Hank Azaria

[0] welcome welcome welcome i can't do his voice but i would love to be able to do it of the announcer yeah yes welcome to armchair expert i'm dan shepherd i'm joined by mr mouse hello i always have to wait for a reaction well i had to process yeah because at first i thought you said minister mouse which i've said yeah and i like that i like the idea that i have a clergy yeah yeah mr minister mouse also sounds like sinister mouse It does.

[1] And then, of course, Mr. Minister harkens back to the 80s band, Mr. Mr. Oh, my God.

[2] There's so much going on.

[3] So many dingles.

[4] We have a friend of mine on today, someone who I cherish their insight on many, many emotional issues.

[5] And it's an incredible conversation on bridled honesty on his end.

[6] Beautiful conversation about so many different hard topics, I feel like.

[7] Yeah.

[8] We cover a lot.

[9] It's really nice.

[10] Hank Azaria.

[11] Kazeri is a six -time Emmy Award -winning actor, a comedian and a producer.

[12] He's been on The Simpsons for 113 years, starred in a great show, Brockmeier, and of course at the museum.

[13] And my favorite, The Birdcage.

[14] What a DM performance.

[15] And you know what I didn't bring up, which I fully regret.

[16] But we were just talking about so much other interesting.

[17] Non -show busy stuff, which is fun.

[18] But he's David the scientist guy on Friends.

[19] And that is, I know.

[20] I know this doesn't resonate with you, but it is a huge part of my life, David the scientist guy.

[21] Well, Hank has a new podcast out called the Jim Brockmeyer podcast.

[22] Jim Brockmire.

[23] How does he?

[24] I can't do it.

[25] I'm so excited for you to hear him to do Jim Brockmire.

[26] But the show features Hank reprising his critically acclaimed role of fabled sportscaster Jim Brockmeyer.

[27] And in each show, Brockmire will interview a guest with his inimitable, we just learned that word, non -imitatable, hardball style, debuting with Chuck.

[28] Charles Barkley, one of the most interesting sports people of all time.

[29] It should be great.

[30] Please enjoy Hank Azaria.

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

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

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

[34] Ah, Daxorpe.

[35] There he is.

[36] We were discussing Georgia shooting.

[37] I was just saying to Monica that I've only become semi -familiar with Georgia because, you know, like everybody else, there's no way you can avoid shooting there at some point.

[38] But of all the places they send us, it's pretty good.

[39] Wouldn't you agree?

[40] It's better than, say, Shreveport.

[41] Or do you remember that you could not escape going to New Mexico for half the year?

[42] Yeah, for a few years.

[43] a couple of times.

[44] Yeah.

[45] It feels like forgotten somehow.

[46] It's like even watching Better Call Saul and like even just seeing the location through my TV screen, I start to get like, I keep thinking of them on the shoot actually.

[47] And I love Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

[48] They're amazing shows and you get very engrossed.

[49] But I can't help but think like, man, look at that location.

[50] That just looks bare.

[51] This is one of the great advantages to being married to an actress, right?

[52] So just like you, We watch TV in such a specific way that would be so nauseating to everyone else.

[53] So we'll be watching Game of Thrones, right?

[54] It's the most spectacular set piece.

[55] Everyone's certainly engrossed in it.

[56] And all Chris and I can think is like, man, they had John Snow like four rows back in the wides.

[57] He was probably there for four nights without any lines.

[58] That's all I can think about while I'm watching this spectacular thing unfold.

[59] Yeah, you start thinking about the logistics of the shoot.

[60] Totally.

[61] Yeah.

[62] it's sad how quickly disillusioned you get like of course you're operating with tons of gratitude and you recognize it's the most unique thing and all that aside you're also just outside and it's cold and as boring as fuck it's not always fun oh no it's really tedious i was just listening to full disclosure congratulations on your success on this podcast and i'd heard a lot about it from many people and i hadn't and i hadn't gotten around to it and then i was really psyched to be doing it because I'd heard it was great on my personal connection to you.

[63] Yeah.

[64] I caught up in the last couple of days.

[65] I listened to Amy Poehler and Emmanuel Acho, and I particularly really like his uncomfortable conversations.

[66] And anyway, he said a thing about how unglamorous the NFL is.

[67] And it's the same thing.

[68] Here's another, like, unique experience that it has to be unique to our business, which is you go to a small town in Massachusetts.

[69] Like, this happened to me. I was shooting this movie, The Judge.

[70] There's all these amazing stars in it and then me. and you're in this town and there's a big hubbub like everyone in town sees there's trucks and whatnot and then and inevitably someone stops you and they say out what are they making and you go uh you know a movie uh who's in it like clearly they don't know i'm in it and then and then you're going through people uh -uh now what and if you're in something there's no big star in it's just the most disappointing conversation have you had those of course are you kidding when have I what day have I not had it is it better more days that I've had that competition than not yeah or how about your own self I get that one yeah what do I know you from what's your answer I've got a couple go -toes I used to get tight around that question which is a larger I know you guys talk about this kind of thing but now I've settled into complete openness and I just answer like I said, well, people know me most probably for the bird cage.

[71] Could be a long -came poll.

[72] Could be recently.

[73] Do you watch Raydonovan?

[74] You like Raydonovan?

[75] So I'll just kind of...

[76] But then you get into this awkward.

[77] No, no. No, not that.

[78] No, no. Eventually, I go with...

[79] You know what?

[80] My name is Hank Azaria.

[81] I say it slowly.

[82] A -Z -A -R -I -A.

[83] Google me. You'll see all my credits.

[84] I promise you you'll find something.

[85] You're right.

[86] There's a whole, like, experience with it, right?

[87] So it's like, I've been working, I don't know, for 17 or 18 years.

[88] And originally, it just shot a hole right in all my insecurities.

[89] Like, oh, my God, I'm so unmemorable.

[90] They're probably thinking of Zach Braff, to be honest, which happened many times.

[91] They thought they were talking to Zach Braff.

[92] But of the many iterations, and even when I've been feeling very confident and not threatened by the question, there becomes the tedium of, well, oh boy, so I'm going to probably list everything I've done for the last 17 years.

[93] Like you say, while you shake your head, no. So sometimes they'll go, what I see you in?

[94] And I go, man, I don't know what you've seen.

[95] So list all the movies you've seen.

[96] And out all the movies they've seen in their entire lives.

[97] Yeah.

[98] Well, my first one was chitty, chitty bang, bang when I was six.

[99] No, one more.

[100] That wasn't me. Well, I've gotten, you know, not just about movies or TV shows, but.

[101] I think I've been asked because I'm a character actor.

[102] So people like they, you know, my face are not sure from where.

[103] I think I've been asked to have gone to every college in the country with great, like, you went to Ohio State?

[104] Like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, yeah, My favorite one of these, I was in Hawaii in an elevator.

[105] And guy gets on and gives me one of these, for those of you, well, nobody can see me, but the big smile and the point, like, ah, right?

[106] so I'm like, yeah, like, hi.

[107] And he goes, You're in the upholstery cleaning business.

[108] I was like.

[109] So I'm like the guy thought I cleaned his couch, but whoever did it did a great job because he seemed so delighted to see me. Yeah, he was big smile.

[110] Oh, the guy who did such a nice job on my love seat.

[111] That's kind of lovely.

[112] I wish more people approached other random people instead of celebrities with a big smile in a point.

[113] Yeah, you brought myself.

[114] sofa back to life.

[115] We thought we were done with that sofa.

[116] We had been talking about it for months and you resurrected it.

[117] Some performance of mine must have registered on him like that.

[118] Like that guy's work makes me feel like my couch just got cleaned in a great way.

[119] So that's good.

[120] But you know, I know you guys tend to get deep.

[121] And this actually was a recovery issue for me. I'm a sober guy, as you know.

[122] That's how we know each other.

[123] I wasn't sure if you were comfortable saying that.

[124] We know each other.

[125] We can talk about anything you like.

[126] I am an open book.

[127] Oh, lovely.

[128] anything you like.

[129] In fact, I'm looking forward to it.

[130] Me too.

[131] But it became an issue for me because for a long time, I was really cranky, as we say in recovery, restless, irritable, and discontent, especially living in New York, where it's constant people in your face, almost constantly.

[132] And I had those exchanges a lot, you know, as you might imagine.

[133] I had learned a long time ago to not be rude to people, for the most part, very polite and kind.

[134] But inside, I was really, really, really.

[135] resenting being interrupted, not being recognized in the way I'd like, but eventually I got to a point, I did some work around it, like thinking about what's triggering me with all this?

[136] And it sure enough did go back to my childhood because the phrase that kept coming up was put upon.

[137] I just felt really put upon by like, what does that remind me of?

[138] And this is going to sound almost cliched, but it remind me of growing up and feeling like my parents didn't really see me for who I was.

[139] And yet they wanted stuff.

[140] stuff from me that I didn't even feel was really based on me, and I felt put upon by those exchanges.

[141] Like, if you think about it, when you're a famous person, people don't really know who you are.

[142] They kind of recognize you, and they kind of want something from you, and it's not even you they want it from.

[143] It's their image of you.

[144] Yeah.

[145] So once I sort of unlocked that, and then I just kind of behaviorally said, you know what, I'm going to put a smile on my face for every one of these exchanges.

[146] It doesn't matter what's going through my mind.

[147] and I'm going to just answer whatever the question is like what do I know you from what have I seen you from did you clean my couch anything it was and it took a little practice like I had to stay with it for like two three weeks but then not only was I much happier as a result but I have to say I couldn't get over how much it meant to people yeah people really seemed warmed by it that they got us even just a smile back from me and I felt really retroactively bad that it hadn't been rolling like that for years, you know.

[148] Yeah.

[149] There's this great Owen Wilson interview and Playboy.

[150] It's the only one I've ever memorized in my life, a full interview.

[151] You actually memorize it word for word.

[152] That's amazing.

[153] I have two favorite parts of it.

[154] Well, one of them was just, he kept getting recognized during the interview.

[155] And the interviewer said, does that get annoying?

[156] And he said, well, you know, it's kind of a cool superpower to just like be able to put people in a great mood when they see you.

[157] And I was like, what a wonderful.

[158] framing of that.

[159] Like, yeah, that's exactly how you should look at it.

[160] My road with it now is I had done a USO tour and when I went, I think they gave us a stack of maybe like 2 ,000 headshots to sign or whatever.

[161] And then I posed for God knows how many pictures.

[162] And the whole thing was beautiful and pleasant and I loved it and I never minded it and I was so happy to do it.

[163] And I got home and I was like, why is that so different than when I'm at the airport, right?

[164] Like, what is happening inside?

[165] And for me, I realized it was a lot about expectations.

[166] So I went there going, I'm going to take pictures with everyone I meet and I'm going to be at their disposal.

[167] For me, a little bit of it is the uncontrollability of it or the lack of control.

[168] Like if I go to the grocery store, maybe nothing will happen or I'm proceeding as if nothing will happen, but then maybe there's five things that now happen.

[169] And I didn't anticipate that.

[170] And that's my discomfort.

[171] Like, oh, I have no control over this.

[172] I'll never be able to turn this off.

[173] And it's just a loss of control feeling, really.

[174] Yeah, it is expectation.

[175] And it sort of needs to be much like program.

[176] to be committed to one day at a time, I might have to remind myself every day to reframe, like, going to go out, stuff's going to happen, I may not like it, or I may not like the way I'm approached or whatever it is or interrupted, and that smile thing needs to happen.

[177] And it takes practice, and then I became like Pavlov's dog, where after not very long, exchanges that I used to, dread is too strong a word, but not look forward to, because I'm just always smiling automatically, your body can't tell the difference between a fake smile and an actual smile.

[178] It releases, like, pleasant endorphins.

[179] It can work backwards, they say.

[180] Yes.

[181] And I began to enjoy the experience and look forward to it.

[182] Therein lies like, well, for someone who desires great control, I can either, if you're out of control by this, or I can come up with a little system where actually I take control back, like, oh, I'm going to smile.

[183] It's actually going to change my mood.

[184] Oh, my gosh, I have kind of a say over my emotion and reaction to this.

[185] and it's actually empowering, ironically.

[186] Yes, and I really had to get over myself to do it because I can give you a very good argument.

[187] I can make the very good legal case or the point -counterpoint case about why I have every right to be very cranky about that.

[188] Yes.

[189] And I did for years.

[190] But another nice program phrase, right, you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

[191] That's a tough one.

[192] It's for Monica and I in particular.

[193] It is tough.

[194] We just had this guy, Adam Grant, on.

[195] We've had him on a few times.

[196] He's an organizational, psychologist.

[197] He's a brilliant man. But we were having this conversation and he said, well, people are basically three things.

[198] They're either a prosecutor, a preacher, or a politician.

[199] And both monokine were like, well, I've never experienced politician or preacher, but I am trying a court case every minute of the day.

[200] And I'm not actively doing it.

[201] I'm doing it in my head all day long.

[202] And yeah, it's so vital to me that I'm right.

[203] Oh, it's embarrassing.

[204] Yeah, that's a big deal.

[205] I refer to my recovery a lot lately.

[206] My recovery work is as shit I'm right about that makes me angry.

[207] Oh, I love that.

[208] Oh, my God.

[209] Yeah.

[210] My sponsor and I talk a lot about one of the most challenging thing in sobriety is when you are genuinely wrong, not when you perceive being wrong or like you're kind of cranky and pissed, but when actually, yeah, no, you just got wrong.

[211] Somebody did you wrong somebody was rude somebody cheated or lied somebody done you wrong but you're not allowed to drop your program tools and become an unpeaceful man just because that happened and you know so you don't want to punt your serenity and you so don't want to drink or whatever it might lead to so what does one do well once you admit right that you're the only one that suffers that's the other shitty thing to admit to yourself like okay i can be mad at that person and i will suffer they won't They're not going to probably think twice about getting the upper hand on me, other than maybe in a celebratory way.

[212] I mean, what I've found is, and actually, in the conversation you were having with Amy, you guys were talking about you admired the ability to sort of in the moment, kind of express the feelings and get him out and work them through as opposed to, because Amy was saying she's a processor.

[213] She'll go away and kind of feel it and then come back with some kind of packaged response.

[214] Yeah, yeah.

[215] I'm actually a fan of that, not the suppressing of the emotion, not like I got to stuff this down, but I'm a big believer in go process it for real, go really feel the feelings, I'll call my sponsor, I'll call whoever and say, God damn it, I'm so upset and here's why.

[216] And then I'm a big believer in calming down, though, and seeing what that was all about.

[217] And then if there is a conversation that needs to be had, it's best had lovingly, calmly.

[218] And knowing what fear you brought into the thing is helpful.

[219] Yes, and also looking at your own part.

[220] Sometimes you're upset because you're triggered and it has nothing to do with what happened.

[221] It just reminds you your dad from when you were nine or you were wrong and you didn't like being called on it or whatever it is.

[222] And then you're really glad you didn't pop off in the moment.

[223] Yeah.

[224] As long as you use that time away to feel as opposed to come up with the court case.

[225] That is very key.

[226] Yeah.

[227] And to not control, not to.

[228] like, let me see how I can contrive this so that I needn't feel and I'm not wrong.

[229] No, that would, that is, that's just manipulative.

[230] But that's the temptation.

[231] Yeah.

[232] Yeah, it should be a sharing and not a dictating, even if it's a benevolent dictating or a well -intentioned one, yes.

[233] A lot of times these things come down to, like my wife had to point this out to me a year or two ago.

[234] Today is my nine -year anniversary, by the way.

[235] Oh, congratulations.

[236] That's wild timing.

[237] Very much, yes.

[238] That you go away from a rough exchange, say, or something like this, right, where you got to go where I've learned not to, if I'm angry, if I'm triggered, I really is best if I shish and go away because I don't want to pour gasoline on fires or say stuff I don't mean.

[239] And it's nonproductive.

[240] So I go away and I'm doing the right thing.

[241] I'm feeling it.

[242] I'm venting to my sponsor.

[243] I'm going, God damn it, this and that.

[244] And so you identify, oh, you know, this is actually is my part.

[245] I have a piece of this where I went off the rails.

[246] And also it kind of reminds me when I'm tan and that's mine too.

[247] But actually, there's also this piece that I don't like that my wife does.

[248] I don't like the tone with which she expressed it.

[249] And I don't want to use that tone and I don't want that tone used with me. So what I used to do is go, so here's my part.

[250] This triggered me about how when I was 10 and this is my thing and I did that wrong.

[251] And so I apologize.

[252] And also, you know, the tone that you used, can you not use that?

[253] And she said to me a couple years ago, okay, can you separate these two things?

[254] things out.

[255] Like, can you either make the amends and then have it be a separate conversation about what you don't like about what I did?

[256] I now start with, here's my part, I apologize, and then maybe a day or two later.

[257] You know, there was a tone thing that maybe I wasn't loving that we can try to avoid.

[258] It's tricky business.

[259] Yeah, owning your shit and stating needs and all at the same time.

[260] And, you know, sometimes I wonder if you wrestle this.

[261] I'm like, is this all a great gift to my spouse or is this so exhausting?

[262] Well, look, she's in program as well.

[263] My wife is recovering as well.

[264] Oh, okay.

[265] That helps.

[266] We're buddies in.

[267] If anything, we need to like pull back off it with each other.

[268] We'll spend hours, you know, quoting scripture to each other or, you know, program scripture.

[269] I feel like I would like that.

[270] It's great.

[271] I mean, it gets us out of a lot of pickles.

[272] It's nice to know that we can fall back on it.

[273] And believe me, we have to.

[274] You know how it goes.

[275] Trigger.

[276] then the trigger triggers the trigger, then the trigger, trigger, trigger, trigger, you're off to the races and then the ability to go off to your neutral corner and process it and then come back with accountability for your side.

[277] It's all there is.

[278] I think that must be helpful because at least you have a common rule book.

[279] You know, most people don't in any sort of relationship.

[280] So they're coming with the way they handle things and then the other person does and sometimes those do not match up or it's like, oh, I don't actually can.

[281] care about that.

[282] Well, I care about that a ton, but at least when you guys have a commonality of how to find solutions, you're doing it in the exact same way.

[283] Yeah, and the phrase you mentioned rulebook, I often think about program and recovery as like this rulebook that I always wish I had my whole life that actually is a really pretty good set of guidelines and principles and parameters to work within.

[284] And yeah, the fact that we sort of have mutual agreement and speak the same language in that way.

[285] It is helpful.

[286] Yeah, I guess it's kind of, yeah, just like a green on an ethic, which is really cool.

[287] The thing we value, they would value.

[288] But, you know, I know obviously everything about your current program, but what does interest me in Monica and I don't know a lot about, we had one guest who was an expert on it.

[289] Whitney Cummings.

[290] Whitney Cummings.

[291] I know Whitney.

[292] Yes.

[293] Her Al -Anon knowledge blew my mind.

[294] And I was really fascinated by it.

[295] And she told me this, which I had never heard, but I assumed to be true, is that generally alcoholics start out as codependence.

[296] It's like, you're a codependent first, and then you find alcohol, and that kind of liberate you from your codependency.

[297] But you were originally an Al -Anon person, right?

[298] Yeah, correct.

[299] If you came up to me and you're like, what's the number one thing you got out of AA?

[300] I'd probably say, for me, it's the four -step, like learning how to figure out my role in things, what I'm afraid of?

[301] Like, that's the big breakthrough for me. What would you say is that in Al -Anon?

[302] For those of you, scoring at home, who may I know this, Al -Anon is like for families and friends and relatives of alcoholics.

[303] The assumption is, not the assumption, the assertion, is that alcoholism is a family disease.

[304] If you've got one drunk or addict in the family, it's going to affect the entire family, whether it's mom, dad, spouse, child, friend, whoever.

[305] And you become what they call a para -alcoholic, which you take on the characteristics of the disease without ever picking up the drink or the drug, as they say.

[306] and alcoholism and drug addiction is an obsession.

[307] It's a compulsive desire to fix what's wrong with you by taking in substances, and it works for a while.

[308] It feels better, and then it gets out of your control and your health and everybody else is around.

[309] You start suffering big time.

[310] So for Alan's, it's the desire usually to fix this person.

[311] Oh, my son, my wife, my husband is killing themselves, hurting themselves.

[312] I got to help, I got to fix, I got to make it right.

[313] So you get so other fixated as an Alononon, you get so concerned with somebody.

[314] else's problem.

[315] And again, you're right.

[316] You're not wrong.

[317] You're right.

[318] They should stop killing themselves.

[319] The person's on fire that you live with.

[320] No one would argue with you that your drunken friend should stop killing themselves.

[321] You are technically correct.

[322] But again, you want to be right.

[323] You want to be happy.

[324] Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

[325] No one has the power to get somebody else sober to fix them, to fix their lives.

[326] That's hard for people.

[327] Very, very difficult.

[328] Very.

[329] Yeah.

[330] And it becomes an obsession.

[331] And so giving that up.

[332] So basically, Al -Anon Recovery is all about what you just said, which is finding the fourth step, like, what's my part in this?

[333] Where mostly Al -Anon Recovery leads you to is my part in is I need to come back to myself.

[334] I need to actually be more selfish in a good way.

[335] I need to put myself first.

[336] You make this a men's list, and for most Al -Anon's, yourself is at the top of that list.

[337] I need to take care of myself.

[338] I need to mind my own business.

[339] I need to find what I love to do besides obsess over this other.

[340] person and their problems.

[341] Yeah.

[342] And that was me for seven years.

[343] And it was funny, Dax.

[344] You might have heard me share this at a meeting or two back in the day.

[345] But so I asked myself, well, what do I like to do?

[346] What do I want?

[347] I came out of a marriage.

[348] And we were actually two Alan's.

[349] We were both raised in addict households and drunken households.

[350] And neither of us, it turns out I was a pretty good drunk, but I wasn't on to it yet.

[351] There's always a worst drunk you can look at if you want.

[352] There was that.

[353] And there was also, I was weird.

[354] I would like mix it up.

[355] My primary go -to drug is obsessing on other people.

[356] So I would spend years in these co -dependent crazy relationships where I would obsess about other people.

[357] And some of them were drunk since some of them weren't.

[358] And I wouldn't particularly use or drink in those periods of time because I kind of had my drunk fix.

[359] And then the second I was single, I would try to drink and snort the universe as a single person.

[360] And then as soon as I found someone to play with, I would put that down again and obsess on them.

[361] And on and on and on, that went for years.

[362] So we were kind of two unrecovered Alonans dancing with each other, which can be really crazy, almost crazier than the classic drunk and codependent.

[363] Yeah, those two puzzle pieces at least fit nicely.

[364] Yeah, this gets the curly cues of passive aggressive complications that start to happen are insane.

[365] In recovering from that, I'd have what I called um days, um, days, where I would literally stare at a blank wall and go out loud because I had no idea what to do with myself if I was not reacting to this other human being I'm like, I didn't make a list, like what do I like to do?

[366] Like poker, right?

[367] I started playing poker because I like Frisbee golf, I guess.

[368] I like documentaries.

[369] I like...

[370] And one of the things I discovered I really enjoyed doing was drinking my brains out and running around like an idiot, which was actually healthy for me for a while.

[371] It was actually good to get out there and do that.

[372] And then that got away from me. That got to be its own problem after a while.

[373] And then I got sober.

[374] And this may be a very AA or perspective of it, but I will say, I think as us drunks are under tremendous allusions and delusions, I think a lot of people that are caught up in the web of addiction on the codependency side, what they need to admit to themselves is that person allows you.

[375] you to not focus on anything going on with you.

[376] Like in the same way that alcohol allows you to not focus on the pain that you're going through.

[377] They're very similar in that everyone's just avoiding dealing with the big hole, right?

[378] Big time.

[379] I call that dynamic the contract and the messy room.

[380] I thought I was a genius for coming up with this.

[381] Then I found out that everybody in recovery knows this.

[382] But I don't.

[383] I don't.

[384] I don't either.

[385] Well, no, they don't call it that.

[386] But you just basically said it.

[387] The contract in the messy room is this.

[388] The messy room is like, like this big room of junk that you've thrown everything in in your house, right?

[389] And you just close the door.

[390] It's like, oh, my God, there's every piece of garbage and messes in there.

[391] And you don't want to go through it and look in there.

[392] You don't want to clean it, which that'll become your fourth step inventory eventually when you open that door and look in there.

[393] But you're like, I don't want to face my pain, my obsessions, my craziness, my hurts, my all of this, my childhood.

[394] So you shut that door and you say, you know what we're going to do?

[395] I'm going to focus totally on you.

[396] I'm going to focus on my sweetie and all their problems and all their craziness.

[397] And I'm pretty much going to defer to what they want to do.

[398] And the contract is, so we're going to do that.

[399] We're going to focus on you.

[400] And it's going to be your way.

[401] And I'm going to follow you around.

[402] And I get to avoid my crap, my shit, as you just mentioned.

[403] That's a terrible contract, even if it were spoken out loud.

[404] But it's usually this unspoken thing.

[405] And it builds tremendous resentment.

[406] But then one day a month, right, I want it.

[407] returned like wait a minute i actually need you i want to focus on my stuff today but that's not what we do in this relationship there's no room for that no whether it's picking the movie or some big emotional problem it's like it's all about your thing so and then i would explode like wait a minute one day a month i wanted to be about me and it's not and you know like and they look at you're nuts like what you're talking about that's not what you're advertising no you're not supposed to need a month.

[408] You're supposed to obsess about me all day long.

[409] I'm supposed to lie to you and gaslight you.

[410] And this is the thing.

[411] Exactly.

[412] And so, again, even if that were stated, if it were stated, it would be a terrible contract.

[413] But it's like this unspoken thing, this psychic connection that goes on, this agreement.

[414] So it was undoing that.

[415] And when I got into AA recovery, that's all about service and actually doing for others.

[416] But I felt much more capable of doing it in a more balanced way because I knew how to take care of myself at that point so that I could give from the excess and sort of not give to you hoping you'll fix me, but just literally to be giving something away.

[417] And that feeling of healthy service, of healthy giving, even if it's a smile at people on the street who want to know where they know me from, right?

[418] I don't know how you feel, Dax, but like that feeling of healthy giving is the, that's the high I was always chasing.

[419] That's like the closest thing to what drugs and alcohol felt to me. Yeah, it's the least sexy way in the world to arrive at self -esteem, which is really all I'm craving is like to like me. I was under the illusion that if a couple million Americans liked me, I would like me. That didn't work.

[420] I was under the illusion if actresses liked me and wanted to sleep with me, that would make me like me. And lo and behold, talking to someone I don't want to talk to on the phone makes me like myself.

[421] I'm not enjoying it per se, but lo and behold, I hang up and I go, oh man, yeah.

[422] Okay, I like that person.

[423] You're the type of person that would take time on your day to talk about something boring with somebody to help him.

[424] I like that guy.

[425] Exactly.

[426] It's service.

[427] And also like all the stuff we went through, right, because we've all been through any of us in recovery by definition means we had a bottom or a series of them, which were not fun and not good and really painful.

[428] And a lot of our lives have felt not good to us.

[429] And the idea that that pain from the those relationships or that suffering or that addiction can actually be of service.

[430] It can useful.

[431] My story can actually be helpful to somebody who's struggling with it.

[432] Yeah.

[433] I have blazed a trail for them a bit.

[434] It makes like all that feel like it had a point.

[435] Yeah.

[436] Prior to AA, my failures were just failures.

[437] But now when I share them, they somehow are helpful to somebody.

[438] Like they get something out of it.

[439] And I'm like, well, wow, that's a flip of how I see that now.

[440] And I almost exclusively learned from other men's failures, not their triumphs.

[441] Like, that's where I learned.

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

[443] What's up, guys?

[444] This is your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

[445] And let me tell you, it's too good.

[446] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[447] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

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

[449] I mean the likes of Amy Pollard.

[450] Kelle Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

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

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

[453] We've all been there.

[454] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[455] 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.

[456] 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, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

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

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

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

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

[461] Prime members can Listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[462] Is there an Al -Anon books?

[463] I know there's the big book for AA, but last year during Dax's relapse, I definitely fell into, I think, a lot of these patterns.

[464] And I recognized it, but I did not know what to do or what to read or how to fix it.

[465] And to your point of staring at the wall, I would just be like searching for something to do.

[466] Like I would just move my cell phone from room to room for like 10 minutes.

[467] minutes.

[468] I would just like sit there and then move it out and then move it to a different room.

[469] Like just trying to assert some control or take up the space that was going towards the obsession and a different, it was just, it's so easy.

[470] And I think maybe if you're an obsessive person to begin with, you're like probably more likely to fall into these traps.

[471] Maybe.

[472] No, definitely.

[473] Yes.

[474] Yeah.

[475] And I didn't know if there was like a good go -to piece of literature for people.

[476] There's a big book of Alonan.

[477] I mean, there's tons of literature.

[478] If you're interested in a meeting, I'm happy to bring you along anytime on.

[479] Thank you.

[480] But, you know, the newcomers packets have little pamphlets in them that are really concise breakdowns.

[481] Like one of the first things you want to do is learn the facts about understanding alcoholism.

[482] So it's kind of a real crisp, clear, quick breakdown of what the alcoholics pretty much going through.

[483] And then understanding ourselves.

[484] And then there's a pretty crisp, clear breakdown of how one reacts to that almost all.

[485] all the time.

[486] And it's almost upsettingly mundane and typical.

[487] Predictable.

[488] I know.

[489] It's cliche.

[490] It is.

[491] It's not that mysterious.

[492] It pretty much goes one way for the alcoholic and for the Alinonic, who's going along for the ride.

[493] And one of the things we get over, both in AA recovery and Alonon recovery, is what they call terminal uniqueness.

[494] You know, you walk in there thinking, oh, my God, my story, you don't understand.

[495] No, you don't understand what I have been through.

[496] And then it's like, oh my God, not long into recovery.

[497] You're like, geez, we're all the same in here.

[498] Oh, yeah.

[499] Some like 400 -pound truck driver tells your story.

[500] You're like, oh, okay.

[501] I wasn't expecting that.

[502] And then some woman tells your story.

[503] And then, yeah, and you're like, oh, huh.

[504] Yeah.

[505] Well, I'll tell you, Hank.

[506] You know, I ended up doing an episode about it called Day 7 about relapsing.

[507] And 16 years ago, I didn't have a life that was so complete that I had to do a ton of lying.

[508] I didn't have those kind of connections or my girlfriend at the time also drank a lot.

[509] So again, she was geared for that.

[510] So I didn't have to lie much.

[511] But my life had become so beautiful in this program that I had to lie.

[512] You know, I had to look at Monica and say, no, you're off base.

[513] I'm not on anything.

[514] And then I had to tell my wife.

[515] And my tolerance to do that, I think that's the only gift I got out of the whole 16 years is I don't have the tolerance for it anymore.

[516] It created a higher bottom for you.

[517] Yes.

[518] It was actually too painful.

[519] And I have to attribute that to having gotten to not be that way for so long.

[520] You know, slips are part of recovery.

[521] Relapse is a part of recovery.

[522] Well, again, my terminal uniqueness is, yes, slips are part of recovery for other people.

[523] But not for me. I'm a special breed.

[524] I'm a very intelligent breed of alcoholic.

[525] Well, it's funny what can surprise us and trigger us and make us take a left turn, right?

[526] What do they say in the big book?

[527] I just took that left turn right into the, they always use that antiquated, like, right into the tavern.

[528] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[529] And good old John Barleycorn was waiting for me. And it seems mundane in the moment often.

[530] Like it's not, sometimes it's a big dramatic thing.

[531] Sometimes it's just like, eh, I'm doing this now.

[532] Look at this.

[533] Huh.

[534] And lying is part of it, right?

[535] It's baked right in.

[536] And I remember I was complaining to my sponsor about dear friend of mine who goes in and out and in and out of sobriety.

[537] And it really upsets me, you know, and I'm saying like, what really gets me, this is me complaining to my sponsors.

[538] What really gets me is I'm sitting there in a meeting with the guy.

[539] And he's lying about his day count.

[540] He's lying.

[541] And I know he is.

[542] And he knows I know.

[543] And he's not being honest about, he doesn't have 34 days.

[544] And he knows, I know he doesn't.

[545] And he kind of listened to me, my sponsor is British.

[546] He actually went, so let me get this straight.

[547] You're upset because the alcoholic is lying.

[548] Is that right?

[549] The basketball player is dribbling.

[550] Exactly.

[551] And it's like, well, if you're going to put it that way, dude.

[552] Asshole.

[553] Well, I got to say, Hank, I met you there.

[554] And I want to say it was really in the beginning days.

[555] It was nine years ago.

[556] And then you moved to New York and I missed you greatly.

[557] and I always, of the many, many, many luxuries I've had in my life.

[558] One is, I've also gotten sober with some entertaining motherfuckers.

[559] So, like, I get to listen to you share.

[560] That's not too bad.

[561] You know, if you've got to listen to someone tell their story, it's not terrible that you have the voice you have and the charisma you have.

[562] So, no, thank you.

[563] Well, thank you, Dax.

[564] Thank you.

[565] I consider myself the Ted Baxter of Drunks.

[566] I don't know why I went there.

[567] But, yeah, no, that meeting you're speaking of, there's some pretty entertaining.

[568] charismatic folks in there and that does make it more interesting but I'm now at a point where geez I love listening to people in those rooms I mean lately I'm last couple of years my focus has been ACA what's that adult children of alcoholics yeah I should look into that well I mean to me I'll tell you it's a misleading title because it's really any household that at any dysfunction of any kind and you qualify which is definitely every drunk every addict grew up in some version of dysfunction.

[569] There's just no question.

[570] And I really feel like the second one gets sober in AA, you qualify for the Al -Anon program.

[571] I believe that because you may not necessarily pursue it or not be your cup of tea and recovery, but because Al -Anon -ism is about people, places, and things now.

[572] And the second you stop, you put down your drug or substance of choice, all of a sudden you have the world to deal with.

[573] And as you referred to earlier, I'm an obsessive, crazy thing waiting to happen now.

[574] So whether it's with cocaine or with booze or with food or with work or with sex does not really matter.

[575] I'll find where to point it.

[576] And sometimes multiple ones at once.

[577] Sure.

[578] Well, yes.

[579] If you could be working out and eating a subway sandwich while getting a blowjob, give me it.

[580] Exactly.

[581] I often tried.

[582] I would construct days that would look as close to that as possible.

[583] And then my first.

[584] sponsor in Al -Anon was big on what's the root of this what's like the origin comic book story of this feeling of this urge of this obsession and I didn't realize it at the time but that's a very ACA way to work where you're like well wait a minute let's go back let's find where you first associate these feelings you know and like as I mentioned earlier like that feeling why am I having such a hard time people coming up to me on the street and smiling and asking me what movie they know me from and sure enough there was something it's a pretty big trigger in there from when I was a kid.

[585] Digging that stuff up, I have found to be really, really next level for me. It kind of keeps it all sort of present and going.

[586] That's what I'm sort of focusing on mostly lately.

[587] Yeah.

[588] Man, I admire how much stuff you're doing.

[589] I really do.

[590] But alas, we must talk about your beautiful career.

[591] And we must talk, of course, about The Simpsons, which is now 31 years.

[592] Is that where we're at?

[593] yeah i believe season 32 is currently airing i think that's right we're about to do 33 and 34 i think yeah i know is that the world record other than like 60 minutes it has to be right i think or today show or it's the longest scripted show so within that 31 years i have to imagine you've felt the entire gamut about that experience yeah i mean the whole thing is unprecedented and and sort of strange in a certain way i mean i'm just a voice on it or voice as on it So for a long time, I retained anonymity within it.

[594] I mean, you know, the first solid 10, 15 years of it, who knew the voices behind it, really?

[595] That's once you guys got started getting paid a ton, everyone started paying attention.

[596] In particular, yes.

[597] Yeah.

[598] And then that got kind of headliny.

[599] And then if you hang around long enough, people start making connections.

[600] Oh, that's the guy from the Simpsons.

[601] Oh, right.

[602] Okay.

[603] Yeah, it was being part of like a cultural phenomenon.

[604] A factory of like other.

[605] amazing talent that, like, came through Conan, all kinds of people.

[606] Oh, yeah.

[607] You know, watching all those guys come through.

[608] And it really was the writers as voice actors.

[609] We just, we do a good job, you know, but we weren't breaking any ground as voice actors, really.

[610] We were just doing hopefully a good job.

[611] It was the writers who kind of, in their own little way, a little bit reinvented comedy or a way to do a sitcom or a way to do an animated show or combine the two.

[612] They sort of broke some new ground there in a way that people really responded to, especially in the first 10 years.

[613] So that was fun to be part of all that, you know.

[614] Yeah.

[615] Did you resent that you were anonymous?

[616] Like you're on like a number one show.

[617] It makes a ton of money.

[618] You make a ton of money.

[619] Was there any point where you're like, there should be some adulation attached to all this?

[620] Yeah.

[621] I mean, like a good alcoholic, I'll resent anything that doesn't go my way eventually, at least for a while in and out.

[622] But I was building an on -camera career, as we would say, at the time.

[623] and so they were sort of parallel going on.

[624] Yeah, let someone forget, I mean, you're the most, and even though I was reading about you today, you can't read an article about the birdcage that you aren't specifically highlighted as the greatest part of an incredibly great movie with incredibly great performances.

[625] Like, if you had only done that, you could lay down in the casket and be pretty fucking proud.

[626] Well, that's what sort of made me as an on -camera actor that was like my big -ass break.

[627] There were a couple of little breaks that led to that break, But, yeah, so, but listen, my on -camera career, if you will, has never quite caught up to my voiceover career, but that's fine.

[628] It's a pretty high bar on the voiceover side.

[629] And one of the nice things, not to bring everything back to sobriety and recovery, but one of the nice things about all of it is making peace with all of that, processing it, staring at it, oh, that does press my buttons in this or that way.

[630] What do I want to look at there?

[631] And getting to gratefulness on, isn't it extraordinary that I've gotten to do any of this at all and not focusing on, oh, the things I haven't done or wish could have gone bigger or better or whatever.

[632] I mean, this is one that you don't get a lot of sympathy for, per se.

[633] And I also have a tough time convincing young aspiring actors who happen to be sober or I'm sponsoring, like, I'm telling you, you think that the money and the fame is going to fix us.

[634] I promise you it isn't.

[635] And like, oh, easy for you to say.

[636] And I'm like, you have a point, easy for me to say.

[637] But it doesn't make any less true.

[638] I promise you.

[639] I also have a couple of sponsorsies who do have all of that money and fame more than I do.

[640] And they can honestly report it did not fix it.

[641] It in fact made it worse because it's a terrible moment.

[642] A lot of people have talked about this in all walks of life to realize that that level of success and money and seeming control and power.

[643] Like all good drugs, it does work for a while.

[644] It'll feel very nice, and I wish it on everyone that you should have this problem to discover that ultimately a lot of money and fame and success and power is not going to ultimately fix you or make you happy, but it's a good problem to have.

[645] I always imagine, because this has come up many times, and I always imagine like 22 -year -old me listening to this.

[646] And I know what I would say.

[647] I'd be like, that's cool.

[648] I'll find out for myself.

[649] Sure.

[650] Yeah, you might even be right, but we'll see.

[651] I'll find out for myself.

[652] By all means, go for it.

[653] sure yeah yeah yeah i hope everybody does you know but it doesn't make it any less true and it's a terrible moment right when you realize wow i am a rich successful famous miserable fuck i have no excuse now it's scary i found it to be really scary because there's nowhere else to point anymore yeah bad i mean it's really it's disturbing not that anybody should like pity us or like oh the poor rich guy you know it's not about that but I'm just saying internally.

[654] Yeah, there's way worse ways to get sold.

[655] I listen, yes.

[656] Very much say that.

[657] I didn't come to in a prison cell.

[658] Exactly.

[659] Or on the street.

[660] I mean, yeah, there are harder roads for sure.

[661] No question.

[662] But all I'm saying is I can only report from my own path.

[663] It was very disturbing to have all that and realize, boy, I'm not happy.

[664] What the fuck.

[665] Yeah.

[666] Yeah.

[667] Yeah, I got to look somewhere else.

[668] I got to figure something else out.

[669] Okay, so one thing we have to talk about, which I don't think you'll be afraid to talk about at all.

[670] but people who listen to this show will obviously probably be aware of this and obviously Monica's also Indian so this is a great person to be involved in this conversation.

[671] What I know of your response based on the movie, there was a movie right, the problem with Apu?

[672] Yes, which was a documentary film calling out the character of Apu and my voicing of it.

[673] Yeah, and man, you want to talk about if it were me, the temptation I would have to defend myself because I would feel like someone was calling me personally a racist and my identity would be on the line.

[674] Like, I'll fight to the death to prove to you I'm not a racist.

[675] The fact that your response was such that the maker of the film publicly thanked you for how you responded to it, again, to bring it all back to A .A. I mean, it has to be in the mix, right?

[676] Like, can you make that response without the work you've done?

[677] Not to applaud you for all this.

[678] I'm just saying, I appreciate the response.

[679] So let's just kind of go through what the response was.

[680] No, it's not about congratulating me for the response because I have a big part in creating the problem to begin with.

[681] So nothing takes that away, except maybe an amends over time, which I'm attempting to make.

[682] But, and I'm interested to hear, Monica, I'd love to, I don't want to put you on the spot, nor don't put you in the position of a person of color having to, like, talk about any of this.

[683] Be the mouthpiece, yeah.

[684] You may or may not want to, but.

[685] Well, if this goes perfect, she'll be consoling us by the end of this, which is the greatest pleasures a marginalized person can have is to console the white people.

[686] Take a side, back door into white fragility, and you take care of me. You can comfort both of Hank and I as we cry.

[687] No, no, but I'm glad you asked this, because absolutely, look, that's a trauma, okay?

[688] That's how it showed up for me. I got called out of publicly.

[689] I got canceled, however you want to put it, right?

[690] And really, really intensive, like a documentary film in which I was pardoned upon the white whale of it and, like, blaming me, like, mostly for it and all of this stuff.

[691] Okay.

[692] So I dealt with it the way I deal with any crisis in my life programmatically.

[693] And as I've said earlier, okay, so a lot of feelings, a lot of defensive feelings, a lot of hurt, a lot of anger, a lot of, I want to cry no fair, I want to all kinds of things.

[694] So my training as a recovering guy is when my feelings are at their peak, I need to shut up and I need to process those feelings and I need to listen and learn.

[695] And in the case of this topic, racism, my participation in racism, or at least in a racist practice or in structural racism as it relates to show business or whatever you want to call it or all the above, that took a while.

[696] I mean, that was not like a two -week process.

[697] Yeah.

[698] When it first all happened, it was happening, I was like, geez, what is all this?

[699] It became apparent to me like, do I keep voicing this character or not?

[700] Yeah, yeah.

[701] And I couldn't make that decision very quickly.

[702] I didn't know how to make it, so I needed to educate myself a lot.

[703] Because on the one hand, I didn't want a knee -jerk respond to like what could have been, I'm like, is this 17 hipsters in a microbrewery in Brooklyn just deciding?

[704] Or is this like a real thing?

[705] Is this like indicative?

[706] I know it's just a cartoon character, but is this representative of an example of a true example of structural racism, at least as it relates to show business in this country?

[707] And so I needed to look at my part.

[708] So I went and learned.

[709] I read and I talked to people.

[710] I talked to a lot of Indian people.

[711] I talked to a lot of people who knew a lot about racism in this country.

[712] I took seminars.

[713] I read.

[714] I kind of went back and forth and back and forth.

[715] And I know from program to keep my mouth shut until I have some idea of what the hell I'm talking about.

[716] Maybe while I'm still confused and hurt and upset and defensive, I don't want to say anything.

[717] And I surely don't want to say anything in today's world of social media or whatever.

[718] I certainly don't want to like swing it on a vine of like a tweet or a thing.

[719] one of the things that really occurred to me like sort of halfway through that process.

[720] It was like two or three years between when it all kind of hit and the documentary came out and when I actually went on, it was actually on Stephen Colbert and sort of made a public statement about it.

[721] And by then I had felt like I know what's in my heart, I know what I feel I know my part is, I know where I stand on this.

[722] I feel like I had something thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate, and responsible and owning my part to say.

[723] what I really thought about Dex was I've had a date with destiny with this thing for like 31 years or whatever it was the time it got called out for maybe 27 years into the thing or whatever yeah and if I had not gotten sober in that time and I was still a drunk guy I promise you I promise you wouldn't have taken much wine maybe a half a glass for me to be in my feelings one night and fire off some kind of tweet that I felt just testified in firing off.

[724] You know, some kind of defensive, white, fragile, just like min -a -na -tweet.

[725] And boy, am I glad I wasn't in my cups and also had a system in place where I could look at this thing.

[726] And what I realized, just to finish, to me, racism, participating in racism, as a structural racism in this country, is about blind spots.

[727] I really didn't know any better.

[728] I didn't think about it.

[729] And that was part of my, I don't love the term white privilege.

[730] I mean, it applies.

[731] I prefer relative advantage.

[732] I was unaware of how much relative advantage I had received in this country.

[733] As a white kid from Queens, I didn't think about this stuff because I never had to.

[734] Yeah.

[735] And there were very good intentions on all of our part.

[736] And we tried to do a funny, thoughtful character.

[737] And just because there were good intentions doesn't mean there weren't real negative consequences to the thing that I am accountable for and let's talk about the difference between shame and guilt okay shame which we all know from recovery shame is i'm terrible i don't deserve to live i'm a bad person and this is what drives us to drink guilt is i did wrong i'm not wrong i did wrong and i can be accountable for that i can make amends i can be responsible for that and try to make it right and that applies to stuff i did when i was drunk it applies to my blind spots around this character and that was the journey i went on I'm still on.

[738] I continue to do this work.

[739] I'm really committed to part of my amends for all this.

[740] I'm really, I'm continuing to educate myself.

[741] And in fact, I've hooked up with a group called the Soul Focus Group, which is one of the best seminars that I took was with those guys.

[742] And we're in the process of creating a nonprofit where we try to bring this work.

[743] The journey I went on, I want to share with people of educating myself in this area.

[744] And I'm working with them to actually become a facilitator, a trainer of these seminars.

[745] I feel like I have a unique story to offer with my journey with this Apu stuff.

[746] So we're working on that.

[747] We're going to really kind of come out with it in the course of this year.

[748] I'm happy to talk about all this.

[749] I actually get rather passionate about it.

[750] Well, I want to hear what Monica has to say, but like, okay, that's my childhood, right?

[751] So I have an affinity for the show.

[752] I have been made happy so many times by that character.

[753] I've laughed so many times.

[754] I've enjoyed it.

[755] I've done an Indian accent a million times.

[756] I did it in a movie without a paddle.

[757] I have one line.

[758] I do it.

[759] I was defensive of you because I'm, I'm like, okay, well, we're kind of judging something by 1988 standards today, but now it is the victim of being around for 31 years and, you know, all these things.

[760] I'm lucky enough to have become best friends with Monica.

[761] Yeah, as you say, recognizing like, holy shit, I just did that Indian accent, whatever the fuck I wanted.

[762] And I never thought once about it.

[763] And I never thought about what it is to be Monica growing up Indian people in Duluth, Georgia and how that's already so fucking hard.

[764] And I'm, you know, and I'm just very grateful that I met.

[765] Monica, and I need to meet everybody.

[766] I've had so many blind spots in that way.

[767] Go ahead, Monica.

[768] Let's hear from you in this as we're talking about you and your people.

[769] My people.

[770] You're not here.

[771] Well, no, it's a journey for me, too.

[772] I actually, I really, really appreciate that it took you two or three years before you felt comfortable really speaking on it because it means it wasn't just lip service or you weren't like, oh, I got to fix my image or I got to do this.

[773] you really committed to learning about it.

[774] And yeah, I mean, I think it's so complicated because it is the system that we're all products of.

[775] And we do have to individually take steps to change that.

[776] But to blame one person or one thing for this overall issue is, I don't think, helpful.

[777] I think it's good to, you know, as we're doing now, we're just shedding more light on the overall problem.

[778] When Dax and I first started doing this podcast, we would get in a lot of debates about race and accents and all of this stuff.

[779] So I can only do white people.

[780] I can do Irish people like, you know, I'm so offended that I don't have access to every human on the planet.

[781] That's my right.

[782] Yeah.

[783] And I was like, here's part of the problem.

[784] It's that there isn't enough representation in general.

[785] Like if there was an Indian person on every show, then you could probably do that.

[786] But the fact that there's like three representations, and they all seem to be very stereotypical, and not just in this case of like a white person representing an Indian person.

[787] We had Cal Penn on, and like the first movie he did, the character's name was Taj Mahal.

[788] Like those are the things that we're seeing and people are seeing.

[789] And for an Indian person, when the representations are Taj Mahal, It's like, okay, the white people around me think that's what Indians are.

[790] So they're going to place that on me. And then I have to crawl myself out of that.

[791] Tell Hank about your crush.

[792] That's the one that really like broke my heart and hit home for me. I mean, I think a lot of our listeners have heard it.

[793] But for your sake, so I was in sixth grade and I really liked this boy.

[794] And we all had like mutual friends and everyone was boyfriend and girlfriend and except me. and I really wanted him to be my boyfriend.

[795] You know, we're in sixth grade, so take that for what it is.

[796] And he liked me, and I liked him, and we were all at the pool, and one of my friends went up to him.

[797] I was like, why don't you ask Monica to be your girlfriend?

[798] And he said, well, I would, but her parents work at Dairy Queen.

[799] And they don't.

[800] But some people don't understand this because in Georgia, a lot of the Dairy Queens are franchised by Indian families.

[801] So there's a lot of Indian people working at the Dairy Queen.

[802] And he was not, I don't think, saying, I think her parents work at the dairy queen.

[803] He's saying, I can't because she's Indian.

[804] And, you know, we're kids.

[805] And it was kind of the first time that I realized, oh, this is going to be a big problem.

[806] I can't make people unsee that or unknow that.

[807] And so for me, it's like when there are stereotypical portrayals, that just fuels to this fire that I'm already trying to put out.

[808] That's so hard to put out.

[809] So that's just my personal story.

[810] But I got to say, I want to add, because she's not saying it, is that truly impacted her life.

[811] From that point, I've met so many guys who are in love with Monica.

[812] And I'll go, why don't you, that guy was, no, no, he's not.

[813] Like, shut down a part of her that could see that guys are in love with her or attracted to her.

[814] And like a real effect, undeniable.

[815] I have heard a story like that many, many times from many, many Indian people and other people of color.

[816] And it has a real impact, this kind of, this perpetuating this stereotype.

[817] And, right?

[818] So I'm sure it didn't matter to you, Monica, how well -intentioned up who was in that moment.

[819] I mean, it's like I talked to one student in particular I was speaking to at my son's school.

[820] I was talking to the Indian students there.

[821] I wanted to get their input.

[822] 17 -year -old boy, maybe a year ago, maybe two years.

[823] He's never even seen The Simpsons, doesn't know from it, really, but knows what Apu means.

[824] It's practically a slur at this point.

[825] All he knows is this is how his people are thought of and represented to many people in this country.

[826] Still, with tears in his eyes, he said to me, and it was so sweet the way he put.

[827] He said, well, you please tell the writers in Hollywood that what they do, do and what they come up with really matters in people's lives like it has consequences and i was like yes my friend i will tell them that i said to him and i'm going to say to you right now i really do apologize i know this he weren't asking for that but it's important you know i apologize for my part in creating that and participating in that you know part of me feels like i need to go around to every single indian person in this country and personally apologize and sometimes i do when it by them all a dairy queen You owe every single Indian a dairy queen.

[828] Well, you know, I want to talk about this.

[829] I mean, look, I want to bring together what we've been talking about the last 10 minutes.

[830] So there I am.

[831] It's 1988, right?

[832] And somebody says to me, hey, it was like one line.

[833] Can you do an Indian accent?

[834] I said, yeah, I think so.

[835] And Apu comes out, okay.

[836] And we're like, oh, okay.

[837] And we all laugh.

[838] Oh, that was funny.

[839] Okay, good.

[840] So that keeps going from there.

[841] and over the years it develops, whatever.

[842] Now, in my head was Peter Sellers' performance in a movie called The Party.

[843] Birdie Numnums.

[844] Exactly.

[845] Yeah.

[846] Which was about 1966.

[847] And Peter Sell was in Brownface, okay?

[848] Mm. And doing this really silly character.

[849] Now, here's a great example of white privilege, relative advantage.

[850] Now, to me, as a 15 -year -old, when I saw that movie, at that time, it's what, 1979, whatever.

[851] to me, there's no difference between how funny Peter Sellers is as a French guy as Cluzzo or as a German guy in Dr. Strangelove or as Perundi v. Bakshi in the party.

[852] It's just funny, right?

[853] Funny is funny is funny.

[854] Right.

[855] So I'm like, great.

[856] And I'm a mimic.

[857] I'm an aspiring, right, voice guy.

[858] So I can do the accent and I can do Strange Love and I can do Cluzzo.

[859] And so there's no difference to me either in that way.

[860] I'm like, oh, it's all good, right?

[861] So I'm happily kind of homageing this joyous character of Apu I'm thinking of like because it's a joyful performance by sellers, albeit very marginalizing and racist.

[862] Now, at the time, Indian people were very upset with that portrayal back in 1966.

[863] So now I'm really, how can I, I couldn't possibly be passing along structural racism more perfectly, at least in a show business context, by taking something that was already upsetting and going, no, this is wonderful.

[864] What do I know white kid from Queens.

[865] I enjoyed it.

[866] And I also grew up with Don Rickles and there's a billion other examples that you can make of how we were just told.

[867] I was told as a young aspiring comedian.

[868] No, racial humor is fine.

[869] There's airplane food and there's gyms in New York and LA and cats and dogs and racist stuff.

[870] It's all comedy.

[871] Yeah.

[872] Now, what I'm not realizing, of course, is I can feel that way as a white guy because I'm not living with any of the consequences of those things at all.

[873] Right?

[874] As you just said, I don't have the boy not wanting to date me because my parents were the Dairy Queen people, right?

[875] Yeah.

[876] Because her computer programming mother and engineer father are working at Dairy Queen.

[877] Well, that's the perception.

[878] Now, you know how this really came home to me?

[879] Part of this journey I had, I was speaking to an Indian reporter from Huffington Post named Malika Rao.

[880] I was starting to get win that people were having a problem with this character.

[881] She said, can I interview about it?

[882] And I said, sure, I'd be interested.

[883] And we had this nice conversation.

[884] And as we were talking, I realized, you know, I worked for the comedian years ago, a very waspy guy, very funny guy.

[885] I don't want to name him, but brilliant comedian.

[886] And he would do kind of a stereotypical Jewish voice.

[887] What do you mean?

[888] Like, you know, I'm a Jewish guy.

[889] And I think about, like, does that bother me?

[890] No, I mean, it was my favorite portrayal, but it didn't bother me. Like, I didn't, like, it didn't annoy me too much.

[891] And I realized, like, as you said, Apu was.

[892] was pretty much the only representation of Indian people in American pop culture for about 20 years, approximately.

[893] Yeah, yeah.

[894] And if that were the only representation of my people in American pop culture, which this was a Christian guy talking like this?

[895] I don't think I would have been crazy about that.

[896] And then on top of that, now I hear a lot of the argument like, and you refer to it earlier, Dax, like, well, where does this end?

[897] And that was my first bit of defensiveness, too.

[898] Like, should I stop doing Cletus now as a Southern guy?

[899] And should I stop doing Luigi, who is in his?

[900] Italian a guy?

[901] And do I not do an Irish accent either?

[902] Is that out of bounds as well?

[903] And where does it end, right?

[904] And here's the thing, is if it's a character of color in particular, A, as you mentioned earlier, Monica, there's not the same level of opportunity there.

[905] So the first argument is if it's an Indian character or Latinx character or a black character, please let's let's have that person voice the character.

[906] A, it's more authentic.

[907] B, they might not only bring an authentic voice to it, but the experience of their cultureization to it.

[908] And let's not take jobs away from people who don't have enough.

[909] But on top of that, you know, let's say I had to live with that characterization, a Jewish characterization.

[910] I'm still a white guy.

[911] So even though I'm not loving, that this is what people think I sound like or my father sounds like or whatever.

[912] If I walk into the grocery store, people don't look at me immediately unless they maybe see my nose from the side, maybe, and make an assumption.

[913] I'm going to go, oh, there's that Jewish guy.

[914] He must shine like this.

[915] But as an Indian person, immediate, right?

[916] Yeah, it's your skin.

[917] It's ever.

[918] Exactly.

[919] You literally wear it.

[920] You can't get away from it.

[921] Yeah.

[922] That is the difference.

[923] That's why it's not the same as the Italian guy.

[924] I mean, I haven't hear the argument, well, do you have to be a bartender to play mo the bartender?

[925] You're not a cop.

[926] You shouldn't play Wiggum.

[927] I mean, that's just ridiculous.

[928] Yeah.

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

[930] Well, I got to tell you, I had two little breakthroughs.

[931] One is, I didn't like the term white privilege either, but it hit me from being sober, which is the amount of drugs I carried around all the time.

[932] And the amount of times I was publicly fucked up, and the way I spoke to cops when I interacted with them, if any of that stuff had happened and I was black, I know for certain I'd be in prison.

[933] That was my big click.

[934] I'm like, oh, I was a raging drug addict for a decade and very out loud about it.

[935] And I didn't suffer any fucking consequences.

[936] That is a huge privilege.

[937] I'm not in prison.

[938] And then the other one I had was kind of doing what you did.

[939] So I would listen to Ice Cube as a kid.

[940] I loved Ice Cube.

[941] He was vocally didn't like white people.

[942] I didn't mind.

[943] I would say, well, why are people so offended if there's a hillbilly singing against black people?

[944] Like, I listen to Ice Cube.

[945] I'm not going to.

[946] And finally, it hit me like, well, I'm not going to.

[947] get pulled over by Ice Cube, then go to court and the judge's Ice Cube.

[948] And then, you know, not every single person holding power above me looks like Ice Cube, but every person of power, generally speaking, is white.

[949] That's why it's radically different for me listening to Ice Cube versus a black dude listening to David Allen Coe.

[950] That's the difference.

[951] Totally.

[952] In the seminars we do, we define racism as legitimate access to power, legit legal access to power plus prejudice.

[953] And that creates racism, structural racism.

[954] And much of it is implicit.

[955] Much of it is not conscious.

[956] It's in the groundwater.

[957] We're raising it.

[958] It's like that was my groundwater.

[959] Peter Sellers, what I was kind of, I was in the great tradition of comedians I admired.

[960] And by the way, I'm on board with what right privilege represents.

[961] I just think, much like defund the police, it gets too easy to dismiss.

[962] Like when I first heard white privilege, I'm like, wait a minute, I didn't grow up with no silver spoon in my mouth.

[963] I'm not privileged.

[964] That doesn't apply.

[965] I'm not a, you know.

[966] I'm like, oh, four alcoholic stepdad's, that's my privilege, violence, fucking being molested.

[967] What a privilege.

[968] Yeah, I got defensive immediately.

[969] Much like white supremacist society.

[970] It's like, wait a minute, I'm not a clansman.

[971] Where do you see?

[972] There's no hood on my, it doesn't mean that.

[973] And so I just feel like we can maybe sometimes be a little more intentional around the verbiage to.

[974] I agree.

[975] I think the left, our side of the political spectrum is the worst branding in the world.

[976] Defund the police, nobody wants.

[977] their neighborhood to get more dangerous.

[978] Like, there's a better, better way.

[979] Invest in preventing societal issues that end up with policing required.

[980] That's a good message.

[981] Exactly.

[982] I heard Acho say that to you guys.

[983] I mean, defund the police is a good hashtag.

[984] Hashtag, maybe we should reallocate funds for the police so that it goes to better places and everybody's more effective and compassionate.

[985] Not a great hashtag.

[986] Not so great.

[987] I want to say one more thing about, you know, you said one line and that was that.

[988] I think that's for me the big takeaway.

[989] It's not about you.

[990] It's not about the creators.

[991] It's about there wasn't even one person in that room who could say, actually, I think that's a little bit offensive.

[992] So that for me is the reason we have to diversify everything because you need that person's opinion.

[993] You need an Indian person in the room, in the writer's room, to say, like, like, yeah, that seems fine or actually no. That's how we fix the structure of it is by putting more people in power to say, this is okay, this isn't okay.

[994] Monica, 100%.

[995] You don't trust Hank and I to figure out what's offensive for other people.

[996] We have no experience living.

[997] Well, I don't know, Hank, it is a big job.

[998] How would you?

[999] How would you?

[1000] You don't have the experience.

[1001] It's not your fault.

[1002] Exactly.

[1003] But you have to know what you don't know.

[1004] and you have to have respect for that and respect for the real consequences of no matter how well -intentioned or how even how funny it is.

[1005] But like, wait a minute, let's check ourselves.

[1006] Yes, you need someone in the room.

[1007] And if they're not in the room, I mean, there's ways around this.

[1008] Like, let's say, okay, let's say that just doesn't happen to be an Indian person on staff, but you really want an Indian character in this thing.

[1009] And so now a bunch of white guys wrote it.

[1010] Well, now it's your responsibility to take this to Indian writers you trust and say, well, please vet this for me. I need you to look at this piece of material.

[1011] and give me your input, which I've done a bunch since.

[1012] It's easy enough to go and run this by people you trust and have them weigh in in a sincere way.

[1013] I think maybe another thing you and I would agree on, and again, I've said this too many times in here, but I wish there was space in room to say, yeah, man, we grew up in a racist society, so guess what?

[1014] We're all a little racist.

[1015] Yes.

[1016] We want to start being truly inclusive, everyone, and having intelligent conversations.

[1017] We need to allow people to explain.

[1018] express where they're at.

[1019] We talk a lot in these seminars about giving your honest location.

[1020] Now, it might be one that if you give it about what you think and feel about a topic, either in your ignorance or as a result of the groundwater you were raised in or what you don't know, if that's tweeted, that sentence out of your mouth, you're going to get canceled.

[1021] And that's the end of you.

[1022] But that's what we try to do in these seminars.

[1023] It's like, well, no, everybody, let's say what we all think and feel.

[1024] Let's start there.

[1025] Yeah, let's start by being honest.

[1026] Yes.

[1027] And let's fill in.

[1028] now with education, like the real history of this country, let's give context to what's at play here, let's start talking about what's been working on us for about 400 years now in this country and start to unpack that.

[1029] And once that starts to happen, and that goes for everybody, racism has affected everybody in this country, white people, people of color, no one's benefiting.

[1030] I mean, white people are having privilege from it and advantage, but it comes at a tremendous cost to white people's humanity and ability to have compassion.

[1031] mind in some little corner of your brain for the last 27 years just knowing there's just this little nugget back here that potentially is going to blow up that's what we as a country have been living with for 400 years it's like we all know we have this thing here you know it's just kind of lingering i want to be clear about what i just said white privilege is a real thing white people benefit from it in this country without realizing it and so Obviously, it's on the one hand, this relative advantages that we're enjoying.

[1032] There's a wonderful article, by the way.

[1033] It's a pretty standard one.

[1034] And once you start looking into this stuff, it's called Unpacking the Invisible Napsack, which lists 37, literally 37 things that white people tend to take for granted or are unaware that it's an actual privilege in their lives.

[1035] Things like, as an actor, I've had to move literally 50 times in my life.

[1036] Never once occurred to me, I'm not going to get into a safe neighborhood.

[1037] Will I be accepted there?

[1038] Do you have to worry about my neighbors?

[1039] Will I get in?

[1040] Will I be annoyable?

[1041] People like me there?

[1042] My son goes to a private school in New York didn't occur to me. Is he going to fit in there?

[1043] People are going to accept him?

[1044] Was he going to have a harder time socially as a result of the color of his skin?

[1045] One of the people I talk to a lot is a guy named Utkar -Shamm -Budkar is a great actor.

[1046] And it actually was in my show, Brockmeyer.

[1047] He actually, he played, ironically, who's nephew on The Simpsons.

[1048] We had a lot of conversations about this.

[1049] And one of the things that really hit me, as I was exploring this, was he said that as an Indian actor, and he's doing really, really well now.

[1050] He's starting to blow up.

[1051] He's a wonderful actor.

[1052] He said, every time I get a role, every time I think about how am I representing my people.

[1053] Yep.

[1054] What am I saying?

[1055] What responsibility am I carrying or not carrying?

[1056] I don't think.

[1057] Do you think that way, Dax?

[1058] Oh, I always, I always sympathize when we have black guests on for all of those reasons.

[1059] Like, it's already five times harder for them.

[1060] And then they arrive and now they have to be an activist too.

[1061] Well, I don't even, I'm too lazy to be an activist.

[1062] That's something on top of it already have been way too hard.

[1063] Now you also have to be an activist.

[1064] It's like the whole thing is fucking unfair.

[1065] And it's hard enough to be an actor.

[1066] I don't have to worry about, oh, I'm playing a Jewish villain.

[1067] What is that saying about my people?

[1068] Oh, I've almost exclusively played white trash, which I'm.

[1069] So, yeah, I never once was like, oh, I'm, I'm shitting on the lower income whites.

[1070] Yeah, or like turning down parts because it's like, oh, I'm not crazy about the representation here.

[1071] So I'm going to have to sacrifice an opportunity.

[1072] They only come almost never.

[1073] And I'm saying no, that's something you have to contend with that a white person probably does not have to contend with.

[1074] Exactly.

[1075] And as a white person also, by the way, I might think about it if I feel as a Jewish person, And if there's a role of Jewish villain that I feel is particularly stereotypical or maybe this isn't making the greatest statement, I might think about it then, but I'm also free to pay an Italian guy, an Irish guy or whatever guy.

[1076] Not to mention, Jews are pretty well represented in pop culture at this point.

[1077] So even if I don't love how that guy is coming off, there's a lot, a lot, a lot of examples.

[1078] Yeah, you got Bernie Madoff, you got, let's go through the list.

[1079] Well, especially in entertainment.

[1080] In entertainment, there's Jewish people in the room, which is why you have to.

[1081] They own it, you know.

[1082] Yes, we are playing to the gallery there.

[1083] I really appreciate you talking about all that.

[1084] Me too.

[1085] And again, in a very detailed and open and honest way.

[1086] I do want to talk about Brockmeier now because we've had you for an hour and a half and you deserve to have some promotion.

[1087] I have seen Brock Meyer the TV show.

[1088] And I don't think Monica has.

[1089] So I don't want to make you be the parrot who sings.

[1090] but if you would please hit her with some Brockmeier, it's so fucking good.

[1091] Monica, this is Jim Brockmire here.

[1092] This is the, I call it, he's a baseball announcer.

[1093] I call this the generic baseball announcer voice, particularly of the 1970s.

[1094] When you speak like this, you describe a baseball game.

[1095] You can pretty much say whatever you like as long as you give the count afterwards.

[1096] So you can say whatever outrageous thing you want.

[1097] Like, let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, I spent Mosul last night with several hookers in a well, about an eight ball a blow and about 15 minutes in my private parts were swinging down around my ankles as Johnson looks at a breaking ball outside, one and oh.

[1098] So that became a comedic premier.

[1099] Harry Shire and I used to talk about years ago like at baseball house you can say whatever they want as long as they get the county afterwards.

[1100] And then I also started wondering about those guys like do they sound like that in their personal lives?

[1101] Like do they dirty talk sex like that?

[1102] the answer is all the above yes to Brock Meyer and we did a sketch on funny or die like that about this guy walking in on his wife and then in a blackout trunk sort of talking about on the air what a what an insufferable horrible jerk of a whore his wife was for cheating on him and for wearing a strap on and clown his neighbor Bob Greenwald and folks I didn't mean right in the ass as Pedro neighbors of slattering of the bird too And so we went from there And then it became four seasons of a show that I hooked up with a writer named Joel Church Cooper who at the time was a young writer of Funny or Die who I saw it as a way to be funny like that kind of in a sophomoric way.

[1103] How does Brockmeyer become a podcast?

[1104] Like what happens on the podcast version of Brockmire?

[1105] We just recorded our first one.

[1106] I was late to my tech check with you guys because we had our first guest, Charles Barkley on.

[1107] Oh, wow.

[1108] What a pairing.

[1109] He is not a short -winded man. So between Brockmeier and Charles Barkley, what was meant to be 40 minutes turned into an hour and a half.

[1110] But, you know, promoting Brockmeier, I would often go on sports talk shows as Jim Brockmeier.

[1111] Yeah, I saw a few of those and I fucking loved them.

[1112] So, yes, and then we started writing for that.

[1113] Like, and I would go on and really do sports takes.

[1114] Like, you know, whatever was going on in the world of sports that week, I would come on as Brockmeyer and we'd write jokes for that.

[1115] So it became an, I realized, you know, This is a podcast waiting to happen now.

[1116] So instead of my going on Dan Patrick's show, I have him on my podcast.

[1117] And we talk about sports that week.

[1118] And he gives his honest take on whatever it is.

[1119] And I say my ridiculous Brockmeier things based on it.

[1120] It's become easy to do.

[1121] So that's all we're doing.

[1122] I'm doing with Dan Levitard.

[1123] I had most fun doing that on his show on ESPN.

[1124] He's now left ESPN to do his own thing.

[1125] And so I'm sort of joining him in his new radio network.

[1126] And we're going to do every other week of Brockmeier sports talk show.

[1127] It's so great because what is incredibly funny about Brockmeier is the voice.

[1128] So to be able to just hear it while you're driving and stuff is fantastic.

[1129] When you were doing it, I was reminded of when Will Farrell did Harry Carey, right?

[1130] Yeah, one of his was, he goes, Jose Concepcion, hails from Havana, Cuba, where the sun shines 364 days a year.

[1131] You're misses a pop -up in the sunshine.

[1132] I like exactly what you're saying.

[1133] All this extraneous shit and then all to get to Mrs. a pop -up.

[1134] Yeah, exactly.

[1135] It's the weird.

[1136] Because so much of baseball is 90 % of baseball, nothing is happening.

[1137] Nothing.

[1138] So these men and women need to fill the time with stories about anything.

[1139] I applaud them that they don't all get canceled weekly because they're filling too much stuff to not put your foot in their mouth.

[1140] And it's happened this year to Brennaman, right?

[1141] The Cincinnati Reds guy.

[1142] What did he say?

[1143] He didn't realize he was on a hot mic came out.

[1144] Oh, oh, uh -oh.

[1145] And referred to the gay community with the F word.

[1146] Okay.

[1147] And that was that.

[1148] That was the end of that.

[1149] That's that.

[1150] And then in the middle of his apology, you guys should Google this.

[1151] Okay.

[1152] He's apologizing and saying I'm a man of faith.

[1153] This is not who I am.

[1154] This isn't, of course, the same game.

[1155] And in the middle of that apology, guys, hit a home run.

[1156] And as he's apologizing goes, and that, so I am a man of faith.

[1157] This is not who I am.

[1158] That is hit deep out to rats in the field and that's going to be a home run.

[1159] Absolutely.

[1160] Went full Brockman.

[1161] Went full blown Brockman.

[1162] Oh, my God.

[1163] Yeah.

[1164] Oh, my God.

[1165] Holy smokes.

[1166] Well, Hank, I adore you and I miss you.

[1167] And I'm excited to listen to the name of the podcast.

[1168] is simply Brockmeyer podcast, right?

[1169] I believe we're calling it the Jim Brockmeier podcast with Hank Azaria.

[1170] I believe that's...

[1171] Oh, okay, the Jim Brockmeier podcast with Hank Azaria.

[1172] Yeah.

[1173] So looking forward to it.

[1174] I adore you.

[1175] It's really great to see you.

[1176] It's been a few years.

[1177] I appreciate all your honesty and transparency.

[1178] And it was a pleasure.

[1179] Thanks, guys.

[1180] It was a good.

[1181] It was a pleasure seeing you again, Dax.

[1182] I hope you'll be out in L .A. And we can all see each other and share our experience, strength, and hope with one another.

[1183] Exactly.

[1184] All right.

[1185] Bye.

[1186] Bye.

[1187] Thank you so much.

[1188] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1189] I'm excited to do this.

[1190] You are?

[1191] Yeah, because we haven't done a fact check in a minute.

[1192] Yes, we are back from Hawaii.

[1193] Hawaii.

[1194] Oh, we survived.

[1195] I guess that's the most relevant thing to say right out of the gates.

[1196] We had talked about potentially dying in the airplane on the way home, the whole pod vanishing.

[1197] and then we pretended we had already made it home safely, but now we've actually made it home safely.

[1198] That is right.

[1199] And we got there.

[1200] We were waiting on our test results from CBS.

[1201] Oh, my gosh.

[1202] That was so stressed.

[1203] Our COVID tests.

[1204] And when we were recording it, I was stressed out about it.

[1205] Right, right.

[1206] We were waiting and waiting and waiting.

[1207] 10 p .m. rolls around.

[1208] Me and you still don't have our results.

[1209] We're leaving in the morning at 7 o 'clock.

[1210] Yep.

[1211] I had to make last -minute appointments at the end.

[1212] airport for 6 a .m. In hopes that the five -hour results would come onto our phone by the time we landed or we would have to quarantine for two weeks or get sent back to Los Angeles.

[1213] So that got real stressful, but then our results came at 4 .43 a .m. That's right.

[1214] Because I woke up suspiciously just at 4 .45.

[1215] I was like, oh, I'll check my phone.

[1216] Looked.

[1217] And by God, they were there.

[1218] Two minutes earlier they had come in.

[1219] Oh, also there was a big earthquake the other day.

[1220] which is exciting update.

[1221] That's right.

[1222] 4 .0.

[1223] And it was at, again, about 4 .45 in the morning.

[1224] And it was a pretty good rumbling.

[1225] Like a really shaky earthquake, but it was very quick.

[1226] It was very quick.

[1227] The quickest I've ever felt.

[1228] Generally, they last for, I don't know, eight seconds, 10 seconds, sometimes longer.

[1229] This just felt like someone picked up your house and just like jostled it for a second.

[1230] And then dropped it.

[1231] Set it down gently and then left.

[1232] Yeah.

[1233] I was asleep and I woke up.

[1234] Uh -huh.

[1235] we're mixing stories so we're clear we're talking about the earthquake now not the results well both happened i woke up both times yeah when you texted my results are in then i looked and and that was at 445 and my results were in and then i thought oh i should go ahead and try to upload this to the hawaii site and i don't want to deal with that in the morning and then i couldn't do that that was like 40 minutes of me trying to do that at 4 .30 in the morning even when you got to the house it had still not been done done.

[1236] And then on the ride to the airport, we figured it out.

[1237] But I said, ultimately, this whole thing culminated if you were successful in a blue wristband.

[1238] And there was like four different websites involved.

[1239] It was so complicated.

[1240] It was complicated.

[1241] That by the end when they gave us the blue bracelets, which mind you, some of our party couldn't get them.

[1242] And that became its own circus.

[1243] I held up my wrist and I said, I think this is my biggest accomplishment in the last year.

[1244] I know.

[1245] Yeah, I think it's the hardest thing I had accomplished was getting that blue bracelet.

[1246] And when I saw it, it was a little underwhelmed.

[1247] I was like, oh, I think these could be easily counterfeited.

[1248] This would not be hard.

[1249] I said, maybe I should sell these in front of the airport for $10.

[1250] Okay.

[1251] You're always trying to make a profit.

[1252] Always out of hustle.

[1253] Yeah, I got a hustle.

[1254] But you know what?

[1255] Tell me. It was worth it.

[1256] It was so worth it.

[1257] By the time we were there, we had forgotten the whole thing.

[1258] Exactly.

[1259] Anyways, back to.

[1260] Back to the earthquake.

[1261] Shifting gears now.

[1262] I've been thinking this a lot.

[1263] This is a ding, ding, ding simulation satisfies.

[1264] It's probably why it happened.

[1265] It's because recently I've been thinking, I don't really know what to do.

[1266] You're supposed to put a huge plate of glass over yourself.

[1267] See, this is why people make jokes and I never know what to do.

[1268] So for you, you would go in a doorframe.

[1269] Okay, I've heard that.

[1270] Yeah, you want to get away from windows because those can break and shower glass down.

[1271] Yeah.

[1272] So you would probably just stand in your doorframe.

[1273] But what about the top of the building?

[1274] That's why you're under a doorframe, because there's an extra layer of framing around you.

[1275] I also heard you're supposed to go outside.

[1276] I wouldn't advise that because if you ran outside, now you're on the ground floor next to a building that maybe glass is coming out of everywhere.

[1277] Yeah, I think I would have to run into the street.

[1278] Yeah, and cars would be swerving and you'd get hit by a vehicle.

[1279] So ironic.

[1280] You, like, escaped an earthquake only to be hit by a homer.

[1281] Okay, so this is, again, why I don't really know, because, yeah, run out into the street, get under a door.

[1282] Yeah, these are all things I've heard.

[1283] But what do I do for real, for sure?

[1284] For real, get in a doorframe.

[1285] If it collapsed, you would be drastically more protected by standing under the doorframe.

[1286] That tiny doorframe is going to protect me from the...

[1287] Well, because that's a weight -bearing wall.

[1288] So when the floor collapses, it's not going to collapse the weight -bearing wall.

[1289] It's going to collapse the lateral beams that are above you.

[1290] Yeah.

[1291] You dig it?

[1292] Yeah, but won't it like if I'm, let's say I'm standing right there.

[1293] Look where I'm pointing.

[1294] That one?

[1295] Yeah, that one where you're pointing.

[1296] Yeah.

[1297] No ceiling can come down on that.

[1298] This is a sheer wall all the way up to the second story.

[1299] This whole middle part can come down.

[1300] Yeah.

[1301] No problem.

[1302] Well, won't it hit my back and stuff?

[1303] No, no, no, no. I'm not, I don't think I'm skinny enough to just be the size of the, in the door.

[1304] For sure you are.

[1305] I mean, the edges of your boobs might get.

[1306] They might get torn off.

[1307] No, no, just something might brush against the distal end of your breasts.

[1308] Okay.

[1309] What if it chops it off?

[1310] Well.

[1311] Oh, what a horrible earthquake.

[1312] Yeah.

[1313] Oh, my God.

[1314] Yeah.

[1315] You'd lose your swimsuit contract for sure.

[1316] anyways anything else from hawaii worth mentioning oh let's give a shout out to monkey pod we ate at a restaurant called monkey pod that was downright delicious it was well this sound braggy i don't know if this sound bright you can tell me if this sounds braggy but i had one of my um very proudest moments of lincoln of her life which was we were on the second floor of this restaurant and we were hearing a musician play and she wanted to go see the man singing and she asked if she'd go downstairs and look and I said yeah of course so she like disappeared for a while she came back up and I said oh what did he look like and she said oh I'd rather not describe what he look like he seems like a nice person yeah I thought that was so sweet yeah I really liked it yeah I loved it I mean my hunch is that the person had something going on that she would have felt bad describing yes and I thought that was so nice it was I'd rather not describe them did though but she went down specifically to see what they looked like yeah well to see the singer playing live right to see the music yeah yeah okay yeah yeah yeah and then you asked and I wanted to know like what what would the person look like right yeah what kind of guy was it was it an old man was it a young chap right right right right right white black Hawaiian just because?

[1317] Well, he was singing a lot of Maxwell songs.

[1318] And I love Maxwell.

[1319] And he was crushing it.

[1320] So I guess my assumption was he was black.

[1321] Yeah.

[1322] I don't know if that's right or wrong, but I did assume that.

[1323] But my daughter did not want to tell me, which could have been because he was black, which is also cool.

[1324] It might have just been that he was black and she didn't want to say, oh, he was black.

[1325] Yeah, but then that's an interesting conversation, right?

[1326] Like, what does he look like?

[1327] He's black is not derogatory.

[1328] It's not.

[1329] At all.

[1330] It's not.

[1331] I can see where if she thought the only thing she could tell me about him is that he was black, she just would rather not.

[1332] I don't know.

[1333] It is interesting.

[1334] We're not sure yet what's right or wrong, us as an evolving people.

[1335] It's hard because we don't know what this person looked like.

[1336] Right, right.

[1337] So we can't make any conclusions.

[1338] I have to assume it's not that she went down there and there was like some gorgeous young guy singing.

[1339] Or maybe it was and she was just like, I don't care to talk about looks, like that's not an important part of this.

[1340] Huh.

[1341] That to me is best case.

[1342] It is.

[1343] Oh, okay.

[1344] Because she said he seemed like a nice person, which made me think that she had some compassion for him in some way.

[1345] Oh, that's true.

[1346] Or though she's saying, like, I don't really care what this person looks like they seem nice.

[1347] True.

[1348] I think she would have been forced to use some negative adjectives to describe the person, and she didn't want to do that because he seemed like.

[1349] a nice person.

[1350] But then, okay.

[1351] Yeah, but then this gets into negative adjectives.

[1352] Well, if we go back to the black part.

[1353] Yeah.

[1354] But I'm saying if he had cauliflower ear because he played rugby or if he had one eye or any of the many things that might have been going on that she just didn't want to report on that.

[1355] Right.

[1356] Sure.

[1357] I get that.

[1358] I just.

[1359] Oh, fucking.

[1360] We were by the sea.

[1361] He could have had like a hook and a peg leg.

[1362] He could have been a pirate.

[1363] Right.

[1364] But it's only negative if you're saying he's.

[1365] had a hook.

[1366] And he was almost puked.

[1367] He had one eye and a patch.

[1368] Right.

[1369] But if you were like, what do you look like?

[1370] Oh my gosh.

[1371] So cool.

[1372] He has a patch.

[1373] And a hook.

[1374] Then that's not negative.

[1375] It really is what you're associating with it.

[1376] Yeah.

[1377] All of these things.

[1378] Yeah.

[1379] So if you and I were in this situation, like you and I went down there and it was a guy with a wooden leg, specifically a peg leg, like a cartoonish.

[1380] But you're already.

[1381] doing it.

[1382] You're already doing it right now.

[1383] You just did it.

[1384] No, I'll tell you why, because I don't actually want to use the example of someone that has a prosthetic limb.

[1385] I want to make it arch.

[1386] I want to make it a pirate.

[1387] Okay.

[1388] Okay.

[1389] I'm trying to distinguish between, so if I go down there and it's a guy with long, crazy hair and a buccaneer hat and an eye patch and a hook, I would come back upstairs and I would go, so I asked me. What do you look like?

[1390] Oh my God, he's a pirate.

[1391] He has a peg leg and a hook and an eye patch in a Buccaneer hat.

[1392] Whoa.

[1393] Mm -hmm.

[1394] Yeah.

[1395] I guess this is a thought experiment, but I'm not sure where it goes.

[1396] It's not, though.

[1397] I think you want it to be, but it's not.

[1398] Okay.

[1399] Would there be anything wrong with what I just said is the question?

[1400] Because I was just literally describing when I saw it, which is there was a pirate playing these songs.

[1401] No, no, because unless he was a pirate, he might have been a pirate on a ship.

[1402] Right.

[1403] And if I had said, oh, my God, the guy was a mess, he was so gross.

[1404] He had a peg leg.

[1405] Now we're in a bad.

[1406] Yeah, yeah.

[1407] Yeah, but just here's what we had.

[1408] A pirate's down there singing.

[1409] You got a peg leg, you got a hook, you got a eye patch in a buccaneer hat.

[1410] Well, could you just say he had a peg leg and a, well, I don't think we're, I don't know we're allowed to say that.

[1411] Well, that's why I'm saying specifically it is a peg leg, the old -fashioned pirate -style prosthetic.

[1412] Okay.

[1413] Which is just a wooden peg.

[1414] But maybe if you described it without saying he's a pirate, maybe that's best case.

[1415] By like literally just describing.

[1416] Uh -huh.

[1417] And then second case is he looks like a pirate in a happy voice.

[1418] Yeah, yeah.

[1419] He looks like one of the pirates from the Caribbean crews.

[1420] Yeah.

[1421] Although, look, this is a good litmus.

[1422] test.

[1423] Would you say to him, hey, you look like a pirate?

[1424] Well, I think more specifically, I would say, oh, my God, you're a pirate.

[1425] I actually would be definitive at that point.

[1426] If he had a wooden leg and a steel hook and an eyepatch and a buccaneer hat and a tunic shirt, he's a pirate.

[1427] Well, he probably is just dressing for the part.

[1428] Well, and he definitely wants to be seen as a pirate.

[1429] So it would be a compliment that I said, oh, my God, you're a pirate.

[1430] That's what he's going for.

[1431] Okay.

[1432] He's no way he's going for cowboy if that's what he's wearing.

[1433] Yeah.

[1434] Depends on the restaurant, I guess, because if it's a pirate themed, if it's a pirate themed or a ship themed, then maybe he's doing that.

[1435] I think there is a ship themed one at the pirates.

[1436] No, the, what's the Vegas hotel that has a pirate?

[1437] There's a restaurant in there called Buccaneers.

[1438] And this is one of the funnier jokes I ever heard.

[1439] My brother's father -in -law, he was there with his father -in -law eating.

[1440] And it was very noisy in the restaurant.

[1441] And the waiter said, what would you like to drink?

[1442] And he said, a scotch or whatever he said.

[1443] And the guy said, sorry, I can't hear you.

[1444] What was it?

[1445] And then he said it a second time.

[1446] And then he said, I can't hear you.

[1447] And he said, pull the shit out of your buccaneers.

[1448] Oh, my God.

[1449] Wow.

[1450] It's just funny because he used buccaneers so quickly.

[1451] It sounds like fucking ears, but it's bugan ears.

[1452] Treasure Island.

[1453] That's the name of it.

[1454] Oh, God.

[1455] Treasure Island.

[1456] Anyway, so that was the thought experiment gone wrong.

[1457] But anyway, we're proud of Lincoln.

[1458] Yeah.

[1459] But we don't know why.

[1460] We also need her to know it's okay to describe a person.

[1461] Well, I said to her, I assumed she was afraid to say he was black.

[1462] Because I thought he was black because he's singing Maxwell and it sounds just like Maxwell.

[1463] So I said, oh, do you not want to tell me because he's black?

[1464] Because I was going to have that conversation.

[1465] And she said, oh, no, I just don't want to.

[1466] Like she didn't want to further this conversation.

[1467] And I just respected it.

[1468] I'm going to get into some facties.

[1469] Great.

[1470] So this is Hank.

[1471] What a fun conversation.

[1472] Oh, my Lord, yes.

[1473] So many interesting topics, sobriety, Al -Anon, the Apu stuff.

[1474] And again, I know it's tricky to, like, commend someone for apologizing correctly.

[1475] But I just really, really respected the way in which he responded to it, like with real time, real thoughtfulness, real exploration.

[1476] And then came to a conclusion that didn't seem reaction.

[1477] at all to me seemed action -oriented.

[1478] And I just found that really.

[1479] I aspired to that.

[1480] Yeah, I agree.

[1481] Okay.

[1482] So is season 32 of the Simpsons airing now?

[1483] Yes.

[1484] Simpsons premiered on Fox on September 27, 2020, and is scheduled to end on May 23, 2021.

[1485] So, season 32.

[1486] Wow.

[1487] Which leads me to the next fact, which is it the longest running scripted show.

[1488] It is.

[1489] Oh, wow.

[1490] Law and Order is second.

[1491] How many years is that?

[1492] 22.

[1493] Oh, wow.

[1494] Still going.

[1495] Oh, it is too.

[1496] Oh, my gosh.

[1497] I guess I assume every time I see Law and Order when I'm flicking, I think it's a rerun.

[1498] Oh, well, okay.

[1499] Law & Order Special Victims Unit.

[1500] That's the 22 seasons.

[1501] That's still present.

[1502] Oh, wow.

[1503] Third is Gunsmoke.

[1504] Yes, back in the 60s?

[1505] 70.

[1506] Ended in the 70s.

[1507] But that was 20 seasons.

[1508] seasons.

[1509] Then regular law and order.

[1510] Oh, okay.

[1511] And that is 20 seasons.

[1512] That ended in 2010.

[1513] Then Lassie.

[1514] Oh, sure.

[1515] 19.

[1516] What is it, Lassie?

[1517] There's a gas leak in the old barn?

[1518] Oh my God.

[1519] Who's out there?

[1520] Timmy's there?

[1521] Oh, wow.

[1522] Thanks for that reenact.

[1523] That's how every episode went.

[1524] He could communicate the most complicated thing.

[1525] Hey, Lassie, what's up, girl?

[1526] Oh my God, Uncle Mike's underneath the truck and the jack fell out and he's crushed between the axle on the floor.

[1527] Wow.

[1528] Yeah.

[1529] I thought of that one off the top.

[1530] That was really good improv.

[1531] Okay, next, family guy.

[1532] No shit.

[1533] Family guy, 19 seasons still present.

[1534] Oh, my gosh, 19 seasons.

[1535] Good for Seth Green.

[1536] Exactly.

[1537] Oh.

[1538] Did I say specifically how much he made when I was...

[1539] It was going to be rude to say how much Hank made.

[1540] But there was a point...

[1541] They had to take a reduction, but there was several seasons where they made $500 ,000 an episode.

[1542] Holy shit.

[1543] Yeah.

[1544] Good for him.

[1545] That thing's worth billions of dollars, and I'm so glad the voices get paid.

[1546] Me too.

[1547] Yeah, but The Simpsons.

[1548] The Simpsons takes the cake.

[1549] 32 years.

[1550] That's for scripted.

[1551] Now, I also looked up non -scripted.

[1552] Oh, can I guess?

[1553] Yeah.

[1554] So I would have to either say the Tonight Show or 60 Minutes.

[1555] Well, this is confusing because this is saying Guiding Light.

[1556] Oh, that makes sense.

[1557] So soap operas, yeah.

[1558] 72 years.

[1559] Oh, come on.

[1560] Oh, but number two is the Tonight Show.

[1561] Okay.

[1562] Yeah, 66 years.

[1563] Oh, my gosh.

[1564] Hold on, though.

[1565] Go back to Guiding Light.

[1566] 72 years.

[1567] Yeah, no longer in production.

[1568] Okay, but that, fuck, I wish they would have got to a century.

[1569] Yeah.

[1570] They should bring them back just to get to a century.

[1571] You're right, they should.

[1572] I promise to watch at least one episode if they bring it back.

[1573] When I used to stay at my grandparents for the summers, I would just watch soap operas with my grandma all day.

[1574] We'd have a whole lineup.

[1575] Oh, my gosh.

[1576] Bold and the beautiful, as the world turns, guiding light.

[1577] There was one other.

[1578] And we watch like four every day.

[1579] It's funny because I think of like this whole binging movement we all live in, this binging era as like a time where we watch so much TV.

[1580] But no, people used to watch five days a week, three hours a day in soaps.

[1581] They were good.

[1582] It must be so great to get a new of your show every day.

[1583] Yes, it was.

[1584] Fuck, I'm jealous of your grandma for so many reasons.

[1585] Yeah, we had fun together.

[1586] That's when I would like bite her arm.

[1587] and stuff and try to antagonize her yeah yeah you're kind of a troublemaker you get bored and then you turn on people oh okay i would pick then what would you describe well i just wanted i just wanted her attention yeah i would bite her arm poker she'd make me cream of weed every morning oh my goodness so the guy from the cincinnati reds he's the announcer who used a derogatory term.

[1588] Oh, right.

[1589] His name was Tom Brenneman.

[1590] And we were going to watch this, right?

[1591] He didn't know his mic was on.

[1592] Okay, hold on.

[1593] Oh, my God.

[1594] Oh, my God.

[1595] Oh, my God.

[1596] Oh, my God.

[1597] Well, okay, there's a lot to unpack here.

[1598] Crazy, he said that.

[1599] Secondly, exactly what Hank was saying, like, do these guys talk like that when they're not announcing the game?

[1600] And he did.

[1601] Why did he say it like he was presenting it to the microphone?

[1602] they talk.

[1603] No, I just farted and got more than I bargained for.

[1604] I think I have to go to the bathroom and clean it.

[1605] Yeah.

[1606] Wait, what?

[1607] That's his whole premise of the show.

[1608] I know, but it's so, I can't believe it could be that accurate.

[1609] We just found out it's so accurate.

[1610] It's so accurate.

[1611] That's bad.

[1612] Did you brush your teeth this morning?

[1613] There's a bit of a smell in the box and I don't think it's coming for me. Okay.

[1614] I'm not as good as long way, but it is fun.

[1615] You don't want to try one.

[1616] I'd rather not.

[1617] Anyway, so that was Hank, and I really enjoyed it.

[1618] I hope everyone else did.

[1619] Me too.

[1620] And we're going to go watch Guiding Light.

[1621] All 77 years of it.

[1622] That's right.

[1623] What if you started from the beginning?

[1624] Oh, my God.

[1625] Yeah, so how many days of the week are there in the year?

[1626] Five -sevenths of 365.

[1627] I'm just going to roughly.

[1628] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1629] This is a hard one.

[1630] Let's just say 250.

[1631] Let's say there's 250 weekdays.

[1632] Okay.

[1633] So that's 250 episodes a year.

[1634] And, well, let's do 200 episodes of year just to make it easier.

[1635] Okay.

[1636] For 77 years.

[1637] Oh, my.

[1638] So that's 144 and then two zeros, 144.

[1639] 14 ,000 episodes.

[1640] Oh, my.

[1641] So 14 ,000 hours.

[1642] There's 40 hours in a week.

[1643] Oh, God.

[1644] Oh, my God.

[1645] Take a minute.

[1646] So four, the throves down to 140 and then divide you.

[1647] that by four four times three so about 30 weeks of straight watching 30 work weeks if we watched eight hours a day every day so i guess we'll be back we'll be that's doable we'll be back in 30 weeks for our next factor that's actually i would expect it to be much more than that well i did really fast math that i could be off by a factor of 10fold but i'm going to pull up the uh calculator now as i love to do as i'm want to do and so what we're saying now is that there's 200 episodes a year not 2000 uh and there are 77 years of production so 15 ,400 I was close okay I said 14 ,000 it was pretty good okay and we're going to divide that by 40 hours that's how we're willing to watch it 385 yeah so I was really close we said 300 weeks but it's actually going to be 385 weeks I said 30 did I yeah And this makes much more sense.

[1648] This does.

[1649] This is six years.

[1650] Okay.

[1651] That makes a much more.

[1652] Yeah.

[1653] So divided by 52 is, oh my God, seven years.

[1654] Is that right?

[1655] Let's start it.

[1656] Times 52.

[1657] Hold on.

[1658] And is that what we're watching eight hours a day?

[1659] 385 divided by 52.

[1660] Yeah.

[1661] 7 .4 years of us watching it 40 hours a week.

[1662] Oh my.

[1663] Is that right?

[1664] Yes.

[1665] Yes, 72 years every day, yes.

[1666] Oh, my God.

[1667] You probably could have just done 72.

[1668] No, because we went 40 hours a week, not 24 times seven, which would be, if we want to go straight through, do you want to do that?

[1669] 24 hours a day times seven equals 168 hours in a day times 365.

[1670] So in a year we could watch 61 ,300.

[1671] That's how many hours are in a year.

[1672] I hate this.

[1673] This is a terrible game.

[1674] All right, just scratch that.

[1675] It's seven and a half years of us watching a 40 hours a week.

[1676] I know exactly how we can do it.

[1677] 40 hours a week, there's three 40 -hour weeks in a week.

[1678] So we just divide 7 .4 by three.

[1679] Wait, what?

[1680] There's three 40 -hour weeks in a week?

[1681] Yes, because think about it.

[1682] A 40 -hour week is eight -hour shifts.

[1683] and there's three eight -hour chunks in a 24 -hour day.

[1684] Oh, my God.

[1685] So there are three 40 -hour weeks in a week.

[1686] So that means there's 120 hours in a week.

[1687] But we're not going to eat dinner and stuff.

[1688] Right.

[1689] So listen, so if we were going to watch it 7 .4 years, 40 hours a week, all we'd have to do is divide 7 .4 by 3, which would be 2 .4 or something.

[1690] So it would be about 2 .4 years if we watched never stopped.

[1691] Oh, my God.

[1692] We'd be malnourished.

[1693] Why don't we do this in retirement?

[1694] instead of you working at 7 -Eleven.

[1695] This is more fun.

[1696] Well, can I say something?

[1697] You easily can watch TV while you're working at 7 -E4.

[1698] I see it all the time.

[1699] No, no, no. I see it all the time.

[1700] You have to drive there.

[1701] You have to talk to people.

[1702] We're going to be invested.

[1703] We're going to want to know what's going on with Shannon.

[1704] So I'm on the character's name?

[1705] Probably.

[1706] Deborah, Gale.

[1707] Oh, Gail.

[1708] You love Gale, did they?

[1709] Yeah.

[1710] I played a Gail in a movie.

[1711] And when in Rome, I named myself, Gail Force, Wend.

[1712] Because I said the most, yes, I got to name my character.

[1713] And I named him Gail after Gail Force Win because it's the most powerful force on earth for eroding and shaping rock.

[1714] But then someone points out, water is actually more powerful.

[1715] And I say, I don't think that's right.

[1716] And I wrote that couplet.

[1717] That's really, really, really funny.

[1718] Oh, goodness.

[1719] All right.

[1720] All right.

[1721] Love you.

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