David Sedaris Returns Again

[0] Welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] I'm Dachshepard.

[2] I'm joined in absentia by Monaster Mouse.

[3] Today we have, who's becoming one of our dearest friends?

[4] This is three -peat for David Sedaris.

[5] Oh, my lord, do we love David Sedaris?

[6] He is an author.

[7] He is a humorist.

[8] He has a ton of incredible books, a carnival snackery, Calypso, Me Tuck Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corderoi and Denim.

[9] But most importantly, he has a new book out now called Happy Go Lucky.

[10] That is fantastic, as they all are.

[11] But this one's really, really incredible.

[12] It's super poignant because it's about all the recent upheavals we've all gone through and his own personal and public ones.

[13] Please enjoy the ever entertaining, the adorable David Sedaris.

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

[18] He's an armchair expert.

[19] It's so nice for you to have you back.

[20] Oh, my gosh.

[21] How many.

[22] It's an open door to you.

[23] Oh, look, Monica, you have roses on too today.

[24] Oh, my God, that's true.

[25] We match.

[26] That's the simulation for you.

[27] We believe in it.

[28] Do you believe in it?

[29] Signing books lately, I found that if I draw like a bindo stiff and someone, someone's book.

[30] I just learned that word.

[31] You know, when hobos would put their stuff and put it on the stick, yeah.

[32] That's called a bindo stiff.

[33] Okay.

[34] And if I draw that, someone will say, oh my God, how did you know my son just ran away from home?

[35] Or if I draw a mushroom, oh my God, how did you know I just ate a bad mushroom?

[36] And it leads me to believe I have powers, but I don't.

[37] Well, well, you do.

[38] Does that feed into the simulation?

[39] Because it's kind of simulating, oh my God.

[40] I don't understand what you mean by the simulation.

[41] Oh, we have a lot to talk about.

[42] Oh.

[43] We will wait then until Daxon.

[44] Have things been going okay for you?

[45] Things are great.

[46] Are you still in London, mainly?

[47] You know, it's been hard to get there.

[48] To tell you the absolute truth, you buy a business class ticket during the pandemic.

[49] Yeah, yeah.

[50] The lounge at the airport is closed.

[51] And then they're just giving you a boxed meal.

[52] I know.

[53] You have to wear a mask a hold.

[54] And you think, like, how is this worth it?

[55] That is, I think, when people talk about first world problem, that's got to be it.

[56] Oh, my God.

[57] Okay, so David, you're going to love this story.

[58] So we put out a little prompt, like if you have a weird airplane story, tell us.

[59] And then Monica and I call them and we talk to like six or seven of them.

[60] Then we put a few on the air.

[61] Well, the one that we got the other day, which was incredible, was a gal was seated directly where the two cabins meet.

[62] And there's a toilet right there, okay?

[63] So she's the first row and then the toilet.

[64] And they notice a guy's been in there for a really, really long time.

[65] So long that they decide to flag down the flight attendant.

[66] They tell them what's up.

[67] She opens the door and immediately shuts the door.

[68] And then gets on the loudspeaker and says, do we have any medical personnel flying?

[69] First person that comes up is a pediatrician and she says, That's not going to help us.

[70] That's not going to help us.

[71] Who's next?

[72] She doesn't learn what the next two doctors are, what type they are, as you'll learn quickly.

[73] Like a pathologist is what was needed.

[74] They open the door and there's a dead body in the bathroom and they pull them out and she's right here.

[75] The easiest place to lay this corpse out is directly in front of her.

[76] And she hypothesizes that there's some protocol that they have to do CPR for a long time before they can give up.

[77] So she said they were just working on this corpse in front of her for like, she said it felt like 15 minutes.

[78] But he was fully dead.

[79] And then she had the wherewithal to notice that they weren't changing course.

[80] They weren't initiating a dissent.

[81] They weren't doing an emergency landing.

[82] That was never on the table.

[83] So she said this was two hours into a flight from Boston.

[84] It was a five hour long flight.

[85] So one of the volunteers was a nurse.

[86] They moved the corpse to first class.

[87] They asked two of the guests to going back.

[88] And then they moved the nurse and the corpse up to first class and put blankets over them and continued on all the way to Seattle.

[89] Wow.

[90] My question was, why did a nurse have to sit next to the corpse?

[91] Was it to reward her for her help?

[92] Well, right.

[93] I mean, that's a net loss, though.

[94] I mean, first is great, but not worth sitting next to a corpse.

[95] Like, if I said to you, you can fly first class for Coach Fair back to North Carolina, but you will be sitting next to a corpse.

[96] You wouldn't take that, would you?

[97] I mean, you would because you'd want to write a story about it.

[98] But let's say you could never write again.

[99] Would you do that?

[100] Yeah, because he wouldn't get up to use the bathroom.

[101] If you gave him the window seat.

[102] No, they gave him the aisle seat.

[103] Oh.

[104] No, I don't know.

[105] But he's getting like rigamortis in front of you.

[106] Also, I've heard that the corpses evacuate everything at some point.

[107] Yeah, that'd be waiting for that to happen.

[108] Or, yeah, a big blast of gas to get up.

[109] let out of the mouth.

[110] I want to know what happened.

[111] The two people who moved to coach, because I don't think they went quietly.

[112] No, no, no, no. Absolutely.

[113] I was flying from Austin, I think, to, I don't remember where.

[114] And this woman came and she'd been trouble.

[115] I'd noticed her earlier in the airport, and I decided I didn't like her.

[116] And then she sat behind me. And then they came and they said, I'm sorry, you have the wrong seat.

[117] And actually, you're in coach.

[118] Anyway, how dare you use that tone of voice with me. You're trying to make me feel bad.

[119] Why are you doing this?

[120] Why are you trying to make me feel back?

[121] And the thing is, you're in the wrong seat.

[122] It's this person's seat.

[123] And she's trying to turn it into something that it's not.

[124] Class warfare?

[125] Yeah, yeah.

[126] Classism.

[127] First class warfare.

[128] First classism.

[129] So this is your third time here.

[130] Second time in person.

[131] I wanted to set you up with a real -time great joke you made.

[132] So as people learned, we did take a walk.

[133] Yes.

[134] I met you at your hotel in Beverly Hills.

[135] Boy, we walked those streets, didn't we?

[136] We sure did.

[137] Yeah.

[138] I forget what you told me, but maybe it was like six, seven miles or maybe more.

[139] Yeah, I was six and a half miles, I believe.

[140] Wow.

[141] It was incredible.

[142] Absolutely legit walk.

[143] It felt like two miles.

[144] That's how pleasant the company was.

[145] Oh, that's how it felt for me, too.

[146] But your legs are so much longer than one.

[147] I was hopping and puffing to keep up.

[148] Oh, sure.

[149] Ding, ding, ding.

[150] It's about legs.

[151] So on that walk, I was telling you again about a different show we have where we dispel conspiracies.

[152] Our guy had interviewed a cannibal who wrote a book, a cannibal cookbook.

[153] And you immediately said, what did you say?

[154] Legs Benedict.

[155] It would be one of the recipes in the cannibal cookbook.

[156] Legs Benedict.

[157] Legs Benedict.

[158] I tried for the next five miles to come up with one.

[159] I knew it couldn't top it, but I was hoping to match it.

[160] That's hard.

[161] It's a good little assignment, though.

[162] It is.

[163] It is.

[164] I wonder if by the end of this we could come up with another one.

[165] I would like to try.

[166] I kept texting you once.

[167] I couldn't let it go.

[168] It was so good.

[169] I felt emasculated by the quality of it.

[170] Well, I think we talked about Blackberry thigh.

[171] Hand sandwich.

[172] Hand sandwich is good.

[173] Legs Benedict, though.

[174] I mean, there's something about knowing what Eggs Benedict is first.

[175] They're the Hollandeau sauce.

[176] It's like a soupy endeavor.

[177] I picture miniature legs in that mix.

[178] Somehow almost like frog legs.

[179] Yeah.

[180] You know, the way to do that, really, let's say if you had to do it for a TV show or something like that, is just to sit up all night with a cookbook, you know, the joy of cooking or something.

[181] And maybe also a list of a number.

[182] This woman came to get a book signed once, and she had on hot pants, right?

[183] And she had a grizzly tattooed at the top of her leg.

[184] And I said, oh, is it awake or is it thibranating?

[185] And I said, do you always go around bare -legged?

[186] And she didn't get either of the jokes.

[187] And she'd never heard them.

[188] And I thought, who do you hang out with?

[189] How did nobody say that to you?

[190] I bet you 12 times a day.

[191] I'm on the verge of me. making a joke.

[192] And then I go, it's too pedestrian.

[193] You know, you get a waitress and your name is Sarah.

[194] And the first thing you think it was like Sarah's smile by, you know, hauling notes or whatever.

[195] And you go, don't do it?

[196] You don't want to be the 11 ,000th person.

[197] So even when you were saying you bear your legs off, and you might have had a little anxiety that this has clearly already been made this joke.

[198] Right.

[199] And it told me a lot that she had never heard it before.

[200] But I feel like anything that you think of to say about somebody's name, they've heard every day of their life since the second grade.

[201] But I had a sign language interpreter on stage.

[202] one time so I got on stage and I said you know I was eating a lot of pussy before I got here and it's you know just one thing after another and the sign language interpreter came up to me afterwards and said she said everybody does that really and I said thank you so much I said I will never do that again I was so embarrassed yes of course I actually wouldn't have thought that like what is she signing for like rock concerts and stuff who has the gall to say I was eating a a lot of pussy like Andrew Dice Clay.

[203] That's so true.

[204] I hadn't thought of who she was working for.

[205] You could have learned an equal amount as you did about the gal with the grizzly bear tattoo.

[206] Yeah.

[207] Like she's doing a lot of hip -hop.

[208] She's very exclusive.

[209] Concerts.

[210] Uh, beat poet stuff.

[211] Who knows?

[212] What are things people say to you that you've heard a million times?

[213] Those are generally more earnest.

[214] So I go, Dax and they'll say, oh, is it Daxter?

[215] Because they know the word Dax, and they know Dax is short for Dax.

[216] Dexter.

[217] So they assume Dax would also be short for Daxter.

[218] Who is named Daxter?

[219] Exactly.

[220] Not one person.

[221] There's not even Dax, much less a Daxter.

[222] And then I've also heard some thousands of time, oh, Dax a million.

[223] And again, they're like, oh, they know Max a million.

[224] Oh, see, I didn't get that.

[225] You know, the thing now is to take a name and to add a letter.

[226] You hear people call their kids in the airport, okay, Bryston.

[227] Oh.

[228] So they just add a letter.

[229] Or a ton in that case.

[230] Well, Brian.

[231] Daxton, yeah, I could see that being a popular boy's name.

[232] This I loved.

[233] Someone got on my Wikipedia page and said my birth name was Daxymus, which sounds incredible, right?

[234] Yeah.

[235] Daximus Shepherd?

[236] But it's a lie.

[237] It's a lie, but it sounds like a Greek general or a Roman general, I guess.

[238] Okay, your new book.

[239] We're going to talk about, what's the matter?

[240] No, I'm just excited.

[241] Oh, me too.

[242] That you might read some.

[243] You're going to read for us.

[244] Yay.

[245] Yes, this is incredible.

[246] It occurred to me this morning.

[247] I can't imagine most places.

[248] as you go and do interviews, do you have the time that you could do that?

[249] And then I also thought there's nothing you want to hear more than when you have like a great singer or songwriter on then to hear the song.

[250] And we've had you on.

[251] This will be the third time.

[252] And a lot of people won't have heard you read.

[253] And it's so pleasurable.

[254] And in fact, I was recommending to my best friend Aaron that he start reading your books.

[255] And I said, even better, get the audiobooks because he reads them and they're even funnier when he reads them.

[256] And he's gone through now several of them.

[257] I like audiobooks.

[258] I mean, I can't speak to my own, but I like other people's audio books.

[259] It's much better when the author is reading, I find.

[260] Oh, I don't know.

[261] I might push back on that, yeah.

[262] First of all, Bukowski, my favorite author, when I was young and aimless, he had not the voice that should go with him telling stories of bar fights and having sex with people and being an alcohol.

[263] It was really nasally, like, oh, it's stern out and he stretched word.

[264] It wasn't a match.

[265] And in fact, if you saw Barfly with Mickey Rourke, he was doing an impersonation of him.

[266] Your wife's pussy smells like carpet clean.

[267] That was one of the lines.

[268] It's almost like Popeye.

[269] Anyways, you're going to read, which is a great thrill.

[270] And I have read most.

[271] I'm not going to say the whole thing, but I've read many, many stories out of the book.

[272] There's 18 in this one?

[273] I haven't counted, but that sounds about right.

[274] Usually it's 17, 18.

[275] And this is your first book of new essays since Calypso?

[276] Yeah, it's the first essay collection since Calypso came out.

[277] Okay, so for me, it was really fun to have taken that walk with you and to hear what you were ruminating on.

[278] which is very much present in the book.

[279] It's obviously a reflection of, as it always is, your life.

[280] But on that walk, we were talking about a lot of COVID stuff.

[281] We were talking about a lot of dad stuff.

[282] We both had some interesting dad stuff.

[283] And the book is a lot of that.

[284] Five of the 18 are in some way about your dad.

[285] I went on a tour.

[286] I just finished this 42 city tour.

[287] And somebody came up to me afterwards.

[288] This often happens.

[289] Somebody will say, you know, you're not supposed to say blank anymore.

[290] You know, the new term is blank.

[291] Somebody said, you're not supposed to say daddy issues anymore.

[292] The term is father hunger.

[293] Isn't that 10 times worse?

[294] That is not real.

[295] That can't be right.

[296] Father hunger?

[297] Father hunger.

[298] Oh, that makes them sound like incestual.

[299] It sounds like you're hungry for his day.

[300] For your death.

[301] Yes, yes.

[302] Ew.

[303] Who decided that?

[304] Look it up.

[305] Father hunger.

[306] My daughters don't ever develop.

[307] Father hunger?

[308] Ooh.

[309] It also sounds German in some weird way.

[310] Vater hunger.

[311] They have vater hunger.

[312] Who's deciding that like a bunch of women with daddy?

[313] issues have decided we don't like this.

[314] When I looked it up, a lot of it had to do with eating disorders, which were fostered by a father, you know, like criticizing your weight all the time and then, because I think daddy issues covers a wide range of majorly.

[315] Wow, so now when you tell me the origin, the hunger is literal.

[316] Yeah.

[317] Oh, man. Okay, well.

[318] I'm always open for that, though.

[319] Somebody told me a couple of weeks ago, you're not supposed to say third world.

[320] The term is the global South, which was something I had never heard before.

[321] No, the global South?

[322] Yeah.

[323] That's a joke.

[324] No, that doesn't even.

[325] It's hard to tell when you're joking.

[326] No, it's true.

[327] Somebody told me that.

[328] Now you're insulting the folks in the south of this country, I don't think.

[329] I didn't invent it.

[330] It's just something somebody told me. So much info.

[331] This makes me think of what I want.

[332] Definitely more info on.

[333] First of all, I watched you on the Today Show, which is a very weird pairing.

[334] I always said, no, I won't go on the Today Show.

[335] Just because it's such a male.

[336] It's people pretending and then they read your book, and then you're covering for them.

[337] Right.

[338] And I've been through that before where people have said things like, I read your book, I read every word of your book, loved your book, what does your mother think?

[339] And then they would know that your mother was dead if they'd read the book.

[340] And you don't want to embarrass them.

[341] And so as a gracious guest, you're trying to cover for them.

[342] But anyway, I have a friend who went on it, and she said, that's five minutes of your life.

[343] And I thought, okay.

[344] And then Al Roker came into the dressing room, super lovely guy.

[345] You know, just want you to feel comfortable.

[346] And then the people on the show, I came under the set during a commercial break.

[347] And they were really cool and funny.

[348] And it's like, and we're on.

[349] So you got a little taste of who they were.

[350] And you thought, oh, they're real people.

[351] Yeah.

[352] And now they see that I'm a real person.

[353] And my friend was right.

[354] It was over in five minutes.

[355] And I was on my way.

[356] It's a good attitude.

[357] Okay, but the show has such a tone.

[358] Mind you, I've done it and I'll do it again.

[359] But the way they tried to like, okay, what's in the news right now, school shooting.

[360] Okay, he's got one story called active shooter.

[361] All of a sudden you were, I thought at least, put in some position where you should have some kind of overall view or take on mass shootings.

[362] And I thought this is kind of crazy.

[363] Well, a lot of people don't know that there are pre -interviews for talk shows.

[364] And so this pre -interview was, what do you hope people will take away from your book?

[365] What's your book about?

[366] And then they had asked for chapter summaries.

[367] And the essays are, you know, the longest ones like 12.

[368] pages.

[369] It's not that difficult.

[370] So anyway, I was glad that we didn't get to any of those questions.

[371] I don't know anyone who's ever written a book thinking, I want the reader to walk away with blank.

[372] That's how a marketer thinks.

[373] But I just said the first essay in the book is about going to a firing range with my older sister and then Sandy Hook happened after that.

[374] And they said, oh, did you mean to put that in the book?

[375] And it's like, no, but it's perennial.

[376] Five years from now when someone finds a book in a library, that will have just been a math shooting in a school.

[377] Yeah.

[378] 10 years from now, when someone picks it up at a thrift store, they'll have just been a mass shooting in the school.

[379] I didn't write it because of that, but obviously it's not that big of an issue for us.

[380] Well, that's the answer they got, which I kind of love, but I was just like, oh, they want, they want a nice little like, yeah, we're going to learn and we're going to change.

[381] And then he's like, no, it'll happen and keep happening and happening.

[382] And I was like, oh, that woman, she's not read your work.

[383] That was clear to me. Roker, superfan, clearly.

[384] He's like, I'm on a plane and I'm reading this.

[385] be laughing out loud on the plane.

[386] Yeah, because she was expecting you to be like, yeah, what a tragedy.

[387] I think she assumed you'd written something really poignant that kind of helped us all make peace with this insane thing.

[388] But can't be done.

[389] If Sandy Hook didn't change anything.

[390] Like, is it if 30 children are killed, then we'll change something?

[391] I don't think so.

[392] If it's 47, if it's 300, it's obviously not a priority for us.

[393] Yeah.

[394] It's a polite morning show and it was really fun to see him.

[395] Are they so scared when you're sitting there?

[396] Roker got it.

[397] Sometimes when you're on a show like that, they're saying, he's going rogue.

[398] I didn't sense any of that.

[399] Okay, anyways, on that, I learned you gave a commencement speech.

[400] When did you give the commencement speech?

[401] It was 2018, I guess.

[402] You told some joke, and then a father stormed the stage.

[403] Yeah, it's really hard to write a commencement address.

[404] I'm doing the one next year at Columbia.

[405] Oh, nice.

[406] So I've already started on it.

[407] I'll probably go to 85 cities before.

[408] for I deliver that commencement address.

[409] So I'd like to read it out loud, I don't know, at least 25 times.

[410] Wow.

[411] Now, that audience is different because when you're doing a commencement address, you're speaking to the students and to their parents.

[412] And you've got to go back and forth between the two.

[413] You can't leave either out.

[414] And you've got to kind of be hopeful.

[415] And you don't want to go on too long.

[416] It's always super hot.

[417] You know, on that day.

[418] It is.

[419] Yeah, yeah.

[420] And you're wearing a robe.

[421] They always give you.

[422] like a soft crown to wear on your head.

[423] You look like you're in the clergy basically up there, yeah.

[424] And all the students are really hung over.

[425] Uh -huh, sure.

[426] And I went to Oberlin to talk to the students before and they said, you know, please don't.

[427] Because it's like the most PC school in the United States.

[428] If I'm not mistaken, they had picketed the cafeteria because they served sushi because it was cultural appropriation.

[429] Oh.

[430] And they said, you know, it's not everybody who goes to school here.

[431] And I could see their point.

[432] like it's a joke that's been told too many times.

[433] Okay.

[434] And so I tried to think what do I really know?

[435] Some of it was joke stuff I know and some of it was real stuff I know.

[436] One of the real things was always have a joke in your back pocket.

[437] And I said, here's one that's quick and easy to remember.

[438] A cop stops a car two priests are riding in.

[439] I'm looking for a couple of child molesters.

[440] He says the priests look at each other.

[441] We'll do it, they said.

[442] The only conservative student who ever went to Oberlin, his father was in the audience.

[443] Oh, no. And his father, he waited.

[444] I don't know why the father waited.

[445] He waited until they started handing the diplomas out.

[446] And then he tried to rush the stage and get at me. Because another piece of my advice was be yourself unless yourself is an asshole.

[447] You're the asshole.

[448] You're the asshole.

[449] And it took me a while.

[450] I saw this little kerfuffle and then I heard my name.

[451] And then I saw them holding this guy back like he's still trying to get at me. And my beef was, they were handing out the diplomas, and this was the students' time.

[452] I wasn't going anywhere.

[453] He knew where I was.

[454] Come and get me after the speech is over when we're all off the stage.

[455] It's a bad timing.

[456] Did we ever learn his main complaint about the joke?

[457] Just simply...

[458] He's Catholic.

[459] I know, but clearly he's aware that there's been some pedophilia priest.

[460] Well, maybe if you're a Catholic, it's like, can I go five minutes without hearing about pedophile priests?

[461] but it's a good joke.

[462] Let me just put it this way.

[463] If you had said cop pulls over two rabbis and says, we're looking for two molesters, and they go, we'll do it.

[464] That joke makes no sense.

[465] Right.

[466] Why does it make no sense?

[467] Because we've not heard about a bunch of rabbis who are doing that.

[468] Well, also, rabbis are allowed to get married.

[469] Yes.

[470] Everyone should be allowed to get married.

[471] Yeah, I think that might help.

[472] So we didn't get at you.

[473] Were you at any moment nervous for your physical safety?

[474] Or were you excited to maybe get beat up?

[475] Because that, too, would be a great experience.

[476] Like flying next to a corpse?

[477] No, again, it took me a moment.

[478] You know that look on Chris Rock's face at the Academy Awards where he's trying to figure out what's happening?

[479] Yeah.

[480] So maybe that was the look on my face.

[481] Like, huh?

[482] This isn't supposed to happen, but it looks like it is.

[483] I had that in high school where these were very well -known swarms.

[484] I'd say once every two weeks there'd be a fight in our high school and people would run through the hallways trying to get around the guy who was going to fight the other guy.

[485] And I was walking through this intersection of hallways in my high school.

[486] school and I saw all those big mobs coming and I was like oh boy there's going to be a fight and I was kind of excited and I was moving towards the mob and it was for me this guy transferred to my high school who I had known in junior high and he had one mission at this high school was to fight me and so all of a sudden I was just similarly I'm like oh cool oh there's going to be a fight oh it's getting close to me oh that's the guy is that erin stenchcombe this guy went on to commit double murder this is a hundred percent real but all of a sudden I realized I was the person and they were all running towards.

[487] So I feel like it's similar.

[488] You're just trying to figure out who's getting into what.

[489] And when it occurs to you, oh, it's me, it's pretty abstract.

[490] Well, plus I thought for that joke.

[491] You were probably running through which part.

[492] What did I say?

[493] Yeah, yeah.

[494] Have you ever been in a fight?

[495] Not in a long, long time.

[496] Not since grade school.

[497] Have you?

[498] Not in a physical altercation.

[499] Where I grew up, there was a lot of female fighting.

[500] And there were girls that were known to be the toughest in our school that could name them.

[501] I mean, they were pretty legendary.

[502] In fact, one of them.

[503] Well, Aaron Stitchcough is a pretty good name.

[504] Aaron Stinchcombe.

[505] Stinch comb.

[506] Yeah, that's a real name.

[507] And he is in prison.

[508] If you gave me a list of 10 names and you said to me which one is in prison, I would have.

[509] Yeah, I know.

[510] He probably didn't have a chance.

[511] But yeah, Angie Patterson, she punched a guy, a guy in the nose and broke his nose in eighth grade.

[512] Very tough women where I grew up.

[513] Some of them had father hunger clearly.

[514] Oh, God.

[515] But this brings up kind of an interesting question that's been coming up recently, which is if a woman hits a man and hurts them, are they allowed to do anything bad?

[516] Most people would say no My dad would say yes Okay good Well the last time I was on We talked about that woman who had grabbed my penis Oh yeah Felt for my anus on the street But I felt like I couldn't hit her Now if she had started clawing me Or bitten me or something like that It might have been different Then we might have taken it to the next level But as it was for what she was doing to me I felt this was the limit To what I could do to protect myself I think you should be able to defend yourself.

[517] I don't think you should clock a gal, but you should definitely restrain her if she's hitting her, maybe sit on her, call some help.

[518] I think so, too.

[519] I think it should be allowed.

[520] You shouldn't have to just sit there and take it.

[521] No, take anal grabbing.

[522] There was an article in the newspaper the other day about this couple, and they adopted a girl, and then she turned out to be on the autism spectrum, and she has these complete violent meltdowns.

[523] She's six foot two, and she towers over her parents.

[524] Oh, no. different if that was their child, because chances are, you know, they'd be around the same size.

[525] And she's like that cartoon character, Little Lada.

[526] Did you remember Little Lada?

[527] Maybe that was before your time.

[528] Little Lada was just huge, you know?

[529] She was really tall and she was...

[530] Ironically named.

[531] I don't know that you'd say fat.

[532] She was solidly packed.

[533] And I remember she had cancels.

[534] Like, I remember that about her.

[535] But this is like Little Lada.

[536] And Little Lada has given her mother several, like, serious concussions.

[537] Oh, boy.

[538] And she can beat her parents up.

[539] And she just has these meltdowns.

[540] Every night before she goes to bed, she eats seven saltines.

[541] But if she only gets six, you know, there's hell to pay.

[542] Yeah.

[543] It was fascinating to me. That is it.

[544] What paper was this in?

[545] New York Times.

[546] Oh, it was.

[547] Yeah.

[548] Oh, by the way, did you read the dolphin story in the New York Times recently?

[549] No. I didn't think I'd ever read an article like this.

[550] There's a picture of two male dolphins in Bolivia swimming through a river, and they had gotten an anaconda.

[551] Yeah, I did.

[552] you did it give you such delight to read that are really did because you think you're going to read this nature article and it's about anaconda and for your first like wow and they even say it like wow anaconda is usually apex predator in that area and this is a rare thing to discover and then it just takes a right turn into how a wreck their penises were and then it goes into all this detail about the fact that they've filmed them having sex with other whales blowholes and that they theorized that they were rubbing their penises on the anaconda maybe even trying to fuck the anaconda anally and through the mouth and and you're like, what?

[553] This is fantastic.

[554] What is this article I'm reading?

[555] And they look so happy when they had the anaconda in their mouth, but not like they're going to kill it, but just like they're celebrating it.

[556] Very playful.

[557] Yeah.

[558] Like they're just taking a laugh of the river, maybe even let them go.

[559] Like it was a bit.

[560] The most shocking thing I've seen in the New York Times, and I don't remember now what the article was about, but the person writing it used the phrase taking a dump.

[561] And I thought, in the New York Times, taking a dump?

[562] Do you remember the contest?

[563] It was, golly.

[564] It's the only time I ever felt like writing a letter to the New York Times.

[565] I felt affronted.

[566] I just don't like that term.

[567] Uh -huh.

[568] I just never see the need for it.

[569] You never proclaim that at any point.

[570] Well, like, I went to somebody's house a while ago, and the husband came out of the back room and he said, oh, I was just taking a dump.

[571] And I thought, you could have said I was online or I was like, why did you tell me that?

[572] You can say the couple was Kristen and I, and that it was me. You know I would say that.

[573] You would like this then, or you would hate this.

[574] I don't know.

[575] You tell me, Monica and I were watching the Andre the Giant documentary on HBO.

[576] Did you ever see that?

[577] Amy told me that he had to defecate into a bucket when he would be on a plane because he couldn't fit in the bathroom.

[578] I think Amy made that up.

[579] But maybe that's in there.

[580] I don't know.

[581] What was said is the very faintly.

[582] commentator for WWF wrestling was being asked about Andre the giant and he had this great announcer's voice and he said when Andre would take a fart it would clear out an entire room the fact that he said take a fart tells you everything that's right it was such a big fart you could only describe it as having take a fart we were wowed it so many times you watched it so many times and he says like an announcer he's very serious when Andre would take a I don't remember him pooping in a bucket.

[583] I feel like we would have remembered that.

[584] I really do too.

[585] That sounds memorable.

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

[587] What's up guys?

[588] It's your girl Kiki and my podcast is back with a new season.

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

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

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

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

[593] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

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

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

[596] We've all been there.

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

[598] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing.

[599] But for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[600] 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.

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

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

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

[604] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcast.

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

[606] Now, I don't know which story you're going to read, but I have to tell you the one that I found most touching, but I don't know the title of it, but it's about the 12 -year -old boy in France.

[607] Oh, right.

[608] It was called bruised, which was an odd thing because in my earlier books, I just see somebody trying too hard, trying to be funny.

[609] Nothing's more irritating to me. Do you think you're guilty of it?

[610] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[611] But then I felt like as I got older, that...

[612] then I felt more confident and I thought, okay, I don't need those laughs.

[613] I could tell that people were still listening.

[614] If people aren't listening, they cough.

[615] You know, when you're in a theater and you're reading something out loud, the audience is coughing and that's them saying to you, if this were on paper, I would be skimming right now.

[616] And so I just feel like, thanks a lot, I'll fix that.

[617] But then in practice, when you get up in front of people and you read something like Bruce, which doesn't get many laughs, then you're like, oh, am I sure about this?

[618] Because I wouldn't mind getting some laughs up here, but it just felt false when I tried it to add them, and the essay didn't work the way it needed to.

[619] We have that, too.

[620] You know, we do this show live on stage, and Monica will have to reassure me because maybe it was a very vulnerable one or it was very sincere.

[621] And I, to a fault, evaluate everything by laughs.

[622] I can't look and tell if someone's, like, really moved in their heart and contemplating whether they'll do something different the next time they're presented with this thing.

[623] But I really love this story, and I'm glad it's in there because you've been brave in a bunch of.

[624] of ways, but I think it's a uniquely brave story to tell.

[625] I'm very impressed with it.

[626] Took me a long time to write it.

[627] You know, often I insist that I can write about something.

[628] I insist that there's a way to do it.

[629] But it's hard because of the 12 -year -old boy who's kissing you, and we lived in this little village in Normandy, and I don't know why this kid developed a crush on me. I don't know why not Hugh, my boyfriend, and he would wait until Hugh left, and then he would come over.

[630] And in Normandy, you don't lock your door.

[631] You leave your door open during the day because a closed door means you're up to something.

[632] So you leave your door open and then I would be at my desk and he would just come into the house and not knock and I would turn around and there he would be.

[633] And I didn't speak any French.

[634] I would say grandmother because his grandmother lived across the road, meaning like we're going to go over to your grandmother's house.

[635] And then once we're at his grandmother's, that was just like throwing cold water on him.

[636] And also this was in maybe 94, 9294.

[637] Obviously something had gone on with him.

[638] I was He was 42.

[639] So maybe he'd had something with a teacher or a coach or just some grown -up he met.

[640] And what I needed to say to him was, oh, you know, I'm so flattered by your attention, but I'm actually way too old for you.

[641] But if you ever need somebody to talk to or if you have any questions, but this can't happen.

[642] But I didn't speak French.

[643] Yeah.

[644] And so to get Hugh to translate wasn't going to work.

[645] To go to his grandparents wasn't going to work.

[646] That's what made it difficult.

[647] Well, what I thought was beautiful about is you had a friend in New York say, like, why don't you put a firmer stop to it?

[648] And then you had your own experience of being 12 and being gay.

[649] And how if you were to make any kind of advance towards a friend or test the waters, and that went sideways, there was hell to pay.

[650] And then you would go on the defensive and accuse the person that they started everything.

[651] And having had that experience, you knew, like, how fragile that state is, how easily you could just.

[652] shame someone.

[653] You could also shame them into telling some crazy story about you.

[654] Like, it's very delicate.

[655] Right.

[656] I mean, if he felt cornered, he could lash out and then who were people going to believe?

[657] Yeah, exactly.

[658] The foreigner.

[659] And that's the thing, too, being the foreigner.

[660] And a public person.

[661] Yeah.

[662] Talks like a baby or the, you know, the cute kid from a nice family.

[663] And then, too, it was really, as long as I was writing it, I thought, well, might as well be honest.

[664] You know, it's flattering.

[665] But that's so pathetic.

[666] You're flattered because of a 12 -year -old is thinking of you.

[667] But I think teachers might feel that way.

[668] It's so honest.

[669] Also, tell Monica that you had fallen in love with a woman in her.

[670] There was a woman in my neighborhood named Mrs. Hall.

[671] And I developed a crush on her.

[672] When you were young.

[673] Yeah, when I was 11.

[674] And so I would bring her flowers and homemade cards.

[675] I would wait until her husband, my rival, left to work.

[676] And then I would creep over there.

[677] And then one day I went and I found a note to me. And it was a card.

[678] And it said, dear David, if I was ever to fall in love, again it would be with you which was perfect response perfect right that's sweet but a grown gay man could not write that to a 12 year old boy no ever but in fairness you couldn't write it to a girl either yeah no man can write that letter wow that's profound but that's what I needed to say to him okay here's the other way it could have gone though somebody could have read that no and been like I'm going to keep pursuing because this means that we have a connection you have to be a little careful in the way you're communicating with, especially young people.

[679] But what was interesting to me about it, too, is that by the next year he was over it.

[680] And it wasn't like I saw him every day.

[681] You know, we were there for the summer and then I went.

[682] And when I came back, the difference between 42 and 43 is not that profound.

[683] But the difference between 12 and 13 is, you know, you go through a lot of phases when you're young like that.

[684] And so by the next year, he didn't want anything to do with me. And then I realized, too, how hard I rooted for him.

[685] You know, I really wanted his life to be good.

[686] I really wanted him to have a life to excel.

[687] Was that because he needed to be rewarded for having chosen such an excellent person to have a crush on?

[688] I asked myself, like, what was that about?

[689] When it was going on, I wrote a friend of mine, and he said, go for it.

[690] Oh, my.

[691] And I thought, what mistake did I make in my letter?

[692] Did I leave out that he was 12?

[693] Right.

[694] Yeah.

[695] Oh, wow.

[696] Oh, boy.

[697] That tells you about that person.

[698] Oh, that was your buddy, Jeff Epstein, was it?

[699] That was back when you had a correspondence with Jeff.

[700] You point out, you know, that was 92 or 94, and there was no internet for him to find any solace in.

[701] It was a town of 13 ,000, I think you said.

[702] So it had to be very isolating and lonely.

[703] I love the level of compassion because I think I would just be like, freak the fuck out.

[704] Oh, my God, someone's going to walk in while this kid's acting weird, and I'm going to be somehow ensnared in this.

[705] But yeah, just a lot of kindness.

[706] Very sweet.

[707] But also, when I was his age, I felt like Olivier was out of control, but I was out of control when I was 12.

[708] I knew what he was going through.

[709] Yeah.

[710] Well, but that's why you want him to have such a spectacular life.

[711] You did relate to him and connect to him in some way.

[712] I don't think it's because of rewarding.

[713] You hope it works out for him.

[714] Yeah.

[715] You were part of the heartbreak.

[716] And so that doesn't ever feel good to be part of somebody else's heartbreak.

[717] You want them to then go on and thrive.

[718] But to this day, I wonder what went on.

[719] When you saw him working at the store, what age was he then?

[720] Like 18 or something?

[721] He was 20.

[722] Yeah.

[723] What is the difference between being gay in the U .S. and being gay in, say, England or France?

[724] Is it different?

[725] Is it easier to be open here than in England or vice versa?

[726] I don't know that I can really speak to that.

[727] I feel like in France, at least during that time, it was more like, that's fine that you're gay, but just keep it to yourself.

[728] Like, you know, you don't need to announce it to everybody.

[729] But now, I don't know so often when I go on a book tour now, somebody will say, this is my son, Connor, and he's 12, and he's gay too.

[730] And I think, oh, is he?

[731] Or is it just you're so happy to tell everybody what a good accepting parent you are?

[732] Is it more about you than it is about him?

[733] Uh -huh.

[734] Well, it is a curious thing to get out within the first exchange of names.

[735] This is Connor.

[736] He's gay.

[737] You're David, right?

[738] You're gay as hell.

[739] Well, the other night, somebody very, earnestly asked during the Q &A at a bookstore, what advice would you have for a young gay person who's just struggling with their identity and with coming out?

[740] I said, well, my advice would be to find other young gay people and fuck them.

[741] Well, I just wanted to stomp on the person's earnestness.

[742] You know, it's just so treakly.

[743] What is so off -putting about earnestness, do you think?

[744] feels like a performance?

[745] It's just a hallmark moment.

[746] You know, it's not.

[747] I agree with you.

[748] I have like a deep allergy to saccharine things.

[749] I question for myself why it is I'm so allergic to it.

[750] Like is it, I don't know.

[751] I find it almost insulting.

[752] Like just that you would think that I was going to participate in this.

[753] You know, like when somebody's eyes missed over, but they're kind of expressing a cliche.

[754] If I were the only gay man in the country, okay, ask me that question.

[755] But you really have no other place to go to for.

[756] an answer to that question.

[757] And plus, I'm like old grandpa at this point.

[758] Yeah.

[759] Where are you living that you're having a hard time?

[760] You can't find anyone.

[761] Yeah.

[762] Yeah.

[763] Coming to terms with this.

[764] Yeah, that seems like a very natural question for her to ask, but it only puts you in a group of about 40 million people.

[765] Like if she had a son that was short, now that might be a relevant question.

[766] Like, my son's short and he's struggling with it.

[767] That's a smaller percentage.

[768] You might have a perspective on that.

[769] I think, too, the question was more about her.

[770] Of course.

[771] Then it was about the sun or it was about actual advice from me. In Q &A's, even just their delivery is about impressing.

[772] So they want to impress you or they want to be like, yeah, I'm in a similar experience.

[773] During your shows, though, do you have mics in the audience?

[774] Okay.

[775] This was a whole learning curve for us.

[776] So we used to have mics.

[777] And then we learned that was a bad idea because people get shit -faced and then it's hard to get the mic away from them.

[778] They're telling you some crazy story that's off topic.

[779] not a question.

[780] So now we have them stand up, ask it, and then we repeat it back through the microphones to the audience.

[781] That way we have some level of control over how crazy it gets.

[782] I've been, but tell us what your choice is.

[783] I find that when there's a microphone, the person who approaches the microphone wants your microphone, right?

[784] And often it's a three -part question.

[785] I say, raise your hand and then I call on somebody and then I repeat the question.

[786] And then sometimes, oh, I don't know, I just don't want anything to do with the question.

[787] And so I just pretend that it's something else, you know, or also.

[788] say 17.

[789] Uh -huh.

[790] Next question.

[791] Uh -huh.

[792] Well, I saw you live in Pasadena and it was so wonderful.

[793] I had so much fun.

[794] Oh, thanks so much.

[795] Yeah, yeah, you put on a very good show.

[796] I'm not surprised.

[797] Yeah, yeah, it's very, very good.

[798] What short story are you willing to read to us today?

[799] Gosh, let's see.

[800] When you open the book, the very first thing you read is a quote from Sigmund C. Monster.

[801] I was, there was an article about something or other in the Washington Post, and I was reading the comments on it, and this was one of the comments.

[802] Okay.

[803] Right?

[804] Ban everything.

[805] Purify everything.

[806] Moral cleanse, everything.

[807] Anything that was bad or is bad, destroy it, especially in the forest where you live your life as a tree wielding an axe.

[808] And then the name beneath it was Sigmund C Monster.

[809] There was a show on TV, what, H .R. Puff and stuff.

[810] Sigmund the Monster.

[811] What was Sigmund C. Monster?

[812] No, I think it was Sigmund the Monster and it was spelled S -I -G -M -U -N -D because I just looked all this stuff.

[813] So obviously, this is a fake name, and my publisher tried to find who this person was because I wanted their, yeah.

[814] I mean, I was going to quote the actual person rather than the name that they use.

[815] What I liked about this quote was that I don't know exactly what it means, but I know I like it.

[816] Like, I know that I believe it.

[817] I love it.

[818] I think there's something in the Bible about living your life in the forest, living your life as a tree.

[819] Here's what I like.

[820] Yeah, ban everything, purify everything, moral cleanse everything, anything that was bad or is bad, destroy it, especially in the forest where you live your life as a tree wielding an axe.

[821] Basically, kill everyone around you.

[822] No one is as pure as you.

[823] What is purity?

[824] Whatever person's holding the axe is the arbiter of what's pure.

[825] You're trying to destroy and discredit and financially terrorize every person that doesn't live up to your own personal standard of what's appropriate.

[826] Well, I guess I felt like it's going to come back at you.

[827] Like if you're going to attack other people for not being righteous enough, then eventually someone's going to do it to you.

[828] Mm -hmm.

[829] Your day is coming.

[830] You're isolated also.

[831] You being a tree with the axe in a forest, you're removing everyone around you.

[832] I think us two have different interpretations than David does of that line.

[833] I like both.

[834] Open to so many.

[835] Yeah.

[836] Maybe Sigmund C. Monsters listening.

[837] And if you are, please reveal yourself.

[838] Please.

[839] But one thing before you read that is when you were talking about writing and looking at your old writing and thinking, oh, I tried to be funny.

[840] I do remember there's one thing you said from the first time you were on here, here in the attic, where you were like, If you're reading back and you like a line too much or you like something too much to cut it, I just remember that so vividly because no one wants to do that.

[841] No one wants to cut their most precious line of writing, but you should.

[842] Well, also, often it just sticks out.

[843] If you're thinking to yourself, oh, you know, like if you're going, oh, then chances are, yeah, it should probably go.

[844] Yeah, I loved that.

[845] I can't imagine doing it, but I love that.

[846] Very few people are doing it, yeah.

[847] I mean, I wouldn't do it to laugh.

[848] Right.

[849] In fact, if I have a line like that in something I'm writing, I then try to write a better line before and after it to match, I would never dump it.

[850] I would try to get everything else to fit it.

[851] Well, my editor, she's really good.

[852] She flagged something a couple of years ago, and I said, no, I think I'm going to keep it.

[853] Again, every time this has ever happened, the person's been right.

[854] And then when the book comes out, I'm like, oh, God, why didn't I listen to them?

[855] Interesting, yeah.

[856] Because your editor, it's just trying to make everything better.

[857] They're on your side.

[858] Yeah, if they're already editing your, your books.

[859] They're already in for a penny, in for a pound.

[860] They're hip to your vibe.

[861] In for a penny?

[862] In for a pound?

[863] Yeah.

[864] You know that saying?

[865] No, it's nice.

[866] I love it.

[867] I say it a lot.

[868] Give me another example.

[869] Okay.

[870] I went to this nice restaurant.

[871] I ordered a lobster and then I thought, oh, you know what?

[872] I'm also going to have a Manhattan.

[873] And then I looked at the menu and the fucking Manhattons were $18.

[874] I was like, you know what I'm saying?

[875] I already get in the lobster.

[876] You're all in.

[877] There's no halfway in it.

[878] Right.

[879] I went to a bakery.

[880] And And they had this coconut cream pie.

[881] So I got a piece of coconut cream pie.

[882] And then I noticed they had these oatmeal cookies.

[883] And I thought, you know, I'm in for a penny.

[884] Might as well be in for a pound.

[885] Do I say it like that?

[886] Might as well.

[887] You can't add my as well.

[888] Okay.

[889] I'm in for a penny.

[890] I'm in for a pound.

[891] Literally.

[892] Not even I'm.

[893] Or three pounds.

[894] In for a penny.

[895] In for a pound, I got it.

[896] It's like getting half pregnant.

[897] Right?

[898] You can't do it.

[899] I would like to start saying that myself.

[900] I like this.

[901] He's writing it down.

[902] Yeah, he has.

[903] He got his adorable little green.

[904] in for a penny in for a pound i could be using it wrong it's quite likely i never look up these things that i pick up that i think i know how to use with a plum is that even a thing used with a plum a plum isn't it a plum what is it isn't it a plumb yeah a plumb a b right yeah a p l o m b isn't that what it is yeah it's in the uh carnivores cookbook no the uh soup to nuts i use that a lot do you ever use soup to nuts No, I don't.

[905] But you know soup to nuts, right?

[906] Yeah.

[907] Okay.

[908] It just doesn't appeal to you.

[909] I don't have anything against it.

[910] You're not in for a penny nor a pound on that one.

[911] It's a full pass for you.

[912] No, I was looking to my notebook because it was something that somebody said the other day.

[913] It was like that.

[914] And I thought, oh, I think I'd like to start saying that.

[915] Oh, it was Alec Baldwin.

[916] Oh.

[917] I did his podcast.

[918] And he told the story about as an actor, when you're working on something, you just got to stay in that space.

[919] He says to people, if you're doing a crime move, then you should go to the trailer when you're waiting around all day and watch crime movies, you know, just to stay in the zone.

[920] And then Al Pacino was working on something.

[921] And then the driver came to pick up Al Pacino and said, how was your weekend, Mr. Pacino?

[922] And he said, oh, it's fine.

[923] You know, I was yours, Lewis.

[924] And Lewis said, well, on Friday, my father died.

[925] And Al Pacino said, I can't know this now.

[926] Talk to me about it tonight.

[927] Talk to me about it tonight when you give me a ride home.

[928] And I thought, that is so good.

[929] Yeah, I can't know this now.

[930] Isn't that beautiful?

[931] I want to borrow that.

[932] It's an elegant way to say, don't tell me about this.

[933] Yeah.

[934] It really, it's a nice way of saying, I don't want to hear it.

[935] But it just means, look, I can't do my work and know this, but you can tell me about it at the end of the day.

[936] Like the gentleman who stormed the stage at Auburn or wherever you were at.

[937] Where were you?

[938] Oberlin.

[939] Oberlin.

[940] Yeah, like, I can't think about this right now.

[941] What is it?

[942] Is that it?

[943] I can't know this now.

[944] I can't know this right now.

[945] Yeah.

[946] That's sort of like, it's not that I can't think about it.

[947] I can't know it.

[948] It's going to pollute the waters that I need to keep pure for this headspace that I need to be in.

[949] Here's one.

[950] You might know it because you're from North Carolina.

[951] In fact, the guest was from North Carolina as well.

[952] Maybe you know him.

[953] He's a comedian, Gerard Carmichael.

[954] Okay, he's got a great HBO special right now.

[955] It's incredible.

[956] Anyways, he said someone came up to him the other day and said, I don't know you from a hot rock, but, and then proceeded to say something.

[957] I've already used that on a talk show last week.

[958] I just love that.

[959] This person didn't know me from a hot rock.

[960] Had you ever heard that before?

[961] No, I've never heard that.

[962] Do you like it?

[963] I like it.

[964] Mm -hmm.

[965] Yeah.

[966] I think he made that up.

[967] I think that was proprietary to that person.

[968] Oh, the person it was speaking to him.

[969] Yeah, who talked to Gerard.

[970] I thought he was telling it in reference to like great southern sayings.

[971] I've never heard of him.

[972] They were both from the South and I've never heard it.

[973] But you hadn't heard in for a penny and for a pound.

[974] That shocks me. It really does.

[975] Monica, where'd you grow up?

[976] Georgia.

[977] Where?

[978] Georgia.

[979] Where?

[980] Atlanta?

[981] Oh, okay.

[982] Yeah, suburbs of Atlanta.

[983] Which one?

[984] Duluth.

[985] All right.

[986] How many shows a year did you?

[987] I think last year I did like 127, something like that.

[988] So that's one in every three days you're doing a show.

[989] Well, because all these dates were canceled during the pandemic, I made up for a lot of lost time.

[990] So I went to 74 cities in the fall.

[991] And then I went and did another 12 shows after that.

[992] And then I went to 44 cities in the spring.

[993] And then I got caved.

[994] Caveed.

[995] I got caved.

[996] I got caved, though, at just the right time.

[997] It's great.

[998] And it was my little break between my lecture tour and starting my book tour.

[999] Nice.

[1000] How did you feel?

[1001] I just thought I was a little tired because my tour ended.

[1002] And then I had to take the test to go on a TV show and then I tested positive.

[1003] But it worked out well because I had been at my publishing house and I saw this massive stack of mail.

[1004] So that's what I did during my quarantine.

[1005] I answered 170 letters.

[1006] Oh, my gosh.

[1007] You're an industrious, ma 'am.

[1008] Yeah.

[1009] I've been calling this the liberal wave This round of COVID Oh Because everyone I know has it And my family had it I don't know how I didn't get it I was snuggling them and kissing them But all of our friends Monica just had it Everyone I know has it But they're all liberals I think the conservatives Got it a while ago And I do think it's just funny It's like well everyone got it It just came in two different It makes sense because We've finally returned to To normal And then there's a medicine So I think at this point The liberals are like Look there's a medicine So it's not going to kill in the same way.

[1010] So I feel fine going back to normal.

[1011] How was it for you, Monica?

[1012] Bad.

[1013] Oh, really?

[1014] Not hospitalization, but I had really bad flu for three days and then a really bad cold for like another three days.

[1015] And then a regular cold for like three days after that.

[1016] It was rough.

[1017] And some bouts of diarrhea.

[1018] Huh?

[1019] Because Hugh, I gave it to my boyfriend, Hugh.

[1020] And he sneezed a lot, but I don't know.

[1021] I sneezed four times.

[1022] Wow.

[1023] That's great.

[1024] It is affecting everyone so differently.

[1025] It's crazy.

[1026] Now, I have a quick question before you read.

[1027] Tell me the difference between the audience with the microphone and then when you're doing these signings.

[1028] Because I guess the signings make me a little nervous.

[1029] Why?

[1030] They give me a little anxiety because they have one -on -one uninterrupted time with you.

[1031] And just like the woman that's, I need you to counsel my 16 -year -old son, that's got to be coming up just now rapid fire hundreds of people instead of 10 audience questions.

[1032] A certain kind of person is going to stand in front of an audience and ask a question.

[1033] And it can be judged for that.

[1034] Every night, the same thing.

[1035] The audience thinks, oh, my God, these questions are so stupid.

[1036] He's going to think our town is so stupid.

[1037] But when you're the one on stage answering them, you don't think that way.

[1038] Right.

[1039] But one -on -one, other people can't hear the question so people feel more comfortable.

[1040] It's not performative at that point.

[1041] Right.

[1042] Okay, that makes sense.

[1043] Generally, how long are the interactions?

[1044] Because you're getting through like hundreds of people.

[1045] Yeah.

[1046] I don't know.

[1047] Every now and then somebody comes to get a book signed and I think, oh, I don't want to let you go.

[1048] Oh, like, I just want to keep you here forever.

[1049] Oh, really?

[1050] That's nice.

[1051] And it could be any number of reasons.

[1052] It's not always a dynamic person.

[1053] Sometimes it's just the opposite.

[1054] Last night, a cop came, and he said, you're probably surprised seeing me here.

[1055] You know, just talked about how lonely it is to be like a liberal police officer.

[1056] Yeah, yeah.

[1057] It's completely interesting to me. This guy came last night who worked for this organization.

[1058] I'm mad at myself.

[1059] I didn't get his name.

[1060] It's an organization called Vote Riders.

[1061] And what they do is they help people get their ID so they can vote.

[1062] And, you know, a lot of people, they don't have the documentation or their people obviously don't drive or they have an ID.

[1063] And the DMV is hard to get to and they don't have a way to get there.

[1064] And so they take care of this for people.

[1065] They work with people.

[1066] And I thought, that's a great organization, I think.

[1067] I think if you're in the foster care system, the odds when I call my mom that she's going to have a copy of my birth certificate, I was with her the whole time, is very low.

[1068] Now you add in the fact that you might be from the foster care.

[1069] Where are you getting your birth certificate?

[1070] I mean, I guess you'll try to track down your hospital or whatever, but then you need an ID to get that thing.

[1071] So much work.

[1072] Yeah, it would be a pain in the ass.

[1073] But I lived without an ID for years, right?

[1074] Because I don't drive a car.

[1075] And then I got a passport, but you don't always have your passport on you.

[1076] So then you'd go out and you'd buy something and they'd say, do you have an ID?

[1077] And I'm like, fuck.

[1078] You got to go home.

[1079] You got to get your pass.

[1080] Because you don't want to carry your passport because you might lose it.

[1081] Yeah.

[1082] You know, I used to hate it when I go to a hotel.

[1083] And they would say, do you have a former ID?

[1084] and it's like, can't you Google me?

[1085] And now I just pull my ID out.

[1086] Fine with that.

[1087] We had that because we came back from Burbank Airport.

[1088] The other day, Kristen and I, but Dax and her had gone with the car.

[1089] So basically we didn't have the claim check for the car, and it was under Dax's name.

[1090] And Kristen was like, I got to convince them that he's my husband.

[1091] And I was like, convince them that he's your husband.

[1092] What are you talking?

[1093] It takes one search, one Google search.

[1094] Oh, you would love this story.

[1095] I wonder if I told you last time.

[1096] Kristen was doing press in Cancun, Mexico, nine, ten years ago.

[1097] And she had been assigned a driver.

[1098] And so while she was doing press, I decided I'm going to use her driver to go to a restaurant that was recommended to me. It's supposed to be the best restaurant in Cancun.

[1099] So on the ride there, I really enjoy the guy that's driving.

[1100] And he says, oh, yeah, this is the best restaurant.

[1101] And all of Cancun and although Yucatan, you're going to love it.

[1102] And I said, do you eat there often?

[1103] He said, oh, I've never eaten there.

[1104] I just know it's the best restaurant.

[1105] So I said, well, come on in and eat with me. And he's like, no, no, I can't.

[1106] And I convince the guy to come in and eat with me. So we have this great lunch together.

[1107] It's really fun.

[1108] I like him a lot.

[1109] And on the way home, he says, can I take you to meet my girlfriend?

[1110] And I said, sure.

[1111] So I walk into this little cinder block kind of house.

[1112] That's just a one -room house.

[1113] And his girlfriend's there.

[1114] And he's pointing to me. She clearly does not know who I am at all.

[1115] Not very excited at all.

[1116] Then he goes to the computer and he types in my name into Google.

[1117] And once she sees how many images come up on Google, she gets incredibly excited.

[1118] And then she wants a picture.

[1119] Cut to, there's just one chair in this place.

[1120] And I'm just kind of asked to sit in the chair.

[1121] And then she sits on my lap.

[1122] And now I'm in all these photos in this cinder block house in Mexico with a woman on my lap.

[1123] If this were to get out, no one knows the story behind is, what am I doing there?

[1124] And when I got back, I had to tell Chris, I'm like, okay, just, you know, whatever.

[1125] If these pictures come out, I was in this woman's house.

[1126] It just really started happening quickly.

[1127] But it involved zero interest to me. And then when the images came up on Google image, it was like really exciting.

[1128] You know, I just always assumed that everybody had some kind of a presence.

[1129] I've never looked myself up.

[1130] But I just naturally assumed that in this day and age, everybody would have, you know.

[1131] You didn't search anyone.

[1132] Yeah.

[1133] Something would pop up.

[1134] Yeah.

[1135] I'm kind of envious of the people who there's nothing there about them.

[1136] Like if I Googled you, Isn't there a section that would be like, there's just bad stuff about you that's just separate?

[1137] Also, AutoFill is a curious thing, right?

[1138] I'm just always curious just about how tall people are.

[1139] And so I googled how tall is and it said, Jesus?

[1140] That's great.

[1141] It's okay, sure.

[1142] I'll find out how tall Jesus is.

[1143] Not a chemo -Juan or Kareem Abdul -Jabbar, Jesus.

[1144] Did it say, did they have a height for them?

[1145] I got to go five, five, six.

[1146] Yeah, but they said he was like six.

[1147] You know.

[1148] No, no one was.

[1149] He would have been a freak.

[1150] Yeah.

[1151] I don't know that people could handle that.

[1152] If they said Jesus was 5 '3, I think civilization would crumble.

[1153] Well, look at the image we have.

[1154] There's no way it's accurate.

[1155] It was like a gorgeous lead singer from an indie band.

[1156] Yeah, exactly.

[1157] Ripped.

[1158] But I always thought that it was so unfair, really, because it's easy to love an attractive person.

[1159] Of course.

[1160] You know, I looked online, and it was what they think Jesus actually looked like.

[1161] And it's closer to somebody who, who works at the Detroit airport in one of those boxes where you pay for your parking.

[1162] Uh -huh.

[1163] Closer to who he looked like.

[1164] So why not?

[1165] It should be fine.

[1166] Yeah.

[1167] Still Jesus.

[1168] But it is, you are a heretic if you're saying, I bet you Jesus had hair on his back.

[1169] Uh -huh.

[1170] I bet he had lots of tuffs of hair on his shoulders.

[1171] Acne.

[1172] Or a curved direction?

[1173] Yeah.

[1174] That's blasphemy.

[1175] This disappointed me about Monica one time.

[1176] We were saying if you had a time machine and you could go back in time and have sex with anyone in the world, who would it be?

[1177] And Jesus was not on her list at all.

[1178] And I was like, let's just say the slim chance he was the God.

[1179] That would have to just be the most transcendent sex one could ever have, right?

[1180] Yeah, but the problem with having sex with Jesus is that he's always trying to come into your heart.

[1181] We walked into that one.

[1182] I didn't make that up.

[1183] That's an established joke.

[1184] Oh my God, I've not heard that.

[1185] That's perfect.

[1186] I think how good they would feel it.

[1187] If someone come in your No, no, thank you.

[1188] No, I thought he'd be too nice.

[1189] It's like too nice about it.

[1190] I mean, but no, it's whatever would be perfect for you.

[1191] He could channel.

[1192] No, I wanted like an Einstein, a Picasso.

[1193] Who else did I say?

[1194] Kennedy.

[1195] Just to have their baby or to have sex?

[1196] No, no, just just the experience.

[1197] Just the experience.

[1198] Nothing to come out of it, not dating.

[1199] And we're ignoring they all had piree of the mouth and everything.

[1200] Like we're not getting into.

[1201] the specifics that no one bathes or anything.

[1202] Just like their essence.

[1203] I thought Einstein was a cool pick.

[1204] Do you have anyone you could think of up the top of your hand?

[1205] Like, can I pick a couple people for you?

[1206] Sure.

[1207] Gangus Khan.

[1208] Oh, I was also trying to get her to have sex with Genghis Khan.

[1209] Because he had sex with like 600 ,000 people.

[1210] They say 1 % of the planet has his DNA, right?

[1211] It's so prolific.

[1212] That's 10 ,000 hours.

[1213] You know, he's an expert.

[1214] But he might not be trying because he has all these other women.

[1215] I don't know.

[1216] Does there any come up the top of your head that you would want?

[1217] want to be with?

[1218] Golly, I think I'm more shallow than either of you.

[1219] Like, I wouldn't want to have sex with Einstein.

[1220] Because he's not attractive.

[1221] Yeah.

[1222] I mean, I've been in a relationship for 30 years.

[1223] So if I'm going to have the time machine, it's going to allow me to have sex with three people.

[1224] And I get a pass.

[1225] It's not going to be Einstein.

[1226] Wait, who's it going to be?

[1227] Yeah.

[1228] One of the Caesars, maybe?

[1229] You have to go far back.

[1230] I have to go far back?

[1231] Well, just not the 70s.

[1232] We don't want you to fuck like Burt Reynolds, Circa, Smoking the Band.

[1233] Well, like, what about Houdini?

[1234] There we go.

[1235] That count.

[1236] That's good.

[1237] Really nice.

[1238] Really nice.

[1239] That's great.

[1240] Houdini.

[1241] I'd probably like that, too.

[1242] I love.

[1243] He had nice legs.

[1244] Houdini was small.

[1245] Yeah, and he was very fit.

[1246] He would take those punches in the stomach.

[1247] That was his thing.

[1248] Yeah.

[1249] It killed him ultimately.

[1250] Ultimately led to his death.

[1251] Houdini's a great one.

[1252] Is there any other one you might throw at us off the top of the dome?

[1253] None of the founding fathers.

[1254] No, no, no, no. Okay.

[1255] Any French Renéardus card?

[1256] No, no, no, no. I'm trying to think of a Greek.

[1257] Socrates or Plato?

[1258] Did you know that Escalis, was he a philosopher?

[1259] I don't know.

[1260] He was killed when an eagle dropped a turtle on his head.

[1261] No. Because, no, because eagles would carry turtles up and then drop them on rocks to break their shells.

[1262] And they mistook his bald head for a rock.

[1263] Oh, my.

[1264] Oh, my.

[1265] What a way to go.

[1266] They got to eat a human that day, I guess.

[1267] Oh, my.

[1268] Is that real?

[1269] That's true.

[1270] Yeah, yeah.

[1271] Okay, we're balancing around a lot, but I also want to tell you just before we move off of Jesus.

[1272] Max Baer.

[1273] Oh.

[1274] Wait, I need to look up.

[1275] B -A -E -R.

[1276] He was a German athlete.

[1277] Oh, right.

[1278] In the 30s Olympics.

[1279] He was a boxer.

[1280] Wait, is this him?

[1281] No. Okay.

[1282] What about Hitler?

[1283] Is it a kink?

[1284] No. Oh, and Pocket Hercules.

[1285] Pocket Hercules was a Turkish wrestler.

[1286] Pocket Hercules.

[1287] And they called him called him.

[1288] He was this short?

[1289] You like him short?

[1290] Wrestler.

[1291] I don't know.

[1292] They have good legs.

[1293] Okay.

[1294] Max Bayer, I see him.

[1295] He is a professional boxer.

[1296] He is attractive, yeah.

[1297] Ages.

[1298] He was 6 -2.

[1299] He was not short.

[1300] Oh, really?

[1301] It says.

[1302] All right.

[1303] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1304] Okay, great.

[1305] What would you like to read for us?

[1306] I don't even know if you would like to.

[1307] Well, I guess...

[1308] What have you been kind enough to agree to read for us?

[1309] I guess what I would read was I would read, was I would read My dad died a little over a year ago, and there was a three -hour funeral at the Greek Orthodox Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.

[1310] And then there was a Greek Orthodox burial in New York State.

[1311] And then a 40 day after the death service in North Carolina.

[1312] And it was a lot of time spent around people who either didn't really know my father or knew him only superficially.

[1313] And so it was a lot of time spent listening to cliches.

[1314] And there's a role you have to play when a parent dies, and it can be exhausting.

[1315] You know, like when my mother died, every day you would just get up, and I would think, how do I get through today?

[1316] How does that work?

[1317] But I didn't have that problem when my dad died.

[1318] From the stories you've told me, and you've written about, often quite cruel.

[1319] Well, I didn't wish death upon him, but by the time he died, I'd seen enough of him.

[1320] And he was old as hell, like 98 or something.

[1321] Yeah, he's 98, but I didn't, I'd had my fill.

[1322] You know, I didn't need, I didn't think.

[1323] oh, if only we could...

[1324] Ten more years.

[1325] Right.

[1326] Because if I thought, really, if only blank, one more time, if only he would insult me one more time, if only he would embarrass me one more time, if only he would undermine me one more time.

[1327] He had qualities, but they were wasted on me, you know, or I didn't understand his qualities and vice versa.

[1328] As I'm prone to do, you didn't like my summation of...

[1329] We took this walk.

[1330] We were talking about your dad a lot, and then I hit you with a potential theory.

[1331] I realized it didn't find any purchase.

[1332] Like, it didn't...

[1333] That's another good saying, find purchase.

[1334] Do you remember what my takeaway was?

[1335] I remember we went and we talked and then I felt like pathetic.

[1336] Nothing you said made me pathetic, but I heard myself and I thought, it's so pathetic to be 65 years old whining about your father.

[1337] And so on paper, I feel like I can edit the wine out.

[1338] But then sometimes I would hear myself in person and I just wouldn't like the way that that it sounded.

[1339] I love the way that you talked about your dad when we went on a walk.

[1340] It was the real like my friend saying, you know what, it's five minutes of your life, you know, going on the Today Show.

[1341] And you just seem to have done it's five minutes of your life.

[1342] Of that version of that.

[1343] Yeah.

[1344] The acceptance.

[1345] By the way, I didn't think at any point this sounds whiny.

[1346] My resentment against my father was he wasn't there.

[1347] You know, he left at three and he was an alcoholic and he was terrible with money and he went bankrupt all the time and I supported him and he was stealing from me. Like those were my objections.

[1348] He was kind to me. He was loving to me. He hugged me. He kissed me. He had very progressive values for Michigan that I appreciate.

[1349] Yours was pretty cruel, pretty calculated, setting up multiple step things that are going to humiliate you or belittle you.

[1350] They were cruel things.

[1351] But I guess my thought after I was talking was, could someone just be that cruel?

[1352] Like, what would be the reason for it?

[1353] And my thought was there was some version of him that he was terrified to be.

[1354] And you represent someone who did everything the wrong way and everything not the safe way and you succeeded.

[1355] So when he looks at you, you are an example that he was cowardly in who he was.

[1356] My father would, he tried to get us all to take music lessons, right?

[1357] The guy who can play guitar, that guy's going to be a life of the party.

[1358] And I remember once we met a woman who played harp and he said, harp, you can't bring a harp to a party.

[1359] But it was interesting to me that that was his.

[1360] interpretation of what a musician was.

[1361] A musician was going to go to a party and say pay attention to me. And then my father was always listened to jazz.

[1362] I thought there must have been a part of him that wished that maybe for himself.

[1363] Now he were the life of the party.

[1364] Yeah.

[1365] And he was not the life of the party.

[1366] Well, he would pride himself on his sense of humor, but I knew somebody once who went into comedy and was taking improv class and then it was stand -up comedy class.

[1367] And the thing is, no one had ever said to him at any point during his life, you should be a comedian, you're really funny.

[1368] It's completely his own idea.

[1369] I would wager that every model had many, many people come up to her and say, you know, you should be a model.

[1370] Yes.

[1371] Definitely.

[1372] And so my father finding himself funny, I don't know what that was based on.

[1373] Yeah.

[1374] Because he wasn't funny ever in any way.

[1375] But he wished he was, obviously, if he talked about it.

[1376] I remember one of the stories being about buying a beach house that he never bought, right?

[1377] Like he promised the family he was going to buy this beach house.

[1378] So in my mind, he wanted to be the life of the party.

[1379] And he wanted to be the big guy on campus.

[1380] And so he wanted to be the guy that could buy that house.

[1381] And the route he thought he should take to be the big guy on campus didn't pan out for him.

[1382] Right.

[1383] And all the things he was certain would lead to that.

[1384] you're almost the antithesis of.

[1385] Like I remember, I got a job teaching at the Art Institute of Chicago, right where I went to school.

[1386] And the reason they gave me the job was I never went to graduate school, but I graduated undergraduate.

[1387] And then a year later, someone was supposed to come and teach part -time writing class.

[1388] And the person backed out at the last minute.

[1389] So they called me and said, you want to do it.

[1390] So I did.

[1391] And I did it for a couple of years.

[1392] And then I broke up with somebody and somebody else who I knew was moving back to New York.

[1393] He had a two -bedroom apartment.

[1394] and said, oh, you can live in one of the bedrooms.

[1395] So, you know how that is?

[1396] A window opens, and you got to go then, because it might not ever open again.

[1397] And I've known people who thought, well, I'll get another chance later on, and they didn't.

[1398] And you got to go when you got to go.

[1399] So my father's saying, you were going to regret this for the rest of your life.

[1400] They are going to tear you apart in New York City.

[1401] And you're never, ever going to have a decent job ever again.

[1402] And so it really bugged him.

[1403] One of his frustrations with you is that you proved him wrong over and over again.

[1404] But I think even deeper than that was you proved himself wrong to himself.

[1405] You know what I'm saying?

[1406] Like he picked a lane the opposite of yours and it had the opposite outcomes.

[1407] So it's like you were really letting him know that he himself had chosen wrong.

[1408] But I also feel like I understood his choices.

[1409] You know, his parents were immigrants.

[1410] They came over from Greece.

[1411] They had a newsstand.

[1412] So if that's the way you're growing up, he never had a bedroom.

[1413] They rented out the sofa he slept on.

[1414] They didn't sleep on the floor.

[1415] So if that's the way you grew up, you're probably going to think, you know what, I'm going to get some money.

[1416] I'm going to find a way.

[1417] I'm going to get a responsible job.

[1418] I'm going to make some money.

[1419] I grew up in an environment where I thought, you know what, I can give this a try.

[1420] Maybe because I grew up with that little cushion.

[1421] And as long as my mother was alive, I still had that cushion.

[1422] And I could have called my mother at any time.

[1423] If there's a certain age, you don't want to be calling your mom.

[1424] for money, but you knew you could.

[1425] Exactly.

[1426] You're not going to starve.

[1427] And so that allowed me to take chances that I probably wouldn't have been able to take if I'd had children.

[1428] You know, but I can give him that level of understanding.

[1429] So give me some in return.

[1430] Yeah.

[1431] I get that because I have the same story, immigrant parents who wanted everything to be super safe and then they built a safety net.

[1432] And so then I was like, I'm going to go be an actress now.

[1433] And they're like, no, they're so proud with the result.

[1434] They're not resentful and jealous.

[1435] They're like, oh, my God, she did it.

[1436] Yeah.

[1437] And that's what you want, right?

[1438] Well, with my dad, everything had to be a reflection of him, right?

[1439] So he started telling people that he's the one who encouraged me to write, you know, which is just simply not true at all, but everything had to be a reflection of him.

[1440] Everything was.

[1441] I mean, my father cut me out of his will, but he wanted me to learn after he died.

[1442] And I found out beforehand that I confronted him.

[1443] about it.

[1444] And he said, I'll cut you back in, but you have to promise that Hugh can never get his hands on any of the money.

[1445] And I knew my father was going to change his will, but he just wanted me to betray Hugh.

[1446] For him.

[1447] Right.

[1448] Well, for money, actually.

[1449] Yeah.

[1450] But, you know, when I graduated from college, he didn't pay for me to go to college.

[1451] I paid for myself to go to college.

[1452] And then when I graduated, he gave me an IRA.

[1453] That's a big thing.

[1454] I'm giving you an IRA.

[1455] And I said, well, can't I just have the money?

[1456] Yeah.

[1457] Because I'm in debt.

[1458] No. you're going to thank me one day.

[1459] He never set it up.

[1460] You know, after he died, he never set that thing up.

[1461] Yeah.

[1462] It was a lot of little things.

[1463] Yeah.

[1464] You know, he left me $5 ,000.

[1465] It was a minimum amount that you leave somebody said they're not able to contest your will.

[1466] Oh.

[1467] So everything, he just had all these little things in place.

[1468] And when the will came, it said, with the exclusion of David Arsiderus.

[1469] And there's something about my middle initial being included in there that really was like, you know, just, thought.

[1470] I mean, it's funny how that works.

[1471] You know, a lot of people in my family had really, really difficult relationships for my father.

[1472] But then when they wind up with millions of dollars, they're like, you know, he wasn't so bad.

[1473] Sure, sure, sure.

[1474] Yeah.

[1475] You know, why are you being so hard on him?

[1476] And it's like, well, how would you feel?

[1477] Yeah.

[1478] There's no prize at the end of it.

[1479] Yeah.

[1480] Yeah.

[1481] This has a different tongue than everything else in the book.

[1482] And I wrote it at the end of hearing all these cliches and spending all this time with these people.

[1483] Doesn't all our greatest art address the subject of death, its cruelty, its inevitability, the shadow it casts on our all too brief lives?

[1484] What does it all mean, we ask ourselves?

[1485] Allow me to tell you.

[1486] Death means that the dinner reservation you made for a party of seven needs to be up to ten, then lowered to nine, and then up again, this time to fourteen, 18 will ultimately show up So you will have to sit at a foretop On the other side of the room With people you just vaguely remember Listening as the fun table The one with your sparkling sister at it laughs and laughs You meanwhile have to hear things like Well I know that your father did his best People love saying this when a parent dies It's the first thing they reach for A man can beat his wife with car antennas can trade his children for drugs or motorcycles, but still, when he finally mercifully dies, his survivors will have to hear from some known nothing at the post -funeral dinner that he did his best.

[1487] This, I'm guessing, is based on the premise that we all give 110 % all the time regarding everything, our careers, our relationships, the attention we pay to our appearance, etc. Look around, I want to say.

[1488] Very few people are actually doing the best they can.

[1489] That's why they get fired from their jobs.

[1490] That's why they get arrested and divorced.

[1491] It's why their teeth fall out.

[1492] Do you think the chef responsible for this waterlogs Spanacopoda is giving it his all?

[1493] Sitting across from me spouting cliches and platitudes, honestly the best that you can do?

[1494] Also, don't use the word past at this table unless it's as in Tula passed me the salt, so I could flavor my tasteless Suzuki sauce, or I knew we were driving too slowly on our way to the funeral when the hearse passed us and the man driving it gave me the finger.

[1495] My father did not pass, neither did he depart, he died.

[1496] Why the euphemisms?

[1497] Who were they helping?

[1498] I remember hearing a woman on the radio a few years back reflecting on where she was the moment that Prince, the musician, transitioned.

[1499] Really, I thought?

[1500] And when exactly did he become a woman, days before his fatal drug overdose?

[1501] Also, can we give the whole looking down from heaven bit a rest?

[1502] This as in, I'm sure your mother is looking down right now at you and your family.

[1503] Sure about that, are you?

[1504] Sure, there's a heaven right above the cloud cover, one that no satellite or spacecraft has ever picked up and that my long dead mother can peer down from it and spot my brother my sisters and me indoors some of us with hats on out of the roughly 8 billion other people on earth and without her glasses because they weren't with her in the box she was burned to ashes in because if that were possible she wouldn't be thinking I'm so proud of my son but what's he listening to that asshole for as for my father if anything he's looking up at me not down he was 98 a blessing you keep saying he must have been a wonderful man to have been rewarded with such a long life as if it worked that way and extra years were tacked on for good behavior any number of decent people die young you know who's living a good long life dick cheney Henry Kissinger Rupert Murdoch he'll always be with you is another tiresome chestnut I'd be happy never to hear again in response to it I say what if I don't want him with me what if 64 years of constant criticism and belittlement were enough and I'm actually fine with my father and me going our separate ways him and a cooler at the funeral home and me here at the kids table he won't be in his grave for another few days is that the better place you've been assuring me he's to?

[1505] The cemetery we pass on our way to the airport?

[1506] The plot with a view of the Roy Rogers parking lot?

[1507] And what exactly is it better than this restaurant, clearly?

[1508] But what else?

[1509] The state, this country, this earth?

[1510] No offense, but how can you be so sure of his whereabouts?

[1511] You didn't even know where the men's room was until I told you.

[1512] So why should I suddenly believe that you're omniscient?

[1513] The best you can say with any degree of certainty is that my father's another place, meaning not the only restaurant in town that could accommodate a party of 18 with five hours notice, which hint it could only do because nobody else wants to eat here, especially me. It's just that I need to keep my strength up because I'm grieving.

[1514] Oh, it's so good.

[1515] When it says because I'm grieving at the end, all those.

[1516] things are true.

[1517] I wasn't mourning.

[1518] Uh -huh.

[1519] There's a difference, I think, between mourning and grieving.

[1520] I think I'm going to told you this when we were walking, but, and again, with so much love in my heart, because these people are the most beautiful people ever.

[1521] But my father was in AA for 25 years.

[1522] He had amassed hundreds of friends from sobriety.

[1523] And they were in their nonstop.

[1524] And I was in there nonstop.

[1525] And quite often, they'd come in and they'd just start bawling and they'd stare at me. And then I would become self -conscious that I wasn't in that state.

[1526] And then I'd find that I was consoling them.

[1527] And I spent most of the last few months with my father consoling people I just barely knew.

[1528] And I thought, this is just a weird system we have.

[1529] This is already a bizarre enough thing for me, but I'm supposed to have the wherewithal the now comfort you.

[1530] And you're not even the child or anything.

[1531] That kind of got on my nerves.

[1532] When people would come up and say, oh, your father was this or that, I thought, well, that's nice, I guess that you had that relationship.

[1533] You know, I have to understand that.

[1534] My dad had these rental properties and there was this guy who just lived for free in one of my father's apartments for like seven years.

[1535] And he just never found his feet, this guy, right?

[1536] He was like my sister Tiffany.

[1537] And my father let him live there for seven years.

[1538] He wouldn't have let me live anywhere for seven years.

[1539] The deal with my dad, though, is he's going to do you a favor.

[1540] You have to listen every day to what you need to be doing with your life.

[1541] That's the pay.

[1542] Strings attached.

[1543] Right.

[1544] That was the rent, is his advice.

[1545] Right.

[1546] Well, my sister Tiffany, basically my dad supported Tiffany, just barely enough to get by.

[1547] But she had to listen to that every day too.

[1548] But when you think about it on his end, it's like, how fun is that?

[1549] What's a joy there telling somebody how to live their life or what they should be doing with their life?

[1550] Like Tiffany, she needs to put out an album.

[1551] Well, she's never sung in her life.

[1552] She's not a singer, right?

[1553] Well, in his defense, he had a writer and a TV.

[1554] star comedian, what was clearly next as a musician.

[1555] Maybe a race car driver.

[1556] She could have been a race car driver.

[1557] Well, Andy thought the life of the party needed a guitar.

[1558] He's placing a lot in the music.

[1559] But also, he denied her mental illness.

[1560] Yeah.

[1561] Right, because it reflected poorly on him.

[1562] Yeah.

[1563] At one point, though, on his deathbed, he said to you, you won.

[1564] He was kind of in this neither here nor their state.

[1565] And this was a couple of years before he died.

[1566] We thought he was dying, so we all went down there.

[1567] was hooked up to a machine and he would come and he would like he would say things that didn't make any sense and then he would come to and he said david you've done so many spectacular things in your life i need to tell you you you one and then he kind of drifted away and i was never sure if he meant I won the game of life, or I won in this war that he and I had.

[1568] And because he was kind of in that state, he never would have said that consciously, ever, ever, ever.

[1569] I don't think it necessarily is either or.

[1570] I think it was both.

[1571] You won in this battle, and you won in life.

[1572] I think they're the same thing.

[1573] But it's not the same as $2 .5 million.

[1574] Right, right.

[1575] That's nice in everything, but I mean, it's not.

[1576] Yeah.

[1577] Wait, what kept you in relationship with him?

[1578] I know it's different for other people.

[1579] I know that there are people, let's say, who were sexually abused by their dad, I would never say to those people, well, you need to at least call him at Christmas, you know.

[1580] But I didn't want to be that person who's estranged.

[1581] I would write my father letters because I thought, I didn't really want to talk to him on the phone.

[1582] I'll send him letters.

[1583] And then I would talk to him on the phone.

[1584] He said, I got that letter.

[1585] You sure had nothing to say.

[1586] And it's like, well, who else is writing him?

[1587] Yeah, compared relative to what other letters.

[1588] I didn't even feel guilty about it.

[1589] It wasn't like I would think, oh, I should call dad.

[1590] I would think, well, I have a phone too.

[1591] You know, he's too cheap to call me. But I thought, I have a phone.

[1592] You know, I have a mailbox.

[1593] You know, he could always write to me. My boyfriend Hugh, his dad was a novelist and his mom is 92 now.

[1594] Reads everything.

[1595] Everything she can get her hands on.

[1596] There's so much you can talk to Hugh's mother about anything.

[1597] And with my dad, it was just always superficial.

[1598] Like, there was nothing underneath it ever.

[1599] It wasn't that he was keeping it in light.

[1600] There wasn't any depth there.

[1601] So it was, how the hell are you?

[1602] So how are you?

[1603] How the hell are you?

[1604] You know, and that was on a good day.

[1605] When are you going to wake up?

[1606] He's just a bush basher.

[1607] Oh, what's a bushbash?

[1608] A bushbasher is anyone who didn't like George Bush was a Bush basher.

[1609] Oh, okay, okay, okay.

[1610] So you couldn't talk about politics.

[1611] couldn't talk about any books he had read or no it was just nothing we could talk about that was of any interest to me i don't know i mean if i watched golf on tv maybe we could have talked about that if i watched fox news i guess we could have talked about what bill o 'Reilly had said yeah the night before i know he's not on there anymore but the good thing when my dad went to his assistant living center the television was hard to figure out and he couldn't watch fox news every minute of the day and he wasn't enraged for the first time in years He wasn't enraged by everything.

[1612] But I remember my dad came to the beach.

[1613] To the C -section.

[1614] To the C -section about, I don't know, six years ago, maybe seven years ago.

[1615] And I was upstairs in the bedroom working.

[1616] And I came down to get a cup of coffee.

[1617] And it was my dad by himself on the kitchen.

[1618] And I got trapped down there for five hours.

[1619] And I was just like, oh, my God.

[1620] Five hours.

[1621] Again, if there'd been something of substance that we could have talked about, it would have been different, but it was either a lecture on what you need to be doing with your life or here's what you should write a book about, said the person who's never read a book.

[1622] But that's how you really won.

[1623] You were there taking all this in and not erupting at him and staying in his life.

[1624] Most people would never have done that.

[1625] He was pushing you away, pushing you in.

[1626] You were like, I'm still here.

[1627] That's winning, I think.

[1628] I had a therapist say to me, I was like, I think I'm going to stop talking to my dad.

[1629] We were in some fight for a long time.

[1630] And he said, look, I'm not going to try to convince you to or to not.

[1631] You just really, it's as simple as do you think of yourself as the type of person who is estranged from their father, won't talk to their father.

[1632] And I was like, oh, no, I don't.

[1633] That was enough for me to keep the ball rolling.

[1634] I relate to that deeply.

[1635] Yeah, I could fake it.

[1636] Again, I don't feel like I got anything out of it.

[1637] He had a different relationship with everyone in my family.

[1638] You know, he's super close with my brother and he's close to my sister, Ames.

[1639] me. It's different for every kid in the family.

[1640] Everybody has a different relationship with the parent.

[1641] Yeah.

[1642] I got to tell you one thing before we go.

[1643] It's been driving me nuts.

[1644] I've been supposed to have been telling you this since Christmas of last year.

[1645] Nora Jones, I think you know she's obsessed with you.

[1646] I met her at a book signing once.

[1647] Forget the story she told me, but something about she had on a talk show talked about you or something.

[1648] At any point, I think you wrote her a note.

[1649] And you might have even included your email or something back.

[1650] And she's wanted to do nothing more than to write back to you and tell you how much she enjoyed that and then just is overcome with the insecurity that you wouldn't really actually want that note.

[1651] So I said there's no way on earth he wouldn't.

[1652] And so now I'm just reporting it all to you.

[1653] Oh gosh.

[1654] You know, it's so funny.

[1655] You never think about somebody like that.

[1656] Worried that there would be a pest.

[1657] You never think about that.

[1658] I know.

[1659] I found it pretty comical because I have far less offer than she does.

[1660] And I'm like, let's go for a walk.

[1661] What's your number?

[1662] I text you pretty often.

[1663] I mean, without any discernible skill, like I can't.

[1664] sing or anything.

[1665] The gap is intense.

[1666] I was in Brooklyn when I met her and I said, why didn't you come to the front of the line?

[1667] And I realized, as the words left my mouth, I thought, oh, of course she wouldn't.

[1668] That was one of the reasons that I liked her so much.

[1669] Exactly.

[1670] Yeah.

[1671] She's a beautiful, beautiful person.

[1672] Yeah, we like her a lot.

[1673] Well, David, this has been wonderful.

[1674] I love getting to spend time with you.

[1675] I do hope we will walk again together.

[1676] I was in New York recently and I hit you up because I thought maybe we could take a nighttime stroll, but you were elsewhere.

[1677] And I was on my lecture tour.

[1678] Getting COVID.

[1679] Getting COVID.

[1680] Yeah.

[1681] That's how I say.

[1682] Cave it.

[1683] Caved.

[1684] This is a three -peat.

[1685] We don't have very many three -pits.

[1686] Right.

[1687] But we want this to be like a...

[1688] 60 Pete.

[1689] Who are your other three -peats?

[1690] Adam Grant.

[1691] Sanjay Gupta.

[1692] Kristen's been on probably five times.

[1693] Yeah, but that's sweet.

[1694] I meet so many people who listen to your podcast.

[1695] Nice.

[1696] And they said, well, I've never read any books.

[1697] I've never heard of you.

[1698] I heard of you on Dax's podcast.

[1699] Crazy how many people.

[1700] It makes me really.

[1701] really happy.

[1702] We have the best audience in the world.

[1703] I bet they're the ones asking you good questions.

[1704] And when you write really pervy shit in their thing, I bet they love it.

[1705] There's probably no pushback.

[1706] Because we do talk about taking dumps and all that's secure.

[1707] Yeah, yeah.

[1708] We're scatophiles or something, whatever the closest you could be to be in German without being German.

[1709] But I adore you.

[1710] I love you.

[1711] I hope we get to take another walk together and do 10 more of these interviews.

[1712] I wish you well.

[1713] Thanks for coming.

[1714] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1715] Oh my God.

[1716] Your background looks so different with the wallpaper.

[1717] I got so confused, I thought, where are you that has a brick wall behind you?

[1718] It does look like brick a little bit.

[1719] It does.

[1720] Brick's expensive.

[1721] Very, very pricey.

[1722] To put on your interior?

[1723] You know, it's more expensive.

[1724] What?

[1725] That wallpaper.

[1726] It was more expensive than brick.

[1727] I think so.

[1728] Oh, it's early there for you, huh?

[1729] Well, it's not early anymore.

[1730] It's 846.

[1731] Okay.

[1732] But it was 7 .45 an hour ago.

[1733] This is a rough time change.

[1734] I don't know how people do business with L .A. if they're in Germany or Austria.

[1735] I know it's made me think because we've had a few guests who've joined us via Europe.

[1736] Yeah, it's basically like either we got to talk when it's early in the morning for you and late for me. Oh, no, you're stuck.

[1737] Oh, yeah.

[1738] Well, expect that.

[1739] I'm in a building that was built in 1400.

[1740] Okay.

[1741] Expectations set.

[1742] But yeah, it has to be early in the morning for you and in the evening for me or me crack ass of dawn and you like midnight.

[1743] Exactly.

[1744] Not crack ass.

[1745] I guess midnight would be 9 a .m. I'm here.

[1746] Whatever.

[1747] It's a hurdle.

[1748] I feel like it's easier when David's in New Zealand and we go backwards in time.

[1749] It's easier for us, yeah.

[1750] Yeah.

[1751] Maybe not.

[1752] How was your Fourth of July trip?

[1753] It was really nice.

[1754] Tell me about it.

[1755] I had a poor showing at Cornhole.

[1756] You did.

[1757] Yeah, and I'm still upset about it.

[1758] You're reeling from it?

[1759] Yeah, because you know, I'm a winner at heart.

[1760] Yeah.

[1761] It's not easy for you to not be a a champion.

[1762] Yeah, but you know what I did do?

[1763] So I guess there's a TikTok challenge or something, you know, what the kids do, where they are flipping a water bottle so it lands straight up and down.

[1764] I've seen this.

[1765] Okay, Wilder was trying it, the baby.

[1766] And then I thought, I should get in on this.

[1767] Right.

[1768] If the baby can do it.

[1769] Yeah, well, he couldn't do it.

[1770] Let's be clear.

[1771] He was throwing it very a skew.

[1772] Okay.

[1773] But I practiced and then I did achieve my goal.

[1774] And you could do it consistently or you got lucky a few times?

[1775] I did it once and I didn't want to try again.

[1776] Okay.

[1777] In and out.

[1778] Just did get it on video, which was spectacular.

[1779] Oh, was it so good that you wanted to create a TikTok account?

[1780] Oh, man, I should have.

[1781] That was a really smart idea.

[1782] I could see doing something and being so proud of yourself that you're like well fuck now i want a ticktock i should talk yeah i'm afraid of the fact that china controls the software and i'm afraid of surveillance with that am i crazy maybe you're not crazy i'm afraid of that too but it's that same thing that we were talking about after cashless societies it's like but we already are yeah it's more that i would have software on my phone that the Chinese government could take control of my phone oh hack yes like once they have a program installed in your phone how do we know what they that's true and they listen to me talk on the phone I certainly don't want to let people do that although I don't even talk on the phone anymore but still if I wanted to I'd want to be have some privacy secrets sure secret talks okay tell me about your trip okay I don't feel like we're finished though what happened 4th of July where is there fireworks or anything?

[1783] Oh, okay.

[1784] So we went Friday and we came back Monday.

[1785] We came back on 4th of July and then we went to Ryan and Amy's.

[1786] But everyone was pooped.

[1787] Oh, they were from partying hard.

[1788] Well, we, it was, I guess, it was hot.

[1789] So then I came home early.

[1790] I came home at like six.

[1791] So I didn't see any fireworks.

[1792] Wait, six from the Hansons?

[1793] Yeah.

[1794] Oh, you were really pooped.

[1795] I was tired.

[1796] No, you had a date.

[1797] No. No, I was tired.

[1798] 6 p .m .'s an early departure.

[1799] I know, but we got home from Temecula at noon.

[1800] Okay.

[1801] Then we went to the Hansons.

[1802] Okay.

[1803] And then I went home at 6.

[1804] Plus, I had to watch the old man. Oh, what, episode, what, 4 or 5 came out?

[1805] I think 4.

[1806] There was a new one out, so I had to watch it.

[1807] Also, ding, ding, ding.

[1808] I'm watching something and it's making me think of you a lot.

[1809] What?

[1810] I resumed only murders in the building.

[1811] Oh, how is it?

[1812] I love it.

[1813] Oh, you do?

[1814] Yeah, because me and you had watched some of it at the first season, but then we dropped off.

[1815] We loved the beginning, and then there were a few episodes where we were like, what is, what's happening?

[1816] We lost interest a little bit.

[1817] But then I needed a show and I was already on Hulu.

[1818] Uh -huh.

[1819] So it just popped up.

[1820] God, great.

[1821] Really good.

[1822] I got to say, if you.

[1823] You're going for pound for pound.

[1824] And I got to be specific.

[1825] I would say it's not just Hulu, but also just FX.

[1826] Yeah.

[1827] Like pound for pound, the consistency is pretty off the charts.

[1828] That's a good thought.

[1829] Also, ding, ding, ding.

[1830] One of the facts is in for a penny and for a pound because you said that.

[1831] And I wanted to double check that you were saying it right.

[1832] And you are.

[1833] Oh, I am.

[1834] I got nervous because, well, what made me nervous is you would think, well, David Sedaris knows everything in language.

[1835] Anytime you, like, he doesn't know what you're talking about, I think you'd be really arrogant to not get nervous that what you think you know you might not know.

[1836] Of course.

[1837] If you told me about a car and you're like, oh, I love this car, it's a 73 Vaginski.

[1838] And I was like, I've never heard of that car.

[1839] You might go, fuck, is that a car?

[1840] Yeah, you're right.

[1841] And you're right.

[1842] An arrogant person would be like, oh, my God, I knew something he didn't know.

[1843] Or you could have both feelings.

[1844] I probably have both feelings.

[1845] Okay.

[1846] Excitement and fear.

[1847] victory and fear victory and failure um listen when i look at my phone i'm looking at facts i'm not just scrolling i didn't think you were but it is hard to know when you look at your phone if you're frozen or not because you stop all movement like i'm like oh yeah that scares me i know and it worked and i got really scared conversationist interrupt us in for a penny in for a pound used to express someone's intention to complete an enterprise once it's been undertaken, however much time, effort, or money this entails.

[1848] Quote, oh hell, I thought in for a penny, in for a pound, and scrub the place from top to bottom.

[1849] Oh, I love it.

[1850] I am surprised he doesn't know it, because it's obviously a British saying, pound.

[1851] Yes, and Penny.

[1852] And pennies are, he knows so much about pennies.

[1853] Yes, but he lives in England sometimes.

[1854] He does.

[1855] He speaks English like a pro.

[1856] The best, some would say.

[1857] Oh, I've sent him a couple texts from Austria.

[1858] Tell us.

[1859] These probably won't make the cut, but I hope people will cut me some slack since I'm sending them to David Sedaris.

[1860] Uh -oh, okay.

[1861] He's a naughty boy.

[1862] Oh, boy.

[1863] Okay.

[1864] So do you remember he came up with for the Cannibal's cook book, Legs Benedict?

[1865] Yep.

[1866] So I'm in Austria.

[1867] This is the birthplace of Adolf Hitler.

[1868] Oh, no. Okay.

[1869] So I sent him a text that said, last night at the restaurant, I asked if they were serving SS Cargo.

[1870] Oh, my God.

[1871] Oh, my God.

[1872] Did they laugh?

[1873] SS Cargo.

[1874] I didn't really say that, but I thought of what I could say.

[1875] And then the other thing I came up with is I said, next restaurant we go to, I'm going to ask them, is this restaurant clean enough that the food could be ate off the floor?

[1876] Okay, that's pretty good.

[1877] But it is interesting because there's two young people working at this place.

[1878] One of them is I've never seen a creature like Molly and I are just obsessed with her.

[1879] Her name's Elizabeth, but she goes by Ella.

[1880] Her birthday's June 24th.

[1881] So on June 24th, she turned 15.

[1882] So, you know, two weeks ago she was 14 years old and she's a full -time employee at this restaurant.

[1883] Her skin is translucent.

[1884] Her hair is pure white, and she's so shy, and she's just lovely.

[1885] Anyways, we were asking her, like, which things to hit and what to skip.

[1886] And we said, what about the eagle's nest?

[1887] Hitler's where he ran the war from his, like, I guess, summer retreat.

[1888] And she was like, I don't eagle's nest.

[1889] And we're like, yeah, yeah, Hitler's big compound.

[1890] It's like around here.

[1891] She didn't know or just did not want to talk about that.

[1892] And then another dude came over at that moment, and then Eric asked him.

[1893] I think he was 19.

[1894] I found out he too was just kind of like, what?

[1895] Yeah, they don't like it.

[1896] No. I don't like the association, which I appreciate.

[1897] Yes, I understand.

[1898] But it is so historical, but then we felt weird.

[1899] Like, oh, did they think we're perverse?

[1900] Like, why do you want to, I did equate it to like, what if you and I worked at a restaurant?

[1901] And the guest said, hey, have you been to David Koresh's house?

[1902] It, yeah.

[1903] Why would we go to David Koresh's house?

[1904] And why do you want to go?

[1905] I mean, this is like dark tourist.

[1906] Yeah.

[1907] Where you want to see where all this wreckage and sadness and hatred happened.

[1908] And my unique interest in it is having read Blitz, the book about how addicted to drugs he was, and knowing that he wanted his basement to have like eight foot thick walls.

[1909] And then it got increased.

[1910] So he was in a room with like 16 foot thick concrete walls, something like that.

[1911] I'm actually curious about the structure, too.

[1912] Sure.

[1913] he's known for his architectural prowess, kind of like Brad Pitt.

[1914] Is he, though?

[1915] I know he's known to have been a really lackluster artist.

[1916] I don't know if you've ever seen any of his paintings.

[1917] You haven't.

[1918] You could Google it.

[1919] Like on one hand you go, oh, Hitler could paint.

[1920] You know, that's one thing you would say.

[1921] And then you'd also go, and also, like, no one would buy that.

[1922] Like, he didn't have a future in being an artist.

[1923] What did he do?

[1924] Like flowers.

[1925] Yeah, like from what I can remember, still lives with, like, gardens and stuff.

[1926] Okay, okay.

[1927] Yeah.

[1928] It's very confusing.

[1929] Well, I'm going to add to his Wikipedia about the architecture because it's a little known fact.

[1930] I think only you know it.

[1931] That now I'm going to share.

[1932] That only I know, only I'm privy to.

[1933] I like that.

[1934] Does he have a Wikipedia?

[1935] He must have a Wikipedia page of a historical figure.

[1936] Oh, of course.

[1937] Of course.

[1938] This also Dick Duck Duck Goose reminds me of when I was staying in Switzerland on your rail trip with my girlfriend, Carrie, when I was 19.

[1939] You remember I've brought this up.

[1940] I was staying at a hostel and interlock in Switzerland.

[1941] And on the bathroom wall, someone wrote Einstein was a vegetarian.

[1942] Think about it.

[1943] And then someone wrote below that, Hitler was also a vegetarian.

[1944] Think about that.

[1945] Was he really?

[1946] Which one?

[1947] Yeah, both.

[1948] I don't know that Einstein was, but Hitler was.

[1949] He was a vegetarian.

[1950] but ironically he was being shot up with bovine blood yeah oh god what is it why can't i think of this word hormones yeah bovine hormones like a weird stew of like different animal animal chemicals kind of like a bone broth yes yes a hog bone broth and bovine and equine oh okay we're all over place.

[1951] Okay.

[1952] Well, there was another duck, duck goose somewhere in there because Hitler, no, no, this is a ding, ding, ding.

[1953] Because we talk about historical figures we'd want to have sex with.

[1954] Oh, right.

[1955] Hitler was brought up by you.

[1956] You asked David if he would like that as a kink.

[1957] He said no. Right, right.

[1958] He answered correctly, I guess.

[1959] Yeah, people would be offended if you wanted to have sex with Hitler.

[1960] But it is the ultimate bad boy fantasy.

[1961] Like, if you want to marry a prisoner or something he's the baddest boy that ever lived he's terrible here's the thing about bad boys okay all right look i can only speak for myself but the fantasy is they're bad but they're not evil there's a um a thread of goodness in them which makes you think you can be the one to pull that out exactly so i could see that happening with hitler like you're going to be the one person he shows tenderness and kindness and devotion to i don't think so because there's a fine line like at some point they're they're just so bad and evil and then you're scared like you don't want to be scared well look what's his tush got married in prison jeffrey dalmer some women even love like mass murderer serial killers because again i think it's that desire to be friends with the tiger yeah you know what when i was at the hansons mark the dog yeah's there and i kind of just like glanced over really quick and Mark was like running across the yard and for just one second he looked like a tiny tiger just one second and then I thought oh my god how fun like I really thought in my head I would like that then I remembered that's horrible and then I'm just one of those people fatal attraction yeah yeah that's a little bit of a duck dog goose because I woke up three nights ago two nights ago what with the jet lag it's all messy so i woke up and i was up for about an hour and a half and i wrote a story in my head that at that time of night i was convinced was just brilliant and i just upon waking i don't know that it's that good okay tell me about it there's two men and they're at a um a bar overseas they're both from different lands and they're in this oh yeah let's say they're in americas or something and they're at man walks in the bar and he notices that a guy has a tiger next to him and he sits down and they start talking and it turns out the man that sat down is an American and the guy who has the tiger he's from some fictitious country but he said what's going out with the tiger and he says oh well everyone where I'm from has a tiger and he says oh why why is that and he said well because we were invaded by the Mongols and they had all these jackals and you know people kept tigers historically where I'm from and the tigers helped fight off the Mongols and that's why we stayed free.

[1962] So, you know, we respect that and everyone has a tiger.

[1963] And then it's great too because no one can really attack you if you have your tiger with you.

[1964] And the guy said, oh my God, that's incredible.

[1965] We have a similar thing, which is we overthrew the British with guns and now we all have a gun.

[1966] And he says, oh, do you have one with you?

[1967] He says, oh, absolutely.

[1968] So he takes his gun out and puts it on the bar and they're really seeing eye to eye and there's a moment where the waiter behind him lights some cheese on fire like a upa situation and the man's tiger jumps up in excitement and gets the american around the neck and then so the american's flailing he grabs his gun off the bar and he shoots the tiger of course he misses and he shoots the man from the neighboring country and then there lies the man mauled to death by a tiger and the other one dead from a gun show And there they are, free, free, free.

[1969] Wow.

[1970] Liberty abounds.

[1971] That's a parable.

[1972] I know, but it's so right up your ass.

[1973] There's nothing really elegant about it.

[1974] It's kind of like when we interviewed Malcolm the other day and I said, do you want your subversiveness to be caught?

[1975] There's nothing subversive about this.

[1976] It's right up your ass.

[1977] Well, you know, that's how you like it.

[1978] That is that.

[1979] That is.

[1980] Oh, boy.

[1981] Speaking of Malcolm, God, so many, this is what happens when we don't see each other for a while.

[1982] There's so many, so much to talk about.

[1983] Catch up, catch up, catch up, ketchup, mustard, mustard.

[1984] So on my drive, I was listening to Season 7 revisionist history.

[1985] By the way, great.

[1986] I listened to the first one per your suggestion.

[1987] I listened to the first college one.

[1988] Is that what you're going to talk about?

[1989] Yes.

[1990] So I was listening to Season 7 of Revisionist History, which is coming out, but they're releasing them week by week.

[1991] So I ran out.

[1992] And I was like, oh, no, I need more.

[1993] So I went to season six.

[1994] I realized I had not listened to.

[1995] And there are two episodes in on, and this is the season that you're in because you do a little more amazing.

[1996] Right, right, right, right.

[1997] That season is about fixing things.

[1998] That's the theme.

[1999] And there are two episodes on college ratings.

[2000] And it's important that we talk about this because talks about basically what goes into it and how essentially dumb it is.

[2001] Well, it's super dumb, but then I think it's really fun to find out that just the inception of it was U .S. News and Report was competing with time and some other one.

[2002] It was like a three -way tie.

[2003] They got some new management.

[2004] And they were like, well, if we rank colleges, every parent in America will buy this issue.

[2005] And they were right.

[2006] And that's really how it started.

[2007] It's kind of a gimmick to sell more copies.

[2008] It's crazy because I fact did with that.

[2009] Sure.

[2010] People believe in it.

[2011] I've believed in it.

[2012] I feel like you believe in it.

[2013] If I find out UCLA's gone up, I will tell you.

[2014] But I don't believe it.

[2015] I don't believe there's a better school in America than Berkeley, personally.

[2016] I just don't think 30.

[2017] Yes.

[2018] This is new info.

[2019] Tell me about this.

[2020] Well, it's impossible to get into.

[2021] You got Oppenheimer Legacy.

[2022] I mean, it's just, it's incredible.

[2023] Every author went, it's, it's as impressive as any school, but it's a state school.

[2024] So you got to listen to the second episode.

[2025] Oh.

[2026] So there's two.

[2027] And the second one is about a historically black college.

[2028] Oh, I heard this.

[2029] Dillard.

[2030] I mean, they talk about it a little bit in the first, but then they, the second episode is devoted to that school, and they, like, through statistics, see how to bring its score up.

[2031] Oh, okay.

[2032] It's very, very fascinating.

[2033] Two of the criteria or metrics are one.

[2034] It's basically they pull every dean of a college, and they're all voting on it, and they admit it.

[2035] Like, they have never even heard of some of these colleges.

[2036] They have no awareness, and they just arbitrarily give it a number out of five.

[2037] Literally, they've never even been to the campus.

[2038] They don't know anything.

[2039] No, they don't know what state it's in, but I'll give it a two.

[2040] So that's hysterical because I think that they've concluded that's the most weighted category.

[2041] And then another huge category is how much money they have in reserve.

[2042] Like how big their endowment is.

[2043] And I think Dillard or one of the black colleges right had like, I forget what it was.

[2044] A hundred million endowment.

[2045] And many of these schools have billions.

[2046] Billions.

[2047] And that somehow determines whether it's a good school.

[2048] Well, yeah.

[2049] And I mean, I don't want to spoil.

[2050] But the result, when you hear about what's happening at Dillard, you're like, that's the best school.

[2051] That's doing the best work.

[2052] That's bringing the most people up from the lowest circumstances.

[2053] Right.

[2054] And it's fascinating.

[2055] Anyway, I have to be honest, I don't think I can call myself a unifile anymore.

[2056] I still am.

[2057] Yeah, you can still, like, I make space, and I think Malcolm would like this about us, I make space in my mind to totally disagree with something and also embrace it.

[2058] hey like you know higher power oh there's so many there's so many stuff i'm i'm against that and i embrace it and so i still i'm still impressed by fancy colleges and i think it's horseship just some percentage of it's horseshit well it is funny because now after listening to that when i think about like harvard or yale i kind of am eye -rolly now and now i'm like ugh that's stupid but i'm really impressed by these other schools i'm that have very little money that the average parental income at Dillard is like 30 ,000.

[2059] Yeah, I like that.

[2060] I love it.

[2061] And like, and they go into this whole thing about how many people graduate in physics based on Dillard versus like Yale or something like that.

[2062] Like who enter declaring that they're going to study physics and then who actually end up following through.

[2063] Uh -huh.

[2064] And it's pretty astounding the numbers.

[2065] Well, and Malcolm has a long track record with a chip on his shoulder.

[2066] I think because he didn't go to an Ivy League school.

[2067] He's done other writings and, I think, episodes on the fact that it doesn't matter what law school.

[2068] Like, there's no predictor of your income, your success, anything based on what law school you graduated from, which is also interesting.

[2069] Anyway, so check that out, please.

[2070] Go back.

[2071] We'll listen to season seven.

[2072] And then while you're waiting for the next episode, if you haven't checked out, C. Season six.

[2073] Get in there.

[2074] But it was just relevant to us because unophile and I, you know, it's a little tainted for me now, but I can, I can hold two things at once.

[2075] I think people have held this opinion about our unifilness for a while.

[2076] And they're rightly so.

[2077] I think people are like, why are you guys so?

[2078] Are you supposed to be anti -classes and you hate elite rich people and yet you covet all these schools.

[2079] But I am hypocritical.

[2080] Well, I blame this on my parents.

[2081] Okay.

[2082] Because they are impressed by fancy schools.

[2083] Although I say that, they are.

[2084] They're very impressed by fancy schools.

[2085] But they weren't like, you have to go to one.

[2086] In fact, they were like, don't, you're not going to do that.

[2087] Don't do that.

[2088] It's too expensive.

[2089] I think for me, it was just exoticism.

[2090] Like, I never met anyone in Milford, Michigan that had gone to Harvard.

[2091] This is like something that happened in movies.

[2092] Yeah, totally.

[2093] Especially in the 80s.

[2094] They were really big on these, like, really preppy boarding schools are Harvard stories.

[2095] So I bought in.

[2096] Yeah.

[2097] Look, we fell for it.

[2098] Goodwell hunting.

[2099] Like if he had been a janitor at Dillard and then it would be a different movie.

[2100] I apologize.

[2101] Dex.

[2102] Be honest.

[2103] Okay, but you know what?

[2104] It would be a different movie because what they do is they would be like, come aboard.

[2105] You're allowed to come here.

[2106] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2107] Okay.

[2108] I want to know about your trip.

[2109] And then we left something hanging, but I don't remember.

[2110] what it is so sorry guys okay trips been a blast we were in vienna without the richardsons for a night oh boy this is i guess a bigger issue which is i'm a big believer in your story i read this stupid article in the new york times a couple weeks before we left about how fucked european travel is and people are stranded they don't have their bags well sure enough we fly plane lands it's late we sprint where the last people let on the airplane to make our connection from Frankfurt to Vienna literally they're standing by the door waiting for us to get there we get on oh thank God our bags are not there when we land in Vienna go to the lost and found they're very nice okay well there's a lot of flights from Frankfurt so the bags will get here and I said okay great and he said what hotel you stand and I give them the hotel I said when do you think they'll be delivered he said it'll take about four days and I said oh okay he goes so if you want the bags before four days you've got to come back to the airport well you know what a stink show it is when you're in a foreign country rent in a rental car was its own thing and then i got to come back to the airport they give you a tracking number blah blah he also tells me look it'll be good at telling you when the bag got on the airplane but we won't even scan it for three days we have over a thousand bags stacked up right now that haven't been scanned so you go back to the hotel and then you're like what am i going to come back to the airport after every flight from frankfort We're staying at a pretty nice hotel.

[2111] I decided to put them on the case a little bit.

[2112] They seem to have a lot of experience with it.

[2113] They tell us the next day.

[2114] Your bags will be arriving on a flight tonight at 10 o 'clock at night.

[2115] Well, we're leaving that hotel at noon and going to Saltzburg, four hours away.

[2116] So I go, okay, well, I think they're there already because I got an email saying it was on a flight.

[2117] Well, we don't know.

[2118] Anyways, the Richardson's landed.

[2119] I said, could you go to Lost and Found and see if they'll look for it?

[2120] They did.

[2121] They were there.

[2122] Thank God.

[2123] Oh, my God.

[2124] But by the time we linked up with the Richardson's, we had now been in the same outfits for three days.

[2125] So anyways, we drove from Vienna to Salzburg, which was a lovely drive.

[2126] It's impossibly storybooky.

[2127] I don't think I've ever – well, I know I haven't been to Salzburg.

[2128] I don't even think I've been to Austria.

[2129] You've been to Vienna.

[2130] I have, yeah.

[2131] So you're hip to the whole thing.

[2132] It's so storybooky.

[2133] It is.

[2134] You know what?

[2135] We know maybe it was also the time of year.

[2136] It's so white there.

[2137] don't mean people.

[2138] I mean like the buildings.

[2139] It's like it's all very white.

[2140] Ding, ding, ding, ding, Hitler.

[2141] Yeah.

[2142] But Salzburg is impossible.

[2143] You know, the main reason for being here was the girls.

[2144] All are obsessed with sound of music.

[2145] So yesterday, we found the staircase that they sing, a dear, a day, a de, do, do, do.

[2146] So most of the day was spent going around the city of the different filming locations so that they could reenact it while we filmed them.

[2147] Cute.

[2148] I was doing my shoes off thing I do to get acquainted with the place.

[2149] Oh, yeah.

[2150] Uh -huh.

[2151] Yeah.

[2152] I'm using all my old tricks, money.

[2153] Shoes off thing is you take up your shoes and you walk a long time without shoes.

[2154] Bare foot.

[2155] It's so you can absorb the essence of Indi or dermis.

[2156] So you can become Austrian while you're there.

[2157] Or in London, we became London.

[2158] Okay, I have one funny story.

[2159] I hesitate to tell stories about it.

[2160] this but this one's worth it I stopped into foot locker because again I didn't have any of my luggage and the shoes I brought are just these wool slip -ons so they were stretched out within 10 minutes of walking so I'm like I need shoes I go into foot locker and I sit down the guy hands me shoes and he's looking at me looking at me and I can tell he's having a little z -z -z -z -z -moment right some recognition because I could tell he's like I know this person but he's American where did I meet him type.

[2161] And he goes, oh, yes, you are an actor.

[2162] And I said yes.

[2163] And he goes, ah, idiot.

[2164] Idiot.

[2165] He's pointing at my face.

[2166] Idiot.

[2167] Now he's yelling to his friends at footlocker.

[2168] Oh.

[2169] And so I'm looking at me and they're pointing.

[2170] Everyone's saying idiot.

[2171] Idiot.

[2172] Idiot.

[2173] I'm assuming he saw idiocracy.

[2174] Yeah.

[2175] So I'm like, okay, he loves idiotocracy.

[2176] So I go, I love.

[2177] I love.

[2178] like money and then he looks at me nothing oh nothing now at first i'm like fuck maybe he's just calling me an idiot and it's not idiocry and then i say go away baiting nothing and about yes about the third time i talked like frito it occurs to me they definitely looped like i'm sure he watched it voiceovered so what i'm doing makes no sense to him The voice wasn't the voice.

[2179] He didn't know what I was doing.

[2180] I just was talking in a weird voice occasionally until I figured out that the whole thing would have been dubbed.

[2181] He definitely watched the movie Idiot dubbed.

[2182] And all he knows is my face.

[2183] He doesn't know the voice or the speech impediment.

[2184] Oh my God.

[2185] Also, that ruins the whole thing.

[2186] Like, if he saw, if it was dubbed and they did a normal voice, like, what?

[2187] That's what I was thinking is like, what is this character without all that?

[2188] Yeah.

[2189] Apparently, it holds up.

[2190] I guess it's a testament to Mike Judge's writing that the performance was unnecessary.

[2191] And I learned a lot at that trip to Footlogger.

[2192] Oh, man. Okay.

[2193] Here we go.

[2194] We talked about Bukowski's voice.

[2195] Yes.

[2196] Did you get a clip of it?

[2197] Mm -hmm.

[2198] I'm going to play some.

[2199] With one punch at the age of 16 and a half, I knocked out my father.

[2200] a cruel shiny bastard with bad breath and I didn't go home for some time only now and then to try to get a dollar from dear mama Hey that was a weird ding ding ding because it was about bad dads Oh, that's a good movie, bad dads Yeah, exactly Anyway, yeah his voice does sound weird Yeah, it's nasal, it's not like this ultra mancho guy you would be expecting.

[2201] I kind of like that.

[2202] Yeah.

[2203] It's messies.

[2204] It is.

[2205] It's troubling.

[2206] Mostly I know his voice from this documentary, and this is so unfortunate.

[2207] You know, he's hammered.

[2208] His wife's drunk, and he grabs her by the hair and pulls her.

[2209] It's really rough.

[2210] It's a bummer.

[2211] So I think I associate, too, that voice with scene aside of him I certainly never wanted to see.

[2212] Yeah.

[2213] Life's tricky, you know.

[2214] Actually, it's not tricky.

[2215] Just don't hit women.

[2216] You shouldn't do it.

[2217] Yeah, unless you're defending yourself.

[2218] Well, that's another duck, duck, goose, ding, ding, ding, because we talked about it in this episode.

[2219] Like, are you allowed to fight back?

[2220] Oh, yes.

[2221] Okay.

[2222] Now.

[2223] By the way, I have a real -time fact check.

[2224] I apologize to him after the fact, personally, which was he was right about blank C monster, whatever it was called.

[2225] Seymour or something.

[2226] Yeah, that he has the quote at the beginning of the book from.

[2227] Uh -huh.

[2228] And I was like, no, I think it's blank.

[2229] I looked it up.

[2230] But I was wrong.

[2231] And I text him and said I was embarrassed.

[2232] Oh.

[2233] So I just want everyone to know the apology was made privately and not apologizing here and acting like that covers it.

[2234] But I was wrong about that.

[2235] That's nice.

[2236] Yeah.

[2237] And that's a good fact check.

[2238] Okay.

[2239] Let's see.

[2240] Did Andre the giant poop in a bucket?

[2241] Oh.

[2242] We said we thought we would have remembered that.

[2243] Yeah.

[2244] Now, there's a. few things on the internet about him pooping in a bathtub when he was on the road because he couldn't fit in a normal hotel toilet.

[2245] Oh, so out of necessity, he relieved himself in the tub.

[2246] That's on here, but look, I have to be honest, the sources are questionable.

[2247] Sure.

[2248] I don't want to 100 % stick by that, but that's a rumor.

[2249] I understand the necessity of evacuating in the tub because it beats the floor, right?

[2250] If he literally couldn't sit on the toilet seat yeah i hope he had the decency to gather up the excrement and transfer it to the toilet i don't think so you think he just left it for the maids yeah okay that's back when they were called maids by the way yeah that's why you're allowed to say it because it was appropriate at that time right okay so another in that same thing evacuating when you oh and when you're dying yeah it says about 20 to 50 percent of people do this so not every Everyone does, but your muscles relax.

[2251] Uh -huh.

[2252] And then that can lead to some seeping.

[2253] Is that your biggest fear that you'll evacuate upon death and people will, the last thing they'll see of you is your duty everywhere?

[2254] Yeah.

[2255] I don't want that.

[2256] Rough thought.

[2257] Yeah.

[2258] I thought about that with the seizures as well.

[2259] Since I peed, I have some fear around it.

[2260] Like, what if I pooped?

[2261] Yeah.

[2262] Or like, what if I farted?

[2263] Like, what if I farted?

[2264] a bunch during my seizure and they just are so nice they're not telling me they would never tell me because it was already horrifying enough you know i already looked just so embarrassing yeah they're like yeah you're foaming and then you were farting a lot yeah they just want to add that you're farting a ton but it could have been happening well we're like why was the window open when that paramax came you're like oh no reason what do you mean no we thought you wanted some fresh air i'm scared of that oh i guess it's a good thing most of my seizures happened by myself.

[2265] Most of your seizures, the two seizures you know you've had.

[2266] We don't know.

[2267] We don't know.

[2268] Does it ever cross your mind to get off of Kepra?

[2269] I've thought about it because I've been on it for a few years now, but I don't know why I would.

[2270] Right, because you have no sense that you're even on it.

[2271] What's the point?

[2272] And I think it would, it would probably just give me tons of anxiety to be off of it.

[2273] Yeah.

[2274] So there's not a reason.

[2275] You know, speaking of that, I've had a little uptick in anxiety lately.

[2276] Mm -hmm.

[2277] My physical symptoms, not like I feel anxious, but when I have experience anxiety, I have all these physical symptoms and I'm having some, not to the degree that I used to.

[2278] Right.

[2279] Now because I'm aware of it.

[2280] Are you thinking of it as like a clue to some existential thoughts you have or directional things?

[2281] Yeah, I mean, I think based on the last two extreme.

[2282] times I've had it.

[2283] I do think in retrospect, when I look at it, I felt, I guess I felt uncertain about the future or unsafe or something.

[2284] I don't think I feel uncertain about the future now, which is why it's like curious as to why it's sprouting.

[2285] But I do feel, and I think it's a combination of a lot of things, a lot of things happening in the world, things happening personally, where I feel like nothing's permanent.

[2286] And that's already something I know intellectually.

[2287] I mean, nothing's permanent, but also, like, at any moment, like I've been having a lot of thoughts lately, fear thoughts around people dying, like my family.

[2288] And I used to have that a lot, and I haven't in a long time.

[2289] But I'm having this sense that people could go at any moment.

[2290] Like, I have no control over that.

[2291] And I don't.

[2292] Was it before after you watched the documentary about Parts Unknown?

[2293] Oh, Anthony Bourdain.

[2294] Did this all start with watching the Bourdain thing?

[2295] Hmm.

[2296] I don't know.

[2297] I can't, I don't think timing -wise, I'm not sure, but suicide is triggering for me. Mm -hmm.

[2298] So maybe, maybe it did.

[2299] Maybe that is a factor.

[2300] Okay.

[2301] Three Pete's.

[2302] I forgot to say Ashton, but we were talking about our three -piece.

[2303] Oh, right, right, right.

[2304] That's important to say.

[2305] It is.

[2306] Oh, wait, one more thing about the poop deaths.

[2307] Yeah.

[2308] Because I wanted to find out when it happens.

[2309] The poop, how quickly after death.

[2310] Uh -huh.

[2311] One of these things said...

[2312] You know, I got to tell you this, this is relevant to your race to 35.

[2313] Mm -hmm.

[2314] Strong possibility you'll go duty on the delivery table.

[2315] Now, if you have a baby and you're pushing a lot of times some duty or excrement will accompany the delivery of the child.

[2316] I've heard of this.

[2317] Okay.

[2318] All right.

[2319] I already know about that.

[2320] I'm scared.

[2321] I'll probably have a C -section.

[2322] Okay.

[2323] So you don't go duty?

[2324] Okay.

[2325] Okay.

[2326] According to one article, 15 to 25 minutes after death is when, like, the sphincter relaxes completely.

[2327] Oh, okay, so it holds on as long as it can.

[2328] I think it has to release before Rigamortis sets in.

[2329] Yeah, maybe it dilates then Rigamortis, then it's permanently stuck open.

[2330] I guess if you ever find a corpse and you're going to carry it, just be cognizant of that of gravity.

[2331] Like, keep the feet higher than the head.

[2332] I guess that's what the point of all this was.

[2333] It's just for anyone who's going to find a corpse.

[2334] It's informational.

[2335] Yeah.

[2336] Well, I think that's all.

[2337] I love you.

[2338] Okay, I love you.

[2339] Bye.

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