Jimmy Kimmel

[0] Hello, welcome to the armchair expert.

[1] I'm Dax Shepard.

[2] Today I'm going to talk to a good friend of mine, Jimmy James Kimmel.

[3] You know him from Jimmy Kimmel Live, or maybe you fell in love with him first on The Man Show, or win Ben Stein's money.

[4] Or maybe you used to listen to him on the radio.

[5] Maybe you went to college with him in Arizona or Nevada or wherever he went.

[6] We'll find out shortly.

[7] He's a very good man. He's a generous man. He's a father.

[8] He has a huge heart.

[9] And the proof of that is that he would find time to chat with us in an otherwise brutal schedule.

[10] Welcome, James.

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

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

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

[14] Tell me when you're...

[15] Jimmy, welcome to my attic.

[16] Yeah, this is really your attic.

[17] Yeah, did this make you at all jealous?

[18] Of the fact that you have an attic?

[19] I mean, it's so...

[20] It's such a piece of shit, yet I find that I want to move into this little space.

[21] It's not a piece of shit.

[22] It's nice.

[23] You like it?

[24] Yeah, I do like it.

[25] What's not to like?

[26] Well, there's no door to the bathroom.

[27] That's Kristen's issue.

[28] I'm fine with that.

[29] Right.

[30] Like, when you first moved to L .A., if you had this as an apartment, when you've been.

[31] thrilled.

[32] Can you tell you something?

[33] I'm going to be completely honest and I hope this doesn't upset you.

[34] But on my way in here because you're doing a lot of construction, I thought maybe I'll pee outside before I. I would have actually peed in the lot.

[35] Never mind no door on the bathroom.

[36] That doesn't bother me at all.

[37] That's immaterial.

[38] But there is something about this little space because there's no kids here and there's not a wife here that I, and that's a pull out couch you're sitting on.

[39] The slant of the roof is, it's comforting.

[40] in a way.

[41] It really is.

[42] Yeah.

[43] Yeah.

[44] It's open enough yet it's tight in here.

[45] Yeah.

[46] I like it.

[47] Yeah.

[48] I have fantasies of moving in here.

[49] You will in a way.

[50] Yeah.

[51] Yeah.

[52] Yeah.

[53] Yeah.

[54] Yeah.

[55] Yeah.

[56] Yeah.

[57] I'm, yeah.

[58] Yeah.

[59] I'm really grateful that you came because you're, you're incredibly busy.

[60] I did not want to ask you to come.

[61] This is my worst.

[62] Worst thing.

[63] Kristen told you that right when she was on the show.

[64] Yeah, Kristen told me. I was like, what?

[65] That's crazy.

[66] I probably drafted an email to you over the course of four weeks like 12 times and then just couldn't send it.

[67] Yeah.

[68] You could have told me will you come talk for an hour without being on tape and I would have come?

[69] Do you think so?

[70] Because yes, you do.

[71] Of course.

[72] Okay, because I often think, thank God you have that fucking show because that's how I end up seeing you.

[73] Not because of any fault of either of ours, but we have two kids.

[74] It's good, though, and I'll tell you why, because I understand that.

[75] Yeah.

[76] And I feel the same way, I feel the same way about, like, Howard Stern.

[77] I listen to him on the radio.

[78] And so I know everything that's going on in his life.

[79] But he doesn't know anything that's going on in my life.

[80] And so I kind of get what I need as far as updates and, you know, his take on things.

[81] Yeah.

[82] And he doesn't get anything back from me. So he calls me every once in.

[83] And sometimes I feel bad, like, I should probably call him, but I don't need to call him.

[84] Right.

[85] Because he's on the radio.

[86] What are you going to ask him?

[87] It would be a redundant question.

[88] You know every little detail of his life, yeah.

[89] And he's not on Instagram, so he couldn't possibly know what's going on with you.

[90] Right.

[91] Yes.

[92] And then my wife updates the personal side of our lives on her Instagram account.

[93] Oh, okay.

[94] Right.

[95] Which our wives are both very, you know, back and forth with that stuff.

[96] Yes.

[97] I look on it like every eighth time I'm on the toilet.

[98] I check that stuff.

[99] I was a very diehard Twitter person, as I believe you were or maybe you still are.

[100] Yeah.

[101] You know, I, yeah, I guess so.

[102] I guess I don't know if I'd say I'd die hard.

[103] Okay.

[104] Well, I was a junkie for it.

[105] Right.

[106] And then I had an Instagram account, but I really didn't do anything on it.

[107] And I didn't follow people that interest me, nothing.

[108] And then after the election, I was like, I got to, I got to get off this Twitter thing.

[109] And then I kind of fell in love with Instagram because it's 100 % positive.

[110] Like, do you have an account that you post shit on?

[111] I do.

[112] Yeah.

[113] And I post stuff, but not very much.

[114] But it's, it's just.

[115] generally like a hundred percent positive.

[116] If I did anything other than go to work and then go back home, I would post, but I don't.

[117] I wind up posting like pictures of pancakes I made.

[118] Yeah, yeah.

[119] And then sometimes I'll take pictures and I'll think, oh, this is kind of funny.

[120] And I think, no, it's not funny.

[121] It's boring.

[122] Yes.

[123] Well, well, the reason I was drawn to Twitter is I certainly can, I can draft a funny 140 character or thought.

[124] Right.

[125] Words you always have.

[126] The last thing I want to be is in a photo.

[127] I hate how I look in photos.

[128] I don't want to be in those.

[129] Or looking for funny things to photograph.

[130] Yeah, I don't really know how to be funny in a photograph.

[131] Yeah, it's different.

[132] It's easier though, Instagram.

[133] And you're right.

[134] It is more positive.

[135] It really is.

[136] And so I was on that just almost exclusively.

[137] Then I figured out how it's fun because I started following all these like off road dudes and people falling off staircases.

[138] There's this account.

[139] OSHA, is this okay?

[140] Have you ever heard of that?

[141] No. It's just guys on worksites that doing the most dangerous things possible usually in another country and someone falls from like a hundred feet but they somehow live.

[142] It's fantastic.

[143] There's one I like at Super 70s and just has things from the 70s toys and baseball cards and yeah I like looking at that.

[144] Yeah, I have one that's like 70s muscle cars and I follow all the chefs too because I like to see I just like to look at the food.

[145] Yeah, yeah.

[146] You have a deep, I'm not going uncover anything that's not known about you but uh you have a deep obsession with uh chefs yeah cook food really more than anything like when i go to your house it's pretty evenly split between like actors and chefs yeah you say that's accurate and cousins well family members yeah yeah it's actually 70 % family members and then 30 %'s divided yeah i've well i have a couple buddies in particular uh adam perry lang yeah barbecue chef great Chris bianco who's a pizza chef of course they both do many other things besides those things but we tend we we do most everything together yeah and do you find that that's a super easy hang for you because you guys are busy doing the activity of cooking well i always like to be doing something and so even when i'm watching tv i've got something going on i'm working on something i'm never really 100 % focused on anything right so the idea of socializing and then kind of learning how to do things and to be making food at the same time, that appeals to me. Yeah.

[147] And you're not like, at no point are you intimidated that these guys are amazing cooks and you're an amateur.

[148] That doesn't crush your mind, right?

[149] Well, it does, but I'm not, I don't, I'm not intimidated.

[150] I'm eager to learn their ways and their ways of looking at things.

[151] That's a good quality of yours.

[152] Like, you can receive instruction, right?

[153] Yeah.

[154] Yeah.

[155] I don't do one thing that required instruction.

[156] Like if you had to be taught it, I don't do it.

[157] I'm just incapable of receiving.

[158] I have that to a certain, but with cooking and with, and I've learned things that I think apply to all areas of life.

[159] And I'll tell you one weird thing that I learned from my friends, Chris and Adam.

[160] So I'd make a marinerer sauce and I've been making it for 20, you know, 25 years.

[161] Yeah.

[162] Twice a week at least.

[163] Anyway, when you make something over and over again, you improve it, it changes slightly over the years, whatever.

[164] And so I just, it never.

[165] occurred to me that the way to make a great marinera sauce is to use great tomatoes even though the tomatoes are 99 % of the recipe.

[166] Yeah.

[167] So the idea though of opening a bunch of cans of tomatoes and tasting them and figuring out which ones were the best ones.

[168] Well, you read a book about tomatoes one summer, right?

[169] It was a big book.

[170] I read a 550 page book about tomato.

[171] This is one of the many things that blew my mind about you that that was your summer reading.

[172] And then you, and well, I thank you for reading that book because I don't have to now because you, I think you condensed the really the only five interesting things about the book was so interesting.

[173] Well, but you told me that when they list like the, you know, the exhibitors of tomatoes, be it vons or whatever, whoever's selling tomatoes, on the list of the five things they're looking for, taste isn't in the top five.

[174] It's not one of them.

[175] It's not one of them, right?

[176] It's like color, its size.

[177] Durability.

[178] Durability on the shelf, all these things.

[179] And taste isn't even in the criteria when they're ordering.

[180] It's not.

[181] And we don't think about it until if you put an heirloom tomato in your mouth.

[182] Yeah.

[183] Next to one of these.

[184] It's more ball than tomato.

[185] It's more, it's closer to a sporting good than it is to a fruit.

[186] Yeah.

[187] It's a huge difference.

[188] But are you also, and then you, you've gone to Italy a bunch of times, I'm sure, right?

[189] I've been there six or seven times, I think.

[190] Yeah.

[191] And so the tomatoes there are way different, yeah?

[192] Because here, no, you know, you can get great tomatoes everywhere, but you're not going to get better produce than in California.

[193] Yeah, it's pretty crazy, right?

[194] Yeah, we just got back, Monica, Kristen, and the kids and I were just in Turks and Kekos at an all -inclusive resort beaches.

[195] I saw pictures of that.

[196] Right, right.

[197] Yeah, suspicious pictures, I'm sure.

[198] And it was awesome.

[199] There was a water park for the kids.

[200] The beach is phenomenal.

[201] Everything was great about it, truly.

[202] Except for the fact that you can't get around the fact that the fucking produce has to leave on a boat from Miami and come to that island 500 miles away.

[203] And it certainly wasn't grown in Miami.

[204] So it already got flown or railroaded from California, right?

[205] Right.

[206] And it doesn't matter what the chefs are doing.

[207] Like the lettuce is white.

[208] That's just how it is.

[209] You can't cook your way around how shitty the produce is.

[210] And you're from Brooklyn, then Vegas.

[211] But coming from Detroit and going to a grocery store.

[212] store in like January and shit was fully in season when I moved here was mind blowing right the rest of the country well we're so spoiled it should be like that yeah yeah like ripe tomatoes in January I went to an island in the Bahamas and the guy told me the boat comes on Tuesdays so food yeah so by Monday things are getting a little yeah yeah starting to become stew yeah you have kind of superpower, which is wherever you go on vacation, like a natural disaster occurs.

[213] Well, it has happened.

[214] Yeah.

[215] Wherever I go, there's some kind of a natural disaster.

[216] Yeah, because you went to Borobora and I was like, oh, my God, you're going to love this place.

[217] I was there for a month.

[218] I could have stayed for years.

[219] It's the greatest.

[220] I was so jealous and you got there and the tsunami happened, right?

[221] Well, I don't know if you remember the lead up to this because you were telling me it was great.

[222] And I always, you know, you see those pictures of those huts over the water.

[223] And you think, oh, that's where I want to be one of those over -the -water huts and it looks so great.

[224] So then I looked on Google Maps and I noticed that is a little speck of brown and then nothing but blue.

[225] And I thought, well, people shouldn't live on an island like this.

[226] It doesn't make any sense.

[227] Yeah, yeah.

[228] And then I had to speak to you and a few other people who'd been there for reassurance that I wasn't going to just be swallowed up by the ocean.

[229] Right.

[230] Because, you know, we think, you know, we're fond of the ocean.

[231] but it doesn't care about it.

[232] No, you are, you're so vulnerable and it really hits you when you're flying into the place because when you're at 30 ,000 feet and they started to descend, you're like looking for where you're landing.

[233] It's crazy that people even got there.

[234] Yeah, it really is nuts.

[235] And then we and I have had recurring nightmares about tsunami since I was a kid.

[236] Based on that weird movie that was title wave or whatever?

[237] No, it's way before that.

[238] Okay.

[239] And my dad told me after I, we'd never discuss this, but after I, after I, I wrote an article about this.

[240] My dad told me that he has them too.

[241] Oh, really?

[242] It's got to be some weird psychological thing there, but it's stress related and sure it means something, but I don't know what it is.

[243] Yeah.

[244] So I was panicked about it and my wife really wanted to go there.

[245] I was like, there's going to be a tsunami.

[246] She's like laughing.

[247] Stop it.

[248] This is ridiculous.

[249] And then, and I have this on videotape.

[250] So this is not even like one of those stories I've embellished for comedy's sake, but I'm videotaping my wife.

[251] We're sitting by the pool.

[252] And all of a sudden it starts raining like heavy drops of rain.

[253] You know, like each drop has like a pint in it.

[254] Yeah.

[255] And I said, this is it.

[256] The tsunami's coming.

[257] She starts laughing.

[258] You're being ridiculous.

[259] So we go back to the room because it's raining.

[260] And I turn on, I get on my computer and I see that in Japan there's been an earthquake.

[261] Right.

[262] And I'm like, but wait, wait, wait, you hopped on your computer unrelated.

[263] Oh, okay.

[264] It's not like you were so.

[265] convinced you then started researching it.

[266] I hopped on my computer because that's what I do 70 or 80 times a day.

[267] And I got on a computer and there was an earthquake in Japan and I have no idea where we are.

[268] I mean like my sense of geography.

[269] I've been there.

[270] I have no idea where it's in relation to Japan.

[271] I'm like, well I don't know if we're 40 miles from Japan or a million.

[272] It could be any of those two things.

[273] So I look it up and we're in French Polynesia and we're not close to Japan but a lot closer than we are to Japan.

[274] right now.

[275] And I thought, well, oh, no, there's an earthquake.

[276] That could mean there's going to be a tsunami.

[277] Yeah.

[278] And I then hit refresh.

[279] I found the tsunami alert center for the world.

[280] And I hit refresh.

[281] Sounds like a great vacation.

[282] Like 140 times.

[283] Like every like 40 seconds, I'd hit refresh.

[284] And then it popped up.

[285] No. And I had a mixture of terror and real power.

[286] Like, like, I knew this was going to happen.

[287] I told is the ultimate I told you so.

[288] Like this I told you so happens as you're being washed out.

[289] There's that line in, there's that line in Pulp Fiction where he's complaining about that someone keyed his car.

[290] And at one point he goes, it would be worth, it'd be worth him keying my car just to catch that motherfucker.

[291] Right.

[292] Like so that was going to be my question is part of you has to be so happy that you are right.

[293] Oh, yes.

[294] Yeah.

[295] Because there were many times I would choose death to be right.

[296] Yeah.

[297] And if we, I know that if we survive.

[298] this that I'm gonna Molly's gonna have to move out of the house yeah yeah yeah it's gonna be her only option yes absolutely so now I and by the way before the tsunami morning I'm calling the front desk asking like what's the plan for you know so yeah they are and I've called now four times and they are laughing hysterically at me really makes me feel better to be honest but then the the alert comes and they're like in what form it's there's no siren on that No, it just said French Polynesian.

[299] Oh, okay.

[300] Like French Polynesian or something.

[301] I was like, that's where we are and this is real bad.

[302] And I was worried and I, you know, I called.

[303] I said, what's the procedure?

[304] They'd had tsunamis before there.

[305] They told me what would happen.

[306] We will get on a boat.

[307] We will go to higher ground.

[308] We'll wait there until the danger has passed.

[309] But they assure me that it's impossible that a wave would be higher than higher ground.

[310] Right.

[311] And we should be okay as long as we get out of there, blah, blah, blah.

[312] I now pack, you know, I'm now, we are ready for evacuation.

[313] You're in a movie now.

[314] Six hours before the evacuation.

[315] I'm fully dressed.

[316] Oh, so from the time of the alert, how long before it actually makes ground?

[317] Well, it was a long time.

[318] And that's the good thing about tsunamis.

[319] If you're in a place, you have some kind of access to computers, you know when they're coming.

[320] Right.

[321] So I'm laying, Molly goes asleep.

[322] and I'm laying on the bed with my shoes on, watching CNN, just kind of taking this terror roll in.

[323] Yeah, sure.

[324] And are you making calls to loved ones and stuff?

[325] I email, I emailed loved ones.

[326] Even in the face of death, I'm not going to spend the money for an international call.

[327] Okay, good, good, good.

[328] So, you're going to die as well.

[329] I let everybody know that there was a good chance we were going to be washed up.

[330] And are the emails?

[331] Are they a mix of like, I don't want to scare them, but I do want to say everything that needs.

[332] being sad.

[333] They're a mix of, I don't want to scare them, but I do want to scare them.

[334] And let them know I'm dead right.

[335] I want everyone, I want to hear some nice words from everything.

[336] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[337] So I set my family the email, you know, the email and, you know, still Molly thought I was crazy, you know, at this point.

[338] Maybe I was, but we then, the phone rings.

[339] And sure enough, they're like, get your stuff together.

[340] To only take your valuables.

[341] And, We're evacuating the hotel.

[342] It's the middle of the night.

[343] Oh, really?

[344] I get to the lobby, and there are guys in the lobby already wearing life preservers.

[345] Oh, wow.

[346] They've got life jackets on it.

[347] And so I'm happy because I know right away, like, all right, I'm not the biggest wuss in the hotel.

[348] So these guys are actually worse than I am.

[349] And it's really, you get to see the worst of people.

[350] Like people kind of like pushing, like, a head to get on the ferries that are going to take.

[351] you off the island and but is there a calmness to the whole thing there's it's middle of the night and the people have kind of been through this before so they're calm some people are shit face presumably right since it's the middle of the night a lot of people were drunk yeah some people were fucking some people are hammered there's a lot going on and all of the above yeah and so we finally get on this boat and it is pitch black I mean there's not a light and in the boat the engine dies in the middle now now I didn't know they actually turned it off.

[352] It didn't die, but it sounded like it died.

[353] Yeah.

[354] And the reason they turned it off is because there were other ferries like ahead of us kind of blocking it had to wait until the other ferries unloaded.

[355] And then, but it was so dark.

[356] Like we didn't know we were like a hundred feet from the, there's no moon out or anything.

[357] Nothing.

[358] Okay.

[359] Because from those hotel rooms to the mainland is only like a mile or whatever over the water, right?

[360] Is I recall?

[361] Is I remember?

[362] Yeah.

[363] Yeah.

[364] And I'm looking, not to the mainland.

[365] No, the mainland.

[366] It's about a 20 minute a flight.

[367] So, no, no, no. I mean, you're in Borobora, right?

[368] The medium mainland.

[369] Yeah, not the full mainland.

[370] The Atoll surrounds this weird looking King Kong volcano looking mountain in the center, right?

[371] That's where you know.

[372] And so we go to that place.

[373] And so anyway, the water.

[374] And then I'm like, oh my God, we're now in the worst possible place on a little boat like waiting.

[375] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[376] You would have much rather ridden it out in your over the water villa in the bungalow yeah yeah at least i could grab on or something you know and uh it was really scary had you been to that that that little center island prior to that did you go did you go there to go to that french restaurant by yes i did right and did so did you notice uh the inordinate amount of feral dogs on that island there we were where all the dogs were right right because i had a i had a near -death experience in borobora that i didn't tell you about because i knew you were nervous about going and i didn't want to alarm you but i had probably since I was eight years old, the scariest moment I had as an adult.

[377] Really?

[378] Yes.

[379] What happened?

[380] So Kristen was shooting that movie.

[381] Couples retreat, right?

[382] And so they're filming on these barges out in the middle of all this stuff.

[383] And I take a boat out there to watch them shoot.

[384] And I watch for about an hour.

[385] And now I'm bored.

[386] And then I said, I'd like to go back to the hotel.

[387] And they say, oh, we're not going to send the boats back for like another five hours.

[388] For whatever reason, that was not an option.

[389] And I was like, I don't want to sit on this barge for another five hours.

[390] And I was like, I don't want to sit on this barge for another five hours.

[391] and I start looking at the little island off, you know, in the distance.

[392] And I think in my mind, that's a 10 -minute swim.

[393] Like, I can do that.

[394] And I'm going to, and you've been there.

[395] So, you know, it's like, there's a little island.

[396] Then there's a 100 -foot gap in the water.

[397] And then another little island.

[398] And then a 200 -foot gap and then another little island.

[399] So I go, I'll just swim to that one.

[400] And then I'll walk across the islands.

[401] I'll swim the little hundred.

[402] And then I'll get back to the hotel.

[403] I get some flippers.

[404] I put my shit in a plastic bag.

[405] Kristen is telling me, do not do this.

[406] Do not do this.

[407] I wait till they call action so she's distracted and I jump in and I start swimming and I'm swimming swimming swimming swimming and I'm not joking you.

[408] I swam for at least 25 minutes and I lift my head up to look like how close I am to this island and I am still the exact same distance I was when I was looking at it from the barge and now I turn around and I look at the barge and the barge is very very far away and I'm I'm almost I'm having to tell myself don't don't start having a panic attack like your pot committed you got to just keep swimming.

[409] So then I was on my back.

[410] I was trying to relax, whatever.

[411] I swam for about an hour in 10 minutes or something.

[412] I get to the little island.

[413] I'm like, thank God, now I can fucking walk.

[414] I take my flippers off.

[415] I start walking along the beach and all of a sudden I hear and I look and all these dogs are running on the island and they're running right at me and I have to run into the water.

[416] I go up to my shoulders and they're swimming out but they kind of stop at like three feet depth and I am now, I now have to walk in shoulder high water the rest of the way, which was a few miles.

[417] And every time I went on one of these islands, these fucking crazy rabbit pit bulls would run out and attack me to run right back in.

[418] Kristen wrapped the whole thing.

[419] She goes back.

[420] It took me six hours probably to get back.

[421] My feet were fucking bleeding.

[422] I was sunburned.

[423] It was out of a movie.

[424] I finally get to the door.

[425] I knock on it.

[426] She opens the door.

[427] She thought I was like at the gym or something.

[428] She thought I had gone back on a boat, was at the gym.

[429] She opens the door.

[430] My feet are bleeding terribly.

[431] She goes, what the fuck happened to you?

[432] and I go, I swam back from that barge.

[433] I too wrote this really long thing because it was such a harrowing, terrifying experience.

[434] And I kept having these moments where I was like, I need help.

[435] I need to get airlifted.

[436] I need some kind of like someone to rescue me because I'm not going to make it back.

[437] And there's nothing on those islands other than dogs.

[438] There's no way I would have gone to Bora Bora had you told me that dog's right.

[439] No way.

[440] It never would happen.

[441] And that's why I didn't tell you.

[442] And then you would never have it on Molly that you were dead right.

[443] But it's good for me to know about the, you know, I knew about the dogs.

[444] I didn't know about pit bulls.

[445] Oh, yes, yes.

[446] And again, the plausibility of the story, I wouldn't buy it if I was listening to me. But I'm telling you that the first island had pretty average sized dogs and I wasn't in a full panic.

[447] It wasn't to like the fourth island I got to that it was actual pit bulls.

[448] Pitbull Island.

[449] Pit bull island.

[450] And this poor woman who was in a hammock and watching these dogs.

[451] She was screaming like no to them, you know, like a local Polyneesians.

[452] lady screaming no they didn't give a fuck they just ran right past her into the water and I had to swim out so there are people who live on pit bull island so the people that are on the main island we went to the french restaurant on where you were evacuated on they live there but they all also own those little islands like they're their communally they have little barbecue pits there and they go spend time there and apparently they're keeping their feral dogs there oh my god but it was really um it hadn't been since i was like eight and got lost in a swamp and it was screaming for my mom.

[453] Like, I was really scared.

[454] The closest fear I've had to that is we drove up to Northern, Northern California in our Tesla and didn't get it fully charged.

[455] Okay.

[456] I'm trying to get out of a sticky situation.

[457] I wound up spending four hours in a Walmart while the car charged.

[458] Uh -huh.

[459] Yeah.

[460] That is terrifying.

[461] But you had another, you had another experience like that.

[462] Did I imagine that?

[463] Not like that one.

[464] I'm not sure.

[465] The thing you wrote was really, really well written, by the way.

[466] Every time, thank you.

[467] Every time I go on vacation, I have one day that goes horribly wrong.

[468] Oh, I know exactly what it was.

[469] What?

[470] It was that you invited us camping this year and we arrive at camping.

[471] Oh, yeah.

[472] And there is literally 727s abusing our campground about 30 feet off the ground because the whole mountain behind us is on fire.

[473] And when I say the whole mountain's on fire and there are planes swooping in over and over again and dumping some kind of chemical on it.

[474] And we were just camping a few hundred feet from there.

[475] And going to bed that night was very weird because you're like, I guess they've got it under control.

[476] Yeah.

[477] Yeah.

[478] And I thought, oh, this must be what all your vacations are like.

[479] It is kind of in a way.

[480] Just bad planning.

[481] Yeah.

[482] Did you have any fear of fires prior to that?

[483] No, I should have more fear of fires.

[484] It's more reasonable.

[485] I'm going to get hit with something like that.

[486] But no fear of fires.

[487] But I tell you what?

[488] we could have used a nice little tsunami at that time.

[489] That would have been very helpful.

[490] Yeah, that could have bailed us out.

[491] By the way, the tsunami, which arrives, you know, they know the precise time that the tsunami will arrive was the size of, I described it as the size of a skittal.

[492] They're like, okay, that was it.

[493] I was like, what do you mean that was it?

[494] They're like, that was the tsunami.

[495] So by the time it got to you guys.

[496] They know when it'll hit.

[497] They don't know what size it's going to be.

[498] So it didn't.

[499] It was nothing.

[500] It was nothing.

[501] And it, I was kind of mad.

[502] Did that make Molly then right again?

[503] Once we were on up at higher ground, I was like, all right, I want to see the tsunami smash into the side of this.

[504] Yeah.

[505] Now that we're okay, you know, big deal, I lose some luggage.

[506] Yeah, you want to see something out of a Rowland movie.

[507] Yeah, Emmerich, whatever his name is.

[508] People also, the people I was with, you know, all the other people from the hotel are like, isn't ABC going to send a helicopter or something of you?

[509] Like, what are you?

[510] Like, BBC wouldn't send an SUV for me. Okay, do you think that you willed that tsunami into existence?

[511] Oh, that's a great question.

[512] That's a great question.

[513] If I, you know, if I have that kind of power, it probably shouldn't be in anyone's presence.

[514] But it's, you know, let me ask you that, though.

[515] That leads to a great question I want to ask you.

[516] Because anyone who's had is, like, you and I have had way too much luck in our life.

[517] It's like a suspicious amount of luck, right?

[518] Yeah.

[519] Would you agree with that?

[520] Sure.

[521] I mean, you're talented and everything, but a lot of his luck.

[522] Yeah, whatever.

[523] A ton of talented people.

[524] And you know, like Elon Musk, he's a proponent of this thought that we're in a matrix, right?

[525] Have you heard him talk about this?

[526] Yeah, yeah.

[527] Because he says a lot of things and sometimes I think he's just kind of just throwing shit out there.

[528] Yeah, and I have no way of knowing if this is one of those or he really believes it.

[529] But he certainly talks about it quite a bit.

[530] Right.

[531] And my take on that is like, yeah, if you're Elon Musk, this month.

[532] must feel like a matrix because what are the ads you invented an electric car in this space program and you built this company you sold for a billion dollars like it starts to feel a little suspicious yeah but i don't think a guy who's like roofing in the winter in Detroit thinks he's in a matrix if he is he's in the world's shittiest matrix i just doubt they go like this is too perfect this has to be a matrix but to that point do you having been as lucky as we both are do you think that you've willed weird things?

[533] Like, do you think there's some suspicious stuff?

[534] Like, there have been some moments where you're like, something stinks here.

[535] Yeah, I think that it's smaller things.

[536] I think there are times in my life where I've made something happen because I think it's going to happen.

[537] I think it's really the secret, right?

[538] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[539] If you believe.

[540] And I do think that I always had like kind of this like, like, yeah, everything's, I mean, I feel like I'm going to win every time I play any.

[541] You know, it doesn't matter what it is.

[542] I think I'm going to win.

[543] Yeah, that's great.

[544] And I'm surprised when I know, but then I go like, oh, yeah, okay, it makes sense that I wouldn't win everything.

[545] Well, I think you and I talked about it because you and I are both crazy obsessed with Letterman.

[546] He's like our God, right?

[547] Yeah.

[548] We agree on that.

[549] Stern and Letterman are both our gods.

[550] Is Bill Murray a God for you?

[551] Yeah, yeah.

[552] So for me, those are the three gods.

[553] Yep.

[554] And I think you and I Put Steve Martin up there too But you know, Letterman I appreciate Steve Martin But he's a little too G for me I got you right Bill Murray you like You might end up in jail that night He means gangster Yes yes and I've been in that situation No no no I think Steve Martin's way too gangster That banjo scares the fuck out of me But I think you and I were talking On an airplane once that We would fantasize his kids About being interviewed by Letterman Yeah did we talk about that?

[555] Yeah Yeah.

[556] And I had, even in those moments where I was fantasizing about it, I didn't even have an aspiration to be an actor.

[557] So I'm not quite sure what I thought he was going to interview me about.

[558] But I'm from here.

[559] I didn't know what.

[560] He hasn't that weird?

[561] Yeah.

[562] Like I would be brushing my hair at like 10 years old in the mirror.

[563] It was always in the mirror.

[564] And then I would just start thinking about the things he would ask me about my bike or whatever the hell it was.

[565] But I kind of practiced in my head talking to him so many times.

[566] And I got to wonder, is that just is that, does everyone do that?

[567] Monica, did you use to fantasize about?

[568] Yeah, but I'm in the same situation.

[569] Yeah, you're an actor.

[570] So I think the differences between the guy in Detroit and Elon Musk is Elon Musk is like, and you two and me are constantly putting things out there with a constantly like, I want this, I want this, I want this, eventually I want this, fantasizing all your whole life.

[571] Yeah.

[572] The guy from Detroit is probably not doing it.

[573] Well, that's my question.

[574] He's putting one foot in front of the other.

[575] Yeah, maybe.

[576] So eventually some of those things are going to come true.

[577] Well, that is true.

[578] I wanted to be super renowned and famous in any number of ways and only a couple of them came true.

[579] But yeah, I thought I was going to be like Bukowski, you know.

[580] It's not too late.

[581] It's not too late.

[582] What I say the other day, I was going to learn how to do it doesn't matter.

[583] I'm always trying to figure out when it's too late.

[584] Like I don't play the piano and I still feel like, I do mean to learn that before I die, but is it too late?

[585] To learn a piano?

[586] I think it is because I'll tell you why it's true.

[587] Thank you for telling me. Because I don't think you're going to be.

[588] satisfied with just being a shitty piano player yeah you're gonna go like if you see somebody else playing the piano and he's really great you're you know fucking i'm not playing the piano yeah you're probably right you know do you play the clay you know what's funny about interviewing people for this shows uh i'm largely talking to my friends who i think i know but then i'll read about them on wikipedia and have you done that ever yeah sure yeah it's really fun because you there's all these things i don't know about you that i learned like an hour ago oh really like you play the you play the clarinet yeah i do I don't know how I've known you for 13 years and I have no idea you play the clarinet.

[589] It's because it's not like I whip it out at parties.

[590] But there has been times.

[591] I went through my head and I'm like, well, I've been in your room where you have instruments and I've watched people play at your house and I never saw you fucking Ron Burgundy break up the clarinet and blow the shit out of that.

[592] Yeah, well, there aren't many songs you can play the clarinet too.

[593] I do have a clarinet.

[594] I have one sitting right next to my desk and my office at work.

[595] And do you play it in your office?

[596] The only time I really play it is on the show in some way.

[597] Like I played with the killers once.

[598] I played with Huey Lewis.

[599] Oh, really?

[600] I think I had like a clarinet battle with an actress who also played the clarinet.

[601] You know, but not, I don't, and I'm not good at it.

[602] Oh, that's what I was going to say.

[603] Out of a 10, I don't even know who a 10 clarinet player is.

[604] Oh, oh, Brubach.

[605] Oh, Dave Brubach?

[606] Well, he's more of a, I mean, he played the clarinet as well, but he's a primarily saxophone player.

[607] Oh, okay, okay.

[608] So who's a 10 clarinet player?

[609] Oh, like Pete.

[610] Fountain or Benny Goodman or something like that.

[611] Okay.

[612] All right.

[613] So that's a 10.

[614] And then I'm a zero.

[615] If they're a 10, then I'm probably a one and a half.

[616] Well, no, but I'm a zero.

[617] Okay.

[618] Probably like a three.

[619] Okay.

[620] Great.

[621] Yeah.

[622] That's exactly the number I give myself as a drummer.

[623] Because I can play the drums.

[624] I'm a drummer.

[625] Right.

[626] But I'm at best a three.

[627] Yeah.

[628] A three, I'd say.

[629] I mean, I stopped when I was in high school.

[630] So that's what it was.

[631] You played in the high school.

[632] band.

[633] I accidentally played the clarinet.

[634] That seems like a very weird choice for a young man. It is a weird choice.

[635] I thought I wanted to play trombone and I thought they were called clarinets.

[636] No. Wait, do you know how similar this makes us?

[637] Because I picked the trombone solely based on in elementary, the junior high kids came and showed you the instruments and the guy went with the trombone.

[638] I was like, that's my instrument.

[639] I always liked that too.

[640] Yeah.

[641] And then I picked it and then I couldn't play It's a very hard instrument to play.

[642] And then my whole life I thought, why didn't I play the drums?

[643] Like it doesn't make sense.

[644] Something that you could apply to the rest of your life.

[645] Yeah, like high school life or college life.

[646] A guitar maybe or something like that.

[647] I thought the trombone was called the clarinet.

[648] And I signed up in sixth grade.

[649] Simple mistake made all the time.

[650] And I'll never forget my teacher, Mr. Berish.

[651] I got into the class and I didn't have an instrument yet.

[652] And there were a few kids that had clarinets.

[653] And I said, excuse me, I'm in the wrong class.

[654] And he said, well, what class you're supposed to be in?

[655] I said, clarinet.

[656] And he said, well, this is clarinet.

[657] I go, no. And I made the trombone motion.

[658] And he started laughing really hard.

[659] The American sign language symbol for trombone.

[660] And he said, well, this is, that's the trombone.

[661] And we can get you in a trombone class.

[662] But we have to, you know, we'll have to go to the council and rearrange your schedule.

[663] And I went home that day.

[664] And my mother had for the first time ever in my life went and purchased.

[665] something for me that I needed for school and it was a clarinet and I didn't know that you could return things.

[666] Sure, sure.

[667] I was a stupid kid.

[668] And so I felt guilty because she bought the clarinet and so I just played the clarinet.

[669] Wow.

[670] That's a nice story.

[671] It is a really sweet story and it kind of parlayes into another similarity.

[672] I think we have and maybe I just try to find similarities between us.

[673] But you are the most generous human being I've ever met my entire life.

[674] No, I am not.

[675] You You're 100%.

[676] He's married to Kristen Bell.

[677] Yeah, yeah.

[678] No, listen, you are the most generous person I've ever met my life.

[679] I'm not the most generous.

[680] That's not the comparison I was going to make.

[681] But are you genuinely that generous?

[682] Or is it somehow linked to that story you just told me, which I can relate to, which is I'm very codependent.

[683] I loved my mother so much.

[684] And if she would have brought me home anything, I would have just dealt with it.

[685] Right.

[686] And I'm wondering, is that...

[687] I think it's a combination of things.

[688] I think it's nice people say generous, but anxiety is one of them.

[689] Okay, right.

[690] But maybe more than anything, I like the challenge of finding a great gift and I like to see what people's reactions are.

[691] I mean, it's your hobby, I got to say.

[692] Yeah, kind of is.

[693] I've received more thoughtful gifts from you than any family member I've ever had.

[694] Oh, really?

[695] Yes, you've given me, and I don't even know what the occasion was, but you had a pillow embroidered for Kristen and I. That's right.

[696] That had the tweet that she sent me, proposing marriage.

[697] Right.

[698] And then my response, what fucking man thinks to do that?

[699] I made you ping pong balls with your face on it.

[700] Yeah.

[701] You know, when you would eat sausage, that was a thing that, you took great pleasure.

[702] Yeah, I took pleasure and your love of sausage.

[703] Yeah, it's my deep, deep love for sausage.

[704] Um, I don't know.

[705] I just, you know, I, I just, uh, enjoy it.

[706] Is it a Catholic thing?

[707] I'm wondering.

[708] Like, that you would have felt guilty about my mom, my mom, your mom having gone out of her way to buy this thing and you didn't want to be a dick.

[709] Well, money was always very tight in our family growing up, you know.

[710] And so then when you have some money and also it's kind of, you know, it's a creative endeavor finding a gift for somebody.

[711] Well, there's nothing like going into your garage about two weeks out from Christmas, which I've done a dozen times.

[712] And it's just floor to ceiling packages.

[713] You must buy, I don't know, a thousand Christmas presents or something.

[714] Yeah, probably.

[715] And are you doing it all year round?

[716] And birthday also.

[717] Sometimes I'll see things I think, oh, that's cool.

[718] And I know I have somebody in my life who is going to like that.

[719] Like, oh, for instance, speaking of Elon Musk.

[720] Yeah.

[721] Maybe I shouldn't tell you this because you were one of the people I had in mind for this.

[722] Okay, okay.

[723] He started selling flame throwers.

[724] Oh, I read that myself.

[725] And so I bought a, I pre -ordered a couple of flame throttors.

[726] Wow.

[727] Don't let that stop you from giving them that to me. I would absolutely love that.

[728] By January, you'll forget about it.

[729] Yeah, and you'll never know when that'll come in handy because someone got me, I think they thought a little bit as a joke, but someone got me one of those fly killer guns that you put salt in.

[730] Do you have one of those?

[731] Oh, yeah, I love those.

[732] They're fantastic, it turns out.

[733] But the other day, we have, I mean, even to tell this story, I'm going to get so angry.

[734] But, you know, we have five feral cats at our house or six.

[735] Kittens.

[736] So it starts with that there's kittens outside, right?

[737] that Kristen discovers and then she starts getting involved with them.

[738] And now we've got to capture them all and neuter them or spay them, whatever you do for them.

[739] And you just can't imagine how much effort goes into that.

[740] Yeah, my parents did this too and are doing this.

[741] It's a daily evolution.

[742] There was a point where I had four of the cats.

[743] They couldn't catch the fifth cat.

[744] So four were living in my shower for a couple days and they're jumping all around because they're feral cats.

[745] And the whole fucking room smells terrible like feral cats.

[746] And I'm just asking, like, when do we think this project's going to wrap?

[747] Like, is there an end date that we just, we give up and we re -release these four?

[748] It took us a week to catch the fifth one.

[749] So we had all these kids.

[750] And it doesn't even end there.

[751] So then we capture one, one gets loose at the vet.

[752] One goes under the tub.

[753] My sister's going to have the whole tub ripped off.

[754] It all ends.

[755] It culminates with Kristen's got food outside from him.

[756] And now we have this gigantic raccoon.

[757] The biggest fucking raccoon you've ever seen in your life is not, now it's living in the backyard.

[758] And it's the size of.

[759] of like a Boston Terrier or something.

[760] It's quite large.

[761] Really?

[762] And we're laying in bed and we hear this thing ripping apart this food dispenser.

[763] It sounds like someone crashed into the side of the house.

[764] I look outside.

[765] This thing's just clawing at this thing.

[766] And I'm like, oh, fucking great.

[767] Now I got to get this raccoon out of here because we have a dog that's going to fight the raccoon, blah, blah, blah.

[768] And I'm like, what am I going to do?

[769] I can't shoot this thing with a real gun, obviously.

[770] And I go, ooh, the salt, the fly shooter.

[771] So I thought that's a humane way to shoot.

[772] this thing, right?

[773] So I ended up going out there shooting it and it's very thick fur.

[774] It didn't like it enough to leave.

[775] Didn't hurt it.

[776] It didn't cry.

[777] But I thought, look how this thing really came in handy.

[778] Yeah.

[779] Did you like that story?

[780] Kind of came in handy because it didn't work.

[781] It did work.

[782] I drove the raccoon away.

[783] Oh, it worked.

[784] I thought you were saying.

[785] Can I make a suggestion?

[786] Yes, I would love a suggestion.

[787] Paintball gun.

[788] Well, do you think that's humane?

[789] Yeah.

[790] I've been shot with a paintball gun.

[791] a million times.

[792] In fact, I've paid to get shot with a baseball gun.

[793] Yeah.

[794] I had coyotes hovering in my backyard at one time.

[795] No, with my ex -girlfriend's dog, I was worried about.

[796] So I got a, and I didn't want to, like, shoot them with a BB gun.

[797] This was in the Lake Hollywood.

[798] Yeah, so I got a paintball gun, which I never had the occasion to use on them.

[799] But I think that's the way to go.

[800] Yeah, and you don't have to tell me publicly if you got one.

[801] Maybe later you tell you.

[802] I would tell you, I'd be pretty proud of myself if I got one, but did you pick a certain color that you thought?

[803] I think I got red or something.

[804] I don't know.

[805] Okay.

[806] Yeah.

[807] I mean, this is this is one of those stories that could really backfire on us.

[808] Yeah, no, there's, I kept the paintball in the garage, paper gun in the garage with the canister and everything.

[809] And I had this idea that I don't know.

[810] I think they sensed that I got it or something.

[811] Yeah, yeah.

[812] Because they never came close again.

[813] Yeah.

[814] Yeah.

[815] When I was reading about you, I didn't know you had had a controversy in Detroit.

[816] I'm from Detroit.

[817] Oh yeah, I had a big, I almost got canceled.

[818] The show almost got canceled.

[819] Which I can't even believe so.

[820] If it's true, what it says on Wikipedia, you were basically there and there was going to be a Lakers Pistons game and you said No, no, that's not what happened.

[821] Oh, I'm already on.

[822] I was in L .A. Oh, you were in L .A. And the Lakers and Pistons were playing in the NBA finals.

[823] And I said something to the effect of, I was being interviewed by Mike Tariko on ABC.

[824] And I said something to the effect of, well, I'm rooting for the Lakers because I really like Detroit and I hate to see them burn the city down if the Pistons win, which, you know, I thought, I don't know why I thought that wouldn't be offensive.

[825] Well, I'll tell you why it shouldn't be offensive.

[826] I'm from Detroit in every devil's night, the night before Halloween, we burn the city down.

[827] Yeah.

[828] And I just wonder, how on earth could anyone have been offended?

[829] It's just a fact that we yearly burn the city down.

[830] I think sports have a big.

[831] are a big reason for it because when you say something and you're rooting for the other team you're you know people descend on you they're already defensive they're already super defensive and you know i was a lakers fan you know stirring things up it's as if you had said though if the bulls win it's going to be windy as hell in chicago like you fucking we burn the place down once a year well that's not how they looked at it and they were very upset and they chose not to air your show that night in Detroit, right?

[832] Yeah.

[833] Well, what actually happened was I, hearing everybody was mad in Detroit, as I am inclined to do, decide to double down and make it much worse.

[834] Oh, great.

[835] Great.

[836] And so I, I did that and then they were really mad.

[837] Are you allowed to tell us what the double down was?

[838] I think we did a, I think we did, we did something bit involving a fire and a lot of fire.

[839] Okay.

[840] And I don't remember what it was exactly.

[841] But the local affiliate was like, hey, you know, we're here in Detroit.

[842] We don't need to be the hate.

[843] It's great for you being the hated guy, but we live here.

[844] We're going to pull you off the air.

[845] And I was like, all right, well, what are you going to do?

[846] And then one of the guys that works at ABC is like, you realize if you get pulled off the air in Detroit, the whole show is like, that's it.

[847] Really?

[848] What year was this of the show?

[849] This was the first year of the show.

[850] Oh, boy.

[851] And by the way, I wouldn't have been so upset if they had pulled the show off the air.

[852] Right.

[853] You're thinking there's a lot of cities in America.

[854] We can live without.

[855] No, I was thinking, great.

[856] I don't have to do this fucking job anymore.

[857] Oh, really?

[858] Was the show immediately a rude awakening?

[859] Because I remember, again, you and I were on an airplane.

[860] Let's just say this should have been stated at the beginning, but I did your show.

[861] one time, but then we both happened to be in Detroit, weirdly enough, for some GM event, and then we flew back on a plane together, and then we sat together, and then we talked the whole time we became buddies.

[862] We started hanging out, right?

[863] And on one of those, and then we also flew together to some really janky version of UFC.

[864] Yeah, that was great.

[865] Yeah.

[866] That actually was really great, because we had great barbecue.

[867] It was like a UFD minus is what it was.

[868] Yeah, and two gales fought.

[869] And it was before the level of fighting between women has gotten to the Ronda Rousey.

[870] It was more like a bar fight.

[871] It was like your sister and one of her friends fighting.

[872] And there was a moment where like we couldn't decide if we were into it or not.

[873] Like we were trying to give it a fair shake.

[874] And then one girl punched another girl in the boob and she said, Like it was the saddest real ow.

[875] We both felt like our mother fell down the stairs.

[876] We both felt very ashamed of ourselves.

[877] We were like, why are we here?

[878] Why are we watching these women?

[879] Why are we paying these women?

[880] in the fight.

[881] Yes, and then they hugged and cried.

[882] Yes, they hugged each other and cried for like three or four minutes and we just kept going, Jesus, we got to get out of this situation.

[883] I wasn't so excited about the guys fighting either.

[884] No, no. That was so standard.

[885] Bad.

[886] Yes.

[887] The whole thing was bad.

[888] Had we not had such good barbecue and the whole trip would have been a wash. But on one of those trips, I was saying to you, of course, having been obsessed with Letterman that I always fantasized about having Letterman's job or your job.

[889] And you said to me, and I'm, it's so rare that I actually believe someone.

[890] And you go, it's so much more work than I think you realize it is.

[891] And then you just kind of walked to me through what the commitment that the show is.

[892] And I really thought, oh, yeah, that's too much for me. I don't think I could do that.

[893] Oh, yeah.

[894] It's, it's relentless, right?

[895] It is relentless.

[896] And it gets easier.

[897] And you have to hate it.

[898] but it at that time, like when that, at that time, the show was live at 9 .05 p .m. And so we weren't even done with our workday until 10 .06 p .m. And it would just start over again as soon as you woke up in the morning.

[899] And it was five nights a week.

[900] And I was in an office that had no windows.

[901] And I was there all day long.

[902] And I just was like, I'm going to die in this hole.

[903] Yeah.

[904] This is no good.

[905] had no guests.

[906] You know, it's funny.

[907] And then you said something else though that was brilliant.

[908] It's like you said once you do that, that's the end of the road.

[909] So if you don't succeed at that, you don't then go act.

[910] You don't do anything.

[911] That was your shot and that's a wrap on you.

[912] Yeah.

[913] Traditionally.

[914] I mean, who, you know, other than maybe doing another talk show on a lower scale, who does anything after a talk show?

[915] Right.

[916] So it's all this risk.

[917] And then, yeah, if it works out, it's great.

[918] But you still have to do the job.

[919] But.

[920] But that, yeah, at that time.

[921] And were you thinking at that time, you know what, fuck it, I don't want this, this bad.

[922] Yeah, I thought maybe if I get out soon enough, I won't, it won't have that effect.

[923] Right.

[924] Go back and do other shows.

[925] Do the man show again or something, you know.

[926] Yeah, because what was the workload on the man show compared to?

[927] We worked six months out of the year.

[928] So we did, you know, we did, well, we did a lot.

[929] We did 24 episodes in six months.

[930] Yeah.

[931] And then we had six months off.

[932] You know, right.

[933] Or to do something else.

[934] Yeah.

[935] Which that, you know, having that, you know, that island with no. pit bulls on it to swim to.

[936] Yeah, is a huge, just mentally, it's huge.

[937] But at that time, I was, you know, respondent.

[938] Have you hacked it at all over the years where you have figured out?

[939] Yes.

[940] You have.

[941] And what are some of the like big changes that helped?

[942] Well, one of, one big thing is that, you know, no one at our show knew what they were doing.

[943] Right.

[944] Literally no one had any, only our head writer had experience in late night television as far as doing that particular job.

[945] And I'd hired, I'd saddled him with, you know, just like a bunch of my buddies and family members.

[946] Yeah.

[947] And so we really didn't know.

[948] Our booking system was crazy.

[949] We hired a booker from a magazine.

[950] And the way they, like magazine, like it was, I think it was like in style magazines, popular magazine.

[951] Like they basically tell celebrities who they don't want.

[952] That's how that.

[953] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[954] There was no planning ahead.

[955] I always say that, you know, people are so focused on the first episode of a talk show and like, oh, that first episode.

[956] But what everyone should really be focused on is that Wednesday's episode, you know, like, because that's where you start to see what it's really going to be.

[957] Right, right.

[958] That's where you really get a taste of it.

[959] When you're out of favors.

[960] Yeah.

[961] When you're your lead gas gone, your second nights, big gas is gone.

[962] The bits you've worked on for the last six months to put in that show have now been spent.

[963] And now you're like, okay, what are you really going to do?

[964] Yeah, yeah.

[965] Well, because Kristen did your, hosted your show.

[966] Yeah.

[967] Last year.

[968] You know, yesterday really was the 15 year anniversary of, because we premiered on Super Bowl Sunday.

[969] Oh, really?

[970] Yeah, in 2003.

[971] That was your lead in?

[972] Yeah, well, yeah, we were on that Sunday night.

[973] That's pretty fucking lucky, don't you think?

[974] It, yeah, it was kind of.

[975] Well, in a way it was lucky and in a way it wasn't.

[976] It was lucky in that we had a lot of people watching.

[977] But then you're going to.

[978] But also people are watching me do a terrible job.

[979] Oh, wow.

[980] Yeah.

[981] Yeah, that is rough.

[982] Parenthood had that same lucky thing, which was we launched on the Winter Olympics.

[983] And at that time, nobody was watching NBC.

[984] Like 10 years ago, you know, they were in last place.

[985] And that was the one thing people were watching and it gave us a good launch because none of their shows.

[986] That's still one of my all -time favorite network television shows.

[987] Yeah, it always made me so happy to watch.

[988] that.

[989] I love that show.

[990] I loved it.

[991] I loved it.

[992] It was a great show.

[993] Yeah.

[994] I always felt like it was, it was like it should have absolutely been nominated for and won Emmys every year.

[995] And I just, I haven't figured out.

[996] Maybe it was because there were, it was such an ensemble show and there was nobody was the star of that show or something.

[997] Yeah.

[998] It's hard for me to separate myself from being inside of it and evaluating it that way.

[999] Because I'm like, I think we're doing something special.

[1000] But then I'm like, but what the fuck do I know?

[1001] I'm inside of it.

[1002] But Minka Kelly, who was on the show, right?

[1003] She was also on, so Jason Cadams created and ran Parenthood.

[1004] And he also created and ran Friday Night Lights.

[1005] And so she was a guest star on the show.

[1006] And we got talking at lunch and I said, she's like, oh, parenthood's so good.

[1007] And I go, it's not as good as Friday Night Lights.

[1008] Like Friday Night's the best fucking show ever.

[1009] And she's like, no, this is so much better than Friday Night's.

[1010] And I'm like, so we're getting in this debate over what, you know, what shows better.

[1011] And something weird happened where I was editing hit and run like during one of the seasons and I was so busy doing that that I stopped reading the scripts.

[1012] I would only read my part so I was prepared to do my scenes, but I didn't know what was going on in the show.

[1013] Then I started watching the show not knowing what was coming and everything changed for me. Then I was like just a normal person and I didn't know what was going to happen to all these people.

[1014] And then I like fell in love with it.

[1015] And then I never read the scripts again.

[1016] Yeah, my wife and I, we loved it from that, right from the outset.

[1017] Yeah.

[1018] That really made me happy.

[1019] But you were saying Kristen hosted the show.

[1020] Oh, yeah.

[1021] She hosted the show and I was with her that day.

[1022] And it was, we were at the end so exhausted.

[1023] And all we could say was like, how does he do this every day?

[1024] That process of the rehearsal and then coming back and I mean, I guess maybe it's different because they know you a little better writing wise.

[1025] But, Well, but, you know, you should, you know, part of the thing is like I'm involved in even the writing of like when the guest hosts are, you know, everything runs through me. So it's, it's about, you know, in some ways, it's harder to be the guest host because you don't know the drill and, you know, you're not familiar.

[1026] But in other ways, it's actually easier because you have things going in.

[1027] There's a separation a little bit.

[1028] Whereas some days I walk in the show and like, I don't know what we're going to do on the show.

[1029] show tonight and we just have to figure it out at rehearsal.

[1030] Uh -huh.

[1031] And are those shows better or worse than when you do have it?

[1032] It varies.

[1033] It does, right?

[1034] Because I was watching Robert Donnie Jr. on that Sam Jones show get interviewed.

[1035] And it was really fascinating because Sam said, like, how much do you prepare?

[1036] And he said, well, I've done everything.

[1037] He's like, I was chaplain and I was chaplain.

[1038] Like, I was method and I did that.

[1039] And he goes, and now I wear an earpiece.

[1040] and I have my lines said to me right before I say them.

[1041] And he goes, I'm not adverse to the work.

[1042] I just found that I, my personality lends itself to chaos.

[1043] Like when I'm hearing something for the very first time before I say it, that's what's magic for me. And I'm like, well, that's really cool that he's done all that.

[1044] It's like Picasso.

[1045] He painted normal before he did cubism or whatever.

[1046] So I am curious, yeah, if you ever felt like when it's chaotic somehow that's just as good or there's a value to that or it does.

[1047] scary to proceed that way always or no but i think you have to have a plan going in and be prepared to abandon it yeah yeah yeah it's it holds true more for interviews because for you know when i'm doing the monologue you know it's just me standing out there and everybody has to know like people like the director has to know what clips to go to you know just from a lot of logistics there are a lot of other people involved so you have to clue them in on what you might do yeah but some nights, the nights where we don't really have things planned, those are the nights where we'll do some kind of whatever excuse is for me to go out on the street and just talk to people who are walking by.

[1048] And sometimes we call it foreigner or not, or sometimes we make it a quiz or whatever, but ultimately it's just me riffing with people outside.

[1049] Yeah.

[1050] And I like that because by the way, that's what we loved about Dave, right?

[1051] Yeah.

[1052] Talk to the deli owner.

[1053] It almost always goes well.

[1054] Very rarely does it not go well.

[1055] And in a way, it kind of makes you go like, why do I do all the other hard stuff when I can just do this?

[1056] Yeah.

[1057] But I think if you did it every night, it would become Yeah, like, are you jealous of Stern?

[1058] And maybe I'm wrong about the way that show is put together.

[1059] But it does appear to me at least that he is large, there isn't a pre -interview when you go do his show.

[1060] So he really is just chatting.

[1061] I'm sure he's been prepared by Gary or whatever to have hit some points.

[1062] He's more prepared, I think, than most people.

[1063] then you realize he is.

[1064] I mean, he reads all the research about the guest.

[1065] He writes questions for the guests.

[1066] He, you know, he spends, most exhausting of all, when you're on the radio every day, and this is what's most exhausting, is you can't do anything just for pleasure.

[1067] You can't just kind of sit there and enjoy something.

[1068] If you watch a television show, if you go out to dinner or whatever, you're writing little notes down.

[1069] You're constantly aware of just to, give you because you need so much material so like i was listening to howard talk about the super ball and he's like where are my notes and like you when he starts going through all these notes you realize this guy didn't enjoy watching the super bowl at all right he's working he's mining mining life yeah and that's why howard i think watches shows like the bachelor because you can you get a lot more material from a show like the bachelor than from a show that's finished and good.

[1070] Yeah, yeah, then breaking bad.

[1071] Yeah, it doesn't give you.

[1072] Yeah.

[1073] So he is attracted to those shows that, you know, an award show is something that's live.

[1074] Treasure trove of funny shit to find out.

[1075] Yeah, because he doesn't have the luxury of being able to watch things just for pleasure.

[1076] Yeah.

[1077] I can relate to that in that when I was in the groundlings and I had to write six sketches a week for years and put them up every Wednesday night.

[1078] Like my whole life was that.

[1079] You'd have a waiter that said something weird.

[1080] And I'm like, Oh, there's a sketch there.

[1081] Oh, and then this happened at a traffic light.

[1082] Oh, there's a sketch there.

[1083] And it was kind of maddening.

[1084] It's exhausting.

[1085] Yeah, as you say, you're not actually experiencing life.

[1086] You're observing it with the intention of making fun of it at some point.

[1087] Yeah.

[1088] That's a little.

[1089] So you have, do you hate John Oliver?

[1090] Do I hate him?

[1091] I mean, I know you love him.

[1092] I'm saying, are you jealous of the fact that he has a week to do that show?

[1093] Oh, yeah.

[1094] And then he has all this time off.

[1095] Yes.

[1096] Yeah.

[1097] Do you think in the future you will craft.

[1098] a show for yourself that probably not i don't think so you're doing this i'll do this until i'm done doing this and that'll probably be that 15 years is a long time yeah in your wildest dreams did you think you would be doing the show for 15 no way and how i the one thing that they like if i'm reading about you there's just no explanation and i know you and there's no explanation how on earth did you go from the man show to even have your own show on abc that seems like a crazy well leap there was you know, I was on the radio for 12 years.

[1099] Yes.

[1100] And then I was here on radio here in L .A. for five years.

[1101] So a lot of people.

[1102] Kevin and Bean show.

[1103] Yeah, who were producers would, that was a very, it was a very popular show.

[1104] Yeah.

[1105] So they'd hear me. And so I'd get calls from this person to that, but mostly like to do writing or some little like commercial or something like that.

[1106] And I just, you know, just for, I never imagine I'd be on TV.

[1107] I just did it for money.

[1108] But then I got Win Ben Stein's money, which was a game show on Comedy Central.

[1109] that was my first show right and we started the same week at south park that was our art show premiered that week and that show was on well i was on that show for four maybe five seasons and then it continued for two seasons were you doing in radio simultaneously i was doing the radio i would do i was on the radio from uh 5 30 to 10 a m and then i'd rush right over to the studio and do that show from like 11 .30 until 7 .30 p .m. And I drive all the way home to the West Valley and start all over again early in the morning.

[1110] That was a tiring time in my life.

[1111] But that was only three months here or there.

[1112] And then I did, I was on Fox NFL Sunday for four years.

[1113] I was the, I made football picks and I did a comedy sketch every week.

[1114] And also, then we'd start doing the man show.

[1115] And we did that for four seasons as well.

[1116] And some of these overlap with.

[1117] each other.

[1118] And so I really, I got to the point where I kind of had cornered the market on young males, you know, as far as audience go.

[1119] I had that sports background.

[1120] I had.

[1121] And the man show was successful.

[1122] You guys had a pretty big audience, right?

[1123] Yeah, it was very successful.

[1124] It was number one on Spike.

[1125] Is that what it was on?

[1126] It was on Comedy Central.

[1127] Yeah, it was very, very popular.

[1128] Yeah.

[1129] Our last season was our most popular season.

[1130] And in fact, they continued doing the show for another season after we left.

[1131] They tried to continue to do the show.

[1132] They replaced you with Doug.

[1133] Stan Hope and Joe Rogan.

[1134] Yeah.

[1135] And so then ABC, I think, you know, at the time, late night was very male.

[1136] It was like the audience was like 70 % male for late night television.

[1137] What is it now?

[1138] It's 50 -50 now.

[1139] Oh, really?

[1140] Yeah.

[1141] And at that, but it was different at that time.

[1142] It was very male -oriented.

[1143] And so they thought, we want to get somebody that guys, preferably young guys like.

[1144] And And, you know, it kind of made sense.

[1145] Plus, I think I bowled the president of ABC over with my knowledge of late -night TV, which was just from watching it, you know?

[1146] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1147] And being a - But they had never done it, right?

[1148] They had never done late -night, hadn't they?

[1149] They hadn't done it since Jerry Lewis in the 60s.

[1150] Yeah, so that's - They made a run at Letterman, and he decided to go to CBS.

[1151] And, but they were ready to go.

[1152] And then once they'd already cleared that kind of spot, They said, well, you know what, we didn't get Letterman.

[1153] Maybe we should find somebody else to do the show and find somebody that's going to be a lot cheaper and we won't have to necessarily get the ratings that Letterman gets, but we'll make some money off of the show.

[1154] Well, who else was on then?

[1155] Craig Kilbourne was on the air of that?

[1156] Craig Kilbourne was on after Letterman, yeah.

[1157] And then who was after Leno?

[1158] Leno, after Leno.

[1159] Boy, it's so crazy that this is now not coming to me immediately because I was so obsessed with this stuff.

[1160] And do you think your perceived knowledge of late night was like, oh good, this guy, this guy will help us.

[1161] Because we don't know what we're doing.

[1162] He seems to really understand it, even though he's never done it.

[1163] I don't know.

[1164] I really don't know.

[1165] It was so little.

[1166] But they approached you.

[1167] They approached me, yeah.

[1168] And they didn't approach Adam.

[1169] Or did they?

[1170] No. Didn't approach it.

[1171] Was that how was, that's like being in the.

[1172] Adam and I had already decided to leave the man show.

[1173] Oh, you had?

[1174] Yes.

[1175] Now.

[1176] And to do separate things?

[1177] Not necessarily do separate things.

[1178] And in fact, Adam worked with me at the talk show for the first year.

[1179] He'd come in and write jokes.

[1180] But we had decided that we didn't want to do it anymore based on one thing that happened.

[1181] And this is so funny because I now know looking back on it that if we'd announced this to Comedy Central that we weren't going to do it anymore, they would have paid us a lot more money to stay and keep doing it.

[1182] But at the time, we're like, okay, we're not going to do this anymore.

[1183] Adam was still doing Loveline at the time.

[1184] Oh, right.

[1185] Right.

[1186] So he had that radio show.

[1187] And that was very big then.

[1188] Very big.

[1189] Yeah.

[1190] It was a syndicated.

[1191] He was all over the country.

[1192] Not a ton of but, you know, but he was doing pretty well.

[1193] And at that time, I just thought, oh, but what happened was Adam, we had a bit.

[1194] And we said, it's like we're talking about like your dad's, like your friend's dads and what jerks they could be when you're a kid.

[1195] Yeah.

[1196] Yeah.

[1197] And he's like, yeah, my friend's dad.

[1198] He's one of those guys who said, he's one of those.

[1199] guys that would say like opinions are like assholes everyone has one and the audience instead of instead of going like oh yeah that's the lame thing everybody says they clapped and applauded and adam and i looked at each other like this is it we can't do this we can't do this anymore these people yeah it's disheartening so we decided that that would be it and i don't know what we thought oh we had crank anchors at the time though going and that was going well too yeah So we had some things happening, you know.

[1200] So it wasn't like when, you know, Hall and Oates are together and they approach Daryl and say, why don't you just be a solo act?

[1201] No. And it didn't feel like that to either of you.

[1202] Not at all.

[1203] Oh, okay, good.

[1204] And then we started working on a sitcom for Adam for ABC at that time.

[1205] And he and I worked on that together.

[1206] And so, you know, we were going to do separate things, but the plan always was and still is to large extent to this day that we would help with each other's projects.

[1207] When he replaced Stern in L .A. in Phoenix, Seattle, in the West Coast, I was the executive producer of the show.

[1208] You know, we were always kind of involved in each other's things.

[1209] Yeah.

[1210] But you didn't pursue that show.

[1211] They just literally approached you.

[1212] Yeah.

[1213] Not only did they approach me, they misled me. They told me they wanted to talk about a Thursday night variety show, which I told my agent.

[1214] I was like, I have no interest in that.

[1215] Yeah.

[1216] And my agent said, listen, the president of ABC wants to meet with you.

[1217] not some like development person.

[1218] Right.

[1219] You need to, if the president of ABC wants to meet with you, you should give him the courtesy of a meeting.

[1220] I said, well, I don't want to waste this time.

[1221] I'm not going to do that.

[1222] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1223] And when I got in the meeting with Lloyd Braun, he never even mentioned the Thursday Night Variety Show.

[1224] He just started asking me about late night what I thought and I started talking about Letterman.

[1225] And then I went home and I called my agent.

[1226] I was like, I don't know what that was about, but he seemed like a nice guy.

[1227] We just talked about Letterman the whole time.

[1228] And And my agent was like, oh, that's weird.

[1229] And I got home, and Adam Carolla's wife was an assistant at ABC.

[1230] Oh, really?

[1231] And she called and said, they're going to offer you the late night spot.

[1232] And I was like, what late night spot?

[1233] They have no late night spot at ABC.

[1234] And she's like, they're going to offer you a late night talk show.

[1235] And sure enough, the next day they did.

[1236] And I said yes, and that was that.

[1237] And were you terrified or you were just excited.

[1238] I was confused, I'd say, more than anything.

[1239] I was just kind of confused.

[1240] Yeah.

[1241] And then we had to like build a. said and you know come up with the logo and like you just get caught up and all this yeah and people probably forget you also had like a different format right you'd have like a guest host every week right yeah join you for the whole week how long did that last that lasted for about two years uh -huh that was hurting our guest bookings i kind of enjoyed it and it helped me get through those early years where i wasn't really capable of hosting a show on my own but i was capable of sitting with somebody in talking.

[1242] Yeah.

[1243] It was a crutch.

[1244] And in retrospect, I'm glad we got rid of it.

[1245] But the real reason we got rid of it is it made it hard to book guests because, you know, no publicist is going to book Gwyneth Paltrow when your co -host that week might be.

[1246] Yeah, Mike Tyson or Andy Dick or something like that.

[1247] Yeah, yeah.

[1248] That's pretty tricky.

[1249] So people were kind of like, well, we'll wait to see where your co -host is.

[1250] And we never had that plan in advance.

[1251] Yeah.

[1252] But I would say there's a few things that right out of the gates, like while pursuing directing, there's a little voice in my head that has said, you're not a big enough asshole to be a great director because invariably every single great director that's working, you hear just terrible, terrible stories.

[1253] And I'll think, God, maybe I'm not a big enough asshole to be a really good director.

[1254] And there are a couple things about you.

[1255] You're actually social and normal.

[1256] You're a normal human being.

[1257] You go to your house.

[1258] You're friendly and you enjoy being around.

[1259] people, which is pretty rare for late night talk show.

[1260] I don't think it is anymore.

[1261] I think it was.

[1262] Well, of course, Letterman's is weird as it gets, right?

[1263] Yeah, but none of the guys on now are weird.

[1264] Like literally none of them.

[1265] Well, Phelan's not.

[1266] Yeah, but you started that.

[1267] Fallon's not weird.

[1268] Colbert's not weird.

[1269] None of these guys, they're all nice guys.

[1270] They're all like, I mean, honestly.

[1271] Yeah, but the history right is like, is Carson was a recluse kind of right.

[1272] Yeah.

[1273] And Letterman certainly.

[1274] stern, admittedly, although now he's learned to become social, right?

[1275] Leno's not hanging out with anybody, really, to my knowledge.

[1276] Yeah, but Leno was always chatty with people and he'd come in and talk to.

[1277] You know what I think it is?

[1278] I don't think anyone who's on now has the cachet and the kind of mystery and status that any of those guys.

[1279] Yeah, yeah, I guess the whole thing.

[1280] You can't really.

[1281] Nobody's going to tolerate me being a reclusive asshole.

[1282] You know, like, oh, really?

[1283] Oh, fuck off.

[1284] Yeah.

[1285] But then the other weird thing, because I've done all these talk shows, and I've done a lot of them several times.

[1286] You also have this unique thing where you're not panicked, which I think is kind of unique about you.

[1287] Do you find that other?

[1288] Yeah.

[1289] I feel like there is, you have a very relaxed kind of interaction when I'm on your show and when I watch you.

[1290] You're not like, you're not, you know, sprinting to try to get the next laugh.

[1291] You're like, you're very comfortable and relaxed, which is, I think, a kind of a unique characteristic.

[1292] I think it's from radio.

[1293] I think it's from being on the radio for four and a half hours every day.

[1294] And just getting used to silence, being comfortable with a little bit of silence.

[1295] Well, now, let me ask you this, though, because you have told me interesting things about it over the years, which, like, one thing is the whole show is about the monologue, right?

[1296] That's really what people, that's your ratings.

[1297] That's 80 % of it, yeah.

[1298] Yeah, which would, that blows my mind.

[1299] I would have assumed it's all about.

[1300] getting Tom Cruise on your show, but really it's the monologue is your show, basically.

[1301] You want a consistent high level of guests for sure, because then you're, I think it's more about like kind of what people expect and what their perception of the show is if you have.

[1302] But individual guests, there are maybe five of them that will actually bump your ratings.

[1303] Yeah, bump your rating.

[1304] Yeah, I have to assume people watch your show or they don't.

[1305] Yeah, in general.

[1306] Pretty much, yeah.

[1307] Yeah.

[1308] And then so, so what?

[1309] other things because you've discovered all these things so you the format change you got rid of the guest host and then you kind of struck gold with the the viral videos right that was like a huge kind of new chapter or or ruined everything yeah yeah yeah right probably the latter because that's a hard machine to feed isn't it well it's not even that it's just that it's taken away like there's no urgency to be in front of your television at 1130 anymore because I can see it later like do you remember watching letterman like i remember falling asleep once when shirley mclean was going to be on letterman and he always had a war with her every time she was on it was something uncomfortable happened and i remember i was up i was right and the next thing i knew it was three o 'clock in the morning and like i i was despondent yeah right it would never have it again missed a game of the world series yeah it was terrible and you know just that kind of that urgency is you know because it's almost like with record albums like you don't have to buy the whole album because you can just cherry pick the thing you want to see yeah it is true and look I have two little kids I go to bed early when I see your like highlights I'm definitely seeing it the next day in general yeah and it's funny because you work so hard on the whole show and then you know it's just like one little piece of it is what people see and yeah but that that that aggregates now being acknowledged at least isn't it it is so even if you have like a little apartment of your show that is it's acknowledged but it's the amount of money that the show makes on like youtube compared to the amount of money they make from television advertising yeah it's you know it's 10 % of our revenues from online viewing and online viewing is we get 50 million people watching a week you know online yeah that's crazy and yeah you got half of that watching live you'd be making a hundred million a year well we yeah I mean we yeah you mean oh I mean I I mean, like, if nightly 25 million people turned into your show, yeah, I mean, it's, it'd be modern family times three or whatever.

[1310] It's pretty crazy.

[1311] Yeah.

[1312] And one of my, you're kind of mean to, you like to play jokes on people.

[1313] You ruined my birthday party one time.

[1314] You came over and I am, you can't ruin a party when it happens at the end of the party.

[1315] The party was over.

[1316] No, and when I think of that birthday party, I only think of that coffee pot.

[1317] But I like to believe, I like to believe that you, you knowing how happy it made me actually made you happy as a result.

[1318] Well, that's what kept us from ever getting in like a fist fight over it.

[1319] But what had happened is I like to make my coffee the night before and I set a timer so it'll be ready when I wake up in the morning.

[1320] This is like the most important part of my whole day is that when I wake up the kitchen smells like coffee.

[1321] And so I had gone through the whole process.

[1322] I'm also cheap as a motherfucker, as we just discussed on the way up.

[1323] Neither of us will heat our pool.

[1324] Right.

[1325] I think that's reasonable.

[1326] I don't think that's cheap.

[1327] Yeah, we'll both pay for like 14 friends to eat at a restaurant.

[1328] Right.

[1329] Like $1 ,000, but I will not heat the pool for my children.

[1330] If all 14 friends get in the pool, I'm okay with it.

[1331] That's true.

[1332] That's true.

[1333] There is a time in place to heat the pool.

[1334] But in general, I won't do it.

[1335] So, you know, I make myself 10 cups of coffee and I buy Starbucks.

[1336] So this is about a $4 pot of coffee I've made.

[1337] And because there was a party and it had gotten switched to the brew mode and not the auto on mode, I made the whole thing.

[1338] I hit the button, which I thought was arming it for the next morning.

[1339] I go into the living room.

[1340] We play ping pong.

[1341] And I smell coffee all of a sudden.

[1342] I'm like, why the fuck is the coffee going out?

[1343] Right?

[1344] So I'm inordinately mad right out of the gates that this coffee is brewed.

[1345] So then I go back in, I have to throw, no one's drinking coffee at 9 o 'clock at night.

[1346] So now I pour out 10 cups of coffee in the sink.

[1347] makes me even matter.

[1348] And then now I remake it.

[1349] Now my stepdad watches me remake this coffee and then he sees me hit the thing.

[1350] I've now put it on auto on.

[1351] I now go to play ping pong again.

[1352] My stepdad thinks, oh, poor guy, he meant to brew a pot of coffee, but he put it on the timer.

[1353] So he puts it on brew.

[1354] Bruce it's so not playing ping pong.

[1355] I fucking smell the coffee the second time.

[1356] And now my reaction is if someone drove a car through the living room, like I am so angry that now I'm out 20 fucking cups of Starbucks coffee.

[1357] I like storm in there.

[1358] I'm actually yelling in the party.

[1359] Don't fucking touch the coffee pot.

[1360] Like I don't, no one touches this coffee pot.

[1361] I pour out the coffee.

[1362] I make a whole new batch of coffee.

[1363] Go back in a big pot about 15 minutes later, Kimmel goes.

[1364] All right, man, I'm taking off.

[1365] I'll see you later.

[1366] And the fucking door shuts.

[1367] And then I smell coffee.

[1368] He went in there and brewed a third pot of coffee.

[1369] remember you looking out the window and I didn't I hadn't told Sarah my girlfriend what I'd done you must have been so delighted you look out and I was like you know of course tears are streaming down my face she's like what did you do you do make more coffee I mean I had actually embarrassed myself like had even the third pot not happened definitely everyone the party's like he is what am I supposed to do you had no choice start to coffee yeah you had Yeah.

[1370] So then I then dumped 30 fucking cups of coffee down and made a fourth batch.

[1371] But then and this is where I'm not mean, you, you had left your wallet at my house.

[1372] Do you remember that?

[1373] You drove away and then later I found your wallet.

[1374] Yeah.

[1375] And I should have poured coffee all over it and then giving it back to you.

[1376] Yeah.

[1377] But the only mean thing I've ever done to you is that, you know, assuming because your job is to basically monitor how stories are going.

[1378] Like if someone's on your show and they're telling a story and it's a dud, you've got to save them.

[1379] And this is what your occupation is to keep things interesting.

[1380] So on this trip where we went and saw this low level UFC thing, I got to the airport way before Jimmy did.

[1381] And we met, I met a guy there that happened to also be on our plane.

[1382] And he told me it was a 40 minute story about getting a swing set to his house in Hawaii.

[1383] It was the most boring story I had ever heard in my life.

[1384] I couldn't believe it was being told.

[1385] It was just the whole drive on the dirt road I heard about every mile of the road, right?

[1386] This story was so bad.

[1387] And we get on the airplane and Jimmy's sitting directly next to him.

[1388] And I go, hey, Mike, tell Kimmel that great swing set story.

[1389] And then I just got to sit there for 40 minutes.

[1390] It was worth me hearing the story all over again.

[1391] Your endorsement made me think it was like going to become good.

[1392] A huge payoff.

[1393] Like someone would have died and.

[1394] stalling this swing set at some point, but it just never got, the punchline of the story was it was a functioning swing set.

[1395] Wow.

[1396] And he had spent thousands of dollars.

[1397] I did that same thing to Gary Shanling once.

[1398] There was a guy we're having dinner.

[1399] It was Kevin Nealyn's birthday.

[1400] And there was this guy there.

[1401] And he was like one of these guys are like, oh, please don't sit next to me kind of guy.

[1402] And he told a terrible story.

[1403] And the whole point of the story was just to tell him, tell us that he knew someone famous?

[1404] Right.

[1405] And that was the whole thing.

[1406] It's like one of those stories.

[1407] Well, by the way, the whole swing set story was about how rich this guy was.

[1408] The ultimate punchline was that he had about $120 ,000 into this swing set.

[1409] That's why we heard about it because he had to go oh yeah, so I have to put it in my Suzuki sidekick.

[1410] I only own that car just on the island.

[1411] Like there was all these things that, things he owned he didn't use, whatever.

[1412] People always think they're clever with that kind of thing.

[1413] Yeah, they're not going to out box us.

[1414] Yeah, yeah.

[1415] You should just tell me you're rich dude.

[1416] That would have taken 30 seconds.

[1417] This guy tells us a terrible.

[1418] terrible story and Gary Shanling like just bales and says I have to go to the bathroom and he gets up he starts as the story begins and then he goes to the bathroom this guy tells the story and Gary comes back and sit down and I said hey Gary missed the uh the story and he starts selling the story again and Gary whispers I've never seen the side of you before we got to hear the whole story over again um So now that you've got the show kind of dialed in, and by the way, it's visible on you.

[1419] I think this, this, this has happened to both of us.

[1420] You wouldn't know this probably, but there's the, you know, the show, it's always sunny in Philadelphia.

[1421] So Rob McElhenney, have you ever had him on the show?

[1422] Yep.

[1423] He's one of the creators.

[1424] Yeah, a good friend of mine.

[1425] Caitlin, his wife, Caitlin's husband, yeah, one of my favorite people on the planet.

[1426] And he pointed out that the weird thing about sitcoms is that the actors get progressively, better looking on the sitcoms because they're getting rich, right?

[1427] He's like, if you look at the first season of friends, they're all like sixes.

[1428] And then by like the eighth season, they're all tens.

[1429] You know what I'm saying?

[1430] Like they're getting the facials and they have a good stylus.

[1431] Right.

[1432] Everything.

[1433] So he gained like 60 pounds in the off season of it's always sunny.

[1434] So he did one season as a fat ass, which I just think is the greatest decision to make for him, not me. But likewise, when I come out under your show, I think I always bring it up, I'm like, You're getting better and better looking, which is very suspicious.

[1435] And I think I am getting better looking as well because I have a picture of me, you and Bradley Cooper at that birthday party, you ruined.

[1436] Oh, yeah, right.

[1437] And I sent it to your reason.

[1438] We look like we're at the gray house.

[1439] Yes.

[1440] It looks like day one at a treatment center.

[1441] Yeah.

[1442] We have terrible bags under our eyes.

[1443] We have terrible haircuts.

[1444] Everything is bad.

[1445] We're hovering over our scratch.

[1446] rabble board.

[1447] Yes, I want, I almost, I'm trying to remember if I posted that picture, but I mean, it's a career -ending photo.

[1448] Maybe I brought it to your show or something.

[1449] Yeah, I think you showed it on the show.

[1450] Well, but are you aware of the fact that you've been, you've been basically getting incrementally more handsome every year?

[1451] You've gotten thinner.

[1452] Your hair somehow looks thicker.

[1453] Well, it's definitely the weight loss, but my hair is definitely not thicker.

[1454] But you're doing something that it looks so robust to me every time I see you.

[1455] I made, I had some bad choices, wardrobe.

[1456] and I had some bad choices, makeup -wise.

[1457] It's a learning curve.

[1458] I had vampire sideburns also.

[1459] Part of it also is when styles change, you just look weird when you look back.

[1460] But, yeah, losing, you know, I never, you know, it's funny because I used to make fat jokes about myself and that was part of my act, but I never actually thought I was fat.

[1461] Right, right.

[1462] I was like kind of lying each time I would make it.

[1463] You felt fraudulent about it.

[1464] It's just another area I was able to go.

[1465] And because I was a skinny kid, And so you have that in your head.

[1466] Like, you kind of what you were, I was like the skinniest kid in the area, you know.

[1467] And so I always thought of Las Vegas metropolitan area.

[1468] Yeah.

[1469] And, and, and, and, but now I look back and like, oh, wow, yeah, I was pretty fat, like, actually fat.

[1470] Uh -huh.

[1471] And that's the way to go.

[1472] Adam Carolla always says, like, you know, when women for their wedding will, like, diet and lose a lot of weight and wherever he's like, no, you go the other way because you don't want to, that picture is on the mantle.

[1473] And you don't want to look at it.

[1474] about, like, boy, you've really put on a lot of weights.

[1475] You want to have the opposite.

[1476] That's smart.

[1477] You look great.

[1478] Yeah.

[1479] That's my philosophy.

[1480] That's happening.

[1481] Yeah, because I'm assuming you feel that way about me, don't you, a little bit?

[1482] Because generally, when I walk out on stage.

[1483] I always thought you looked good, though.

[1484] Well, thank you for that.

[1485] But I do find that when I walk out on stage, because quite often it's been like eight months since we've seen each other or something.

[1486] And we walk out and I find myself, like, startled with how good looking you look.

[1487] And then, of course, I'll be wearing a suit, which you never see me in a suit.

[1488] And then I feel like I'm reading on your face that you're startled too.

[1489] Well, we look at each other.

[1490] First of all, we're wearing, like, we're dressed nicely, which we're never, like, look at how we're dressed right now.

[1491] Secondly, we're groomed.

[1492] We have makeup on.

[1493] Final touches.

[1494] You know, I've got a lot of like hair filler in and stuff.

[1495] Yeah, we look nice.

[1496] We've got, you know, a fake tan, like kind of painted on to us.

[1497] If the sprinkler system came on in the studio during our interview, I would have mud dripping down.

[1498] my head.

[1499] I'd have all the black paint that's on my bald spot.

[1500] Yeah, showing.

[1501] It would just be, we would just have mud drizzling down our faces.

[1502] But, um, but yeah.

[1503] And also, you know, I think the beard has helped because I don't really have a masculine chin.

[1504] Uh -huh.

[1505] The beard is definitely, it is a really good look for you.

[1506] But I was always so proud.

[1507] She was going, she was touching my beer and she goes, why is it, why is it white?

[1508] You know, it's getting white.

[1509] And I said, well, I'm getting older.

[1510] And she said, is it going to get white?

[1511] And I said, yeah, it's going to get white.

[1512] She goes, you won't be a daddy anymore.

[1513] I said, what do you mean?

[1514] He goes, you'll be like Papa.

[1515] You'll be a grandpa.

[1516] It's when you know you're too old to be having kids.

[1517] Yeah.

[1518] Yeah.

[1519] Right to grandpa.

[1520] I trip out on that a bit.

[1521] Our kids are the same age.

[1522] And I think, oh man, when they're in high school, I'm going to be that kind of older dad.

[1523] I mean, maybe not in L .A. here.

[1524] Yeah, imagine how I feel.

[1525] Right.

[1526] Because you're a couple years older than me. Yeah.

[1527] And yeah, do you spin out about that at all?

[1528] Yeah.

[1529] I add up like, when I'm, I did it last night as I was going to bed.

[1530] I was like, okay, I'm 50.

[1531] My daughter's three years old.

[1532] When she's my age, oh, I'll be dead.

[1533] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1534] I think to myself, I'm going to have to be extremely healthy to watch her graduate from college or get married or have a kid.

[1535] Like, I'm going to, science is going to have to intervene.

[1536] CRISPR is going to have to work.

[1537] All these things are going to happen.

[1538] My daughter is, is my, my dad was.

[1539] my age when I had my oldest daughter.

[1540] Yes.

[1541] So it's like like I look at it that way.

[1542] It's like Oh, me too.

[1543] And my mom was my age.

[1544] I was graduating college.

[1545] Yeah.

[1546] Yeah.

[1547] It's very scary.

[1548] There's only two more things I really want to talk to you about.

[1549] One is, um, you weren't super political.

[1550] Right.

[1551] That's fair to say, right?

[1552] For the, for the, for 13 of the years.

[1553] Yeah, but I publicly.

[1554] I always, I mean on the show.

[1555] There was always, that was part of the show.

[1556] Yeah, it's become much more a part of the show.

[1557] Well, I guess in just, in general, you're always going to be making fun of whoever the president is and that kind of stuff.

[1558] And some presidents give you more opportunities to do that than others.

[1559] Certainly, this one's, yeah, a mine.

[1560] He's right at the top.

[1561] Yeah, he's really up there.

[1562] But you've gone further than that, obviously with, you know, health care and stuff like that, which clearly is motivated by Billy, and that makes a ton of sense.

[1563] But I am wondering, what's the kind of?

[1564] an internal dialogue when you're deciding whether or not it's an issue you're because as you probably experience it comes at great expense too right yeah it does yeah in in it's uh that i don't care who you are that stuff's hard to weather even when i because i have my little causes that i'll do on twitter you know and whether it's pro life or it's gay marriage or whatever the thing is and even though i should be able to write off the people that are sending me hateful things I should be able to just go like, oh, whatever.

[1565] It does affect me. I'll read stuff and then I'll go, oh, that doesn't affect me. But then I'll find myself in the car two hours later.

[1566] And it's in my head.

[1567] Yeah, me too.

[1568] I'm thinking about it.

[1569] I think the same thing.

[1570] And I can't outsmart it.

[1571] Like, I would, I try to tell myself, you're having a fight with the guy in front of 7 -Eleven who's got a parrot on his shoulder.

[1572] If you were to see this guy you're fighting with, it's probably someone you would write off as too crazy to even talk to.

[1573] But so knowing that, how do you do, what's the calculus where you go, fuck it this is worth it well I think you know when you I think sick children that's definitely in that seems like yeah pretty slam dunk that tips the scales yeah um I think that I also go into these things maybe I'm a little bit naive but I go in thinking that everybody's going to agree with me sure sure yeah yeah because you'll make your point so well and you'll open people's eyes well it doesn't make any any sense that they would do anything other than agree with me Yeah.

[1574] I'll do that too.

[1575] I'll form a statement or an argument and I'll think and I'll try to think of every single retort and I'll think somehow I've cracked it and I've actually come up with the message that can't be retorted.

[1576] Yeah.

[1577] Right.

[1578] And you feel like you're also you go into it with the same mentality.

[1579] You go into any conversation.

[1580] But the people you're having conversations with are people you know or work with or are your friends.

[1581] And so you feel like you're in your silo basically.

[1582] You can convince anyone in your circle of.

[1583] almost anything.

[1584] Sure, sure.

[1585] Or at least they'll nod and go along with you and you'll think you convince them.

[1586] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1587] But then you realize like, oh, wow, like these people think I'm attacking like something that they have or they hold dear.

[1588] That's probably a part of their identity.

[1589] I think that's when it gets really sticky is when people's identity feels threatens.

[1590] I think there's an undercurrent in this country and I don't think it's entirely unfair.

[1591] I think there's a group of people.

[1592] who think there's another group of people getting something for free.

[1593] They're not working for it.

[1594] They're not earning it.

[1595] In fact, you could even take it to another level.

[1596] And you could say, like, it's hurting them, the fact that they're getting services or whatever, welfare, whatever you want to call it, whatever, that when they get that, that disincentivizes them to work or to think about the future.

[1597] Yeah.

[1598] It's going to hurt them.

[1599] And I think that there's truth to that, you know, but I don't think, I think that a lot of liberals will say that's not happening at all or it's happening in a tiny bit.

[1600] And then conservatives will say that's happening all the time in a huge way.

[1601] And it's probably somewhere between those two things.

[1602] Well, and I think you and I are both naive in a way that I think we both actually think we're way more centrist than our friends are out here.

[1603] So I make the mistake quite often is I actually do think I understand more the other point of view because I feel like I'm more centrist than say my wife or a lot of her girlfriends.

[1604] And so I go, oh, no, I get them.

[1605] And then I make a statement and then I realize, oh, no, I don't get them as much as I think.

[1606] And then it's funny, though, how you get cast because people know you, you know, talking about this or that, whatever.

[1607] Well, you know, when I started realizing this must really be happened to you a lot.

[1608] thought is that I have now been doing your show for 13 years.

[1609] And every time I've been on, I promote that.

[1610] You know, I'll tweet about it, right?

[1611] And now they jump on.

[1612] And now I will tweet about it and I'll get a handful of people that like launch into some crazy thing.

[1613] And I think, oh, shit, he must be getting that daily if I just tweeted this.

[1614] Oh, yeah.

[1615] I'm a fucking guest on the show, you know, I'm not endorsing Kimmel, even though I would.

[1616] You know, now I'm under attack.

[1617] And then there were, there were signs around L .A., right?

[1618] You posted a picture of you flipping one.

[1619] off.

[1620] Yeah.

[1621] So like that had to be a surprise, right?

[1622] That someone would take the time to put up signs of you.

[1623] Yeah, signs of a picture of me crying and I forget what it said.

[1624] And it's some conservative street artist who uses the fonts available on Microsoft Word.

[1625] That's the kind of artist we're dealing with the level of artistic.

[1626] Yeah, he's a real artist.

[1627] He thinks of himself as like Banksie, but yeah.

[1628] And then I get of course, because I love you and you're my friend.

[1629] I get I get this really protective streak and I'm like well that says everything about those motherfuckers that that would be an insult to be emotional like that to me tells you everything about like that it's that simple like that a man doesn't do that and then I get really pissed and the whole thing aggravates me it's not even happening to me but I'm wondering because when I'm doing the calculus right and I'm not in your position where I have to do a monologue every night but do you say to yourself sometimes I catch myself I'm about to do something I go you know what that's actually someone else's job, that's Bill Maher's job, or that's Sam Harris's job, or that's, do you know what I'm saying?

[1630] Like, yeah, there are people who, who that, that's what they do.

[1631] And I've sometimes, probably post -election, I've pulled back a bit and thought, it'd be one thing if, if my voice was needed, but, but my voice isn't needed.

[1632] Like, I, I don't.

[1633] I totally get that.

[1634] And I do, and there are times where someone else, whether it be a television host or whether it be somebody's written something, who says what I, what I would say.

[1635] And if that happens, I don't say it because I feel like, okay, good, that's been, that person covered that and took care of it.

[1636] Yeah.

[1637] But like at the time with Billy and the healthcare, I didn't feel like anybody was saying it.

[1638] They weren't.

[1639] No. And you had a really unique opportunity to make that a personal topic.

[1640] And I think it's, It's awesome that you did.

[1641] And then for Kristen and I, when we were super vocal about gay marriage, there wasn't a ton of actors out there.

[1642] There wasn't a hashtag for it.

[1643] There was, you know, and I was like, oh, I need to, I believe in this and I, I'm willing to get these tweets or whatever.

[1644] But a lot of stuff now, I feel like there's so many voices.

[1645] Oh, President Obama didn't support gay marriage until the second term.

[1646] Yeah, we were hosting rallies in New York and he was saying he would not, not just being quiet about it, but saying no, he won't.

[1647] won't.

[1648] I mean, that wasn't that long.

[1649] It was five minutes ago.

[1650] I get a little piss.

[1651] And again, this is where I feel like I'm centrist, is that remember when the Russian Olympics happened.

[1652] And a couple of their big complaints about the Russians were that they were killing dogs in the street getting ready for the Olympics.

[1653] Right.

[1654] And I'm like, we kill a million dogs a week here in America.

[1655] It's not like we don't kill dogs.

[1656] We're doing it in a shelter.

[1657] You can't say that's unique to them.

[1658] Yeah.

[1659] And then their policy on gay people.

[1660] I'm like, five minutes ago, our president said he wouldn't support it.

[1661] Like, we can't be on a fucking moral.

[1662] pedestal you know 10 minutes later yeah we love to do a lot yeah yeah like we forget the two hours ago we had a completely different opinion yeah we love human rights and uh you know oh yeah all this this stuff we criticize other countries and then you drive past somebody who's been sleeping on the same corner um every day for like three years yes um and then so my final um question i had for you is that um so christian just hosted the tcAs and that was a the sag awards my god sorry oh boy yeah so she hosted an acronym okay yeah she hosted the sag awards and when she got asked to do that in november this seemed like a very fun thing to do right right and then uh this very important movement happens the me two times up thing happens and then uh the the golden globes are are almost solely from my perspective about that issue yeah and um now she she was then in a position where oh my god this whole show now is about how much do i acknowledge it how much do i not who wears the pins who doesn't do this and just the fucking weight of hosting that show now it is so tremendous that i mean she seemed to be fine with it but i was like that this really takes the fun out of it from my perspective and do you feel at all going into hosting the Academy Awards of like, fuck, man, this is why this year am I hosting?

[1663] Yeah, and it doesn't help to be a white male either.

[1664] Oh, yeah, it's a last person that needs to be out there.

[1665] Yeah, right.

[1666] Nobody wants to hear what I think.

[1667] Yeah.

[1668] But yeah, there's, you know, it's tricky.

[1669] And you don't even know, you can't even prepare for it a few weeks in advance because you don't know where people's heads are going to be.

[1670] Yeah.

[1671] And there's, you know, something new like every three days yeah so it's hard to figure it out i mean i think i have you know a general sense of and i've been in the situation before where there was some touchy whether it be like you know uh oscar so white that you know the that kind of thing and the what was that what when oh oscars are so white i thought you said oscar del white oh that was a Latino director who won or something.

[1672] But there seems to be some something, some, like some cause or some kind of problem or something each year.

[1673] But in this is where I can a little bit see the point of view of the conservative middle American viewer, which is I, my memory of, uh, Whoopi Goldberg hosting or Letterman hosting or, city slickers hosting.

[1674] It wasn't political.

[1675] I mean, there may be, uh, one or two jokes, but there was not a theme of that award show every year, like whatever social issue they were tackling.

[1676] It just wasn't like that.

[1677] Right.

[1678] And I can't see a little, I can sympathize with the critique of like, hey, just fucking do the celebrate the movies.

[1679] Yeah, right.

[1680] Well, not only that, you know, you think about the people who are there and who are nominated.

[1681] Oh, that breaks my heart too.

[1682] This is something they have been dreaming of their whole lives.

[1683] 60 years somebody's been pursuing this thing.

[1684] And they don't want that cloud over it.

[1685] And they don't want that, you know, to have to apologize for being there.

[1686] I felt bad at the Golden Globes when, uh, uh, um, Guillermo del Toro wins.

[1687] But, but it starts by going like, okay, here are the all male directors.

[1688] And I'm like, oh, way to piss on this dudes.

[1689] You know, he comes from fucking Wohawk in Mexico.

[1690] He found his way to this country and he's our best director.

[1691] And I feel the same way.

[1692] I just was like, oh my God, this is really.

[1693] Especially for him because he is.

[1694] It's funny.

[1695] I thought of him when you were saying all the directors are like assholes.

[1696] I was thinking, not him.

[1697] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1698] I mean, there's certainly nice ones, but, you know, you hear amazing stories.

[1699] So you're going to, you're going to have to acknowledge it, obviously, and that'll be that.

[1700] Can I just air, I want to air one grievance about the Academy Awards while I have you here, because this is as close as I'll get to being able to tell anyone anything.

[1701] Okay.

[1702] They always say a billion people, watch that show out.

[1703] I don't believe that either.

[1704] It's such a fucking horseshoe.

[1705] Let me just tell you.

[1706] It's not a billion people watching the Super Bowl.

[1707] And can I tell you why?

[1708] Yeah.

[1709] Why I know this?

[1710] So the Academy Awards, what, 50 million people watch in America, I think?

[1711] I mean, we get the real numbers.

[1712] The Academy Awards, yeah, 50 million.

[1713] Or even the Super Bowl is like 110 million.

[1714] Yeah.

[1715] Okay, so if the Academy Awards is getting 50 million viewers and we are a country of 300 million, that means that only one sixth of Americans are watching it.

[1716] Right.

[1717] Right.

[1718] But in order for a billion people to view this worldwide, one -fifth of the world would need to watch it.

[1719] So you're expecting me to believe that the interest -the -world speaks English.

[1720] Exactly.

[1721] You're expecting me to believe that the interest in this award show actually goes up as you leave this country.

[1722] That's what would be required for them to get to a billion.

[1723] There's no way.

[1724] Yeah.

[1725] Where do they get off saying this?

[1726] I feel so offended by this.

[1727] All I know is I've been out of the country when the Super Bowl was, there was one year I was in Europe or something.

[1728] and a television with the Super Bowl on was not to be found.

[1729] Didn't exist, right?

[1730] No, people like, what?

[1731] No, we don't know, you know.

[1732] Yeah, super.

[1733] It's too late, nothing is open.

[1734] That's the one accent you're allowed to do, by the way.

[1735] It's Italian.

[1736] Hey, I'm half Italian, I can do it.

[1737] I'm so upset I don't have any clear distinguishing.

[1738] I can't really do anybody.

[1739] You could do an English accent.

[1740] You'd be fine.

[1741] It's the one I can't do it.

[1742] Monica and I have.

[1743] we were just talking about this, the only ones I can seem to do are not English.

[1744] You could do Australian also, you can get away.

[1745] Well, I do do that quite often and solely because do you ever get pizza from Lucifer's Pizza?

[1746] No, but you've talked about it a lot.

[1747] You order as an Australian?

[1748] No, the fucking outgoing message for some reason is an Australian.

[1749] I don't know why.

[1750] But this is the outgoing message.

[1751] Thank you for calling Lucifer's pizza.

[1752] We've got two locations, mailroads and hillhast.

[1753] For a mailroads location, Press 1 for our heel, it's Location Press 2.

[1754] I don't know why.

[1755] It doesn't get you in the mood for pizza.

[1756] Oh, you mean, you want to have barbecue or something.

[1757] It's a good pizza though.

[1758] Eat a kangaroo.

[1759] It's worth it.

[1760] It's worth going through it.

[1761] But now my new thing is I love Peeky Blinders so much.

[1762] Do you watch Peaky Blinders?

[1763] No, I don't, but my brother loves it.

[1764] He loves it three.

[1765] Damn it, is it good.

[1766] You have to watch it with the subtitles on.

[1767] That's my caveat.

[1768] Because I tried watching it without it, and I thought the show was terrible.

[1769] You can't understand.

[1770] I realized I was missing half of it, but I was, I was arrogant enough to think I was understanding everything, but then I had no interest in the show.

[1771] This was that happened to me with Ricky Jervase's podcast.

[1772] I was like, I don't, I can't understand.

[1773] I missed 40 % of this.

[1774] Yeah.

[1775] Do you, do you know who Sam Harris is?

[1776] You listen to, you probably know, from Star Search, you mean?

[1777] You know it's so funny.

[1778] Someone said that today when I brought him up.

[1779] I'm like, sugar don't bite.

[1780] Fucking Star Search.

[1781] Now he has this huge podcast.

[1782] Sam Harris, he used to co -host dancing with the stars.

[1783] Martha Harris?

[1784] Is that what you're talking about?

[1785] No. He's the one who got in a fight with Ben Affleck on Bill Maher about Islam.

[1786] Oh, okay.

[1787] Right.

[1788] Yeah.

[1789] Okay.

[1790] He's a neurosurgeon.

[1791] He's a fucking one of the most.

[1792] He's not a neurosurge.

[1793] I'm sorry.

[1794] He's a neurologist.

[1795] He's a doctor.

[1796] He has a doctorate.

[1797] He has a doctorate degree in neurology from UCLA.

[1798] And he's also a very outspoken atheist.

[1799] And his podcast, he has like the, you know, Harvard's professor of psychology on.

[1800] So everyone he has on is a genius as well, right?

[1801] And when you're listening to the podcast, I am like, I'm running on a hamster wheel as fast as I can to understand what they're saying.

[1802] And I can keep up in my car.

[1803] Like, I can follow what they're saying.

[1804] But he has no accent, though, right?

[1805] No, no accent.

[1806] He speaks very slowly, actually.

[1807] He's just that smart, right?

[1808] And what they're talking about is so dense that I just really have to pay very close attention, but I can keep up.

[1809] So I'm so obsessed with them.

[1810] Kristen for my sobriety birthday reached out to him and said would you go to dinner with us?

[1811] He said yes, very nice of him.

[1812] We go to dinner and everything was going pretty well but then all of a sudden plates started arriving, right?

[1813] And then they wanted to know if I wanted to refill on my soda and he was mid -conversation and I lost him.

[1814] I completely fucking lost him.

[1815] He must have spoke for 12 minutes where I didn't know a thing he was saying because he's so smart and in a real life setting with distractions, I just couldn't keep up.

[1816] And I just found myself like nodding and everything.

[1817] And at the end, I was hoping like, was that the conclusion?

[1818] And I was like, that's a tremendous point.

[1819] But I completely for 12 minutes didn't understand a word.

[1820] I do that every single night with the guests as we talk in between the commercials and the band's playing so loud.

[1821] I can't hear anything.

[1822] And I know we have a finite amount of time and I can go, what?

[1823] You know, so I just nod and I go, oh, and we're back.

[1824] I speak really loud to you though on the break.

[1825] Well, I know what you're saying.

[1826] There's some people that are older.

[1827] There's some people, you know, aren't quite as assertive.

[1828] Yeah.

[1829] And then, so some of your guests are obviously, they do a ton of the lifting for you.

[1830] And then a lot of times you just have fucking duds.

[1831] Like you, like when you're on, I'm like, all right.

[1832] I can take a solid one third of the show off.

[1833] I'm so glad to hear you say that because I've, in an egotistical way, I've thought maybe that was the case.

[1834] but I would have never had the balls to ask you that.

[1835] But I wanted to, I just, I was hoping I made it easy for you.

[1836] That's really all.

[1837] But then I, but because I'm a neurotic, I'll leave and I'll go, fuck, was I doing him a favor?

[1838] Or did I just steamroll him for eight minutes?

[1839] No, no. That's what we like.

[1840] Okay, okay, good.

[1841] And I speak for all of us when I say that.

[1842] Okay, great.

[1843] All, all hosts.

[1844] All hosts, yes.

[1845] But do you, do you try to, do you try to control that in any manner?

[1846] Like if you know, you're going to have two guests that evening, do you go, no, guys, that's two duds in a row.

[1847] I got to have.

[1848] I wish that I was able to, you know, I'm not really involved in the booking process and the pairing.

[1849] You get what you get.

[1850] So yeah, you kind of get what you get.

[1851] Yeah.

[1852] It's whatever the special soup is of the day.

[1853] Exactly.

[1854] Okay.

[1855] Well, from the bottom of my heart, I know how fucking busy you are and you have two little kids like I do and I appreciate so much.

[1856] Can I go pee on your land?

[1857] Is it because I really have to go and I know there's no door on the bathroom?

[1858] You can pee anywhere you want on this property.

[1859] Thank you very much.

[1860] And we'll just take a couple stills while you're doing it.

[1861] Yeah.

[1862] That'd be fun.

[1863] For the website.

[1864] I love you.

[1865] You've been a great friend of mine and you've always been really generous.

[1866] This is fun.

[1867] I'll come back if you'll have me. Well, what would it be fun for you is you'll be able to kind of monitor the progress of rebuilding this dump again?

[1868] Get a coffee machine in here.

[1869] We can really have fun.

[1870] You know, speaking of our money, neuroses.

[1871] I have one right there.

[1872] I have a curate.

[1873] I'll hit that on the way out.

[1874] C curigs are no good for me. I need the whole pot.

[1875] You should fire up a couple pods.

[1876] They're like, oh, these guys are wild.

[1877] They're constantly playing great pranks in each other.

[1878] Like, Jimmy made coffee one.

[1879] These wild, crazy Hollywood guys.

[1880] All right, I love you.

[1881] Thank you.

[1882] Thank you.

[1883] Stay tuned if you'd like to hear my good friend and producer Monica Padman point out the many errors in the podcast you just heard.

[1884] We've all been there.

[1885] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers and strange rashes.

[1886] 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.

[1887] 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.

[1888] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[1889] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[1890] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[1891] Follow Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[1892] Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon music.

[1893] Monica, before we get into fact -checking the Kimmel episode, I just want to acknowledge that there's a ton of noise happening around us.

[1894] And what is it, Monica?

[1895] What are we hearing?

[1896] What are the listeners hearing?

[1897] wood metal being thrown into a huge dump truck yeah there's a lot of concrete being loaded into a dump truck about literally three feet from the microphone just on the other side of the window here in our clubhouse so don't be worried don't think that your house is crumbling it's not an earthquake it's not an earthquake and your car is not breaking it's us okay monica what do we got okay so you said that twice you mentioned that Jimmy has two kids.

[1898] Oh, he has four kids.

[1899] But he has four children.

[1900] Yeah, I was probably talking about the new kids.

[1901] You were talking about the kids.

[1902] Yeah.

[1903] Because his other children are not kids.

[1904] They're not kids.

[1905] They're not kids.

[1906] But they're always his kids.

[1907] That's true.

[1908] So he has four.

[1909] Yeah.

[1910] Okay.

[1911] And then you mentioned that you have never done anything that requires instruction.

[1912] Okay.

[1913] And you really haven't, but you've done a couple things.

[1914] You've done some things, improv.

[1915] Oh, right.

[1916] I did learn that.

[1917] Required some instruction.

[1918] I don't know if you took the instruction, but you were in a class and you...

[1919] Well, I certainly received the instruction.

[1920] If I recall, there were five ways to add information to a scene, but I can only remember two of them.

[1921] Okay.

[1922] The tops.

[1923] But you kept your ears open in that class.

[1924] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1925] And then you maybe learned how to do some car stuff?

[1926] That I really did just figure out by disassembling things, paying attention while I was doing.

[1927] disassembling them and going, oh, well, they must go back together the way they came apart.

[1928] Got it.

[1929] So nobody taught you how to do any of that stuff?

[1930] When I was in 12th grade, I rebuilt the engine in my Mustang.

[1931] And Ken Kennedy's neighbor, Mark Tooth, did show us how to, you know, put the right pressure on the bolts for the heads and whatnot.

[1932] So, yeah, there was some instruction there.

[1933] Okay.

[1934] Yeah.

[1935] Jimmy talks about a book, a book on tomatoes, a very thick book on tomatoes.

[1936] And it's called Ripe.

[1937] Oh, that's the bookie Red.

[1938] It's called Ripe by Arthur Allen.

[1939] Okay.

[1940] There was a lot.

[1941] Not Ethan Allen, the furniture barren of.

[1942] You can't find it at Ethan Allen.

[1943] I googled, you know, big book on tomatoes.

[1944] And you would have think one would pop up and it would be very clear.

[1945] So many books on tomatoes.

[1946] Oh, really?

[1947] Uh -huh.

[1948] I had to ask Jimmy's wife what the book was.

[1949] I'm glad that Molly helped us.

[1950] She helped us.

[1951] Um, okay.

[1952] Then when you were talking about the food in Turks and Caicos, you said the food gets brought over from Miami 500 miles away.

[1953] And it is all, it's, you're very close.

[1954] It's 575 nautical miles away.

[1955] way.

[1956] Which could be upwards of like 600 normal miles, right?

[1957] Notical miles are longer.

[1958] We're talking about nautical miles.

[1959] Yeah, I think they're a little longer than our standard mile.

[1960] Okay.

[1961] And then Jimmy said.

[1962] Oh, they're really loading.

[1963] Can you hear it?

[1964] There was a big, big cement dump in that dump truck.

[1965] Can you hear it, Rob?

[1966] I love it.

[1967] Oh, great.

[1968] Jimmy mentioned that the raindrops in Bora Bora were so heavy that they had a pint of rain in each one.

[1969] Well, I know.

[1970] Well, I think you're nitpicking here.

[1971] I think he was, he was clearly in the world of hyperbole at that point.

[1972] He was, but this is my job.

[1973] Okay, okay.

[1974] Don't come at my job.

[1975] All right.

[1976] Okay.

[1977] So I tried to research how much water a raindrop could hold.

[1978] Uh -huh.

[1979] And I couldn't find anything.

[1980] Yeah.

[1981] How would anyone know?

[1982] I don't know.

[1983] There are scientists who do all kinds of things.

[1984] I don't know.

[1985] Sure, sure.

[1986] But I was able to find out how much rain a cloud can hold.

[1987] Oh, okay.

[1988] Let's hear that.

[1989] So scientists estimate that one inch of rain falling over an area of one square mile.

[1990] Okay.

[1991] That's a big area.

[1992] Uh -huh.

[1993] Well, yeah, is equal to 17 .4 million gallons of water.

[1994] Holy smokes.

[1995] Isn't that crazy?

[1996] That's a lot of water.

[1997] And it would weigh 143 million pounds.

[1998] 140.

[1999] Oh, okay.

[2000] All right.

[2001] Well, a gallon of water is 8 .8 pounds, I believe.

[2002] So if we do it.

[2003] I know I like to bury you under more more claims.

[2004] Okay.

[2005] I believe it.

[2006] Me too, because I looked it up and it's real.

[2007] Jimmy was saying that he had no, he didn't know how close or how far he was from Japan.

[2008] When he was in Bora Bora, he was like, I have no idea where I am in context of other places.

[2009] And Bora Bora is 5 ,831 miles from Japan.

[2010] Basically 10 times the distance from Miami to Turks and K. Yeah, exactly.

[2011] Well, that's nautical miles and this is regular miles.

[2012] Oh, okay.

[2013] So, but still in the ballpark of 10 times the distance.

[2014] I wonder how the vegetables taste there.

[2015] Well, actually, I know, yeah.

[2016] But maybe they're not coming from Japan.

[2017] I doubt that are coming from Japan.

[2018] I just conflated two different topics.

[2019] When you were talking about your scariest moment in Bora, Bora, You said there was a little island and then 200 feet and then another little island.

[2020] And then 200 feet and another line.

[2021] I actually couldn't find the exact footage in between.

[2022] I really looked hard.

[2023] I had a really busy week last week.

[2024] You did.

[2025] So some of this.

[2026] You had a very good week.

[2027] I had a good week and a busy week.

[2028] So my research had to stop at some point.

[2029] Absolutely.

[2030] But Bora Bora, the island group is 12 square miles.

[2031] So I don't know where you were in those islands, but there's a chance you swam 12 miles.

[2032] Well, here's what I can say is, you know, the little chain of islands does make pretty much a circle if you look at an overhead of it.

[2033] And then there's this big, big island in the center that we were talking about where Jimmy was evacuated to.

[2034] Volcanoes.

[2035] So, yeah, that ring, I guess they're saying is probably 12 miles, right?

[2036] Or if it's 12 square miles.

[2037] They're saying 12 square.

[2038] Well, that's a little confusing.

[2039] It looked more like, it didn't look like a circle to me. It didn't.

[2040] And I looked on the map.

[2041] Well, okay.

[2042] It does completely surround that center island.

[2043] And it's all shallow in there where it's the area that's surrounding.

[2044] But let's just say, what I will say is that from where our hotel was to where they were filming on this barge was about half of the ring of the archipelago.

[2045] Yeah, yeah.

[2046] So I might go so far as to say that I did travel six miles.

[2047] Six miles.

[2048] Yeah.

[2049] That's cool.

[2050] The French restaurant.

[2051] Six miles while being chased by dogs feels like a hundred miles.

[2052] I'd be scared.

[2053] I'd probably give up.

[2054] The French restaurant is maybe called because I found a few.

[2055] Let's see if it brings a bell.

[2056] Is it La Villa Mahana?

[2057] I don't know.

[2058] Or Lagoon?

[2059] I don't feel like it'd be Lagoon because it was up high.

[2060] Lagoon is by Jean -George.

[2061] So that's a fancy restaurant.

[2062] Okay.

[2063] None of those ring a bell.

[2064] The only thing I can tell you is that it was a way away from shore.

[2065] You know, it was up uphill a bit.

[2066] Well, I really wanted to find out because people will want to know that in case they go.

[2067] Yeah.

[2068] And who knows?

[2069] We were there eight years ago maybe.

[2070] Oh, it was what Obama was elected the first time while we were there.

[2071] so 2008.

[2072] So that's 10 years ago.

[2073] So who knows there might be a proliferation of French restaurants on that main island at this point.

[2074] Yeah.

[2075] And they're all good.

[2076] Yeah.

[2077] They're all they're all five stars.

[2078] Okay.

[2079] So the article Jimmy wrote about his experience.

[2080] He wrote a, you know.

[2081] A Huffington Post piece.

[2082] Yeah.

[2083] Yep.

[2084] I was in Huffington Post.

[2085] Okay.

[2086] And it's called a dramatic story at the end of which nothing happens.

[2087] Oh, what a great.

[2088] What a great title.

[2089] But it's still, exists on the interweb and you can find it and read it.

[2090] Did you read it or did you just find it?

[2091] I just found it.

[2092] Okay, that's fair.

[2093] You had a busy week.

[2094] I had a really busy week.

[2095] I'm going to go back and read it, I promise.

[2096] It's really well written.

[2097] I bet.

[2098] The title alone is perfect.

[2099] So you referenced generally you said a Roland movie.

[2100] Oh, Roland Emmerich.

[2101] Yeah.

[2102] I just wanted to clarify that.

[2103] And he directed Independence Day, the Patriot, Godzilla The day after tomorrow There we go Day after tomorrow is the one about Crazy weather right I think so Yeah there's like a tidal wave comes through Manhattan or something I don't know Sorry Roland Sorry I think he's German right Yeah I would guess He's probably not listening We don't know We don't know We'll find out V Gates Von Hostuddin's good boardstock You reference Robert Downey Jr. on Sam Jones show.

[2104] And I just wanted to give Sam a little shout out.

[2105] That's called Off Camera with Sam Jones.

[2106] And it's an interview show on DirecTV's audience network.

[2107] And it's a podcast as well.

[2108] Oh, I didn't realize that.

[2109] And then you said every single director working as an asshole.

[2110] Were you able to substantiate that claim?

[2111] Um, I just, I just wrote not true.

[2112] Okay, not true.

[2113] It's just not true.

[2114] Okay, no. No, there's Ron Howard's a beautiful man. I've worked with some that are nice.

[2115] Yeah, almost everyone I've worked with has been really nice.

[2116] You'd put me in that category though, right?

[2117] It puts you a medium.

[2118] Oh, okay, medium.

[2119] I'm just kidding.

[2120] Of course you're nice.

[2121] If you, okay, you said, if nightly 25 million people tuned into Jimmy's show.

[2122] Yeah.

[2123] It would be modern family.

[2124] times three.

[2125] Okay.

[2126] So today's numbers, I have some inside scoop on modern families.

[2127] I know you do.

[2128] I was really able to get.

[2129] Yeah.

[2130] Your roommate is a producer on modern family.

[2131] She was.

[2132] She's no longer.

[2133] Okay.

[2134] She works on another show now.

[2135] And my old roommate also was the writer's assistant on modern family.

[2136] Okay.

[2137] Okay.

[2138] So today's numbers, Modern Family has about six million viewers an episode.

[2139] Okay.

[2140] So it would be about it.

[2141] But at its height, it had about 12 million viewers an episode.

[2142] Okay.

[2143] But let me just point out, too, that I was saying he's getting 25 million a night, right?

[2144] So five nights a week.

[2145] So 125 million views per week.

[2146] Yeah.

[2147] Whereas there's only one modern family episode on per week.

[2148] That's true.

[2149] Is that what you were saying?

[2150] I was, yeah.

[2151] So he'd be making a billion.

[2152] If you can bring in 25 million viewers a night.

[2153] Each night they're quantifying that.

[2154] Yeah.

[2155] Yeah, yeah.

[2156] So he'd be a billionaire.

[2157] Yeah, he would be.

[2158] But it wouldn't be, it would, those numbers don't equate to modern family times three.

[2159] Oh, you're right.

[2160] And then, okay, you said we kill a million dogs a week in America.

[2161] Oh, geez.

[2162] That's not true.

[2163] And we roughly killed 2 .6 million dogs.

[2164] and cats, so that's more than just dogs, in U .S. shelters annually.

[2165] Okay.

[2166] Great.

[2167] So not a million.

[2168] I mean, not great, but, but, but, but that's a lot.

[2169] Better than a million dogs a week.

[2170] Yeah, that'd be 52 million dogs and cats a year.

[2171] But suffice to say, I don't believe that they killed more than 2 .4 million dogs to prepare for the Olympics in Russia.

[2172] That was my overall point, is that we were so judgmental.

[2173] them killing dogs.

[2174] Again, I don't want anyone to kill dogs, but we do kill dogs.

[2175] Yeah, we do.

[2176] 2 .6 million a year.

[2177] Well, that's including cats.

[2178] And I don't want to offend cat lovers, but I do hope there's, well, no, I don't hope anything.

[2179] What do you hope?

[2180] I really want to know.

[2181] I just hope that the ratio favors the dogs and that combined.

[2182] Me too.

[2183] Yeah, which I shouldn't say.

[2184] I'm sorry, cat lovers.

[2185] I'm really sorry.

[2186] I do not like that.

[2187] I just, I really am drawn to to fellow pack animals.

[2188] You know, we speak the same hierarchical language.

[2189] I'm scared that we alienated a lot of cat lovers, but I also need to be true.

[2190] We need to be true to ourselves.

[2191] That's right.

[2192] You got to, you're nothing, if not honest.

[2193] You said Garmo del Toro is from Wahaka, Mexico, and he's from Guadalajara.

[2194] Guadalajara, okay.

[2195] Did he go to film school in Wauaca?

[2196] I don't, I stopped.

[2197] Is it the fact?

[2198] It could be partially right.

[2199] And then I think they all met in film school in Wajaka, but it doesn't.

[2200] Maybe.

[2201] But he's not from there.

[2202] No. That's sexy.

[2203] Guadalajara.

[2204] I like it.

[2205] It's got a sound.

[2206] Yeah.

[2207] They say, okay.

[2208] So you're upset because they say a billion people watch the Academy Awards.

[2209] Mm -hmm.

[2210] And then you said 50 million people watch the Academy Awards in America and we're a country of 300 million.

[2211] So one -six of Americans are watching it.

[2212] which means you said a lot of stuff about the Academy Awards.

[2213] So the Hollywood Reporter did some investigation on this as well in 2015, the billion viewer figure.

[2214] And that statistic appeared in 1985 and then just keeps getting cited.

[2215] But they say the more accurate figure is several hundred million.

[2216] It's still a lot.

[2217] Several hundred.

[2218] I still don't buy that.

[2219] No, they broke it down by country, and I wrote a lot of them, but they had a lot more.

[2220] But they had 37 .3 million in the United States.

[2221] Okay.

[2222] So even less than I was.

[2223] Less than.

[2224] I was being gracious.

[2225] You were.

[2226] Yeah.

[2227] And then 5 .5 million in Canada.

[2228] That's the next biggest.

[2229] Oh, this will never add up to hundreds of millions.

[2230] There's so many countries, Dax.

[2231] There's so many.

[2232] There's 270 countries or something.

[2233] Latin America, 5 .45 million.

[2234] India, they love it, 4 .5 million, Mexico, 3 .8, Middle East, 2 .2, U .K., 1 .08.

[2235] I'm sorry, this does not add up.

[2236] Several million.

[2237] I mean, several hundred million.

[2238] I still think it's bullshit.

[2239] I mean, I respect your fact checking, but I also continue to call bullshit.

[2240] Why?

[2241] There are numbers.

[2242] If only 37 million Americans are watching it, that's one in 10.

[2243] But even if one million Iranians In all the countries Yeah, all right Then you're already at 200 and something And we have three It makes sense It's such an arrogant claim I stand by that The billion is a problem But it's an embarrassing claim We're coming up on it Okay, the current U .S. population is 323 .1 million I'll round down to 300 You round it down.

[2244] Yeah, I'll continue to do so on this podcast.

[2245] I think you should be accurate now that you know the fact.

[2246] I already knew it was 320.

[2247] It's 323.

[2248] You sound like an asshole saying 320.

[2249] Just keep it at 3.

[2250] Like, look, India's got about a billion people, right?

[2251] Let's just say that.

[2252] I'll find out the exact.

[2253] And then China's got like about a billion and a half people.

[2254] Just say it, you know, out of convenience and efficiency.

[2255] I think you should say the truth.

[2256] Okay.

[2257] I'm going to have to post all these figures all over.

[2258] the walls in this room yeah so you remember exactly um Sam Harris just wanted to just wanted to clear up clear up his credentials yeah because first you said he was a neurologist then I corrected you then you said he has a degree no I said he was a neurosurgeon accidentally oh which he's definitely not a neurosurgeon right yeah and then I think maybe I don't know what you said but you said he has a degree in neurology yeah um from us LHD Sam Harris's credentials are he is a BA from Stanford in philosophy and a PhD from UCLA in cognitive neuroscience.

[2259] Hmm.

[2260] Does that go under the umbrella of neurology?

[2261] I do not.

[2262] Okay.

[2263] That's all.

[2264] That's it.

[2265] Okay.

[2266] And then I wanted you to find out exactly how many pounds Rob gained.

[2267] I asked you to do that.

[2268] You did not draw it through.

[2269] Let's just, we'll just pepper that into another fact check.

[2270] Okay.

[2271] completely off topic.

[2272] No one will remember.

[2273] Let's say I interview Diane Sawyer.

[2274] She's still with us?

[2275] Yeah, I believe so.

[2276] So let's say I do that.

[2277] And then just saying that fact check, you said Rob McElheny gained a bunch of weight.

[2278] What was it?

[2279] No one will remember.

[2280] Okay.

[2281] All right.

[2282] That's all.

[2283] Love you.

[2284] Love you.

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[2288] What's up, guys?

[2289] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[2290] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[2291] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[2292] And I don't mean just friends.

[2293] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list.

[2294] goes on so follow watch and listen to baby this is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast