Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard XX
[0] I'm David Farrier, in New Zealand are accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.
[1] Something I still marvel at here is the scale of America.
[2] For example, back in New Zealand, we've got about 5 million people, compared with America's 33 million people.
[3] And most of those 33 million Americans live in one of the 142 million homes that have been built here.
[4] Back in New Zealand, there are just under 2 million houses.
[5] Ah yes, the humble house, the home, the place where we eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, clip our toenails, raise families, watch TV, and listen to podcasts.
[6] Home is where the heart is, and my heart is anywhere you are.
[7] Home is where the heart is, sang Elvis.
[8] But of course, you also find other things in the American home besides vital internal organs.
[9] You can find bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens, lounges, patios, an assortment of rooms that we spend a great deal of our lives in.
[10] But I've discovered that there are places in the American home that you do not find in the New Zealand home.
[11] Two of them specifically.
[12] One exists above and the other below.
[13] One gets very hot, the other gets very cold.
[14] And it's to these mysterious places that flightless bird turns to today.
[15] So find that flashlight and get ready to clamber either up or down because this is the Attacks and Basements episode.
[16] Flightless, flightless bird touchdown in America.
[17] I'm a flightless bird touchdown in America.
[18] We have a special guest.
[19] Hi, Dick.
[20] Did it cross?
[21] your mind because well first of all I just want to applaud how good you are at this truly again every time I hear you're writing regardless boy how do I say this you can come at me okay I've developed a thick skin doing this podcast well no it's nothing it's a compliment we're at addicts and basements like that and then I wonder did across your mind to split those up so you could have two different up I did think that Because we're really potentially running out of differences, no?
[22] No, we're not.
[23] Believe me, no. I have a Google sheet of topics, and it is screwing up my experience of America, because I'm just out trying to enjoy my life.
[24] And just constantly, it's like, oh, God, this is a topic.
[25] And suddenly I'm, like, fumbling for recording gear and trying to capture moments.
[26] It's this, once you unlock your view of the world like this, it just gets out of control.
[27] It's like when you're in the groundings or you see being.
[28] You're in sketch classes, and then the world just becomes a potential sketch.
[29] That's how you're moving through the world.
[30] Yeah, I was watching a movie.
[31] I was enjoying a comedy, and suddenly I'm watching these Americans with red cups at a frat party.
[32] And I'm like, oh, God, red cups.
[33] And then I'm like, oh, no, that's a thing.
[34] And then it's like, this is a fraternity story.
[35] Beer pong, what is it?
[36] So it unlocks everything.
[37] You've never played beer pong?
[38] Never.
[39] Let's play.
[40] Never drunk from a red cup.
[41] I don't believe that claim that you can't possibly make it to fly.
[42] It's true.
[43] Back to the groundlings thing.
[44] Yeah, I remember this is how bad it got a waitress handed Bree and I a pen to sign the bill.
[45] And it was a Valtrex pen that the doctor had given, presumably her, which is a medication for herpes.
[46] Amazing.
[47] And immediately, you're just like, okay, great, there we go.
[48] After the race.
[49] We've got a sketch.
[50] Then what's the next thing that comes out?
[51] What's the next pen?
[52] Yeah, it's so perfect.
[53] Unveils some other secret about the person.
[54] I can see your concern.
[55] about mixing the two topics together.
[56] We've just done a second DMV episode.
[57] We're going to do in part three as well.
[58] But this one, it just really felt like it has to be together.
[59] Addicts and basements up and down, you know?
[60] I think you made the right call.
[61] It did occur to me that you could have potentially tried to milk it for two episodes.
[62] Yeah, absolutely.
[63] Do you know what's funny?
[64] I can't really hear, oh, I can't really hear.
[65] Monica's being aggressively rocked by Dax.
[66] I'm on a roller coaster.
[67] I might have a seizure.
[68] I can't wait to see it's my dream for you to have a seizure arm around you oh my god it's a fantasy yeah I just want to see what happens he doesn't he's not gonna care he's just gonna he's gonna rubber neck no I'll give you like off the road wherever you are you know yeah right and throw an egg at my head like you did a rosabel yeah he's mean to people sometimes well he's a bit of a rascal like wabiwob that's why they two are so well they're cut from the same cloth yeah imagine those two in the hotel room when they're together you don't want to know Do we think cut from the same cloth is racist?
[69] I haven't even thought about the term.
[70] I learned something that was racist.
[71] Oh, boy.
[72] Or not racist, but a word that is based in slavery, which I had never heard.
[73] And I actually found it interesting.
[74] There are so many words that we don't know.
[75] I'm going to read it.
[76] Okay, this one is cakewalk.
[77] Right.
[78] Cakewalk.
[79] That's a cakewalk.
[80] That's what you'd say.
[81] It's easy, right?
[82] Uh -huh.
[83] Like, at fairs and stuff, you can do the cakewalk and win a cake?
[84] No. You don't know that?
[85] No. What are you talking about?
[86] Oh, my God.
[87] Write it down.
[88] Topic.
[89] Oh, I'm writing it down.
[90] Cakewalk.
[91] Although you're not allowed to call that.
[92] No, we're not.
[93] Well, you are.
[94] We'll talk about the origin.
[95] But no, at fairs and stuff, you can do the cake walk where you go in a circle and there's numbers on the ground.
[96] And when the music stops or something like that, if you're on number 13, you get the 13th cake.
[97] Do you know what I mean?
[98] I witnessed one on Saturday.
[99] Oh my God.
[100] See, it's just on sit it.
[101] Are you in an Amish community?
[102] It was at a fundraiser for Calvin's preschool.
[103] Yeah, so it's like musical chairs, but with cake.
[104] You replace the chairs with cake.
[105] Yes, and you so there people will bring cake.
[106] It's really fun, but okay.
[107] I'm going to go to the Iowa State Fair this year.
[108] Maybe they'll have for the show, obviously, not for fun for the show.
[109] They'll have a cakewalk.
[110] Probably.
[111] Great.
[112] Okay, but cakewalk, a contest in which black people would perform a stylized walk in pairs, typically judged by a plantation owner, the winner would receive some type of cake.
[113] Holy should.
[114] But do you know musical chairs is anti -Semitic?
[115] Well, it might be.
[116] This is real.
[117] You're lying.
[118] I don't like this.
[119] I know.
[120] I know.
[121] I trust you.
[122] I have, out of all of you, I trust you the most acts.
[123] What?
[124] And so that's really, really put off.
[125] I quickly, I quickly expose myself as mine.
[126] The world is that about?
[127] Is the tallest, whitest man in the room?
[128] I have been accused to have.
[129] It's because I went to the bus, call.
[130] Yeah.
[131] I am going to poke a hole because David acts so liberal all the time.
[132] And he aligns with that.
[133] And you do hold patriarchal ideals.
[134] Oh, no, I openly admit that.
[135] It annoys Roosevelt.
[136] Sometimes Roosevelt will tell me a fact.
[137] Do you have a girlfriend that I've missed out on?
[138] No, no, Rosal was one of my best friends.
[139] Roosevelt is objectively one of the smartest people I know, and she'll tell me a fact about something.
[140] And sometimes I won't believe it, but if a man comes along and says the same thing, I'll clock my brain doing it, it will go, oh, yeah, that sounds correct.
[141] Sure, sure, sure.
[142] And when you did prices right, you thought it was a PA, and it was really, like, the producer, because it was a woman.
[143] Yeah.
[144] So I've got problems.
[145] Are you going to work on it?
[146] All the time.
[147] Okay.
[148] If I see a female now, I don't assume their assistant.
[149] I think maybe they could be the executive producer.
[150] Could be the president.
[151] Now, where were we?
[152] Oh, attics and basements.
[153] And I would like to point out that I just realized this earlier, we are in an attic.
[154] What a place to be.
[155] And I guess my whole premise of this episode is that this space we're in right now would never exist in New Zealand.
[156] To have this place above a main room that is utilized, there's a shower in here, there's a toilet, Rob sitting over there, sitting on chairs.
[157] This is crazy.
[158] But with David, I've been to New Zealand and I've seen certainly many of the roofs have the pitch to accommodate an attic.
[159] It's just empty space up there?
[160] It's empty and it's dusty and I address this in the documentary.
[161] Should we get into this?
[162] Can we talk about basements really quick?
[163] Yeah.
[164] In Michigan, nearly every house has a basement.
[165] Right.
[166] Yeah.
[167] Same with Georgia.
[168] But I feel bad for you, David, that you don't know the pleasures of a basement.
[169] Because a basement is the area that your parents didn't really give a fuck about.
[170] You could get away with murder down there.
[171] That's where you partied.
[172] You could build for.
[173] So what were you up to down there?
[174] What would you get up to down in your Michigan basement?
[175] Oh, throwing shit.
[176] Bow and Arrow.
[177] My brother and I put four mattresses out and we had a big time wrestling ring in our basement on Tara.
[178] And then boys would come over and they'd have to wrestle in this ring.
[179] My mother wouldn't have allowed that in the living room or anywhere else.
[180] No, it's like free space where you can just be a child and just go crazy.
[181] And in a climate where it's often hostile to go outside, it's really nice to have this area where you're allowed to really get wild.
[182] Yeah, finger blasts.
[183] I lost my virginity in my basement of my Milford house.
[184] Oh, wow, yeah.
[185] A lot of virginities have been lost in basements.
[186] It's a great place to lose your virginity.
[187] Maybe losing more virginities in a basement or an attic?
[188] Oh, basement.
[189] Addict's very exposed.
[190] You're up high if there's windows in there.
[191] Basement, you've got some opportunity to be hidden.
[192] So sort of filthiness is happening in basements.
[193] It's like physically a bit filthy and also...
[194] Well, it's also where grown -up sons live when they still live with their parents.
[195] Yes, and grown -up daughters, too.
[196] Mainly sons, too, because women too are...
[197] Are really stupid.