do that.

[696] Yeah.

[697] Like a gentleman after you've been a junkie.

[698] He never did rehab.

[699] Right.

[700] And he never really did a program or going to meet.

[701] No, I mean, his way of doing.

[702] dealing with it is, you know, he was an addict.

[703] So he was like, well, what am I going to be addicted to now?

[704] Exactly.

[705] Oh, work.

[706] The fact that he was, as a chef, kitchen confidential, he was the most strict, punctual person of all time.

[707] And he said, look, if I'm going to be at the restaurant 12 hours a day, I'm going to be on time, no matter what, that's going to keep me from getting too far off the rails because I always have to be there.

[708] His first addiction's that.

[709] Yeah.

[710] And his show became that kind of addiction.

[711] Jiu -Jitsu became that kind of addiction.

[712] I mean, he just kept piling on.

[713] other substitutes of, oh, this is going to be a new thing I'm going to go crazy deep into that's going to kind of keep my life in some kind of an order.

[714] So what I loved about watching is I wrongly assumed when I heard that news, I don't know how often this happens, but occasionally this happens.

[715] And there's like a collective sadness about it.

[716] He was one of them where I think everyone felt sad.

[717] 100%.

[718] And I remember like, God, how do you explain it?

[719] Because he's very successful and it seems to be having a blast on these shows.

[720] And, of course, I was like, it's got to be the addiction thing.

[721] It's got to be related to the fact that he was dancing with the devil, but just in a different way.

[722] And then we interviewed somebody who knew him very well.

[723] And he said, he fell in love with this young girl.

[724] He changed so dramatically.

[725] And that's really.

[726] And I think at the time of hearing that I thought, this sounds a little blammy.

[727] I wasn't inclined to believe that.

[728] And then I watched the doc.

[729] And by the way, don't blame her.

[730] I blame him.

[731] Yeah.

[732] He made all those choices.

[733] Yeah, exactly.

[734] And he lost himself in that.

[735] As so many older men who date really young women and get lost in that whole thing, to me, I'm like, oh, that's so powerful, it's as powerful as heroin, or more.

[736] To see him lose confidence that footage you have of him, like, trying to celebrate her at the dinner, and it's like the 80th time he said the same thing, and you can see on her face, she's sick of it, and you can see the desperation in his.

[737] It's as if you're watching someone who is very fucked up from a drug.

[738] That relationship is another one of his hyperfixations, But it's dangerous to put that on to a person.

[739] I mean, not only you're never going to have a healthy relationship out of that kind of an imbalance, but in a situation like that when he was so kind of untethered at that point, because he'd kind of given a domestic life a shot.

[740] You know, he tried to kind of be the dad with the white picket fence and just couldn't do it.

[741] That was the saddest part of the whole thing.

[742] It really is.

[743] The attempt and he couldn't live like that healthily.

[744] No, and in his contract, I mean, I talked to all the people, to work with him.

[745] And he worked so hard.

[746] The number of days he was on the road a year were 265 days here, something crazy.

[747] He's in war zones for some of those days.

[748] Yeah, yeah.

[749] In late seasons, he was going to Libya and other places, like not tourist -friendly places.

[750] He's with Jose Andre sometimes on the top of buildings, like bombs are going off.

[751] He could have done less work.

[752] Like in his contract, they said, you can do half as many shows and still make a lot of money.

[753] Yeah, yeah.

[754] And he always wanted that clause in his contract, but he never did it.

[755] He never worked less because that addiction number one, which is if I'm being productive and I have this schedule, it's going to keep me moving forward.

[756] But there's a certain point when you're running away from something.

[757] I'll also add it's going to earn me the reward of doing what I really want to do.

[758] This is the other tricky thing.

[759] Yeah.

[760] I think that works perfectly hand in hand work addiction with other addictions because you tell yourself you've earned it.

[761] And really, all you really want to do is earn it.

[762] The incredible Britney Spears documentary to find out they wanted her to do a show every night as part of this residency and the agreement was they would double her Adderall prescription.

[763] It's like, yeah, I get that.

[764] I'll do twice as many shows.

[765] Just give me twice as many drugs that I want.

[766] I mean, the other thing I think a lot about with Tony is he was such a deeply curious person who was, I guess, skeptical of everything.

[767] He got a tattoo when he was 60, two years before he died, that said in ancient Greece, I'm certain of nothing.

[768] And that kind of sounds, cool in a way of like question everything and I get all that.

[769] But by the time you're 60, there are certain things you shouldn't question.

[770] The love of your child, the people who care about you.

[771] It's time to trust a little bit.

[772] You have to trust.

[773] And you have to be like, okay, I will have faith that that is a real thing.

[774] Those are the things that give you root and keep you from being as unrooted as Tony became at the end.

[775] I think in a little way he got lost in this kind of philosophical idea of what really matters and where are the real things in my life.

[776] Right.

[777] Oh, I loved that one, man. That was a heartbreaker.

[778] It reminded me of her, the Spike Jones movie, where I felt love sick for like five days afterwards.

[779] Like I had fallen in love and gotten my heartbroken.

[780] This one was with me for a long, long time.

[781] I remember telling Monica like, oh, my God, you've got to watch this immediately.

[782] How do you pick what you're going to do?

[783] It's a mixture.

[784] The best answer is when an idea comes up, which could be me stumbling on something, just saying, oh, I have to do this.

[785] When I don't have to talk myself into it, I just have to trust my gut because it has to stain me for a couple of years.

[786] There's the kind of snowball effect.

[787] If I find it getting more interesting and me getting deeper into it, that's the good trend.

[788] Many times there have been something that's like, that's interesting.

[789] And I dig into it and it just doesn't get momentum.

[790] Nothing quite starts clicking, but the best films are ones where you're like, oh, this is just getting better and better and deeper surprising you in ways because really when you're making a documentary, it's about asking questions and trying to figure out something you don't know the answer to.

[791] You know, you're not writing the end to this.

[792] So you don't have control, which is the part that I love, but it's the scary part because you're like jumping off a cliff every time and hoping you're going to catch an updraft and not crash when you're making a dock.

[793] Well, listen, I don't know you well enough to say this, but I find it interesting the subject matters you're attracted to because they seem opposite of you a little bit.

[794] depends.

[795] I mean, it's funny, after I did the Bourdain film, the next film, I needed to kind of recover from that experience.

[796] Yeah, I bet.

[797] So I did a Steve Martin film, which is coming out next year.

[798] Oh, fun.

[799] What's it called?

[800] It's called Steve, exclamation point.

[801] Oh, I saw one that was coming and it looked like it was a picture of Andy Kaufman.

[802] Oh, that's why.

[803] What's that one called?

[804] It's called, thank you very much.

[805] Both Laca and Andy used to say it all the time.

[806] But Steve, I was like, oh, I get to do comedy.

[807] I get something.

[808] banjo playing.

[809] And Steve's a complex, interesting person, too.

[810] Not all light in any way.

[811] And he participated?

[812] Oh, yeah.

[813] I went deep down the rabbit hole with him, which is incredible.

[814] But that was my antidote to the previous films.

[815] Palet Cleanzer.

[816] And people always think when you make documentaries, you're making films about other people's stories.

[817] But of course, when you're making films, you're also making films about your own story.

[818] Yeah.

[819] You know, 100%.

[820] Well, the questions you're asking are very revealing of you in your interest.

[821] Yeah, and what I say to people, and like I said to Steve when I started the film this process is going to be therapy for you but it's going to be therapy for me too yeah you know and we have to share in that vulnerability to get to a place where we're making something true and honest and revealing because the more honest you get the more you can relate to a person that's the thing that i think about a lot mr rogers or 20 feet from stardom those films are really about very common ideas of things we're all dealing with in our own lives i mean a film like won't you be my neighbor is full of questions.

[822] I think there are like six scenes in the film that end on questions and the whole film ends on this question and this moment of silence of contemplating who the people are in your life.

[823] It's really that mirror of like inviting an audience like I'm invited as a filmmaker to ask myself all these questions as I'm making a film.

[824] They don't have to be your top five.

[825] That's too much pressure.

[826] But will you off the top of your head?

[827] What are five of your favorite documentaries?

[828] I don't see if there's any overlap.

[829] What of other people's documentaries?

[830] Yes.

[831] I watch anywhere from 50 to 80.

[832] a year.

[833] Oh, God.

[834] Because the thing about a documentary is even a bad documentary, you're going to learn something.

[835] Absolutely.

[836] You can't say that about a bad scripted film.

[837] Also, like, I love 60 Minutes.

[838] I love Frontline.

[839] I love any real information.

[840] Totally.

[841] Insatiable.

[842] When we were Kings.

[843] Oh, yes.

[844] The Muhammad Ali one?

[845] Yeah, it was about the rumble in the jungle.

[846] Yes, with four -men.

[847] But there was like the music festival going on and James Brown was there.

[848] I remember watching that when I was making my first documentary.

[849] Oh, boy.

[850] And just being like, someday if I could make a film like that.

[851] That film just had everything that I wanted.

[852] And then Ali, it's virtually that film.

[853] He's one of the most charismatic characters of all time, and there's this whole story, the fight gets delayed, so they're all stuck there for weeks.

[854] They just keep filming, so Ali's out running.

[855] Running, chanting.

[856] Yeah, the villages, you know, people are chanting.

[857] It's crazy they captured as much of that as they did.

[858] That could have been put together so much later.

[859] There are a whole bunch of early films that made me think about wanting to make documentaries.

[860] F for Fake, the Orson -Wells film.

[861] Oh, I haven't seen that.

[862] Oh, my God.

[863] What's it called?

[864] F for fake.

[865] Orson made it.

[866] Okay.

[867] It's about an art forger.

[868] And then it's about somebody who wrote a book about the art forger who himself turned out to be a forger.

[869] Oh, wow.

[870] And then it's about Orson making a film about the guy.

[871] And Orson from War the World's On saying, I myself am a forger.

[872] Oh, my God.

[873] And it becomes this celebration of forgery.

[874] Oh, my God.

[875] Oh, I love that.

[876] That's cool.

[877] And so they'll love me when I'm dead.

[878] My Orson doc is like me trying to pay back the experience of what Efferfake meant to me. I love that, Doc.

[879] What about...

[880] We're just going to list all our favorites.

[881] Well, there's two I got to get your opinion on.

[882] Going back to lots of ones at hearts and minds and Sherman's March, those films meant a lot to me because they showed me that documentary was something that could be done.

[883] But also other master films like Fog of War is like a perfect documentary too.

[884] McNamara.

[885] Yeah, just absolutely amazing.

[886] And I just saw Errol's new John LeCarray film at Tell Your Ride, which is coming out on Apple next month.

[887] I think it's the best thing is made sense of Vogue of War.

[888] Wow.

[889] It's like the perfect meeting of filmmaker and subjects.

[890] So John LeCarray, who never really gave interviews.

[891] I don't even know who that is.

[892] The spy thriller mystery writer, the most famous one who wrote the spy who came from the cold and umpteen different adaptations of everything from Taylor of Panama, the most wanted man, the little drummer girl, ticker Taylor Soldier Spy, you know, on and on.

[893] So, Errol making a movie about him.

[894] Who was kind of the greatest spy author of all time.

[895] He himself had been a spy.

[896] John Lick Ray had worked in the British Secret Service before he became a crime writer.

[897] How do you feel about American movie?

[898] I love American movie.

[899] Okay.

[900] Oh, it's great.

[901] I've seen that movie more than any other movie.

[902] I mean, there aren't that many rollicking, funny documentaries.

[903] Yes.

[904] We just watched something that was so reminiscent.

[905] Oh, we watched telemarketers.

[906] Did you watch telemarketers?

[907] I haven't seen it yet.

[908] I want to see it.

[909] It'll remind you of American movie quite a bit.

[910] There's a character in it that's very Mike Shank.

[911] What about Hearts of Darkness?

[912] Fantastic.

[913] Maybe better than Apocalypse Now.

[914] I would not say that.

[915] But, I mean, Apocalypse Now is, come on.

[916] It's incredible, but if I only had gotten to see one in my life, I think I'd prefer to have seen Hearts of Darkness.

[917] I mean, I would make the argument that burden of dreams, the documentary that Les Blank made about the making of Fitzgeraldo is a better film than Fitzgerald.

[918] And I like Fitzcaroldo a lot.

[919] I maybe even love Fitzcarold.

[920] But the documentary about it, Burden of Dreams, go watch it.

[921] It is amazing.

[922] Rob, will you write that down?

[923] You need to give us a list of what we must.

[924] Well, that's why I'm defining out right now.

[925] If you ever saw Fitzgeraldo.

[926] I haven't seen that.

[927] So, you know, Klaus Kinski plays this explorer.

[928] And they have to move a ship over a mountain in the Amazon.

[929] Wait, this isn't my best fiend.

[930] Herzog made a documentary about his relationship with Kinski, called my best fiend.

[931] Yes.

[932] But one made on the set of Fitzgeraldo was less blank the fifth.

[933] filmmaker made this film about the making of Fitzcarado where they actually moved to ship over a mountain and people died making the film yeah and they wanted to kill klaus kinski the natives there offered to kill him and also the cameraman like broke his entire face off when they're going down the amazon on that boat yeah all these horrible things happen and Hurtzog is completely obsessed it's the great thing about Hurtzog and like my best fiend has this too in the beginning he's telling you how crazy Klaus Kinski is and about halfway into the movie you're like I think Herdsog's just as crazy as Koskisky.

[934] They were made for each other.

[935] Totally made for each other.

[936] That's why the title is so great.

[937] My best feed.

[938] Have you ever felt in danger during any of these?

[939] I can't say really just because I know a lot of my documentary peers who do that.

[940] I don't do that like they do that.

[941] So I cannot claim anything like the kind of risk.

[942] You're not making a free solo.

[943] You're not on the side of a mountain top.

[944] But not even that.

[945] So we have a show with David Ferrier.

[946] Yeah, we were just talking about it.

[947] Yes.

[948] That's great.

[949] Yeah, we love David.

[950] And he puts himself in danger emotionally because all of his subjects are bad narcissists who could, who knows.

[951] They all sue him.

[952] Well, they all sue him.

[953] Yeah, they all sue him.

[954] They could come after him at any point.

[955] And he's addicted to that type of personality.

[956] And we're about to go him and I in search of another similar type.

[957] And I'm very scared.

[958] Yeah, I mean, I've thought about this a lot.

[959] I would have a hard time making a film about somebody I truly despised or didn't respect.

[960] Not that it couldn't be a great film, but for me to give up that much of my life to something that I feel that way about, it's just not something that I want to do.

[961] And it's certainly not the opposite, like I'm not into hagiography either, because those opportunities have come up.

[962] Do you want to make a film about this?

[963] Yeah, well, there's a lot of ways to motivate yourself.

[964] And you want to work through loving and being passionate about a story.

[965] and David is in ways like a sheriff.

[966] He wants to expose things.

[967] He wants to expose people.

[968] Those are, I think, in his head, the most complicated types of people.

[969] And so he wants to understand a very complicated type of person.

[970] And those are interesting.

[971] The things that I keep chasing in my projects again and again, which took me 20 years to realize it, are creative process.

[972] Thinking about how people engage in the work of creativity is like something I come back to again and again, like it never gets boring to me. And the other thing is how does culture connect us in a way?

[973] Because culture is how we define ourselves, define other people.

[974] It's to me kind of the great force in our society that we don't pay that much attention to.

[975] We talk about politics and we talk about religion, we talk about all these things.

[976] But culture is really this soft force that shapes so much of how we see other people and see ourselves.

[977] All shooting wars start as culture wars.

[978] It's the data by which we use to establish ingress.

[979] group, outgroup, which is the motivation and justification for all the biggest atrocities of all time.

[980] Roger Ebert called movies Empathy Machines, which I think is great.

[981] But documentaries are the ultimate empathy machines.

[982] Like that's literally what we're doing, is we're trying to give you an understanding into other people and let you understand how they think and live.

[983] I hesitate to bring this one up because it's so crushing.

[984] And I was crushed by it before I even had kids.

[985] But as far as a doc that I couldn't believe.

[986] real time the things were happening as they were making it was dear zachary you see that one that one is I never saw it oh really you didn't see it I urge you to watch it okay it's someone who's made many many documentaries yeah and they set out to do one thing and then things just start revealing themselves and the path they end up on it's almost unbelievable that this could have all happened while shooting the doc but it is fucking dark another one we love is three identical strangers sure we love I love that one.

[987] We talked about that one.

[988] I mean, that's a great story.

[989] I hope the listeners not driving their car right now.

[990] I hope they're at their desk and they can write down all these.

[991] And this is a good two months worth of viewing.

[992] We've just kidding.

[993] Okay, let's talk about the saint of second chances.

[994] I also loved them.

[995] Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson so much.

[996] I loved the sampling episode.

[997] That was incredible.

[998] Did you ever see Shangri -La, this show I did with Rick Rubin?

[999] So I saw the title when I was researching you today and I feel like I've seen it.

[1000] It was a show?

[1001] Or part miniseries with Rick Rubin.

[1002] I don't know that I did.

[1003] I think I would remember.

[1004] Because I know Rick was on the show.

[1005] Yes, yes.

[1006] And I got to go there once with the Ava Brothers.

[1007] They were recording there, so I went.

[1008] It's great.

[1009] I mean, we spent like a year and a half hanging out at Shanker's Park.

[1010] That's not a bad place to report to work.

[1011] No, it's gorgeous.

[1012] It's gorgeous.

[1013] Cross street from the ocean.

[1014] We'd all sit there and kind of wait for stuff to happen.

[1015] You're almost like a nature documentary at that point.

[1016] Totally.

[1017] And whether or not it's the real nature or the nature in the studio when suddenly something happens.

[1018] Right.

[1019] You're watching the zebra for days and days and days and days.

[1020] and then all of a sudden a lion appears.

[1021] Oh, my God.

[1022] Like, the patience required to shoot them.

[1023] Like, what if the line never appears, I'd be so stressed out.

[1024] I bet sometimes they don't.

[1025] We see when the align appear.

[1026] But yes, if you're in a studio, the Aver Brothers one, which was really good.

[1027] Yeah, it's great.

[1028] It's incredible when they do that song.

[1029] Yes, no hard feelings.

[1030] But they had probably shot so much that wasn't no hard feelings.

[1031] I mean, that's part of the gig.

[1032] It's the stuff you don't see.

[1033] So when they see a film, they're like, God, everybody was so great in your film or this was so great.

[1034] That's because you didn't see the 20 people who.

[1035] who didn't make the film.

[1036] Right.

[1037] You didn't see the 180 hours that didn't make the film.

[1038] To sit down with two years of footage.

[1039] Is that the darkest part of the process?

[1040] It's my favorite part of the process.

[1041] So documentaries, you make them backwards from how you make scripted films.

[1042] Scripted films, you write a script, you shoot a movie, you edit.

[1043] Yes.

[1044] In documentary, you shoot a movie, you write a script while you're at it.

[1045] Right.

[1046] So you're writing it after the fact.

[1047] Yes.

[1048] You know, and it's shaping when you're shooting it and you're getting ideas.

[1049] But that's really where the storytelling happens is in the edit bay.

[1050] Because it's not just reducing what you have, but it's trying to shape and find story in the randomness of all this footage.

[1051] Have you ever given up mid movie?

[1052] Not mid, I've given up early.

[1053] Okay.

[1054] One project I wanted to do because I was always obsessed with him is Raymond Chandler.

[1055] Who's Raymond Chandler?

[1056] Raymond Chandler, the crime writer.

[1057] Of course, the Big Sleep.

[1058] I'm glad it was that.

[1059] If it was another person that was in a different, that's the same genre.

[1060] Yeah, I don't know anything about crime novels.

[1061] And he was kind of one of the great of the Big Three Dashel Hammett, James M. Kane.

[1062] Hearing all three of those things for the first time right now.

[1063] But they wrote, think of every famous film noir.

[1064] All those movies were based on books by those three guys.

[1065] Okay.

[1066] You know, all the Humphrey Bogart and Philip Marlowe, the detective.

[1067] HUD?

[1068] Was that written by anyone?

[1069] No. Okay.

[1070] No. But I tried to make a film and I interviewed a bunch of people, but he had been gone for so long and there were so little there and it felt like I couldn't bring it to life.

[1071] Right.

[1072] That's got to be very hard to admit that to yourself and walk away.

[1073] Yeah, but it's also.

[1074] a huge relief.

[1075] And that's part of it is you're planting seeds.

[1076] I mean, not to transition to the saint of second chances.

[1077] Please do.

[1078] But 15 years ago, I was shooting a documentary in Tennessee and I was listening to the radio and it was on NPR and there was this guy telling stories about how important fun was to the philosophy of how he wanted to run his baseball team.

[1079] And he was just a great storyteller and I got to wherever I was going and I pulled over and I was like, who is this guy?

[1080] And I said, oh, that was Mike Feck.

[1081] He's the owner of a minor league baseball team.

[1082] And his dad was Bill Beck in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

[1083] I wrote down his name.

[1084] I went to his website.

[1085] I sent him an email.

[1086] And I was like, hey, I find you interesting.

[1087] Can I buy you a coffee?

[1088] And so six months later, we both happened to be in New York, and we had a coffee.

[1089] And we kind of hit it off.

[1090] And we started talking.

[1091] He was a big music fan.

[1092] So I'd send him my documentaries.

[1093] And we kind of stayed in touch.

[1094] And three years ago, he's like, I think I really want to try and make a documentary out of my story now.

[1095] Oh, wow.

[1096] And that's how it happened.

[1097] You don't know 15 years ago.

[1098] It was just like, I'm interested in this.

[1099] I'm just going to put this message in Ebola out there in the world and it may come back or may not come back.

[1100] And I encourage young filmmakers to do this all the time.

[1101] Put those ideas out there in the world and sometimes they come back to you.

[1102] Okay.

[1103] So the saint of second chances, which is out on Netflix right now.

[1104] You just mentioned it, but we would have to start with Bill Vec, who's a super crazy colorful.

[1105] And what's neat about it is I'm not a baseball fan.

[1106] I mean, I like going to games, but I don't know the history of baseball.

[1107] I never followed that much.

[1108] But what I love about it is he's the end of an era, the dad.

[1109] It's like the last person that could have owned a major league baseball team that wasn't a billionaire.

[1110] Basically, yeah.

[1111] Right out of the gates, I like it.

[1112] We were interviewing Kate Mara.

[1113] One grandfather started the Pittsburgh Steelers, one, the Jets or the Giants.

[1114] And I'm like, what did they do?

[1115] Were they tycoons of industry?

[1116] And she's like, no, they were bookies.

[1117] And I'm like, oh, wow.

[1118] As a bookie, you could have started an NFL franchise is incredible.

[1119] It's an era that I really am nostalgic for, when these colorful characters could have owned the white socks.

[1120] He owned different teams at different times.

[1121] He was kind of like the PT bar in baseball, and people loved him, and he would hang out in the bars, and the people loved him in the streets, and he had all these friends, and some of them were rich, and every once in a while, a bunch of his rich friends would give him money to go buy a baseball team.

[1122] So he owned the Indians for a while.

[1123] he owned the White Sox in the early 60s and then had to sell them and then bought them back in the mid -70s and that's kind of where we pick up the story.

[1124] Did he ever make money at this?

[1125] Not much.

[1126] He was a huge drinker, Monica.

[1127] Slamming beers all day long, every day.

[1128] There was a bar inside of the White Sox.

[1129] Kamiski Park, the White Sox Stadium, there was a bar called the Bard's Room that was his office.

[1130] Oh, wow.

[1131] And he just hung in there, he took all of his meetings and he's in there and his son at the time, who this is about, Mike, is running and fetching beers for all these people politicians are there.

[1132] But it's the end of that Wild West part of not just baseball, kind of of all sports.

[1133] Like you see a film like Winning Time is kind of telling a version of the same thing.

[1134] Yeah, yes, that Jerry Buss was one of the last of these great characters.

[1135] Sports today is such big business.

[1136] Corporate, yeah.

[1137] And we forget that there was a time where it was really people making it up.

[1138] And it was so much more a live event.

[1139] There wasn't ESPN.

[1140] There wasn't these huge contracts on cable for airing these things.

[1141] So it's like whatever you generated at that arena of yours is really most of your money.

[1142] So, yeah, this guy invented all this weird stuff that was still around, right?

[1143] Tons of stuff.

[1144] I mean, there's stuff like the exploding scoreboard, but he's the one who, for better or worse, got the DH established, who put players' names on their jerseys for the first time, who did all kinds of things, but also did things like put a shower in the outfield.

[1145] For people to, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1146] Fireworks at a home run.

[1147] They figured out, like, the home run happens.

[1148] There's just two things.

[1149] Like you hear the crack, then you see it go over the thing.

[1150] Then it kind of dissipates really quick.

[1151] How can we extend it so they had a scoreboard that lit up?

[1152] He did a game where they said, okay, the bleachers are going to be the manager for the game.

[1153] And everybody in the bleachers had cards.

[1154] And they said, okay, are we going to, you know, bunt or hit?

[1155] You know, and everybody would hold up a sign and say, okay, I guess we're going to bunt.

[1156] It was a total show.

[1157] And for a while, when he owned the Indians, you know, if a good hitting team was coming to town, he'd moved the outfield wall 10 feet back.

[1158] He was just like, he was a total character.

[1159] And most famously, he put in a dwarf to bat, Eddie Goodell.

[1160] Do you know, this just came up on a fact check of ours, like a month ago.

[1161] Remember we talking about the tallest baseball players?

[1162] And I had said Randy Johnson.

[1163] Then there was someone that was 610.

[1164] And then Rob's like, oh, my God, there was someone that was three.

[1165] Yeah, 310 or something.

[1166] We were like, what?

[1167] And only had one up at bat.

[1168] His jersey, his number was one quarter.

[1169] Oh, my gosh.

[1170] And it was because of him.

[1171] Oh, weird.

[1172] Yes.

[1173] When I saw that, it was like, oh, my God, we just learned this.

[1174] Yeah, there's animals out on the field.

[1175] There's all kinds of crazy shit happening.

[1176] So at the height of this, his son, Mike, is now getting involved.

[1177] He's been a runner.

[1178] He's been working hard trying to show dad.

[1179] And he starts getting more and more responsibility.

[1180] So he starts coming up with different theme nights.

[1181] And he has a night that is really successful.

[1182] It's a disco celebration night.

[1183] And it's a big turnout.

[1184] They sell out.

[1185] And the dad says he had taught him always think in opposite.

[1186] So if like one thing works, maybe try the opposite thing.

[1187] So he goes, wow, this disco night worked out really well.

[1188] we should do an end of disco night or hating disco demolition dick what's it ended up being called led by this psychopathic you know this story well this is in the bg's documentary it's a kind of legendary debacle in baseball history so steve doll local shock jock in chicago who has like young rock and roll fans who's kind of an anti -disco guy is there a doc on that guy i mean he's no but there should be i mean he is capital c character the clip you show of him is he's being interviewed somewhere.

[1189] He kind of looks a little bit like John Belushi, maybe.

[1190] Or maybe even more Chris Farley.

[1191] Sure.

[1192] But he's like, I drink every day.

[1193] I'm going to take lots of Valiums.

[1194] This is an interview he's talking about.

[1195] He loves Valiums.

[1196] Yeah, yeah.

[1197] And he says, if you don't make me famous by 1983, I'm going to kill myself.

[1198] Oh, my gosh.

[1199] Okay, so.

[1200] Okay, so that guy hates disco, the DJ.

[1201] And he's really popular.

[1202] So they have this, bring a disco album, you get in for 99 cents.

[1203] And it's a double header.

[1204] and in the middle, we'll blow up some records.

[1205] Okay.

[1206] That was the promotion.

[1207] And they're trying to get 15 ,000, 20 ,000 people there for a game.

[1208] So not only do 55 ,000 people show up and fill the stadium, there are 30 ,000 more people outside the stadium trying to get in to start climbing the walls with grappling hooks trying to get into the stadium.

[1209] And it shuts down the entire city of Chicago.

[1210] What?

[1211] Everyone hates disco that much?

[1212] The traffic has stopped for 17 miles, I think, was the number.

[1213] After the first game of the double header, Steve Dahl comes out, they blow up some records, and then Steve Dahl leaves.

[1214] The cops, meanwhile, don't believe that these people are going to show up.

[1215] So they send like 20 cops for the entire stadium.

[1216] And the audience looks at this and they're like, let's take the field.

[1217] By the way, these are very young people that are not in the baseball.

[1218] They're basically white punks from South Chicago.

[1219] Right.

[1220] He don't like disco.

[1221] And the documentary is great in pointing this out, showing a lot of different articles that were written in the aftermath of it, which is it was pretty intrinsic.

[1222] homophobic and racist.

[1223] What those people really clear, or at least many editorials were written to suggest that why they hated disco so much was it was this music that had taken over the radio waves, and that's really motivating these people to get agro.

[1224] Because they went fucking nuts.

[1225] They take the field, they set fires.

[1226] It looks like a prison riot.

[1227] I mean, it was a legendary debacle.

[1228] They kind of destroy the field, so they have to forfeit the second game of the doubleheader.

[1229] And it's like the fourth forfeiture in the history of baseball.

[1230] I could say a huge deal.

[1231] And basically, Mike is kicked out of baseball.

[1232] What?

[1233] But that was a good idea he had.

[1234] It didn't go, grave.

[1235] It got people there.

[1236] It did.

[1237] But he didn't, nobody foresaw, and Mike did not foresee.

[1238] That it would be a riot.

[1239] Really what was going to happen.

[1240] It was dangerous.

[1241] Nobody got killed.

[1242] Shockingly.

[1243] What our story does, that's kind of the end of the first third of the film.

[1244] But then Mike gets kicked out of baseball for 10 years.

[1245] And then it had been his life.

[1246] That's what he wanted.

[1247] So it kind of leads to his dad.

[1248] having to sell the team and it ruptures a relationship.

[1249] He becomes a pretty hardcore drunk.

[1250] Yep.

[1251] Has a heart attack and just bottoms out, gets married, gets divorced.

[1252] Can't have custody because he's a fucking drunk and can't be around his kid.

[1253] He gets a call one day to start a minor league team, but not a real minor league team, like a brand new independent league, which isn't affiliated with anything.

[1254] Not like double A or triple A. No, this is like a high school team in a city that has no minor league baseball, which is St. Paul, Minnesota.

[1255] Okay.

[1256] And across town, the twins have just won the World Series.

[1257] So it's seven miles away.

[1258] The last thing they need is a fucking shitty baseball team.

[1259] But Mike takes all of his dad's ideas and puts them into effect in this team.

[1260] The stadium is like a high school stadium that fits like 3 ,000 people.

[1261] That's 6 inches from train tracks.

[1262] Yeah, the train track goes, you know, right off of left field.

[1263] But it works.

[1264] And it works not because they're playing great baseball, but because they created this sense of community, which is the thing his dad was always trying to do.

[1265] Oh, my God.

[1266] I'm going to love this.

[1267] So up my alley.

[1268] Well, the dad is in all these interviews going, it doesn't matter who wins and loses.

[1269] Baseball's about fun.

[1270] That's our priority.

[1271] And I will say, if you love baseball, great.

[1272] But you don't have to care one living on baseball to like the documentary.

[1273] It's a film really about redemption, but also about family, how we redeem ourselves in the eyes of our parents or our children.

[1274] One of those sweetest stories in it, there's all these, like, mini stories in it between he and his.

[1275] his son, he and his daughter.

[1276] But Daryl Strawberry, it's really interesting now to look at that story from today's point of view, where we recognize addiction as an illness.

[1277] You know, Daryl Strawberry was maybe the best baseball player alive or at least had the capacity to me. Had certainly, if not the greatest, one of the greatest natural gifts as a baseball player ever.

[1278] And he smoked crack and got caught a lot in DUIs.

[1279] And he was completely run out of baseball at 38 and was kind of a shell of himself, and Mike gets an opportunity to bring him to this stupid team in St. Paul.

[1280] And initially, he's like, I don't want this druggie out on the team.

[1281] The town will hate it.

[1282] I'm trying to make this PG.

[1283] And his wife's like, get real.

[1284] You, of all people, who've been a drunk, who have fucked everything up, who's gotten a second chance, you're not going to bring Daryl Strawberry?

[1285] Daryl Strawberry comes.

[1286] One of the best players in the world to ever play the game is at this.

[1287] this silly team, and here's the best part, he gets there.

[1288] He's so lost in shell -shocked.

[1289] His whole life has disappeared from him.

[1290] He lost a $20 million contract.

[1291] Not one team would take him.

[1292] He gets to this silly team.

[1293] And Mike also has a guy on the team with no legs.

[1294] Wow.

[1295] Dave Stevens.

[1296] And Daryl is immediately interested in this guy.

[1297] And they become friends.

[1298] And they have so much fun together.

[1299] And his dream was...

[1300] Just have one at bat.

[1301] That's all this guy wanted was one at bat.

[1302] And he'd been writing letters to Mike and saying, I'm a real athlete.

[1303] I just want to have one at bat.

[1304] And so Daryl is in a game where he's already hit three home runs.

[1305] He's up to bat and he has the opportunity to hit a fourth home run, which I presume would be record -breaking.

[1306] And he gives his at bat to Dave.

[1307] Like you couldn't script it.

[1308] It's like the most incredible.

[1309] There's two saccharine and bullshit.

[1310] There's no way fucking this guy would fall in one with it.

[1311] Why is there a guy with no legs on the team?

[1312] That makes no sense.

[1313] Like none of it would add up.

[1314] He also had a female player.

[1315] on the team.

[1316] Ila Borders, the first woman to ever play professional baseball.

[1317] Wow, this is incredible.

[1318] It's incredible.

[1319] And then Daryl, in interviews documented, he says that experience is what taught him to love baseball again.

[1320] And he fell in love with baseball again.

[1321] During that season, he was doing so well that the Yankees called, bring him back, and he wins the World Series that year with the Yankees.

[1322] No. Yeah.

[1323] I have chills.

[1324] That's so awesome.

[1325] And then there's the most beautiful story about it.

[1326] about his daughter, you know, he ends up committing in this profound way to his child, which is so beautiful.

[1327] Oh, I cannot wait.

[1328] It's a totally unicorn kind of story.

[1329] It feels so good.

[1330] It feels impossible.

[1331] It's funny because when we were making it, people say, oh, you're going to make it.

[1332] It's like a baseball film, and you think he'd feel the dreams and all these things.

[1333] And I kept thinking, this is like a fable.

[1334] I kept talking about Big Fish, that Tim Burton movie.

[1335] It's kind of like this hard -to -bel story.

[1336] It is.

[1337] It's almost money ball -esque.

[1338] It's almost money -ball -esque.

[1339] Seven minor league teams.

[1340] And they ended up becoming the most successful minor league team in America.

[1341] Yeah.

[1342] From like the tiniest of tiny little teams.

[1343] Oh, that's amazing.

[1344] And then we did all these recreations in the film with Charlie Day too.

[1345] Charlie Day.

[1346] Oh, we love Charlie.

[1347] Oh, we love Charlie.

[1348] It plays young Mike in it, narrated by Jeff Daniels.

[1349] Jeff Daniels.

[1350] Oh, my God.

[1351] I guess you already knew it because you had already heard him on NPR, heard how gregarious and charismatic he was and had met him in real life.

[1352] But, I mean, when you have a lot.

[1353] subject like that.

[1354] There's very few subjects and docs that can hold a close -up as long as Mike can.

[1355] It's not shocking to me. He's also a public speaker who takes speaking engagements.

[1356] He's an incredible storyteller.

[1357] And that's the thing, even the way we kind of shot it.

[1358] It's kind of like you're in a bar and a guy comes down and sits next to you and just starts talking your ear off.

[1359] You're like, I can't believe the stories this guy has.

[1360] Well, let's be honest, you wouldn't believe it.

[1361] Unless we didn't cut to footage of it all happening.

[1362] A pig would bring the fucking baseballs out to the pitcher's mouth when they need more baseballs.

[1363] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1364] That's one of those things where I knew we had this character who I was compelled by, and I didn't know where it was going to go, but I'm like, yes, let's see what this is.

[1365] And because I'm a parent too, and it just started to speak to a lot of things I'm always thinking about.

[1366] How many kids do you?

[1367] Two kids, two teenagers, one of each.

[1368] Teens.

[1369] Teens.

[1370] Getting wild.

[1371] Whole other kind of terror.

[1372] Yeah, yeah.

[1373] Oh, man. Yeah, it's a beautiful story.

[1374] Did that one take more or less time than normal?

[1375] We have like three movies worth of stories in this film.

[1376] But yeah, it was kind of normal amount of time once we kind of decided to make it and got money to make it a year and a half to two years is kind of what it takes usually.

[1377] Okay, so here's where I get concerned for you.

[1378] So you cut your teeth in an error where it was impossible to get a dock, bought, scene, distribution.

[1379] you did.

[1380] Now there are 6 ,000 outlets and there's an endless inferno that needs to be filled with fuel, which is now docs.

[1381] They're changing rapidly.

[1382] Let's just say it's the golden era for docs.

[1383] I think that might have been five years ago.

[1384] You do.

[1385] Oh, really?

[1386] Yeah.

[1387] I think in the middle of a strike when there's no scripted content coming.

[1388] I mean, I talked to a lot of my other filmmaking peers about this.

[1389] Everybody keeps saying, oh, people must just be dined by every dock they can.

[1390] I've seen zero evidence of that.

[1391] Oh, really?

[1392] Interesting.

[1393] The flood hose got turned on.

[1394] and tons of stuff got made and lots of great stuff and lots of so -so stuff.

[1395] But as you and I agree, everything's worth watching.

[1396] Everything's worth watching.

[1397] But I think in general there's like a big reset of, okay, we just don't need as much of everything.

[1398] But all to say, it's way easier to make docs now.

[1399] And I would imagine for you, it would be very hard to police yourself and not get out of the old scarcity mindset where it's like, I got to say yes to everything.

[1400] And if I have an opportunity, now you're in a position where you could really bury yourself and you got to flip your hole.

[1401] It's been my big project for the last decade.

[1402] I bet.

[1403] How to embrace the no. Well, I know for myself is like dying to hear yes for 20 years.

[1404] Yep.

[1405] And switching to saying no is way harder than people would think.

[1406] And you're not sympathetic to it naturally because we all want to be asked to do shit.

[1407] But you can kill yourself.

[1408] Totally.

[1409] And I basically was making docs for 19 years, kind of scraping funding, spending half my time, fundraising, getting films made one at a time.

[1410] And then when 20 feet from stardom happened, and I went.

[1411] won an Oscar.

[1412] And that was kind of the beginning of docs starting to really come into their own and not be a bad word.

[1413] And people would be like, oh, docs can be good.

[1414] And part of it was lots of people said, oh, well, Netflix and places like that, we're going to kill the theatrical documentary.

[1415] And I think once you had a place where people could go and say, okay, thriller, romance, documentary, and, like, put it on the same shelf with everything else.

[1416] And people could be like, oh, yeah.

[1417] Yeah.

[1418] That opened it up.

[1419] A lot of these streamers I don't visit often.

[1420] I have them.

[1421] And I go there and like, I don't know what they're scripted shows or I haven't heard anything.

[1422] So I just go straight to documentaries and like, what docks do they have?

[1423] Inevitably, they all have a couple good docs.

[1424] For sure.

[1425] And so there's that part of the business, which is good.

[1426] I think in the early days after 20 feet, basically I had a couple of films that I was trying to finish best of enemies of one of them.

[1427] I've been trying to make that for years.

[1428] People say, what do you want to do?

[1429] And I said, well, you help me finish this film.

[1430] So I got to finish that.

[1431] And this other film I did with Yo -Yo Ma.

[1432] But then I started doing commercials and doing all kinds of other stuff and traveling the world.

[1433] And it was cool, but I was like, I just can't do this.

[1434] I actually, particularly in terms of stuff that was international, because I had kids too, I was like, I just can't be that far away that much.

[1435] And in part, because I'm not spending as much time trying to get money to make stuff, I can be more productive.

[1436] Right.

[1437] But I still find myself battling my instinct that's been ingrained in me to want to go, yeah, yeah, I can make that.

[1438] I can figure out how to make that.

[1439] It's a traumatic business we all introduce.

[1440] Well, especially if it's like, Steve Martin, yeah, I'll do, yeah, I'll do Anthony.

[1441] these are awesome subjects and those are the ones I said yes to right well true there's some great ones that I've said no to yeah that I was like I can't believe I'm saying no to this if somebody come to me 12 years ago with this I would have killed to make this film yeah I can't it's hard last question do you have some fantasy doc that like everything has to be perfect for this to happen do you have one that's just been sitting in the back of your mind there's one film I've been wanting to make forever I don't know if I'm ever going to get to make it Shell Silverstein.

[1442] Oh, that would be amazing.

[1443] You must.

[1444] That's the one I dream about.

[1445] I love everything about him, his story, the complexity of his character, but his writing is just like the most perfect.

[1446] Do you know a lot about Shell Silverstein?

[1447] I know a fair amount about him.

[1448] You do?

[1449] Obviously, all the books we love, where the sidewalk ends.

[1450] Yeah.

[1451] I forget the name.

[1452] The giving tree.

[1453] The giving tree.

[1454] But we had a perverted one too in our house.

[1455] Yes.

[1456] Did you ever see that one was huge?

[1457] and had like naughty stuff in it?

[1458] He lived at the Playboy Mansion for a time.

[1459] Oh, he worked for Wayboy.

[1460] Hugh Heff was one of his best friends.

[1461] Oh, wow.

[1462] Oh, my God, you have to.

[1463] But he also wrote songs for Johnny Cash, a boy named Sue.

[1464] He was a singer -songwriter.

[1465] He lived in Key West and hung out with all the bohemian artists down there, too.

[1466] Like, he had this really complex life.

[1467] Oh, man. Yeah, I want to see that bad.

[1468] Me too.

[1469] When can you have that done?

[1470] Well, I don't know.

[1471] I don't know if I'm ever going to be.

[1472] going to be able, because you have to get permission to an extent that I need to be able to use his words.

[1473] Right.

[1474] You're going to have to have someone on the inside talking you, basically.

[1475] And I've talked to his family.

[1476] Did he have a wife and children?

[1477] I don't believe so.

[1478] It's hard to have a wife and kids when you live at the Playboy Mansion.

[1479] I don't think he did.

[1480] No, and I think his sister runs the estate, and I've talked to his nephew and other people.

[1481] But my theory on it is Silverstein still makes a lot of money.

[1482] It's a children's author.

[1483] Yeah, yeah.

[1484] They don't necessarily want to remind people of all the other rough edges.

[1485] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1486] Well, that's increasingly the case with everyone.

[1487] I hope that can happen because that would be so fascinating.

[1488] Yeah, that would be a dream.

[1489] And I could see even doing it, maybe all animated.

[1490] You want to go into that world and live in that world.

[1491] Yeah, for sure.

[1492] Bring it back to AI, which we just can't get up the topic of you feed those into the AI and then I'm sure it could fucking make them.

[1493] I hate to say it, but I think it could make whatever you wanted it to.

[1494] A lot of people playing with animation and that, too.

[1495] It's going to change the animation world completely.

[1496] Oh, probably the most profound.

[1497] So labor intensive.

[1498] And I've done a lot of different animation.

[1499] things for the docs for docs yeah yeah i would imagine you are so empowered if you have a camera and a microphone and you know how to get what you want but when you have to deal with something that you don't personally do is a challenge yeah but actually it's kind of the opposite because i feel like you say empowered but i think part of documentary is admitting you don't have power which is going into a room and not knowing what's going to be in that room and being like okay i'll figure it out but you're kind of willing to surf through the situation and be like oh okay that doesn't look great, and that person's not very good, but this person's interesting.

[1500] You're listening and adapting, so there's a kind of a powerlessness to it, but animators are used to controlling everything.

[1501] Well, that's a good point.

[1502] So when I'm working an animator, and they're saying, well, what color wallpaper do you want in this room?

[1503] And I'm like, I don't get to decide that.

[1504] You know, I walk into a room, and it is what it is.

[1505] So a lot of times when I work with animators, it's about trying to get them to embrace their own powerlessness.

[1506] You know, be like, you don't get to draw it exactly like you.

[1507] want.

[1508] Sometimes it's more trying to create the mistakes.

[1509] You have to match the imperfection of a doc.

[1510] A hundred percent.

[1511] A lot of times what they say is, oh, we'll make it perfect and then we'll mess it up.

[1512] Right, right.

[1513] You have a lot of great source music in Second Chance.

[1514] Yeah, we got to use the replacements.

[1515] Yes, the ending song's so fucking good.

[1516] I've been trying to make a replacement documentary for 15 years.

[1517] Wow.

[1518] What a life.

[1519] I love this.

[1520] In a bizarre way, you're kind of in AA, which is like you get a very, very inside look at a lot of people's life in their story and their mistakes.

[1521] And I've learned everything I know about being a dad and a man from listening to other men talk about how they fucked up.

[1522] I'm curious if you think you've been taught a lot about life through submerging yourself in these other people's stories.

[1523] Oh my God.

[1524] So much.

[1525] The choice that Mike makes in the movie, you're making a movie and you must be thinking, I'm thinking, I've got to really make a lot of time for my kids.

[1526] Totally.

[1527] It's hard to hear that at work.

[1528] You're making a film about a workaholic, and you're like, I'd want to be a workaholic making a film about the dangers of being a workaholic, you know.

[1529] Yes, yes.

[1530] But it's that part of the decision he makes and me thinking about what's really important at the end of the day is this thing.

[1531] And I really do work hard at being as rooted in my family and responsibilities as I can.

[1532] But it's helpful to see some examples.

[1533] I've learned so much.

[1534] once you be my neighbor was a film that I went out to raise money for in the fall of 2016 before the election and I was going to call the film The Radical Mr. Rogers and the election happened that day I was like I can't call this film the Radical Mr. Rogers.

[1535] Yeah, Radical is not very appealing right now.

[1536] I want to make the film for everybody.

[1537] Working on that film through the first year of the Trump administration was like my happy place and a place where I could think about putting something positive out there in the world.

[1538] Yeah, and celebrating something.

[1539] And it helped me process a lot of things I was going through.

[1540] And then when the film came out, I think it helped a ton of people process what they were going through.

[1541] And that film connected with people in such a way.

[1542] Like one example was the day of the vote on Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court justice.

[1543] Lisa Murkowski, the one Republican senator who did not vote for Brett Kavanaugh, tweeted, I had to go home and watch the Mr. Rogers documentary the day of that vote.

[1544] No kidding.

[1545] Yeah.

[1546] Wow.

[1547] It was a reminder that there's goodness.

[1548] And, like, we really needed it at that time.

[1549] Yeah.

[1550] It's our responsibility to each other.

[1551] I mean, neighborhood, what's our neighborhood?

[1552] Yes.

[1553] It's our society.

[1554] It's our obligation we have to each other.

[1555] And the idea that we do good to each other without trying to expect anything in return.

[1556] Yeah.

[1557] Well, Morgan, it's been delightful.

[1558] When good old Dave Letterman was confusing you with Morgan Freeman, I don't think I thought in that moment.

[1559] Well, I bet I'll be sitting down with the real Morgan at some point.

[1560] So this has been beautiful.

[1561] Well, I'm glad it's full circle.

[1562] Yeah.

[1563] Thanks for.

[1564] Putting out all these awesome.

[1565] Truly.

[1566] I mean, again, so prolific.

[1567] It's crazy.

[1568] So many of them I've loved and listed in my favorite documentaries.

[1569] So I'm delighted you're a workaholic.

[1570] Of course, I want you to have it all under control.

[1571] Yeah, with an asterisk.

[1572] But everyone should check out the saint of second chances.

[1573] It's wonderful.

[1574] Monica will have seen it by the time we do the fact check and she'll be raving.

[1575] I cannot wait.

[1576] It's all exciting.

[1577] It's so nice to meet you.

[1578] Thanks so much for coming in.

[1579] Thanks, guys.

[1580] next off is the fact check i don't even care about facts i just want to get into your pants is that a new t -shirt i was talking about your t -shirt me and i like this bram yeah a box of six arrived it's so great i know wow i know i don't deserve it but i still love it of course yeah and you know what's great is i think i had like given up on the long sleeve version i like A velvet by Graham and everything.

[1581] Yeah, no, I'm really delighted because I got like three or four long sleeve ones.

[1582] Wow.

[1583] It's so exciting.

[1584] It'll be nice on all that Coca -Cola vintage sweaters start showing up.

[1585] Oh, my God, you're right.

[1586] That hasn't come yet, but it was shipped.

[1587] The stuff you ordered shipped?

[1588] My Coca -Cola sweatshirt.

[1589] It's nice to have a hand in that because you didn't know about that.

[1590] You taught me that.

[1591] It's very rare that I would teach you about a fashion thing.

[1592] It has to be a very lowbrow fashion thing for me to introduce you to it.

[1593] Or vintage.

[1594] Yeah.

[1595] Of your time.

[1596] But you were too young to have numb that Coca -Cola had a moment.

[1597] That's what I mean.

[1598] It was more of your time.

[1599] My age.

[1600] The disparity in age.

[1601] Yeah.

[1602] So my little buddy, you're fresh from a harvest.

[1603] Yes.

[1604] How was the harvest?

[1605] Let's start at Friday.

[1606] Okay.

[1607] Friday you go get checked out.

[1608] They're going to do a game day decision whether we're going to go 30, hours or 34.

[1609] Right.

[1610] And you were on standby Friday night.

[1611] I was.

[1612] To trigger.

[1613] Even Thursday, there was a chance.

[1614] I had to go in Thursday also last minute, which that wasn't planned on because they thought maybe I would have to do my trigger shot on Thursday.

[1615] For people who don't know what the trigger shot does after you've done all these shots for two weeks or whatever, it triggers ovulation.

[1616] Oh, wow.

[1617] And so.

[1618] Like a starter pistol.

[1619] Mm -hmm.

[1620] Mm -hmm, exactly.

[1621] And then, like, exactly 34 to 36 hours later, they retrieved them.

[1622] Because they're about to drop?

[1623] Yeah.

[1624] What?

[1625] So it's all very specific.

[1626] Okay, so Thursday, there was a chance they were going to have to trigger a day early.

[1627] Uh -huh.

[1628] Because they were looking at my blood work, and I guess one of the levels is supposed to sort of double every day.

[1629] Okay.

[1630] And it wasn't fully doubled.

[1631] Okay.

[1632] Not a full double.

[1633] No, like a three -quarter.

[1634] Okay.

[1635] I mean a one in three -quarter.

[1636] Uh -huh, sure.

[1637] One point seven five?

[1638] Yeah.

[1639] Five times one month.

[1640] And that was bad.

[1641] Right.

[1642] Because we needed really another date of shots to try to get them bigger.

[1643] So that was a little bit like, we'll see when we get the blood work.

[1644] And basically that was good.

[1645] They said it's fine.

[1646] We'll do another day of shots.

[1647] Okay.

[1648] Then I went in Friday.

[1649] I mean, I've had my blood drawn every day, except today, for the past eight days.

[1650] Wow.

[1651] I'm out of blood.

[1652] I'm surprised I didn't just put a pick in you at some point.

[1653] They should have.

[1654] Yeah.

[1655] They should have.

[1656] Like, I have a little seed.

[1657] Oh, my God.

[1658] Yeah, it looks like you've been shooting smack.

[1659] You should really shave the side of your head now.

[1660] You got the whole look.

[1661] I know.

[1662] They'll get you like a late modeled Volkswagen or BMW to complete the whole thing.

[1663] Oh, Volkswagen is that?

[1664] Yeah, like if you had like a. 89 Jetta, shave sides, track marks.

[1665] That's like probably.

[1666] Oh, that's what they drove?

[1667] Well, yeah, just I know that that's right.

[1668] Okay, okay.

[1669] Yeah, so then Friday, I go in.

[1670] She's like, okay, we're going to trigger tonight, but I don't know if I want to do 34 hours or 36 or 35 because of my weird body.

[1671] They want maybe some time for it to like culture.

[1672] Oh, okay.

[1673] Anyway.

[1674] A lot of words.

[1675] I know.

[1676] So they call me, they say, okay, 8 p .m. They're going to, they're going, like, 35 hours, I guess.

[1677] I'm going to split the diff.

[1678] Yeah.

[1679] I was about to say S the D, but that sounds like suck the day.

[1680] So split the difference.

[1681] Split the diff.

[1682] As as tight as we can get it.

[1683] You could do S the diff.

[1684] Ooh.

[1685] That still sounds bad.

[1686] Yeah.

[1687] So, okay.

[1688] So then they said 8 o 'clock, and it has to be, you know, right on time.

[1689] Mm -hmm.

[1690] So I, of course, planned dinner.

[1691] Oh, sure.

[1692] Big old cooking project?

[1693] I do.

[1694] No, no, no. No, no. No, out.

[1695] Dinner out.

[1696] Oh, oh, oh, okay.

[1697] It's my last meal, so I have to.

[1698] Okay, it's your last meal.

[1699] And I really wanted a burrito.

[1700] Sure.

[1701] So I planned a dinner.

[1702] They're very good for fertility.

[1703] I've heard burritos.

[1704] Yeah, because the beans.

[1705] And the rice, complete protein.

[1706] There's no right.

[1707] I don't have any rice.

[1708] You add rice, though.

[1709] It'll be a complete protein.

[1710] They do want me to be eating so much protein right now.

[1711] Oh, they do?

[1712] Yeah.

[1713] Okay, anyway, so I plan the dinner, but I plan it early, so early.

[1714] 5 .15.

[1715] Oh, my God.

[1716] Plenty of time.

[1717] I know, it was early on.

[1718] It's plenty of time.

[1719] So we eat the dinner, and then I decide I want a milkshake.

[1720] Okay.

[1721] Because there's still so much time.

[1722] Right.

[1723] Jess and I go to Bob's.

[1724] Bob's Big Boy.

[1725] Yeah.

[1726] Oh, wow.

[1727] They have the best milkshakes.

[1728] Absolutely.

[1729] Well, they have malts there.

[1730] He got a malt.

[1731] Yeah, yeah.

[1732] Should I remind people how I order mine there?

[1733] Yeah.

[1734] Okay, this started back when I was in high school.

[1735] I love the malt from big boys.

[1736] And I just want more and more malt.

[1737] And every single trip, I'm trying to get them to add more and more and more.

[1738] We're never getting to the level of malt I want.

[1739] And I perfected this as my order.

[1740] And this works.

[1741] If you're a malt junkie, this is what you say.

[1742] You go.

[1743] If it's not too much trouble, I love a lot of malt.

[1744] So I would love for you to put a ton of malton.

[1745] And when you get to the moment where you're like, uh -oh, I put in too much malt, I've ruined it, double that.

[1746] Oh, my God.

[1747] Right?

[1748] Because now it's like you can't get enough malt in there.

[1749] But that's the only way you can get them to a place where I want the mall.

[1750] And they go okay.

[1751] And then I also love the idea that they're back there and they have this feeling like, I fucked it out.

[1752] He didn't really mean this much more.

[1753] And then go, does he really mean no double that?

[1754] Wow.

[1755] What experience.

[1756] And then it is enough.

[1757] And it's nice.

[1758] Have you ever had it backfire?

[1759] And it's like, oh my God, I think there's too much mall.

[1760] Listen, there's a couple sentences I stand by.

[1761] Okay.

[1762] One is, we're going through all my sayings right now.

[1763] Yeah.

[1764] In fact, I just ran this by the guys that were working out in the barn.

[1765] Okay.

[1766] I asked them, if you ever in your life been sitting in a room watching TV and someone said, This TV's too big It's never been said on planet Earth I've said it You have Well in my little basement area I had a TV that was too big For the space?

[1767] aesthetically Well or I was watching like a foreign film And the subtitles I was getting like whiplash from looking down Okay I can see that So it got moved to my garage Okay well I can't say this anymore I used to be able to say this with reckless abandon Evidence Because I've never, ever heard someone complain that the TV was too big.

[1768] Well, that's your privilege.

[1769] Well, that could be the reverse of privilege.

[1770] It means I've only looked at little TVs.

[1771] But I have a very privileged TV setup.

[1772] But so, because I'm picking what size I want in the garage.

[1773] Yeah.

[1774] I'm working on stuff.

[1775] And so I said, I goes to this same song and dance with my man Carlos all the time, who I love Carlos.

[1776] We love Carlos.

[1777] Yeah, he's the greatest.

[1778] And I've known him for 16 years.

[1779] up my too big TV.

[1780] And I bet he encouraged you not to go that big.

[1781] Yeah, he was probably like, this is a bad idea.

[1782] Because he's kind of conservative.

[1783] Right.

[1784] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1785] He'll go, look, I say, how big can we go here?

[1786] And then he holds out the tape measure and he goes, you know, this would be 55, this would be 65.

[1787] And he's pushing for a 55 and I go, Carlos, you know what I'm going to say.

[1788] Like, whatever the range you give me, the top one.

[1789] Oh, so you went with?

[1790] 65.

[1791] Okay.

[1792] I thought you would maybe say 80.

[1793] I did do that in the house.

[1794] And I don't regret it at all.

[1795] He's like, you can probably fit a 75 on this wall.

[1796] And I said, I want 84.

[1797] Yeah.

[1798] And guess what?

[1799] When you're in there watching TV, it's not too big at all.

[1800] The one in the living room?

[1801] Yeah.

[1802] We said in the green couch.

[1803] Yeah, it doesn't.

[1804] It's fine.

[1805] And that's an 84 -inch TV.

[1806] Yeah.

[1807] But that wall is very wide.

[1808] It is big.

[1809] But it doesn't look too big.

[1810] I'm putting my privilege on blast.

[1811] It looks great.

[1812] I think that's the max because then it starts to get excessive on cost.

[1813] After 84.

[1814] 84 is the kind.

[1815] If you go to 100, it's, 3X of what it was.

[1816] Also 100.

[1817] Then why don't you just have one of those movie projector?

[1818] Well, so there's an argument to be made for that.

[1819] You used to have a projector in the old house and had to like have really good blackout blinds and you couldn't it wasn't great at watching it in the day.

[1820] We're so sidetracked but they do now have this new projecting technology which is incredible.

[1821] I've watched some videos on it and if you can Imagine the screen that you're projecting it on.

[1822] If you were to look at the side of the screen on the profile, what you would see is like right angles coming out and then 45 degree angles going down in a diagonal.

[1823] So it's like got teeth, the whole side.

[1824] You would see teeth.

[1825] And what that allows you to do is put a projector on the floor right in front of the screen that shoots straight up and it catches the screen at the 45 degree angle.

[1826] and none of the light coming from above hits that because there's an angle down on all the pixels.

[1827] So all the top light disappears and you can have a super bright projection with very bright exterior because of this 45 degree angle screen in the floor mounted projector.

[1828] That appeals to me, but it's too late.

[1829] We've already got everything set up.

[1830] Okay.

[1831] Yeah, but just to keep everyone abreast.

[1832] Wait, that was only, so that was, That was really a sidebar because you were talking about malt.

[1833] Thank you.

[1834] Yes.

[1835] I said no one is ever, it already was a sidebar.

[1836] It was a sideboard on a side.

[1837] It was a hat on a hat.

[1838] So what I say about the malt, oh, it's never come back too malty.

[1839] That was the point of it.

[1840] Yeah, yeah.

[1841] Yet to have one that was too malty.

[1842] For me, for my taste, with my privilege.

[1843] Yeah, with your privilege.

[1844] I'm like, I'm so so on malt.

[1845] You are.

[1846] Take it or leave it.

[1847] I think maybe become.

[1848] Cause my mom loved it so much.

[1849] Oh, your mom loves small.

[1850] She loves.

[1851] That's what I'll do.

[1852] I'll take Nirmie out for a malt after the cafeteria run.

[1853] After we go to Lubbies or Luby.

[1854] She would love that.

[1855] Fuck, yeah.

[1856] I wonder if she would think I get too much malt.

[1857] I wonder.

[1858] I do too.

[1859] I think she has limits.

[1860] No, no. No, I haven't called them, so no. Oh, okay.

[1861] Okay, anywho.

[1862] Back to your trigger.

[1863] Yeah.

[1864] Oh, so you went to get a mauled at Bob's.

[1865] Yeah.

[1866] But not a mall, but of milk.

[1867] Just got them all.

[1868] I got a chocolate milkshake.

[1869] We get it.

[1870] Great.

[1871] We're still great on time.

[1872] We're in Toluca Lake.

[1873] It's a 13 -minute max drive home.

[1874] It's 7 .15 when I get in the car.

[1875] Great.

[1876] Really quick.

[1877] Triple sidebar.

[1878] It was Friday night.

[1879] Mm -hmm.

[1880] Were all the old cars there?

[1881] Yes.

[1882] Car show.

[1883] Yeah.

[1884] Every Friday night at Bob's.

[1885] I know I think of you when that happens, because I know you took Josh.

[1886] Yeah.

[1887] Josh Hutcherson.

[1888] Hutcherson.

[1889] when he was just doing a wee boy.

[1890] He was.

[1891] That's an old episode if people want to go listen to that.

[1892] It exists.

[1893] You could go dust it off and give it a sniff.

[1894] So I get in the car.

[1895] I always put the map on, even if I know how to get there.

[1896] I always do.

[1897] In this case, it was a really smart idea.

[1898] I did it because it said 31 minutes.

[1899] Unexpected traffic.

[1900] Friday night, L .A. Yeah, but still, from Toluca Lake, it felt weird.

[1901] So I panicked a tiny.

[1902] it, but I was like, there's still plenty of time.

[1903] It's fine.

[1904] Did it take you by the cemetery and then into Griffith Park to avoid all the highways?

[1905] No. Okay.

[1906] When I was driving, I was like, oh, there's something wrong.

[1907] The map is wrong because I was flying by, like, there was no traffic.

[1908] No ish.

[1909] Oh, it's great.

[1910] But once I got off the freeway.

[1911] Under Los Felis.

[1912] It was just stuck.

[1913] There must have been something happening at the Greek, mixed with the hands.

[1914] hayride maybe mixed with something else.

[1915] I don't know.

[1916] Yeah.

[1917] Hayride.

[1918] Absolutely crazy.

[1919] And time is just like, it is just ticking up and up and up.

[1920] And we don't need the stress right before our trigger and our retrieval and our harvest.

[1921] We sure don't.

[1922] I eventually had to pull over on Rowena.

[1923] It still took me forever even to get there.

[1924] And I just parked on the side of the street and walked.

[1925] Start huffing it.

[1926] Yeah.

[1927] I can't imagine this is what they want.

[1928] Well, I don't think.

[1929] Like, I think at that point you might be weighing like the perfect trigger versus like cortisol dump.

[1930] No, because the ovulate, the timing is so, it's very specific.

[1931] Couldn't you tell them like, hey, I actually, I did it at 830, so let's kick the retrieval 30 minutes?

[1932] Maybe.

[1933] Okay, whatever.

[1934] You'll see.

[1935] Okay.

[1936] What happens?

[1937] So I get in the house at 755.

[1938] It's still fine.

[1939] I pee.

[1940] I have enough time to pee.

[1941] Mm -hmm.

[1942] Now, last time I did this, the trigger shot was premixed.

[1943] And so all I had to do is get it out of the fridge, inject it, done, easy.

[1944] This time, I had to mix it myself.

[1945] And many of the shots are mixing stuff, so it's not new.

[1946] Yeah, you're no. Yeah, I'm a pro.

[1947] It was a little different.

[1948] The vial was different.

[1949] And, yeah, so I had to use a big needle to get out the saline, put it in the medication, swirl it around.

[1950] Swirl, swore.

[1951] Swirl, swirl, swirl.

[1952] Recombine.

[1953] Use the big needle to retrieve it.

[1954] Then put the injection needle on and inject it.

[1955] Easy.

[1956] So I get the saline out.

[1957] I put it in.

[1958] I swirl, swirl.

[1959] And I can't get the medication out.

[1960] It's not coming out.

[1961] Is it because you didn't pump enough air in there?

[1962] No. It's because, well, yeah.

[1963] I'm sorry.

[1964] It's okay.

[1965] So, you just want to know.

[1966] I'm curious, boy.

[1967] Yeah.

[1968] And now it's an investigation.

[1969] I know it is.

[1970] Okay, but you know you've got the deeds.

[1971] But time is a ticking.

[1972] What time is it right now?

[1973] $7 .59?

[1974] It's like eight.

[1975] It's eight.

[1976] You're there.

[1977] It's exactly eight when I'm trying to pull this out.

[1978] Look, perfect timing.

[1979] Mm -hmm.

[1980] If all was, uh -huh.

[1981] Then I'm panicking.

[1982] Like, it's a few minutes.

[1983] of me feeling like I'm doing something wrong like what's going on trying all these things then I call the after hours and they're like no one can pick up I'm I'll have them call you back I was like oh like okay I'm supposed to be doing this at eight I also email my doctor and my nurse and then a few minutes later they call and I'm talking to the after hours person and then my doctor calls thank God Right.

[1984] She's like, what's going on?

[1985] I tell her, she's like, hey, let me FaceTime you.

[1986] Okay.

[1987] So she facetimed and she was like, yeah, that's the wrong needle.

[1988] Oh, okay.

[1989] Do you have a lot of other needles laying around?

[1990] No. No. She's like, they packed it.

[1991] You know, it was packed.

[1992] Yeah, turnkey.

[1993] She was like, that's the wrong needle.

[1994] I don't know how that happened.

[1995] There's no way you'll be able to get it out.

[1996] Uh -huh.

[1997] And I was just like, um...

[1998] Oh, wow.

[1999] And so then she's like, can you try...

[2000] You know, we were trying to like get the top of the thing off, which can't come off.

[2001] And then I was just like, maybe you could try to tilt it.

[2002] So then I was like trying to tilt it to try to get, like, what I could get.

[2003] Oh, boy.

[2004] Mm -hmm.

[2005] Yeah.

[2006] This was so stressful.

[2007] Well, and it's not just this event.

[2008] It's the last six weeks of your life leading up to it.

[2009] Yeah.

[2010] Yeah.

[2011] Yeah.

[2012] We're at the finish line.

[2013] You've done so much.

[2014] If this doesn't work, the whole thing is moot.

[2015] I can't, there's nothing to do.

[2016] Yes.

[2017] So I got, I was supposed to, ideally I would have one milliliters of it out, and I got 0 .5.

[2018] Oh, no. And she said, she was like, point five should be enough to trigger.

[2019] It's not what you want to hear.

[2020] No, it's not.

[2021] Oh, my God.

[2022] There's no, just really quick.

[2023] There's no like, hey, run and pick up this needle here in the next half hour.

[2024] By the way, I have tons of needles, as you know, because I shoot.

[2025] That's what you just said, too.

[2026] I'm like, you know.

[2027] And Laura also was like, I know.

[2028] Everyone you know is a junkie, yeah.

[2029] But also, I wonder what size you have.

[2030] All of them.

[2031] You do.

[2032] Yeah.

[2033] One of the medications that I have to do mixing has, has this big needle that I don't use.

[2034] I use a cue cap instead.

[2035] Okay.

[2036] And it was the size of that needle.

[2037] So it's still like bigger than an injection needle, but it wasn't big enough for the vial I had.

[2038] Right.

[2039] Anyway, so I do the point five and just hope that it works.

[2040] And I was, the next morning I went in to get blood work.

[2041] Listen, just really quick.

[2042] I'm not a litigious person.

[2043] I don't ever send stuff back.

[2044] If I do send it back, I don't want to take it off the bill.

[2045] Like I'm not.

[2046] cheap in that way but at this point of i were you i'd be like you guys kind of got to pay for a whole other round of it if this is what happens did you have that oh immediately and i too i feel am not i'm owed this or whatever i i don't my head doesn't go there but when i was just laying there being like i i really hope this worked yeah i was like I mean, if it doesn't, I'm definitely suing.

[2047] Like, I don't know what to say, but like.

[2048] Yeah.

[2049] So that was a hard night's sleep.

[2050] I bet.

[2051] I bet you were pretty destroyed from that whole experience.

[2052] It was rough, but I also did feel like, look, there's nothing I can do.

[2053] And so in the morning, I went to get blood work, and that would show if it worked.

[2054] Oh, it does.

[2055] Uh -huh.

[2056] Oh, perfect.

[2057] So I went and I did that, and I was like, you know, what else?

[2058] I'll find out.

[2059] And then, like, 1 .30, I found out that it was, it did work.

[2060] It did.

[2061] Okay, great.

[2062] So you paid no price for.

[2063] No. Other than the emotional pain.

[2064] Yes, in distress.

[2065] And the running and huffing.

[2066] Well, that part was my fault.

[2067] But all good.

[2068] Like, everything looked good.

[2069] Then I went in yesterday.

[2070] I had to be there at 5 .45 very early.

[2071] Oh, my goodness.

[2072] Sunday morning, 545 a. Yeah.

[2073] Oh, wow.

[2074] Also a hard.

[2075] hard night's sleep.

[2076] Sure.

[2077] I went in and they did it all.

[2078] How long does that take?

[2079] So the procedure actually was at like seven.

[2080] Do you give you gas or anything?

[2081] It's full anesthesia.

[2082] Full anesthesia?

[2083] You're out cold.

[2084] Damn.

[2085] Wow.

[2086] So you prep for surgery?

[2087] Like you can't eat, you can't drink water.

[2088] The whole thing takes like a half hour.

[2089] It's not long at all.

[2090] Anyway, and then I wake up for my anesthesia.

[2091] Anastasia is so weird It is It is You leave earth In existence And just wake right back And then you resume And there's no time It's past It's so weird It is It's only the other one Was the only other time I've had it Yeah I've had it Like at least a dozen times And it is so wild And it's like I also know what to expect now So it's like When I go there And I'm sitting on the bed And they like Bought to put the Verset in I'm like and in one second I'm going to open my eyes and I'll be talking to people and a little confused.

[2092] And that's what's happening.

[2093] It is so weird.

[2094] To think that that's how Michael Jackson was sleeping every night of his life is so crazy.

[2095] Oh, my.

[2096] You know, he was on propofall.

[2097] Oh, my God.

[2098] That's how he died.

[2099] He was taking propofall every night.

[2100] He was getting knocked out cold until the morning.

[2101] Oh, my God.

[2102] Yes, he had a fucking resident anesthesiologist.

[2103] In his home.

[2104] Yes.

[2105] But also, why would you want that, are you max relaxed or something?

[2106] Like, what?

[2107] Well, I would wonder if you go through all the same sleep cycles, right, do you go into REM?

[2108] Do you do this?

[2109] Does your body make the insulin it's supposed to?

[2110] Like, does it, does your body think it's asleep?

[2111] I don't know.

[2112] But I see the appeal because I feel like such a. Addict?

[2113] Coward telling you this, given the story.

[2114] just told me, but last week for whatever, like maybe seven days in a row, I woke up at 4 a am every morning.

[2115] So the point where I said my therapist, is this like where we're going?

[2116] And he's like, yes, I wake up before I am.

[2117] Oh, my God.

[2118] Becoming an old man means you start waking up.

[2119] Really?

[2120] Oh my God, I can't handle this.

[2121] Yes.

[2122] So let's just say there was a nothing risky about it.

[2123] We got to say this.

[2124] This is our hypothetical.

[2125] Right.

[2126] Let's just say there's zero risk and there's zero penalty about what cycles your brain does, I can see opting for that because my sleep is so frustrating.

[2127] Well, that would just be a way then for you to wake up at a time you like.

[2128] Because it's not like you don't get high on it or you don't feel rested either.

[2129] It's not like I woke up and I was like, oh, I had just had a great nap.

[2130] That's true.

[2131] You don't feel that.

[2132] No, you feel groggy and confused.

[2133] Yeah, you feel kind of gross.

[2134] I can't leave like, Michael Jackson started every one of this morning.

[2135] Oh, my God.

[2136] When did he start that?

[2137] I don't know how long he was doing that, but that's what got him.

[2138] That's what got him.

[2139] He was also addicted to other things, too, which is kind of wild.

[2140] Like, that's a, he was on quite a cocktail.

[2141] A decade before he died.

[2142] No. At least a decade before he died.

[2143] Oh, my God.

[2144] Holy shit.

[2145] It would be cool to be able to say exactly when you're going to sleep.

[2146] What time you go to bed?

[2147] Oh, I go to bed at 9 .13 every night.

[2148] But why?

[2149] How do you know?

[2150] Well, because that's when he hits the plunger.

[2151] And then by 9 .13, 20, I'm out cold.

[2152] Oh, my God.

[2153] But also, that is just an example.

[2154] I mean, it's so sad.

[2155] But an example of why nobody should have that much power and influence.

[2156] Because no one should have agreed to that.

[2157] No one should have a personal assistant anesthesiologist.

[2158] Apparently, you do feel refreshed, but you don't get your normal sleep cycle and no REM sleep.

[2159] Oh, my God.

[2160] That can't be good.

[2161] For a decade, he never had REM.

[2162] And so his brain's not processing all the info we got that day And making dreams to deal with it Lab rats die after five weeks of getting no REM sleep Unless you had another Another injection to give you REM right away No, okay No Anyway Wow I love these sidebars We're always walking through a field We're like oh a creek We went over to the creek Then we saw an apple tree Oh on the other side of the field It takes us 17 hours to get across the field.

[2163] Yes.

[2164] But it's fun.

[2165] It is.

[2166] It's all about fun.

[2167] Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

[2168] Wait, where we're not done with your story.

[2169] Ding, ding, ding, ding fun.

[2170] Okay.

[2171] Okay, so wake up from the anesthesia, and they got 12 eggs, which is exciting.

[2172] Like, that's a great number.

[2173] I don't want to be excited about it.

[2174] Well, don't.

[2175] I mean, okay.

[2176] Yeah, so remember last time I got six eggs?

[2177] Yes.

[2178] So for me where I'm sitting, it feels like a double.

[2179] Right.

[2180] Well, right.

[2181] So I got six eggs, two were mature, and that's the number that matters.

[2182] Right.

[2183] So it's kind of one of those weird.

[2184] And we don't know how many maturries yet?

[2185] I do now.

[2186] But okay, so 12 is great, but I don't know what that really means.

[2187] Because if you've got zero maturries, then you'd rather have six with two maturies.

[2188] Exactly.

[2189] So I kind of just have to hear that number and then.

[2190] forget it, which is hard.

[2191] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2192] Trying to draw any conclusions.

[2193] Yeah, Laura picked me up.

[2194] Okay.

[2195] Dropped me off at home.

[2196] And I just, like, rested all day.

[2197] It feels horrible.

[2198] It does.

[2199] Yeah, it's...

[2200] I don't want to expose you too much, but is it, like, abdominal pain where your ovaries are, or is it vaginal pain?

[2201] Or the whole kitten caboodle.

[2202] It's kind of the whole thing, but it's mainly abdominal.

[2203] Mm -hmm.

[2204] It feels just like all your organs are squished into like this bit.

[2205] Like it's all squished up.

[2206] You're miming the size of a tangerine just for the listeners.

[2207] It's all super squished.

[2208] Scraped?

[2209] Does it feel scraped?

[2210] Well, it was scraped.

[2211] Right.

[2212] That's why I'm curious if there's this.

[2213] And so like I couldn't really, you're not really supposed to walk much and then.

[2214] Do you have a cocktail?

[2215] No. Oh, you're good of right?

[2216] I'm sober now.

[2217] But I just, it did cross my mind that you could have been laying there uncomfortable and thought, well, at least I can have a glass of wine.

[2218] Remember, that's the difference between me and you.

[2219] When I'm in discomfort, I don't, when I'm in physical discomfort, I don't seek alcohol.

[2220] Listen, when you get good news, you need a drink to celebrate.

[2221] When you get bad news, you need a drink for some comfort.

[2222] That I agree.

[2223] That's emotional pain.

[2224] And I do do that.

[2225] And when you're physically suffering, you should have a drink to ease it.

[2226] And when you feel fantastic, you should celebrate with a drink.

[2227] But okay, you can't really, well, for me anyway, I don't know how everyone feels, but I can't really stand up all the way.

[2228] It's like I have to be very hunched.

[2229] That must look cute because you're already only 4 -11.

[2230] I imagine when you're hunched, you're like 4 -6.

[2231] Yeah, I don't think it looks cute at all.

[2232] I think it looks really.

[2233] Oh, Granny Monnie's here.

[2234] And that is what I'll look like.

[2235] It probably would all feel like.

[2236] You're not going to get hunch.

[2237] You're so tiny.

[2238] I'm going to look like a you at some point.

[2239] I'm still going to get hunch, just because I'm small.

[2240] Your shoulders may roll over like a grandma, but I don't think you're going to get.

[2241] Although.

[2242] My boobs.

[2243] They're in the mix.

[2244] That could pull you down.

[2245] They might get smaller as I get older.

[2246] That's true.

[2247] We don't know.

[2248] We'll have to see.

[2249] Anyway, so everything just hurts really bad, and it is what it is.

[2250] And then I had a heat pad and did a lot of sleeping.

[2251] And then I watched St. A second chances.

[2252] Oh, you did?

[2253] Oh, good before you're fact check.

[2254] You did it.

[2255] I did a good job.

[2256] And today is better than yesterday, for sure.

[2257] I'm not hunched.

[2258] Let's set yesterday at a 10 for purposes of ease and convenience.

[2259] So yesterday was a 10 on pain.

[2260] Today's a 6.

[2261] 6.

[2262] So that's 60 % of yesterday's discomfort.

[2263] Yeah, maybe 5 .5%.

[2264] Okay, 55%.

[2265] Yeah.

[2266] Okay, five times one month.

[2267] So, yeah.

[2268] And then they call.

[2269] called today and seven armature.

[2270] Oh, that's great, isn't it?

[2271] It is.

[2272] When can I celebrate?

[2273] You're not letting me celebrate.

[2274] You can't.

[2275] That's three acts.

[2276] That's 3 .5X of the last time.

[2277] It is.

[2278] I mean, in a dream world, you'd have like 100 % increase in success.

[2279] This is a 350 % increase.

[2280] That's good math.

[2281] Congratulations.

[2282] Thanks.

[2283] Yeah.

[2284] Yeah, girl.

[2285] You can, like, feel good.

[2286] I know.

[2287] It's such a weird, it's just such a weird roller coaster, though.

[2288] So you have nine now total?

[2289] I have nine, yeah.

[2290] Okay.

[2291] But it's just a weird roller coaster because you hear 12 and like, e, like, you don't want to get too excited, but you do get a little excited.

[2292] And then it's like, oh, but okay, so if all those are mature, or even if 10 are mature, that's great.

[2293] Then I have 12.

[2294] You start doing that.

[2295] And then so seven then feels like, ugh, like a lot weren't.

[2296] And I know that's a horrible way of looking at it.

[2297] But let's also go back to the last time because it was six and two.

[2298] Yeah.

[2299] So you only kept, only 33 % were healthy.

[2300] Right.

[2301] In this case, over 50 % were.

[2302] That's true.

[2303] That's true.

[2304] That's true.

[2305] So it's like huge improvement on the total, on the gross.

[2306] And then the net.

[2307] That's true.

[2308] Really nice net.

[2309] That is really.

[2310] These are huge gains.

[2311] They are.

[2312] They are.

[2313] They are.

[2314] Or the Z. But you know, this is where my.

[2315] Psychopathy.

[2316] Yeah, and my old self is really shining through right now because so of course, and I know they have to do this, the doctor calls and is like, okay, I have good news.

[2317] Uh -huh.

[2318] Seven eggs were mature.

[2319] Yeah.

[2320] So much more than last time, more than we anticipated, you know, whatever.

[2321] Over -delivered.

[2322] Because of the AMH, whatever.

[2323] And she's like, okay, and so you have two at age 34 and seven at age 36.

[2324] and those eggs are 9 % and then 14, like these horrible number, horrible percentage numbers, she's saying.

[2325] And then she's like, so it's a total of 87 % chance of one, that's how the, you know, of one egg, like yielding a baby.

[2326] It only takes one egg.

[2327] 87 % that there'll be one egg.

[2328] It's really good.

[2329] I'm betting on those odds.

[2330] are you any any game in Vegas that paid 87 % of the time is the only thing anyone would play I know but the problem is one at one yeah maybe I don't know it's almost 100 % the B plus yeah but you know that's the problem like you and I would be delighted I know I know I know but Monica's used in the maze and the may pluses and she's like maybe you're totally fine with that yeah but like you know you could consider doing it again you know again they have to say this but you could consider doing it again and she's also moving in December okay so we're in her time crunch so I'm like oh my god so she would want to do it right now like probably next month oh my god I know and it is so expensive and it's so much like it's like 10 to 12 10 to 14 somewhere in there thousand around oh my god it's so much I've done it twice.

[2331] Three times, I mean, that's so much money for something.

[2332] I don't know if I'm ever even going to use.

[2333] It's such a physical toll.

[2334] But my brain.

[2335] Yeah.

[2336] Well, I know what my brain would be doing.

[2337] Which is like, fuck man, we've done so much.

[2338] Let's finish hard.

[2339] Like, I know I would be telling myself like, great.

[2340] So you're two thirds of the way there.

[2341] You're like, you're almost done.

[2342] But I also think, I think nine eggs is solid.

[2343] I mean, I, 87 % is good.

[2344] I know.

[2345] That's how I feel.

[2346] I'm like, well, fuck.

[2347] Like, then do I just do this one more time?

[2348] And then I'll really know.

[2349] But that's what I said after the first time.

[2350] That's what I said going into this.

[2351] It was like, I will do it one more time.

[2352] I'll do everything I can do.

[2353] But let's just, we should take, before we think about the future and how stressful the future is?

[2354] Yeah.

[2355] You took a gamble.

[2356] Yeah.

[2357] And it really paid off.

[2358] So congratulations.

[2359] Thank you.

[2360] Yeah, huge, huge improvement.

[2361] Yeah.

[2362] 350x.

[2363] I know.

[2364] I wish I could feel that.

[2365] Sure.

[2366] Well, we can never really feel our victories, can we?

[2367] No. Just our defeats.

[2368] So, I don't know.

[2369] So now I'm like considering doing it again.

[2370] It feels so old me. It feels like so SAT score me. Like how do I just get the number I need?

[2371] Uh -huh.

[2372] But I, like, it's a lot.

[2373] on all of the levels.

[2374] Yeah.

[2375] So I don't know.

[2376] I have to kind of process that.

[2377] Okay.

[2378] Well, maybe by Monday's episode we'll have an answer.

[2379] I mean, I got to make a decision quick.

[2380] But what about drinking?

[2381] Yeah.

[2382] I don't know.

[2383] I don't know.

[2384] Let's talk about it.

[2385] What kind of thoughts have you had?

[2386] Originally, you're like, I'm going to quit for a month to do this thing.

[2387] Yep.

[2388] And are we at a month?

[2389] We must be at a month.

[2390] Yeah, we should be at about a month now.

[2391] Oh, because it, or maybe not even God.

[2392] I think so.

[2393] I think so, too.

[2394] Yeah.

[2395] Because I stopped drinking five days before the estrogen, which was seven days before the thing.

[2396] Right.

[2397] Which was two weeks.

[2398] So, is.

[2399] Now, listen, I'll be the first to not deny when you have signs that would lead to a diagnosis of alcoholic.

[2400] Because there's a couple.

[2401] Yeah.

[2402] But I'm also going to be very honest and upfront when you have signals to me that you're not.

[2403] Uh -huh.

[2404] So what I would argue to you is that any real addict would absolutely know whether they were at 30 days or not.

[2405] It's almost impossible for me to understand that you don't know exactly.

[2406] Oh, that's funny.

[2407] Because certainly it was fucking hard when you first quit.

[2408] Yeah.

[2409] I was counting the days.

[2410] Those first weeks I thought, well, this does resemble when I quit things.

[2411] Yeah.

[2412] You know.

[2413] But the fact that you've already completely lost track of it and it didn't already have your first drink planned is a check in the in the good side of it yeah it's a it's a spectrum it sure is okay so sorry so maybe it's one month maybe it's not but yeah i don't know probably around a month and i did think today oh i guess i guess i'm done with that i guess i could go out for wine tonight have wine but i also feel like shit so i i don't have the pull well you know what they say in a there's no problem that's so bad it can't be made worse by drinking no i can't imagine having acid in your body right now yeah so i'm not going to drink tonight i am going to new york on friday and i am going to drink there i know i am right you're going to drink there yeah because it's new york yeah and my like i'm staying at two hotels but the first hotel why are you bouncing around with the hotel because they were they didn't have all the days But I really want to stay there for a couple days.

[2414] So one of the hotels has my favorite bar in the whole world.

[2415] Ah.

[2416] And it's very hard to get in, but if you stay there, you're in.

[2417] You're in.

[2418] And so I thought that I'm like, oh, I know I'm going to succumb to that.

[2419] It's like, I want to.

[2420] I'm excited.

[2421] I feel that it's okay because that is something specific I'm looking forward to.

[2422] It's not like, oh, I'm excited to go to New York and just like drink everywhere.

[2423] drink all the time.

[2424] That's what I, that's what I, you know, because I used to take these breaks.

[2425] Yeah.

[2426] I think you know, the pattern before you get to surprise is like you give it a shot a bunch of times.

[2427] Yeah.

[2428] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2429] What are the parts that you think or that you know do resemble an addict in me for alcohol?

[2430] Oh, boy, this is potentially damaging for our friendship.

[2431] You're asking me to, like, judge your behavior right now.

[2432] is not something I like to do.

[2433] Well, you've already done it in your head.

[2434] So you might as well share it.

[2435] Well, first of all, a couple things pop up that are undeniably obvious to me. So the fact that you're not count, like that you don't know of that it's a month.

[2436] That's just a ding, ding, ding to me. Okay.

[2437] Right?

[2438] In a positive way.

[2439] And then there's other things as you've said them to me that those are ding, ding, ding, ding.

[2440] Negative.

[2441] Sure.

[2442] Right.

[2443] But I'm not.

[2444] So you're asking me now to assess.

[2445] So I'm just, I'm making it very clear.

[2446] Okay.

[2447] But you have assessed because you say you notice it when I say it or whatever.

[2448] Yeah, and I always generally say it out loud in those moments.

[2449] I'm not like holding on to secret.

[2450] Yeah, then I don't think it could be bad for our friendship then.

[2451] Okay.

[2452] Do I think you regulate your internal emotions with this external thing?

[2453] Yeah.

[2454] Yeah.

[2455] The quantity is not scary, but the frequencies probably, you know, it's like seven days a week.

[2456] Mm -hmm.

[2457] So that's just a little bit like, oh, seven days a week, you know.

[2458] A lot, yeah.

[2459] But again, but much stronger feelings is like the fact that you drink two is impossible.

[2460] Like an addict just can't.

[2461] Yeah.

[2462] They can certainly drink seven nights a week, but I don't think they can drink two a night, seven nights a week.

[2463] So, yeah, I have no conclusion.

[2464] But there are just little aspects of that, that, yeah, just probably the self -regulation and also how interwoven it's probably gotten for being social.

[2465] That like going out to eat, I don't know how much it's happened in the last month, but I'm guessing it's gone down enormously, meeting people out.

[2466] It's gone down, but not enormously.

[2467] Okay, because it seems to me that like three days a week when we're here, you're stopping to talk to Anna to say meet here.

[2468] So it seems like you're meeting her a few times a week.

[2469] Yeah.

[2470] And then you're meeting Jess a couple, once a week or whatever it is.

[2471] I don't know who all you mean.

[2472] Yeah, yeah.

[2473] But I just didn't detect in the last month.

[2474] You stepping out and making plans with people.

[2475] I mean, I think at first, like the first week or a week and a half, also, Anna was gone for some portion of it.

[2476] Right, yeah.

[2477] I was like, ugh, I'm not going anywhere.

[2478] I'm not doing anything.

[2479] Yeah.

[2480] But then I think I started to see everyone again a lot.

[2481] So all of this to me, literally I don't think you are.

[2482] Yeah.

[2483] It's that simple.

[2484] But another curious thing might be.

[2485] Yeah.

[2486] Now that you're at, I think you're probably at like 35 days right now, to be honest.

[2487] in my head.

[2488] Okay.

[2489] But let's just say you're at 35 days.

[2490] And it's hard to know because you've been on these shots.

[2491] It's not like you can really evaluate what your life is.

[2492] But let's just assume for a minute that you hadn't gone through all that.

[2493] And all the hard part had passed.

[2494] And you were learning to just like, yeah, now I go lunch instead.

[2495] And then I go here.

[2496] And now things are great and I feel good and my sleeping's gotten better.

[2497] I think at that point, if you had experienced where you had submitted to yourself, this is a better life for me. Yet I'm still going to go do that thing.

[2498] right that's an interesting yeah for sure part of it i think yeah because look i've had that i've had like a perfect life and chose to go do something i know that's going to result ultimately i mean not feeling better which is a just a really weird decision to make if you don't have an unhealthy relationship with something no one else would make that decision i don't know still i'm going to say another thing in the category of not an addict it's to me from what i'm observing on the outside.

[2499] It still totally works.

[2500] What works?

[2501] Drinking.

[2502] It works exactly as you hope it will every time.

[2503] Yeah.

[2504] Yeah.

[2505] With an addiction, it stops working.

[2506] Right.

[2507] The relief you were getting stops.

[2508] And it's insatiable and you can't get relief.

[2509] And that's why ultimately you have to stop because you're putting everything in that you can and you're not getting relief.

[2510] And now you just feel bad and have no relief.

[2511] Right.

[2512] So the fact that to me you're drinking.

[2513] always works.

[2514] You're rarely hung over.

[2515] I don't know if price you're paying for it.

[2516] I'm not there yet or ever.

[2517] I don't know if this is better.

[2518] I mean, of course there are going to be things like sleep that are better where you do recognize in some ways.

[2519] Your skins look great for a month.

[2520] I know, but that's the hormones.

[2521] There's a lot of variables here.

[2522] That's the hormones.

[2523] And the sleep, I told you this, the sleep is weird because it's.

[2524] Well, you've been sleeping a ton.

[2525] I've been sleeping so much.

[2526] Yeah, that's the hormones.

[2527] I guess.

[2528] You're catching up on 10 years.

[2529] Maybe.

[2530] Maybe.

[2531] But also it takes me a lot longer to fall asleep.

[2532] Yes, of course.

[2533] And then I'm just hoping, I guess, that the sleep is better.

[2534] Yes.

[2535] But then I'm tired still.

[2536] Okay.

[2537] So we don't know.

[2538] I like waking up and feeling fresh.

[2539] That I like.

[2540] You do.

[2541] And it feels a little different, waking up after not having drank.

[2542] Yeah, I think so.

[2543] When you're hyper -evaluating everything, it's hard to know, like, what's really real or what you're kind of looking for.

[2544] Yeah.

[2545] But I do think potentially I'm a little sharper.

[2546] Okay.

[2547] Which I do prior, you know, that's important to me. Sure.

[2548] It's one of your head.

[2549] Yeah.

[2550] Identity markers?

[2551] So, yeah, I don't know.

[2552] I've thought, I, ow.

[2553] Just punch yourself in the chin.

[2554] You need a drink.

[2555] This is not working for you, sobriety doesn't work.

[2556] You punch yourself.

[2557] You know, I bought, during my sobriety, I bought this gin, my favorite gin.

[2558] When I went to Houston's for lunch and there's cute, there's cute little wine place next door.

[2559] And they had this, and I went in there.

[2560] I also was like, why am I in here?

[2561] Like, I can't buy anything.

[2562] But I wanted to see if there were any new wines or like, what are the cute wines?

[2563] You're still an officiantano, yeah.

[2564] Yeah, still a collector.

[2565] And then they had my favorite gin Monkey 47, if they want to send me some, because I am still drinking.

[2566] And I bought it, and I was like, huh, I want this in my bar.

[2567] I want it.

[2568] What does that mean?

[2569] Like, I guess it means I'm planning on drinking it at some point.

[2570] Well, you could say there's some preoccupation.

[2571] That's what a therapist might say is preoccupation.

[2572] But, like, also, it's fun.

[2573] It's fun to have people over and mix martinis and naked.

[2574] It's very elegant.

[2575] Is it bad?

[2576] It's really hard to know if it's bad or not.

[2577] Again.

[2578] I'm having so much.

[2579] I'm a broken record, but yes, I feel most bad for people who there's really no way to say definitively.

[2580] Yeah.

[2581] Because I think the truth is I'm not one, but it is a poison.

[2582] Like I am aware of that.

[2583] Yeah, they nails you I was thinking about like 10 minutes ago when you were talking about feeling better.

[2584] is like, if you were eating every single night out of Tupperware, and then you found out, oh, yeah, there's a little bit of poison coming out of the Tupperware.

[2585] And then you put all your Tupperware in storage, and for one month you didn't have it, and you felt great.

[2586] And then you're like, I'll get the Tupperware back out.

[2587] It's not the same at all because you get no benefit from eating out of the Tupperware.

[2588] Maybe it heats up a little better than that Tupperware, get that leaching, that nice plastic leaching.

[2589] But you know what I'm saying.

[2590] I do know what you're saying, but I do think you do have to consider that there's an elevated dopamine level.

[2591] There is something positive happening.

[2592] It is pleasurable.

[2593] Of course.

[2594] So what am I supposed to do, not have any pleasure ever?

[2595] No, no one wants that for you.

[2596] Speaking of, I started a doc last night.

[2597] Okay.

[2598] About this small town in Australia.

[2599] Okay.

[2600] There's 11 inhabitants.

[2601] What?

[2602] One is murdered.

[2603] Ten are suspects.

[2604] Oh, God.

[2605] Ooh, is it good?

[2606] Well, I don't know yet.

[2607] But what I know is from frame number one, I'm like, oh, this is a drinking community.

[2608] Like these people have all, they're fucking full -blown Alkees.

[2609] Yeah.

[2610] And they have all come together.

[2611] And because they're all doing it, no one really, I think, has to.

[2612] But to see what alcoholism does is just for me. I was so grateful I watched it.

[2613] Because what happens is, and even when they're talking, they're talking about how fun the town was really 20 years ago.

[2614] when they were still in their 30s and you could still go to the bar and get fucking hammered and have a blast and you're still but now all these people are like they're 30, 40 years into being alcoholics all of them look like they're about to die I mean they look so physically fucked up there's not one interview where they're not drinking there isn't no matter what time of morning they talk to these people the only thing in the tiny town is a pub oh wow and just watching them like reminisce on the good times And I just thought, oh, my God, like, but for the grace of God, there go I. That could have been, I could have, all I could have have had in my future is reflecting back when it was still pleasurable before it had destroyed me and locked me into this pattern I can't get out of.

[2615] I was like, I feel like someone that was rescued from a shipwreck watching a shipwreck.

[2616] I was just like, oh my God, that's what it is.

[2617] It works.

[2618] It's fun.

[2619] and then it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse And it takes you out in the process And oh my God, am I glad I don't live in that fucking town Stumbling around You know, they don't ever feel good That's obvious.

[2620] Like even that first beer, even that one doesn't feel it That gets you out of the shakes and the fucking DTs.

[2621] There's no pleasure in it.

[2622] That's not me. No, no, no, no, no, it has nothing to do with you But we're talking about alcoholism I just was watching that last night going like, fuck i mean it really really could have been it that really could have been it that's really where we were heading i want aaron to watch it so mad because aaron was at the point where he only had his reflections of fun there was no current fun yeah for a decade uh it's interesting because does well this can't be but part of me is like does having like other parts of your life that are going well, help mitigate that?

[2623] Absolutely, but, well, no, not in my case.

[2624] My case was, it was going as good as it had ever gone.

[2625] That's true.

[2626] And I was the most sad because those things I thought that actually should have felt good, couldn't feel good.

[2627] But also, but the thing is, they don't feel good, though.

[2628] That's the other, in retrospect, the things that you thought were going to make you feel good, they don't.

[2629] Well, I'll tell you what does feel good.

[2630] So the attention, the status, the approval only feels good for a minute, and then it goes away.

[2631] So that doesn't.

[2632] But pride is real and is warranted and is earned.

[2633] I feel tremendous pride about this podcast.

[2634] That, you know, I was just doing the pre -interview for Kimmel and Josh mentioned like it seems like your shows a place people go to if they want to get something off their chest and come clean.

[2635] about something.

[2636] And I said, I think that's true.

[2637] And I am so proud of that.

[2638] Of course.

[2639] That feels wonderful.

[2640] Yeah.

[2641] So there are aspects of success that I think you can be really proud of and that can actually make you feel good.

[2642] Of course.

[2643] But that's like real self -esteem.

[2644] Like you feel self -esteem that you're a trusted source for someone's pain.

[2645] Like that's real stuff.

[2646] That's not being on a set or I wouldn't experience any of that.

[2647] I really wouldn't.

[2648] Because I would just be too much in the shame spiral That would accompany all the other stuff I mean, it's like chicken or the egg Like would you even get into Being so fucked up if you had that If you had other stuff You do because everyone at my meeting is really successful And it didn't help them at all That's true, yeah But I will say the other stuff can't exist In the middle of that hurricane So you could look at those people and go like Well what else do they got to do?

[2649] Like they don't have anything else to do these 10 people sitting in the middle of the desert.

[2650] But they don't have anything else to do because they're addicts.

[2651] So it's like if they had sobered up, they wouldn't be in that town for a week.

[2652] They get the fuck out of there.

[2653] They'd figure out something to do.

[2654] They would start playing fucking, what is everyone?

[2655] Pickleball.

[2656] You know, they would just start doing stuff.

[2657] Yeah.

[2658] But it's easy to look at and go like, or are they giving anything up?

[2659] Because it doesn't seem any alternative.

[2660] But there's no alternative because of what they're doing.

[2661] Yeah.

[2662] It is funny because I've been like, oh, I'm going to drink in New York.

[2663] but I probably won't drink when I'm home.

[2664] Like I have been sort of playing with different scenarios.

[2665] Yeah.

[2666] And here's where again, y 'all say you're not an act.

[2667] Like, so I, you know, in college I had to quit to virtually to finish.

[2668] Like, it was getting in the way of me finishing.

[2669] Yeah.

[2670] So I quit.

[2671] I don't know what it was for that time.

[2672] Maybe it was two months.

[2673] Yeah.

[2674] But I was like, I'm going on spring break to Europe and I'm meeting Aaron and Dean and Bullis.

[2675] Clearly I'm drinking there.

[2676] Right.

[2677] That's obviously.

[2678] Yeah.

[2679] And then the second I make that decision, well, then clearly I'm drinking on the flight on the way there.

[2680] Right.

[2681] And that's how I am.

[2682] Yeah.

[2683] Well, that's how I was.

[2684] Do you think you'll drink on the flight to New York?

[2685] No, it's very early.

[2686] I don't think so.

[2687] Maybe a nice.

[2688] Vimosa.

[2689] No, Bloody Mary.

[2690] I mean, yeah, that is like, no, I don't.

[2691] Your brain doesn't work that way.

[2692] Well, it does, though.

[2693] It's halfway.

[2694] It's, I haven't thought about the airplane until you just said it.

[2695] I normally do drink on the airplane.

[2696] Of course.

[2697] They're free.

[2698] Right.

[2699] They're free.

[2700] Oh, yeah.

[2701] I'll be honest.

[2702] You know, when I gave my review of the airplane food, which was like the most sincere review I've ever given.

[2703] Oh, people were mad.

[2704] People were like, yeah, in first class.

[2705] And I'm like, yes, I fly.

[2706] I buy the more expensive ticket.

[2707] To Portland, was it even?

[2708] It was like $100 more.

[2709] I mean, it was not price.

[2710] see at all, no. But I guess the way in which they were angry, I just thought, like, what is, do you actually want me to do?

[2711] To die, it was just a big pile of money.

[2712] I never spent because I didn't think I deserved it.

[2713] They're not thinking it through like that.

[2714] It's just interesting.

[2715] I don't know, like, sometimes I just want to, like, call the person directly and go, what do you want for me?

[2716] Like, what could I do that would make you not upset at me?

[2717] I know.

[2718] Then I had this great meal on the airplane.

[2719] I'm excited about it.

[2720] But you just have to be okay with people being.

[2721] upset because they're jealous.

[2722] And if I was okay with it, I wouldn't have got into comedy.

[2723] We wouldn't be saying.

[2724] That's not necessarily true.

[2725] None of that's true.

[2726] And you do have to be okay with people being jealous because you have a life worthy of being jealous of.

[2727] That's just the truth.

[2728] I have a bonkers incredible life.

[2729] Yeah.

[2730] So it's not going to happen.

[2731] You were jealous of people at some point.

[2732] I was.

[2733] I was.

[2734] I would talk shit about them.

[2735] You know what it is.

[2736] I'm reaping exactly what I I hated rich people.

[2737] Hopefully the people who are mad at you will get everything.

[2738] Oh, I hope they do.

[2739] We'll have a beautiful life and have everything they want.

[2740] And then they'll feel this.

[2741] Yeah.

[2742] And so it'll be a cycle.

[2743] I wish that for everybody.

[2744] Me too.

[2745] Okay.

[2746] Morgan.

[2747] Morgan Freeman.

[2748] I really liked him.

[2749] And I want to give an update.

[2750] We're burning a candle right now.

[2751] We're bringing an A -24 candle.

[2752] This is because of Morgan at the beginning of the episode.

[2753] We talk about it.

[2754] He taught us about these candles.

[2755] He introduced them into our lives, and then Rob and I purchased them immediately.

[2756] Oh.

[2757] They smell great.

[2758] They do.

[2759] They're good.

[2760] They're good candles.

[2761] Okay, the Hank Williams N -W -A.

[2762] I have it.

[2763] Oh, you do.

[2764] Straight out of Compton, crazy mother -named Ice Cube.

[2765] From the gang called Fellers with Attitudes, when I'm called off, I got a salt off.

[2766] Squeeze the trigger and bodies are hold off You too boy if you're with me The police are gonna have to come and get me off your ass That's how I'm going out for the pop mother You'd better go Because I skew this crazy as As I leave believe I'm something I'm coming straight at a clock Oh my God I bring up this parallel all the time.

[2767] Country music enwraps the same shit.

[2768] It's really disenfranchised people telling their story, and it sounds so right coming out of his mouth, doesn't it?

[2769] Same fucking lyrics.

[2770] It was weird.

[2771] That was weird.

[2772] Isn't that crazy how real that sounds?

[2773] I hate AI.

[2774] Oh, you do?

[2775] I know.

[2776] It's like the alcoholism.

[2777] It's like half.

[2778] Half in, half out.

[2779] Half in half out.

[2780] I actually, like if that's, if they don't take over the world, we just get shit like that, I'm all in.

[2781] Yeah, but does NWA get any credit?

[2782] Well, no money's being made.

[2783] Yeah, they get credit.

[2784] They say this is an NWA song.

[2785] But there's not, no one's making that.

[2786] I don't think they're streaming that on Spotify or anything.

[2787] Yeah, no one's making it like.

[2788] I guess.

[2789] It's fun internet, social.

[2790] Yeah, that's true.

[2791] Parity laws.

[2792] I'm sure they're protected.

[2793] That's nuts.

[2794] They can make Hank William Sr. Sing an Ice Cube song.

[2795] It is crazy.

[2796] And it sounds right.

[2797] Now, okay, the disco, Demolition Day traffic You were right And that you got the number right That was 17 miles Okay, but in fact But when I looked it up Because it was from O 'Hare to Kaminsky Park And when I looked it up, it said 28 miles Kamisky Kamiski 28 miles Kamisky Yeah, Kamiski was on the south side of Chicago That's a lot of miles Yeah, sure is, sure Too many miles.

[2798] Okay.

[2799] Now, he said the second game of the disco, you know, they had to forfeit the second game.

[2800] It was a doubleheader.

[2801] Yeah.

[2802] And he said it was the fourth forfeit in baseball.

[2803] Now, this is all post -1960.

[2804] Pre -1960, there were a lot.

[2805] It was a shit show.

[2806] Uh -huh.

[2807] Okay.

[2808] Now, the first one was the Washington Senator's final game at RFK Stadium.

[2809] That was in 1971.

[2810] The home team led the Yankees by 7 -5 with two outs in the top of the ninth inning.

[2811] Senators fans were angered by the team's impending move to Dallas -Fort Worth, where the senators were to become the Texas Rangers in 72.

[2812] Apparently unaware that there was one out left in the game, spectators began to storm the field and vandalize the stadium.

[2813] Oh boy.

[2814] With no prospect of order being restored after the security staff had simply left during the game.

[2815] Oh, my gosh.

[2816] Resulting in thousands of people walking in without.

[2817] paying the umpire's forfeited the game to the Yankees.

[2818] Yikes.

[2819] Because the home team did not handle their business.

[2820] I guess.

[2821] Wow.

[2822] That seems fair.

[2823] Okay.

[2824] Next, 10 cent beer night.

[2825] Oh, okay.

[2826] I wonder what went wrong.

[2827] A promotion held by the Cleveland Indians on June 4th, 1974 backfired when intoxicated Cleveland fans ran onto the field and attacked Texas Rangers outfielder Jeff Burroughs with the score tied 5 -5 in the ninth inning.

[2828] Oh, boy.

[2829] God, this led to a riot in which the drunk and rowdy fans armed with an array of improvised weapons and various other objects, including chunks of the stadium seating, brawled with players and officials from both teams as well as with the umpires who subsequently forfeited the game to Texas.

[2830] God, oh, boy.

[2831] That sucks.

[2832] People, boy.

[2833] You come to expect everyone's going to behave, but every now and then you're reminded, oh, no. No, they don't.

[2834] Okay, September 15, 1977, game between the Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays at Exhibition Stadium.

[2835] The grounds crew placed a tarpaulin.

[2836] What's that?

[2837] They cover the field when it's raining.

[2838] Wait, is tarp.

[2839] Is tarp short for tarpaulin?

[2840] Must be.

[2841] Tarpaulin or tarp is a large sheet of strong, flexible, water -resistant material.

[2842] Wow.

[2843] But tarpaulin also sounds like tarpin, the anteater -like animal in Africa.

[2844] Tarpin?

[2845] This is tarpaulin.

[2846] They didn't spread a tarpin across the field.

[2847] Oh, thank God.

[2848] Peta would have been mad.

[2849] Okay, over the two mounds in the Blue Jays bullpen, which was in foul territory, outside the left field foul line after light rain.

[2850] Before the start of the bottom of the fifth inning, with the Blue Jays leading 4 -0, Orioles manager Earl Weaver came out of the dugout and claimed to umpire that the tarp endangered his players by exposing them to the risk that they could slip or trick.

[2851] on it when entering the bullpen to catch a fly ball.

[2852] Weaver ordered his team from the field and said that they would not return until the tarp was removed.

[2853] The umpire ordered the tarp removed from the mound that was closest to fair territory but not the tarp from the other mound until Weaver that he could play the game under protest.

[2854] After arguing with the umpire for nearly 20 minutes, Weaver returned to the dugout.

[2855] The umpire waited five minutes.

[2856] The period of time specified by the rulebook for the Orioles to retake the field when Weaver said they would not do so the umpire order the game forfeited to the blue jays oh wow it's more of an interpersonal spat yeah it sounds like a power struggle that a lot of people paid the price for yeah the people in attendance the teammates okay here we are disco demolition night okay so guess what he was right fourth he said it was oh the fourth only the fourth and he's right he's so right he's so right He's one of the rightest guests We already know what happened But that's what happened Back to the program Because you saw it now Yes it's How sweet is this story With him and his daughter I hated it Yeah I hated that It's so sad It's so sweet It's so sweet But just that I'm gonna take I'm gonna show you everything In this world Oh my God I was a mess It's so so sweet Anyway, it's a beautiful movie It is very life -affirming Reminds you what's important You can see how Like the lead character That the doc's about the guy You can see how he heard him on a radio I was like, I need to talk to this person Like he is such a unique unicorn Yeah It's really, really good It's really worth of love I don't need to say unique unicorn That's a double It's implied that it's unique In that it's a unicorn There's just none I think it's okay for you to say it if you want.

[2857] Okay, he's a unique unicorn.

[2858] Okay, now there was one more after the fifth forfeit.

[2859] Since then.

[2860] Yep, in 95.

[2861] And it's a ding, ding, ding.

[2862] Detroit.

[2863] Chicago White Sox.

[2864] Dodgers.

[2865] Oh.

[2866] The Dodgers gave out baseballs to paying customers as they enter the Dodgers Stadium gates for a game against the Cardinals.

[2867] Fans interrupted the game in the seventh inning when they threw these baseballs onto the field and again in the bottom of the ninth inning with the Cardinals leading two to one.

[2868] Dodgers fans fueled by a series of close calls again threw their souvenir baseballs onto the field.

[2869] The Cardinals left the field due to safety concerns causing a several minute delay.

[2870] But when the Cardinals returned to the field, Dodgers fans threw more balls out on the center field bleachers, forcing the umpires to forfeit the game to St. Louis.

[2871] Good job, guys.

[2872] I mean, this is so stupid.

[2873] This is like handing out.

[2874] Slingshots when you enter the park.

[2875] Dodgers branded slingshots.

[2876] But this is what's wrong with everyone, right?

[2877] It's like they're so angry at the other team.

[2878] Well, they cut off their nose despite their face.

[2879] Pyrick victory.

[2880] What else can we say about it?

[2881] I do love a baseball game.

[2882] When I was watching the movie, it reminded me that the reason I like going to baseball games is all of that fun stuff.

[2883] Throwing baseballs on the field?

[2884] No, not like fast stuff, but all the fun stuff that Mike and Bill instigated.

[2885] Oh, yeah, all the goofy stuff that happens.

[2886] Yeah, the exploding scoreboard and the pit animals and, like, it's fun.

[2887] It made me want to go to minor league games more than.

[2888] Yeah.

[2889] Because I think it's a real circus at some of these.

[2890] How fun.

[2891] Okay.

[2892] You were talking about Daryl Strawberry and that he had the opportunity for four homes.

[2893] home runs, which you said would probably have been record -breaking.

[2894] Well, I think, right, didn't he already have four home runs?

[2895] No, three.

[2896] Oh, he had three.

[2897] Okay.

[2898] In Major League Baseball history, there have been 15 four home run games.

[2899] I won't read them.

[2900] Yeah.

[2901] But that's not a lot.

[2902] It's a hundred -year -old game, right?

[2903] It's America's pastime.

[2904] Yes, state bird.

[2905] America's state bird.

[2906] Okay.

[2907] The adult book that Shell Silverstein wrote.

[2908] Oh, yeah, it's humongous.

[2909] It's called Uncle Shelby's A, B, Z book.

[2910] Yep.

[2911] A primer for adults only.

[2912] It's about the size of that couch cushion you're sitting on.

[2913] It's so enormous.

[2914] Oh, really?

[2915] That?

[2916] Yeah, we had it in our bookshelf.

[2917] Wow.

[2918] How would it fit on your bookshelf?

[2919] It took a, like, it had to be in the tallest thing.

[2920] Oh, wow.

[2921] Yeah, and it hung out a little bit, be honest with you.

[2922] And then it reminded me when I was looking this up that he had a book of a plays called an adult evening of Shell Silverstein, and I did that in college.

[2923] You did?

[2924] You did a play out of his playbook?

[2925] Yeah.

[2926] Ding, N -D -D -N -D -N -D -N -Sports.

[2927] Ding -N -N -N -D -N -E.

[2928] It was weird.

[2929] Like, they were very corky and weird and adult.

[2930] Yeah, yeah.

[2931] I really hope he can make that happen, that doc.

[2932] Yeah, I would love to learn everything I could about Schell Silverstein.

[2933] Yeah, what an interesting character.

[2934] All right, well, that's all.

[2935] That's everything.

[2936] Mm -hmm.

[2937] Well, that was a doozy, and it was a fun doozy.

[2938] It was.

[2939] Doozie sounds close to snoozy, which is weird because they're opposites.

[2940] They certainly are.

[2941] Boozy.

[2942] Boozy ding, ding.

[2943] Dozy also, yeah, just means big, right?

[2944] Like, that was a doozy.

[2945] I took a doozy.

[2946] You say I took a doozy?

[2947] In a pinch, yeah.

[2948] Oh, wow.

[2949] I have to reduce to a few words.

[2950] I more say a doozy as in like it really, like, took it out of me. Exhausted you.

[2951] Yeah.

[2952] Yeah, which also can happen during an evacuation.

[2953] Sure.

[2954] I've been there.

[2955] Call a duty.

[2956] I was thinking about this last night in bed.

[2957] What?

[2958] Someone's clearly parody call of duty, right?

[2959] It made a D -O -O -D -I -E.

[2960] Do you think there's a porn about it?

[2961] Oh, my God, call of duty.

[2962] Oh, my God.

[2963] And it's scat play.

[2964] Oh, Jesus.

[2965] Wow.

[2966] Wow, wow, wow.

[2967] I don't know.

[2968] I just thought someone needs to do something with call of duty there's a pet waste removal company called call of duty oh good for them wow they really they figured out of monetize that it feels like that would be hard to get IP call of duty look it up about the porn that's what I have after after my cup of coffee and a dip I got to play call of duty it's a call of duty yeah it calls me yeah all right I love you congrats on your 350 % increase.

[2969] That's pretty stellar.

[2970] I like that phrasing of it.

[2971] Yeah.

[2972] It's a last half full.

[2973] Huge, huge, huge.

[2974] Three X full.

[2975] Yeah.

[2976] All right.

[2977] Love you.

[2978] Love you.

[2979] Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[2980] You can listen to every episode of Armchair expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[2981] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery .com slash survey.