EXPERTS ON EXPERT: Scott Harrison

[0] Welcome to Experts on Expert.

[1] I'm Dax Shepherd.

[2] Who are you, young person?

[3] Monica Padman.

[4] Oh, going by the same name.

[5] Same name, Monica Padman.

[6] Thought maybe in 19 you might try out a new moniker.

[7] A moniker.

[8] Ah, ha, ha.

[9] Wait, have you already thought of that?

[10] Of course.

[11] Oh, no. Did people say that to you on the playground?

[12] No. Shove you in the back.

[13] That would be such an intelligent...

[14] It would be worth getting that burn.

[15] Yeah.

[16] Well, we have an intelligent.

[17] guest on today, Scott Harrison with a son at the end.

[18] Yeah.

[19] Sometimes I just want to say Scott Harris.

[20] I don't even know why, but it's Scott Harrison.

[21] And he created an incredibly effective charity called Charity Water.

[22] Yes.

[23] That my wife has been involved with for years.

[24] And I have been very skeptical of because I have all this skepticism for white people who go into Africa to change things.

[25] I've learned about a lot of those well -intentioned things gone awry in anthropology.

[26] And so I was not willing to give Scott Harrison a fair shake.

[27] So he came into the attic.

[28] He got me. He did.

[29] He gets me. Yeah.

[30] Yeah, he got me. I've been got.

[31] Well, you'll see just how much I got got.

[32] Yeah.

[33] Because that fucking checkbook came out.

[34] What a story.

[35] Incredible story.

[36] Family story growing up.

[37] I was riveted.

[38] I was on the the edge of my lazy boy, Monica.

[39] They'll get to hear it right now.

[40] Moniker Padman.

[41] Oh, let me just also throw out there.

[42] We do have some tickets left in San Antonio.

[43] If you go on to my Instagram page and just follow the link in my bio, I think it'll take you to some ticket sales.

[44] We have a few left.

[45] Come see us.

[46] Come see us.

[47] We're going to fucking rage down in San Antonio.

[48] Listen, I'm not writing to check my ass can't cash because we're bringing a very funny guest.

[49] Yeah, we are.

[50] It's going to be a party.

[51] So if you're anywhere within a. 1 ,000 miles of San Antonio, go buy some tickets and also enjoy Scott Harrison.

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

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

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

[55] Scott Harrison.

[56] Hey, how are you?

[57] Welcome to The Attic.

[58] First, let me just come.

[59] compliment your shoes.

[60] They're fantastic.

[61] I bought him in an airport last week in Minneapolis because I forgot shoes and I had to make a speech.

[62] I find that so hard to believe.

[63] They're very fashionable.

[64] Was there like a really high -end store at the airport?

[65] It was called Johnston and Murphy, but this is funny.

[66] So I was speaking in Phoenix.

[67] I was in Minneapolis on the way to Phoenix and I have this terrible, you know, shock that all I have is the really crappy shoes that I had on me that I was flying with.

[68] So I am, I'm going to, you know, I'm talking to the hotel.

[69] And the concierge, there's no way to get any decent shoes.

[70] So I'm troving around Minneapolis Airport.

[71] And I find this store and, you know, I find, I get the shoes.

[72] They're beautiful.

[73] Then I come home.

[74] My wife's like, they're really nice.

[75] So last night, I bought another pair.

[76] Good for you.

[77] They're just going to sit in the box.

[78] Isn't that?

[79] When you find good, chew sneaks.

[80] Well, more than that, you just blew past the real thing, is if your wife likes anything, you, like, triple down on it, right?

[81] Like, if my wife just happens to say my hair looks good a certain way, I'll just be running that hair style until she says otherwise.

[82] And buying enough of that product.

[83] Yeah.

[84] So just to give people like a really quick, you started and are the CEO of Charity Water.

[85] Yep.

[86] And this is a very, very successful charity.

[87] My wife has been very involved in it.

[88] And I guess that's how I knew about it.

[89] She came to Ethiopia on an amazing trip with us to see some projects that were built in her 30th birthday.

[90] And all of her fans came.

[91] How much did she raise?

[92] Do you remember?

[93] She raised 100 grand.

[94] Okay.

[95] All right.

[96] I think she could do better today.

[97] That was about 10 years ago, right?

[98] I mean, I think the goal might have been 30 grand.

[99] Oh, well, so she blew by that by 333%.

[100] So there you go.

[101] Overachiever.

[102] Just a quick math that you missed, Monica.

[103] But yes, I do remember when she went there.

[104] And this will be a very fun conversation for you and I, because she, as you know, is in lockstep with the way you see the world.

[105] And I am just innately very cynical.

[106] So, so fun.

[107] Yeah, so this will be a fun one.

[108] It really will.

[109] And we set up the organization mainly for cynical people.

[110] Oh, really?

[111] Oh, good.

[112] And my biggest donor is actually one of the greatest cynics about charity.

[113] Who's that?

[114] He's a guy called Michael Birch.

[115] We can tell that story later.

[116] Okay.

[117] Crazy story.

[118] So right out of the gates, because I'm a piece of shit, I can't relate all that much to people who have dedicated themselves to some.

[119] something selfless, right?

[120] So I'm immediately suspicious of anyone that's done that because I can only think I'm a piece of shit that wouldn't do that.

[121] So this person must have some secret or something, right?

[122] And I've been proven wrong time and time again.

[123] I don't know if you know.

[124] Who proved you wrong recently?

[125] Well, have you ever read the book?

[126] It's a John Crackauer book call where men win glory.

[127] And it's the Pat Tillman story.

[128] He was a professional football player in Arizona.

[129] And then 9 -11 happened.

[130] And he, I believe, was playing in the very next full.

[131] football game to be played in New York and he was playing in the giant stadium and he could see where the Twin Towers used to be and he quit the NFL and joined the military and this was a very public thing and I said to myself when I read this what kind of weirdo would quit the NFL to join the military this guy's either a killed somebody and is repenting for something or he's some crazy Christian crusader who thinks that this is a holy war he needs to embark on I carried that a people of him for maybe eight, 10 years.

[132] And then I read this book and come to find out, he was just an absolutely stellar human being with integrity that I can't ever comprehend.

[133] And in fact, once he joined, he was very upset.

[134] We were going to Iraq.

[135] He didn't agree with that.

[136] They were trying to make him the poster child of the military.

[137] He refused.

[138] He ended up being kind of punk rock while he was there.

[139] And then he was killed while he was there.

[140] I saw a documentary on this.

[141] Yes.

[142] They made a film or a doc.

[143] Called Tillman, and it's fantastic.

[144] And they tried to cover up that he was killed through friendly fire.

[145] At any rate, so that's just one example of the times I've been wrong.

[146] Okay, we'll see if I can win you over then.

[147] But I'll tell you what interested me was not your charity work, is just your story leading up to the charity work.

[148] Now I can relate to hugely.

[149] So tell me a little bit about your childhood and what happened when you were five with your mother.

[150] Yeah, I was born into a very normal middle class family in Philadelphia.

[151] Dad worked at an electrical engineering company.

[152] They sold Transformers, you know, power supplies.

[153] for the Navy and to municipalities.

[154] Mom was a journalist, so she would write for the Philadelphia Inquirer in the local paper.

[155] Did she have kind of a specialty that she did or just anything?

[156] No, just feature news.

[157] Just love to write.

[158] They met at UPenn.

[159] When I was four, they moved to this drab gray house in Morristown, New Jersey to take my dad's commute down from an hour to about 22 minutes.

[160] And what we didn't know, and we moved in the dead of, winter, this energy efficient house on the end of a cul -de -sac, the elementary school I would be able to walk to, and my dad be able to spend more time at home with me and hopefully our growing family.

[161] What we didn't know is that this house had a carbon -oxide gas leak.

[162] And this was almost 40 years ago, so they had not yet invented the detector that we buy in blister packs of the home deal.

[163] Monica's father's obsessed with these, and he sends them to her all the time, and I've inherited one through her secondhand.

[164] So just...

[165] We could have used one.

[166] Yes.

[167] So we move into the house and we all start to get a little sick, headaches, nausea.

[168] My dad and I are only sleeping in the house.

[169] I'm going to school.

[170] He's going to work.

[171] Mom, in the dead of winter, is fixing up the house, unpacking boxes, putting picture frames on the wall, working on the basement.

[172] So on New Year's Day, 1980, she walks across the bedroom and she collapses unconscious on the floor.

[173] After a long series of blood tests, they find.

[174] these massive amounts of carboxy hemoglobin or carbon dioxide in her bloodstream.

[175] And, you know, thankfully she didn't die, but she's never the same again.

[176] Can I ask really quick?

[177] How long had you guys lived there before that happened?

[178] A couple months.

[179] Oh, geez.

[180] Okay.

[181] It was, it happened quick.

[182] I think it was three months.

[183] I wonder what kind of damage you were sustaining during that.

[184] So we bounced back, my dad and I remember having tons of allergies, tons of issues as a kid, and then just bounce back.

[185] You know, I guess the exposure was limited tonight.

[186] right you know or the nine hours or so and she got the full 24 maybe her body was even more susceptible to this so what happens is her immune system shuts down in the most binary way so she is now unable to process anything chemical in the world perfume carfumes soap aftershave all she have an autoimmune response where her body just starts attacking itself if she I remember the symptoms would be terrible headaches, migraines, nausea, hypertension.

[187] She would get these huge rashes.

[188] Her face would swell up.

[189] So, of course, what you would do is my dad is the sleuth.

[190] He's trying to find the source of it.

[191] He eventually, with a plumber friend, finds the crack himself.

[192] Oh, wow.

[193] He'd invited the gas company out a few times, suspecting this.

[194] They'd checked all the line and said, hey, everything's fine.

[195] And then my dad and a plumber HVAC guy eventually rip out the furnace and find these little pinhole cracks that allow the carbon oxide to escape.

[196] So he throws this mangled thing out.

[197] And, you know, mom, now we start visiting doctors.

[198] I don't want to make light of this, but this is almost like the poltergeist movie.

[199] Like, I would be out of the house, I feel like.

[200] Oh, yeah.

[201] Right?

[202] Like if the house had injured mom to this degree, I feel like I would just be like, all right, guys, we got to figure out.

[203] So we did.

[204] We became nomadic for a little while.

[205] She would go to clinics.

[206] I remember this clinic in Montrose, Pennsylvania, where she lived effectively in an isolation ward.

[207] And they were trying to figure out what made her sick.

[208] Did everything make her sick?

[209] So they took her diet down to, I think it was 24 foods.

[210] And she could only have one food per meal.

[211] So breakfast would be walnuts.

[212] Lunch would be broccoli.

[213] Dinner would be cod.

[214] You know, Tuesday would have a completely different food.

[215] And she was reacting to almost all of these foods.

[216] I think they tested over 100 foods.

[217] She reacted to 90 % of the foods.

[218] You know, drinking pure spring water, no exposure to anything chemical.

[219] So then we start moving around with neighbors while my dad is trying to figure out how to purify the house.

[220] So instead of moving, because they actually didn't know, it's actually a fair question, you know, why they didn't.

[221] He was determined to purify the house.

[222] So he rips out the gas, puts in a different heating system.

[223] He rips out every bit of wall -to -wall carpet because there's formaldehyde used in the sealant.

[224] Sure.

[225] So he and his buddies, you know, are now ripping carpet.

[226] I've got pictures of all this stuff.

[227] And he turns the house safe.

[228] She comes back in.

[229] It's still sick.

[230] Now, now everything makes mom sick.

[231] The wind will blow off the four -lane highway the wrong way and her body's symptoms will spike.

[232] But when she goes into one of these kind of almost sounds like anaphylactic shocky kind of histamines, What does she have to then do, lie down and, and does she take an EpiPen?

[233] Like, what happens once she has a flare?

[234] She would use oxygen.

[235] Okay.

[236] It was called clearing.

[237] She would walk briskly in the woods.

[238] She would get in a car and go out to Rangkokus Woods.

[239] And then she would try and just aerobically, you know, purify her body.

[240] Right.

[241] So I remember mom, you know, in these, these ski pants just kind of whish, whish, wish, wish.

[242] Because this is eight, there's 1980, 81.

[243] This is exactly 80.

[244] So family planning stops.

[245] I'm now four going on five thrust into a caregiver role.

[246] I start helping dad take care of her, cooking, cleaning, weird food.

[247] I mean, I remember she couldn't use seasoning.

[248] You know, she would give me a piece of cod and I would go nuke it and this slimy kind of congealed, disgusting fish I would take up to her room.

[249] My parents...

[250] What does this do to you socially?

[251] you're probably embarrassed to bring kids around?

[252] Well, they can't come in the house.

[253] Okay, they can't even come over.

[254] There are signs on all of the doors saying keep out.

[255] Oh, wow.

[256] Environmentally ill, patient inside, no perfume, no soap.

[257] We would change our clothes to come in the house.

[258] It's like you lived at the Intel lab.

[259] You'd get the air shower before you could even go.

[260] That's crazy.

[261] Yeah, so I would have sets of clothes that would be in the garage that we would call it getting pure.

[262] So let's say I would pick up, I don't know, perfume or hairspray or smoke out at a restaurant.

[263] I would come back.

[264] I couldn't come in with those clothes.

[265] And they would have to be washed in baking soda multiple times and a special hypoallergenic soap called Basic H. So there's this whole culture.

[266] Did it make you OCD about things?

[267] Like currently are you overly aware at all times of things?

[268] smells, fragrances, all these things.

[269] Like, how does that leave your psyche?

[270] Yeah, 40 years later, two things.

[271] So mom's kryptonite was fabric softener and nail polish remover.

[272] You could argue that neither those are probably good for any of us.

[273] Right.

[274] But it makes me immediately think of my father -in -law.

[275] He can't have fabric softener either.

[276] He'll, he'll...

[277] That drives me crazy to this day.

[278] So we have kids and my wife and I are always getting hand -me -downs from friends.

[279] And if a hand -me -down comes in, you know, a sweatshirt for my son, I'm washing that thing like 20 times.

[280] I am trying to get the smell out.

[281] Same thing.

[282] One of the biggest fights I've ever been in my wife was around using nail polish remover in the house because I came in and I felt like I immediately had a headache.

[283] I mean, I almost felt like I was getting my mom's symptoms 40 years later.

[284] Yes.

[285] That's about it.

[286] Do you find that throughout your adulthood, you were attracted to incredibly needy women?

[287] Sure.

[288] In the beginning.

[289] Mm -hmm.

[290] In the 18 to 25 range.

[291] Uh -huh.

[292] Yes.

[293] Yeah, because what a fundamental relationship mother and son is, and if your role...

[294] Was to fix her.

[295] Was to fix her, and of course I can only assume she had to be so grateful.

[296] I mean, you have a child now, right?

[297] Two.

[298] You have two.

[299] You have two, and I have two.

[300] Two and four.

[301] The notion of my little sweet, heart's taking care of me, I can only imagine I would, A, feel terrible about it.

[302] B, I would just be showering them with love and affection and gratitude.

[303] And was that kind of the pattern?

[304] In the early days, you know, it was really hard for her because, and so much of this is now pieced together through photo books.

[305] And pre -mom's illness, there are photos of her taking me to the zoo, to the science museum, to the Franklin Institute.

[306] to apple picking, right?

[307] All of these activities, like mother's son activities.

[308] And then post illness, it's a story of masks, right?

[309] My mom would wear these charcoal masks, oxygen tanks.

[310] Everything just changes.

[311] It's hard to find a photo of her without a mask on.

[312] And, you know, one of the dynamics that was happening for me this whole time as a child was, I didn't know that was, was this real?

[313] Right.

[314] I was going to say, yes, I would be suspicious that my mother wanted attention and wanted the world to revolve around her, and I would probably be bouncing back all the, back and forth all the time about that.

[315] And a specific example of that she would claim that electromagnetic radiation would make her sick.

[316] Okay, so TV, radio.

[317] Now, I'm thinking she just doesn't want me to watch TV.

[318] Sure, sure.

[319] He is trying to ruin my life.

[320] Uh -huh.

[321] Rain on my parade.

[322] Yes.

[323] So one night, and I think this is early teenage years, I remember I'm going to prove this.

[324] I'm going to prove that it's in mom's head.

[325] And she is manipulating her symptoms to get me to watch less TV.

[326] Yeah.

[327] So I go one night, it's pitch black in the hallway.

[328] She's gone to sleep.

[329] And I have a radio.

[330] And I plug in the radio next to her door.

[331] Uh -huh.

[332] And I turn the volume all the way.

[333] down, and I aim the radio right through the door at her bed.

[334] Okay.

[335] All night, silently blasting radio waves.

[336] Potentially.

[337] In her safe room.

[338] In her safe room.

[339] Right.

[340] So, you know, I'm waking up in the morning.

[341] I'm going to declare this victory.

[342] You know, watch all the TV, listen to all the radio I want.

[343] Yeah.

[344] Well, she's incredibly ill in the morning.

[345] Oh, my goodness.

[346] And the guilt probably.

[347] And she was in her safe room.

[348] So she was scared.

[349] Like, what could have happened?

[350] So at this point, we had built, she was living in a bathroom upstairs.

[351] It was a four -bedroom house.

[352] The bathroom door was covered in aluminum foil, layers of tin foil to keep any lingering smell of varnish in.

[353] The army cot that she slept on had been washed and baking soda 20 times.

[354] Everything had been scrubbed down.

[355] So she's in her safe room, goes to bed, wakes up sick.

[356] She has no idea why.

[357] I never told her.

[358] Did you feel terribly guilty when that happens or not so much?

[359] It's funny.

[360] I actually don't remember the feeling of guilt as much as I remember, okay, it's real.

[361] Putting that doubt really aside.

[362] And now when you are going, are you even allowed to go have a social life and spend the night at other friends' houses?

[363] Are you required to be there?

[364] Okay.

[365] Yep, they did the best that they could.

[366] And my friends would be able to play soccer in the backyard.

[367] I just couldn't come in the house.

[368] And when you would go to a friend's house, was it just like Bognalia?

[369] Did you think like?

[370] Oh, I went nuts.

[371] I was watching.

[372] predator in their basement you know right and you're eating shitty food and all that and are you yeah I would be fetishizing all my parents are also um they have they're christians they have a deep christian faith they decide not to sue the gas company for negligence okay shocks everybody um so they're very conservative and they were very um strict you know not only am i kind of in this caregiver role um which just stunk because why couldn't my mom be like all the other moms yeah um i wasn't allowed to do some of the things that my other friends were.

[373] So when I just, I remember watching R -rated movies and my friends in the basement.

[374] We're the same age.

[375] Yeah, you're like porkies and fucking, uh, revenge of the nerds.

[376] Yeah.

[377] Love first blood.

[378] About, about last night, St. Elmo's Fire.

[379] Mm -hmm.

[380] I think we see Rob Lowe's buns in about last night.

[381] That's neither here nor there, but what's your relationship with religion during that period?

[382] I am signed up playing piano on Sundays in the church.

[383] We were non -denominational.

[384] So they moved, you know, from church, we moved twice.

[385] So they weren't necessarily towing any denominational line.

[386] They were just good Bible -believing Christians.

[387] And it actually brought out the best in both of them.

[388] You know, it gave my mom this unbelievable hope and optimism.

[389] She wouldn't complain.

[390] The Bible said, don't complain.

[391] you know have have give thanks and everything so i specifically remember as a kid um we would go to the grandparents uh every once in a while and mom had a safe room prepared there and grandpa would smoke his pipe in the basement and the smell would waft up from the basement into her safe room she would have to go out and walk in the woods furiously trying to clear these symptoms that probably thinks what you think even worse.

[392] This is in her head.

[393] Everybody at my dad's work thought that he's like, your wife's crazy.

[394] Right.

[395] Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[396] You know, Chuck, women have you know, they have issues like this hysteria.

[397] Oh, he got every version of that line.

[398] I remember when that happened, she would walk in the woods saying, thank you God for the tobacco smoke.

[399] Thank you for the thing that made me sick.

[400] Like, there was just this this stoicism.

[401] Yeah.

[402] In her.

[403] My dad didn't leave her.

[404] You know, so he's a business executive, super good -looking guy, ex -Navy, tennis player, you know, in great shape.

[405] And now he has an invalid on his hands.

[406] Yeah.

[407] Living in a room, not in his room, not in the bedroom.

[408] Are they both still alive?

[409] She just passed.

[410] She did.

[411] Pancreatic cancer a couple months ago.

[412] Oh, I'm so sorry.

[413] Not of this illness.

[414] She fought for 40 years.

[415] Got to meet the grandkids.

[416] And did they stay married that whole time?

[417] They did.

[418] so.

[419] And dad never had a girlfriend?

[420] Never did.

[421] Never ever did.

[422] He is an amazing man. Amazing man. She just passed away just short of their 50th wedding anniversary.

[423] Wow.

[424] Did the condition that the carbon monoxide caused, did that lesson over time or did it stay consistent for 40 years?

[425] She just got good at dealing with it.

[426] She did.

[427] Yeah, you just, you learn how to avoid the things that make you sick.

[428] And the house just got more pure.

[429] Uh -huh.

[430] there were there were moments where she would be a little stronger and then there would be a setback um i i remember there was a time when she was actually doing well enough that people could come and stay at the house like family friends could come and stay as if they if they got pure so again they're wearing our clothes right uh that have been you know properly washed and and wouldn't you know one of these families comes over and dumps by accident a bottle of cologne next to the central air vent I mean this is the kind of shit that you can only happen when you're tiptoeing around someone that this would be the worst thing that can happen because I've never heard of someone doing that outside of this situation I don't think I've ever dumped a bottle you know I've spilled a lot of things but not the one thing yes that then gets in the entire central exactly Oh, my goodness.

[431] Did she sleep in her safe room for 40 years, or was she able to go back into the bedroom?

[432] Back and forth.

[433] There was a period of years where she had to sleep there.

[434] Then there were times when she could sleep with my dad as that room was also pure.

[435] I mean, the whole house just became pure.

[436] You just started getting really good at that.

[437] So it was back and forth.

[438] She would be, towards the end, she was definitely sleeping in my dad's room.

[439] just just one more detail which just shows how weird this was so mom used to love to read and now the print makes her sick you know that that new print uh you go probably the uh the adhesion in the binding all of it yeah so as a kid um let's say i'm eight or nine now uh i i learned how to bake her books in the oven on warm get all the fumes out get all the fumes out or put them out in the sun on the back lawn to outgas.

[440] So there were these words.

[441] Clearing was trying to get rid of symptoms, outgassing.

[442] Is anyone advising you guys?

[443] Is there an expert on planet earth in this?

[444] There are.

[445] And you find a community of other people with conditions similar to mom.

[446] So it was called environmental illness.

[447] Just E .I. I remember that there was almost always in the community of people, there was almost always an incident where the immune system shut down.

[448] One of moms's friends was, living in a nice rural neighborhood and one day chem lawn the pesticide company just comes and sprays everybody's lawns and one person in that neighborhood is never the same again oh wow just something in those pesticides reacted with the weakness in their body somebody described it a doctor described it once as the barrel theory that you know we all have this space in our barrel where we can just fight off all these chemicals coming in so you get stuck in you know in the 405 and you're sucking in this terrible fumes, your barrel's not full.

[449] So process it.

[450] Um, mom's barrel was always full.

[451] Right.

[452] So anything comes in.

[453] There's just, there's no room to, to process that.

[454] Okay.

[455] So, it's very unique childhood.

[456] Uh, I have to, like when I find out then what happens as a result of this childhood, I'm not shocked in the slightest.

[457] So you, you're into music, right?

[458] You join a band at some point.

[459] Do you go to college?

[460] Well, in before that, my parents put me in a Christian school in the ninth grade.

[461] So this is freshman year of high school.

[462] And there are nine students.

[463] And it's in the basement of a church.

[464] And the school can't afford teachers for all the subjects.

[465] So you weren't miserable enough at home.

[466] So they had to find a school that would just be.

[467] Oh, this gets better.

[468] So we're taught by VHS.

[469] Oh, perfect.

[470] Remember those cards that they used to wheel in with the gray ribbed mats.

[471] Big JVC top loader on it.

[472] Yep.

[473] And a monitor would make sure that we were watching science for 50 minutes, which felt like, you know, a thousand hours.

[474] So after ninth grade, I tell my parents that I'm leaving home.

[475] Okay, I'm going to run away if I go back to this school.

[476] So I said, look, you've got to send me to the public school and don't worry, I'm not going to be corrupted.

[477] I'm not going to go Bakkemeau.

[478] I'm not going to get worldly.

[479] Not going to get worldly.

[480] It'll be fine, mom and dad.

[481] And there's 4 ,000 people.

[482] at the school.

[483] So imagine going from, you know, nine.

[484] Is it in New Jersey or Philadelphia?

[485] New Jersey, New Jersey.

[486] I'm a hundreding county, middle of Jersey.

[487] So they send me over and all of their worst fears, like, immediately.

[488] Just, just, I fall in with the wrong crowd.

[489] You ate that apple the second you got immediately.

[490] I grow my hair down to my shoulders immediately.

[491] I join a rock band.

[492] I start driving to Philadelphia in New York City playing CBGBs and wetlands and like, we're actually good.

[493] We're getting.

[494] What was the name of your man?

[495] It's called Sunday River.

[496] After a ski resort, none us had ever been to.

[497] So I fall in with the wrong crowd.

[498] I'm late on the vices.

[499] Okay, so I'm actually the good kid in the band.

[500] I'm the driver.

[501] Okay.

[502] They're all doing drugs.

[503] They're all getting laid.

[504] They're all getting hammered.

[505] And I'm still, you know, holding on to the virtues, right, that came with my upbringing at this point.

[506] And get through high school, but I'm so disinterested in studies.

[507] I can just imagine the amount of freedom you're experiencing being away from that heavy, heavy childhood home of yours.

[508] It must just be euphoric to just get the fuck out of there for a period of time.

[509] That just normal teenage existence probably was euphoria -inducing.

[510] Yeah.

[511] And now I change from that kid who's taking care of mom, who's caring about who wanted to be a doctor when I grew up so that I could cure her and others.

[512] now I'm this rebellious, angsty, you know, I'm coming home with the band, and she would yell to me, and I would just ignore her and go in the house.

[513] So I really began to resent her, the rules, the, you know, the curfews or whatever.

[514] And of course, she feels like she's losing control, dad too, probably tries to exert more authority.

[515] And, you know, that just pushes me farther and farther away.

[516] Yes.

[517] So that was high school years.

[518] Right.

[519] So you then go to New York City with the band.

[520] Yep.

[521] When you grab to it.

[522] I move first.

[523] And I am going to, I'm the band's manager.

[524] Okay.

[525] And I'm going to get us a record deal.

[526] And we are going to become rich and famous.

[527] And we're going to tour with all the other great bands that we listen to.

[528] That doesn't work.

[529] The band immediately breaks up.

[530] We hate each other.

[531] So, okay, my dad has saved up for college.

[532] I'm not going to college, though.

[533] Because who needs to go to college when your band is going to be touring around the world?

[534] Right.

[535] So the band breaks up.

[536] And the last kind of consultant, you know, guy helping us get our A &R deal was an NYU grad.

[537] And he said, well, look, kid, you know, you're an idiot.

[538] If you don't take your dad's money and at least get a degree, like you can still live in New York City.

[539] You can even go to NYU part -time, just go at night, go do film, go to Tish, right, do artsy stuff.

[540] So I announced to my father and mother that I'm going to be doing them a giant favor.

[541] And I'll take that, whatever, $100 ,000, some dollars.

[542] And, you know, scholarship free, go pay New York University.

[543] Right.

[544] And I start doing that.

[545] My wife went to NYU and I went to UCLA, so I always bag on NYU as much as I can, even though I secretly think it's a great school.

[546] I tell her all the time.

[547] Well, I didn't go to NYU either, really.

[548] I applied the same principles of study there.

[549] So that's happening.

[550] I'm going to NYU.

[551] And then one of the guys that had booked my band, he was a club promoter.

[552] And he had brought our band in, you know, we would bring some people to the club.

[553] And he was running this music open mic night.

[554] It was a showcase.

[555] It was a place called Tattoo, Club Tattoo on 51st Street.

[556] And I remember that he would make the lion's share of the money, collecting all the door.

[557] And then he would just throw us maybe $100 to split six ways.

[558] Right.

[559] Not even enough for gas.

[560] So when the band breaks up, I approach him and say, hey, I'll work for you for free.

[561] Will you teach me this business?

[562] Because it looked pretty cool.

[563] The other side of the velvet rope, the organizer of the party, the person who decided who came in and who stayed out.

[564] The guy with all the drink tickets.

[565] Sure.

[566] So I partner with him.

[567] I'm 19.

[568] And we moved to a club, a legendary club called Nels on 14th Street.

[569] And we start this open mic night called Voices at Nels.

[570] And it's an all black R &B mic night.

[571] And my business partner was a singer.

[572] He was a really talented singer.

[573] He'd been on Star Search and just knew his way around this group.

[574] And I just learned I had a talent for the business, for making the flyers, for putting together the lists, you know, later the email list.

[575] You know, we were early on that.

[576] And we wind up building this extraordinarily successful open mic night on Tuesdays that Shaka Khan comes to, Prince comes to and performs.

[577] Brian McKnight, Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown.

[578] It was amazing.

[579] Stevie Wonder.

[580] And at that point, do you now start approaching other venues to say, hey, look what we made happen on Tuesday night at this place.

[581] We can make that happen over here on Wednesday.

[582] Yeah, no. First, I screw my partner out.

[583] Okay, okay.

[584] So he decides to go on the road with Smokey Joe's Cafe and says, you know, why don't you look over the business while I'm gone for six months?

[585] He leaves and then I fire him.

[586] And take all the money.

[587] Okay, great.

[588] Partner with the club owner.

[589] Okay.

[590] The guy who owned the club.

[591] There was kind of the GM of the club.

[592] And, you know, maybe for four weeks, you know, he's whispering in my ear saying, why are you paying this guy?

[593] He's not doing any work.

[594] He's on the road making tons of money.

[595] Right.

[596] Touring, you know, I should be your partner.

[597] Yes.

[598] Let's turn this thing into something else.

[599] Yes.

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

[601] What's up, guys?

[602] Girl Kiki and my podcast is back with a new season and let me tell you it's too good and I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest okay every episode I bring on a friend and have a real conversation and I don't mean just friends I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox the list goes on so follow watch and listen to Baby this is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast We've all been there turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[603] 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.

[604] 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.

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

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

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

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

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

[610] And at this point, are you, morally and ethically, are you feeling at all?

[611] Maybe you're completely unconscious of this, but are you thinking, I already looked out for someone else my whole life i i am now looking out for me and i don't really give a shit like it's it is my turn to yes yeah yeah this is it's my turn and it's it's my turn to explore breaking the rules yeah right if those rules if the church if the religion was there to oppress me or to keep me from living my best life exploring the world um i needed to see what was out there yeah so so but this happens slowly so i I start smoking.

[612] I start drinking.

[613] Start drinking.

[614] Start sleeping around.

[615] Start marijuana.

[616] You know, then it moves on to, you know, cocaine and ecstasy at MDMA and special case.

[617] Start gambling.

[618] Start with the porn and the strip clubs.

[619] And it's just this, you know, over 10 years, it's really a, you know, oh, there's another thing I did that I said I would never do.

[620] Sure.

[621] There's one more thing.

[622] Piling vices on your shoulders.

[623] Right.

[624] and getting a nice big caravan.

[625] Well, let me back up.

[626] So then there's this moment where I'm working at a club.

[627] A new club opens up two blocks away called Lotus.

[628] And the owners, the four owners were on New York Magazine.

[629] And this was going to be the hottest models and bottles.

[630] It was a supper club, you know, it was two levels.

[631] There was a mezzanine.

[632] There was a VIP room with a locked key code.

[633] And someone dared me. They said, oh, you know, you're this, you've got a successful.

[634] R &B night, and that's great, but you could never do this thing.

[635] So I'm like, oh, yeah, okay.

[636] So I start calling the owners, cold calling the owners, leaving, I don't know, 15, 20 voicemails on the club, just by extension, right?

[637] Like, for number one, Jeffrey Jha.

[638] For number two, David Ray, just going through the telephone tree.

[639] And finally, one of the owners calls me back and says, hey, listen, you know, just because you're promoting that thing, doesn't mean you're going to be any good at doing this thing.

[640] but I'll give you Monday night.

[641] I'll pay $150.

[642] Monday was the slowest night.

[643] So I'm still keeping the R &B thing going, and I start on Mondays, and I fall in love with, I mean, it's just totally different.

[644] It's fashion, it's music.

[645] You know, we're throwing parties for Vogue.

[646] You know, it was celebrities.

[647] Jim Carrey's in the club.

[648] Right.

[649] Denzel's in the club.

[650] Puffy's in the club.

[651] JZ's in the club.

[652] It's, you know, it was something altogether different.

[653] And so, you know, You are technically the promoter of that Monday night.

[654] I had to bring some beautiful people.

[655] Did they give you a percentage of the whole take for Monday?

[656] Not at that point.

[657] Oh, okay.

[658] Later, I had to graduate.

[659] I'm a greedy little piggy, and I like knowing about money.

[660] No, I'll tell you.

[661] I'll tell you exactly how it works.

[662] At the beginning, it was just, hey, bring a few people.

[663] A year later, I was getting 15 % of the night.

[664] Okay.

[665] And a better night.

[666] And a better night.

[667] Oh, you're looking at the take.

[668] You know, you're doing your best.

[669] Right.

[670] You're getting printouts at the end of the night and you're going home.

[671] No, you can't trust anyone to that.

[672] Yeah, there's no way you're getting 15 % of 100%.

[673] Everybody's screwing everybody.

[674] Yes.

[675] So I come in on the worst night, getting paid $150 bucks flat to see if I'm any good.

[676] I partner with the doorman who's just making, I don't know, probably $150 just to stand out in the cold.

[677] Sure.

[678] And we say, let's go do.

[679] So we start a karaoke night.

[680] We start a celebrity karaoke night.

[681] Okay.

[682] While he's still working at Lotus, while I'm still doing the Monday, we start doing a Tuesday.

[683] at a lounge called Halo.

[684] And this thing starts blowing up.

[685] And we're charging a cover.

[686] So we wanted the cash.

[687] Yeah.

[688] So we turned that into a really successful thing.

[689] And then we go back to Lotus with a Thursday night, which was kind of a marquee night.

[690] So all that to say, so then I want to work at 40 nightclubs.

[691] Okay.

[692] And let me tell you my personal experience with this, because this is a New York thing.

[693] It doesn't so much exist in L .A., or at least not on the level.

[694] So when I first was on TV, I don't know how one of these guys found me, but they found me when I was in New York.

[695] And then any time I was in New York, this guy would be like, call me, and then I would get taken around.

[696] And when he'd pick me up, there'd be drugs and there would be everything was taken care of.

[697] I had an orgy with this guy.

[698] I mean, not with him, but he and his girlfriend and someone else.

[699] I mean, it was a crazy bizarre experience.

[700] He just kind of made everything perfect for you.

[701] because you being there somehow helped their overall thing.

[702] And even when I was with that guy in New York, I kept thinking, ooh, this is a rough lifestyle for him.

[703] Like, I'm going to go home and I'm going to go to work on a movie set, but this guy's going to do this seven nights a week or however many nights a week.

[704] And I just, even as a drug addict, I was nervous for this guy, if that makes any sense.

[705] So I feel like I have some understanding.

[706] understanding of what your life was like.

[707] And your life exists between 10 p .m. and 6 a .m. dinner at 10, the club at 12, the after hours at 5.

[708] Right.

[709] Home at noon.

[710] Oof.

[711] Yeah.

[712] And you're doing that for years.

[713] Five nights a week, six nights a week.

[714] Because the nights you're not working, you're going out, trying to increase, trying to go find new people to bring into the fold.

[715] Right.

[716] And you're making a lot of money?

[717] A couple hundred grand a year, but you're living like millionaires.

[718] Sure, because everywhere you go to.

[719] The only thing you do is free.

[720] Other people's planes, other people's dinner, you know, you're the one walking around with the drink tickets.

[721] You know, a guy, one of our guys, right, would sit at our table, go buy $10 ,000 of crystal that we're then handing out or spraying.

[722] Yeah.

[723] So you're drinking some, but even more importantly, you're getting 15 % of that purchase.

[724] There you go.

[725] You know, it was amazing at first, right?

[726] And we're only, you know, for me, like the girls were a huge part of it.

[727] Oh, absolutely.

[728] dating the most beautiful girls.

[729] The scene revolves around guys who have a lot of money who want to be close to models.

[730] Yes, but there was also this very bizarre dynamic and it even happened in this orgy, which was, I met a girl, she was friends with the dude's girlfriend.

[731] It was, hey, let's go back to your hotel room.

[732] P .S., you can't hook up with my girlfriend.

[733] I'm like, yeah, okay, whatever.

[734] So we're in this scenario, and I am seeing that the girl definitely does want to hook up with me. Like, I'm getting some pretty obvious signals.

[735] Because you're on TV or on the movie star, right?

[736] Exactly.

[737] So then there's this other layer where I kept thinking, because I'm just innately a codependent person, I was thinking, wow, this guy's almost got the thing, this like this, this bullshit fake artifice of celebrity and all that entails.

[738] And he's so close because he's in contact.

[739] You know, when I'm not there, he's with other people that are probably much more famous than me. And now he has a girlfriend who's attracted to him because he has access to that, but yet he is not that thing.

[740] So I have to imagine just the juggling of all that is weird.

[741] It's like you're in that club, but at the same time, you're not the marquee thing of that club.

[742] You're not even the owner.

[743] It's just so there's so much just status on your mind, 24 -7, right?

[744] Yeah.

[745] And the conversations.

[746] Did it make you resent the girls you were with, like in any weird way?

[747] Like, even though you knew you were guilty of it and everyone in the whole scene is complacent in this weird feeding frenzy for status.

[748] And you want to partake in the fruits of that, but at the same time, you're maybe even judgmental of someone that's doing the same thing you're doing.

[749] It's all very complicated, isn't it?

[750] It is.

[751] And most of the relationships are shallow.

[752] You know, look, it gets really boring.

[753] You're having the same banal conversations over and over again.

[754] You're shouting over a DJ, right?

[755] It's the most trivial.

[756] So you can't hear.

[757] You're just, there's no substance.

[758] There's no depth to any of it.

[759] I had a moment once where, you know, I'd been up all night and I, you know, I was probably trying to take Ambien to come down off of ecstasy.

[760] And I was on Houston Street crashing at my business partner's place on his couch.

[761] And, you know, what we would do to block out the light, we get really good at using comforters wherever we are.

[762] We could be in the Hamptons.

[763] We could be, right, you got to, you got to somehow, you know, make the shades.

[764] Yeah.

[765] You got to make your own darkness.

[766] Yes.

[767] Okay.

[768] At noon.

[769] Yeah.

[770] So I'm trying to do this, you know, somehow, you know, tape up.

[771] And of course, the comforters are heavy.

[772] So this is actually not an easy thing.

[773] Yeah, yeah.

[774] Duck tape doesn't really work.

[775] You're not going to walk around with a hammer and nails.

[776] Right.

[777] So it's often a frustrating, floppy, sloppy, you know, comforters are falling and it's half.

[778] So I remember just looking out the window on Houston Street.

[779] And people were on their lunch break, decks.

[780] Like, I'm trying to take an ambient to come down from a disgusting night out and some horrible East Village.

[781] after hours where I was doing the cheapest Coke possible, you know, in some bathroom, like...

[782] You're with dudes you don't want to be with.

[783] And just looking, you know, and it's not like I'm a surgeon on night duty, right?

[784] Right, right.

[785] It's not an admirable night shift, okay?

[786] You're not a firefighter that just fought all nights.

[787] So there was a lot of self -loathing.

[788] I just remember this.

[789] Wow, what have I done with my life?

[790] My thing was I would, I often did Coke with this gal that lived on San Bacente here in L .A. and I would always be leaving her house at like 10 in the morning.

[791] I just watch guys jogging in the median on Saturday morning.

[792] I just would look at them like, oh, my God, they have the best day ahead of them.

[793] And this sunshine is my enemy right now.

[794] This whole thing, this whole outside world is my enemy.

[795] Something's wrong.

[796] Yep.

[797] Okay, so suffice to say, the result of this 10 -year experiment is you're feeling a little morally bankrupt at the end of this.

[798] Yeah, or just...

[799] Yeah, and my body goes, Half my body goes numb.

[800] Oh, it physically goes down.

[801] 10 years in, I can't feel the left side of my body.

[802] Really?

[803] But you can move at all.

[804] You don't have paralysis.

[805] So I remember specifically putting my hand under boiling hot water.

[806] Can't feel it.

[807] Great.

[808] So as one might, I go start visiting neurologists, and I get the MRIs, the CT scans.

[809] They attach sensors to my arms.

[810] Nothing is wrong with me. My partner is like, and I'm a degenerate smoker.

[811] I'm doing 60 Marlboro Reds a day.

[812] I wake up at like 3 in the morning.

[813] I was so happy.

[814] I was awake that I could have a cigarette, you know, on the way to the bathroom.

[815] So I'm living.

[816] It's rare I get someone in here that's been in the exact same trenches as me. It's really, I'm the spring of my step.

[817] Okay, continue.

[818] Okay, so health problems, but not diagnosed.

[819] And you're what, 29?

[820] I'm 28.

[821] 28, okay.

[822] So, okay, my parents, let me just kind of catch you up.

[823] So for 10 years, my poor parents, like I have lived out, you familiar with the prodigal son story?

[824] Yeah.

[825] Okay, I have lived out this parable that they grew up with.

[826] I mean, I basically said, F you, mom and dad, F you church.

[827] Kind of the sit -Arthur trajectory as well.

[828] Okay.

[829] After the money's gone, you know, the prostitutes, all that, I wind up in the pigsty.

[830] And I realize it.

[831] So my parents have been praying, you know, what have we done wrong like you know bring the prodigal home bring the rebel home yeah and around this time that i go numb so this is let's call it september october go home for christmas and i'm a bad son through this 10 years i am i remember calling my dad from paris during fashion week i've been up for two days and i'm just bragging about it yeah yeah sure i mean just delighting but i would still go home i sold a relationship yeah i'd go home six seven times a year eight times a year, I would just rub it in.

[832] You know, I'd bring various girlfriends home and, you know, look, dad, how hot my girl, you know, look how hot this one is, you know, always just hoping to impress them.

[833] I bet some of them were hard to get pure to get in that house.

[834] Well, they all signed up.

[835] I'm teasing.

[836] I'm thinking of all the perfume and the hair, the hair and makeup.

[837] So, okay, so I go home for Christmas.

[838] My dad gives me this book of deep theology, Christian theology, called The Pursuit of God.

[839] and I'm like, oh, okay, whatever.

[840] He'd tried everything over the years.

[841] And, you know, it was, I just remember something was different.

[842] I had the health issues.

[843] I'm still partying, but I start reading this book with this deep theology.

[844] And it was basically a pursuit of God, of virtue, of morality.

[845] It was someone trying to live the cleanest life possible, know God, and serve others.

[846] And it was really compelling to me. It felt like home.

[847] it felt like the opposite of my life it felt like the thing that I had abandoned and can I just also ask you you are at that moment you're you are in possession of everything that was promised to deliver happiness so like if beautiful girls find you attractive and you find yourself in a beautiful vacation home and you can be on a yacht and you can drink expensive shit those that's those are all the signature hallmarks of of happiness, right?

[848] And is it helpful to have all those to recognize how false they are?

[849] Yeah.

[850] It's kind of a privileged position to get into where you can find out, oh, it's none of this stuff.

[851] I feel miserable.

[852] Yeah, and there were richer people, right?

[853] There was always someone with more.

[854] Sure.

[855] And they didn't look happy.

[856] It was really a moment.

[857] It was a cathartic week or 10 days where, you know, there's different ways of saying, It's like the veil was lifted or I saw things for what they were.

[858] It was like the game of musical chairs where the music stops.

[859] And the first time in my life, I have nowhere to sit down.

[860] Like it was a disruption.

[861] And, you know, I wasn't in love with my girlfriend.

[862] I never had been.

[863] And I just realized like they would never be enough.

[864] Someone would always have more.

[865] And this endless pursuit.

[866] And I also realized that I had been, I had actually betrayed.

[867] the virtue, the spirituality, the morality that I've been brought up with.

[868] So that I was living in opposite and I wanted to find my way back.

[869] I really did.

[870] Yeah.

[871] Now, here's where your story to me gets suspicious as a cynic.

[872] Okay.

[873] Did you ever see Grizzly Man, the Timothy Treadwell documentary?

[874] I did, yeah.

[875] So I made two huge predictions about that movie, about 10 minutes in.

[876] I'm so proud of myself.

[877] Watch me pat myself on the back.

[878] One of the things I leaned over and told my girlfriend was this guy 100 % has some show business in his background.

[879] Then we come to find out he had pursued stardom.

[880] My other thing was this guy's an addict.

[881] Because I have so many times witnessed people try to do crazy erratic things, geographical cures, directional cures, something very extreme, instead of dealing with their addiction or dealing with the whole.

[882] so they're going to do something spectacular but in another direction but it's still going to be spectacular so timothy treadwell is going to go fucking communicate with grizzly bears you know kodiaks on an island it's got to be that extreme to replace the heightened ego maniacal rush of being an addict so i'm always a little suspicious when people have cures for things that are ultimately still on the outside they're still going to regulate what's going on on the inside with something on the outside So when this part of your story, when I know that now you join a charity that's abroad on a ship, helping kids who need, which obviously is a wonderful thing to commit yourself to.

[883] But the part of me, the bullshit addict meter in me goes, well, this was just another grandiose gesture.

[884] Tell me why I'm wrong.

[885] Well, here's, so the middle maybe makes a little more sense.

[886] So the next six months is me coming back with a heart chest.

[887] change, you know, actually trying to go to church again and not liking any of them, you know, not finding that fit and trying to, like, I quit drugs for like four months until I slip up.

[888] Right.

[889] And I go from three packs a day to like one pack.

[890] And then there's a week where I don't smoke, but then I fall.

[891] Right.

[892] So it's just this, this, um, and I actually don't ever think I was an addict.

[893] Okay.

[894] So I would, I would do something out of boredom and then never do it again.

[895] Okay.

[896] Like I, um, most of these things were, were, were, I was looking for something, but I would, I would never call my, like, I would do Coke for four years and then just say, I'm done with Coke.

[897] I'm going to do X instead or, um, yeah, so you could likely not have the genetic makeup of an addict per se, but most certainly you have the behavioral pattern of someone who's trying to regulate the internal feeling with the external shit.

[898] Yeah.

[899] And even if you don't have the gene, that can become a pattern that becomes very hard to break because you no longer have any tools, right?

[900] Like what else are you regulate?

[901] There's nothing you're really doing that gives you legitimate self -esteem.

[902] So you're kind of toolless in search of some self -esteem and some contentment.

[903] For you, it's God, it sounds like.

[904] So it's six months during this period.

[905] And I remember specifically praying, God, you've got to show me a way out of this.

[906] But I don't know what else to do because you don't, own at 28 years old, become a doctor or a lawyer.

[907] Right.

[908] Like, what job could possibly pay me what I'm making in night life that I just jump over?

[909] And I had a lifestyle.

[910] I had to pay my rent one night, a place called Bungalow 8.

[911] Oh, yeah, sure.

[912] And I, so.

[913] Harvey Weinstein famously jerked off in a bush there, I think we read.

[914] Was that the where?

[915] I think that's where it happened.

[916] Oh, wow.

[917] It's disgusting.

[918] That was one of his many.

[919] One of his, yeah.

[920] Kind of wish I hadn't heard that.

[921] Yeah.

[922] I know it kind of tainted my memories of Bungalow 8, too, Because I know the exact bushes they're referring to as you walk to the bathroom.

[923] There's those potted.

[924] Okay, continue.

[925] I bet he wasn't the first one.

[926] Well, I was at Bungaloway.

[927] You know, from my memory, I was not on the wagon that night.

[928] I was drinking, might have been doing something.

[929] I come out of the bathroom and I see a bouncer kind of harassing my friend.

[930] And I get in the bouncer's face and say, I know Amy Sacco.

[931] and, you know, you picked the wrong guy.

[932] I'm defending the honor.

[933] And I remember going drunkenly, you know, stumbling outside and calling Amy, the owner, and leaving a voicemail for her.

[934] It's probably three in the morning.

[935] Yeah.

[936] And telling her what happened and, you know, telling on this guy.

[937] Sure.

[938] You're probably one of nine voicemails that evening.

[939] 90, potentially, right?

[940] People big -timing it.

[941] Yeah.

[942] So the next night, I don't think anything of this.

[943] I go, I'm at promoting another party.

[944] It's a Saturday night.

[945] And I leave, normally left that club at three, I leave at 250.

[946] I get a text from my doorman saying, hey, that guy, the balancer from last night just turned up with a gun.

[947] Looking for you.

[948] No kidding.

[949] Lost his job.

[950] He got fired.

[951] Oh, boy.

[952] So he's like, you know, you may just want to like let this cool down.

[953] Sure.

[954] So I remember going to my girlfriend's house that night down in Little Italy and telling her what happened.

[955] And I call my business partner and say, look, I'm going to get out town for a couple weeks and just let this blow over.

[956] Now, I'll say I've had my life threatened 40 times at this point.

[957] You know, you work the door, you work any party.

[958] You don't let people in and they threaten to kill you.

[959] Some ego bruised guys.

[960] They threaten to kill you in front of their girl in front of their guy friends.

[961] Yeah, I'm going to drive back.

[962] You're not even going to know it.

[963] You know, I'm going to be in a car and like, you're going to be lying on the pool of blood next to your door, right?

[964] Yeah.

[965] So, you know, this is something that we're familiar with.

[966] But this, this felt a little edgy.

[967] So I, um, uh, uh, rent a cobalt blue Ford Mustang from Newark airport.

[968] And I'm just going to go north.

[969] right like this is going to be a little mini vacation it it just starts to dawn on me the farther i get from new york city that like what if i never went back what if i never went back and you just start asking these questions i remember in in main i watched obama give the the famous kind of hope um uh speech as a senator the red socks were playing like i just remember kind of this whole time and I was listening to the Bible and audio tape I'm still drinking and smoking so this is just there's maybe like this tension of in and out in and out in and out and out and I ask myself this pretty clear question which which might even fall into your you know your narrative what's the opposite what's the extreme opposite of my life look like what would 180 degree change look like not a pivot not 20 or 45 or 90 degrees yeah what's the like what does the a do -over.

[970] Yeah.

[971] And...

[972] In the program, they call this contrary action.

[973] Okay.

[974] And in the prodigal son's story, right, he says, I want to go home.

[975] I'd rather be a servant in my father's house.

[976] And in that story, he goes all the way from the prostitutes and the pig spent, you know, comes home, his father welcomes him back home, puts the new robe on him, throws him a party.

[977] Right?

[978] So you have this kind of opposite picture.

[979] So my idea for opposite is to, Are you familiar with the concept of tithing, like to give 10 %?

[980] Yeah, yeah.

[981] Okay.

[982] So I get the idea that I'm going to tie 10 % of my decade, my selfish decade.

[983] Oh, okay.

[984] One of the 10 years.

[985] That's basically 100 % of one year or years.

[986] There you go.

[987] Back to God and the poor.

[988] Okay.

[989] The poor, like in quotes.

[990] I have no idea what this even know what you're talking about, but yeah.

[991] So, Dak, so I'm in Maine at this point.

[992] Dial up Internet Cafe, Greenville, Maine.

[993] Dental computers, and I start filling out applications to volunteer at all of the humanitarian organizations I have vaguely heard of over the years, never given to.

[994] Right.

[995] Red Cross, Salvation Army, World Vision, Save the Children.

[996] This would only work if it felt like it would be one of the poorest countries in the world.

[997] Yes, yes.

[998] Okay.

[999] A radical departure.

[1000] And the denial letters come in.

[1001] So no one will take me. I'm turned down by all these organizations.

[1002] Good.

[1003] That means there's screenings working.

[1004] You have no business representing any of these people with the last 10 years you put in.

[1005] On resume, I mean, how could a nightclub promoter be useful to any credible organization doing humanitarian work and like Darfur, right?

[1006] Like, one day I'm riding my bike.

[1007] My phone rings, a little Nokia phone.

[1008] And I pick it up and it's this group, Mercy Ships.

[1009] and they're calling to say that they've gotten my application.

[1010] They're looking at it and they'd be willing to meet me. And I convinced the bosses, the two bosses of the communications department that I truly was qualified for the job.

[1011] I was a storyteller.

[1012] I was a promoter that I had had a change of heart and that I wasn't going to throw wild parties on the ship and corrupt any of the nice Christian humanitarians.

[1013] Yeah.

[1014] And they, and I mean, I think one of the things in nightlife, I'm a host.

[1015] So I hosted people.

[1016] I was an includer.

[1017] You know, I would, I would look for people that were left out and I would try to bring them into the fold.

[1018] So, you know, I was good at getting people to like me. Right, sure.

[1019] And that's what promoters had to do.

[1020] That was your job.

[1021] I win them over.

[1022] That was your product.

[1023] And I said, well, you know, I'm ready to start.

[1024] And they said, well, the mission starts in three weeks.

[1025] Can you turn up and report for duty in three weeks?

[1026] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1027] Now, the beauty of this organization was that I would have to pay them $500 a month to volunteer.

[1028] And the search for opposites, sailing into Liberia, Benin and Liberia, West Africa on a humanitarian hospital ship full of doctors and surgeons and paying $500 a month.

[1029] I mean, this was it.

[1030] This was perfect.

[1031] Right.

[1032] It was the dead opposite.

[1033] Now, I'm going to fast forward you because, in the name of time, because I want to get to your charity, but you do this for how long?

[1034] How long are you on the ship?

[1035] Two years.

[1036] And you witness incredible things, and I'm imagining your sense of self is improving dramatically.

[1037] Yeah, and I quit everything.

[1038] So I have a sense of cold turkey.

[1039] The night before I get, I embark on the ship and walk up the gangway and surrender my passport.

[1040] I go out with a bang.

[1041] I smoke, you know, three packs of cigarettes.

[1042] I have eight beers.

[1043] And then I go cold turkey.

[1044] So I never smoke again.

[1045] I never.

[1046] touch coke any of that stuff again i never gamble again i don't look at a pornographic image for 15 years like i i i quit it all i drink a little bit i like wine and beer but okay you can also maybe look at some porn like once i walk away from it now i just can you not do it uh moderately is that or you think there's an ethical dilemma about pornography you can be for for me i mean for you it's not living living kind of the the virtuous life that i was trying to step into like it didn't You didn't feel better after watching it.

[1047] You felt worse.

[1048] Definitely not.

[1049] But my community changed.

[1050] So my community was now a group of doctors who are saving the world.

[1051] Yeah.

[1052] Who instead of being in the Maldives of the Caribbean, were operating for free.

[1053] Well, the thing that's getting you status in that world is so much different than the thing that was getting you status than the other world.

[1054] So I do two years there on the ship and I discover that people are drinking dirty water.

[1055] And that's the reason why somebody that were sick.

[1056] That's the reason why half the people in the country are sick.

[1057] Right.

[1058] You kind of take the ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure approach, right?

[1059] Which is, well, if these people had clean drinking water, we wouldn't be seeing them on this ship.

[1060] Exactly.

[1061] Yeah.

[1062] And so how do you go from going, okay, this is the cause I'm now interested in?

[1063] And how do I go about starting an NGO?

[1064] Do you have a mentor?

[1065] Do you have someone that is advising you?

[1066] So do you also think, well, I still do have this crazy Rolodex.

[1067] Maybe that thing is going to somehow come into play and help?

[1068] Yeah.

[1069] So I hit the Rolodex.

[1070] day one.

[1071] So I'd built up a list of 15 ,000 people.

[1072] They'd worked in fashion or finance at Goldman Sachs or, you know, in music, entertainment.

[1073] So they went from getting invited to, you know, I don't know, Perry Farrell DJing something to pictures of leprosy, what I was experiencing, facial tumors, dirty water.

[1074] So obviously some people unsubscribe.

[1075] The list gets a little smaller.

[1076] But I was blown away that people said, this is amazing.

[1077] How do I do what you're doing?

[1078] Like I'm sitting here at Chanel, feeling like my life has no meaning.

[1079] And you're with this group of amazing people.

[1080] How do I give money to support this cause?

[1081] How do I do something like this with my life?

[1082] So I was shocked that, A, people cared and the same gift of promoting.

[1083] Yeah, because your assumption can't be that everyone's at the same bottom you were at when you decided to do that.

[1084] No, I was just, yeah.

[1085] I was running around saying, look at these doctors.

[1086] You know, they're giving blind people sight by removing cataracts.

[1087] And, you know, this kid had a six -pound tumor.

[1088] He was suffocating to death on his face.

[1089] And this doctor took it out.

[1090] And now he's completely fine.

[1091] So I've got that whole thing for two years.

[1092] So I'm blasting my list.

[1093] In the interim, I do a year.

[1094] I come back.

[1095] I throw an exhibition of my photos in Chelsea, New York, raise $100 ,000, $96 ,000.

[1096] Give it all the mercy ships.

[1097] and then follow the money.

[1098] So a couple of these things are developing.

[1099] One, I'm realizing that I'm, once a promoter, always a promoter, but I can promote something that actually means something, get people to give money and care.

[1100] Two, the photos really matter.

[1101] The people responded to the visuals.

[1102] It was one thing to say it, and it was another to show them.

[1103] So I'm blowing up photos 10 foot tall of what people are seeing.

[1104] And then third, I've got my issue.

[1105] Water is the thing.

[1106] If I really cared about health, but I really cared about sickness, then I would go to the root cause of so much of the sickness and I would start with water.

[1107] And at the time, a billion people on the planet didn't have clean water.

[1108] One out of every six people.

[1109] So I come back to New York City, I'm broke.

[1110] So now I'm 30, broke, done two years with mercy ships.

[1111] My friends think I'm no fun because I'm not doing Coke and I'm not partying and I'm actually dragging my laptop to nightclubs to show them photos from Africa.

[1112] Okay, so I'm getting thrown out a DJ boost.

[1113] That's the last thing.

[1114] They're like, dude, you are killing my bus, okay?

[1115] Yeah.

[1116] Maybe I'll give it to your charity, but not at three in the morning, okay?

[1117] Yeah.

[1118] If I'm watching someone floss with a fat ass and I've got to now look over at your thing.

[1119] Get this thing out.

[1120] Yeah.

[1121] So, get it out of here.

[1122] But I was, I was given 15 presentations a day.

[1123] I mean, there was a, I was so passionate about.

[1124] You're very tenacious.

[1125] This is one of your defining characteristics.

[1126] You're very tenacious.

[1127] And there was a responsibility to do something about what I'd seen.

[1128] So as I talked to my friends, I have now, I have the unique advantage of being incredible, if that's the word, like not a credible charity founder.

[1129] I'm just this normal guy who's 30, who's talking to normal people who work at MTV and in Chanel and at Goldman Sachs.

[1130] And I've had this life -changing experience for two years.

[1131] So I've actually lived in post -war Liberia for over a year.

[1132] I mean, I put in the time.

[1133] This wasn't a mission trip for a week where I, like, painted the orphanage, the six -color, you know, that year.

[1134] Like I lived, I spent time, in a leprosy colony.

[1135] I wrote around the country.

[1136] I flew on army helicopters.

[1137] I'd really seen and put in the time.

[1138] I'd written 50 stories.

[1139] I'd taken 50 ,000 photographs.

[1140] So there was this eyewitness power of having done it and having seen it and understood the issue.

[1141] Yeah, you had the credibility.

[1142] I had the credibility.

[1143] So I have this huge realization.

[1144] So my, my old partner is still doing the clubs on his own, takes me in, lets me live on the closet floor at 109 Spring Street in Soho, Spring and Mercer and says, well, you know, you can crash here, you know, my walking closet floor and you can use my couch as your office for your charity.

[1145] I find out he never dissolved our company nor paid our taxes.

[1146] So now I'm $30 ,000 in debt.

[1147] Perfect.

[1148] And I'm about to apply for a 501c3.

[1149] Uh -huh.

[1150] Okay, with unpaid taxes.

[1151] Yeah.

[1152] So I hire an accountant, go on a payment plan with the IRS, start this paperwork because I'm going to do, my charity is going to give everybody in the world clean water.

[1153] Yeah.

[1154] Like I have a very clear, I can see it.

[1155] Mm -hmm.

[1156] As I talk to my friends, I realize they are cynics and they are skeptical.

[1157] And people don't trust charities.

[1158] I come across a USA Today poll that finds 42 % of Americans actually say they don't trust charities.

[1159] And then - Well, there's a ton of terrible ones.

[1160] A ton of terrible ones.

[1161] And everybody has a horror story.

[1162] They're given like five cents on the dollar.

[1163] Everyone has a horror story.

[1164] They can pull out of their back pocket for the CEOs making millions of dollars who covered, who hired their cousins and nephews and nieces.

[1165] and Anderson Cooper used to do those shows where he'd turn up in the McMansion, right?

[1166] And the CEO would slam the door and he's left on the porch.

[1167] And America throws up their hands and says, that crook.

[1168] That's why I don't give.

[1169] I'm going to add a layer to it too.

[1170] It's weirdly triggering because I can be floating through life feeling fine.

[1171] Like I was nice to everyone I interacted with that day.

[1172] And then I meet you and I go, well, fuck, I'm not going out of my way to help another person.

[1173] So just the knowledge of you, I now feel shitty about myself.

[1174] Well, that's not.

[1175] I mean, I'm just telling you, I think that's a human.

[1176] You're saying that's why people are a little bit allergic to charity.

[1177] Yeah, I'll keep it personal.

[1178] Yeah, like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, when someone, when someone hears someone on the, on TV talking about their healthy diet, they don't hear that that person just enjoying their healthy diet.

[1179] They hear, you're unhealthy and you're living terribly.

[1180] And now all of a sudden, I feel judged and I feel all these things.

[1181] Because I'm just a human.

[1182] I mean, there's no logic behind it.

[1183] But California's lifestyle and diet is very triggering to the rest of the country.

[1184] And I'm sympathetic to it.

[1185] I was in the Midwest having that feeling.

[1186] Like, all right, great.

[1187] Well, we're not all perfect like you.

[1188] It's just a weird knee jerk thing that a lot of us suffer from.

[1189] And this is how most charities have peddled their wares using guilt and shame.

[1190] Okay, this started with the Sally Struthers commercials, maybe, you know, the 80s and 90s, those kids in Africa, the flies landing on their face in slow motion, they lock sad eyes with the camera, the 800 number stripes across the stream.

[1191] Yeah.

[1192] And you give me, you feel disgusting.

[1193] Yeah.

[1194] Okay, you feel shamed into it.

[1195] So I'm just realizing that this is how charities function.

[1196] My friends aren't giving.

[1197] They're cynical.

[1198] And I'm like, well, what would the perfect charity look like?

[1199] So imagine I'd run into you and said, Dax, well, what would make you want to give?

[1200] Okay?

[1201] Well, one of the things you might say is, well, I'd want to know exactly where my money goes.

[1202] Yeah, yeah.

[1203] And I'd actually want to know, like, what did it do?

[1204] Did it actually do anything?

[1205] Like, if I gave you $100 or, you know, $100 ,000, like, did it affect any change?

[1206] I don't want to see where it goes.

[1207] And maybe I'd want to feel like I was a part of something cool, you know, or this wasn't...

[1208] I'm going to add a third layer, though, and this is the part of me that has an anthropology degree.

[1209] I say that.

[1210] Not a step.

[1211] Everyone makes fun of me. But there have been so many well -intentioned projects in Africa that have backfired so catastrophically.

[1212] There's also a part of me, so I can even deal with yours specifically.

[1213] When Kristen first told me, oh, I'm going to do this thing for my birthday and I'm going to go build a well and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[1214] I immediately went, you know, if the, you guys don't go there and build a well, the people will probably move to the place that has water.

[1215] So you're maybe potentially preventing what would have naturally happened and now you're getting people just stuck at this permanent well when maybe they should have migrated somewhere else.

[1216] Now, let me tell you how I came on the other side of that.

[1217] And this was only recently, I thought, okay, what if that was the solution to there's no more water in L .A. And I should just move to fucking Santa Clarita.

[1218] But you don't own land in Santa Clarita.

[1219] This is your land.

[1220] I know.

[1221] I know.

[1222] When I personally, personalize it.

[1223] And I use, that's when I, you know, the limits of empathy are what you're up against at all times.

[1224] It's just very, people have a limited capacity for empathy.

[1225] Now, some have more, some have less.

[1226] Kristen has an abundance of it.

[1227] I seem to have less for whatever reason.

[1228] So I'm a terrible person.

[1229] But at any rate, when I personalize the notion that anyone in this country would have to pick up an entire town and move it to go follow the water, I would go, no, we should solve how to get the water to where everyone already lives.

[1230] So when I, but, but, but, but, but, but, but.

[1231] That requires me to work it all out in my head because my first thought is, oh, it's just more white people going to Africa deciding how they should do it or solve that problem.

[1232] And there's going to be all these unintended consequences that no one's even thought of downriver.

[1233] So we try to fix all these things.

[1234] So I actually tried to design a charity for you.

[1235] Okay.

[1236] I appreciate it.

[1237] Okay.

[1238] So here's what we did.

[1239] So the first thing is said, we're going to give away 100 % of all donations without exception directly to the projects.

[1240] I'm going to open up two separate bank accounts.

[1241] different numbers, audited separately.

[1242] All the overhead, the staff salaries, the events.

[1243] It costs money to raise money, right?

[1244] People don't get that.

[1245] Office costs.

[1246] The toner for the Epson copier.

[1247] Okay?

[1248] That's all going to be raised separately.

[1249] Separately, I don't know how we would do that, but it wouldn't be your money.

[1250] Use skeptical, cynical, cynical, facts.

[1251] Okay, your money, whether you gave $1 or $100 would go directly to help people get clean water.

[1252] That was number one.

[1253] Number two was we were going to use technology available in this really exciting age of new technology to prove where your $100 went.

[1254] So I met the founder of Google Earth in the minute I started, and I realized Google Earth and Google Maps, they were giving us a free place where we could prove every water point via satellite image to the cynical daxes of the world.

[1255] So everyone of Kristen's birthday wells, she was 30, so this is what, six years ago?

[1256] Eight years ago.

[1257] Yeah, she's old as far.

[1258] You can see satellite images of every single one, okay?

[1259] And you could have, for the last eight years.

[1260] So you, cynical guy, could go to Best Buy, grab a GPS device, turn up in Ethiopia, and go visit 10 of them.

[1261] Is there a picture of her on the wells from the movie Burlesque in her black wig?

[1262] There is not.

[1263] You'll be disciplined.

[1264] The second is this proof pillar.

[1265] So if I could tell Dax, show him.

[1266] So not tell, show you the thing that we built.

[1267] Let's say it's a well.

[1268] let's say it's a spring, let's say it's a rainwater harvesting system.

[1269] Where 100 % of your money went, you might say, oh, actually, but maybe a little less cynical.

[1270] The third big idea was to build a completely different brand.

[1271] So I just want to use an example of the, if, if, if, imagine if Nike used guilt and shame to get people to work out, okay?

[1272] Imagine if Nike said, America, you are fat and lazy.

[1273] Yeah.

[1274] Why don't you turn off the TV?

[1275] why don't you put that junk food away and go run.

[1276] Yeah, you're a piece of shit.

[1277] Yeah, and wear our clothes and our shoes.

[1278] See, I kind of would probably go buy it.

[1279] I'd go, oh, they're telling the truth.

[1280] You'd never wear that.

[1281] No, you're right.

[1282] You're right, you're right.

[1283] You would never.

[1284] So that's not what they do.

[1285] They tell stories of, you know, the Tillmans.

[1286] They tell stories of people overcoming adversity against the odds.

[1287] Nike believes that one leg running in New York City.

[1288] Exactly.

[1289] You don't have an arm.

[1290] You can win the shot put competition.

[1291] Like Nike believes there's greatness within you.

[1292] You have a higher capacity for great.

[1293] and achievement that you've ever thought.

[1294] And then you're like, maybe I'll turn the TV off.

[1295] Maybe I'll try and run half a mile.

[1296] Yeah.

[1297] Maybe I'll run a mile.

[1298] And I want to wear the symbol of someone that believes that about me, that believes there's greatness.

[1299] So all of the great brands don't market like charities.

[1300] Apple think different campaign.

[1301] I mean, give you example after example.

[1302] So the third pillar was I was going to promote this thing in a very different way.

[1303] I was going to make it.

[1304] It was a party.

[1305] You don't leave a lot of room for my jokes, Scott.

[1306] I just want to point that out.

[1307] I know you're, I know your, your, your, your freight train has left the station and it's a really well -run freight train.

[1308] But your way right away.

[1309] You just can't take it.

[1310] No, I got, I got to get it in there.

[1311] Okay, go ahead.

[1312] I'm sorry.

[1313] Oh, my gosh.

[1314] I fucked you upset.

[1315] No brands.

[1316] No brands.

[1317] We were going to just make it fun.

[1318] I actually looked at this like, I'm, we're throwing parties.

[1319] We're throwing parties where people get clean water in these villages.

[1320] And charity water's first, oh, and then the, probably the most important thing was we wouldn't send white people.

[1321] that look like me over to Africa to actually drill the wells.

[1322] That's a good idea.

[1323] So all the work had to be led by the locals.

[1324] So I just believed for it to be either culturally appropriate or sustainable.

[1325] It's Ethiopians and Ethiopia doing all that work.

[1326] Yes.

[1327] So all of Kristen's wells were managed by a team of 350 locals.

[1328] Yeah.

[1329] That gives them the ownership over it so that they will then be vested.

[1330] And they get the credit.

[1331] Right.

[1332] And the status and the prestige and the paths on the back.

[1333] Exactly.

[1334] So I put those things together, give away 100%.

[1335] prove it, build a cool brand that valued design and made it aspirational and fun, like invite you to be a part of something amazing.

[1336] Not because you have to, but because you want to.

[1337] You're missing the party if you don't.

[1338] You're missing the party and you don't want to miss the party.

[1339] This is the party where the whole world's getting clean drinking water.

[1340] And it's proven hugely successful.

[1341] This is a very, very successful charity, right?

[1342] Do you have numbers on how many people are now drinking fresh water as a result of this?

[1343] We've raised about $300 ,000.

[1344] 30 million bucks from over a million people in 100 countries.

[1345] And that's allowed us to help 29 ,000 villages get clean water and 8 .5 million people.

[1346] Wow.

[1347] Eight and a half million.

[1348] And now, is this a model that you feel like is franchisable?

[1349] I'm, I'm, um, or it would need your full dedication and passion.

[1350] No, sorry, the hesitation comes there because the 100 % model is incredibly challenging.

[1351] Yeah.

[1352] How do you raise the money for?

[1353] the administrative.

[1354] So there are lots of stories of almost insolvency and, you know, craziness along the way.

[1355] We've never borrowed a single penny from the, from public donations.

[1356] The way we do at 131 families, Kristen actually was one of those families years ago.

[1357] So 131 families.

[1358] It's been the founders of Twitter, Spotify, you know, senior execs at Apple, entrepreneurs, actors.

[1359] They fund the 80 staff, the office, the flights, the overhead.

[1360] salaries.

[1361] Right.

[1362] 131 people pay the unsexy costs so that a million donors, cynics, skeptics get the pure play.

[1363] Oh, that's nice.

[1364] And my wife's one of those people?

[1365] She was.

[1366] Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. So those, and we treat them like investors.

[1367] And they come and they get to know the staff.

[1368] They love giving to the Epson toner.

[1369] Yeah.

[1370] Actually, because they're making it possible.

[1371] They trust.

[1372] So it requires a lot of trust to give in that way.

[1373] Well, bizarrely, that investment, if you can sell it as such, is every dollar you give can raise 10.

[1374] Or I don't know what the ratio is.

[1375] But there is a ratio there where it's an even better investment on your dollar.

[1376] Sure.

[1377] Sure.

[1378] So it just, it worked.

[1379] And at our first party.

[1380] Well, why isn't it franchisable?

[1381] Because of that aspect of it?

[1382] No, people are doing it.

[1383] People are taking the charity water model and doing it in health.

[1384] They're doing it in shelter.

[1385] But you personally, you're sticking with water.

[1386] You're not going on to.

[1387] So we've solved one, okay, so now there's 663 million people without water.

[1388] So over the last 12 years, we've gone from a billion without to 663.

[1389] So that's progress.

[1390] Sure.

[1391] Moving in the right direction, even as population is increased.

[1392] One of the problems is almost everyone that got access to clean water got access in the cities and the towns.

[1393] The rural people got left behind.

[1394] Right.

[1395] So now 82 % of the people on earth that don't have water live in the remote rural areas.

[1396] So the harder work is kind of, you know, start to now.

[1397] Yeah.

[1398] So our 8 .4 out of that is 178th of the problem solved.

[1399] Right.

[1400] So how dare I start something new now with 12 years of expertise and knowledge?

[1401] No, this is, you're slowly eroding me and you're cracking my, uh, 1 %.

[1402] I'm like the grinch right now.

[1403] My heart has grown 1 .5 times, not three yet.

[1404] Uh, but yeah, the fact, I am glad you're not jumping ship in trying to now start up 15 different things that use your successful model.

[1405] I think the focus is important.

[1406] Yeah.

[1407] Yeah.

[1408] Let me tell you a story of, I think, what's been, so the movement has really been powered by, A, cynics.

[1409] So at the day one of charity water, 12 years ago, I actually threw a party in a nightclub because I had no better ideas.

[1410] So I went to 10 June.

[1411] It was a place in the meatpacking district before they opened.

[1412] The owners donated the club.

[1413] And this time, people came in.

[1414] They had to donate 20 bucks and put it in a big plexy box.

[1415] And they walked past photos of people drinking dirty water.

[1416] and then people drinking clean water at the end.

[1417] And we raised $15 ,000 at night.

[1418] And I'll never forget that a guy I knew from clubs who sold drugs.

[1419] He was a weed dealer, gave $500.

[1420] And he said it was the first charitable gift he'd made in his life.

[1421] So he was 30s.

[1422] And I knew we were onto something.

[1423] Not that that was our demographic.

[1424] Like that's not a donor.

[1425] But while I took one of the most cynical people I knew who said, well, if I know that all this money is going.

[1426] So we took the $15 ,000 that night.

[1427] We rushed it to Northern, Uganda, found a local partner, did a few water projects, six rehabs where we took old broken wells and fixed them again.

[1428] And then we sent the photos, the GPS, and video back to the 700 people that came to the party.

[1429] Close the loop.

[1430] And I just remember the feedback.

[1431] We were blown away that we told them where the money went.

[1432] Yeah.

[1433] They could see the impact of $20 coming together as a collective.

[1434] Yeah.

[1435] And we tried to build that feedback loop into everything the organization did, you know, and still does today.

[1436] Yeah.

[1437] And one of the cool things is we stumbled upon this idea of getting people to donate their birthdays to charity water.

[1438] Yeah, that was a very inventive.

[1439] And that's what, you know, we basically said, look, Kristen probably has everything she needs, right?

[1440] I mean, actually needs.

[1441] Yeah.

[1442] Tenth of the world doesn't have clean water.

[1443] So what if she could turn her birthday into a redemptive giving moment that involves friends and family in something great where you can actually see the result of where the money goes?

[1444] So, you know, the stories have been incredible.

[1445] Six -year -old kids, nine -year -olds donating their birthdays.

[1446] There was this nine -year -old girl in Seattle, and I'm going to try and just open up your heart a little more now.

[1447] 1 .5, come on.

[1448] I've got to get you to two before we end.

[1449] Nine -year -old girl hears me speak about water and talk about these kids, and she cancels her ninth birthday party and says she is going to give up her gifts, skip her party, and ask for $9 donations.

[1450] And she wants to raise $300.

[1451] bucks okay and she raises 220 so she falls short she tells her mom says look um i'm gonna try harder next year and you've you've got like you understand kids are just they get this like the injustice kids get this because it's not fair why are these kids not drinking dirty you know why are they not drinking clean water so um right after her birthday she's killed in a car crash there's a 20 car pile up on the highway in seattle a tractor trailer jackknives loses control she's the only fatality So I'm in the Central African Republic at the time And I land in New York and turn on my phone My Blackberry at the time And I get a message from the pastor of her church Saying his little girl, my church died She'd just done a birthday campaign for you The family wants to reopen this campaign In memoriam of Rachel And he said, I'm going to get everybody in my church To donate nine bucks So we do And I remember sitting with my wife Making that $80 donation Just to get her to $300 And then in the hours following, it just starts to explode.

[1452] Start spreading through the Seattle community, through the country, start spreading to Europe.

[1453] The story of this little nine -year -old girl who gave up her birthday, canceled it, and wanted kids she'd never met across an ocean to get clean drinking water.

[1454] 31 ,000 people give over $1 .3 million.

[1455] Wow.

[1456] On the one -year anniversary of her death, I got to take her mom.

[1457] She had a single mom and her grandparents to Ethiopia, village to village to village to village to meet thousands of the kids who had clean water through that campaign.

[1458] Oh, my God.

[1459] That's lovely.

[1460] Even more amazing, years later, we looked at what those 31 ,000 strangers did.

[1461] And so many of them were compelled to follow this nine -year -old girl's lead and donate their birthdays.

[1462] They raise another $2 million.

[1463] So she'd helped over 100 ,000 people get clean water.

[1464] Wow.

[1465] realizing 11 while she was alive.

[1466] So that's what charity orders been.

[1467] I mean, and I have story and story after, you know, there was a little girl this year that sent in $8 .15.

[1468] She was six.

[1469] She sent in her allowance.

[1470] And she drew a picture of her standing next to what she thought a well look like in Africa.

[1471] And her notes said, I'm sending this money so people stop dying in bad water.

[1472] So, you know, the million people, it's been this unbelievable community of people rejecting the skepticism or maybe rejecting the apathy that would be so easy to embrace with a global issue like this and saying I could do something.

[1473] It feels overwhelming.

[1474] I could raise 300 bucks and help a few people.

[1475] Here's what I'm doing right now.

[1476] I have my backpack on my counter on my desk.

[1477] I have two checkbooks in here, okay?

[1478] One is my wife and I shared account.

[1479] Now the easy thing for me to do would be to write a check out of here.

[1480] But I'm going to write a check out of my own personal account.

[1481] And I'm going to donate a thousand dollars to you right now because that story just doubled my heart you're at three yeah i'm at three oh good i'm gonna write you a check now while i'm writing this check do i write to charity water yeah i do just charity water of course the words charity and water i don't i don't know how to spell water wasn't very creative uh with that one i don't know if i know how to spell charity people don't have to think too hard um oh here's a pen um now you wrote a book i did thirst tell us about thirst why i write this check to you well it's it was that your life story that we just heard it can they not buy the book now it's some of that no no there's a lot more okay okay there's a lot more gosh i could have talked to you for hours it's it's yeah i mean i think it's uh it's a little bit of the double entendre of of how i i tried to find meaning um in in all the wrong places and really believe i i found it in service to others now um by the way it's it's it's an amazing thing like like what i get to do you know i've been to 69 countries now you I get to travel around the world inviting people to the party of generosity of giving, like of giving in a pure way.

[1482] Yeah, it feels fucking awesome, right?

[1483] Right?

[1484] And then I've been to Ethiopia 30 times.

[1485] Like I've been in hundreds of villages that have gotten, I'm there sometimes when, I mean, I was there with Kristen, when clean water is shooting out of the ground and a thousand people holding their, you know, women holding their children are clapping and screaming.

[1486] Because a guy like you wrote a check, that's 30 people.

[1487] Like, it's, like, that's actually real to me. Yeah, it's unbelievable when you open yourself up to that.

[1488] And you actually, the problem is, is it's so, it's so scary.

[1489] Because if you acknowledge the problem, it can feel daunting.

[1490] It can feel overwhelming.

[1491] It's like, it's almost easier to just keep a wall up around the whole thing.

[1492] But what about being, what about another way to look at that?

[1493] Please, tell me. What if you or the guy, you know, I mean, sounds like Kristen already has this reputation.

[1494] but what if you were the guy that started at a three and people doing good work out there in foster care with the homeless health care HIV AIDS you pick the issue right trafficking they know that anybody that gets in front of Dax he's just going to write him a check like he's that guy we can't we can't let people know that though we don't want people to know that but wouldn't it be cool to be known as the person that that and you're just you're encouraging everyone you meet and maybe it's a $500 check.

[1495] Maybe it's a $1 ,000 check.

[1496] You're just saying, hey, go and do this good work in this thing that I, maybe I don't uniquely care about it, right?

[1497] Maybe clean water is not specifically your issue.

[1498] Right.

[1499] But that's encouraged.

[1500] Thank you so much.

[1501] Thank you for the check.

[1502] That's 30 people with water.

[1503] That's real.

[1504] Oh, wow.

[1505] Look at that.

[1506] But what have you were the guy that just, like the more, I believe the more you give, the more you give.

[1507] The more you give, the more you give.

[1508] I believe that.

[1509] Yeah, I believe that.

[1510] Yeah, because also.

[1511] I mean, if you're someone like me, I have my core group of fears.

[1512] There's like four of them that govern almost all my behavior, all my good behavior, and all my terrible behavior.

[1513] And one of those is fear of financial insecurity.

[1514] So it doesn't matter how much money you give me. I have the fear that I will be penniless.

[1515] So to give it away is scary.

[1516] But to your point, as I've been with Kristen and she forces me to give money away, I find that it's not going down.

[1517] Ironically or counterintuitively, it's going up.

[1518] the seemingly the more we give away, which is very bonkers, but requires a leap of faith.

[1519] I love that.

[1520] I believe that's true.

[1521] Let me just offer, you've heard the word giving back.

[1522] Giving back.

[1523] It's in the lexicon of society.

[1524] I hate the language.

[1525] I think it's everything that's wrong with giving and the way we approach it.

[1526] It is language that is steeped in debt and shame and guilt.

[1527] Giving because you have to.

[1528] Yes.

[1529] Giving back as if you, Dax Shepherd, have pillaged and plundered to such extent, you should finally throw some scraps back.

[1530] Totally great.

[1531] Like I owe people.

[1532] And that's not, there's no joy in that.

[1533] You will never, that will never bring a smile.

[1534] But giving because it's because you can, because you could write a thousand dollar check and help 30 people because it's an opportunity and it's a blessing.

[1535] And you've been blessed with favoring your career with health, with talent.

[1536] Two beautiful girls.

[1537] Two beautiful girls, a beautiful wife.

[1538] Like, you're giving because you can.

[1539] And you can improve other people's lives here at home.

[1540] Now with this check, you know, across an ocean, people that you've never met or maybe one day you will come and meet them.

[1541] Like, that's, you know, I want to get people addicted to giving, addicted to opening up their hearts.

[1542] It feels to me like younger people are more than my generation was.

[1543] Is there any debt on that or is that?

[1544] Yeah.

[1545] I mean, 55 % of our givers to charity water are millennials.

[1546] Yeah.

[1547] A typical, your parents or your grandparents' charities might be 5%.

[1548] Right.

[1549] Well, that's encouraging.

[1550] There's all these things I want to dislike about millennials.

[1551] I know, but I think they've got it kind of figured out for real.

[1552] Some of that.

[1553] I know you'll read a thing that they're like, instead of like, you know, buying something, they'd rather have avocado toast.

[1554] And I kind of think, well, maybe that is the right move anyways.

[1555] I have a question.

[1556] How do, how are you doing this?

[1557] Like, how are you turning dirty water into clean water?

[1558] Like logistically, what does that mean?

[1559] I'll take this question.

[1560] I'll take it.

[1561] There's several different technologies as employing.

[1562] There's six of them I can think of.

[1563] He's recapturing rainwater, which is in a lot of areas is the best thing to do.

[1564] He's drilling water.

[1565] He's drilling well.

[1566] Sometimes those can be dug with a hand.

[1567] They can be 40 feet down.

[1568] Sometimes they're 1 ,000 feet down.

[1569] You need to bring in those big rigs.

[1570] There's some purification systems that can be employed using UV, UF.

[1571] This is all right, right?

[1572] Yeah.

[1573] There's carbon filtration systems that can be employed.

[1574] So there's a combination of well drilling, filtration, reclamation.

[1575] Am I leaving something out?

[1576] No, that's great.

[1577] And there's about 650 locals now across 17 countries that are working on all those solutions.

[1578] Got it.

[1579] So we're solution agnostic, about 10 technologies across the portfolio.

[1580] We have a team of 80 people in New York that is raising the money, that is project managing, that's auditing, that's flying around to make sure the work's being done with high quality, being done on time, and then, you know, we're buying drilling rigs for our partners.

[1581] We're trying to increase their capacity so they can hire more hydrologists.

[1582] They can do more in each of the countries that they're working on.

[1583] So it's, sorry, and I also did a terrible job plugging the book.

[1584] No, you didn't.

[1585] So, Thurs, I mean, here's why you don't need to plug the book is you're an innately fascinating human being.

[1586] It took me very long to get to the part I was supposed to interview, which is a testament to how interesting you are.

[1587] So I can only imagine your book is that.

[1588] It's your voice.

[1589] Yes, you wrote this book.

[1590] Yeah, I wrote, and I gave all the advance away and the money, so I'm really hoping that this will inspire people.

[1591] I'm hoping that the book itself will...

[1592] Do you not like money?

[1593] Do you want money?

[1594] I want to give more money away.

[1595] You do talking engagements.

[1596] You get paid for those, right?

[1597] You know, for 10 years, I gave 100 % of all my speaking to charity water.

[1598] So there were years where I was making well more than the salary they were paying me. in speaking.

[1599] Now I'm doing a couple a year through a speaking bureau.

[1600] Well, you have a family, right?

[1601] It's okay.

[1602] I have two young kids now.

[1603] So that was the change.

[1604] Kristen has a saying, I like it, and I can't remember it, but it's something like you don't need to starve to help or something like that.

[1605] Like people who are judgmental of a lot of these different charities, you need a dynamic CEO.

[1606] You need a dynamic this or that of fundraiser.

[1607] You know that you get what you pay for.

[1608] So quite often you'll see some expenses that might trigger you, but in actuality, you couldn't run any successful business without paying for the talent.

[1609] And that's just you can't really get around that.

[1610] Yeah, but I'm not driven by money.

[1611] I mean, I, you know, I drive a Kia Sorrento, my fly coach.

[1612] Charity Waters raised $330 million.

[1613] We have never bought a business class ticket for myself or anyone else.

[1614] We fly business to do live shows because money is a brat.

[1615] I know, but you know, we take stewardship.

[1616] Like even, you know, if this $1 ,000 was in the other bank account, you don't want that going to a $9 ,000 ticket to Ethiopia, you want me and coach for 1250 for 14 hours.

[1617] I do.

[1618] I do.

[1619] Because it's nine trips to Ethiopia or it's one.

[1620] Yeah, you got to walk the walk.

[1621] It's incredible.

[1622] So my, my greatest ambition really personally around money is to be able to give a million dollars to one organization once.

[1623] Because someone did it for me and that story's in the book.

[1624] Someone basically saved us on the brink of insolvency.

[1625] There was a moment where in our two bank accounts, a year and a half in, we had $881 ,000 of these checks.

[1626] Yeah.

[1627] Money I couldn't touch.

[1628] on the way out.

[1629] And we had, I think, $11 in the other one.

[1630] And I was going to shut chair.

[1631] We were missing payroll.

[1632] We weren't paying ourselves.

[1633] I was making $40 grand at the time or something.

[1634] And the temptation, or I should say, the advice from others, go borrow from the $880 grand.

[1635] Like, you've got to make payroll.

[1636] You've got to pay your people.

[1637] That was nine months of burn.

[1638] And at that moment, I was going to shut the whole thing down.

[1639] I felt like if we took one penny, If we borrowed, if we wrote an IOU for $1, we would compromise our integrity.

[1640] That'd be a crack at the foundation.

[1641] We should all resign in shame.

[1642] And I was going to cry, business model failure.

[1643] 100 % models don't work if you're bootstrapping it.

[1644] They might work for a rich billionaire, you know, who could endow it or fund it.

[1645] And at that moment, a complete stranger, my friend Michael, who I started off talking, atheist, thinks that I, you know, pray to a figment of my imagination.

[1646] I'm with him, but whatever.

[1647] walks in, sits with me at this moment, learns about the vision, learns about the model.

[1648] He's a cynic too.

[1649] He's British and he's like, I don't trust charities.

[1650] I don't give to charities.

[1651] So he actually liked how clear this was, writes a million dollar check in the overhead account.

[1652] Oh, my gosh.

[1653] So we go from no charity water 11 years ago and a complete stranger puts a year's worth of gasoline in the tank.

[1654] That time allowed us to then go find 131.

[1655] Michaels.

[1656] Right.

[1657] We needed the time.

[1658] So that's what I want to do.

[1659] I want to do that for someone else at an early stage.

[1660] And later, you know, what I've realized about that, it was as much the money that we actually needed practically as someone believed in me. Like someone said, keep going.

[1661] Yeah.

[1662] Don't quit.

[1663] Like this is too important.

[1664] Right.

[1665] And that, like that gave me a confidence.

[1666] So I want to be able to do that, not the house in the Hamptons or, you know, I don't, I don't want to drive a BMW or a Mercedes like a where do you live where we live in a 1200 square foot apartment in battery park city we love in new york city yeah oh okay um well it's been a real pleasure because i've really enjoyed it i wish you a ton of luck um but thirst thirst yep it's it's got so many amazing stories of the community you know if people are interested in water it's not the theory of water i mean i'm telling you know there's a story in the book about a 13 year old girl who hung herself because she spilled her water in Ethiopia and she didn't want to go back for water anymore.

[1667] And there's stories in the book about women who get clean water for the first time in their life and they feel beautiful.

[1668] Having traveled around the world, I've never seen men get water.

[1669] It is culturally the role of the women and the girls.

[1670] And if you're a teenage girl and you don't have clean water at your school or toilets, right, you're home one week a month.

[1671] So you know what happens there.

[1672] You drop out, you fall behind in your studies.

[1673] There's already enormous pressure against the girls to be educated in so many of these countries.

[1674] And, you know, these women are at risk of rape, hi -eat and attack, they're having their babies by the water holes, right?

[1675] They're often walking six hours a day.

[1676] Like, I can't exaggerate that.

[1677] And it's seven days a week.

[1678] So what's shocked me is, you know, you and I would come, and Kristen probably at this experience, you'd walk into a village with me and you'd see the water source.

[1679] And you would say, I wouldn't let my animal drink that water.

[1680] Sure.

[1681] It's brown.

[1682] It's viscous.

[1683] It's shocking, let alone our children.

[1684] And then, you know, after the clean water, it's clean.

[1685] It's water that you or I would drink.

[1686] And what shocked me over time is that when I ask women, like, how are their lives different?

[1687] I'm always expecting them to talk about dirty water becomes clean.

[1688] And they always talk about the time reclaimed and what they're doing with that.

[1689] And we hear stories of entrepreneurship, starting small businesses, women saying, I get to lead my families.

[1690] I spend more time with my kids.

[1691] But, you know, imagine reclaiming 42 hours a week.

[1692] Yes.

[1693] Like just all of a sudden, because somebody, you know, wrote a check and a drilling rig rolled into your village.

[1694] and found clean drinking water, 220 feet, you know, 22 -story building underground.

[1695] And now, like, you don't have to walk six hours, you walk six minutes?

[1696] That was for me getting sober.

[1697] I'm like, I had 42 hours of free time on my hands all of a sudden.

[1698] Right.

[1699] Yeah.

[1700] I think I kind of had that experience.

[1701] And it's incredible.

[1702] And you've done something with it.

[1703] Yeah, the downstream implications of having water are quite incredible.

[1704] It's a really great base thing to try to.

[1705] effect change in.

[1706] So Scott Harrison, you're fantastic.

[1707] Everybody buy Thirst and read it and contribute to Charity Water because they're the good guys.

[1708] They can donate on your website, right?

[1709] Yeah, just CharityWater .org.

[1710] Thank you for a gift.

[1711] That means a lot.

[1712] Charitywater .org.

[1713] Okay.

[1714] Thank you, Scott.

[1715] Thanks.

[1716] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1717] Rolling, rolling, rolling.

[1718] rolling, rolling, rolling.

[1719] That's not a fact check song for you.

[1720] It's just Wobby Wob says rolling.

[1721] He does.

[1722] Before we start.

[1723] Yeah.

[1724] And it makes me think of that song.

[1725] Rolling, rolling, rolling.

[1726] Do you know that song rolling, rolling, rolling?

[1727] Of course.

[1728] I never know what you're going to know and you're not going to know.

[1729] I know.

[1730] It's hard to know.

[1731] Because you're getting all your music off the radio.

[1732] The radio and no, and movies, TV.

[1733] Commercial, driving by bodegas.

[1734] Not so much that.

[1735] You keep your windows up.

[1736] Yeah.

[1737] Because sometimes I sing in the car and I don't want people to hear it.

[1738] And you have a high fear level.

[1739] So you keep those windows up tight.

[1740] In case people stick their hands in.

[1741] Try to get grab you.

[1742] Try to get me. Yeah.

[1743] Get a bit of those fatchies.

[1744] Yeah.

[1745] Got to protect them.

[1746] Can't we blame them.

[1747] Who can.

[1748] Yeah.

[1749] Well, no, we can blame them.

[1750] Yeah.

[1751] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what do we just say?

[1752] What do we condone or condemn?

[1753] Keep your hands off of moniker's fatchies.

[1754] Those are hers, okay?

[1755] For real.

[1756] Really, guys, stop it.

[1757] Enough.

[1758] Enough.

[1759] Anyway, Scott Harrison.

[1760] You know what's really interesting, maybe not to you, but to me, but you know, there's some parallels between Howard and Robin and you and I. I mean, I don't want to, we wish.

[1761] We wish.

[1762] Yes, make no mistake.

[1763] I don't think we're in their league at all.

[1764] But there are some parallels.

[1765] They're friends.

[1766] We're friends.

[1767] And, you know, Robin is very famous for her faties.

[1768] Oh, she is?

[1769] Oh, incredibly famous.

[1770] They do a lot of songs in tribute to her, and they always talk about her pendulous breasts.

[1771] They're in almost all the songs.

[1772] Oh, really?

[1773] And she's really embraced them.

[1774] I think it shows some good nature on her part.

[1775] Yeah.

[1776] And then, I guess to get even, he talks often about his small penis.

[1777] Oh, okay.

[1778] Yeah, so it seems a tit for tat, which is the theme of 19.

[1779] Yeah.

[1780] Okay.

[1781] Interesting.

[1782] Just put that in the back of your...

[1783] Craw?

[1784] Yeah.

[1785] in your pipe and smoke it, whatever your preferred phrases, to get us out of that.

[1786] Okay, great.

[1787] Into our facts.

[1788] Scott, facts.

[1789] I want one time for you to just start a fact check by going, well, my conclusion is he was full of shit.

[1790] Wouldn't it be horrible if I did that on an expert?

[1791] I sometimes have some fear of that.

[1792] It'd be kind of cool.

[1793] We're definitely going to get an expert in here eventually who's completely full of shit.

[1794] Oh, that'll be fun.

[1795] To expose?

[1796] Yes.

[1797] Like Inside Edition will expose.

[1798] Is that the one where Trump grabbed him by the pussy?

[1799] I don't know.

[1800] But again, we've come out the other side of that where we think that he might have just been a spotter on a cheer team.

[1801] He really got a bum rap for that.

[1802] Poor guy was just helping out the flyer.

[1803] Yeah, you got to.

[1804] Sometimes you got to catch him by the pussy.

[1805] You just got it.

[1806] I'm more comfortable with you saying that word.

[1807] I'd hate saying it actually weird.

[1808] I mean, I like that bit that we do, but every time I say it, it's like I have a visceral.

[1809] I have like a visceral kind of grossness and fear, yeah.

[1810] I really have enjoyed certain female comedians that I follow on Twitter or whatever that use the word a lot because I feel like they're reclaiming the word.

[1811] Oh, not the word.

[1812] Oh, okay, great.

[1813] No, the whole phrase.

[1814] Oh, catch them by the fooder.

[1815] Or grab them, you know, because we're making light of it.

[1816] Well, that's what you.

[1817] We have to.

[1818] You got to do it.

[1819] Yeah, yeah, it's a good time.

[1820] And I like that we do that.

[1821] But I just sometimes get nervous about people might take it as like.

[1822] We're condoning.

[1823] Yes.

[1824] Grabbing pussies.

[1825] And we don't.

[1826] Unless they're your partner and it's.

[1827] Unless you want them to be grabbed.

[1828] That's right.

[1829] Or you ask for them to be grabbed.

[1830] Some of them want to be grabbed.

[1831] Oh, it was Access Hollywood, not Inside Edition.

[1832] Thank you, Hobby.

[1833] We wouldn't want, yeah.

[1834] We don't want any legal issues.

[1835] No. By the way, you know, you and I are both superstitious, and we both don't feel like we deserve the success of this experience.

[1836] We keep trying to figure out how we're going to go down.

[1837] And it just occurred to me, maybe just like a litany of lawsuits and now inside addition.

[1838] We might owe all of our earnings.

[1839] Yeah.

[1840] This might be a net loss for us, but it'll still be a net win.

[1841] Because it's so fun.

[1842] That's right.

[1843] It's worth it.

[1844] I'd pay to do this.

[1845] Me too.

[1846] Literally, if we had to pay $20 every time we came up to the attic to do this, wouldn't you?

[1847] Yeah.

[1848] I would.

[1849] Yeah.

[1850] I'll go see a movie.

[1851] That's $20.

[1852] I certainly get way more entertained out of this than I do going to see a movie.

[1853] Yeah.

[1854] I'd pay to talk to you, yeah.

[1855] Let's pay each other.

[1856] Then it's a net.

[1857] Great.

[1858] Great.

[1859] Great.

[1860] Okay.

[1861] Okay, Scott.

[1862] So you mentioned the Pat Tillman documentary.

[1863] Mm -hmm.

[1864] And that's called the Tillman story.

[1865] Okay.

[1866] In case people want to check it out.

[1867] It's great.

[1868] You should.

[1869] You said that we see Roblo's butt buns in about last night.

[1870] Oh.

[1871] And I don't think you do.

[1872] I did some research.

[1873] And I think I ruined my computer.

[1874] Oh, you'd think so?

[1875] Yeah.

[1876] Like you got some bad cookies or something?

[1877] I was on some bad sites, I think.

[1878] And you think they put cookies in or whatever?

[1879] Yeah, I like that they're called cookies.

[1880] I know, you love cookies.

[1881] I'll take any kind of cookie.

[1882] Anyway, but I think you maybe meant the movie Youngblood.

[1883] Oh, that's possible.

[1884] The ice skating movie?

[1885] I don't know what it's about, but I think his...

[1886] A hockey movie.

[1887] Oh, I think his buns appear there.

[1888] But in about last night, you do see it just a tiny, tiny piece of his penis.

[1889] Oh, you do?

[1890] A piece of penis?

[1891] Just a tiny piece of this penis.

[1892] And how did it look?

[1893] Side view.

[1894] No, and you can't see it enough to make any conclusions.

[1895] Small side view.

[1896] Inclusive.

[1897] Tiny.

[1898] But I would imagine, even that sliver you saw, I bet the skin looked soft and even.

[1899] Smooth.

[1900] Is it smooth, soft, and even?

[1901] No discoloration.

[1902] A consistent pigment.

[1903] Yeah, I would say so, but it was just so quick.

[1904] I have to imagine he has a very beautiful penis.

[1905] Oh, I believe that, yeah.

[1906] Yeah, I don't think that it's overwhelming in its girth or length, but I do think visually...

[1907] No, we don't know.

[1908] It is probably quite beautiful.

[1909] You never know, okay?

[1910] You don't know, but I'm just making an assumption based on his face.

[1911] Can you make assumptions?

[1912] Like, I don't think that about boobs.

[1913] Like, when I'm thinking about people's boobs, I can't really know what they look like.

[1914] That's true.

[1915] And I can't even really make any assumption.

[1916] Now, I've seen a lot of penises in my day, friends of mine's penises.

[1917] And I've got to say for the most part, they tend to match the person's face pretty well.

[1918] Do you think that about boobs?

[1919] No. No, boob seems to be a real crapshoot.

[1920] You don't know what's coming when that brazier hits the floor.

[1921] Yeah, I agree.

[1922] Chef's surprise.

[1923] You know what I'm saying?

[1924] Um, yeah.

[1925] Yeah, but anyways, it's, and by the way, can I tell you, it's one of the best parts of being a young man and, and, uh, and, uh, becoming sexual is, is removing a brazier and then let's see what we got.

[1926] It's, there's so much excitement.

[1927] Oh, wow.

[1928] About the reveal.

[1929] Yeah.

[1930] It's so fun.

[1931] Yeah.

[1932] Yeah, girls don't have that.

[1933] They don't, right?

[1934] No. Like, you're not watching the slacks come down like, oh, what do we got?

[1935] It's so weird, isn't it?

[1936] Yeah.

[1937] The difference.

[1938] The boys are more visual, yeah.

[1939] We don't want to perpetuate this notion that men and women are so different because we've come to learn they're not that different.

[1940] It could still, this could all be societal.

[1941] Well, that's true.

[1942] It could be cultural.

[1943] But isn't that so interesting that, yeah.

[1944] Most, girl, we'll just say most because I know, like, our friend Jackie will be the first to admit she was on here on Christmas.

[1945] She is waiting to see what present is inside that box.

[1946] Maybe, yeah.

[1947] Yeah.

[1948] She was the only person who said she was.

[1949] would want to walk in and see someone naked in her trailer of all the people polled the very famous poll that we did about me well i wasn't asked yes you were and you said you'd be scared that it'd be scary depends on the person oh okay depends on who it was standing there i think okay i thought you had said you'd be scared to walk in and see like an adult man well a stranger yes but i guess in the situation it was me i know so that's how it gets it gets It is confusing.

[1950] It is confusing, yeah, yeah, because I'm a safe presence.

[1951] Right.

[1952] Like, you know if you open a door and I'm there naked, I'm not going to lunge at you.

[1953] Yeah, exactly.

[1954] Right.

[1955] Well, maybe.

[1956] I don't know how to state you were in at that time.

[1957] Oh, it was sober and how's at work?

[1958] Yeah, so with the idea that it's you makes it a little different.

[1959] Could we do a hypothetical with you?

[1960] Yeah.

[1961] Let's say that you did a guest role on Friday night lights.

[1962] Oh, okay.

[1963] And you open your door.

[1964] door.

[1965] I'm going to go through the cast.

[1966] Oh, dream.

[1967] Okay.

[1968] Okay.

[1969] You open the door and they've accidentally put Saracen in your trailer and he's naked.

[1970] I'd be excited.

[1971] You'd love it.

[1972] Yeah.

[1973] Okay.

[1974] How quickly would you look, like in priority, what would you look at?

[1975] Would you go straight to his penis?

[1976] Or would you like check out his chest and his abs and his thighs?

[1977] Well, look, at course, at first, at first you would have to look at the penis because it's so unexpected.

[1978] Okay.

[1979] All right.

[1980] But then immediately you'd avert your eyes.

[1981] You would?

[1982] Yeah, I think, because it's like, oh, I'm not supposed to see.

[1983] Like, the response is like, oh, I'm not supposed to see this.

[1984] Yes, but I can't imagine anything greater that could happen to a guy than the door flies open.

[1985] You're naked.

[1986] The girl looking at you looks at your penis and can't look away.

[1987] I think that would be like a 10 experience for the guy.

[1988] That's just not happening.

[1989] Ever going to happen?

[1990] No, because a human reaction is to think, oh, no. Oh, this person's shy or?

[1991] Or, no, just this is a situation that is unexpected and I'm not supposed to be in.

[1992] And this is a, I'm not supposed to see.

[1993] So, okay, this is what happens.

[1994] So then I walk in and I see it and I'm like, and I look.

[1995] And then I. Do you register everything about, like, do you do a mental snapshot?

[1996] No. For Saracin.

[1997] I mean, I would want to, but I would move.

[1998] move away so quick that you might miss out i miss it and then what happens then he starts talking to me okay right so that was going to be chapter two to this hypothetical is what if he immediately put you at his what you immediately surmise is oh he is so comfortable with this he so you open the door you maybe even let out so i'm saracen you're you uh so come in oh um oh my goodness what a mix up am i in your trailer uh yeah yeah oh my gosh i'm so sorry i didn't even know i was normally I have the trailer that's where did you park um do you need I'll give you a minute yeah it's not good even if I like the person it's not it makes me it so uncomfortable oh man yeah okay now let's flip the script I wish my answer was different let's flip the script you're minka kelly I'm a I'm guest starring okay okay you're in your trailer and oh oh my god I'm so sorry oh hey do you want to come in um yeah and that's the end of that Yeah, yeah.

[1999] Fuck, I would love to, yeah.

[2000] But yes, if the woman just started a conversation, I would 100 % talk as long as she wanted to talk.

[2001] Yeah.

[2002] I would be making no effort to get out of there.

[2003] I know.

[2004] I don't know, you know.

[2005] This is such a fun hypothetical, isn't it?

[2006] Yeah.

[2007] Or it's just for a guy, fun.

[2008] No, it's fun, but if it's someone you've never met before, For most girls, I feel like.

[2009] No, because it's all, it's all, it's already semi uncomfortable to talk to someone you've never met before already.

[2010] So then there's this element of like, oh, something is weird and all right.

[2011] And I'm not supposed to be here.

[2012] I'm not supposed to see any of this.

[2013] It feels.

[2014] See, for me, if I know the person, then it gets complicated.

[2015] Isn't that interesting?

[2016] Like if I. complicated.

[2017] Like if I walked into the Hansen's house and Amy was there naked, I would panic.

[2018] And no matter how casual and inviting and cordial she was being, I would be in a panic to turn around and get out of there.

[2019] Yeah.

[2020] Look.

[2021] You know what I'm saying?

[2022] Yes.

[2023] But if it's one of their neighbors who have met two times, they're naked and they want to chat?

[2024] I'm like, yeah.

[2025] Oh yeah.

[2026] Tell them to come by.

[2027] You want me to write a note?

[2028] Like I would, you know what I'm saying?

[2029] Okay, but look, the problem is if you're accidentally running into someone naked and it's a stranger, it's like, oh, oh.

[2030] So sorry.

[2031] Yes.

[2032] Charlie.

[2033] Sorry.

[2034] And then the normal reaction is for everyone to scramble.

[2035] Okay.

[2036] So if one person is not scrambling.

[2037] If they're sitting down in a chair.

[2038] Then there's something maybe odd.

[2039] My kind of weird.

[2040] Yeah.

[2041] They're a little pathological.

[2042] Well, hold on.

[2043] No. Pathology implies.

[2044] something destructive about it.

[2045] Yeah, there is if you're, if you're naked and a stranger comes in and then you're just normally speaking to them.

[2046] No, in Erica Young's Fear of Flying, a very heralded and celebrated book, that's called the Ziplus fuck.

[2047] That's fine.

[2048] There's no moral imperatives there.

[2049] Like, let's say I'm single, the person who's naked single.

[2050] Barge in, we start up a conversation and then lovemaking ensues.

[2051] There's nothing wrong with that, right?

[2052] Morally?

[2053] Everyone's single?

[2054] That's a big win for everyone.

[2055] If everyone's really comfortable.

[2056] Uh -huh.

[2057] Yeah.

[2058] But it's, my point is, it's incredibly rare that everyone in that situation is going to be very comfortable.

[2059] No, it's two unicorns bumping into each other under a rainbow.

[2060] Yeah.

[2061] Good for them.

[2062] Scott Harrison.

[2063] Scott Harrison.

[2064] Um, well, good transition.

[2065] Did Harvey Weinstein jerk off?

[2066] Oh, into a plant?

[2067] At bungalow.

[2068] He did in a plant, but you said it was at bungalow?

[2069] Bungalow 8?

[2070] Yeah.

[2071] I thought that's where it was at.

[2072] No, it was at Socialista, a Cuban -themed club and restaurant.

[2073] Interesting.

[2074] Not Bungalow 8.

[2075] I mean, he might have done it there, too, but yeah.

[2076] Great.

[2077] So, oh, he said that a USA poll said that 42 % of people don't trust charities.

[2078] And I saw, I saw like a few different statistics, one in three distrust charities, one in five highly trust charities.

[2079] So, no consensus.

[2080] No, but like one in three seems to be the general.

[2081] General apprehension, one in three.

[2082] Yep.

[2083] And then you mentioned quickly something about millennial and avocado toast.

[2084] Oh, yeah.

[2085] And were you talking about the Washington Post article?

[2086] Probably.

[2087] Yeah, that there's like, he says.

[2088] said one explanation for why millennials have been slow to buy homes is avocado toast.

[2089] Yeah, that must be what I read.

[2090] Yeah.

[2091] I guess he was on, and he was on 60 minutes, so maybe you heard about that.

[2092] Oh, that's probably more likely where I saw it.

[2093] Yeah.

[2094] But it's funny because my knee -jerk, old man reaction is that that's bad.

[2095] Yeah.

[2096] But in reality, you know, I've read a couple different books on happiness.

[2097] And one of the things that they always say about happiness is that traditionally people think They should save money and buy an object, but that objects really don't give people any true memories or happiness, but that experiences do.

[2098] So one could argue that the experience of eating an avocado toast is probably better than owning a McMansion.

[2099] I would agree with you.

[2100] That's sort of how I'm living my life.

[2101] Yeah, you're a little millennial -y in that way.

[2102] I guess I am technically a millennial.

[2103] Yeah.

[2104] But, yeah, I do believe that.

[2105] I believe that I'd rather enjoy my day -to -day and have this.

[2106] things I want daily instead of over trying to have some big fancy item yeah yeah I've always been the opposite I'll like starve myself to save up for things I want yeah yeah and I'm generally unhappy so no no now I'm happy you're happy um oh Kristen's quote that you couldn't really remember but you said it was something about you don't need to starve to help oh uh -huh I spoke to her.

[2107] Went to the horse's ass.

[2108] I sure did.

[2109] And when she said, the quote is actually not, it's not about giving to charity.

[2110] It's about working for charity.

[2111] And it's, you shouldn't have to live in poverty to work on poverty.

[2112] Mm -hmm.

[2113] Which is great.

[2114] That's a nice quote.

[2115] Mm -hmm.

[2116] She's just recognizing that those people need money too.

[2117] But they should get paid so that they can continue to help.

[2118] And you get what you pay for.

[2119] So if you hire a very, successful, organized executive, the charity's probably going to reach more people.

[2120] Yeah.

[2121] And you got to pay for what you get.

[2122] Yeah.

[2123] But it does feel weird to know someone at a charity is making several hundred thousand dollars.

[2124] Yeah.

[2125] That's all.

[2126] That's everything.

[2127] Mm -hmm.

[2128] All right.

[2129] I love you.

[2130] Love you.

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