Paul Scheer

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

[1] I'm Dan Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Mrs. Mouse.

[3] Hello, Dan Shepard.

[4] Old -time friend here today.

[5] You used to be in the ticket office.

[6] That's right.

[7] At UCB.

[8] The front desk.

[9] A decade ago.

[10] Oh, yeah.

[11] Getting so excited when this person would come in.

[12] So excited.

[13] He's a legend.

[14] He's a legend.

[15] He's one of your heroes.

[16] Yeah.

[17] And you got to work with him on your tiny cooking show.

[18] Yeah, I did.

[19] Yes.

[20] It's a shock to me that Paul and I have never hung out.

[21] I'm surprised as well.

[22] So many mutual friends and then just being in the same circles for so long.

[23] So I've been waiting for this for a long time.

[24] I don't listen to every episode of their podcast, but I follow him on Instagram.

[25] And there's so many clips of his different podcasts.

[26] And he's just endlessly hysterical.

[27] Intertaining.

[28] He really is.

[29] He's an orator.

[30] Yeah.

[31] He's so well -spoken.

[32] Paul Scheer.

[33] He's an actor.

[34] He's a comedian.

[35] You love him in Black Monday, the League, Human Giant, Veep, and he has an incredible podcast called How Did This Get Made with our really number one, Jason Manzoukis, and his wife, June, Raphael.

[36] But he has a serious podcast, and it's incredibly good called Unspooled, and it's an academic breakdown of movies.

[37] So cool.

[38] First season was AFI's 100, and this season, which is out now, is tackling all different genres and stuff.

[39] So please check those out.

[40] He is so entertaining and funny, and we just had a blast talking to him.

[41] Yeah, he's a good boy.

[42] He sure is.

[43] Please enjoy Paul Shear.

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

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

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

[47] I didn't know how huge Diane Woodward was.

[48] I just know the name, but I didn't realize she was, like, Brando, female Brando, and he was aspiring.

[49] Well, it's that weird thing where she doesn't get as much, she doesn't get as much shine.

[50] I know.

[51] And she took a back seat for Paul.

[52] I know.

[53] Paul Newman.

[54] Yeah.

[55] Did you watch the dog?

[56] No. But I figured.

[57] It's the reservation.

[58] You love your dog.

[59] Time and energy.

[60] You watched all a Wednesday in one day.

[61] I know.

[62] I know.

[63] I sure did.

[64] Do you know Paul did my tiny food show?

[65] He did?

[66] Yes, that was super fun.

[67] It was very cute.

[68] That was a good time.

[69] Were you a guest judge or did you?

[70] Oh, he competed against Rob Heubel.

[71] Yes.

[72] Old time rival.

[73] Exactly.

[74] Friend and rival.

[75] What would you make tiny food?

[76] Yes, we're not like tiny food chefs.

[77] That's right.

[78] We have shocks.

[79] Very few people are.

[80] We made tiny carrot cakes, which was really nice.

[81] But it was a fun challenge to be as particular.

[82] as that.

[83] Nailed it, called me up one time, and they're like, can you be a judge for Nailed it?

[84] And I was like, no, I want to be on Nailed It.

[85] And I want to do it because that to me seems way more fun.

[86] Like I would love to try to do Survivor.

[87] I don't want to be on Survivor, but I would love to try to do those challenges in a way.

[88] Like a couple legs of it or something.

[89] Amazing race seems really fun.

[90] But I don't want to just sit there and make fun of them.

[91] I'm like, put me in that thing.

[92] And you know, when you're a judge of something, you have zero memory of it.

[93] It just floats away because you didn't really do anything.

[94] But if you were trying really hard to make miniature character character cake.

[95] You're going to remember that.

[96] I remember it very specifically.

[97] That was a Freudian slip miniature character cake.

[98] Do you have the type of personality as I do, which is even if I don't care about the thing, if I get in there, I all of a sudden really do.

[99] I guess I'm more competitive than I want to believe I am.

[100] Oh, yeah.

[101] I mean, and this is like a problem with my wife and I because when it comes to board games and board games, like there's no stakes to that.

[102] Yeah, right.

[103] You can get in these modes where you're like, God damn it, you didn't guess that that was a cart.

[104] I was drawing a cart, whatever it is.

[105] And my wife is really competitive.

[106] That makes for a very good pairing, I think.

[107] Chris and I are oddly competitive with one another as well.

[108] And I feel like it adds a little spice.

[109] I think what it does is it gives you a little bit of competition in a healthy way.

[110] We play tennis.

[111] We just started playing tennis in the pandemic.

[112] And when she beats me, I do you carry a little bit like I'm, you know, and she does too.

[113] Otherwise, why do it?

[114] If it has zero effect on your emotion, emotions are ears.

[115] Exactly.

[116] Yeah, except there was a rule for a while that we couldn't play spades together and you and Kristen couldn't play space.

[117] And we had to outlaw the game Settlers of Catan in our house.

[118] Okay, see, yeah.

[119] Did you ever play that game?

[120] I've not played that game because no one wanted to play with me. And you see, this is my problem with board games.

[121] I like to play a board game.

[122] I need like a concierge to come sometimes and be like, here's how we're going to do it.

[123] We're going to explain it to you.

[124] I feel similar.

[125] I could never look at the box and learn how to do it.

[126] I get exhausted at the thought of it.

[127] Someone has to walk me through it like I'm fine.

[128] Yeah, that's what I need.

[129] There's a guy, Rich Summer, who was on Mad Men, great guy, super funny dude.

[130] He is a board game freak.

[131] He has a garage full of board games.

[132] And what he would do is have these board game nights, but he would be the leader and go like, all right, this is the game that we're playing.

[133] And then be the arbiter of the rules.

[134] The liaison, the ambassador of the game.

[135] And I had the most fun playing games because it's like, once you open up that book, you have to dole out the rules a little bit slowly.

[136] Like, we are playing a very competitive game in our house right now called Rummy Cube.

[137] It's an old school.

[138] Love Rummy Cube.

[139] I know I've played it, but I can't remember.

[140] Oh, we do.

[141] The little tiles.

[142] The little tiles.

[143] We have little kids, too.

[144] And you can get the kids involved, too, and then everyone's a little bit, yeah.

[145] This one might interest you.

[146] It's useless because I can't remember the name.

[147] But before we leave, I can tell you.

[148] It's like a game of telephone, but it works like this.

[149] Everyone playing, because you can play with the kids, you have these little books, and they're dry erase, basically.

[150] And so on the front, you write a word, and then you pass.

[151] it to the left.

[152] And then that person sees the word, then they open it up, and then they draw a picture.

[153] And then they pass that to the left.

[154] And that person looks at the picture and then they write what word they think it is.

[155] So it's telephone, but with drawings, and everyone's doing it.

[156] It's rotating each time.

[157] And then at the end, you go through where it starts, like massage therapist.

[158] And then by the end, you know, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[159] Burning Tower of Babel, you know.

[160] That's so great, though, because our kids love to play telephone, but want to mess it up on the first try.

[161] Right?

[162] And that, like, yeah, it's like, come on, guys.

[163] We always try to tell them, we'll get the funny thing.

[164] You won't remember it.

[165] Yeah, I want it natural.

[166] I don't even monkey with it.

[167] The best is if you're earnest about it and it's wrong.

[168] It's way funnier.

[169] You know, it's when you get too many clever folks together and everyone's got a spin on everything.

[170] Your parents are comedians and you're like, I want to be a comedian too.

[171] I was, I got into it.

[172] My son the other night because he was trying to cheat at Madlibs.

[173] I'm like, no, no, no. The goal of Madlips is like, you're not trying to get it right.

[174] It's supposed to be funny and weird.

[175] He's like, well, wait, wait, just tell me how it sounds.

[176] I'm like, no. Is he a perfectionist?

[177] Is he the oldest?

[178] He is the oldest.

[179] He's all sports all the time.

[180] And I think he's like, how do I win?

[181] What's the rules?

[182] Like adjective, what adjective do you want?

[183] What do I need?

[184] It should be color, right, right, size.

[185] I don't want to sound stupid here.

[186] Yeah, oh, that's funny.

[187] Do they line up ones like you and ones like your wife?

[188] We're kind of split.

[189] Each kid has a little bit of us.

[190] My oldest has the sportsmanship of my wife and the competitiveness of my wife.

[191] And my youngest is super goofy.

[192] I don't want to devalue either one of us.

[193] But I think we can see little things policing yourself to allow them to be their own people.

[194] 100%.

[195] Yet at the same time, you're like, fuck, that's pretty obviously my wife.

[196] That's me. Yeah.

[197] And it's weird because you want them to be who they are.

[198] And then you realize you have no control over it because these two kids, came out two years apart, same parents, same house, and they are wildly different.

[199] I didn't do that.

[200] I didn't make that conscious choice.

[201] Yeah, even positive attributes of mine that I thought I'd developed through hard work and dedication.

[202] Yeah.

[203] I was clearly born with.

[204] My father filed bankruptcy multiple times, terrible with money, right?

[205] I was always very frugal.

[206] I saved every dollar I ever made.

[207] I thought in opposition to him, I have two daughters.

[208] One, you give her $10.

[209] She somehow figures out how to spend $12 when you take her.

[210] out with the $10.

[211] That's Delta.

[212] The other one has never spent one dollar she's been given over nine years.

[213] And I'm like, oh, I was born that way.

[214] One of my kids hoards money as if, like, it's hidden in a drawer.

[215] My other kid, if he gets money in a card, it has nothing to him.

[216] And is one you and one your wife?

[217] Is one of you more of a hoarder?

[218] I mean, look.

[219] You throw it around.

[220] I throw it around.

[221] No, I was so.

[222] Yeah, look at your cool outfit.

[223] It obviously costs money.

[224] Free Clippers jacket that I got.

[225] By the way, very smart of you.

[226] You've declared yourself a Clippers fan.

[227] I read in previous interviews.

[228] And I'm like, that's the move.

[229] You're going to be the 1 ,000th most famous Lakers fan.

[230] Get in that Clippers bandwagon.

[231] You got a chance to be at the banquet, you know?

[232] This is it.

[233] You know?

[234] It's very tactical.

[235] I'm always interested in how people deal with money early on because I am a little, I don't know if I can still say this term without being offensive.

[236] Like, OCD, I had a notebook.

[237] every dollar was accounted for because I was so broke or just barely making ends meet.

[238] I remember the first TV show I got, I got a couch and I was like, oh my God, $700 for a couch.

[239] It just felt like the most decadent thing.

[240] I was like, now I'm an adult.

[241] I bought my own couch.

[242] It's not an IKEA couch.

[243] I'm spoiling myself.

[244] Yeah.

[245] I'm very good at understanding where the money goes.

[246] I'm on it.

[247] You know, I think my wife is a little bit more loose with it.

[248] Lucy goose.

[249] Yes.

[250] She'll always say, like, we need to talk about cutting down our spending.

[251] And then it always is about me, but I'm like, but I'm not, I'm keeping a consistent balance.

[252] I'm good.

[253] But then I realize I don't argue with it anymore.

[254] I just go, you're right.

[255] We do.

[256] We do.

[257] And I just sit there and then I walk away and I keep on doing what I'm doing.

[258] Four months later, she tells you to back off again, ease off the spending throttle.

[259] Yeah, I was crazy about money.

[260] I never made much.

[261] I always had a bunch save for how little I made.

[262] I'm shocked with how much I have to unravel currently now that I have some.

[263] I am in that position, too.

[264] I literally debated getting a new computer for six months.

[265] Oh, my gosh.

[266] And I'm like, oh, I don't know.

[267] And I had this computer for like six years.

[268] I mean, I do use it to generate my living.

[269] I was like, literally the only thing that I use every single day.

[270] I'm like, I don't know.

[271] And I'm like beating myself up.

[272] I guess it's $2 ,000.

[273] And there are those moments.

[274] And then there are moments where I don't think about it at all.

[275] It's also we are in a profession where our money comes in in crazy ways.

[276] He's like, I'm still getting checks from when I did the Conan O 'Brien show when I was first starting out, like, as like an under five performer, literally, like, 10 cents.

[277] But money comes in in all different directions.

[278] It's also the hardest, there's probably worse.

[279] It seems like a very hard profession to predict what you're going to make.

[280] 100%.

[281] Right?

[282] So it's like, yeah, you're getting these checks.

[283] They've been coming now for, I guess, 28 years, the Conan show.

[284] I think the first time I saw you on there.

[285] But you're like, I don't know, are they coming for another 28?

[286] Is it 6 cents in 19 years?

[287] Where are we at?

[288] It's impossible to know.

[289] It's scary.

[290] And I also just feel, as I've had these kids and I'm getting a little bit older, I just want to spend on experiences.

[291] We just went on a nice vacation.

[292] And whenever it's a vacation with the family, I'm like, yeah.

[293] Now, if I go to a hotel, I'm like, Hampton Inn, June's like, Hampton Inn.

[294] I'm like, oh, Hampton is great.

[295] They got the desk.

[296] They got a clean.

[297] They got a desk.

[298] It's great.

[299] And she's like, you can stay.

[300] I'm like, no, Hampton Inn.

[301] I'm like, that's where I'm at.

[302] You love it.

[303] Clippers.

[304] Hampton in.

[305] Just trying to keep it.

[306] It's simple.

[307] I love the Clippers.

[308] I'm taking pot shots at him, but I love the Clippers.

[309] No, the Clippers are a lot of fun.

[310] I'm a New York guy.

[311] I came from New York, grew up there, and I was a Nick fan.

[312] I knew I was going to be living out in L .A., and I was like, I can't be...

[313] You just couldn't go to the Lakers, right?

[314] No. I can't jump on a bandwagon, and the clippers were really fun when I came out here, and I just fell in love with them, but I didn't want to ever be one of those people, like, well, I grew up here, so I'm always going to be that.

[315] You can do that for college, I think, but if you have kids or you want to bring them and you live here.

[316] You live here.

[317] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[318] Okay, so Long Island, some town in Long Island.

[319] Long Island, I mean, which I think to most people, and it should, probably all blends together.

[320] I meet so many people from Long Island, they're like, oh, I'm from this place, and I've never heard of it.

[321] Right.

[322] And it's not that big.

[323] But it is big, isn't it?

[324] It's skinny, but it's long as fuck, right?

[325] It's very long.

[326] And there's a lot of...

[327] Take you three hours to drive the length of that thing?

[328] Yeah, you can drive the whole...

[329] I mean, and I have.

[330] I've gone out there right to the lighthouse.

[331] Oddly, my wife, who I did not know growing up in Long Island, is...

[332] from like three towns away from me. Oh, wow.

[333] That's them, too.

[334] Chris and the Dexter from Michigan.

[335] Same, same.

[336] Michigan, you have a lot of good sports teams to root for there.

[337] Well, certainly our hockey team was kind of undefeatable.

[338] My whole childhood there and the Pistons won 88, 89.

[339] So that imprints on you as a kid.

[340] Bill Lambert and all these guys.

[341] And then you have the whole lore that why it's a better team than all the others.

[342] Because my whole take on that is they didn't have one star.

[343] Yeah.

[344] Like, there's some reason that's so cool to me. I love that.

[345] Middle class guys.

[346] Working as a team.

[347] Best team ever because they were the worst team ever.

[348] Yeah, I remember the idea of the Pistons and as a kid was like, they were like a bully team.

[349] I was like, we'll punch Michael Jordan in the face.

[350] We don't care.

[351] Yes.

[352] They had no respect for anyone's franchise players.

[353] Yeah, and Lambert just never got off the ground, just on the tiptoes.

[354] By the way, do you ever watch these sports documentaries?

[355] They show those, I watched them live, but it didn't occur to me then.

[356] But now when I see back, there was a point in one of those bad boys documentary, you know, Lambere goes up in Boston and three guys just, Start blasting them in the face.

[357] I mean, they're not even going for the ball.

[358] Yeah, they're just punching him.

[359] Oh, my God.

[360] No whistle.

[361] No, it was a whole.

[362] I mean, it was, you watch it, and it's like they play differently.

[363] Now you understand why when you watch any of those players now on any sports show, they're all limping around.

[364] Yes.

[365] They're like, they were beat up.

[366] Any guy that plays now, they're coming in.

[367] They're getting massages.

[368] The clippers were so cheap that they were reusing bandages.

[369] Ew.

[370] That was like back when their original owner, that racist guy.

[371] Oh, yeah.

[372] You know, he was like, reuse the bandages.

[373] I'm like, what?

[374] They're making them buy their own socks.

[375] Like, that's how Keepey was.

[376] He's like, well, buy their own socks and charge him for laundry.

[377] Oh, my God.

[378] Like, it was really, so you both grew up in Michigan, but close to each other?

[379] About, as the crow flies, 12 miles, but very different.

[380] I'm right where the last suburb of Detroit turned into farmland.

[381] So I'm from a real hillbilly area.

[382] Okay.

[383] She went to a private school and sang and stuff, and I was gliding things.

[384] things on fire and lots of fights and terrible everything.

[385] I had a foot in both sides of those things as well because I grew up in an area that was a little rougher, but then I got on a bus to go to a school that was nice.

[386] This is the Catholic school?

[387] This is a Catholic school.

[388] How far away was it from your town?

[389] It was like a 30 -minute.

[390] I mean, I was on a bus for a long time.

[391] And there was one point where I had to get on a bus to take me to the public school to get on another bus to take me to the school that I went to.

[392] It was like, you were using the first one as like a gypsy cab.

[393] You're pirating your way.

[394] I'm not allowed to say that.

[395] Not allowed to say that.

[396] Not allowed to say gypsy anymore.

[397] Oh, no, jipped.

[398] Got it.

[399] Yeah, I think gypsy cab.

[400] I don't have no other name for a gypsy cab.

[401] The Romanian.

[402] Oh, Romanian cab.

[403] Now we're in trouble.

[404] Now this shows cancer.

[405] That's it.

[406] That sounds way worse.

[407] But I grew up across the street from this forest, but not like a forest that you would.

[408] You just, like, get caught in what I thought was quicksand.

[409] I don't know, sucking, like, I come back home with, like, no shoe.

[410] We had horses and dogs in our yard, shooting guns in the front.

[411] Like, it was that kind of thing on one side.

[412] And then on the other side was a whole different thing.

[413] Like, people didn't come over to my house that much.

[414] Was it kind of an expensive higher -end Catholic school?

[415] I think it was a middle of the road.

[416] It was nice.

[417] It was fine.

[418] You wore a uniform.

[419] Sure.

[420] That was it.

[421] All boys?

[422] No, it wasn't all -boys school, it then switched.

[423] So that was actually a great mix.

[424] Congratulations, yeah.

[425] There's a lot of sexual harassment cases that went down there.

[426] Because it was a brothers lived upstairs, Franciscan brothers.

[427] That's at the time when a brother might do something.

[428] And they say, okay, you go to another school and then you live above it.

[429] They lived on the fourth floor.

[430] And the three, two, and one, that was a school.

[431] So they would come down from the fourth floor.

[432] And the brothers are the teachers?

[433] Some were.

[434] Some lay people, some brothers, some nuns.

[435] I've had some tussles with nuns.

[436] Nuns would punch me, you know.

[437] And you can't tell on a nun.

[438] They're above reproach.

[439] Is that what it is?

[440] Or at least in my time, it wasn't like, yeah.

[441] A nun took me by the hair and slammed me in the back of the locker, back of my head, not face front.

[442] It was shocking.

[443] Yeah.

[444] But who do I tell?

[445] God's got her back.

[446] My mom did Catholic school, and she has a lot of trauma.

[447] And she really doesn't look favorably on nun.

[448] There are good teachers, bad teachers, good nuns, bad nuns.

[449] But I think that there's an energy to anything when you live in a life where you're cut off from a lot of things.

[450] And you may be the most spiritual person, but anger's going to seep out.

[451] Exactly.

[452] The repression is kind of verbal.

[453] Yeah.

[454] You get to take it out on all these little kids.

[455] And his young sexy boys.

[456] So sexy.

[457] Who aren't going to say a goddamn thing.

[458] Yeah.

[459] I mean, it was so wild.

[460] You can't really care on a nun.

[461] You can't say like, give me your manager.

[462] And by the way, who are you going to go to?

[463] another nun?

[464] Exactly.

[465] Because her superior is another nut.

[466] Like, they're all sticking together.

[467] This is it.

[468] They're the original mob.

[469] Oh, my God.

[470] Oh, I have a question about you in the woods.

[471] Were you the kid that was leading the shootings and the...

[472] When you say it like shooting, yeah, that sounds very bad.

[473] Like of Miller's Crossing over here, like executing people in my neighbor.

[474] Listen, you said guns and I imagine you're shooting.

[475] Or were you following?

[476] I was a lone wolf in the sense that no kids lived anywhere in my area.

[477] Can I ask what your parents did real quick?

[478] My mom was a nurse in the ER.

[479] She then became a biofeedback technician and she became a psychiatrist or a psychologist and now she's a lawyer and now she runs the outpatient risk management here at one of the big hospitals here in Los Angeles.

[480] So my mom has been on this trajectory of being in school until I think she was like 65.

[481] Holy shit.

[482] Did she have Have you really young?

[483] Yeah, my parents had me like when they're in their early 20s.

[484] Okay.

[485] And then my dad, they're divorced.

[486] My dad is a pharmacist.

[487] Been a pharmacist.

[488] Always a pharmacist.

[489] And then my stepdad, who was in the picture for a while where we lived in the woods, he was a truck driver for like a supermarket chain.

[490] She went the other way.

[491] Yeah.

[492] What age did he arrive?

[493] My parents got divorced at three.

[494] Same, same.

[495] My first stepdad arrived at like four and a half.

[496] Okay.

[497] So this is interesting.

[498] I don't want to creep you out.

[499] But obviously, there are some similarities.

[500] I've listened to the show.

[501] I see the.

[502] And I'm like, oh, there are some.

[503] little things that I see.

[504] Don't you think a good comedian has to hate authority?

[505] Isn't that like a prerequisite?

[506] I think it is.

[507] And has it gotten you in trouble?

[508] I mean, I would get into fights.

[509] That was something I've really worked on to be like, I got to pull back this anger.

[510] You're so sunny.

[511] I'm very surprised by this.

[512] You have a warmth about you.

[513] Oh, you're nice to say.

[514] I think I've gotten a lot better.

[515] I always think I still think I had that warmth.

[516] But if I felt like someone is messing with me, if I feel like someone's, messing with somebody else.

[517] I can turn that switch kind of quickly.

[518] And not recently, I think I've gotten off of that path a little bit.

[519] You have to.

[520] Because it's killing you.

[521] That was the realization I had.

[522] I was like watching my father die in the hospital.

[523] And this man was never bested.

[524] And he would take on anyone.

[525] And by all accounts, he won most of these showdowns.

[526] And I'm watching him die at 62 and I'm like, oh, no, he lost.

[527] You carry that rage, the adrenal dump, all the cortisol.

[528] you end up dying from it.

[529] You're the victim of it.

[530] It really does because you're just a simmering pot.

[531] Yes.

[532] It's bad for your body.

[533] Yes.

[534] I'm trying to get in my mindset to figure out how to change that.

[535] And I think I've done that in different ways.

[536] Now, I've got to tell you what I'm interested in.

[537] I haven't done it.

[538] Have you heard of taking an ice bath?

[539] I'm religious about it.

[540] Okay, so I just ordered one.

[541] You did good.

[542] Did you read dopamine nation?

[543] No. Okay.

[544] You should.

[545] It's fantastic.

[546] Okay.

[547] In a nutshell, you could smoke a cigarette that'll spike your dopamine, but then your body, which is perfect at homeostasis, will unleash all the bad chemicals to right size this unnatural spike in dopamine.

[548] The equation is such that if you have five minutes of high from the cigarette, you're going to have about an hour and a half of shitty chemicals from your body.

[549] Conversely, if you do 10 minutes of cold plunging, you have up to two hours of elevated dopamine.

[550] So just how do you want to tip the seesaw?

[551] So now I'm super into the sauna.

[552] See, that seems like that's the game.

[553] Can I tell you something?

[554] And I was in Miami in March, maybe.

[555] And Kristen was obsessed with getting a sauna.

[556] And she kept sending these fucking emails like, oh, I researched this one and this.

[557] And the readers digest says this and, like looking for feedback.

[558] And in my head, I'm like, I don't want a fucking sauna.

[559] By whatever one you want, I'm not interested in this.

[560] This says hooey.

[561] It arrives.

[562] I mean, at one time and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[563] I've made me missed five nights in the last three months.

[564] I'm addicted to it.

[565] I get in it like I'm going to have a drink.

[566] Well, you do TM, right?

[567] Yes.

[568] I think sometimes hard to do TM.

[569] with kids trying to figure out how to manage.

[570] You're always having stress and you could take it out on a person, you could take it on your partner.

[571] It's like how do I kind of help myself manage me so I can go out there and be a better me. Sometimes you need like several mini resets throughout the day if the day requires it.

[572] sometimes you can kind of skate through, but it's like sometimes I got to shut it all down for a minute and get back on track.

[573] Any kind of quiet cave moment.

[574] Even if it's in your car?

[575] Yeah, yeah.

[576] Okay, now back to the authority.

[577] Okay, we love them, right?

[578] The truck driver?

[579] No, we don't.

[580] That's so helpful.

[581] So I was going to try to tiptoe around all this.

[582] We can go into whatever.

[583] I think there's something insanely unnatural about having a male arrive in your life who's not your father and set out a game plan for everybody.

[584] Yes.

[585] And we have to look at it from the other vantage point of in the 80s when it was being done wrong and strong.

[586] It was like, my stepdad would not answer to anything but dad.

[587] Oh.

[588] That was it.

[589] That was rule number one.

[590] I am dad.

[591] And my real dad is in the picture, an active member in the picture.

[592] Yes.

[593] And your father.

[594] And my dad.

[595] And my dad.

[596] Right.

[597] You know, I want like saying, you're my new dad.

[598] Like, I'm not looking for a new dad.

[599] He's like, I'm your dad.

[600] And like, I didn't realize how fucked up that was.

[601] It's very fucked up.

[602] Well, you almost got to have kids.

[603] Yes.

[604] Oh, that's the whole thing.

[605] Right.

[606] having kids, I think you start to grieve and also feel anger for these moments because you see yourself, you're like, oh, wait a second, I would never have done that.

[607] Why did they do this?

[608] What happened here?

[609] These are like some, again, wrong and strong things.

[610] The only benefit of the doubt that I will give, they also didn't know.

[611] There's so much more out there to tell you how to be or connect you to the world.

[612] I got to hit you with a really weird thing I just learned, though, recently.

[613] Now, I've also read a pushback against it, but at any rate, it's worth considering.

[614] Yeah.

[615] The highest rate of child abuse exists between a child and a step -parent.

[616] Of course.

[617] The number I read was enormous.

[618] Like, it's such a huge percentage of child abuse.

[619] And so all these evolutionary biologists, many of them explain it through this, which is all mammals that take over a pride or a group.

[620] If a silverback takes over a group, first thing kills all the kids to put the new mate in estrus.

[621] The woman won't be fertile while she's nursing the children.

[622] So the first step is kill all those babies.

[623] Same with a lion.

[624] When a lion overthrows a pride, first thing, kill all the cubs, then all the females become fertile again.

[625] So because we're primates and because all the other primates work that way, there is some suspicion that there is a weird impulse and a weird anger from these stepdads against these children that aren't there.

[626] There's some evolutionary thing that's going out.

[627] That's a freaky thought.

[628] I think that there is a truth.

[629] that.

[630] Some subconscious hostility that these things aren't yours.

[631] Also because, yeah, they're not yours.

[632] Yeah, this woman had these with someone else.

[633] You're a constant reminder of your partner's ex, right?

[634] On some level.

[635] Probably their true love, let's remind you.

[636] Yeah, 100%.

[637] They just couldn't work out with it.

[638] And you know on some level you really don't have full control.

[639] So you're walking around in this environment where you really don't have control.

[640] Because I think there's a lot of walking on eggshells.

[641] Can I say this?

[642] Is it my place?

[643] And again, different parents will attract that differently.

[644] I always describe my relationship with my stepdad as a relationship with an older brother.

[645] You're competing for mom almost.

[646] Competing for mom.

[647] You use force against each other.

[648] And I will tell you this, I had a second stepdad.

[649] Lovely guy.

[650] Nice guy.

[651] Passed away a couple years ago, but couldn't be more different than the truck driver.

[652] But even with him, there was that element.

[653] My mom and I once got into a very big fight over some dumb shit.

[654] And it was one of those blowups where I think I was old enough to be like, we're not going to talk for a bit.

[655] And in that time, instead of helping us get back, he took that to kind of widen out the gap.

[656] And the one thing that he did, I always remember at Christmas, a time where I would go home and see everybody, they went away for that Christmas.

[657] You know, it wasn't like, hey, you want to come with us?

[658] Or it was like, we're gone.

[659] And at that point, I'm a 30 -year -old guy.

[660] Like, you know, it's like, I'm not in the house.

[661] I'm not.

[662] I'm not.

[663] I'm not messing, but it still is, I think, an ingrained thing of, I come first.

[664] We all want to be number one to the person we love.

[665] Now, I'm also, with all that said, super sympathetic to a step -parent.

[666] It's so fucking hard.

[667] If you don't have the power, but yet you have to do everything else.

[668] You got to do the pickups.

[669] You got to get the breakfast.

[670] You got to hear the screaming and the fucking mess.

[671] You have to do with all this horrible stuff, but you can't really partake in the beautiful stuff.

[672] Yeah.

[673] I'm always suspect of divorced parents with kids when they start dating someone new, automatically introduced them.

[674] to somebody.

[675] That to me, I'm like, no, no, no. You should keep that a little bit separate until you feel like for this to go forward, we need to introduce it.

[676] I feel like if you introduce it too early, it's a mess for a kid because it's like the kid gets attached.

[677] It's hard.

[678] There's no rulebook.

[679] And then you got the woman, the one always stuck with the kid.

[680] Right.

[681] Who now just has got to be lonely.

[682] Because where the fuck are you going to find the time to have this side experience when you're raising kids?

[683] And then you're really like, well, either I can't be with anybody.

[684] How would I even find out?

[685] I have to integrate this person to even find.

[686] So it's just all a big mess.

[687] situation.

[688] I'm kind of sympathetic to all of it.

[689] I get it.

[690] And there's a lot of record.

[691] And I wonder if that number has changed any kind of a step parent coming into the mix.

[692] Are we a little bit more enlightened?

[693] I would hope that maybe but you don't know.

[694] Okay, but did you have an older?

[695] I'm an only child.

[696] My stepfather, the truck driver, stepfather had two daughters, one that he never saw one that he did see and she came to live with us older, but they were cool.

[697] Were you attracted to her?

[698] Like, Because I had a love triangle for a minute.

[699] There was like, yes, she was cool.

[700] She listened to the who.

[701] She's immediately forbidden.

[702] Yes, of course.

[703] So we start with some intriguing shit right now.

[704] Especially at that age.

[705] I think the initial, whoa, who is this like a female living in my house?

[706] Yes, yes, yes.

[707] But then it was easy to become like, oh, we became really good friends.

[708] And she was like a good sister.

[709] But then her friends, it's the best thing and the best thing you possibly ever had.

[710] Because it's sort of like, you know, I'm in the mix.

[711] You know, I'm here, you know, and it's like, guards down.

[712] You're like the little dumb brother and they're saying things to you.

[713] They would never say.

[714] Oh, but wait.

[715] You're funny.

[716] Oh, my God.

[717] Yeah.

[718] You get to hang around.

[719] Like, he's like a big brother is a different vibe.

[720] You know, yeah.

[721] That's so funny.

[722] Yeah.

[723] So my second stepdad came with two kids and the daughter was perfectly in the middle of me and my brother were five years apart.

[724] Oh, boy.

[725] So she was in love with him.

[726] And I was in love.

[727] her.

[728] Wow.

[729] And it was a big old messy triangle.

[730] How do you remedy that?

[731] I liked her already.

[732] We went to the same elementary school.

[733] She was two grades ahead of me. And I already was fascinated with her.

[734] And then all of a sudden, and I'm living 20 feet from her bedroom.

[735] You got to make this.

[736] This is like, I mean, this is like, talking of age.

[737] I mean, because it's like, we're also nothing wrong with that.

[738] Technically, no. Right.

[739] This bullshit arrangement between our parents has now made us incestual.

[740] I wonder how many stepbrothers and sisters.

[741] end up falling in love and getting married.

[742] I wonder if there's some percentage.

[743] That would be a great last.

[744] I think eventually it gets too confused.

[745] Like my really good friend in middle school, her boyfriend.

[746] Was her brother?

[747] Became her brother because her mom.

[748] Oh, the parents introduced through them?

[749] And then they got married?

[750] Yes.

[751] And that's betrayal on the parents' sake.

[752] And then they were, I think, together still for a little bit.

[753] What age were they?

[754] I think we were 8th grade, 9th grade.

[755] Because how could you possibly monitor at that point if everyone's not living together?

[756] You're like moving in with your girlfriend?

[757] Can you imagine an 8th grade?

[758] I know, but when they become also your brother, they get annoying.

[759] I think, yeah.

[760] Because you are living with them.

[761] And that's an end all romance.

[762] Steaking up the bathroom.

[763] Any relationship you have in your 20, the first time that you're living with anybody, you learn like, oh, I'm a disgusting pick.

[764] Like, yeah, yeah.

[765] You have to make some people.

[766] Humans are foul as hell, and they shouldn't be.

[767] the same 300 square feet.

[768] That's what I always tell people, you got to live with the person that you're going to marry before you get in there because that could wreck a marriage right out of the gate.

[769] You've got to learn.

[770] Well, you also have to go on vacation with the person.

[771] You learn a lot on a vacation with somebody.

[772] What are the requirements do you two think before marrying?

[773] My big one is, I think you need to be with this person for at least a year.

[774] Because you can't hide your true self for more than a year.

[775] Six months, maybe.

[776] Yeah.

[777] But through a course of a year, you're going to see some highs and lows.

[778] Well, just minimally what happens biochemically, which is you'll have a whole different chemistry after a year.

[779] Yeah.

[780] Yeah.

[781] The girl that was so horny for you will never be horny for you again.

[782] That's over.

[783] Like, so what is the relationship like then when you got to earn it?

[784] This is the whole thing.

[785] I mean, I think that people are also like, oh, my relationship is so easy.

[786] It's so easy.

[787] It's like, I love my wife.

[788] We have a great relationship.

[789] But relationships take work.

[790] It's not bad work.

[791] It's not hard.

[792] But it's like everything I do in my life takes work.

[793] Being a parent takes work, I mean, anything that you're proud of or that you love, right?

[794] Yeah, the shit that takes no work, you lose interest in.

[795] I would argue that if that person was like horny for you for the rest of your life, it wouldn't be as much fun.

[796] True.

[797] Right, I mean, to a certain degree.

[798] Too easy.

[799] It's anathetical to growth.

[800] Right.

[801] If everyone is totally satiated and compromise is not required, then what is the point of changing?

[802] What is the incentive to change?

[803] And I also think that you get these, like, victories, these moments where you're like, We got through that.

[804] Yeah.

[805] That, you know, we've been in these moments.

[806] I mean, one of the things that I was so kind of blown away by was the COVID time.

[807] Oh, right?

[808] Yeah.

[809] So many of my friends got divorced.

[810] Sure.

[811] People broke up.

[812] And I realized that that was the first time in my entire time I was with my wife that we were together for that long.

[813] And that was a giant learning curve.

[814] And we had already been together since 2006.

[815] Stay tuned for more armchair expert.

[816] If you dare.

[817] We've all been there.

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

[819] 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.

[820] 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.

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

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

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

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

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

[826] What's up, guys?

[827] This is your girl Kiki, and my podcast is It's back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

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

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

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

[831] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[832] The list goes on.

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

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

[835] We had some moments during COVID.

[836] I mean, shocking.

[837] I was like, oh, we were really good at seeing each other three hours.

[838] a day.

[839] Fucking well -oiled machine.

[840] We could nail that.

[841] 24 -7 for a year.

[842] We had no experience with that.

[843] Yeah.

[844] Every little thing comes out.

[845] I don't know.

[846] Are you like me?

[847] I'll exhaust somebody.

[848] I'll own a lot of it.

[849] I need to engage.

[850] I want to chat.

[851] I want to play.

[852] I'm here to party.

[853] She's so grateful for the rest of the world to like kind of wear me out a bit like a puppy.

[854] My wife will say to me multiple times I need to shut down.

[855] My wife has an off switch.

[856] There are topics that we can't talk about past dinner.

[857] Yeah.

[858] Good boundaries.

[859] I like that.

[860] And I think that they were good.

[861] But once she gets into that bed, the party's over.

[862] Yeah.

[863] You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

[864] If I want to be in that bed with her, I got to follow a set of rules.

[865] You and I, you know what we should negotiate for?

[866] One night a week, you and I get double beds at the Kara Hotel on the street and we'll lay in there.

[867] Oh, sure, Hampton, that's great.

[868] Wherever you need to be.

[869] Yeah, let's lay in bed and fucking giggle and engage and go blow it out.

[870] At night, particularly, is when I want to blow it out.

[871] Because all my little responsibilities are done.

[872] That's the best part of it.

[873] It's playtime.

[874] I know.

[875] My kids are asleep.

[876] Life is starting.

[877] For me, it starts at 8 .30 p .m. The minute I hear my son's deep breath of sleep, I'm like, and we're back.

[878] That's a limited window, too, because I'm like, I also have to get up at 6.

[879] in the morning and do my stuff too.

[880] So I'm like, you got me from 8 .30 to like 12 .31.

[881] I push it to two sometimes.

[882] Do you party?

[883] Because here's what I thought.

[884] First of all, I think it's so wild that you were already in an improv troupe at 18 and the city's oldest one.

[885] And that you immediately went on the road in a touring company.

[886] And you were traveling the country and then even abroad.

[887] My first thought is an attic was you're with adults traveling.

[888] If you were going to be an addict, this would be a prime situation to let it rip.

[889] You know, because I was with adults, they had their own thing.

[890] So if I went to a bar with them underage, they're having, like, a beer or a drink, and that's it.

[891] They're not raging.

[892] They were modeling some responsible stuff for you.

[893] So, like, if I was going with a bunch 18 -year -olds, I might have been, like, let's go.

[894] Not to say that I didn't have nights of that.

[895] For me, I am in that zone of, we'll play Rummy Cube tonight.

[896] And not to be like, I want to watch movies.

[897] I want to watch this.

[898] I want to get into it.

[899] I think maybe that's my Catholic upbringing.

[900] I think it's also like my want of control.

[901] Well, I was going to say I might argue as well if you have put your esteem and your confidence in your verbal superpower, which you have.

[902] You have like two amazing podcasts.

[903] You're brilliant.

[904] And you're so verbal, very quick improviser.

[905] So yeah, for you to go, okay, I'm going to take my best feature and I'm going to cut it in half.

[906] It's also like a stupid strategy.

[907] I never got to a place where it was awful, but I would wrestle so much with not being happy with how I was if I got to that point.

[908] That morning after, of not having done much of anything, I want to be more centered than anything else.

[909] Now, at this point, I can't even imagine you have to pay that penalty on the other side of it.

[910] I have a current wake -up call every day no matter what, like, no matter from working or from not.

[911] Oh, I've never been more grateful for being.

[912] sober than once we had kids i'm like how are people doing this hung over like i can barely do this on eight hours of sleep i also don't want to be like i have my kids see me like that too you know it's like oh daddy drank last night that's why he looks like this yeah i have zero judgment i think everyone should drink as much as they can until they have a problem i think everyone should be right at the edge i'm so pro i really am and even go over sometimes but i have been grateful that my kids have never watched me have a radical shift in personality.

[913] That must be so weird.

[914] I mean, I can't really remember it.

[915] My dad was a drunk, but he was always drunk.

[916] So it wasn't like I knew one version of him and then all of a sudden he was this confusing version.

[917] Right.

[918] I think that's interesting.

[919] If you're a kid, like your parents from 7 p .m. on act different.

[920] Yeah, because it's like, oh, there's a great scene.

[921] I just, I love it so much.

[922] I don't know why it sticks in my head of everything I've ever seen, but in Eastbound and Down, like the first episode, David McBride's character is like drunk and he's just standing in the doorway like staring at the kid and it's like that is the image of what I see it's like a kid looking up at this it's weird it's like what the fuck is going on by the way I think that's what I might do because I would get sentimental when I'm drunk and I'd want to go stare at them oh yeah I love them so much I think I might get hammered just big I'm gonna go look I got drunk to come home and like I'm gonna sit on the edge of my kid's bed and just like touch them like you know it's like you know it's like Touched their feet, gently.

[923] I love you so much.

[924] What is it, Dad?

[925] Yeah, it's like, I love you so love.

[926] There is that energy.

[927] It's like, you know, it's like it's, it's, like, that was my, I mean, I was always, like, in that zone of being, I don't think I got, like, angry.

[928] And sometimes when you're happy, it's easier to keep the drinks flowing, I think.

[929] Yeah, true.

[930] Wait, real quick, your paper's out and I'm nervous here on a switch.

[931] Oh, yeah, I probably scared the shit.

[932] I probably scared everyone.

[933] I don't know what the papers out, papers out, paper's out.

[934] Well, I was embarrassed that I had forgotten the name of Chicago City Limits.

[935] Oh, you on.

[936] I was like, first and foremost, I should have to remember the other than that.

[937] No, you don't have to remember anything about that.

[938] This is, like, serious.

[939] I'm taking it serious.

[940] Oh, wow, I'm going to take it.

[941] Bring it down for a second.

[942] Yeah, we were really laughing for a while there.

[943] Were you like, why did you pick this person?

[944] Because your dad seems very put together.

[945] Then she brings this chaos machine into your home.

[946] It's a really good question that I don't think I had the wherewithal to ask at the time.

[947] No one in my class had divorced parents.

[948] So I was the, hey, you want to know what divorces?

[949] I'll tell you what divorces.

[950] There's no TV shows besides different strokes, but that's not divorce.

[951] The one that really connected to me was Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNaro movie.

[952] Oh, my God, this boy's life.

[953] Yes, this boy's life.

[954] Yes.

[955] Tobias Wolfe.

[956] Yeah, because that was a different kind of thing going on there, too.

[957] I'm writing a book right now.

[958] I've told stories on my podcast, but, oh, you have a crazy life.

[959] And I've always done the funny version of that crazy life.

[960] And then there's another side there too.

[961] This is joyous recollections of trauma.

[962] His name of the book?

[963] Joyful Recollections.

[964] elections of trauma.

[965] Going through it now, I'm asking a lot more of those questions, because it is like, what was going through your mind?

[966] I think it's hard for my parents to answer that question.

[967] Because I'd ask it to my dad, ask it to my mom, what did you see?

[968] And they're like, well, I thought this or I thought that, or I thought you had it under control.

[969] You realize everyone has a story that they tell themselves to make it right and to minimize it or to alleviate.

[970] I don't seem unavoidable, hopefully.

[971] Yes.

[972] Yeah, inevitable.

[973] One of the things that I really have been thinking about because it kind of discaped me for a while.

[974] I was like, this guy, this truck driver guy, was rough all around.

[975] And my grandma saw this.

[976] She makes a big announcement.

[977] If this behavior continues, I'm not coming back.

[978] And, of course, behavior continues as she's left.

[979] Instead of being like, we're going to help you, she's like, I'm dangling, don't you want me around?

[980] And the answer is definitively no, if I'm this man. Right.

[981] That means you're not going to be around.

[982] But in her mind, she's like, I'm dangling the most important thing.

[983] You'll lose me. It's not like I'll help you.

[984] I can't be in your life if you're going to have this person around.

[985] But guess who that affects me. Exactly.

[986] I guess now for me when I look at my mom's journey through husbands, it actually makes a ton of sense.

[987] She and my father got divorced and that was the love of her life.

[988] And that was a huge failure.

[989] She felt like a failure.

[990] She has these two kids by herself now.

[991] She's out on her own trying to make a living for the first time.

[992] Her self -esteem is zero.

[993] So my first stepdad is the worst one.

[994] He is the shittiest of all them.

[995] And she just needed somebody and she felt like she wasn't worthy of anyone clearly beyond what this guy was.

[996] She gets her foot in the door at GM and she starts climbing the ladder at GM and she's actually starting to gain some confidence and she buys her own home and she gets rid of the husband.

[997] And then the next guy, he's an engineer.

[998] I have my issues with him, but he's a step up.

[999] She leaves him.

[1000] She then starts her own business.

[1001] She builds our family house.

[1002] By the time she meets my last stepdad, Barton, he's awesome.

[1003] He respects her.

[1004] He's a partner.

[1005] He's along for the ride.

[1006] He wants her to make decisions.

[1007] All you really got to do is track her self -esteem.

[1008] And then you just see the self -esteem of her partners match that perfectly.

[1009] So your mother also was climbing this educational ladder in her own development.

[1010] I should look at it a little bit closer like that because I think of it like this.

[1011] Extreme course correction.

[1012] Here I'm with this man. I'm going to just put words in her mouth.

[1013] And I don't even know if I would attribute these things to my dad.

[1014] But I was like, he's weak.

[1015] So I'm going to now go to somebody's strong.

[1016] And then you go, oh, that's too strong.

[1017] Now I'm going to go and find the middle ground.

[1018] It's a Goldilocks situation.

[1019] That's the better way to say it.

[1020] And I do think that you're right.

[1021] There are other things at play, like wanting to get smart.

[1022] But I also feel like once she got out of that relationship is when she started to, like she got freed of it and then was open to go and study and find and do.

[1023] Maybe she figured out the answer was within herself and not going to come from someone else.

[1024] basically like someone was blocking a door for her self -worth and then once she was able to get that out, then she was able to go.

[1025] And again, I'm in this is a tricky thing.

[1026] And I think we'll agree, now having kids, there's also enormous amount of compassion.

[1027] I'm doing this with a partner.

[1028] I have money.

[1029] My sister's around.

[1030] My mom was by herself.

[1031] Not possible.

[1032] You can't clean our house, cook our dinners, and also pay for everything and raise three kids.

[1033] That's not possible.

[1034] Whatever happened, it far exceeds probably what I would have done this.

[1035] situation.

[1036] Right.

[1037] And in the 80s, right?

[1038] So she's a pariah.

[1039] My mom was a pariah in our neighborhood.

[1040] I've gotten so much more respect for her in what she did in that time because it's a different world and she did a lot of stuff.

[1041] She carried a lot of stuff on our back, the way that we got out of our situations.

[1042] And I love that movie E .T. Because in E .T. That's a single mom who's also struggling in a house with three boys where dad goes off.

[1043] It's such a small subplot of E .T. But dad's in Mexico with a young girl and she's like dealing with it.

[1044] And even the way that you treat your kids like you're irritated.

[1045] I try to keep everything together and I'm getting irritated.

[1046] Like with all the resources and knowing that in two hours, my wife will be home.

[1047] Right.

[1048] You know, and I still can lose it.

[1049] My wife and I did a thing where she was shooting a movie and it was during COVID where it was in Canada.

[1050] So we couldn't fight back and forth.

[1051] So she had the kids for 30 days and I had the kids for 30 days.

[1052] Oh, wow.

[1053] A whole different ball game.

[1054] You know, we had help, but you have to be on top of it all.

[1055] Those little taste of it.

[1056] You're like, oh, yeah.

[1057] And with less resources.

[1058] even without having a phone you can check out on.

[1059] Get why people are smoking.

[1060] It's like they just need to like step outside or like, just give me a moment.

[1061] I'm going to do this thing that you're not even allowed to be around.

[1062] Yes.

[1063] Oh my God.

[1064] Single parents in COVID where the kids had to be.

[1065] I don't understand.

[1066] No, it's rough.

[1067] So Kristen's gone away to do movies twice where I had the kids for a long time by myself.

[1068] And I get a perverse joy out of there's no compromise.

[1069] My theories on parenting are now in play.

[1070] The experiment starts.

[1071] And there's these obvious wins right out of the gates from my perspective, which is like, amazing how quickly these kids go to bed when I'm in charge.

[1072] Amazing how this.

[1073] Amazing how this, right?

[1074] And then I start going, they're suffering.

[1075] They're suffering because they need this soft nurturing force.

[1076] It's like Germany.

[1077] The house turned into Germany.

[1078] Everything's running on time.

[1079] It's clean.

[1080] There's these three weeks of a high of like, look how great I am at this.

[1081] And then the recognition that my kids' lives are so much better with her there, treating them sincerely and compassionately and nurturing them and taking every dumb thing I think is stupid very seriously and listening to them.

[1082] And I'm like, no, no, it needs both of us.

[1083] I agree.

[1084] You realize where your deficits are when they're not there.

[1085] And you realize where your strengths are too.

[1086] And I think that on a given day, we are always balancing each other out.

[1087] The thing that gets me and that makes me laugh so hard is we're just going away.

[1088] And we had to split into two cars So I had four kids in my car Because it was like our friend's kids as well And I was riding with them And then June was riding in the car With our two other friends And as soon as we get in the car She goes, okay kids And no iPads, door closed And go And I'm like, oh Yeah I'm like And so she does that to me all the time She'll lay down a rule She's like And you guys can't watch any more TV today See you tonight I'm like, wait No, you can't lay down the rule and then leave, you've got to enforce your own rules.

[1089] Are I, like, let me do that.

[1090] That is her M .O. That's hilarious.

[1091] It makes me laugh, though.

[1092] I'm like, God damn it.

[1093] I think there is something about, I was never as catered to as my kids are.

[1094] My kids are going to practice is a list, and we're going here.

[1095] I got off that bus.

[1096] I didn't see another adult for like four hours.

[1097] It's completely on my own.

[1098] Yeah, if you're hungry, you melt cheese on crackers and put it in the microwave, and that's what you're eating.

[1099] Oh, my gosh, it was the best.

[1100] When you figured out how to make something, thing.

[1101] I remember I made pork chops.

[1102] I could make great pork chops.

[1103] And I would always like get pork chops.

[1104] Because we were living in this two -bedroom apartment at one point, me and my mom.

[1105] You know, when my mom was working crazy hours.

[1106] So I got to start making dinner.

[1107] I learned a couple of good meals.

[1108] And it was like, but I think that that gave me so much more confidence.

[1109] I'd say this thing about like kids of parents are divorced grow up quicker, but they also want to move out of the house quicker.

[1110] I was ready to go.

[1111] I know how to do it.

[1112] I've done it.

[1113] That's not a shock to me. I felt very fine to be on my own from 15 on.

[1114] I already have a job and I'll move out.

[1115] The first moment I got to move out, I was out the door and I could never, I could never understand why people were lingering.

[1116] Yeah, I was like, what are you doing?

[1117] Why are you going home all this time?

[1118] I'm like, you're out, you're gone.

[1119] That's right.

[1120] Go.

[1121] But I get it.

[1122] I get that that's a different thing.

[1123] What was your, like, college, right, is when I moved out.

[1124] But then I moved back.

[1125] Okay.

[1126] I moved back home after college for a year.

[1127] My brother, it's about to be 27 and he's, He still lives with my parents.

[1128] That's becoming more and more of a thing.

[1129] Well, it's very European.

[1130] You could actually see this progress.

[1131] I was in Amsterdam one time.

[1132] I stayed with this family, and it was like a four -story row house or something like that.

[1133] And there were parents, kids, other tenants, and every night at dinner, everyone came down and met in the kitchen and then went back up and did their own thing.

[1134] And I was like, there's something really awesome about that.

[1135] Yeah.

[1136] And now that I'm a parent, I don't ever want my kids to leave.

[1137] Oh, never.

[1138] Never stay and hang.

[1139] I know, because it just goes by quick.

[1140] When I'm home, I try to poke holes.

[1141] I'm like, Neil, you got to move out.

[1142] It's time.

[1143] And he's like, well, no, I know.

[1144] But also, I'm saving a lot of money.

[1145] He comes downstairs.

[1146] My mom's like, what do you want?

[1147] A sandwich?

[1148] And it's like, who's going to leave if that's happening?

[1149] Yeah, you basically have a full -service staff.

[1150] And then I ask my mom, mom, you got to not do that.

[1151] And she's like, well, it's not bothering her.

[1152] She likes having him there.

[1153] As she's making you something.

[1154] When I'm visiting.

[1155] Oh, only when I'm visiting.

[1156] Every time I talk to Monica when she's home, like, we'll do the show.

[1157] She's there in this little closet.

[1158] And you can hear her mother like yelling like, your eggs are ready.

[1159] Like her mother is fucking working around the clock to make Monica out of it.

[1160] It's nice to be taken care of.

[1161] It is.

[1162] It feels awesome.

[1163] I live by myself.

[1164] That is the time where people are taking care of me. I'm all for it.

[1165] I'm just saying you should maybe lighten up on Neil because he's getting the same star treatment.

[1166] I know, I'm just doing what you're saying where you're like, this seems wrong.

[1167] Right, yeah.

[1168] That's not right.

[1169] Let me try to get you out of here, but I guess it's working for them.

[1170] Yeah.

[1171] I know.

[1172] And I guess why do you have to get out?

[1173] Like, I don't know.

[1174] It's very arbitrary.

[1175] And we could find out, we know all these weird developments that are unnatural.

[1176] Us living in single family dwellings, that's a very weird thing.

[1177] That's the last second of human history we've been doing that.

[1178] We're not supposed to do that.

[1179] We're supposed to live with like 40 other people.

[1180] Not to keep on name dropping places I've been, but when I went to Africa, we were in this village.

[1181] And it was this amazing experience because babies were just out and about, babies.

[1182] And it just felt like the babies were communal.

[1183] And then you think about single parents.

[1184] You think about parents in general, just those first six months, those first eight months, you're alone in a house or an apartment.

[1185] And you're just trying to, I don't know what I'm doing.

[1186] I'm like, you know, it's so much better to turn to someone who's done it three times and be like, oh, can you hold instead of waiting for that one uncle or your mom to come in from a different state?

[1187] You're around the people that now miss babies.

[1188] You've had it up to here with it.

[1189] But like when I'm around babies now, I'm like, ooh, I want to hold that.

[1190] I jumped at the chance of changing a diaper the other day.

[1191] I was like, yeah, I know how to do this.

[1192] I'm not subjected to a life of it.

[1193] That's what I loved about New York.

[1194] New York was great because you would get out and see people.

[1195] And not that they were helping me raise a child, but at least like that.

[1196] You were there with kids?

[1197] I was not there with kids ever, but it's so much easier to be lonely in L .A. Doors are closed.

[1198] Department doors are closed.

[1199] You're not bumping into people.

[1200] You don't have to get on a subway.

[1201] by just even being out and about.

[1202] I love this area that we live in on the east side here because I can walk to things and see people.

[1203] And it's like, oh, I want community, being in community with each other.

[1204] And we seem to be like, how did you get more successful?

[1205] You cut off more and more of community, which makes you more out of touch too.

[1206] Oh, yeah.

[1207] I had a moment.

[1208] It was a bit ago now.

[1209] But it was the first time really since COVID started.

[1210] And you got to remember for our kids, that makes up like 35 % of their life.

[1211] I took my younger daughter.

[1212] I'm like, you want to go to in and out?

[1213] Like, let's take the link in.

[1214] Let's go up to in and out.

[1215] And she's like, okay, we go there.

[1216] Place is fucking packed.

[1217] We're sharing a table with this father and daughter who are on a trip from New York City.

[1218] And we're talking to them.

[1219] And there's people.

[1220] And I'm like, this is so thrilling.

[1221] Like the amount of stimulation that other humans provide and just the fascination we have, or at least I do, I can watch people for hours just exist.

[1222] I'm so fascinated by them.

[1223] And I didn't have it for a couple years.

[1224] The best place to do this, I mean, this is a very specific.

[1225] place.

[1226] But if you go to Disneyland or Disney World, just plop your ass on a bench and just enjoy.

[1227] The movie has started and you can, there is so much going on.

[1228] Oh, yeah.

[1229] You just stay in one spot and it is, whoa, that's interesting.

[1230] Whoa, what's going?

[1231] I'm just, I am engaged by it all.

[1232] Also, we were just there and the movie is arcing like a real film as well.

[1233] So the, you know, exciting incident, they're buying the tickets.

[1234] They've entered.

[1235] There's this exuberance.

[1236] Everyone's happy.

[1237] Come 2 p .m., all these kids who should be napping are fucked.

[1238] Yeah, it starts smelling in the park because of the diaper.

[1239] The hours between two and six at Disneyland are insane.

[1240] And then they course correct.

[1241] And then there's like another wave of happiness.

[1242] It's like the third act.

[1243] Yes, I pitched this idea to Disney Plus.

[1244] They're never going to do it so I can pitch it here.

[1245] I want to do Disney World parking lot.

[1246] You get there for the first cars in and you get them back as they leave.

[1247] Yeah.

[1248] You know what it is.

[1249] The episode I listened to today of your show, Unspooled, Platoon.

[1250] So Platoon starts with him arriving in battle, fresh -faced, and then he leaves, and he's a fucking destroyed man. I just read this thing about Platoon the other day.

[1251] Charlie Sheen was the original star of Born on the Fourth of July, and that's what he wanted, born on the Fourth of July, to be the sequel, yeah.

[1252] And then I don't know what the thing was, because really Born on the Fourth of July is the other version of Platoon.

[1253] Well, yeah, it's coming home.

[1254] It's like, here's them entering, now here's what happens when they get back.

[1255] Because it's like, you walk in and you're like, the world is our oyster.

[1256] And then you waited on the line to get to a tram, to get to a thing, to get to your car.

[1257] And your average person there has just walked about seven times further than they've walked in the previous three years.

[1258] And you're hot and eating the pickles.

[1259] You're in debt.

[1260] Yes, money is flying out.

[1261] I bought like churros for my family.

[1262] It was like $150.

[1263] I'm like, all I got like was four churros and all.

[1264] I'm like three waters.

[1265] I don't know what happened here.

[1266] But I willingly, I don't stop it.

[1267] I'm like, oh, this is where we're at.

[1268] We're here to do it.

[1269] Well, if I could say one thing, then that is my favorite part of Disneyland.

[1270] And we had gone with a guy that does a show on our network.

[1271] And he's from New Zealand.

[1272] So he does not understand Disneyland.

[1273] He doesn't understand Americans' fascination, right?

[1274] So he's a skeptic.

[1275] Right.

[1276] And he does a whole episode about it.

[1277] And at the end of it, I go, you didn't even go.

[1278] He was like, I don't really.

[1279] And I got to go.

[1280] We're going.

[1281] So we all went, right?

[1282] And we're walking around.

[1283] I said, David, if you ever stood in a place in your, your life where 60 ,000 people agreed to have the best day of their life.

[1284] That's the magic of that place.

[1285] That only exists there.

[1286] Where 60 ,000 people arrive and their attitude is we're going to have the best day of our life.

[1287] There's some magic to that.

[1288] I think that even more than Vegas, it's an equalizer because Vegas there's risk, right?

[1289] Like you can gamble, you can win, you can lose.

[1290] But Disney, you've paid.

[1291] You've won.

[1292] You're in.

[1293] And then I noticed it with the matching shirts and all that stuff.

[1294] The shirts.

[1295] Not only are we going, we have planned for us.

[1296] We're going as a unit.

[1297] We're going to represent our family here.

[1298] Yes, this is it.

[1299] It's the finish line almost as a family.

[1300] Yeah, it really is.

[1301] That's why we do this.

[1302] Yeah, you see the most rough and tumble guy.

[1303] Yes.

[1304] In the same looking, wearing the ears on.

[1305] Yes, with the Mickey Mouse sweater.

[1306] And that's the one thing I do think.

[1307] People can cite Disney, but it does bring together a giant subsect of people.

[1308] There's a piece there.

[1309] It doesn't exist that the riffraff.

[1310] amusement parks?

[1311] No, you're right.

[1312] Now, you go to Six Flags.

[1313] Yeah.

[1314] I've seen many of gnarly fights.

[1315] A fight.

[1316] You don't go there and fucking think you're going to sleep through the experience.

[1317] You get your eyes about it.

[1318] Six Flags is like you could get stabbed.

[1319] Keep your wits about you.

[1320] Yeah.

[1321] I hate to say it's a little classes.

[1322] But, you know, the investment keeps everyone on point a little bit.

[1323] They're like, fuck on, we blew a shillow to be here.

[1324] You got to come correct.

[1325] That's an expensive fight.

[1326] And you also will never be able to come back.

[1327] So back in the day at UCB, which is a comedy theater out here that used to perform at, we would interest.

[1328] We would interview people from the audience all the time, talk to them.

[1329] And I was like, what's the most interesting thing about you?

[1330] And this one guy's like, I got banned from Disney World.

[1331] And I was like, what was it?

[1332] And he's like, my friends dared me to jump off the riverboat.

[1333] Jungle Cruz?

[1334] No, it's like a bigger river boat that like paddle boat, the paddle boat, the big paddle boat.

[1335] And I go, okay, he goes, well, we had to make it look like I fell.

[1336] Accident.

[1337] Right?

[1338] And so So, you know, and so he did.

[1339] But he didn't cover his tracks well enough.

[1340] And they were able to suss it out.

[1341] They were like, you did it.

[1342] You didn't fall.

[1343] Oh, wow.

[1344] You jumped.

[1345] I think it may have been as dumb as like you left your shoes on the, like they were down.

[1346] They put him in Disney jail.

[1347] And then he has been banned.

[1348] I'm like, well, have you tested the ban.

[1349] And whether or not the ban is true, he's never tested it.

[1350] But there is that thing.

[1351] You behave.

[1352] Monica just nailed it.

[1353] There's a pact.

[1354] All the macho -masculine energy has been checked at the.

[1355] the door.

[1356] You're already so emasculated by participating.

[1357] Right, right.

[1358] You know what I'm saying?

[1359] The minute you get on two -cups, you can't be a hard ass.

[1360] You can't be a hard ass.

[1361] You can only be so big of a hard ass.

[1362] You've come here.

[1363] I mean, I was laughing so hard the other day.

[1364] And I have nothing bad to say about this show because I haven't seen it.

[1365] But the poster made me laugh.

[1366] It's a new detective show, I guess, on ABC.

[1367] I think it's called like Will Graham or Will Clark.

[1368] Yeah, Will Trent.

[1369] That's it.

[1370] Exactly.

[1371] You know, he looks cool.

[1372] He has this cool car.

[1373] But then in his hand, he's got this little tiny dog.

[1374] And I'm like, he's cool, but he's not that cool.

[1375] This little baby dog, don't worry about it.

[1376] You'll still like him.

[1377] We've got a baby dog.

[1378] He's super masculine.

[1379] He's super awesome, but you got a baby.

[1380] So, like, I'm not intimidated by you.

[1381] You're not threatening to me. I wonder if that was the fourth or fifth iteration of that poster.

[1382] I wonder if the first one sheets he didn't have the dog.

[1383] And they were like, he's scary.

[1384] I don't know, man. Will Trent.

[1385] I don't know if I want to root for this guy.

[1386] You don't want like Kelly Savala's like, like, that guy looks like a tough ass.

[1387] Like, no, no. I got a little dog.

[1388] He'll be fine.

[1389] But I do think you're right.

[1390] That idea of there's not many places where you'll leave.

[1391] your armor at the door.

[1392] And you can be a kid in a way.

[1393] You're admitting you like this.

[1394] Can I tell you the worst thing I've seen where my kid loves like Ninja Warrior and he wanted to do like this trampoline place, sky high or whatever, you know, you just did a lot of trampolines.

[1395] Sky zone.

[1396] That's what it is.

[1397] And he was running up the warped wall.

[1398] My son also was like, I want a warp wall for Christmas.

[1399] I'm like, we're not.

[1400] And my wife says like, oh yeah, maybe that's a good.

[1401] I'm like, no, no, what do you mean?

[1402] That's not a good idea.

[1403] And I, like, Google it, and the first thing that comes up is, like, Achilles Ripper.

[1404] Yeah.

[1405] No, I'm like, you don't need it.

[1406] Because I'm like, what do you do?

[1407] Like, we'll go and you can run it up.

[1408] But if that's in the backyard, you are going to get hurt.

[1409] Yeah, yeah, at a certain point.

[1410] Well, beyond that, it won't be fun.

[1411] Not special.

[1412] They have a trampoline.

[1413] It's the most amazing thing.

[1414] You get one.

[1415] You ride it five times.

[1416] The novelty is half the appeal.

[1417] Exactly.

[1418] And so my kid's trying to run up the thing.

[1419] He's small.

[1420] He can't get to the top.

[1421] But this kid runs up there, gets up, and then he's there.

[1422] But now it's so high.

[1423] Yeah, what does he do?

[1424] He was freaked out.

[1425] And so we're all around and trying to help him.

[1426] He's a metaphor for life.

[1427] A bad one?

[1428] Oh, yeah, that you get to the place you want to reach and then it's a scared.

[1429] And he's scared.

[1430] So he's up there and to get down, you have to like kind of put your hands around.

[1431] A fireman's pole and you slide down, right?

[1432] Easy way to go.

[1433] Didn't know how a fireman's pole worked.

[1434] But no one can get up there to help him because you can't run up that wall.

[1435] Exactly.

[1436] Exactly.

[1437] And then if I got up there, what would I do?

[1438] Like strap him on to me and like, I hold them to my shoulders.

[1439] Yeah.

[1440] So we're like, you can come down with your feet.

[1441] We'll kind of help you.

[1442] We're trying to figure out a way because he's stuck.

[1443] And the attendant comes over.

[1444] And you can see the attendant has dealt with this a lot of times.

[1445] He shakes his head, turns to us and goes, all right, everybody, take out your phones and make a TikTok of this kid and tell him he's a pussy for being on top of this thing.

[1446] No. In LA, current modern day.

[1447] This is like three weeks ago.

[1448] Oh, my God.

[1449] And so that got that kid down.

[1450] No, did it?

[1451] He shamed him right off there.

[1452] Shamed him off the.

[1453] Powerful.

[1454] Post.

[1455] Desperate times, call for desperate men.

[1456] You might have saved that kid's life by masculine.

[1457] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1458] Okay, we must, because that's why you're here, in essence, talk about unspooled.

[1459] Before we do that, I just want to say Don Chito, the greatest guy of all time.

[1460] Oh, my gosh.

[1461] I did the show with him called Black Monday.

[1462] Three seasons, three seasons of Black Monday.

[1463] And I grew up loving Don Chito.

[1464] I like that guy.

[1465] I like the guy from out of sight.

[1466] He's a guy in He just had all these, like, great supporting parts.

[1467] And I was like, oh, Don Cheadle's going to be in the show.

[1468] And then I knew the creators of the show, and they're like, well, everyone's got to read with Don.

[1469] Were you nervous at this point?

[1470] Oh, frightened.

[1471] I knew what I wanted to do, ish.

[1472] But he's a legend.

[1473] He's a legend.

[1474] And part of casting, too, is like, and when you're in that point, it's like, this guy seems okay.

[1475] There's an energy, like, I like him or I don't like, you don't want to blow it in the hang.

[1476] I guess maybe you wouldn't care because you've done so.

[1477] so many things.

[1478] There's two things I really admire about you.

[1479] One, I'm really jealous of.

[1480] But you're so prolific.

[1481] You're so fucking busy.

[1482] What it is is when you like somebody, like a don't too dope.

[1483] I was going to say, I would maybe get obsessed about the hang.

[1484] Yes.

[1485] Because I'd be like, don't walk in there fucking 3 ,000 jokes in the first 60 seconds.

[1486] Relax a little.

[1487] I might have to coach myself into that.

[1488] I remember I was with Mike sure.

[1489] We love Mike.

[1490] The best, right?

[1491] And so Mike was meeting people.

[1492] before Parks and Rec.

[1493] There might be three shows.

[1494] He was kind of considering three premises.

[1495] And he was like, let me meet people.

[1496] And as I find people, I'll gravitate to the premise that I like the most.

[1497] It was a very cool thing.

[1498] And so part of that time we met was just hanging.

[1499] Yes.

[1500] And he said to me, I always remember it, he's like, when you're hiring somebody, especially be in a writer's room, that's all I'm looking for.

[1501] Because they already hear because I like your writing.

[1502] Right.

[1503] Yes.

[1504] So it's like, can I be with you in a room for 12 hours a day?

[1505] Because that's more than even on set in a run.

[1506] writer's room you are up in people's faces.

[1507] And so I always think about that part of it.

[1508] I'm going to be working on a TV show.

[1509] Like, I'm getting married to these people.

[1510] I'm like working in their family.

[1511] You know, that room was Seth Rogan, Evan Goldberg, Don Cheadle, David Kass, and Jordan Kahn, who created the show.

[1512] I also believe, once on the other side, you know that you want everyone to succeed.

[1513] But I also like the part.

[1514] I like like the part.

[1515] I wanted to get it.

[1516] I remember, I mean, I did the sketch show called Human Giant.

[1517] Me and Aziz, I'm Sorry, Jason Wulner, who directed Borat and did the show of Paul Goldman and Rob Pupil.

[1518] We were all together.

[1519] We were casting parts left and right because it's a sketch show.

[1520] You're just piling through.

[1521] And you just almost from the first moment you see that that's a person, there's not like a talent level.

[1522] There's probably a prerequisite talent that got them there, which is what you're saying about the writing.

[1523] Like, Mike already knows you're a good writer.

[1524] At this point, did you hit this one thing?

[1525] I envisioned my mind.

[1526] I saw this and that clicked.

[1527] I remember that I auditioned for S &L a handful of times.

[1528] Oh, you did.

[1529] Yeah, and it was a tremendously fun experience.

[1530] It was everything that you wanted it to be.

[1531] Did you ever...

[1532] I never got to.

[1533] Oh, my gosh, you would have been great for that.

[1534] You still could be great.

[1535] First of all, thank you so much.

[1536] Yeah, but you audition on that center stage where the host does the mom.

[1537] That's what your audition is?

[1538] Lights off, cameras on, and more than that, monitors on.

[1539] Oh, so you are on that stage, fully lit, in May. And here's the other mind fuck of it.

[1540] When you're in the waiting room with the dressing rooms, because they put you in SNL cast member dressing rooms, if you turn on the TV, you can watch everybody's audition.

[1541] Oh, my God.

[1542] It's been broadcast through NBC.

[1543] So while you're waiting for hours.

[1544] So the first year I auditioned, it was the best.

[1545] The hallway I was in was Amy Polar, Kevin Hart, Seth Myers.

[1546] Oh, my God.

[1547] That was the first time.

[1548] Good crop, we'd say that year.

[1549] Huge, right?

[1550] And so you sit there and you get on stage and then I remember, like, Lauren Michaels comes up to me and is the first time I've ever met him.

[1551] He comes out of the shadows, like out of the dark because they're in a table in the back and there's small lights there.

[1552] And he's like, do you need anything?

[1553] What can I get you?

[1554] And I may have said like, oh, is there a table?

[1555] Can we get Paul a table?

[1556] Like all of a sudden I was like, like, why isn't there a table?

[1557] Why are we fucking over this guy?

[1558] Super lovely.

[1559] And then he leaves.

[1560] And then the director or AD comes up to you to say, okay, here's what we're going to do.

[1561] You're going to see your slate, and then you're going to go.

[1562] So it is like, I mean, my heart rates at once.

[1563] You are like, so they put you in a very pressurized situation.

[1564] And then you're doing something that even the funniest version is going to be mediocre at best.

[1565] It's like three characters, three impressions.

[1566] The truth is, most of your favorite sketches involve at least two people.

[1567] And why?

[1568] Because that's how comedy works.

[1569] And when you think about the great people like Lily Tomlin or John Leguizamo do these amazing one person shows, those characters work.

[1570] in length.

[1571] So like you're going, I'm watching one character for 15 minutes and then all of a sudden you pull me and I'm like, whoa.

[1572] So whatever, you do the thing.

[1573] For what you wanted and hoped to do there versus what you did, what would you give it out of ten?

[1574] I left there incredibly fulfilled.

[1575] Wonderful.

[1576] That's all you can really want in life, right?

[1577] I felt like I did my thing.

[1578] They were very nice to me. I got my laughs.

[1579] And I left.

[1580] And then I didn't hear anything.

[1581] You have to sign a contract before you go in there.

[1582] And you see all that money that you don't have that you.

[1583] might have you know my life is going to change you can't help but think that and then you don't hear anything and then i didn't get it that year and then i got called back like three more years subsequently in different weird auditions each time like not the same as that but it was like now we're going to do it like this now we're going to do it like this we're going to do an improv show is that for people auditioning in comedy clubs oh yeah for the show right that happens as well the best one that i saw i was not in the running at this point i went to go support my friend my friend goes on does a great job and then all of a sudden you hear like a little bustle, bustle, bustle Chris Rock comes in jumps on stage and then starts running his like VMA monologue he's just going from comedy club to comedy club to run his stuff for this but then in the middle of it goes wait a second this is an S &L audition and he goes hey Lauren he's talking to everybody and then and then crushes in a way that you can never crush it's A, the audience like holy shit Chris Rock then he's doing bits that are so top Topical stuff they'll never do on the show.

[1584] This is so unfair.

[1585] The roof is blown off.

[1586] And then he jets.

[1587] And it's like, okay, the next person up from Chicago.

[1588] And then they have to do three characters and three impressions.

[1589] And you can't fucking follow Chris Rock.

[1590] I was like, oh, thank God.

[1591] I'm not auditioning this year.

[1592] Thank God.

[1593] That's cruel.

[1594] That is insane.

[1595] Years later, six or seven years ago, I found out what happened that first year.

[1596] I was talking to somebody.

[1597] And they're like, oh, I remember that because it was down to you and somebody else.

[1598] You know, and Lorne was having dinner and he was talking about what he wanted to order.

[1599] He's like, well, let's get that steak and that wine and let's hire that person.

[1600] And that was it.

[1601] They weren't talking about.

[1602] It wasn't a debate.

[1603] It wasn't like, let's look through tape.

[1604] Part of an order.

[1605] It was just part of an order.

[1606] And that's the way he kind of works.

[1607] And there was something really freeing about that because you think, oh, maybe if I didn't do that thing.

[1608] That was the reason.

[1609] It's like, no, it's fickle.

[1610] And that's our business.

[1611] It's fickle.

[1612] My thing with you behind the curtain was I was becoming friends with Arnett because we did this movie, Let's Go to Prison.

[1613] And I'm starting to hang out with he and Amy.

[1614] And I'm obsessed with Amy as all humans are.

[1615] And Will goes and does this show Human Giant.

[1616] And he's like, these are the most brilliant guys.

[1617] And I just remember thinking like, oh, God, I'm not cooling more.

[1618] Like, this is the thing here.

[1619] These guys are geniuses.

[1620] Will wants to work with them.

[1621] I just remember thinking like, oh, God, I'm missing the train.

[1622] here.

[1623] Oh, you see, but I remember, you know, when you were on punkton was like, but he's like the really funny guy.

[1624] We never know what anyone.

[1625] You know, it's like, and then look, and that's the whole thing.

[1626] It's like you don't know it.

[1627] Going all the way back to Cheatel, he wants to be cool too.

[1628] Like, he wants to be like, he wants to be funny.

[1629] He does snow pants.

[1630] He does Ben's show because of the same thing.

[1631] He doesn't care about being Clooney level great actor.

[1632] He is that.

[1633] Yes.

[1634] It's known.

[1635] So he's like attracted to comedians.

[1636] This is a fun place to play around.

[1637] I also think He's just, there's something really nice about a bunch of people who grind.

[1638] Like, we all grind.

[1639] Like, you work.

[1640] And once you work and you don't have that rare air where it's like, everything's been great for me and it's never been a downhill.

[1641] And that grind also makes you appreciative of every job and appreciative of everybody and makes you hang.

[1642] And also makes you not smell your own shit when it's working because you're like, yeah, okay.

[1643] It's working, but this is very temporary.

[1644] Well, in a weird way, you know it's going to end.

[1645] It's like, oh, more than anyone.

[1646] Yeah, like, how do I land gracefully?

[1647] I'm going to fall.

[1648] I end in the air and I'm heading to.

[1649] the ground.

[1650] I wanted to ask you a question.

[1651] I'm jumping backwards to something that you said, when you and Arnett did that movie together, I just read Odenkirk's book recently.

[1652] Did you have Odin Kirk on?

[1653] I did.

[1654] Okay.

[1655] I don't want to misquote it.

[1656] No, no, no. But it was, yeah, I should have tried harder on that one.

[1657] I just was kind of distracted.

[1658] I felt like, you know, the rewrite could have been better, but I could have been better to.

[1659] I think there was something there and I missed it.

[1660] It was very honest.

[1661] Yeah.

[1662] Yeah.

[1663] But I was like, wow, if you read that.

[1664] Going into interviewing him, I had read that.

[1665] He basically was calling a mulligan on the movie.

[1666] Yeah, it was like, and it's an interesting thing.

[1667] It was like, at one time, I admire it.

[1668] But it didn't seem to have the accompanying regret.

[1669] You know, I was always like, oops.

[1670] It was like, I went to dinner and I ordered the veal.

[1671] I realize I don't like veal, but I know better.

[1672] Yeah, it was like, I knew better.

[1673] That's another one of those things that's like, I met Arnett, I met Kekner.

[1674] I got these friendships.

[1675] We had an outrageous time.

[1676] And we were making $5 a week.

[1677] We lived in a normal suburban, low rent condominium complex, not even apartment complex with like neighbors beating the shit out of each other.

[1678] And it was wild.

[1679] I love it.

[1680] In retrospect, it's like, it's great.

[1681] Of course, I had different hopes for the whole thing as you do.

[1682] Of course.

[1683] But reading that, my heart sunk in hearing it because it's like, because there's something about a director, you go down with the ship.

[1684] You have to be Sully Sullenberger.

[1685] And I think there's a lot of responsibility to it.

[1686] A reason why as I get older, I really consider projects.

[1687] Do I want to devote this much time?

[1688] Do I am I committed to this?

[1689] Do I really love this?

[1690] Yes.

[1691] Is the project itself going to give me enough value that in failure, I won't regret it?

[1692] That's what becomes a part of the analysis for me is like, well, I got to imagine this completely fails.

[1693] Now, am I still happy I did it?

[1694] Well, I think the thing is, can you fail with something good?

[1695] Idiocracy is a perfect example.

[1696] That is a box office failure, but is probably what made people connect to you.

[1697] So it's like, I did a good job.

[1698] It was a good job.

[1699] It was directed well.

[1700] It may not have hit its targets.

[1701] I think that's the tricky thing is not to do it in a half -ass way.

[1702] Can I do this the right way that I believe in it?

[1703] Because I think a money gig or something that seems easy, it takes just as much effort to make something good as it does bad.

[1704] You can't shit anything out.

[1705] Everything takes time and energy.

[1706] and effort, and Bob has been behind so many of those things that are giant successes.

[1707] Seminole for me, too.

[1708] Mr. Show, that was what?

[1709] Even Ben Stiller's show.

[1710] It's an interesting thing to hear somebody go like, nah, but that also is very much Bob, too.

[1711] Like, Bob kind of has like a, meh.

[1712] Yeah.

[1713] It's kind of worth aspiring to, you know, it seems very liberating free.

[1714] I don't know.

[1715] This is where I've been wrestling with a lot of stuff, too.

[1716] It's like, you seed control to someone else.

[1717] I think this is why so many people have jumped into podcasting recently.

[1718] I have some control.

[1719] I get to know what gets edited.

[1720] You know, people can't misinterpret me. I grew up listening to Howard Stern, and I felt those interviews are always so amazing because I'm here.

[1721] You can't edit this.

[1722] You can't cut this down for TV time.

[1723] You can't go to a commercial.

[1724] And that's a tricky thing, too, is like, do I trust this person to basically take me and present me in the best way?

[1725] And I would argue the stakes are highest in comedy.

[1726] 100%.

[1727] Yeah, because there's so many great tricks in drama.

[1728] and they can only fuck you over so many ways, but they can really fuck up a comedy.

[1729] People will tell you all the time, that was not funny, that comedy was not good.

[1730] No one ever says that about a drama.

[1731] No one ever is like, nah, you know, it wasn't dramatic.

[1732] Yeah, it wasn't dramatic enough.

[1733] People make, I didn't like it.

[1734] That's the most, but people are angry about comedies.

[1735] Like, you betrayed me. I do want to say for anyone, most people probably, who only know you from TV.

[1736] I worked at UCB.

[1737] I interned there.

[1738] I was a huge member.

[1739] of that cult.

[1740] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1741] And you are a legend there.

[1742] Oh, that's really nice to hear.

[1743] You were doing Facebook while you were there?

[1744] Facebook, yep.

[1745] I went all the time, Wednesday nights.

[1746] Los Angeles Magazine best show of the year.

[1747] It's an incredible show.

[1748] Oh, thanks a little.

[1749] Yeah, we were there.

[1750] Look at this.

[1751] That's really nice to hear.

[1752] It's important for people to know that because I think when we had Manzukas on, I said the same thing.

[1753] Sometimes I feel there's an injustice with people who I've seen live in person doing improv, Eugene, Cordero.

[1754] Oh, yeah.

[1755] up all the time.

[1756] You guys are so funny when you're doing something scripted, but it's so different to see the magic.

[1757] Somebody said to me one time, I think it may have been Amy Poehler.

[1758] She said the funniest your friend is on stage, like improvising what they will never be able to show that and TV or film.

[1759] Never.

[1760] You will never get to that level.

[1761] You can get close, but there is something very different.

[1762] I don't know if it's about being live.

[1763] I saw Robin Williams once perform, and this is like later Robin Williams, he actually even did an improv show with me, but I saw him do stand -up on time live.

[1764] And it was one of the funniest.

[1765] Any special, anything you just can't capture it.

[1766] There is something intangible there.

[1767] And then also, especially with improv when the wheels are off or anything goes and you're in there.

[1768] It's like a dream.

[1769] You can't explain a dream.

[1770] You can't explain a great improv show.

[1771] It's like, it's a communal moment.

[1772] It's so special.

[1773] Well, there's a high degree of failure.

[1774] Yeah.

[1775] And I've even said when I've seen them try to film improv and put it on TV.

[1776] I've seen it four or five times.

[1777] It never really works for me. And it's because we know we have muscle memory.

[1778] If it made it on TV, it didn't fail.

[1779] There's some weird, like immediately the stakes are gone.

[1780] Improv shows, I think, work a little bit as like peaks and valleys.

[1781] You're watching something great and then maybe it gets a little quiet for a little bit and it goes back up and you know, there is a flow.

[1782] That doesn't work on TV.

[1783] Because it's like, well, this is not funny.

[1784] Why is it on TV?

[1785] But when you're in the theater and you're in the seats, it's like an album that came together really beautifully.

[1786] It's like, yeah.

[1787] Someone said once, watching Improv is like watching someone climb a ladder that's tilted.

[1788] Yeah, yeah.

[1789] So you're like, ah, you know, you're on edge.

[1790] It starts tipping.

[1791] You're like, oh God, but then they make it to the top and you're so happy.

[1792] Anyway, that means a lot.

[1793] I always try to tell people I like their stuff.

[1794] We don't reach out enough to people to be like, that was good.

[1795] That was fun.

[1796] We forget that part of it, I think, or even like, I just saw my friend in a movie, and she was amazing.

[1797] I was like, I'm going to send her a text.

[1798] But you forget, like, oh, well, they don't need to hear from me. They know that right, man. Yeah, your shadow tells you, I'm not relevant enough that they'll care.

[1799] Or they'll think I'm saying this or I'm placating them.

[1800] All these doubts you have instead of just spreading some love and cheer.

[1801] And somebody said to me, it is that weird?

[1802] I'm like, no one will ever begrudge a compliment.

[1803] Yeah, you know, no one's like upset about the worst.

[1804] It's like, oh, that was nice.

[1805] And you may forget about it and you have nothing else to say for it.

[1806] But we all need that dopamine hit.

[1807] People who, as interns and working the front desk and stuff, that you're excited when they come in the door.

[1808] And you were definitely one of those people.

[1809] It's like, ah, like, Paul's here.

[1810] Like, it's exciting.

[1811] But I also think it's interesting, too, because I worked in that spot at UCB when I was first there, and I saw people.

[1812] I was so excited.

[1813] Like, oh, my God, Adam McKay's improvising or Tina Fey is improvising.

[1814] And this is before Tina Fey is Tina Fey.

[1815] It's like, she's a writer on S &L.

[1816] I just like this writer.

[1817] It's exciting to be around.

[1818] And it's, and because you're in that position, you get to.

[1819] to see a lot more than people realize that you get to see, too.

[1820] That was a great thing to bring up because there's something I'm quite jealous of of you.

[1821] And particularly when I'm going through your history from 18 until now, what I'm super jealous of is, I don't know if I should blame the structure of the Growlings.

[1822] It's probably my own failing.

[1823] But the way Growlings worked is like I was there for years trying to get in the Sunday company.

[1824] You're going through classes and all these friends.

[1825] And it's like the highlight of my performing life was that.

[1826] And then getting in the Sunday company and being in it for a year and just the greatest year ever.

[1827] And then getting kicked out, not getting brought to the main stage.

[1828] It all ended there for me. I didn't figure out how to stay involved.

[1829] The fact that you always stayed involved in 2006, you moved to L .A., you immediately land there.

[1830] Then you started doing Facebook and you'd already done all the stuff in New York.

[1831] That part I'm just deeply jealous of.

[1832] Well, that's not your fault, though, because I don't think that the groundlings is, in a way to keep you involved.

[1833] Every time I hear about the groundlings, I'm hearing about people waiting for years to get to one place and the next place.

[1834] Then there's a main company and there's people who won't leave and you can't get in.

[1835] And it just feels like it's very locked.

[1836] And the best part about UCB was UCB at its core was a theater that did three shows a night, seven days a week.

[1837] Every show is different and every group could pop into their own thing.

[1838] And there was a community there of people.

[1839] You have your own improv group.

[1840] And so one of the reasons I moved out to L .A. was the UCB opened up out here.

[1841] If we bring some of our people, like we've all kind of gotten to a point in our career where maybe that's a good move, we could see what happens out here.

[1842] Yeah.

[1843] And we had a home.

[1844] You know, now that UCB is sold and it's changing, whatever that becomes is going to be interesting.

[1845] I think it's trying to figure out what it is.

[1846] It's not a - You know.

[1847] You see me was sold?

[1848] Jimmy ran the booth for ever, literally forever.

[1849] And he's an institution there.

[1850] And he just DM'd me like last week.

[1851] He was like, I'm leaving.

[1852] I was like, oh, God.

[1853] I know.

[1854] The end of, like, that's the longest thing.

[1855] And then Jimmy Miller bought it.

[1856] Oh, he did.

[1857] Yes.

[1858] So now Jimmy Miller owns UCB.

[1859] Oh, I didn't know that.

[1860] Yes.

[1861] So Jimmy Miller owns the UCB.

[1862] Oh, wow.

[1863] With this guy, Mike Medavoy, who ran the onion.

[1864] And so they're the two frontmen and I think this other giant conglomerate.

[1865] It's an interesting thing.

[1866] Look, I painted the walls at UCB.

[1867] Yeah.

[1868] You know, I was like, I worked the booth.

[1869] Yeah, we did.

[1870] And that was one of the hardest things with COVID is like, Oh, because I'm not going out, like, I'm married, I've got kids.

[1871] I'm not going out to, like, hang out with my friends at bars, but I can go and do an improv show once a week.

[1872] See all my friends, have a great time.

[1873] And now we do it at Largo, and I'm doing a show tonight with Bob Odenkirk.

[1874] But it does take a little bit of effort to find, and, like, I run my show.

[1875] I book it, and I'll get everybody in there.

[1876] Because I want to do it.

[1877] I want to have fun.

[1878] But that's the culture.

[1879] The culture of the Groundlings does not allow that.

[1880] No. I would also argue that from what I understand, groundings is much more of a soul.

[1881] sport to a certain extent.

[1882] Like you have your great character and we are doing a great show of great performers.

[1883] Everybody has come out of there, have these great careers.

[1884] It's a groomed for Hollywood.

[1885] Whereas UCB, you could deal with people who never perform, don't want to perform, but just like to improvise.

[1886] It's so scrappy.

[1887] Yeah, it takes all.

[1888] And there's something interesting there.

[1889] And look, if I was in LA, I would have probably gone to the groundlings.

[1890] Yeah, well, A, there wasn't a UCB.

[1891] And then B, Will Ferrell had just left this place, the groundlings to go to Serent Live.

[1892] And he's the best person answering live and Chero Terry is also from there and Bill Harmon is from that.

[1893] So I'm going, well, this is obvious.

[1894] But the rate at which you could get in there and stay there and do that thing we're talking about, like make it your life where you get to do shows all the time.

[1895] You're right.

[1896] It's just not set up for that.

[1897] I would imagine at some level you get on punk, you're getting this success and people are like, he's from the groundings.

[1898] But underneath it, you're like, fuck the groundings because I didn't get in the Sunday company.

[1899] You know, I didn't get into the main company.

[1900] Well, I was both trying to claim it for validity, just to act like I deserve to be anywhere I was at, and also rejecting at any point and not wanting to give them any attention because I didn't get in.

[1901] They didn't give me that thing.

[1902] Yeah.

[1903] And yet they get to put your name on a poster to say, all of our amazing tons.

[1904] I mean, the U .S .V. has a version of that, too.

[1905] They have the Herald teams and the Mott team.

[1906] Same thing.

[1907] I mean, I auditioned for Harold three times and never made it.

[1908] And same thing.

[1909] You claim it, but you're just like, well, I wasn't good enough.

[1910] But also there, there was an indie scene that developed where then you had your own groups you're making and then doing shows all over the city and everything you don't need the validation of UCB and in a weird way too it's like and look I think that they did there are some things and I wasn't involved in this part of UCB but structural issues where they I think could have been more open and changed some stuff the rooting of that theater in the Harold form yeah no one wants to see a Harold hair I think exactly it's the worst night of the week yeah the worst night of the week and it's like you got to do that to then go off and do your own thing, but it's also weird that we've based how good you are at the Herald to get on a thing to then get to the next level.

[1911] Where you're not even doing that anymore.

[1912] Yeah, it's like learn how to rock climb and then you get into the NBA.

[1913] It's like, okay, yeah, I am using my hands and feet.

[1914] I guess it's the same thing, but not the same way.

[1915] Every institution has a power thing and there's a thing like, fuck this power.

[1916] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[1917] And I remember when the UCB reopened here in L .A., I had a real, like, I'm doing my show at Largo with my friends.

[1918] I'm having a great time.

[1919] And the UCB reopened their grand opening night.

[1920] And I was not invited to perform.

[1921] And they had like, 100 performers performing for the opening night.

[1922] And I'm like, man, I literally like launched both.

[1923] I was at like the opening nights of both theaters.

[1924] And then when you feel that, there's that moment where you're like, oh, did anything ever matter?

[1925] Right.

[1926] Am I just like another page?

[1927] And then I don't even know what I want.

[1928] Like I might even have said, oh, I can't do it or I'm busy or not.

[1929] Sure, sure.

[1930] But I just wanted to be asked.

[1931] You can't put everybody on stage that you want to put on stage.

[1932] And I get that to.

[1933] Yeah, but the, oh, geez.

[1934] I mean, come on.

[1935] The thing that I miss, though, is just there's something so special about that green room.

[1936] Yes.

[1937] With all these guys and girls that I've been with for years, the way the sense of humor just keeps twisting and twisting and twisting.

[1938] The little bubble you're in is so fulfilling.

[1939] That's the only thing that has kept me saying.

[1940] in the highs and lows of my career, the show gets picked up, you don't get an audition, you have a shitty day, you go there and you perform, and it's like, it cleanses everything.

[1941] There's so few things in life where you can do that.

[1942] Okay.

[1943] Now we're going to have to do this.

[1944] I'm insisting on it.

[1945] Unspool's fantastic.

[1946] I started with Citizen Kane, but then I was like, I shouldn't listen to the first one.

[1947] I'm going to drop in a little later.

[1948] And then I listened to Platoon.

[1949] And first of all, for people who most certainly have listened to how did this, get made, which is amazing.

[1950] The fact that he's been doing for 10 years is so radical.

[1951] Yeah, it's so crazy.

[1952] Isn't it?

[1953] I think it's almost 13 now.

[1954] And we started doing it when no one knew what a podcast was.

[1955] So it's like, let's have fun.

[1956] And we like watching bad movies.

[1957] Let's watch bad movie and like have fun.

[1958] Yes.

[1959] And that's hugely successful.

[1960] But Un spool's much more academic.

[1961] It's much more, quote, serious.

[1962] Amy Nichols is your partner on Nicholson.

[1963] I'm sorry.

[1964] Yeah, she reviews from New York Times.

[1965] It all started out of this idea.

[1966] I haven't watched some of these great movies.

[1967] The AFI 100 is where we started.

[1968] I saw a few.

[1969] I haven't seen them all.

[1970] It was so great to start having these conversations with Amy where it was like, let's like get into it.

[1971] What does it mirror in the world?

[1972] And it's been a great treat to like watch a great movie.

[1973] Sometimes you're like, oh, I liked it.

[1974] I didn't like it.

[1975] It's incredibly well produced.

[1976] It's a well -constructed show.

[1977] Thanks.

[1978] You're learning about platoon.

[1979] You're doing interviews.

[1980] The interview in that is so wild.

[1981] What I like about it is everyone has their book clubs.

[1982] There's like a movie club.

[1983] And when you hear people's point of view, like that guy, he trained all these actors.

[1984] He was a former Marine who trained actors to then be, you know, in these situations.

[1985] And now he's made a huge career of it.

[1986] So for 30 years, he's been now, even to the point of the parody, the Ben Stiller.

[1987] Yeah, the Tropic Thunder.

[1988] Yeah.

[1989] He went and boot camp to those guys, even.

[1990] Yes.

[1991] It reminded me that I used to love and worship film.

[1992] Yes.

[1993] It brought me back in a very fun, nostalgic way.

[1994] I'm so happy to hear that.

[1995] We just did the sight and sound list, which is the British compilation of the best films voted on by critics, the number one film.

[1996] It used to be Citizen Kane, then it became Vertigo, and then this year it became this movie called John Dealman.

[1997] John Dealman is a three -hour and 21 -minute movie that takes place pretty much in like one apartment, and it's all about this single mother.

[1998] Is it French?

[1999] It's a Belgian.

[2000] She's also a prostitute.

[2001] She's a single mom.

[2002] She's taking care of her son.

[2003] And it was a chore to watch a three -and -a -ha -ha.

[2004] But it was one of those things where I'm so glad I was forced to.

[2005] watch it.

[2006] Once you get in, you're like, oh, oh, but if I didn't put in the hour and 20, because I can get really lazy and be like, oh, I want to watch Bullet Train, but then to go back and challenge yourself.

[2007] And what I like about it is then having that conversation with Amy, because I can process it and then enjoy it.

[2008] And the thing I get so angry about as a dad is, all these movies my kids watch.

[2009] They're just weak.

[2010] My kids love Home Alone.

[2011] You couldn't release that movie now.

[2012] I remember even in the new Home Alone is like, well, the burglars have to be nice guys.

[2013] It's like, why?

[2014] Why?

[2015] Why?

[2016] Can't we just?

[2017] There's no danger in it.

[2018] I showed my kids ET.

[2019] We talked about it on the podcast.

[2020] And my kids cried.

[2021] And I was like, oh, wow, they experienced emotion.

[2022] And I interviewed David Lowry.

[2023] He did Green Knight.

[2024] He did a bunch of great movies.

[2025] And we're talking about this idea of that's where we learned our emotion from these movies that were complex.

[2026] E .T. is complex.

[2027] It also is an alien running around.

[2028] I showed goonies to my kids.

[2029] You know, they're trying to put a kid's hand into a blender.

[2030] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2031] Sure, sure.

[2032] They would never do that now.

[2033] And my kids are like, oh, my God.

[2034] Even Indiana Jones, I show my kid in Indiana Jones.

[2035] And I keep remembering a scene's approach.

[2036] I'm like, oh, that's right.

[2037] This guy's head's about to get blasted by the propeller of an airplane and blood's going to spatter all over.

[2038] Totally forgot that was there.

[2039] Yeah, the only new movie I've seen and I was so grateful for it.

[2040] I wonder how you feel about it.

[2041] My nine -year -old, my oldest daughter, I took her to Top Gun, IMAX.

[2042] Oh, the best.

[2043] The best movie made.

[2044] in the last decade.

[2045] I mean, to see it, IMAX there.

[2046] It was like...

[2047] She went to a zone.

[2048] We've watched hundreds of movies together.

[2049] She left the theater and she was like rattling.

[2050] And she goes, I want to do that or I want to know how to make that.

[2051] Yeah.

[2052] And I was like, here we go, sister.

[2053] Like, that's how I felt leaving the movie all the time as a kid.

[2054] We did a little mini episode of Top Gun because we liked it so much.

[2055] The best thing about Top Gun Maverick is in every one of these franchises, it's like, Here's the old guy passing the torch to the new people.

[2056] And Tom Cruise passes the torch to himself.

[2057] He's like, I'm out of the biz.

[2058] All right, fuck it.

[2059] I'll take it.

[2060] I'm better than all of you.

[2061] And he is.

[2062] He's great.

[2063] You watch it.

[2064] You're like, fuck, yeah.

[2065] I'm first in like to see those Mission Impossible movies on a motorcycle jumping.

[2066] He just did.

[2067] Okay.

[2068] We went and saw Avatar, the new one.

[2069] And they show as one of the trailers, him doing that stunt.

[2070] Yeah.

[2071] He rides a dirt bike down a like 300 foot.

[2072] ramp that by the end of it the ramps probably 80 feet in the air he jumps off of a cliff and then midair he ditches the motorcycle he sails for a while a while that's the impressive part he's like pulled that fucking shoot right when i got off the ramp he's in the air monica for like seven seconds in a suit pulls the parachute it's him yeah i looked at my nine year old and i said you will never see this again this is so important that's how i feel about those missions Impossible movies.

[2073] And the last one, he jumped from, like, above the atmosphere out of an airplane.

[2074] Like, now you have to remember, yes, he's jumping, but they have to also train a cameraman.

[2075] Oh, yes, exactly.

[2076] Do it and pull focus.

[2077] And I say this, not to be a dick, but I hope he dies doing one of these things because it's like, because I feel like that would be his legacy.

[2078] Like, no, I don't want him to do it.

[2079] I don't want him to die.

[2080] He would love it, though.

[2081] Because I think that that's like the best thing you can get on iTunes or the DVDs are all the special making of stuff.

[2082] on Mission Impossible because they show a lot of his training.

[2083] And it's like, jump 97, jump 98.

[2084] And it's like, these are not even the ones that they're filming.

[2085] This is just what's going.

[2086] And there is one thing that they're doing in this new Mission Impossible.

[2087] They could only shoot it for two hours.

[2088] They have two hour window, but only one chance to get it.

[2089] I'll tell you the story.

[2090] It's out of school, but I think it's fine to tell.

[2091] My friend was on Top Gun, Maverick, and Tom grabs one of the camera guys.

[2092] Cameras are out and everything is like, so he goes, get this.

[2093] runs to a plane gets in the plane flies into the sunset and that is in the movie it is in the movie and then he flew that plane apparently to L .A. did a vent and flew back that night so like to me and I heard him on this podcast there's a podcast called Light the Fuse He did a podcast?

[2094] It is a podcast called Light the Fuse and it's only about Mission Impossible and so on their 100th episode Macquarie and him Come on and you hear him dissect film And it was talking about character arcs And where he goes What he is thinking about is So layered Him and Macquarie like Well it's like that thing from ordinary people He's talking about ordinary people And it's effect on top gun He sees that and he's like Well that's what I need to create here He talks about this thing Where the end of the movie of Maverick was not working Whatever it was, it was testing badly And Tom Cruz goes into the edit bay And I think Macquarie's telling the story And he goes, Tom goes like this Okay, take out the music And hums a score No And then they score to his humming And then the movie works They didn't change a frame It's just like he knew how to score it differently But also I like that though Because it shows us more than just charisma It's real energy Talk about a guy with the 10 ,000 hours.

[2095] Yeah, exactly.

[2096] And it's like he does 10 ,000 hours for every role that he plays.

[2097] It's like, oh, I'm going to become an expert at doing this one thing that I'll never do again.

[2098] It's not like, oh, I do the jump of the motorcycle off the canyon in every movie.

[2099] He's doing a movie in space.

[2100] That's the next movie he's doing in space.

[2101] Wait, really?

[2102] Yeah, him and Macquarie are doing a movie in outer space.

[2103] Of course.

[2104] That is, like, yeah.

[2105] Yeah.

[2106] Well, Paul, this has been so wonderful.

[2107] I knew it would be.

[2108] I adore you.

[2109] And everything you do is so fucking good and heartfelt and wonderful.

[2110] And I want everyone to check out unspooled.

[2111] It'll reignite your love for movies.

[2112] And in fact, I was like, A, I'm watching Platoon tonight.

[2113] Oh, my wife goes to bad.

[2114] And then I also wanted to extend to you, it would be a great device to get me to watch more movies.

[2115] I have a really beautiful screening room in the basement.

[2116] Oh, my gosh.

[2117] so if you ever need to watch a movie or when you need to watch movies you know like just drop me a line and I would love to watch some with you because it would be a good incentive for me to go back in there I love it yeah we'll find a good movie I'm not like hungry to recapture my obsession with movies there's before the curtain and after right yeah and I almost need to go back before I knew I'm sure you had this experience I was young when I saw Raising Arizona oh yeah and I was like there's something so wild about this movie, I need to understand it.

[2118] Why does this movie look the way it does?

[2119] That whole sequence where he goes through the windshield of the pickup truck and then you run through the house and then later find out, oh, the whole thing shot on a 17, it's handheld.

[2120] Like, I find out, but that movie woke me up to like something happened visually here.

[2121] Something happened mechanically that made this movie so insane.

[2122] And I was so curious and had to know.

[2123] And then there's the phase where you actually know.

[2124] So there's loss of innocence.

[2125] Like you know why it looks like it does, which is not as fun.

[2126] But I also think it's like when you find these new people who do something so interesting.

[2127] Like the Daniels who directed everywhere, everything all at once.

[2128] Oh my God.

[2129] Those guys directed some NTSF episodes and it was very really interesting because I had met them as music video directors and they were really lovely.

[2130] And my producer was like, you should meet them and they should direct an episode.

[2131] And we did this one episode like a parody on Die Hard and a mall during Christmas.

[2132] And I went back and rewatch it after I saw that movie.

[2133] There was hands of it there?

[2134] Yeah, because it's like there's this one moment where my character turns a gumball machine.

[2135] And I whisper into a gumball's ear, even though there's no ear.

[2136] And then the gunball like kills somebody, but they follow the gunball all through the mall and does all this crazy stuff.

[2137] And they directed that and they directed this other episode, Comic -Con air.

[2138] And they just did all this really fun, explosive stuff.

[2139] When I saw their music videos, like, this is different.

[2140] This is weird.

[2141] How can they fit in with me?

[2142] And then there will always be this thing of, oh, I don't know if that's totally our show.

[2143] You let them do their thing.

[2144] It's like most of the movies we do on Unspooled are these classics that people hate it.

[2145] Like, you know, when you read these reviews for Raising Arizona, people are like, it's goofy, it's weird.

[2146] What are they trying to do?

[2147] They're trying's too hard.

[2148] Blood Simple was better.

[2149] Bruce Wilson will never be an action star.

[2150] Diehard is too much on him.

[2151] He can't carry it.

[2152] You read these things and it's like because it's different.

[2153] It shook you in a way and you think different is bad.

[2154] But oftentimes different is the precursor to new.

[2155] Yeah, all the paradigm.

[2156] All right, Paul, adore you.

[2157] So fun.

[2158] Everyone should listen to Unspooled with you and Amy Nicholson.

[2159] And of course, they should still be listening to How Did This Get Made?

[2160] We are such huge Mansuka's fans.

[2161] It's ridiculous.

[2162] He's incredible.

[2163] So good luck with everything.

[2164] This has been a blast.

[2165] And if you ever want to watch movies, I'm your uncle.

[2166] I'm down.

[2167] That would be fun.

[2168] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[2169] Are people congratulating you?

[2170] I got a few congrats.

[2171] Yeah.

[2172] It was all me. Good job.

[2173] Yeah, we won, as, as you know.

[2174] In almost evil fashion.

[2175] Yeah, definitive.

[2176] What are the words they say?

[2177] Resounding.

[2178] Resounding.

[2179] Massacre.

[2180] Bloodbath.

[2181] Not nice.

[2182] Should have stopped.

[2183] It's not our fault.

[2184] I know.

[2185] You got to play as hard as you can.

[2186] It's like Max for Stampin.

[2187] Yeah.

[2188] You got to drive as fast as you can at all times.

[2189] Right.

[2190] Yeah.

[2191] I was excited, you know, it's funny, I was getting pretty distracted by the band, as I kind of do, the marching band.

[2192] I was thinking they probably celebrated more than the football team when they got to go.

[2193] I bet they were the most excited, like, oh my God, we're going to Los Angeles to play in this game.

[2194] But I was thinking, but they don't compete.

[2195] And I feel like they should make a little space for the two bands to compete.

[2196] Because they're, like, part of the team.

[2197] They want to get their hands dirty.

[2198] Okay, but wait.

[2199] They want to get a little blood on their hands, too.

[2200] Because they probably have banned competitions.

[2201] They're just not.

[2202] I know.

[2203] They should have one at the game.

[2204] Well, there's no time for that.

[2205] Well, sure, before, after.

[2206] Well, before, after is not going to work.

[2207] But before, it's like half hour before the game.

[2208] Let them go out there, blow it out on the field.

[2209] Okay.

[2210] And then, I don't know, impartial judge, blindfolded the whole time.

[2211] No knowledge of who went out first.

[2212] Okay.

[2213] They levy a verdict.

[2214] Nice of you.

[2215] competitive.

[2216] Well, I know, but that's like for cheerleading.

[2217] We also sideline cheered.

[2218] But you should get to do it on the main stage.

[2219] But we did.

[2220] We didn't need to compete also at games.

[2221] But you should.

[2222] I bet the big CF, the conference, whatever they call it, the championship.

[2223] I don't know what was the acronym for that game.

[2224] I'm just, I just mean we had our own thing.

[2225] We didn't need to also compete at football games.

[2226] That's stupid.

[2227] Try to pull focus.

[2228] Okay.

[2229] Also, that's like below us.

[2230] Okay.

[2231] All right.

[2232] That makes sense.

[2233] It was a great excuse for me to get the bros together.

[2234] Oh.

[2235] So me, Charlie, Matt, and Ryan all watched it together.

[2236] Fun.

[2237] Yeah, it was really fun.

[2238] Cool.

[2239] Until it wasn't.

[2240] I bet Charlie was into it.

[2241] No, he's the one who bailed in the fourth quarter with go in the sauna with me. Oh, wow.

[2242] Surprised because he likes victory.

[2243] He does.

[2244] And he has no compassion in those.

[2245] Exactly.

[2246] Right.

[2247] So it's cut throw.

[2248] It's really funny.

[2249] Because Charlie played college football at Georgetown.

[2250] You know, he knows more about that than any of us are going to know about that.

[2251] And his disdain for when guys don't get off the field when they're hurt, it's like his code of honor.

[2252] He's like, oh, he's not even grandstanding.

[2253] He's just over there getting more and more uncomfortable.

[2254] And then slowly he's just letting out, like, get out of the field.

[2255] Oh, my God.

[2256] Sometimes they're very injured.

[2257] I know, but his thought is like, you don't fucking show that.

[2258] It's kind of like stuntman in the show business.

[2259] They don't.

[2260] they're not allowed to say they're hurt i just think for him personally his own ethics were you get off the field you deal with your injury on the sideline you don't make you don't let yourself be the show you know he's got a whole thing i respect his thing okay can't imagine him watching soccer why do they lay there for hours they've yeah they've taken a app well and if you're just like barely pushed they're on the ground okay a lot of theatrics yes NBA's like that too back when i was way into NBA these guys are fucking they're hurting themselves more in flopping than they could ever get hurt in an actual foul.

[2261] Yeah.

[2262] Soccer's worse, though.

[2263] It is.

[2264] World Cup, which is also weird because they're very, very athletic men.

[2265] Extremely.

[2266] Sure, they can handle almost anything.

[2267] So to see them do it, it's wild.

[2268] A lot of pageantry.

[2269] Yeah.

[2270] But yeah, it was really fun.

[2271] My brother and dad had a wonderful time.

[2272] So a very adorable picture of them.

[2273] Yes.

[2274] My brother said it was the best day of his life.

[2275] Oh, that's wonderful.

[2276] What was the final score of that game?

[2277] When I left, it was like 52 to 7.

[2278] I was like, this isn't going to happen.

[2279] 65 to 7, I think.

[2280] Oh, wow.

[2281] That's 60 points.

[2282] It's nice.

[2283] Yeah, it went from like, of course I want Georgia to win on your behalf.

[2284] And I'm also like drawn into a perfect record.

[2285] You want to see a perfect record and a perfect record.

[2286] There's all these like little incentives along the way.

[2287] And then, and like so it was like, you know, 14 to 7.

[2288] I'm like, oh, let's get them.

[2289] You know, make it.

[2290] And then I was on the second quarter, I was like, okay, this is getting a little.

[2291] And then it just was not fun.

[2292] And then I felt really bad for the TCU people who had flown all the way there from Texas, some region of Texas, it's indescript.

[2293] Sure.

[2294] It's all how you look at it, though, because, and I could be wrong.

[2295] But my guess is that's a real once -in -a -lifetime opportunity for TCU.

[2296] I don't know their history, but that's the first time I ever heard of TCU.

[2297] No disrespect to the Alumni Association.

[2298] No, great school.

[2299] Fine men and women in the service.

[2300] in and around the world.

[2301] Sure.

[2302] But I do believe their chances of going back are small.

[2303] And they were really small to get there to begin with.

[2304] So I understand if you went to that school, like, that's your time.

[2305] You go.

[2306] And like, hopefully that's just still fun.

[2307] But you're wishing for a miracle.

[2308] You know, it's like, oh, man, we pulled these upsets.

[2309] We might even upset them.

[2310] Yeah.

[2311] But I did start, of course, and I don't feel too bad saying this because I'm from Michigan.

[2312] I was thinking, well, I wish U of M was here playing this game.

[2313] Yeah.

[2314] But then again, if they had run all over U of M like that, I probably would have jumped out my window.

[2315] You would have jumped out your window.

[2316] Which is weird because I was in the basement.

[2317] And you don't care that much.

[2318] No, but I wouldn't want Michigan to have been humiliated so thoroughly.

[2319] Oh, by, it wouldn't have been that.

[2320] I don't think so.

[2321] But who's to say?

[2322] I mean, they did just lose to TCU, so I'm walking on an eye.

[2323] So now I can feel your role to add anxiety.

[2324] Like, I'm on hollowed green.

[2325] ground to even be talking about U of M. I didn't go there.

[2326] I want to be welcome at Michigan when I return.

[2327] So I'm just trying to choose my words really carefully.

[2328] Yeah, you better.

[2329] Wolverines, baby.

[2330] Speaking of Michigan and football players, you know, our friend Pack.

[2331] Yeah.

[2332] He did not play at not at UFM.

[2333] But he played football in Michigan.

[2334] University of Detroit, I think, in high school.

[2335] In high school?

[2336] Yeah, I think he played at UOD, which which is a private high school in Michigan that has the best football team.

[2337] I thought he played in college.

[2338] He probably played in college, but I don't think it was at U of M. But I could be wrong.

[2339] All I knows I love that guy.

[2340] Sure.

[2341] So, anyway, side note, it was torrential downpour yesterday.

[2342] Like, stressfully so.

[2343] Yes.

[2344] And, you know, I had to really do some talking to myself.

[2345] Mm -hmm.

[2346] Like, do not worry.

[2347] Like, I'm worried about them out there in this slippery.

[2348] rain.

[2349] Oh, that's what you were worried about?

[2350] They have a roof on the place.

[2351] No, but just walking out and about in the slippery rain.

[2352] Oh, your dad and your brother?

[2353] Yeah.

[2354] Okay.

[2355] I thought you were talking with the football team.

[2356] I'm like, Jesus Christ, these guys can't walk in the rain.

[2357] They're like world -class athletes.

[2358] No, mainly my dad.

[2359] Yeah, I totally understand now.

[2360] I'm just like, he has small shoes.

[2361] I don't know.

[2362] Okay, but they also get a lot of rain down in Georgia.

[2363] He's used to these.

[2364] I know, but we're not equipped here in the same way.

[2365] And the soil's not right for it.

[2366] So it's like it does.

[2367] It does.

[2368] It does.

[2369] It does.

[2370] I'm not.

[2371] We're not.

[2372] It does.

[2373] It does.

[2374] I doesn't percolate or go down or whatever the fuck it's cold.

[2375] So I was, you know, I bail in the fourth quarter going to the sauna.

[2376] I'm looking around the yard.

[2377] It's dicey.

[2378] Their water is, it's pooled everywhere.

[2379] We're in a new place.

[2380] You know, some of the drainage is not quite figured out.

[2381] We already had a big drainage issue earlier in the year.

[2382] And then I started going all around the property.

[2383] It's freezing cold.

[2384] It's raining like a motherfucker.

[2385] Cleaning out drains just to keep up with it.

[2386] But it's coming so fast.

[2387] So by the time I go to sleep.

[2388] It's just a tsunami of water coming down.

[2389] I have to say to myself, like, well, what can you do?

[2390] You know, I'm thinking this house we've been working on for four years is about to get flooded and destroyed.

[2391] Yeah.

[2392] And then I just had to, like, let that go.

[2393] Yeah.

[2394] The whole rain thing and the stress of it.

[2395] And then I woke up this morning, it's still going on.

[2396] And I meditated.

[2397] And it became a gift to me. Okay.

[2398] Go on.

[2399] Okay.

[2400] This is a little hooey -poohy.

[2401] Oh, boy.

[2402] All right.

[2403] I'm owning that it's a little hooey -poohy.

[2404] Hooty -pooty?

[2405] Well, hoity, no, not hooty -to -y.

[2406] Hoo -O -W -W -W -W -W.

[2407] I know.

[2408] I made it hooty -pudy because.

[2409] Oh, yeah.

[2410] I just didn't want you to think I was saying it was hoity -to -y.

[2411] No, no, this is like hooey -poey.

[2412] Woo -woo.

[2413] Woo -y, woo -y, woo.

[2414] There's a word for it, but I can't.

[2415] There's a sound for it.

[2416] There's an automata pia for it.

[2417] Okay.

[2418] But I'm trying to embrace the notion of the capital S self.

[2419] I heard you say that before.

[2420] Probably with Stutz, maybe.

[2421] No, it was with Anna, but I think I cut it because it was in a section.

[2422] Because it was terrible.

[2423] No. And here we go again.

[2424] Well, let me. Remember that thing I cut already?

[2425] Let's try it again.

[2426] No, no, no. It's not, it's fine.

[2427] Well, because I don't believe in God.

[2428] Yeah.

[2429] And my therapist does want me to.

[2430] get a toehold in faith, which I do too.

[2431] He said, you know, a lot of people instead of thinking of God, you think of capital S self.

[2432] And this is like your, this is your beautiful unmarred little being that comes with you out of the womb.

[2433] It's just magically there.

[2434] And where was it?

[2435] It's kind of suspicious.

[2436] What do you mean?

[2437] Where was it?

[2438] Your spirit.

[2439] Your existence.

[2440] You mean where to come from?

[2441] Yeah.

[2442] Oh, okay.

[2443] Like it's just there.

[2444] And I like that.

[2445] I'm like, yeah.

[2446] Yeah, where did that come from?

[2447] We have this little spirit.

[2448] And then the capitalist self is running the show and is free, but then things ultimately end up scaring the capitalist self.

[2449] And the capitalist self hides, you know, and then the little self comes in to protect.

[2450] I'm making sense so far, right?

[2451] Yeah, yeah.

[2452] My little ass self was really in charge and got real honed.

[2453] And the reason I can latch on to this idea is I see the capitalist self and my kids.

[2454] I can see it.

[2455] It's like this beam of beauty and perfection, and I see it.

[2456] And I can see where it would get shoved into a cave if enough bad things happen.

[2457] And so I'm trying to connect with the capitalists.

[2458] Yeah, that's great.

[2459] So in my meditation, while stressed out about this rain and everything, I just started thinking about the capitalist self.

[2460] And I was like, oh, capitalist self doesn't care about things at all.

[2461] It doesn't care if this house is destroyed.

[2462] It doesn't care at all.

[2463] It cares if the people I love are safe and around me. And they are.

[2464] They were in the house.

[2465] And then I felt good.

[2466] Good.

[2467] Yeah, I felt really good.

[2468] I, like, totally let all that go.

[2469] And I was like, no, no, the self I want to be doesn't really care about that stuff.

[2470] Yeah, that's great.

[2471] Yeah.

[2472] It was hooey.

[2473] No, I don't think so.

[2474] Hoey -poohy.

[2475] Well, it's not hooey -poohy, it's hooty -pooty.

[2476] Oh, hooty -poo -pooty.

[2477] No, no, it's not.

[2478] I think that's lovely.

[2479] I think whatever...

[2480] Whatever you need to do.

[2481] I do.

[2482] Not you.

[2483] I know, I know.

[2484] Not capital YU.

[2485] Little YUs.

[2486] I think that's great.

[2487] I also might be totally misinterpreting what he's saying.

[2488] So I feel like I just don't want to have a disclaimer.

[2489] I may not be getting that right.

[2490] It's all about what made sense in my mind this morning that put me at ease.

[2491] It gave me gratitude.

[2492] That's all that matters, really.

[2493] I had gratitude in the face of a lot of fear.

[2494] Over material stuff.

[2495] Yeah.

[2496] You're right.

[2497] I mean, ultimately you're right.

[2498] Well, there's a primitive aspect.

[2499] It's your shelter.

[2500] There's like something primitive.

[2501] And it's stress.

[2502] It's like, okay, if this happens, then what?

[2503] Then comes a lot of fucking logistics and those are annoying.

[2504] Yeah, my mind went immediately to mold remediation, water remediation.

[2505] Good luck finding a company that's going to come to you in L .A. right now.

[2506] Certainly 8 % of houses in Los Angeles have been destroyed in the last 48 hours.

[2507] Oh, my God.

[2508] Downstairs in Black Mold Paradise, the mold's thriving.

[2509] Like, there's standing water in Black Mold Paradise in the corner.

[2510] Well, that's good for Black Mold Paradise.

[2511] The mold, yeah.

[2512] It's a super mold.

[2513] Gains, gains, gains.

[2514] Oh, my God.

[2515] Maybe in 2023, it'll be Black Super Mold Paradise.

[2516] That's cool.

[2517] I'll probably be above the garage at that point.

[2518] Oh.

[2519] I know.

[2520] I know.

[2521] Right when the mold's finding it's super strange.

[2522] Super strain.

[2523] Why did the mushroom get invited to the party?

[2524] because he was a fun guy oh I like that I don't even know if that's the set of of the joke I like that I haven't heard that I like the science jokes you know do you say fungi or fungi or fungi or fungi I would probably say fun guy he's a fun guy it's like pie aren't round pie r squared this area I know but what's the joke well the end math, I might get this wrong, either the area of a circle or the circumference, I think it's the area, is pi r squared.

[2525] So the radius squared times pi, pi r squared.

[2526] That's area.

[2527] That's area.

[2528] Okay, but pie aren't squared, pie are round.

[2529] There we go.

[2530] That's the, yeah.

[2531] See, I can hang with the nerds.

[2532] I was in AP classes.

[2533] I can do the AP jokes.

[2534] You can be my friend in high school.

[2535] Yeah, pie aren't square.

[2536] They're pie around.

[2537] Okay.

[2538] This is for Paul Shear.

[2539] Paulium Shear.

[2540] First fact, how big is Long Island?

[2541] Hmm.

[2542] Can I guess?

[2543] I probably already guessed in the episode.

[2544] You might have guessed in the episode, but go ahead and guess again.

[2545] I'm going to guess it's 89 miles long.

[2546] Okay.

[2547] The total length of Long Island is 120 miles, and its maximum width is 23 miles.

[2548] The total area of Long Island, including the smaller islands within the political boundaries of the island, but excluding the bordering bays, is about 1 ,400 square miles.

[2549] Bire square.

[2550] Ding, ding, ding.

[2551] The original owner of the Clippers, that racist guy, that was Donald Sterling.

[2552] Yeah, Donald Sterling.

[2553] Yeah, he was gnarly.

[2554] He also used to do this thing where it was like slave owner mentality where he would bring people into the locker room and touch them and go.

[2555] grab them and point at their body parts and also bring them around at parties.

[2556] Remember Blake Griffin told us about that.

[2557] Oh, yes, yes.

[2558] Apparently he's banned from the NBA for life.

[2559] Yeah.

[2560] Yeah, for saying some racist shit.

[2561] Yeah.

[2562] Well, now the sweetest guy on the planet owns it Steve Balmer.

[2563] Oh.

[2564] Balmer's radical.

[2565] Oh, cool.

[2566] Yes.

[2567] He's one of Pena's friends and I've gotten to hang out.

[2568] Gotten to?

[2569] Um, I got to.

[2570] Yeah, I've got to hang.

[2571] No, that means I. I got to.

[2572] I got to.

[2573] But if I want to say plural, like I've done it a few times.

[2574] That's what I said, and I didn't feel right.

[2575] It's still plural.

[2576] I've got to.

[2577] No. I have got.

[2578] You'd still say I got to.

[2579] Oh, God, no. But exactly.

[2580] But in it would still be plural.

[2581] Got can be plural too.

[2582] Gotcha.

[2583] Or you could just say I hung out.

[2584] You know, you don't have to say got to.

[2585] Right.

[2586] But you wanted to say, I had the chance.

[2587] Ding, ding, fucking ding.

[2588] University of Detroit.

[2589] What about?

[2590] Steve Balmer.

[2591] He's from there?

[2592] He played football at U -A -D as well.

[2593] I didn't know that.

[2594] Holy fuck, that was crazy.

[2595] Hold on tight.

[2596] Wow.

[2597] This whole thing's scripted.

[2598] Um, okay.

[2599] Is Gypsy Cab offensive?

[2600] There's multiple thoughts out there, but ding, ding, ding, ding, resounding.

[2601] Yeah?

[2602] Yes, it is.

[2603] Okay.

[2604] Just FYI.

[2605] What would you call it if you couldn't call it that?

[2606] That's my issue.

[2607] An illegal cab.

[2608] That's what it means.

[2609] Okay.

[2610] All right.

[2611] They were basically Uber before there was Uber.

[2612] They're like, are you sick of this medallion having taxi cab racket?

[2613] Yeah.

[2614] Syndicate.

[2615] Yeah.

[2616] Come with us.

[2617] Right.

[2618] Illegal.

[2619] That's right.

[2620] And take you to where you want to go.

[2621] The highest rate of child abuse happens between child and step parent.

[2622] You said that.

[2623] That's true.

[2624] That checks out.

[2625] It's called the Cinderella effect.

[2626] Oh.

[2627] Results of a 2009 study show that families living with a man who was not the biological father of all the children in the home.

[2628] And families living without a man in the home were significantly more likely to be contacted by CPS compared to families in which the biological father of all the children lived with the mother.

[2629] The following year, a report on the National Incident Study of Abuse and Neglect, which examines not only CPS cases, but all reported incidences of abuse and neglect.

[2630] to community professionals, also found that maltreatment rates differed according to family structure.

[2631] Children living with their married biological parents had the lowest rate of abuse and neglect, whereas those living with a single parent who had a partner living in the household had the highest rate.

[2632] Compared to children living with married biological parents, those who single parent had a live -in partner were at least eight times more likely to be maltreated in one way or another.

[2633] Yeah, because I had read, so that kind of lines up, I was scared to say in the episode, but I thought I had remembered reading it, like 80 % of child abuse cases are of the step -parent.

[2634] So eight times the rate is that would put you in the realm of 80%.

[2635] They were 10 more likely.

[2636] That was some grammar.

[2637] Yeah, but that was a copy paste, so I don't like that.

[2638] It doesn't seem good.

[2639] That seems like this isn't a dot -org.

[2640] But they were 10 more is more likely to experience a abuse.

[2641] and eight times more likely to experience neglect.

[2642] At 2001, study by Aruna Radha Krishna and colleagues at UNC, followed 64, North Carolina newborns for eight years.

[2643] These babies were mostly from families considered at high risk of abuse or neglect based on the characteristics of the mother and infant at birth.

[2644] Researchers found that maltreatment was lowest among children who lived with two biological parents, maltreatment was most common in homes with a stepfather or boyfriend, with 80 % of the maltreatment occurring between birth and age four, 20 % between ages four and six and 27 between ages six and eight.

[2645] Unlike the 2009 study, however, this one found no significant difference in maltreatment rates between kids living with both parents and kids living with only their biological mother.

[2646] Yeah, that makes sense.

[2647] I will say as a counterpoint to be ethical, that in the book, behave, which I'm obsessed with, and it's the most comprehensive book I've ever read, if you can get through it, Yeah.

[2648] It brought up the evolutionary explanation, the killing off the offspring.

[2649] So the wife gets fertile, you know, sexual partner gets fertile.

[2650] But he did have a counter argument to that that might also explain it.

[2651] And I forget that.

[2652] Oh, dang.

[2653] He was ethical and that he presented a counter.

[2654] I see.

[2655] Yeah, that also seemed plausible, but I forget what it was.

[2656] I like the other one.

[2657] So it's the one I remembered.

[2658] Sure.

[2659] Yeah.

[2660] Yeah, this is really tough.

[2661] But then, you know, it's all, yeah.

[2662] I mean, these are all just percentages because I also have a friend whose stepdad was far preferred to his dad.

[2663] Oh, for sure.

[2664] And Carly's stepdad was 30 times the man that her biological father was.

[2665] So dependent.

[2666] Yeah.

[2667] I'm glad you never had.

[2668] Same.

[2669] Any of them.

[2670] I am grateful.

[2671] I have a great dad.

[2672] Even if it goes, well.

[2673] It's really bizarre.

[2674] Yeah, I'm sure.

[2675] To have an adult move into your house.

[2676] That's not your, you know.

[2677] Yeah.

[2678] That sounds judgmental to people that are like falling in love and they're divorced.

[2679] And it's not.

[2680] And I'm literally, I couldn't be more sympathetic to my mother.

[2681] You need companionship.

[2682] So I'm not.

[2683] It's just, I'm saying from my perspective, it was very weird to have a man move in every few years.

[2684] Yeah.

[2685] It was weird.

[2686] That was your experience.

[2687] It wasn't a positive one.

[2688] It was not a positive one.

[2689] For you?

[2690] No. Except for Barton.

[2691] Barton was totally a positive.

[2692] But you were out of the house.

[2693] Well, I was, yeah, I was still in, but I was 16.

[2694] And literally, like, I didn't feel any sense of loss of autonomy.

[2695] I was like, I'll kill this guy.

[2696] I'm old enough and I'm big enough.

[2697] And if he tries to put the law down, I had no threat in my mind of being subjected by this man. I was just like, I was grown.

[2698] Yeah.

[2699] Yeah.

[2700] And he was lovely.

[2701] So it was no issue.

[2702] Right.

[2703] I, because I was obsessed with the Karen books.

[2704] Okay.

[2705] Babysitter's little sister.

[2706] Unfortunate name now.

[2707] Oh, true.

[2708] I feel bad for Cairns.

[2709] Oh, my God, I wonder if that little girl turned into me Cairn.

[2710] I know.

[2711] I just feel so bad for Cairns.

[2712] Yeah, well.

[2713] Do you think Cairns are going, some of them have decided to start going by their middle name?

[2714] No, but I think now if you name your kid, Karen, you're making such a choice.

[2715] A declaration.

[2716] Or Brandon.

[2717] Yeah.

[2718] Brandon's probably off the table, too.

[2719] Brandon.

[2720] Let's go Brandon.

[2721] The rally cry for the right.

[2722] Oh.

[2723] Who hate Biden?

[2724] Oh, I don't even...

[2725] You don't know Let's Go Brandon.

[2726] I mean, that's familiar, but that doesn't come to mind like Karen.

[2727] It's so stupid that that's an anthem that...

[2728] It's so dumb.

[2729] People that they're mocking don't even get.

[2730] Do you know the origin of it?

[2731] No, I don't think.

[2732] I argue the opposite, Rob.

[2733] The thing that annoys me is that they actually think they're the only people that get it.

[2734] Yeah.

[2735] You know, there's like some, like, smugness to it.

[2736] It's like, yeah, we know what that fucking is.

[2737] What is it?

[2738] So Biden was somewhere.

[2739] Yeah.

[2740] Public.

[2741] people are chanting, fuck you, Biden, fuck you Biden.

[2742] And he heard it as Let's go Brandon.

[2743] And he goes, yeah, let's go Brandon.

[2744] I mean, so then that became the rally cry.

[2745] Okay.

[2746] Like, I'm going to the dunes tonight.

[2747] Yeah.

[2748] I'm going to see a bunch of Let's go Brandon flags tomorrow morning.

[2749] Lots in Texas when we were there.

[2750] Oh, sure.

[2751] Sure.

[2752] Stupid.

[2753] I was going to say something.

[2754] Before, let's go, Brandon?

[2755] Yeah.

[2756] Oh, SEP.

[2757] Karen.

[2758] Yeah, Karen.

[2759] I was obsessed with those books, and she had step parents.

[2760] And so she had this huge family because of the step parents and the stepbrothers and sisters.

[2761] Both parents had remarried.

[2762] Yeah, and I wanted that.

[2763] Oh, you did?

[2764] Yeah.

[2765] Uh -huh.

[2766] Looked fun in the books.

[2767] So fun.

[2768] I mean, so many people in the house and in and out.

[2769] Like a sitcom.

[2770] Yes, it looked really fun.

[2771] Do they all live together, the two families?

[2772] Yeah.

[2773] Uh -huh.

[2774] They sure did.

[2775] Well, look.

[2776] Probably the vast majority of step -parents do not.

[2777] I mean, it's probably, you know.

[2778] Abuse, yeah.

[2779] Yeah, the incident rate is probably like one in every 30.

[2780] Right.

[2781] But because it's 80 % of the cases, yeah.

[2782] Statistics, you got to really.

[2783] Pick them apart.

[2784] You got to understand what they're really saying.

[2785] That's right.

[2786] Yeah, it's not saying 80 % of step -parents abuse.

[2787] No, let's be very clear.

[2788] Yeah.

[2789] In fact, we should take the time to make that clear.

[2790] It's of the incidents.

[2791] I think I might end up being a step -parent.

[2792] It's on the table.

[2793] It's a possibility.

[2794] It's a possibility.

[2795] We just don't know yet.

[2796] We don't know.

[2797] Or my kid might have a step parent.

[2798] There you go.

[2799] I'm beyond him like fucking stank on shit.

[2800] I'll tell you that right now.

[2801] Please leave him a lot.

[2802] A couple check -ins a day.

[2803] Hey, Mike.

[2804] How are we doing?

[2805] How's your temper?

[2806] No. Yeah.

[2807] Where are we at?

[2808] What's your outlet, Mike?

[2809] Who are you talking to?

[2810] Oh, my God.

[2811] I cannot.

[2812] Take a walk with me, Mike.

[2813] Let's go for a little walk.

[2814] to go on walks with me i say mike you see that the fucking little girl in there what's the little girl's name monica we name in her oh i don't baby in the grass okay okay but no but that's not her name b i tiggy big old titties tickle bitties don't call my baby that okay but you just put out the acronym for it so it popped up we can call her big baby and grass big big okay okay it's funny because she's so little.

[2815] Exactly.

[2816] It's ironic.

[2817] Jumbo shrimp, oxymoronic.

[2818] Pire around.

[2819] Pire squared.

[2820] Listen, I'm going to say Mitch.

[2821] And he's going to go, it's Mike.

[2822] But I said Mitch on purpose to let him know.

[2823] Dax.

[2824] Listen, Mitch, Mike.

[2825] Yeah, Mike, listen to me. Big is an angel.

[2826] And I talk to Big a lot.

[2827] Oh, God.

[2828] And if Big ever even hints that you got physical with her, I'm going to slam your fucking head.

[2829] the door over and over again until there's nothing left of it, Mitch.

[2830] Okay?

[2831] Merry Christmas.

[2832] I hope you guys have a great holiday in Hawaii.

[2833] I'm glad Monica has found love.

[2834] This is awful.

[2835] But Mitch, make no mistake.

[2836] If you get handsy with Monica or big, you are fucked nine ways from Sunday.

[2837] I'm definitely naming her big.

[2838] That's a great name for her.

[2839] It is.

[2840] It is.

[2841] And she'll have a big old personality like yours.

[2842] And tiggle bitties.

[2843] Well, I don't want to comment on that.

[2844] She's my daughter.

[2845] Yeah, but she's a baby, so I'm not going to think about that.

[2846] And I'm her uncle.

[2847] They won't come in until much later.

[2848] Yeah, and you know, Mitch might have to have a conversation with you as her uncle, because lots of uncles do bad stuff.

[2849] Mitch, bring the conversation my way, okay?

[2850] I'm happy to take a walk with you.

[2851] Wait, you should be able to also say, you know.

[2852] If Mitch pulls me aside and he says, listen to me, you're a good dude.

[2853] But my eyes on you.

[2854] Don't be fucking with my family.

[2855] I'd be like Mitch.

[2856] You like that.

[2857] Good looking out, brother.

[2858] I'm with you.

[2859] You respect that.

[2860] And the same goes for you, Yeah, and then I go back.

[2861] I got to move.

[2862] I can't have Mitch living right next to you.

[2863] Mitch, I do have cameras in the backyard of the house.

[2864] I mean, Mike, you have me calling him, Mitch.

[2865] Oh, no. Oh, my God.

[2866] Poor Mitch.

[2867] These suckers don't have a chance.

[2868] Between me and Big and you.

[2869] Big Brother slash dad.

[2870] The only, my dad will be nice to him.

[2871] That's why I got to grab Mitcher on this collar.

[2872] My dad's never took you aside.

[2873] There's a sheriff on him.

[2874] He's always asking, he's always asking how you are and thinking about you.

[2875] We're bros. He's doing.

[2876] He handed you off to me. I'm his comrade.

[2877] He didn't ask any questions.

[2878] He could tell the characters there.

[2879] He knew.

[2880] He did hand.

[2881] And at one point, because I told him the story recently about how when you came over because you thought I was dead.

[2882] Uh -huh, yeah.

[2883] And he was so happy.

[2884] Okay, good.

[2885] I was like Kristen also was texting a lot and then that Dax came over.

[2886] And your fucking TV was on the ground.

[2887] No, that was a different time.

[2888] That was a different time.

[2889] Remember the time I got my booster?

[2890] And then it was like noon.

[2891] And for some reason Kristen had been trying to get a hold of me. Then you guys got it in your head.

[2892] Something was wrong.

[2893] You were DMing Callie.

[2894] Uh -huh.

[2895] It was a big deal.

[2896] And then you came over.

[2897] Yeah.

[2898] And you were out to lunch or something?

[2899] I was asleep.

[2900] Oh, Jesus Christ.

[2901] Because I was up till five because the booster.

[2902] Oh, right.

[2903] Okay.

[2904] Well, that's all right then.

[2905] Mitch, don't let her sleep in, Mitch.

[2906] She's going to have a tendency to try to sleep all day.

[2907] And that's going to scare the shit out of Kristen and I. So Mitch, you know, alarm clock.

[2908] This is an alarm clock.

[2909] Do you know how to use this?

[2910] If not, I'll go set it up.

[2911] Mitch, you incompetent motherfucker.

[2912] I'm sorry.

[2913] He's great with tech.

[2914] But he's weird.

[2915] You be nice to him.

[2916] Okay.

[2917] I will.

[2918] I will.

[2919] So long as, you know.

[2920] I'm nervous that big is going to do something rascally like I did.

[2921] Like with the - Manipulate me into beating Mitch up.

[2922] Yeah.

[2923] I'm also going to buy a polygraph to hook Mitch up too.

[2924] Which we know doesn't work.

[2925] Yeah, but it's good enough for me. Why are you so nervous, Mitch?

[2926] Why do you think?

[2927] My name is Mike.

[2928] You're all up in my shit.

[2929] I'm a nice person who loves Monica.

[2930] We're moving.

[2931] I've done nothing but dedicate my life to try.

[2932] to make her happy and you've got me hooked to this polygraph machine and i say i'm going to come home like oh dax dax is here again hooked you up my stethoscope big is just walking back and forth is your accomplice yeah because i'm distracting all the caregivers champ on his butt oh no that's not we don't know about that yet we don't know that's a that's a that's an easter egg believe it or not it's a real easter egg But she might have a year like I had my first grade year.

[2933] She might have a real rebellious year and sand art. And she might come over and she might say, Mitch called me a bad word.

[2934] Yeah.

[2935] And I'll go, what word?

[2936] She'll have to think on her feet.

[2937] She'll go, boogabar.

[2938] No, it'll be shit skin.

[2939] Don't say, I don't like when you say that.

[2940] Well, I didn't say it.

[2941] Big said it as a lie.

[2942] she wouldn't have known that word unless Mitch said it.

[2943] Mitch is going down.

[2944] Excuse me, Mitch.

[2945] Can I talk to you for a second?

[2946] Did you fucking call?

[2947] Mitch, get over here.

[2948] Where are you?

[2949] Why are you walking away?

[2950] Mitch.

[2951] I got to ask you a question.

[2952] Yeah, that's right.

[2953] You're walking away because I know what you did.

[2954] And really, he just didn't give Big some candy.

[2955] You got to be careful, okay?

[2956] Well, you think Big's going to be a real.

[2957] I know her.

[2958] Okay.

[2959] I know her.

[2960] All right.

[2961] She's a bad girl.

[2962] A bad, bad girl.

[2963] Noddy girl.

[2964] Is that all the facts?

[2965] Yeah.

[2966] Oh, wow.

[2967] Yeah.

[2968] All right.

[2969] I love you, Manny.

[2970] I love you.

[2971] And have a great time at the sand dunes.

[2972] Thank you so much.

[2973] I can't wait.

[2974] Bye.

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