Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Morgan Neville (documentary filmmaker)

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

Morgan Neville (The Saint of Second Chances, Roadrunner, Won’t You Be My Neighbor) is a filmmaker, producer, and writer. Morgan joins the Armchair Expert to discuss why people love documentaries, why he had so many books in his childhood home, and how Los Angeles's history differs from other American cities. Morgan and Dax talk about what it means to be a good singer, what Mr. Rogers did for the perception of masculinity, and why some people are addicted to work. Morgan explains how he selects his film topics, how the production of documentaries is different than scripted, and what he has learned about his own life while making his films. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on experts. I'm Dan Neville and I'm joined by Monica Morgan. I loved this. This was really, really fun. You didn't, did you? What? Did you go watch the doc?

Not yet. Oh, you better buy time for the fact check. The fact check, I will, I will. Okay, don't fuck this up. Oh my gosh. You're tired a lot and you're watching a lot of TV, so get this in the mix. Morgan Neville is our guest today.

He's an Academy Award winning documentarian or a documentary filmmaker. Take your pick. Best of the best. I mean, wow. Yeah. It's pretty bonkers how many of his docs I had seen and not really tied it all together. You may recall if you listened to the Letterman episode, he was the director of the Letterman doc about you too that Letterman was referring to as Morgan Freeman. Yes. But alas,

it's not Morgan Freeman. It's Morgan Neville. Incredible movies. Roadrunner, that beautiful Anthony Bourdain doc. 20 Feet from Stardom, that's the Academy Award winner.

Won't You Be My Neighbor? Beautiful, beautiful doc. Best of Enemies, Bono and the Edge, as we just discussed. And a new documentary out right now on Netflix called The Saint of Second Chances that he co-directed with Jeff Malberg. Now, this is the most twisty-turny, fun, feel-good doc I've seen in years.

It's so fun and positive. I liked it so much. I hope everyone checks it out. Please enjoy Morgan Neville. Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to have strong opinions about sand. Please enjoy Morgan Neville. you a favor. Open a Questrade first home savings account and help that future come faster. The FHSA is a tax-free account where all your investment gains are yours to keep and put towards your first home. With Questrade, you can open an FHSA online. No bank appointment needed. It's easy and only

takes a few minutes. The sooner you get started, the more time your down payment has to grow. Open an account today at questrade.com. We're picking out candles together right now. You and Morgan? Yes, and Rob. Great. Where have you been looking? I mentioned that H24 makes film genre themed candles. Oh, fun. And they sent me a documentary candle. Yes.

So now we're browsing all the genres of candle. What does the documentary... Desperation is what I say. Steamy, herbal, tart, nostalgic, yet vivid. Ooh, that smells nice. You are addressing a strong food smell in here? Yeah. Yeah.

It smells like I just walked into, like, a Thai restaurant in New York City. Yeah, it smells strong, so I've lit this candle, and that's what started this whole thing. Morgan, welcome. Thank you. You know, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I wouldn't have been able to just know your name

off the top of my head, but when I was looking at the amount of movies you've made that I've loved, it's pretty outstanding. You are very prolific. But I've been an independent filmmaker for 30 years, which means you just hustle. This summer is 30 years when I started my first film. Yes, 93. And for the first 15 years, nobody cared. Documentaries were not cool in the least. They were like the spinach of filmmaking. And then people started to like documentaries. How do you explain that? I mean, for me, it feels like you had such limited distribution options.

Basically, it was PBS or maybe HBO. Right. And that was about it. And then theatrically, that's dicey as well, right? There were a few rare films like Roger Me or Fahrenheit 9-11, you know, the Michael Moore things or maybe Man on Wire. There were kind of a few moments where people thought, oh, docs might do something. And then they just kind of receded. But there was home video and there were ways to kind of stitch together money to make films.

And I ended up making a lot of music films because I could get music films funded. Different ways, because at least, you know know there's some kind of an audience. Sometimes it'd be labels. Sometimes it would be broadcasters. You know, I did a bunch of American Masters and things. Hank Williams and Muddy Waters and stuff like that that I was into. And I was just a music geek. And I figured out, you know, if I was the music guy, then I could at least make music films.

And I did that for a long time. This has nothing to do with anything. But you just said Hank Williams. Yeah. Have you seen, there's an Instagram account. I'm sure there's many. And one's called like, I ruined it, I think. And with AI, this gentleman, he has a bazillion songs,

but the one I saw was Hank Williams singing NWA. Oh my God. And there is no possible way you wouldn't know it was Hank Williams singing all the lyrics to NWA. It's so mind scrambling. I'm going to go watch that. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible. I just learned of this two weeks ago in Michigan. And then I watched it. I was like, how on earth is this happening? And it's just seamless. Any curiosity you've ever had, like, God, I wonder if Rolling Stones would have done a James Taylor song. You could fucking do it. I know. You don't like it. I like it a little,

but I mainly don't like it. Okay. A little bit, but overall, you don't like it i like it a little but i mainly don't like it okay a little bit overall you don't like overarchingly because i don't want us to be able to say like a morgan neville movie about this water bottle and then it's perfect like it's not fair well i guess if you own the ip and you can just churn out like Like if Morgan did have the ability to type in my style movie on potato chips and then it came out exactly how he'd make it. It's funny because when I did the Hank Williams documentary, there are only

nine minutes of footage of Hank Williams that exist in the world. Video or film? Film of him. So I made a hundred minute film having nine minutes of footage. So did you do a lot of illustrations? I had a hundred minute film. That's tough. Having nine minutes of footage. So did you do a lot of illustrations? Well, I had a lot of photos, but then I was shooting all over Alabama and Tennessee. And then I actually got Hank three, his grandson to kind of hang out in a trailer and play music.

And I shot all this stuff with him. So he kind of stands in for his grandfather. Did you reach out to Hank Jr? I did, but he didn't pick up the phone. Yeah, he's a wild guy. Bocephus, he's mercurial. Yes. Of the nine minutes that existed,

was it all just one or did you have multiple, like was it all at Grand Ole Opry or something? No, he was on a TV show, the Kate Smith Show, and there were like him doing two songs there. And then there were a couple of snippets of home movies of different things, him and the Louisiana Hayride and him playing at like a state fair or something. He was insanely young, right? What'd he die at? 28 or something? 29. Yeah. What a legend at 29. I mean, it's incredible what he did, but the thing everybody forgets is when he died, everybody was shitting on him at the time.

Basically, he had just been fired by the Grand Ole Opry. He had just gotten divorced. Nobody really wanted to be around him. And the moment he died, everybody said, oh, Hank was going to come back next week. No, we were getting married again. Suddenly in death, everybody embraced him. Well, and hence the name of one of your films. They'll Love Me When I'm Dead. They'll Love Me When I'm Dead. Orson Welles. Yeah. Which is true. It's a good career move. It is. It is. It's a great way to rehab your public image. That's what Gore Vidal said about Truman Capote. When he heard he had died, he said, good career move.

Oh, my God. That's great. Okay, so that was another great movie of yours. Best of Enemies. Gore Vidal and William Buckley were like on opposite sides of the political spectrum. And they would have these many debates. Yeah, so in 1968, ABC, who was like the distant network at the time that had no money, couldn't afford to do gavel-to-gavel coverage. So they get these two guys who hate each other, political opposites, and put them on television every night of the convention to argue with each other. And it becomes such a phenomena that they start doing it again and again

and everybody imitates it. And now that's how we have the debates? That's now basically cable news. You know, people just arguing with each other. But this was the first time. But their level was incredibly high. Wow. Yeah, it'd be like if Adam Grant was fighting with,

I don't know who the right-wing equivalent is, but like top intellectual. Yeah, but like really premier intellects of the time. It's a crazy story. I loved making that film, but I used to work for Gore Vidal. You did? Yeah, my first job out of college. In what capacity?

I was his fact checker. No way. His Monica? Yeah, we have a fact check on this show after each episode. Oh, really? Yes. Monica does that. Yeah, but I'm not very good.

With decreasing. Well, it's hard to do. There's so much out there. I have to say being Gorvital's fact checker was maybe the worst job I've ever had. Because he spotted so many facts? Not only did he have facts at his fingertips, which were amazing. This is before the internet. I mean, he would remember passages from memory and he'd maybe miss a word or two. So my job was to call him in Ravello, Italy on the

phone and say, Gore, actually the word is this, you know, and then I'd hold the phone away from my ear as he screamed. He probably didn't love being corrected, even though he hired you to do that. If you know anything about Gore Vidal, he did not like to be corrected. How did you get that job? How random? I went to work at the Nation magazine, and he started writing for the Nation, and they assigned me to Gore. And they kind of said, this is about as difficult as fact-checking is going to get. Oh, wow. They haven't tried to fact-check Dax. Well, that's why.

I'm very Gore Vidal in that way, that I spout a lot of facts. Far lower level of accuracy, I'm sure, than Gore. Let's start in L.A. It's always of accuracy, I'm sure, than gore. Let's start in L.A. It's always weird to me when someone is from L.A. Yeah, my mom was born here. Is she first generation Angeleno? Yeah, my grandparents were born in the Bay Area. Okay.

Yeah, but California, going back. Wow. My mom was born in Glendale. And what did she do? She helped my dad run an antiquarian bookstore. What does antiquarian mean? Used books, but like fancy used books. Like signed and manuscripts and vintage.

This is Monica's new obsession. She's obsessed with getting a Harry Potter first edition. I'm trying to get some first editions of lots of books, not just Harry, but yeah. Our house was shelved, every room, floor to ceiling, except the bathrooms. Mom wouldn't let my dad shelve the bathrooms. And then our vacations were basically going to places that had bookstores.

And sometimes we'd be in a tiny town and my dad would go into a store. He'd say, oh, I think we're going to be here for four hours. Because he'd be combing through everything. Because suddenly he's like, oh, I found something.

This is my dream life. To be married to that person or be rummaging through? To be like on this ride on all vacations, like going into a little bookstore. It was actually kind of amazing. And my dad became friends with lots of writers, and he started a little press where he would publish books.

When he opened his bookstore, the opening day, Charles Bukowski came and did a reading at my dad's bookstore. Okay. Do you know how obsessed I am with this? He stayed at our house. What? Yes. Oh, my God. Wow, you have no idea what you just stumbled on.

I'm going to try to not talk. Just know that he did most of his writing three blocks that way. I know. Which is crazy. And then even crazier, we have an investment duplex for like 10 years. It's next door to his childhood home that every single story from his childhood is written about. Just all by accident. And he's always been my favorite.

That's amazing. I would imagine this bookstore is in some of his writing somehow. As soon as you said he started a small thing, I was like, oh, Black Sparrow Press. It makes me think of Bukowski. Black Sparrow Press was based in Santa Barbara. John Martin, who ran Black Sparrow, was in Santa Barbara, where we moved when I was a kid, and we lived there for a number of years. Oh, really? And so John Martin was a friend of ours, and my dad became friends with Chuck, as they called him, Bukowski.

Oh! John Martin was a friend of ours and my dad became friends with Chuck, as they called him, Bukowski. And the first time my dad really hung out with him, he was doing like a poetry reading or something in a coffee shop. And somehow they ended up on a bender. My parents and Bukowski. Right. Now really quick, was your dad a pro or was he out of his depths? He was totally out of his depths.

Okay. My dad was good. He was minor league. Okay. But dad was good. He was minor league. Okay, okay. But he wasn't Bukowski. No, who is? Who is? Not since Gary Busey maybe is the only person we had match him. So I was a kid.

They came back to our house and kept drinking. We had a pool table and they were shooting pool. Sounds like who's afraid of Virginia Woolf. Totally. Bukowski is like ready to pass out. So my mom puts him into a guest bed. And apparently Bukowski was so used to getting rolled by prostitutes or whoever hobos that like on autopilot, he would take his keys in his wallet and hide them. Oh.

So he then wakes up at like 6 a.m. and doesn't know where he is. And so he goes and he can't find anything. So he goes wandering through our house and he wanders into my parents' bedroom. Oh my gosh. And says, my name is Charles Bukowski. If you can just give me my keys and my wallet, I will leave you.

Oh my God, he lost the whole night. Lost the whole thread. My mom gets up and goes, no, Chuck, it's fine. She puts him back to bed. And then at breakfast, suddenly Bukowski's there with his wife beater t-shirt with stains all over it, sitting there. And I'm like, who is this guy? Like mom, dad, who's the weird guy at the breakfast table? And that was my introduction to Bukowski. Wow. Oh my God. What a story. Why

haven't we made this doc? I know, I know. Bukowski. Do you know how many people would cooperate in that doc? Like Sean Penn's obsessed with him. I'll just typewriter. The list goes on. I know. I mean, there have been a couple of great ones. Taylor Hackford made one in the 70s. I don't know if you've ever seen it. I've seen a couple. It's always a bummer because there's a lot of terrible footage of him that exists.

Yeah. He was rough with women and it's on film. It's gnarly. I hate it. Yep. His voice doesn't match what I want it to be from reading him. Yeah, exactly. His voice is so not what you want it to be from reading him. Yeah, exactly. His voice is so not what you're expecting.

The actual tone of it? I'm going to be doing an impersonation of Mickey Rourke, who did a great impersonation of him in Barfly. You can close your eyes if you want. Oh, your wife's cunt smells like carpet cleaner. That was a line from Barfly. I remember that. You remember that? That's a very memorable line.

It's not that I don't like people. I just seem to feel better when they're not around. I tried to put him in my first documentary, which was this Mondo LA history documentary called Shotgun Freeway, Drives Through Lost LA. He was sick at the time and he ended up dying while we were making the film. Oh, really? Yeah. So this is all post making Barfly in Hollywood. Yeah, so this is, you know, 93. And he loved driving in LA. That was one of his obsessions, right? Yeah. That whole documentary was me trying to understand LA history.

I mean, I was a kid from LA who went back east to college and I would talk about LA history. You went to Penn, yeah? I went to Penn, but people would laugh at me when I would say things like LA history. They're like, oh, that's an oxymoron. No, like that does not exist or LA culture. So I had a serious chip on my shoulder. Sure, naturally. So I've made three documentaries about LA history.

I'm always like, you don't think there's history in LA? Let me show you. Yeah. There was a teacher I fell in love with at UCLA who taught LA geography at a few different LA geography classes. And I found it to be insanely fascinating. It's a crazy fascinating history for a city. I love it. My whole theory on LA history is it just doesn't look like normal history. It's not

that it's not history, but most urban histories are like a couple hundred years based around a city hall and power. In all the cities, the 18th, 19th, 20th century city halls are right next to each other. And it's this power brokers and Tammany Hall and all these things. LA is like a really wide, shallow pool. And so the amount of water is there. It's just really thin and really wide. So the kind of history you're going to have in San Pedro versus Van Nuys versus East LA, they're totally different experiences of cities. And they all kind of exist in parallel with each

other, but they don't really talk to each other very much. His reigning theory was like, LA is a town defined by booms and busts more than any other city in America. It's had so many waves of booms and busts from oil to motion picture, you know, mass agriculture, all these different huge booms and busts that are pretty fascinating. It's amazing if you really look at it, how fast L.A. grew. Up until World War II, it wasn't even the biggest city in California. San Francisco was. But it doubled in population every decade for six decades in a row. Uh-huh.

Which is crazy. Okay. Did you happen to listen to the Letterman episode since we were promoting your movie? I did. In fact, I think right after you taped it, I got a call from Letterman's manager saying, hey, we just did this podcast and Dave kind of butchered your name. I hope you don't mind. I was like, mind?

I love it. It became a very funny runner. Well, not butchered. It turned you into Morgan Freeman. I became Morgan Freeman, okay? But I enjoyed that so much. The Bono and the Edge. Oh, it was a blast to make.

It must have been, you're with Letterman in Ireland, and then Glenn Hansard's there, and then you're at a bar and they're all playing. That was magical. It was really one of those moments you're like, I can't believe I'm in this room. I can't believe this is happening in front of me. It must have felt like you teleported into another life.

I've had that experience a lot. I'm sure. I've been really, really fortunate. But that was one of those things. It came up that Dave wants to do something with Bono and Edge, and they don't know what it is, but they want to play some music, and they're revisiting their catalog,

and what's it going to be? And what I often do when I start a film is the first thing I did is I just said, hey, let me just sit down with Dave and talk talk so i sat down in a room like this recorded it we talked for two hours and i talked about everything from like what music do you like you know i found out that dave used to play drums he still has drums in place which i've never seen him do i know dags you forgot to talk to him about I know. But also he's like a huge reggae fan, huge Marley fan. Oh. And he and Bono, of course, connected over all that because of Island Records and all that other stuff.

And that he used to go jogging to U2. But then he said, well, I've never been to Ireland. I was like, wait, you've never been to Ireland? Yeah. I was like, well, that's what this is. We've got to go to Ireland and just make a documentary about it. As opposed to like his normal show. I was like, let's just approach it differently.

Where we're kind of going on this journey with you. Okay, so one of my questions, I don't think I asked him. We talked about this moment in the film. But I have three favorite moments of that movie. In that bar. Because there's a look on his face that's just never been seen. It's him with like insane wonder. And humbled by what he's seen. And it's so outside of

his own specialty to just be vibrantly alive out loud, unselfconsciously. It was great. I mean, the thing I told him was you're used to being the host, you're the guest. Right. And it's like a different thing for him. This kind of event in the bar was put on for him. And I think he understood that. He was like, this is for me that this is happening. And then the other one is also a moment of great humbling, which is when the edge starts playing streets have no name.

Yeah. That guitar thing. I think it overwhelmed everyone there, right? I'm sure you clearly, Dave, that was incredible. For people who haven't seen it. Well, he just, yeah, he starts playing the most probably iconic riff of the catalog and he's listening to it live and being played in front of him by the edge. And I think he's like, I can't believe I get to witness this. Yeah. I've done a lot of films about really talented people and I feel people have

superpowers sometimes. Yes. That was one of those magic moments where you're like, oh, this person has this power. They seem normal. And then they do this thing. You're like, oh, my God, that's not a mortal thing. That's not something we can all do. Third thing, and actually this is my very favorite. How much were you intending on getting of he and Glenn Hansard interacting? And then how much did you end up getting?

Did that alter from like what you thought you were going to do and what ended up happening? Well, yeah, you don't know what's going to happen. Everything's a flyer. I'm a huge Glenn Hansard fan. I'd seen him and I'd seen the frames. I'd seen Swell Season. Dave was like dimly aware. And then immediately. And then they had this like little love affair. Yes. It was incredible. And to me, it's so obvious why, which is they're polar opposites. One guy is like all intellect and control. And the other guy is just like walking around as a six foot three heart with limbs in his fucking eyes. And he was a guest star on Parenthood. So I spent a week with Glenn in a studio just acting and shooting the shit. And yeah, the eyes and just the humanity. eyes and just the humanity. Sweetest guy, just humbled and wears his emotions on his sleeve in a way that is not Dave at all. Yes, opposite of Dave. And being so attracted to it and drawn to it. And the fact that he just ended up taking a train ride with him forever and all these different things. I loved that part. It was great. I mean, that was just one of those things that was kind

of magical. And then we get to the train station at the end at the station in Dublin and they have one of those pianos set up, like a public piano that's chained to the thing so people can go sit down and play. Very Irish. Yeah. And Glenn starts playing in the station. The whole station gets quiet. It was just like one of these, like, oh my God, I can't believe this. No, you're right. It is a superpower. It needs to be treated as such. Yeah. I mean, the first time I really clued into it is when I did the film 20 Feet from Stardom about backup singers. I'm embarrassed to say I haven't seen that.

Oh, my God. That won't get any Academy Award for it. Yes. But it's about these people who are basically the best singers on the planet. Yes. They're better than the famous singers because these people have to nail anything, anytime with no preparation and no support. They have to be a piano. They have to be like in tune.

They're magically talented. And I realized I'd be talking to some lady and I'd say, oh, yeah, well, how did that go? And then they would sing something. I'd be like, oh, my God. Yeah, you can do that on demand. So I got to the point where I was constantly being like, hey, how did that go? Because as soon as any of them opened their mouth and started singing, you just got the shivers. Yeah, it's probably one of the very coolest things humans as an animal can do.

Like open their throat and let out emotion and feeling. Did you know when you were making that, like this is going to win an Academy? Like, can you tell the difference when you're in these processes? When you're making a stinker versus an Academy Award? I never make stinkers. You've certainly made a stinker, haven't you? You've made like 50 movies. I've made some that were maybe less successful, but some are cult records and some are mainstream records.

It's fine. That's my Velvet Underground album. I just finished the Mike Nichols book. He made a lot of stinkers. Yeah, he did. You could be a genius and make stinkers. Oh, isn't that great? I loved it. I'm a huge Nichols book. He made a lot of stinkers. Yeah, he did. You can be a genius and make stinkers. Oh, isn't that great? I loved it.

I'm a huge Nichols fan. But when you make a film you don't know, you think you're going to like it, but I swear on films like 25 from Stardom, the number of people that were saying,

oh, you're making a film about backup singers? Really? Okay, good luck with that. That sounds interesting. When I did the Mr. Rogers film, same thing. Really?

What? Mr. Rogers? What are you going to do? Captain Kangaroo next? Like the kind of skepticism. I want to meet whoever said that's pretty Rogers? What are you going to do? Captain Kangaroo next? Like the kind of skepticism. I want to meet whoever said that's pretty funny. I know. What are you going to do?

Captain Kangaroo. Seriously. It's embarrassing for him. It was definitely a hit. It's a very familiar phenomenon. In retrospect, everything is a success, but when you're making it, you don't know. Yeah. All right.

Let's have two provocative dances. One is, okay, they're the best singers on the planet. Yeah. Oh, I can't wait for this. Can you? I bet you can't wait for this. I already know what it is. This obviously hits close to home because my wife and I sometimes debate because she is classically trained and she

knows what a good singer is and what good singing is. I don't. For the most part, musical theater singers are perfect. They hit the notes perfectly. But my point is like, yeah, but Bob Dylan blows them away. What are we saying good singer is? Adele? I don't know. Maybe someone's better than Adele. I don't think so. But you have to have the fingerprint. You have to have the personality. Those are really relevant. To me, it's not notes.

No, it's not just notes. Really, what that film becomes an exploration of is how there was a world of backup singing in the 50s and like the Ray Conniff singers and the Hollywood angelic, the perfect kind of soft choral sound. And these were all white ladies who sight read perfectly. And part of what 20 Feet tells is there was this revolution in the 60s, the studios in LA and New York that started taking singers out of the churches in South Central or New Jersey. That's where Sissy Houston and Dion Warwick and here in LA, Mary Clayton and Darlene Love, and these people who are like amazing gospel church singers. As rock and roll started happening,

they're like, why don't we get these guys? And Darlene, who's one of the stars of our film, legend of legends of singers, said these white ladies, we called them the readers because they could read sheet music, and we couldn't, but we pretend that we could. But when we got in there and started singing, they liked what we were doing so much

that they became what the backup singers became. And they sang on pretty much every 60s hit on, everything from Sam Cooke to Frank Sinatra. And there is soul. It does not feel like it's from a computer or AI. And like these people do have really great individual voices. And a lot of times what they had to do,

you know, part of the art of backup singing is sublimating the character of your voice into the blend and trying to become one with other voices and creating something, which is part of what the gospel tradition is too. So I think really the lesson of that film is less talent or even quality of voice and more all the other things that show business is about, which is about perseverance, luck, timing.

Packaging. Yeah. Because a lot of these women were so talented. They had stabs at solo careers. They put out records. They just didn't connect for all kinds of different reasons. It's not that they couldn't have been another great star. 100%.

Okay. Now here's the other one I want to dance about. I loved Won't You Be My Neighbor. Thanks. I wish I had seen it more recently, but I remember thinking then he was gay. Yeah, we talk about it. I haven't seen it in a long time. Yeah, no.

So Francois, Officer Clemens, the black police officer in the neighborhood who was gay and openly gay. And it's part of one of the stories of the film said that he had talked to Fred about it and that Fred was definitely not gay. And I have no position and zero evidence. Who knows? In another era, maybe he would have a different sexuality, but in the life he lived. Yeah, and I guess you could say like,

why do I even care to have that part examined? But I also think it is a very relevant part of the story in the same way that some people in the 60s and 70s were like, well, I can't live the life I designed to live. So what version am I going to live? And what one can maybe help me achieve this goal of denying this whole part of my life? And I felt like that's part of that story. But he would have had to have acknowledged that in order to be able to get there. And he didn't. I want to be ultra clear that what I'm about to say is I'm not talking about pedophile priests, but I am saying that a lot of gay men found themselves in clergy just

because they were going to have a wonderful excuse for why they didn't have a partner. I'm not talking about the pedophiles that went there to pray on children, but I'm talking about the people that had to hide from their sexuality. And we've interviewed several now openly gay men who had been considering the clergy because it's a good place to hide. Yeah. And, I mean, Fred got married early on and became a pastor. And part of what I think we asked in the film is Fred certainly presented a different version of masculinity that we hadn't really seen. And certainly a very different version of parenting and fatherhood that we had never seen before.

And kind of trying to model that. Which is beautiful. Because it's deeply empathetic and understanding. And I think a lot of people just said, he can't be this guy. He can't be a straight dad. There's got to be something dark and tortured about him. Do you think that's maybe what I'm succumbing to? I think part of it is just like he can't be that way.

And I'm not saying that he maybe didn't have struggles in some very personal way, but there was zero evidence of that. I talked to everybody, you know, and I read his letters. We did a lot of work on it. And so it's not up for me to judge. And at the end of the day, I don't think it changes anything

about what he put out there in the world. Well, no, it doesn't change anything of his work. It's beautiful. And it was my childhood, so many people that saw it. And I dreamt of a man that nice in my life. My stepdads weren't like him. My male teachers weren't like him. I think that's part of why it's hard for you, though, because you didn't know men like that. I knew one man like that. Who was straight. Mr. Wood. Right. Yeah, yeah. He was very much like that. I knew one man like that. Who were straight. Mr. Wood. Right. Yeah, yeah. He was very much like Mr. Rogers. And then as I became an adult and I reconnected with him, he's like,

you know, after I was your fifth grade teacher, I came out, I was the first openly gay principal and then superintendent. Maybe that's it. It's more than that. It's not that I think a straight man can't be soft and gentle and kind and patient. He certainly set lots of people's gaydar off, no doubt. Which is why you then- I would be more interested in story-wise because it would make me even that much more sympathetic to my hero that at the time he was alive, he had to live that way. If that was part of it, that would be a compelling and sad part of his story. And this is a man we love,

I love. So that's why I would want to know. But that kind of undercurrent of sadness, I don't think it was there. It wasn't there. I just don't think it was there. Okay. Me, you would have found it. I feel like. Am I the first person to say this? People have been saying that forever. We talk in the film about all these theories that he always wore sweaters because his arms were tattooed all the way down. That he'd been a sniper, an assassin in the film about all these theories that he always wore sweaters because his arms were tattooed all the way down. That he'd been a sniper, an assassin in the war, and he was great at shooting guns. Like, Fred never touched a gun in his life. Right.

But he can't just be this guy. And that probably is a big part of my baggage, which is like— What's the catch? What's the catch? Yeah. Why is someone so nice and kind? It's funny because, particularly spending a lot of time at Pittsburgh shooting the film, everybody in Pittsburgh had Fred Rogers stories. Did they?

Day one, first shoot, I get in a cab. I say, take me somewhere. He said, what are you doing? I'm saying, I'm making a documentary about Fred Rogers. And he turns around and looks at me and says, don't fuck this up. Oh, that's great. It's like, oh, okay. Like people in Pittsburgh are very protective over Fred. Yeah.

But the stories I kept getting again and again and again and again were somebody saying, oh, I was in an elevator with him and I said, oh, hi, good to meet you. And he said, are you doing okay? And I said, well, I just had a rough morning. And then he sat with me for an hour and talked story after story after story of him doing these things, like way above and beyond what normal people would do. And that's part of what Fred really was, is he was a minister and he was ministering to people through television,

through children, but in real life, whenever he could minister to people, he took that opportunity. Maybe this just speaks to my ultra low opinion of heterosexual men. I mean, it's hard. You were exposed to a lot of nefarious men, so you go in feeling like that. Yeah. I know one. You know a Mr. Rogers type? Not exactly, but I have a friend who everyone for so long, and still a lot of people do think he's gay, and he's not.

I know what you're talking about, and yes. And I would say, if I were saying what I'm saying about Mr. Rogers about a current person, I would think it's really shitty of me because I would have to believe your friend. I have to take someone at their word. In the 60s, I don't know if I got to take someone at their word. The stakes are so high to admit that. It's a different time. Yeah, so it's like it is a different context for me to be suspicious.

For sure. I mean, it's interesting that one of the stories we tell in the film, it's Francois Clemens, who is a gay actor who played this role of the officer and he's the one who shared the little kiddie pool and they put their feet in together so they could have their feet in the same water. But he tells the story that when he

came out and started going to gay bars and word was getting out and Fred said, you can't do that because we have sponsors. It's a kid's show and they had a fight about it. And Fred later admitted that it was a mistake, that he never should have done that. Many of their best friends were in the gay community. And Fred became a big advocate for gay causes later. At his funeral, we have that

scene where the Westboro Baptist Church are protesting his funeral in part because he had been so supportive of gay causes. Oh, we interviewed Megan Phelps. Oh, yeah. I don't know if you know her story. Yeah, I do. It's incredible. It is incredible. The fact that she found her way out of that. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. Sasha hated

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Price and participation may vary. Extras, taxes and delivery additional. Expires April 8th. Order up for Damien. Hey, how did your doctor's appointment go by the way? Did you ask about Rebelsis? Actually, I'm seeing my doctor later today. Did you say Rebelsis?

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Take your time. I loved Roadrunner. Thank you. What I really appreciated is it was such a celebration of what a beautiful guy he was. Give more context. Sorry. It's called Roadrunner, a film about Anthony Bourdain. Oh, my God.

You watched it, right? I called you and I'm like, you got to watch this immediately. That was you? I didn't even realize. That really sat with me for so long. Yeah. Well, try making that for two years. I can't even realize. That really sat with me for so long. Yeah. Well, try making that for two years.

I can't imagine. Kind of the emotional journey you go on making something like that is so hard. Yeah. And you know, we've interviewed a lot of his peers, different chefs who've known him, and it's just unanimous. They all loved him. I had read Kitchen Confidential when it first came out. Yeah, me too. Here's my lens I can't get out of, which is I'm an addict.

So I read Kitchen Confidential. I find out he's a junkie. You know, he says he's a junkie. And then I watch that show sometimes and I'm like, this dude can drink casually? That's unexpected. Yeah, he drinks a little more than casually sometimes too. Yeah. I was just a little bit like, oh, that's interesting.

We're at least told you're probably never going to be able to do that. Yeah. Like a gentleman after you've been a junkie. He never did rehab. Right. And he never really did a program or go to meetings. No. I mean, his way of dealing with it is, you know, he was an addict.

So he was like, well, what am I going to be addicted to now? Exactly. Oh, work. The fact that he was, as a chef at Kitchen Confidential, he was the most strict, punctual person of all time. And he said, look, if I'm going to be at the restaurant 12 hours a day, I'm going to be on time no matter what. That's going to keep me from getting too far off the rails because I always have to be there. His first addiction is that. Yeah.

And his show became that kind of addiction. Jiu-jitsu became that kind of addiction. I mean, he just kept piling on other substitutes of, oh, this is going to be a new thing I'm going to go crazy deep into that's going to kind of keep my life in some kind of an order. So what I loved about watching is I wrongly assumed when I heard that news, I don't know how often this happens, but occasionally this happens and there's like a collective sadness about it. He was one of them where I think everyone felt sad. 100%. And I remember like, how do you explain it? Because he's very successful and he seems to be having a blast on these shows. And of course I was like, it's gotta be the addiction thing.

It's gotta be related to the fact that he was dancing with the devil, but just in a different way. And then we interviewed somebody who knew him very well. And he said he fell in love with this young girl that he changed so dramatically. And that's really, and I think at the time of hearing that, I thought, this sounds a little blamey. I wasn't inclined to believe that. And then I watched the doc, and by the way, don't blame her. I blame him. Yeah. He made all those choices. Yeah, exactly. And he lost himself in that. As so many older men who date really young women and get lost in that whole thing, to me, I'm like, oh, that's so powerful. It's as powerful as heroin or more.

To see him lose confidence, that footage you have of him, like, trying to celebrate her at the dinner, and it's like the 80th time he's said the same thing, and you can see on her face she's sick of it, and you can see the desperation in his. It's as if you're watching someone who is very fucked up from a drug. That relationship was another one of his hyperfixations. But it's dangerous to put that onto a person. I mean, not only are you never going to have a healthy relationship out of that kind of an imbalance, but in a situation like that, when he was so kind of untethered at that point,

because he'd kind of given a domestic life a shot. Yeah. You know, he tried to kind of be the dad with the white picket fence and just couldn't do it. That was the saddest part of the whole thing. It really is. Of like the attempt and he couldn't live like that healthily. No. And in his contract, I mean, I talked to all the people that work with him and he worked so hard. The number of days he was on the road a year were 265 days a year or something crazy. He's in war zones for some of those days. Yeah, yeah. In late seasons, he was going to Libya and other places,

like not tourist friendly places. Yeah, he's with Jose Andres sometimes on the top of buildings, like bombs are going off. He could have done less work. Like in his contract, they said, you can do half as many shows and still make a lot of money and still be fine. And he always wanted that clause in his contract, but he never did it. He never worked less because that addiction number one, which is if I'm being productive

and I have this schedule, it's going to keep me moving forward. But there's a certain point when you're running away from something. I'll also add, it's going to earn me the reward of doing what I really want to do, which is the other tricky thing. I think that works perfectly hand in hand, work addiction with other addictions, because you tell yourself you've earned it and really all you really want to do is earn it. The incredible Britney Spears documentary, to find out they wanted her to do a show every night as part of this residency, and the agreement was they would double her Adderall prescription. Oh, my God. It's like, yeah, I get that.

I'll do twice as many shows. Just give me twice as many drugs that I want. I mean, the other thing I think a lot about with Tony is he was such a deeply curious person who was, I guess, skeptical of everything. He got a tattoo when he was 60, two years before he died, that said in ancient Greece, I'm certain of nothing. And that kind of sounds cool in a way of like question everything. And I get all that. But by the time you're 60, there are certain things you shouldn't question. The love of your child, the people who care about you. It's time to trust a little bit. You have to trust. And you have to be like, okay, I will have faith that that is a real thing. Those are the things that give you root and keep you

from being as unrooted as Tony became at the end. I think in a little way, he got lost in this kind of philosophical idea of what really matters and where the real things in my life. Right. Oh, I loved that one, man. That was a heartbreaker. It reminded me of Her, the Spike Jonze movie, where I felt lovesick for like five days afterwards. Like I had fallen in love and gotten my heart broken. This one was with me for a long, long time.

I remember telling Monica like, oh my God, you gotta watch this immediately. How do you pick what you're gonna do? It's a mixture. The best answer is when an idea comes up, which could be me stumbling on something, just saying, oh, I have to do this. When I don't have to talk myself into it, I just have to trust my gut because it has to sustain me for a couple of years. There's this kind of snowball effect. If I find it getting more interesting and me getting deeper into it,

that's the good trend. Many times there've been something that's like, that's interesting. And I dig into it and it just doesn't get momentum. Nothing quite starts clicking, but the best films are ones where you're like, oh, this is just getting better and better and deeper and surprising you in ways. Because really when you're making a documentary, it's about asking questions

and trying to figure out something you don't know the answer to. You know, you're not writing the end to this. So you don't have control, which is the part that I love, but it's the scary part because you're like jumping off a cliff every time and hoping you're going to catch an updraft and not crash when you're making a dock. Well, listen, I don't know you well enough to say this, but I find it interesting the subject matters you're attracted to.

Yeah. Because they seem opposite of you a little bit. It depends. I mean, it's funny. After I did the Bourdain film, the next film, I needed to kind of recover from that experience. Yeah, I bet.

So I did a Steve Martin film, which is coming out next year. Oh, fun. Oh, my God. What's it called? It's called Steve! Exclamation point. Oh.

I saw one that was coming and it looked like it was a picture of Andy Kaufman. Oh, I helped produce an Andy Kaufman film. Oh, that's why. What's that one called? It's called Thank You Very Much. Both Laka and Andy used to say it all the time. Catchphrase. But Steve, I was like, oh, I get to do comedy. Banjo playing. And Steve's a complex, interesting person too. Not all light in any way. And he participated? Oh yeah. I went deep down the rabbit hole with him, which is incredible. But that was my antidote to the previous films.

Palate cleanser. And people always think when you make documentaries, you're making films about other people's stories. But of course, when you're making films, you're also making films about your own story. Yeah. You know, 100%. Well, the questions you're asking are very revealing of you and your interest. Yeah. And what I say to people, like I said to Steve when I started the film, this process is going to be therapy for you,

but it's going to be therapy for me too. Yeah. And we have to share in that vulnerability to get to a place where we're making something true and honest and revealing, because the more honest you get, the more you can relate to a person. That's the thing that I think about a lot.

Mr. Rogers or 20 Feet from Stardom, those films are really about very common ideas of things we're all dealing with in our own lives. I mean, a film like Won't You Be My Neighbor is full of questions. I think there are like six scenes in the film that end on questions, and the whole film ends on this question

and this moment of silence of contemplating who the people are in your life. It's really that mirror of like inviting an audience, like I'm invited as a filmmaker to ask myself all these questions as I'm making a film. They don't have to be your top five. That's too much pressure.

But will you off the top of your head, what are five of your favorite documentaries? I want to see if there's any overlap here. What, of other people's documentaries? Yes. I watch anywhere from 50 to 80 docs a year. Oh, God. Because the thing about a documentary

is even a bad documentary, you're going to learn something. Absolutely. You can't say that about a bad scripted film. Also, I love 60 Minutes. I love Frontline. I love any real information. Totally.

Insatiable. When We Were Kings. Oh, yes. The Muhammad Ali one? Yeah, it was about the rumble in the jungle. Yes, with Foreman. But there was the music festival going on and James Brown was there.

I remember watching that film when I was making my first documentary. Oh boy. And just being like, someday if I could make a film like that. That film just had everything that I wanted. And then Ali, it's virtually that film. He's one of the most charismatic characters of all time. And there's this whole story, the fight gets delayed.

So they're all stuck there for weeks. They just keep filming. So Ali is out running. so ali is out running running chanting villages and people are chanting it's crazy they captured as much of that as it is that could have been put together so much later there are a whole bunch of early films that made me think about wanting to make documentaries f for fake the orson welles film oh i haven't seen oh my god what's it called f for fake orson made it okay it's about an art forger and then it's about somebody who wrote a book about the art forger who himself turned out to be a forger oh wow and then it's about orson making a film about the guy and orson from war the world's on saying i myself am a forger. Oh my God. And it becomes this celebration of forgery.

Celebration of forgery. Oh my God. Oh, I love that. That's cool. And so, They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, my Orson Doc is like me trying to pay back the experience of what Effort Fake meant to me. I love that, Doc. What about... We're just gonna list all our favorites. Well, there's two I

gotta get your opinion on. Going Back to Lots of One's Hearts and Minds and Sherman's March, those films meant a lot to me because they showed me that documentary was something that could be done. But also other master films like Fog of War is like a perfect documentary too. McNamara? Yeah, just absolutely amazing.

And I just saw Errol's new John Le Carre film at Telluride, which is coming out on Apple next month. I think it's the best thing he's made since Fog of War. Wow, how exciting. It's like the perfect meeting of filmmaker and subject. So John Le Carre,

who never really gave interviews. I don't even know who that is. The spy, thriller, mystery writer, the most famous one who wrote The Spy Who Came From the Cold and umpteen different adaptations of everything from Taylor of Panama, The Most Wanted Man,

The Little Drummer Girl, Tinker Tailor Her Spy, you know, on and on. So Errol making a movie about him. Who is kind of the greatest spy author of all time. He himself had been a spy. John McRae had worked in the British Secret Service before he became a crime writer. How do you feel about American Movie? I love American Movie. Okay.

Oh, it's great. I've seen that movie more than any other movie. I mean, there aren't that many rollicking, funny documentaries. Exactly. We just watched something that was so reminiscent. Oh, we watched Telemarketers. Did you watch Telemarketers? I haven't seen it yet. I want to see it. It'll remind you of American movie quite a bit. There's a character in it that's very Mike Schenck. What about Hearts of Darkness? Fantastic. Maybe better than Apocalypse Now. I would not say that. But, I mean, Apocalypse Now is, come on.

It's incredible, but if I only had gotten to see one in my life, I think I'd prefer to have seen Hearts of Darkness. I mean, I would make the argument that Burden of Dreams, the documentary that Les Blank made about the making of Fitzcarraldo, is a better film than Fitzcarraldo. And I like Fitzcarraldo a lot. I maybe even love Fitzcarraldo, but the documentary about it, Burden of Dreams, go watch it. It is amazing. Rob, will you write that down? You need to give us a list of what we must 10 months. Well, that's what I'm defining out right

now. Have you ever saw Fitzcarraldo? I haven't seen that. So, you know, Klaus Kinski plays this explorer and they have to move a ship over a mountain in the Amazon. Wait, this isn't My Best Fiend? Herzog made a documentary about his relationship with Kinski called My Best Fiend. Yes.

But one made on the set of Fitzcarraldo was Les Blank, the filmmaker, made this film about the making of Fitzcarraldo where they actually moved a ship over a mountain and people died making the film. Yeah, and they wanted to kill Klaus Kinski. The natives there offered to kill him. And also the cameraman broke his entire face off when they were going down the Amazon on that boat. Yeah, all these horrible things happen. And Herzog is completely obsessed. He's insane too.

It's the great thing about Herzog, and like My Best Fiend has this too, in the beginning he's telling you how crazy Klaus Kinski is, and about halfway into the movie you're like, I think Herzog's just as crazy as Klaus Kinski. Oh beginning, he's telling you how crazy Kloskinski is. And about halfway into the movie, you're like, I think Herzog's just as crazy as Kloskinski. Oh, they were made for each other. Totally made for each other. That's why the title is so great.

My Best Fiend. Have you ever felt in danger during any of these? I can't say really, just because I know a lot of my documentary peers who really do that. I don't do that like they do that. So I cannot claim anything like the kind of risk. You're not making a free solo.

You're not on the side of a mountaintop. No. But not even that. So we have a show with David Farrier. Yeah, we were just talking about it. Yes, tickled. Yeah, we love tickled. We love David.

And he puts himself in danger emotionally because all of his subjects are bad narcissists who could, who knows? They all sue him. Well, they're all suing him, yeah. Yeah, they all sue him. They could come after him at any point. And he's addicted to that type of personality. And we're about to go, him and I, in search of another similar type. And I'm very scared. Yeah, I mean, I've thought about this a lot. I would have a hard time making a film about somebody I truly despised or didn't respect. Not that it couldn't be a great film, but for me to give up that much of my life to something that I feel that way about is just not something that I want to do. And it's certainly not the opposite. Like I'm not into hagiography either because

those opportunities have come up. Do you want to make a film about this? Yeah. Like, I'm not into hagiography either. Because those opportunities have come up. Do you want to make a film about this? Yeah, well, there's a lot of ways to motivate yourself. And you want to work through loving and being passionate about a story. And David is in ways like a sheriff. He wants to expose things. He wants to expose people. Those are, I think in his head, the most complicated types of people.

And so he wants to understand a very complicated type of person. And those are interesting. The things that I keep chasing in my projects again and again, which took me 20 years to realize it, are creative process. Thinking about how people engage in the work of creativity is like something I come back to again and again, it never gets boring to me. And the other thing is how does culture connect us in a way? Because culture is how we define ourselves, define other people. It's to me kind of the great force in our society that we don't pay that much attention to. We talk about politics and we talk about religion, we talk about all these things, but culture is really this soft force that shapes so much of how we see other people and see ourselves.

All shooting wars start as culture wars. It's the data by which we use to establish in-group, out-group, which is the motivation and justification for all the biggest atrocities of all time. Roger Ebert called movies empathy machines, which I think is great. But documentaries are the ultimate empathy machines, which I think is great. But documentaries are the ultimate empathy machine. That's literally what we're doing, is we're trying to give you an understanding into other people and let you understand how they think and live. I hesitate to bring this

one up because it's so crushing, and I was crushed by it before I even had kids. But as far as a doc that I couldn't believe real-time the things were happening as they were making it was Dear Zachary. Oh, God. That one is...

Whoa. I never saw it, actually. You didn't see it? No, I didn't see it. I urge you to watch it. Okay. It's someone who's made many, many documentaries, and they set out to do one thing,

and then things just start revealing themselves. And the path they end up on, it's almost unbelievable that this could have all happened while shooting the doc, but it is fucking dark. Another one we love is Three Identical Strangers. We love that one. We talked about that one. I mean, that's a great story.

I hope the listeners aren't driving their car right now. I hope they're at their desk and they can write down all these. And this is a good two months worth of viewing. We've just given up. Okay. Let's talk about The Saint of Second Chances. I also loved them. Watched The Sound with Mark Ronson so much. I loved the sampling episode. That was fun. Did you ever see Shangri-La, this show I did with Rick Rubin?

So I saw the title when I was researching it today, and I feel like I've seen it. It was a show? Or part miniseries with Rick Rubin. I don't know that I did. I think I would remember. Because I know Rick was on the show. Yes, yes. And I got to go there once with the Ava brothers. They were recording there, so I went. It's great.

I mean, we spent like a year and a half hanging out at Shanker's Park. That's not a bad place to report to work. No, it's gorgeous. It's gorgeous. Cross the street from the ocean. We'd all sit there and kind of wait for stuff to happen. You're almost like a nature documentarian at that point. Totally.

And whether or not it's the real nature or the nature in the studio when suddenly something happens. Right. You're watching The Zebra for days and days and days and days. And then all of a sudden a lion appears. Oh, my God. The patience required. What if the lion never appears? I'd be so stressed out.

Sometimes they don't. We see when the lion appears. But yes, if you're in a studio, the Averbrothers one, which was really good. Yeah, it's great. It's incredible when they do that song. Yes, no hard feelings. But they had probably shot so much that wasn't no hard feelings. I mean, that's part of the gig.

It's the stuff you don't see. So when they see a film, I'm like, God, everybody was so great in your film or this was so great. That's because you didn't see the 20 people who didn't make the film. You didn't see the 180 hours that didn't make the film. You didn't see the 180 hours that didn't make the film. To sit down with two years of footage. Is that the darkest part of the process? It's my favorite part of the process. It's your favorite. Yeah. So documentaries, you make them backwards from how you make scripted films. Scripted films, you write a script, you shoot a movie, you edit. In documentary, you shoot a movie,

you write a script while you're editing. So you're writing it after the fact. Yes. And it's shaping when you're writing it after the fact. Yes. And it's shaping when you're shooting it and you're getting ideas. But that's really where the storytelling happens is in the edit bay. Because it's not just reducing what you have, but it's trying to shape and find story in the randomness of all this footage. Have you ever given up mid-movie? Not mid. I've given up early.

Okay. One project I wanted to do because I was always obsessed with him is Raymond Chandler. Who's Raymond Chandler? Raymond Chandler, the crime writer. Of course, The Big Sleep. I'm glad it was that. If it was another person that was in a different—that's the same genre. I don't know anything about crime novels. And he was kind of one of the great of the big three, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain.

Hearing all three of those things for the first time right now. But they wrote—think of every famous film noir. All those movies were based on books by those three guys. Okay. You know, all the Humphrey Bogart and Philip Marlowe, the detective. HUD, was that written by anyone? No.

Okay. No. But I tried to make a film and I interviewed a bunch of people, but he had been gone for so long and there was so little there and it felt like I couldn't bring it to life. Right.

That's got to be very hard to admit that to yourself and walk away. Yeah, but it's also a huge relief. And that's part of it is you're planting seeds. I mean, not to transition to the saint of second chances. Please do. But 15 years ago, I was shooting a documentary in Tennessee and I was listening to the radio and it was on NPR. And there was this guy telling stories about how important fun was to the philosophy of how he wanted to run his baseball team.

And he was just a great storyteller. And I got to wherever I was going and I pulled over and I was like, who is this guy? And I said, oh, that was Mike Veck. He's the owner of a minor league baseball team. And his dad was Bill Veck in the Baseball Hall of fame. I wrote down his name. I went to his website. I sent him an email and I was like, hey, I find you interesting. Can I buy you a coffee? And so six months later, we both happened to be in New York and we had a coffee and we kind of hit it off and we started talking. He was a big music fan. So I'd send him my documentaries and we kind of stayed in touch. And three years ago, he's like, I think I really

want to try and make a documentary out of my story now. Oh, wow. And that's how it happened. You don't know. 15 years ago, it was just like, I'm interested in this. I'm just going to put this message in a bottle out there in the world and it may come back or it may not come back. And I encourage young filmmakers to do this all the time. Put those ideas out there in the world and sometimes they come back to you. Okay. So The Saint of Second Chances, which is out on Netflix right now. You just mentioned it, but we would have to start with Bill Vack, who's a super crazy colorful. And what's neat about it is I'm not a baseball fan. I mean, I like going to games, but I don't know the history of baseball.

I've never followed it that much. But what I love about it is he's the end of an era, the dad. It's like the last person that could have owned a Major League Baseball team that wasn't a billionaire. Basically, yeah. Right out of the gates, I like it. We were interviewing Kate Mara. One grandfather started the Pittsburgh Steelers, one the Jets or the Giants. And I'm like, what did they do?

Were they tycoons of industry? And she's like, no, they were bookies. And I'm like, oh, wow. As a bookie, you could have started an NFL franchise. It's incredible. It's an era that I really am nostalgic for when these colorful characters could have owned the White Sox. He owned different teams at different times. He was kind of like the P.T. Barnum of baseball.

And people loved him. And he would hang out in the bars. and the people loved him in the streets. And he had all these friends, and some of them were rich. And every once in a while, a bunch of his rich friends would give him money to go buy a baseball team. Wow. So he owned the Indians for a while. He owned the White Sox in the early 60s, and then had to sell them, and then bought them back in the mid-70s. And that's kind of where we pick up the story.

Did he ever make money at this? Not much. He was a huge drinker, Monica. Slamming beers all day long, every day. There was a bar inside of the White Sox. Comiskey Park, the White Sox Stadium. There was a bar called the Bard's Room that was his office. Oh, wow.

And he just hung in there. He took all of his meetings and he's in there. And his son at the time, who this is about, Mike, is running and fetching beers for all these people and politicians are there. But it's the end of that Wild West part of, not just baseball, kind of all sports. Like you see a film like Winning Time

is kind of telling a version of the same thing. Yeah, yes. That Jerry Buss was one of the last of these great characters. Sports today is such big business. Corporate, yeah. And we forget that there was a time where it was really people making it up. And it was so much more a live event. There wasn't ESPN. There wasn't these huge contracts on cable for airing these things.

So it's like whatever you generated at that arena of yours is really most of your money. So yeah, this guy invented all this weird stuff that was still around, right? Tons of stuff. I mean, there's stuff like the exploding scoreboard, but he's the one who, for better or worse, got the DH established, who put players' names on their jerseys for the first time, who did all kinds of things, but also did things like put a shower in the outfield. For people to, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. Fireworks at a home run. Yeah. They figured out, like, the home run happens, there's just two things.

It's like you hear the crack, then you see it go over the thing, then it kind of dissipates really quick. How can we extend it so that they had a scoreboard that lit up? He did a game where they said, okay, the bleachers are going to be the manager for the game. Everybody in the bleachers had cards, and they said, okay, are we going to, you know, bunt or hit? You know, and then everybody would hold up a sign and say,

okay, I guess we're going to bunt. It was a total show, and for a while, when he owned the Indians, you know, if a would hold up a sign and say, okay, I guess we're going to bunt. It was a total show. And for a while when he owned the Indians, you know, if a good hitting team was coming to town, he'd move the outfield wall 10 feet back. He was just like, he was a total character. And most famously, he put in a dwarf to bat, Eddie Goodell. Do you know this just came up on a fact check of ours? Like a month ago, remember we were talking about the tallest baseball players and I had said Randy Johnson. Then there was someone that was 6'10

and then Rob was like, oh my God, there was someone that was 3'10 or something. We were like, what? And only had one up at bat. His jersey, his number was one quarter. Oh my gosh. And it was because of him. Oh, weird. Yes. When I saw that, I was like, oh my God, we just learned this. Yeah, there's animals out

on the field. There's all kinds of crazy shit happening. So at the height of this, his son, Mike, is now getting involved. He's been a runner. He's been working hard trying to show dad. And he starts getting more and more responsibility. So he starts coming up with different theme nights. And he has a night that is really successful. It's a disco celebration night. And it's a big turnout. They sell out.

And the dad says he had taught him always thinking opposite. So if like one thing works, maybe try the opposite thing. So he goes, wow, this disco night worked out really well. We should do an end of disco night or hating disco demolition day. What's it ended up being called led by this psychopathic, you know, this story. Well, this is in the Bee Gees documentary. It's a kind of legendary debacle in baseball history. So, Steve Dahl, local shock jock in Chicago, who has like

young rock and roll fans, who's kind of an anti-disco guy. Is there a doc on that guy? No, but there should be. I mean, he is. Capital C character. The clip you show of him is he's being interviewed somewhere. He kind of looks a little bit like John Belushi, maybe. Or maybe even more Chris Farley.

Sure. But he's like, I drink every day. I'm going to take lots of Valiums. This is an interview he's talking about. He loves Valiums. Yeah. Plural. And he says, if you don't make me famous by 1983, I'm going to kill myself.

Yes, this was on national TV. Okay, so. Okay, so that guy hates disco, the DJ. And he's really popular. So they have this bring a disco album, you get in for 99 cents, and it's a double header, and in the middle, we'll blow up some records. Okay. That was the promotion, and they're trying to get 15,000, 20,000 people there for a game. So not only do 55,000 people show up and fill the stadium, there are 30,000 more people outside the stadium trying to get in.

They start climbing the walls with grappling hooks trying to get into the stadium. And it shuts down the entire city of Chicago. What? Everyone hates disco that much? The traffic has stopped for 17 miles, I think was the number. After the first game of the doubleheader, Steve Dahl comes out, they blow up some records, and then Steve Dahl leaves. The cops, meanwhile, don't believe that these people are going to show up.

So they send like 20 cops for the entire stadium. And the audience looks at this and they're like, let's take the field. By the way, these are very young people that are not into baseball. They're basically white punks from South Chicago. Right, who don't like disco. And the documentary is great in pointing this out, showing a lot of different articles that were written in the aftermath of it, which is it was pretty intrinsically homophobic and racist.

What those people really clear, or at least many editorials were written to suggest that why they hated disco so much was it was this music that had taken over the radio waves, and that's really motivating these people to get aggro because they went fucking nuts they take the field they set fires it looks like a prison riot i mean it was a legendary debacle they kind of destroy the field so they have to forfeit the second game of the doubleheader and it's like the fourth forfeiture in the history of baseball

like it's a huge deal and basically basically, Mike is kicked out of baseball. What? But that was a good idea he had. It didn't go great. It got people there. It did. It worked. But he didn't, nobody foresaw,

and Mike did not foresee. That it'd be a riot. Really what was gonna happen. It was dangerous. Nobody got killed. Ugly scene. Yeah, yeah. Shockingly.

What our story does, that's kind of the end of the first third of the film. But then Mike gets kicked out of baseball for 10 years. And it had been his life. That's what he wanted. So it kind of leads to his dad having to sell the team and it ruptures the relationship. He becomes a pretty hardcore drunk. Yep.

Has a heart attack and just bottoms out. Gets married, gets divorced. Can't have custody because he's a fucking drunk and can't be around his kid. He gets a call one day to start a minor league team, but not a real minor league team, like a brand new independent league, which isn't affiliated with anything. Not like double A or triple A. No, this is like a high school team in a city that has no minor league baseball, which is St. Paul, Minnesota. Okay. And across town, the twins have just won the world series. Yes. Seven miles away. The last thing they need is a fucking shitty baseball team.

But Mike takes all of his dad's ideas and puts them into effect in this team. The stadium is like a high school stadium that fits like 3,000 people. That's six inches from train tracks. Yeah, the train track goes right off of left field, but it works. And it works not because they're playing great baseball, but because they created this sense of community, which is a thing his dad was always trying to do. Oh my God, I'm going to love this.

So up my alley. Well, the dad is in all these interviews going, it doesn't matter who wins and loses. Baseball's about fun. That's our priority. And I will say, if you love baseball, great, but you don't have to care one lick about baseball to like the documentary.

It's a film really about redemption, but also about family, how we redeem ourselves in the eyes of our parents or our children. One of the sweetest stories in it, there's all these like mini stories in it between he and his son, he and his daughter, but Daryl Strawberry. and his daughter, but Daryl Strawberry, it's really interesting now to look at that story from today's point of view, where we recognize addiction as an illness. You know, Daryl Strawberry was maybe the best baseball player alive, or at least had the capacity to. Had certainly, if not the greatest, one of the greatest natural gifts as a baseball player ever. And he smoked crack and got caught a lot in DUIs.

And he was completely run out of baseball at 38 and was kind of a shell of himself and mike gets an opportunity to bring him to this stupid team in saint paul and initially he's like i don't want this druggie on the team the town will hate it i'm trying to make this pg and his wife's like, get real. You, of all people, who's been a drunk, who fucked everything up, who's gotten a second chance. You're not going to bring Daryl Strawberry? Daryl Strawberry comes. One of the best players in the world to ever play the game is at this silly team. And here's the best part.

He gets there. He's so lost and shell shocked. His whole life has disappeared from him. He lost a $20 million contract. Not one team would take him. He gets to this silly team. And Mike also has a guy on the team with no legs. Wow. Dave Stevens. And Daryl is immediately interested in this guy. And they become friends. And they have so much fun together. And his dream was- Just have one at bat. That his dream was. Just have one at bat. That's all this guy wanted was one at bat.

And he'd been writing letters to Mike and saying, I'm a real athlete. I just want to have one at bat. And so Daryl is in a game where he's already hit three home runs. He's up to bat. And he has the opportunity to hit a fourth home run, which I presume would be record-breaking. And he gives his at bat to Dave. Oh, my God. Like you couldn't script it.

It's like the most incredible. No, if I read it in a script, I'm like, it's too saccharine and bullshit. There's no way fucking this guy would fall in love with this. Why is there a guy with no legs on the team? That makes no sense. I know. Like, none of it would add up.

No. He also had a female player on the team. Isla Borders, the first woman to ever play professional baseball. Wow. Yeah. This is incredible. It's incredible. And then Daryl, in interviews documented,

he says that experience is what taught him to love baseball again. And he fell in love with baseball again. During that season, he was doing so well that the Yankees called, bring him back, and he wins the World Series that year with the Yankees. No. Yeah.

I have chills. That's so awesome. And then there's the most beautiful story about his daughter. You know, he ends up committing in this profound way to his child, which is so beautiful. Oh, I cannot wait. It's a totally unicorn kind of story. It feels so good. It feels impossible.

It's funny because when we were making it, people say, oh, you're going to make it's like a baseball film and you think you Field of Dreams and all these things. And I kept thinking, this is like a fable. I kept talking about Big Fish, that Tim Burton movie. It's kind of like this hard to believe story. It is. It's almost Moneyball-esque. We ended up owning like seven minor league teams.

And they ended up becoming the most successful minor league team in America. Yeah. From like the tiniest of tiny little teams. Oh, that's amazing. And then we did all these recreations in the film with Charlie Day too. Charlie Day. Oh, we love Charlie.

It plays young Mike in it, narrated by- Jeff Daniels. Jeff Daniels, who I love so much, Michigan man. I guess you already knew it because you had already heard him on NPR, heard how gregarious and charismatic he was and had met him in real life. But I mean, when you have a subject like that, heard how gregarious and charismatic he was and had met him in real

life. But I mean, when you have a subject like that, there's very few subjects and docs that can hold a closeup as long as Mike. Yes. It's not shocking to me. He's also a public speaker who takes speaking engagements. He's an incredible storyteller. And that's the thing, even the way we kind of shot it, it's kind of like you're in a bar and a guy comes down and sits next to you and just starts talking your ear off. You're like, I can't believe the stories this guy has. Well, let's be honest, you wouldn't believe it unless

we didn't cut to footage of it all happening. A pig would bring the fucking baseballs out to the pitcher's mound and they need more baseballs. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. soda. It's made with pH balancing minerals and crafted with skin conditioning oils. So whether you're going for a run or just running late, do what life throws your

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It's like barefoot water skiing while dolphins click with glee. Whoa, let me try. Nah, it's like gliding on a gondola through waving waters as a mermaid sings. Nah, it's like Coca-Cola with a refreshing burst of raspberry and spiced flavors. Yeah. Try new Coca-Cola Spiced today. That's one of those things where I knew we had this character who I was compelled by, and I didn't know where it was going to go.

But I'm like, yes, let's see what this is. And because I'm a parent too, and it just started to speak to a lot of things I'm always thinking about. How many kids do you have? Two kids. Boys or girls? Two teenagers, one of each. Teens. Teens.

Getting wild. A whole other kind of terror yeah yeah oh man that's a beautiful story did that one take more or less time than normal we have like three movies worth of stories in this film but yeah it was kind of normal amount of time once we kind of decided to make it and got money to make it year and a half to two years is kind of what it takes usually okay so here's where I get concerned for you. So you cut your teeth in an era where it was impossible to get a doc bought,

seen, distributed. Now there are 6,000 outlets and there's an endless inferno that needs to be filled with fuel, which is now docs. They're changing rapidly. Let's just say it's the golden era for docs. I think that might've been five years ago.

You do? Oh, really? I think in the middle of a strike when there's no scripted content coming. I mean, I talked to a lot of my other filmmaking peers about this. Everybody keeps saying, oh, people must just be dying to buy every doc they can. I've seen zero evidence of that. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. The flood hose got turned on and tons of stuff got made and lots of great stuff and lots of so-so stuff. But as you and I agree, everything's worth watching. Everything's worth watching. But I think in general, there's like a big reset of,

okay, we just don't need as much of everything. But all to say, it's way easier to make docs now. And I would imagine for you, it would be very hard to police yourself and not get out of the old scarcity mindset where it's like, I got to say yes to everything. And if I have an opportunity, now you're in a position where you could really bury yourself and you got to flip your hole. It's been my big project for the last decade. It's like how to embrace the no. Well, I know for myself is like dying to hear yes for 20 years and switching to saying no is way harder than people would think. And you're not sympathetic to it naturally because we all want to be asked to do shit,

but you can kill yourself. Totally. And I basically was making docs for 19 years, kind of scraping funding, spending half my time fundraising, getting films made one at a time. And then when 20 Feet from Stardom happened and I won an Oscar,

and that was kind of the beginning of docs starting to really come into their own yeah and not be a bad word and people would be like oh docs can be good and part of it was lots of people said oh well netflix and places like that we're gonna kill the theatrical documentary and i think once you had a place where people could go and say okay thriller romance documentary and like put it on the same shelf with everything else and people could be like oh oh, yeah. Yeah. That opened it up. A lot of these streamers I don't visit often. I have them.

And I go there and I'm like, I don't know what their scripted shows are. I haven't heard anything. So I just go straight to documentaries and like, what docs do they have? Inevitably, they all have a couple good docs. For sure. And so there's that part of the business, which is good. I think in the early days after 20 Feet, basically I had a couple of films that I was trying to finish. Best of Enemies was one of them. I've been trying to make that for years.

People say, what do you want to do? And I said, will you help me finish this film? So I got to finish that and this other film I did with Yo-Yo Ma. But then I started doing commercials and doing all kinds of other stuff and traveling the world. And it was cool, but I was like, I just can't do this. I actually, particularly in terms of stuff that was international because I had kids too, I was like, I just can't be that far away that much. And in part, because I'm not spending as much time trying to get money to make stuff, I can be more productive.

Right. But I still find myself battling my instinct that's been ingrained in me to want to go, yeah, yeah, I can make that. I can figure out how to make that. It's a traumatic business we all introduce. Especially if it's like Steve Martin, yeah, I can make that. I can figure out how to make that. It's a traumatic business we all introduce. Especially if it's like Steve Martin, yeah, I'll do Anthony Bourdain.

These are awesome subjects. And those are the ones I said yes to. Right, well, true. And there's some great ones that I've said no to. Yeah. That I was like, I can't believe I'm saying no to this. If somebody had come to me 12 years ago with this, I would have killed to make this film.

Yeah. No, I can't. It's hard. Last question. Do you have some fantasy doc that like everything has to be perfect for this to happen? Do you have one that's just been sitting in the back of your mind? There's one film I've been wanting to make forever. I don't know if I'm ever going to get to make it. Shel Silverstein. Oh, that would be amazing. You must. That's the one I dream about. I love everything about him, his story, the complexity of his character, but his writing is just like the most perfect.

Do you know a lot about Shel Silverstein? I know a fair amount about him. You do? Yeah. Obviously, all the books we love, Where the Sidewalk Ends. Yeah. I forget the name. The Giving Tree.

The Giving Tree. But he had a perverted one too in our house. Yes. Did you ever see that one? It was huge. It had like naughty stuff in it. He lived at the Playboy Mansion for a time. Oh, he did.

Oh my God. He worked for Playboy. Hugh Heff was one of his best friends. Oh, wow. Oh my God. You have to. But he also wrote songs for Johnny Cash, A Boy Named Sue.

A Boy Named Sue. Yeah, yeah. He was a singer-songwriter. He lived in Key West and hung out with all the bohemian artists down there too. Like he had this really complex life. Oh man, yeah.

I want to see that bad. Me too. Me too. When can you have that done? Well, I don't know. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able because you have to get permission

to an extent that I need to be able to use his words. Right. You're going to have to have someone on the inside talking to you. And I've talked to his family. Did he have a wife and children? I don words. Right. You're going to have to have someone on the inside talking to you. And I've talked to his family. Did he have a wife and children?

I don't believe so. It's hard to have a wife and kids when you live at the Playboy Mansion. I don't think he did. No. And I think his sister runs the estate and I've talked to his nephew and other people. But my theory on it is Silverstein still makes a lot of money. He's a children's author. Yeah.

They don't necessarily want to remind people of all the other rough edges. That's increasingly the case with everyone. I hope that can happen because that would be so fascinating. That would be a dream. I could see even doing it, maybe all animated. You want to go into that world and live in that world. Bring it back to

AI, which we just can't get off the topic of. You feed those into the AI and then I'm sure it could fucking make them. I hate to say it, but I think it could make whatever you wanted it to. A lot of people playing with animation and that too. It's going to change the animation world completely. Oh, probably most profoundly. So labor intensive.

I've done a lot of different animation things. For the docs. For docs, yeah. I would imagine you're so empowered if you have a camera and a microphone and you know how to get what you want. But when you have to deal with something that you being like, okay, I'll figure it out. But you're kind of willing to surf through the situation and be like, oh, okay, that doesn't look great. And that person's not very good, but this person's interesting. You're listening and adapting. So there's a kind of a powerlessness to it, but animators are used to controlling everything. Well, that's a good point.

So when I'm working animator and they're saying, well, what color wallpaper do you want in this room? And I'm like, I don't get to decide that. I walk into a room and it is what it is. So a lot of times when I work with animators, it's about trying to get them to embrace their own powerlessness. You don't get to draw it exactly like you want. Sometimes it's more trying to create the mistakes. You have to match the imperfection of a doc. A hundred percent. A lot of times what they say is, oh, we'll make it perfect and then we'll mess it up. Right, right. You have a lot of great source music in Second Chance. Yeah, we got to use the replacements. Yes,

the ending song's so fucking good. I've been trying to make a replacements documentary for 15 years. Wow, what a life. I love this. I know. In a bizarre way, you're kind of an AA, which is like you get a very, very inside look at a lot of people's life and their story and their mistakes. And I've learned everything I know about being a dad and a man from listening to other men talk about how they fucked up. I'm curious if you think you've been taught a lot about life through submerging yourself in these other people's stories. Oh my God, so much. The choice that Mike makes in the movie, you're making a movie and you must be thinking, I gotta really make a lot of time for my kids. Totally. It's hard to hear that at work. No, you're making a film about a workaholic and you're like, I want to be a workaholic making a film about the dangers of being a workaholic.

Yes, yes. But it's that part of the decision he makes and me thinking about what's really important at the end of the day is this thing. And I really do work hard at being as rooted in my family and responsibilities as I can. But it's helpful to see some examples. I've learned so much. Won't You Be My Neighbor was a film that I went out to raise money for in the fall of 2016 before the election. And I was going to call the film The Radical Mr. Rogers. And the election happened that day. I was like, I can't call this film The Radical Mr. Rogers. Yeah, radical is not very appealing right

now. No, and I want to make the film for everybody. Yeah. Working on that film through the first year of the Trump administration was like my happy place and a place where I could think about putting something positive out there in the world. Yeah, and celebrating something. And it helped me process a lot of things I was going through. And then when the film came out, I think it helped a ton of people process what they were going through. And that film connected with people in such a way. Like one example was the day of the vote on Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court justice. Lisa Murkowski, the one Republican

senator who did not vote for Brett Kavanaugh, tweeted, I had to go home and watch the Mr. Rogers documentary the day of that vote. No kidding. Yeah. Wow. It was a reminder that there's goodness and like we really needed it at that time. Yeah. It's our responsibility to each other. I mean, neighborhood, what's our neighborhood? Yes. It's our society. It's our obligation we have to each other and the idea that we do good to each other

without trying to expect anything in return. Yeah. Well, Morgan, it's been delightful. When good old Dave Letterman was confusing you with Morgan Freeman, I don't think I thought in that moment, well, I bet I'll be sitting down with the real Morgan at some point. So this has been beautifully full circle.

Well, I'm glad it's full circle. Yes. Thanks for putting out all these awesome docs. Truly. I mean, again, so prolific. It's crazy. So many of them I've loved and listed in my favorite documentaries. So I'm delighted you're a workaholic.

Of course, I want you to have it all under control. Yeah, with an asterisk. But everyone should check out The Saint of Second Chances. It's wonderful. Monica will have seen it by the time we do the fact check. And she'll be raving. I cannot wait. It's all exciting.

It's so nice to meet you. Thanks so much for coming in. Thanks, guys. Next up is the fact check. I don't even care about facts. I just want to get into your pants. Is that a new t-shirt? Us talking about your t-shirt means that you and I like this brand.

Yeah. A box of six arrived. It's so great. I know. Wow. I know. I don't deserve it, but I still love it. Of course.

Yeah. And you know what's great is I think I had like given up on the long sleeve version. I like the long sleeve. Of Velvet by Graham and... Yeah, no, I'm really delighted because I got like three or four long sleeve ones. Wow. That's so exciting.

It'll be nice when all that Coca-Cola vintage sweaters start showing up. Oh my God, you're right. That hasn't come yet, but it was shipped. The stuff you ordered shipped? My Coca-Cola sweatshirt. It's nice to have a hand in that because you didn't know about that.

You taught me that. It's very rare that I would teach you about a fashion thing. It has to be a very lowbrow fashion thing for me to introduce you to it. Or vintage. Yeah. Of your time. But you were too young to have known

that Coca-Cola had a moment. That's what I mean. It was more of your time. Or vintage. Yeah. Of your time. But you were too young to have known that Coca-Cola had a moment. That's what I mean. It was more of your time. My age. The disparity in age. Yeah. So my little buddy, you're fresh from a harvest. Yes. How was the harvest?

Let's start at Friday. Okay. Friday you go get checked out. They're going to do a game day decision whether we're going to go 36 hours or 34. Right. And you were on standby Friday night. I was. To trigger. Even Thursday there was a chance.

I had to go in Thursday also last minute, which that wasn't planned on because they thought maybe I would have to do my trigger shot on Thursday. For people who don't know what the trigger shot does after you've done all these shots for two weeks or whatever, it triggers ovulation. Oh, wow. And so— Like a starter pistol. Mm-hmm. Exactly. And then, like, exactly 34 to 36 hours later, they retrieved them.

Because they're about to drop? Yeah. What? So it's all very specific. Okay, so Thursday there was a chance they were going to have to trigger a day early. Uh-huh. Because they were looking at my blood work, and I guess one of the levels is supposed to sort of double every day.

And it wasn't fully doubled that day. Okay, not a full double? No, like a three-quarter. Okay. I mean a one and three-quarter. Uh-huh, sure. Yeah. 1.75?

Yeah. Five times one month. And that was bad. Right. Because we needed really another day of shots to try to get them bigger. So that was a little bit like, we'll see when we get the blood work.

And basically that was good. They said, it's fine. We'll do another day of shots. Then I went in Friday. I mean, I've had my blood drawn every day except today for the past eight days. I'm out of blood. I'm surprised they didn't just put a pick in you at some point.

They should have. Yeah. They should have. Like, I have all these. Oh, my God. Yeah, it looks like you've been shooting smack. You should really shave the side of your head now. You got the whole look.

I know. They'll get you, like, a late-modeled Volkswagen or BMW to complete the whole thing. Oh, Volkswagen? Is that? Yeah, like, if you had, like, like 89 Jetta, shave sides, track marks. Oh, that's what they drove? Well, yeah, I know that that's right.

That's right. Okay. Yeah, so then Friday, I go in. She's like, okay, we're going to trigger tonight, but I don't know if I want to do 34 hours or 36 or 35 because of my weird body. They want maybe some time for it to like culture. Oh, okay.

Anyway. A lot of words. I know. So they call me, they say, okay, 8 p.m. They're going like 35 hours, I guess. I'm going to split the diff. Yeah. I was about to say S to D, but that sounds like suck the diff. Yeah. Yeah, okay, 8 p.m. They're going like 35 hours, I guess. I'm going to split the diff. Yeah. I was about to say S to D, but that sounds like suck the diff.

Yeah. Yeah, so split the difference. Yeah. Split the diff. As tight as we can get it. You could do S the diff. Ooh. That still sounds bad.

That still sounds sexual, yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So then they said 8 o'clock, and it has to be, you know, right on time. So I, of course, planned dinner. Oh, sure. Big old cooking project? No, no, no, no.

Out. Dinner out. Oh, okay. It's my last meal, so I have to. Okay, it's your last meal. And I really wanted a burrito. Sure. So I planned a dinner.

They're very good for fertility, I've heard, burritos. Yeah, because the beans. And the rice, complete protein. There's no rice. I don't have any rice. Add rice, though, and it'll be a complete protein. They do want me to be eating so much protein right now. Oh, they do?

Yeah. Okay. Okay, anyway. So I planned this dinner, but I planned it early, so early. 5.15. Oh, my God. Plenty of time. There's going to be a bunch of seniors over there.

Early bird. I know, it was early bird. It's plenty of time. So we eat the dinner, and then I decide I want a milkshake. Okay. Because there's still so much time. Right. Jess and I go to Bob's.

Bob's Big Boy. Yeah. Oh, wonderful. They have the best milkshakes. Absolutely. Well, they have malts there. He got a malt. Yeah, yeah.

Should I remind people how I order mine there? Yeah. Okay, this started back when I was in high school. I love the malt from Big Boys, and I just want more and more malt. And every single trip, I'm trying to get them to add more and more and more. We're never getting to the level of malt I want. And I perfected this as my order. And this works.

If you're a malt junkie, this is what you say. You go, if it's not too much trouble, I love a lot of malt. So I would love for you to put a ton of malt in. And when you get to the moment where you're like, uh-oh, I put in too much malt. I've ruined it. Double that. Oh, my God. Right?

Because now it's like you can't get enough malt in there. But that's the only way you can get them to a place where I want the malt. And they say okay to them? They go okay. And then I also love the idea that they're back there and they have this feeling like, I fucked it up. He didn't really mean this much malt. And then go, does he really mean no double that? Wow. What an experience. And then go, does he really mean double that? What an experience.

And then it is enough. Have you ever had it backfire and it's like, oh my god, I think there's too much malt. Listen, there's a couple sentences I stand by. One is, we're going through all my sayings right now. In fact, I just ran this by the guys that were working out in the barn.

I asked them, have you ever in your life been sitting in a room watching TV and someone said, this TV's too big? It's never been said on planet Earth. I've said it. You have? You have? Well, in my little basement area, I had a TV that was too big. For the space? For the space.

Yeah. Aesthetically. Or I was watching a foreign film and the subtitles was getting whiplash from looking down. Okay. I can see that. So it got moved to my garage. Okay. Well, I can't say this anymore.

I used to be able to say this with reckless abandon. Because I've never, ever heard someone complain that the TV was too big. Well, that's your privilege. Well, that could be the reverse of privilege. It means I've only looked at little TVs. But I have a very privileged TV setup. Because I'm picking what size I want in the garage while I'm working on stuff. And so I said, I go to this same song and dance with my man Carlos all the time, who I love Carlos.

We love Carlos. Yeah, he's the greatest. And I've known him for 16 years. He set up my Too Big TV. And I bet he encouraged you not to go that big. Yeah, he was probably like, this is a bad idea. Because he's kind of conservative. Yeah.

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'll go, look, I say, how big can we go here? And then he holds out the tape measure and he goes, you know, this would be 55, this would be 65. And he's pushing for a 55. And I go, Carlos, you know what I'm going to say. Like whatever the range you give me at the top one. Oh, so you went with? 65.

Okay. I thought you would maybe say 80. I did do that in the house and I don't regret it at all. Because he's like, you can probably fit a 75 on this wall. And I said, I want 84. Yeah. And guess what? When you're in there watching TV, it's not too big at all. In's like, you can probably fit a 75 on this wall. And I said, I want 84. And guess what? When you're in there watching TV, it's not too big at all. The one in the living room? Yeah. We sit on the green couch.

And that's an 84 inch TV. But that wall is very wide. It is big, but it doesn't look too big. Stop putting my privilege on blast. It looks great. I think that's the max because then it starts to get excessive on cost. After 84. 84 is the kind.

If you go to 100, it's 3X of what 84 is. Also, 100. Then why don't you just have one of those. Movie projectors. Yeah, movie projectors. So there's an argument to be made for that. You used to have a projector in your old house. And had to have really good blackout blinds.

It wasn't great at watching it in the day. We're so sidetracked. But they do now have this new projecting technology, which is incredible. I've watched some videos on it. And if you can imagine the screen that you're projecting it on, if you were to look at the side of the screen on the profile, what you would see is right angles coming out and then 45-degree angles going down in a diagonal. So it's like got teeth, the whole side, you would see teeth.

And what that allows you to do is put a projector on the floor right in front of the screen that shoots straight up and it catches the screen at the 45 degree angle and none of the light coming from above hits that because there's an angle down on all the pixels so all the top light disappears and you can have a super bright projection with very bright exterior because of this 45 degree angle screen in the floor mounted projector that appeals to me but we're it's too late we've already we've already got everything set up okay yeah but just to keep everyone abreast wait that was only so that was that was really a sidebar because you were talking about mall thank you yes i said no one has ever it already wasn't it was a sidebar and it was a hat on a hat. So what I say about the malt, oh,

it's never come back too malty. That was the point of it. Yet to have one that was too malty. For me, for my taste, with my privilege. Yeah, with your privilege. I'm like, I'm so, so on malt. You are. Take it or leave it. I think maybe because

my mom loved it so much. Oh, your mom loves malt. She loves malts. That's what I'll do. I'll take Nermy out for a malt after the cafeteria run. After we go to Lubby's or Luby's. She would love that. Yeah. Fuck yeah.

I wonder if she would think I get too much malt. I wonder. I do too. Should I call her? I think she has limits. No. No, I haven't called them, so no. Oh, okay.

Okay, anywho. Back to your trigger. Yeah. Oh, so you went to get them all at Bob's. Yeah. But not them all, but at milkshake. Just got them all. I got a chocolate milkshake.

We get it. Great. We're still great on time. We're in Toluca Lake. Yeah. It's a 13-minute max drive home. Uh-huh. It's 7.15 when I get in the car.

Great. Really quick. Triple sidebar. It was Friday night. Mm-hmm. Were all the old cars there? Yes. Yeah.

Car show. Yeah, every Friday night at Bob's. I know. I think of you when that happens, because I know you took Josh. Yeah. Josh. Hutcherson. Hutcherson.

Yeah. When he was just a wee boy. He was. That's an old episode if people want to go listen to that. It exists. Yeah, you could go. Josh Hutcherson. Hutcherson. Yeah. When he was just a wee boy. He was. That's an old episode if people want to go listen to that. It exists. Josh Hutcherson. Yeah, you could go dust it off and give it a sniff. So I get in the car.

I always put the map on, even if I know how to get there. I always do. In this case, it was a really smart idea. I did it because it said 31 minutes. Unexpected traffic. Friday night, LA. la yeah but still from taluka lake it felt weird so i panicked a tiny bit but i was like there's still plenty of time it's fine did it take you by the cemetery and then into griffith park to avoid all the highways no

okay when i was driving i was oh, there's something wrong. The map is wrong. Because I was flying by. There was no traffic. No ish. Oh, it's great. But once I got off the freeway. Under Los Feliz.

It was just stuck. There must have been something happening at the Greek. Mixed with the hayride maybe. Mixed with something else. I don't know. Yeah, hayride maybe, mixed with something else. I don't know. Yeah, hayride. Absolutely crazy.

And time is just like, it is just ticking up and up and up. And we don't need the stress right before our trigger and our retrieval and our harvest. We sure don't. I eventually had to pull over on Rowena. It still took me forever even to get there. And I just parked on the side of the street and walked. Started huffing it. Yeah. I can't imagine this is what they want.

Well, I don't think. I think at that point you might be weighing like the perfect trigger versus like cortisol dump. No, because the ovulate, the timing is so, it's very specific. Couldn't you tell them like, hey, I did it at 8.30, so let's kick the retrieval 30 minutes?

Maybe. Okay, whatever. You'll see what happens. So I get in the house at 7.55. It's still fine. I pee. I have enough time to pee. Now, last time I did this, the trigger shot was pre-mixed.

And so all I had to do was get it out of the fridge, inject it, done, easy. This time, I had to mix it myself. And many of the shots are mixing stuff, so it's not new. Yeah, you're no newbie. It was a little different. The vial was different. So I had to use a big needle to get out the saline, put it in the medication, swirl it around. Swirl, swirl, swirl.

Swirl, swirl, swirl. Recombine. Use the big needle to retrieve it, then put the injection needle on it and inject it. Easy. So I get the saline out. I put it in. I swirl, swirl. And I can't get the medication out. I put it in. I swirl, swirl. And I can't get the medication out.

It's not coming out. Is it because you didn't pump enough air in there? No. It's because. I'm sorry. It's okay. So you just want to know. I'm curious, boy.

Yeah. And now it's an investigation. I know it is. Okay. But you've got the deets. But'm curious, boy. Yeah, I know. And now it's an investigation. I know, it is. Okay, but you know, you've got the deets. But time is a ticking. What time is it right now? 759? It's like eight. It's eight. You're there.

Exactly eight when I'm trying to pull this out. Look, perfect timing. If everything goes as planned. Then I'm panicking.icking like it's a few minutes of me feeling like i'm doing something wrong like what's going on trying all these things then i call the after hours and they're like um no one can pick up i'm gonna i'll have them call you back i was like oh like okay i'm supposed to be doing this at eight. I also email my doctor and my nurse.

And then a few minutes later, they call. And I'm talking to the after hours person. And then my doctor calls. Thank God. Right. She's like, what's going on? I tell her. She's like, hey, let me FaceTime you.

Okay. So she FaceTimed and she was like, yeah, that's the wrong needle. Oh, okay. Do you have a lot of other needles laying around? No. No. She's like, they packed it. You know, it was packed.

Yeah, turnkey. She was like, that's the wrong needle. I don't know how that happened. There's no way you'll be able to get it out. Uh-huh. And I was just like, um. Oh, wow. And so then she's like, can you try, you know, we were trying to like get the top of the thing off, which can't come off.

And then I was just like, maybe you could try to tilt it. So then I was like trying to tilt it to try to get like what I could get. Oh boy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. This was so stressful. Well, and it's not just this event. It's the last six weeks of your life leading up to it.

Yeah, here we're at the finish line. You've done so much. If this doesn't work, the whole thing is moot. I can't, there's nothing to do. Yes, yes. The whole thing is moot. I can't, there's nothing to do. Yes, yes.

So I got, I was supposed to, ideally I would have one milliliters of it out, and I got 0.5. Oh no. And she said, she was like, 0.5 should be enough to trigger. That's not what you want to hear. No, it's not.

Oh my God. There's no, just really quick, there's no like, hey, run and pick up this needle here in the next half hour. By the way, I have tons of needles, as you know, because I shoot TRT. That's what Jess said, too. I'm like, you know. I know. And Laura also was like, I have, yeah. Everyone you know is a junkie, yeah. But also, I wonder what size you have.

All of them. You do? Yeah. One of the medications that I have to do mixing has this big needle that I don't use. I use a Q-cap instead. Okay. And it was the size of that needle. So it's still like bigger than an injection needle, but it wasn't big enough for the vial I had.

Right. the vial I had. Anyway, so I do the 0.5 and just hope that it works. And the next morning I went in to get blood work. Listen, just really quick. I'm not a litigious person. I don't ever send stuff back. If I do send it back, I don't want it taken off the bill. Like I'm not cheap send stuff back. If I do send it back, I don't want it taken off the bill. Like I'm not cheap in that way.

But at this point of hour, you I'd be like, you guys kind of got to pay for a whole nother round of it if this is what happens. Did you have that thought? Oh, immediately. Immediately. And I too, I feel I'm not, I'm owed this or whatever. I don't, my head doesn't go there. But when I was just laying there being like, I really hope this worked. Yeah. I was like, I mean, if it doesn't, I'm definitely suing. Like, I don't know what to say, but like.

Yeah. So that was a hard night's sleep. I bet. I bet you were pretty destroyed from that whole experience. It was rough, but I also did feel like, look, there's nothing I can do. And so in the morning, I went to get blood work, and that would show if it worked. Oh, it does? Uh-huh.

Oh, perfect. So I went and I did that, and I was like, you know what, I'll find out. And then at like 1.30, I found out that it did work. It did. Okay, great. Yes. So you paid no price for wonderful. No. Other than the emotional pain.

Yes, and distress and the running and huffing and beating your car. Well, that part was my fault. But all good. Like everything looked good. Then I went in yesterday. I had to be there at 5.45 very early. Like everything looked good. Then I went in yesterday. I had to be there at 5.45 very early. Oh my goodness. Sunday morning, 5.45 a.m.

Yeah. Oh wow. Also a hard night's sleep. Sure. Went in and they did it all. How long does that take? So the procedure actually was at like seven. Did they give you gas or anything?

It's full anesthesia. Full anesthesia? You're out cold? Mm-hmm. Damn. Mm-hmm. Wow. Yeah.

Okay. So you prep for surgery. Like you can't eat, you can't drink water. Okay. Exactly. The whole thing takes like a half hour. It's not long at all. Anyway, and then I wake up from my anesthesia.

Anesthesia is so weird. It is. It is. It is. You leave earth and existence. And just wake right back up. And then you resume and no time has passed. It's so weird. It is.

It's only the second. The other one was the only other time I've had it. Yeah, I've had it like at least a dozen times. Yeah. And it is so wild. And it's like I also know what to expect now. So it's like when i go there and i'm sitting on the bed and they like about to put the versed in i'm like and then in one

second i'm gonna open my eyes and i'll be talking to people a little confused and that's just what's happening it is so weird to think that that's how michael jackson was sleeping every night of his life is so crazy oh my you know that he was on propofol. Oh my God. That's how he died. He was taking propofol every night. He was getting knocked out cold until the morning. Oh my God.

Yes. He had a fucking resident anesthesiologist in his home. What? Yes. But also, why would you want that? Are you max relaxed or something? Like, what? Well, I would wonder if you go through all the same sleep cycles.

Right, do you go into REM? Do you do this? Does your body make the insulin it's supposed to? Probably not. Like, does your body think it's asleep? I don't know. supposed to like does it probably does your body think it's asleep i don't know but i see the appeal because i feel like such a addict coward telling you this given the story you just told me but last week for whatever like maybe seven days in a row i woke up at 4 a.m every morning to the

point where i said my therapist is this like where we're going and he's like yes i wake up before oh my god that's all getting and becoming an old man means you start waking up oh my god i can't handle this yes so let's just say there was a nothing risky about it we got to say this this is our hypothetical right let's just say there's zero risk and there's zero penalty about what cycles your brain does yeah i can see opting for that because my sleep is so frustrating. Well, that would just be a way then for you to wake up at a time you like. Because it's not like you, you don't get high on it. No, no. And you don't feel rested either.

It's not like I woke up and I was like, oh, I just had a great nap. That's true. You don't feel that. No, you feel groggy and confused. Yeah, you feel kind of gross. I can't believe, like, Michael Jackson started every one of his mornings coming out of Annecy. Oh, my God. When did he start that?

I don't know how long he was doing that, but that's what got him. That's what got him. Wow. He was also addicted to other things, too, which is kind of wild. Like, that's a, he was on quite a cocktail. A decade before he died. No. cocktail. A decade before he died. No. At least a decade before he died.

Oh, my God. Holy shit. It would be cool to be able to say exactly when you're going to sleep. What time do you go to bed? Oh, I go to bed at 9.13 every night. But why? How do you know? Well, because that's when he hits the plunger.

And then by 9.13, 20, I'm out cold. Oh, my God. But also, that is just an example. I mean, it's so sad. But an example of why nobody should have that much power and influence. Because no one should have agreed to that. No one should have a personal assistant anesthesiologist. Apparently, you do feel refreshed, but you don't get your normal sleep cycle and no

REM sleep. Oh my god. That can't be good. So for a decade he never had REM. And so his brain's not processing all the info we got that day and making dreams to deal with it. He must have been a buzz. Lab rats die after five weeks of getting no REM sleep. Oh my god.

That's sad. Unless you had another injection to give you REM right away. No. Okay. No. Anyway. Wow. Okay, so I wait.

I love these sidebars. We're really walking through a field and we're like, oh, a creek. It is. We went over to the creek. Then we saw an apple tree. Oh, on the other side of the field. It takes us 17 hours to get across the field. Yes.

But it's fun. It is. It's all about fun. That's why we do it. Ding, ding, ding. Morgan Neville. Ding, ding, ding. Wait, we're not done with your story.

Ding, ding, ding. Fun. Okay. Okay. So, wake up from the anesthesia, and they got 12 eggs, which is exciting. Like, that's a great number. I don't want to be excited about it. Well, don't. I mean, which is exciting. Like that's a great number. I don't want to be excited about it. Well, don't.

I mean, okay. Yeah. So remember last time I got six eggs. Yes. So for me, where I'm sitting, it feels like a double. Right. Well, right. So I got six eggs, two were mature, and that's the number that matters.

Right. So it's kind of one of those weird. And we don't know how many maturies yet? I do now, but okay. So 12 is great, but I don't know what that really means. Yeah, because if you've got zero maturies, then you'd rather have six with two maturies. Exactly.

So I kind of just have to hear that number and then forget it, which is hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to draw any conclusions. Yeah. Laura picked me up. Okay. Dropped me off at home.

And I just like rested all day. It feels horrible. It does. Yeah. It's. Does it. I don't want to expose you too much. But is it like abdominal pain where your ovaries are?

Or is it vaginal pain? Or the whole kit and caboodle? It's kind of the whole thing, but it's mainly abdominal. It feels just like all your organs are squished into like this bit. Like it's all squished. You're miming the size of a tangerine just for the listeners. It's all super squished. Scraped?

Does it feel scraped? Well, it was scraped. Right. That's why I'm curious if there's this. And so I couldn't really, you're not really supposed to walk much. Do you have a cocktail? No. Oh, you could have, right?

I'm sober now. Okay. It did cross my mind that you could have been laying there uncomfortable and thought, well, at least I can have a glass of wine. Remember, that's the difference between me and you. When I'm in physical discomfort, I don't seek alcohol. Listen, when you get good news, you need a drink to celebrate. When you get bad news, you need a drink for some comfort. That I agree.

That's emotional pain, and I do do that. And when you're physically suffering, you should have a drink to ease it. And when you feel fantastic, you should celebrate with a drink. But okay, you can't really, well, for me anyway, I don't know how everyone feels, but I can't really stand up all the way. It's like I have to be very hunched. That must look cute because you're already only 4'11". I imagine when you're hunched, you're like 4'6". Yeah, I don't think it looks cute at all.

I think it looks really ugly. Oh, Granny Monnie's here. Granny over here. That is what I'll look like. It's probably what I'll feel like. You're not going to get hunched. You're so tiny. I'm going to get hunched.

I'm going to look like a you at some point. I'm still going to get hunched just because I'm small. I have a hunch. Your shoulders may roll over like a grandma, but I don't think you're going to get. Yeah. Although. My boobs. They're in the mix.

That could pull you down. They might get smaller as I get older. That's true. We don't know. We'll have to see. Anyway, so everything just hurts really bad, and it is what it is. And then I had a heat pad and did a lot of sleeping. And then I watched Santa's Second Chances.

Oh, you did? Oh, good. Before your fact check, you did it. I did it. You did a good job. And today is better than yesterday, for sure. I'm not hunched. Let's set yesterday at a 10 for purposes of ease and convenience.

So yesterday was a 10 on pain. Today's a six. Six. So that's 60% of yesterday and convenience. So yesterday was a 10 on pain. Today's a 6. 6. So that's 60% of yesterday's discomfort. Yeah, maybe 5.5. Okay, 55%. Yeah. Okay, five times one month.

Yeah, and then they called today and seven armature. Oh, that's great, isn't it? It is. When can I celebrate? You're not letting me celebrate. You can. That's 3.5x of the last time. It is.

I mean, in a dream world, you'd have like 100% increase in success. This is a 350% increase. That's good math. Congratulations. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah, girl. You can like feel good.

I know. What's your hesitation? It's just such a weird roller coaster though. So you have nine now total? I have nine. Yeah. Okay. But it's just a weird roller coaster because you hear 12 and like, you don't want to get

too excited, but you do get a little excited. Sure. And then it's like, oh, but okay, so if all those are mature, even if 10 are mature, that's great. Then I have 12. You start doing that. And then so seven then feels like, ugh, like a lot weren't. And I know that's a horrible way of looking at it.

But let's also go back to the last time because it was six and two. So you only kept, only 33% were healthy. Right. In this case, over 50 percent were sevens more than half of 12 that is true so it's like huge improvement on the total on the gross and then the net that's really nice net that is really these are huge gains they are big gains they are they are the z but know, this is where my. Psychopathy.

Yeah. And my old self is really shining through right now because. So, of course, and I know they have to do this. The doctor calls and is like, okay, I have good news. Uh-huh. Seven eggs were mature. Yeah. So much more than last time.

More than we anticipated you know whatever over delivered because of the amh whatever and she's like okay and so you have two at age 34 and seven at age 36 and the those eggs are nine percent and then 14 like these horrible number, horrible percentage numbers, she's saying. And then she's like, so it's a total of 87% chance of one. Yeah. That's how the, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of one egg.

Yeah. Like yielding a baby. It only takes one egg. 87% that there'll be one egg. That's really good. I'm betting on those odds. Are you? Any game in Vegas that paid 87 be 1-ed. That's really good. I'm betting on those odds. Are you?

Any game in Vegas that paid 87% of the time, it's the only thing anyone would play? I know, but the problem is 1-ed, 1, yeah, maybe. I don't know. It's almost 100%. It's a B+. Yeah, but you know what I don't like? Oh, that's the problem. You and I would be delighted.

We'd get a nice, fat B+, but Monica's used to the mays and the may pluses. Yeah, and she's like, maybe you're totally fine with that. Yeah. But you could consider doing it again. Again, they have to say this, but you could consider doing it again. And she's also moving in December. Okay, so we're under a time crunch all of a sudden. I'm like, oh, my God.

She would want to do it right now? Like probably next month. Oh, so we're under a time crunch all of a sudden. I'm like, oh, my God. She would want to do it right now. Like probably next month. Oh, my God. I know. And it is so expensive and it's so much. How much is that? It's like 10 to 12, 10 to 14, somewhere in there, thousand a round. Oh, my God.

It's so much. I've done it twice, three times. I mean, that's so much money for something I don't know if I'm ever even going to use. It's such a physical toll. But my brain, yeah. Well, I know what my brain would be doing, which is like, fuck man, we've done so much. Let's finish hard hard like i know i would be telling myself like great so you're two-thirds of the way there you're like you're almost done but i also think i think nine eggs is solid i mean 87 percent's good i know that's how i feel i'm like well fuck like then do i just do this one more time and then i'll really know. But that's what I said after the first time.

That's what I said going into this was like, I will do it one more time. I'll do everything I can do. Yeah. That'll be that. We should take, before we think about the future and how stressful the future is. Yeah. You took a gamble. Yeah.

And it really paid off. So congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. Huge, huge improvement. Yeah. 350X. I you. Yeah. Huge, huge improvement. Yeah. 350X. I know.

I wish I could feel that. Sure. Well, we can never really feel our victories, can we? No. Just our defeats. Only our losses. So I don't know. So now I'm like considering doing it again.

It feels so old me. It feels like so SAT score me. Like, how do I just get the number I need? Uh-huh. But it's a lot on all of the levels. Yeah. So I don't know. I have to kind of process that.

Okay. Well, maybe by Monday's episode we'll have an answer. I mean, I got to make a decision quick. But what about drinking? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Let's talk about it.

Okay. What kind of thoughts have you had? Originally, you're like, I'm going to quit for a month to do this thing. Yep. And are we at a month? We must be at a month. Yeah, we should be at about a month now. Or maybe not even, God. I think so.

I think so, too. Yeah. Because I stopped drinking five days before the estrogen, which was seven days before the thing. Right. Which was two weeks. So, ish. Now, listen, I'll be the first to not deny when you have signs that would lead to a diagnosis of alcoholic. Because there's a couple.

Yeah. But I'm also going to be very honest and upfront when you have signals to me that you're not. So what I would argue to you is that any real addict would absolutely know whether they were at 30 days or not. It's almost impossible for me to understand that you don't know exactly. Really? Yes. Oh, that's funny. Because certainly it understand that you don't know exactly. Really? Yes. Oh, that's funny. Because certainly it was fucking hard when you first quit.

Yeah, I was counting the days. Those first weeks I thought, well, this does resemble when I quit things. Yeah. You know. But the fact that you've already completely lost track of it and didn't already have your first drink planned is a check in the in the good side of it yeah the balance scale it's a it's a spectrum it sure is okay so so sorry so maybe it's been a month maybe it's not but yeah i don't know probably around a month and i did think today oh i guess i guess i'm done with that i guess guess I could- Go out for wine tonight. Have wine.

But I also feel like shit. So I don't have the pull today. Well, you know what they say in AA? There's no problem that's so bad it can't be made worse by drinking. No. I can't imagine having acid in my body. So I'm not going to drink tonight. I am going to New York on Friday. And I am going to drink there. I know I am. Right. You not going to drink tonight. I am going to New York on Friday. And I am going to drink there.

I know I am. Right. You're going to drink there. Yeah. Yeah. Because. It's New York. Yeah.

And my, like, I'm staying at two hotels, but the first hotel. Why are you bouncing around with the hotel? Because they were, they didn't have all the days. But I really want to stay there. Okay. For a couple days. Okay. So one of the hotels has my favorite bar in the whole world.

And it's very hard to get in, but if you stay there, you're in. And so I thought that I'm like, oh, I know I'm going to succumb to that. It's like I want to. I'm excited. I feel that it's okay because that is something specific I'm looking forward to. It's not like, oh, I'm excited to go to New York and just like drink everywhere and drink all the time. That's what I, that's what I, you know, because I used to take these breaks. Yeah.

I think you know, the pattern before you get to surprise, you give it a shot a bunch of times. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are the parts that you think or that you know do resemble an addict in me for alcohol? Oh, boy. This is potentially damaging for our friendship. You're asking me to, like, judge your behavior right now, which is not something I like to do.

Well, you've already done it in your head, so you might as well share it. Well, first of all, a couple things pop up that are undeniably obvious to me. So the fact that you're not counting, like that you don't know that it's a month, that's just a ding, ding, ding to me. Okay. Right? In a positive way. And then there's other things, as you've said them to to me that those are ding, ding, dings.

Negative. Sure. Right. But I'm not. So you're asking me now to assess. So I'm just I'm making it very clear. Okay. Okay.

But you have assessed because you say you notice it when I say it or whatever. And I always generally say it out loud in those moments. I'm not like holding on to secret. Yeah. Then I don't think it could be bad for our friendship okay do i think you regulate your internal emotions with this external thing yeah yeah the quantity is not scary but the frequency is probably you know it's like seven days a week so that's just a little bit like, oh, seven days a week. A lot, yeah. But again, but much stronger feelings is like the fact that you drink two is impossible. An addict just can't.

They can certainly drink seven nights a week, but I don't think they can drink two a night, seven nights a week. So yeah, I have no conclusion, but there are just little aspects of that. Yeah, just probably the self-regulation and also how interwoven it's probably gotten for being social. Mm-hmm. That like going out to eat, I don't know how much it's happened in the last month, but I'm guessing it's gone down enormously, meeting people out. It's gone down, but not enormously. Okay, because it seems to me that like three days a week when we're here, you're stopping to talk to Ana to say meet here.

So it seems like you're meeting her a few times a week. Yeah. And then you're meeting Jess once a week or whatever it is. I don't know who all you meet. Yeah, yeah. But I just didn't detect in the last month you stepping out and making plans with people. I mean, I think at first, like the first week or week and a half, also Ana was gone for some portion of it. I was like, oh, I'm not going

anywhere. I'm not doing anything. But then I think I started to see everyone again a lot. So all of this to me, literally, I don't think you are yeah it's that simple but another curious thing might be yeah now that you're at i think you're probably at like 35 days right now to be honest in my head okay but let's just say you're at 35 days and it's hard to know because you've been on these shots it's not like you can really evaluate what your life is but let's just assume for a minute that you hadn't gone through all that and all the hard part had passed. And you were learning to just like, yeah, now I go to lunch instead. And then I go here.

And now things are great and I feel good and my sleeping's gotten better. I think at that point, if you had experienced where you had submitted to yourself, this is a better life for me. Yet I'm still going to go do that thing. Right. That's an interesting part of it, I think. Yeah. Because look, I've had that. I've had like a perfect life and chose to go do something I know that's going to result ultimately in me not feeling better, which is just a really weird decision to make. If you don't have an unhealthy relationship with something, no one else would make that decision.

I don't know. I'm going to say another thing in the category of not an addict. It's to me, from what I'm observing on the outside, it still totally works. What works? Drinking. It works exactly as you hope it will every time. Yeah. Yeah. With an addiction, it stops working. Right. The relief you were getting stops. And it's insatiable and you can't get relief. And that's why ultimately you have to stop because you're putting everything in that you can and you're not getting relief. And now you just feel bad and have no relief. Right.

So the fact that to me you're drinking always works. You're rarely hungover. I don't know what price you're paying for it. I'm not there yet or ever. I don't know what price you're paying for it. I'm not there yet or ever. I don't know if this is better. I mean, of course, there are going to be things like sleep that are better, where you do recognize in some ways. Your skins look great for a month.

I know, but that's the hormones. There's a lot of variables here. That's the hormones. And the sleep, I told you this, the sleep is weird because it's- Well, you've been sleeping a ton. I've been sleeping so much. Yeah. That's the hormones. I guess.

You're catching up on 10 years of sleep. Maybe. But also, it takes me a lot longer to fall asleep. Yes, of course. And then I'm just hoping, I guess, that the sleep is better. Yes. But then I'm tired still. Okay. So it the sleep is better. Yes. But then I'm tired still. Okay.

So it doesn't feel good. We don't know. Right. I like waking up and feeling fresh. Mm-hmm. That I like. You do. And it feels a little different waking up after not having drank.

Yeah, I think so. Oh. When you're hyper-evaluating everything, it's hard to know what's really real or what you're kind of looking for. But I do think potentially I'm a little sharper. Okay. Which I do prior, you know, that's important to me. Sure. It's one of your. Yeah. Identity markers. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know. Yeah. I've thought Just hit myself. Just punch yourself in the chin. You need a drink. This is not working for you.

Sobriety doesn't work. You punch yourself. You know, I bought, during my sobriety, I bought this gin, my favorite gin. I went to Houston's for lunch, and there's a cute little wine place next door. And they had this gin. And I went in there. I also was and there's a cute little wine place next door. And they had this. And I went in there. I also was like, why am I in here? I can't buy anything.

But I wanted to see if there were any new wines or what are the cute wines. You're still an aficionado. Yeah. Still a collector. And then they had my favorite gin, Monkey 47, if they want to send me some, because I am still drinking. And I bought it, and I was like,

huh, I want this in my bar. I want it. What does that mean? Like, I guess it means I'm planning on drinking it at some point.

Well, you could say there's some preoccupation. That's what I think what a therapist might say is preoccupation. But like, also,

it's fun to have people over and like mix martinis and naked. It's very elegant. Is it bad? It's fancy. I just like it's really hard to know if it's bad or not. Again. I'm having so much fun. I'm a broken record. But yes, I feel most bad for people who there's really no way to say definitively.

Yeah. Because I think the truth is I'm not one. I feel most bad for people who there's really no way to say definitively. Yeah, because I think the truth is I'm not one, but it is a poison. Like I am aware of that. Yeah, the analogy I was thinking about like 10 minutes ago when we were talking about feeling better is like if you were eating every single night out of Tupperware and then you found out, oh, yeah, there's a little bit of poison coming out of the Tupperware. And then you put all your Tupperware in storage and for one month you didn't have it and you felt great. And then you're like, I'm going to get that Tupperware back out. It's not the same at all because you get no benefit

from eating out of the Tupperware. Maybe it heats up a little better in that Tupperware. You get that leaching, that nice plastic leaching. But you know what I'm saying. I do know what you're saying, but I do think you do have to consider that

there's an elevated dopamine level. There is something positive happening. It is pleasurable. Of course. So what am I supposed to do? Not have any pleasure ever? No, no one wants that for you. Speaking of, I started a doc last night.

Okay. About this small town in Australia. Okay. There's 11 inhabitants. What? One is murdered murdered 10 are suspects oh god oh is it good well i don't know yet but what i know is from frame number one i'm like oh this is a drinking community like these people have all they're fucking full-blown alkeys yeah and they have all come together because they're all doing it no one really i think has but to see what alcoholism does is just for me i was so grateful i watched it because what happens is and even when they're

talking they're talking about how fun the town was really 20 years ago when they were still in their 30s and you could still go to the bar when they were still in their thirties and you could still go to the bar and get fucking hammered and have a blast. And you're still, but now all these people are like, they're, they're 30, 40 years into being alcoholics. All of them look like they're about to die. I mean, they look so physically fucked up. There's not one interview where they're not drinking. There isn't no matter what time of morning they talk to these people, the only thing in the tiny town is a pub. Oh, wow. And just watching them like reminisce on the good times.

And I just thought, oh my God, like, but for the grace of God, there go I. That could have been, I could have, all I could have in my future is reflecting back when it was still pleasurable, before it had destroyed me and locked me into this pattern I can't get out of. I was like, I feel like someone that was rescued from a shipwreck watching a shipwreck. I was just like, oh my God, that's what it is. It works, it's fun, and then it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse. And it takes you out in the process. And oh my God, am I glad I don't live in that fucking town stumbling around.

You know, they don't ever feel good. That's obvious. Like even that first beer, even that one doesn't feel, that gets you out of the shakes and the fucking DTs. There's no pleasure in it. That's not me. No, no, no, no, no. It has nothing to do with you. But we're talking about alcoholism.

Yeah. I just was watching it last night going like, fuck, I mean, it really, really could have been it. That's really where we were heading. I want Aaron to watch it so mad because Aaron was at the point where he only had his reflections of fun. There was no current fun. Yeah. For a decade. Ugh. Ugh. fun there was no current fun yeah for a decade uh it's interesting because does well this can't be but part of me is like does having like other parts of your life that are going well help

mitigate that absolutely but well no not in my case My case was it was going as good as it had ever gone. That's true. And I was the most sad because those things I thought that actually should have felt good couldn't feel good. But also, but the thing is, they don't feel good, though. That's the other. In retrospect, the things that you thought were going to make you feel good, they don't. Well, I'll tell you what does feel good. So the attention, the status, the approval only feels good for a minute,

and then it goes away. So that doesn't. But pride is real and is warranted and is earned. Like I feel tremendous pride about this podcast. Oh, yeah. That, you know, I was just doing the pre-interview for Kimmel, and Josh mentioned, like, it seems like your show's a place people go to if they want to get something off their chest and come clean about something.

And I said, I think that's true, and I am so proud of that. Of course. That feels wonderful. Yeah. So there are aspects of success that I think you can be really proud of and that can actually make you feel good. Of course. But that's like real self-esteem. Like you feel self-esteem that you're a trusted source for someone's pain.

Like that's real stuff. That's not being on a set. But if I were fucked up, I wouldn't experience any of that. Right. I really wouldn't because I would just be too much in the shame spiral that would accompany all the other stuff. I mean, it's like chicken or the egg. Would you even get into being so fucked up if you had that? If you had other stuff.

Yeah, but. You do because everyone at my meeting is really successful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it didn't help them at all that's true yeah but i will say the other stuff can't exist in the middle of that hurricane so you you could look at those people and go like well what else do they got to do like they don't have anything else to do these 10 people sitting in the middle of the desert but but they don't have anything else to do because they're addicts yeah so it's like if they had sobered up they wouldn't be in that town for a week they get the fuck out of there they'd figure out something to do they would start playing

fucking what does everyone pickleball you know they would just start doing stuff yeah but it's easy to look at and go like or are they giving anything up because there doesn't seem any alternative but there's no alternative because of what they're doing yeah it is funny because i've been like oh i'm i'm going to drink in New York, but I probably won't drink when I'm home. Like, I have been sort of playing this dance. Playing with different scenarios. Yeah. And here's where, again, y'all say you're not an act.

So I, you know, in college, I had to quit virtually to finish. Like, it was getting in the way of me finishing. Yeah. So I quit. I don't know what it was for that time. Maybe it was getting in the way of me finishing yeah so I quit I don't know what it was for that time maybe it was two months but I was like I'm going on spring break to Europe and I'm meeting Aaron and Dean and Bolas clearly I'm drinking there that's obviously yeah and then the second I make that decision well then clearly I'm drinking on the flight on the way there right

and that's how I am yeah right well that's do you think you'll drink on the flight on the way there. Right. And that's how I am. Yeah. Right? Well, that's how I was. Do you think you'll drink on the flight to New York? No, it's very early. I don't think so. Oh, okay. Maybe a nice. Mimosa. No, Bloody Mary.

I mean, yeah, that is like, no, I don't. Your brain doesn't work that way. I haven't even. Well, it does though. It's halfway. Yeah. I haven't thought about the airplane until you just said it. I normally do drink on the airplane.

Of course. They're free. Right. They're free. Privilege. Oh, yeah. Be honest. You know, when I gave my review of the airplane food, which was like the most sincere review I've ever given.

Yeah. Oh, people were mad? People were like, yeah, in first class. And I'm like, yes, I fly. I buy the more expensive ticket. To Portland? Was it even? It was like $100 more.

It was not pricey at all, no. But I guess the way in which they were angry, I just thought like, what do you actually want me to do? To die? It was just a big pile of money I never spent because I didn't think I deserved it. They're not thinking it through like that. This is interesting. I don't know. Sometimes I just want to call the person directly and go, what do you want

for me? What could I do that would make you not upset at me that I had this great meal on the airplane and I'm excited about it? But you just have to be okay with people being upset because they're jealous. Well, I'm not. And if I was okay with it, I wouldn't have gotten into comedy. We wouldn't be sitting here. That's not necessarily true.

None of that's true. And you do have to be okay with people being jealous because you have a life worthy of being jealous of. That's just the truth. I have a bonkers incredible life. Yeah. Yeah. So it's going to happen. There's no way anyone's mad at me.

You were jealous of people at some point. I was, yes. So I don't want would talk shit about them. You know what it is. I'm reaping exactly what I sowed. I hated rich people. Hopefully the people who are mad at you will get everything. Oh, I hope they do.

They'll have a beautiful life and have everything they want. And then they'll feel this. Yeah. It'll be a cycle. I wish that for everybody. Me too. Okay. Morgan. Morgan. everybody. Me too. Okay, Morgan.

Morgan. Freeman. Morgan Freeman. I really liked him and I want to give an update. We're burning a candle right now. We're burning an A24 candle. This is because of Morgan.

Oh. At the beginning of the episode, we talk about it. He taught us about these candles. He introduced them into our lives and then Rob and I purchased them immediately. Oh. They smell great.

They do. They're good. They're good candles. Okay. The Hank Williams NWA. I have it. Oh, you do? Oh.

Straight out of Compton, crazy mother-fuck named Ice Cube. From the gang called Fellers with Attitudes. When I'm called off, I got a soda. Oh, my God. I bring up this parallel all the time. Country music and rap's the same shit. It's really disenfranchised people telling their story, and it sounds so right coming out of his mouth, doesn't it? Same fucking lyrics. It was weird. That was weird. Isn't that crazy

how real that sounds? I hate AI. Oh, you do? I know. It's like the alcoholism. It's like half. Half in, half out. Half foot in, half out. I actually, like if they don't take over the world and we just get shit like that, I'm all in. Yeah, but does NWA get any credit?

Well, no money's being made. Yeah, they get credit. They say this is an NWA song. Oh, but I mean money. Do they have money? No one's making money. I don't think they're streaming that on Spotify or anything. Yeah, no one's making like.

I guess. It's fun internet, social. Yeah, that's true. Parody laws. I'm sure they're protected. That's nuts they can make Hank Williams Sr. sing an Ice Cube song. It is crazy. And it sounds right.

Now, okay, the Disco Demolition Day traffic. You were right in that you got the number right that he said. That was 17 miles. Okay. But in fact. But when I looked it up, because it was from O'Hare to Comiskey Park, and when I looked it up, it said 28 miles. Comiskey.

Comiskey. Comiskey. Sorry, Rob. 28 miles. Comiskey. Yeah, Comiskey was on the south side of Chicago. That's a lot of miles. Yeah, it sure is. Sure the south side of Chicago. That's a lot of miles. Yeah, it sure is.

Too many miles. Okay, now he said the second game of the disco, you know, they had to forfeit the second game. It was a doubleheader, yeah. And he said it was the fourth forfeit in baseball. Now this is all post-1960. Pre-1960, there were a lot. It was a shit show. Uh-huh.

Okay. Now, the first one was the Washington Senators' final game at RFK Stadium. That was in 1971. The home team led the Yankees by 7-5 with two outs in the top of the ninth inning. Senators' fans were angered by the team's impending move to Dallas-Fort Worth where the Senators were to become the Texas Rangers in 72. Apparently unaware that there was one out left in the game, spectators began to storm the field and vandalize the stadium.

Oh boy. With no prospect of order being restored after the security staff had simply left during the game. Oh my God. I'm out of here. Resulting in thousands of people walking in without paying, the umpires forfeited the game to the Yankees. Oh my God. I'm out of here. Resulting in thousands of people walking in without paying, the umpires forfeited the game to the Yankees. Yikes.

Because the home team did not handle their business. I guess. Wow. That seems fair. Okay, next, Tencent Beer Night. Okay, I wonder what went wrong. A promotion held by the Cleveland Indians on June 4th, 1974,

backfired when intoxicated Cleveland fans ran onto the field and attacked Texas Rangers outfielder Jeff Burrows with the score tied 5-5 in the ninth inning. Oh, boy. God. improvised weapons and various other objects, including chunks of the stadium seating, brawled with players and officials from both teams, as well as with the umpires who subsequently forfeited the game to Texas. God. Oh, boy.

That sucks. People boy. You come to expect everyone's going to behave, but every now and then you're reminded, oh, no. No, they don't. Okay. Every now and then you're reminded, oh, no. No, they don't. Okay, September 15, 1977, game between the Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays at Exhibition Stadium. The grounds crew placed a tarpaulin. What's that?

They cover the field when it's raining. Wait, is tarp short for tarpaulin? Must be. Tarpaulin or tarp is a large sheet of strong, flexible, water-resistant material. Wow. But tarpaulin also tarp is a large sheet of strong, flexible, water-resistant material. Wow. But tarpaulin also sounds like tarpin, the anteater-like animal in Africa. Oh, sure. Tarpin?

This is tarpaulin. They didn't spread a tarpin across the field. Oh, thank God. PETA would have been mad. Okay. Over the two mounds in the Blue Jays' bullpen, which was in foul territory, outside the left field foul line after light rain. Before the start of the bottom of the fifth inning, with the Blue Jays leading 4-0, Orioles manager Earl Weaver came out of the dugout and claimed to umpire that the tarp endangered his players by exposing them to the risk that they could slip or trip on it when entering the bullpen to catch a fly ball. Weaver ordered his team from the field and said that they would slip or trip on it when entering the bullpen to catch a fly ball.

Weaver ordered his team from the field and said that they would not return until the tarp was removed. The umpire ordered the tarp removed from the mound that was closest to fair territory, but not the tarp from the other mound, and told Weaver that he could play the game under protest. After arguing with the umpire for nearly 20 minutes, Weaver returned to the dugout. The umpire waited five minutes, the period of time specified by the rulebook, for the Orioles to for nearly 20 minutes. Weaver returned to the dugout. The umpire waited five minutes. The period of time specified by the rulebook for the Orioles to retake the field. When Weaver said they would not do so, the umpire ordered the game forfeited to the Blue Jays.

Oh, wow. That's more of an interpersonal spat. Yeah, it sounds like a power struggle that a lot of people paid the price for. The people in attendance, the teammates. Okay, here we are, disco demolition night. Okay. So guess what?

He was right, fourth. He said it was the fourth. Oh, only the fourth. And he's right. God, he's so right. He's so, so right. He's one of the rightest guests we've ever had. In 19, we already know what happened.

Yeah, we do. But that's what happened. Back to the program, because you saw it now. Yes. How sweet is the story with him and his daughter? I hated it. Yeah. I hated that.

It's so sad. Yes. It's so sweet. It's so sweet. But just that I'm going to show you everything in this world. Oh, my God. I was a mess. It's so, so sweet.

Anyway, it's a beautiful movie. It is very life-affirming. It reminds you what's important. You can see how, like, the lead character that the doc's about, the guy, you can see how he heard him on the radio and was like, I need to talk to this person. Yes. Like, he is such a unique unicorn.

Yeah. Oh, it's really, really good. It's really worth a watch. I don't need to say unique unicorn. That's a double. It's a. It's implied that it's unique. It is.

In that it's a unicorn. There's just none. I think it's okay for you to say it if you want. Okay. He's a unique unicorn. Okay. Now, there was one more after. The fifth forfeit.

Since then. Yep. In 95. And it after. The fifth forfeit. Since then. Yep, in 95. And it's a ding, ding, ding. Detroit. Chicago White Sox. Dodgers. Oh. The Dodgers gave out baseballs to paying customers as they entered the Dodgers stadium gates for a game against the Cardinals. Fans

interrupted the game in the seventh inning when they threw these baseballs onto the field and again in the bottom of the ninth inning with the Cardinals leading Fans interrupted the game in the seventh inning when they threw these baseballs onto the field and again in the bottom of the ninth inning with the Cardinals leading 2-1. Dodgers fans, fueled by a series of close calls again, threw their souvenir baseballs onto the field. Oh, boy. The Cardinals left the field due to safety concerns,

causing a several-minute delay. But when the Cardinals returned to the field, Dodgers fans threw more balls out on the center field bleachers, forcing the umpires to forfeit the game to St. Louis. Good job, guys. I mean, this is so stupid. This is like handing out slingshots

when you enter the park. Dodgers branded slingshots. But this is what's wrong with everyone, right? It's like they're so angry at the other team. Well, they cut off their nose to spite their face. Pyrrhic victory. What else can we say about it?

I do love a baseball game. When I was watching the movie, it reminded me that the reason I like going to baseball games is all of that fun stuff. Throwing baseballs on the field? No, not like basketball, but all the fun stuff that Mike and Bill instigated. Oh, yeah, all the goofy stuff that happens. Yes, the exploding scoreboard and the pit animals. Sure. It's fun.

It made me want to go to minor league games more than. Yeah. Because I think it's a real circus at some of these. How fun. Okay. You were talking about Daryl Strawberry and that he had the opportunity for four home runs. Yeah. Which you said would probably have been record breaking.

Well, I think, right. Didn't he already have four home runs? No, three. Oh, he had three. Okay. In major league baseball history, there have been 15 four home run games. I won't read them. Yeah.

That's not a lot. That's not a lot. It's a 100-year-old game, right? It's America's pastime. Yes, state bird. America's state bird. Okay, the adult book that Shel Silverstein wrote. Oh, yeah.

It's humongous. It's called Uncle Shelby's A-B-Z Book. Yep. A Primer for Adults Only. It's about the size of that couch cushion you're sitting on. It's so enormous. Oh, really? That?

Yeah. We had it in our bookshelf. Wow. How would it fit on your bookshelf? It had to be in the tallest thing. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it hung out a little bit, to be honest with you. And then it reminded me when I was looking this up that he

had a book of plays called An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein. And I did that in college. You did? You did a play out of his playbook? Yeah. Ding, ding, ding, sports playbook. Ding, ding, ding. It was weird. Like, they were very quirky and weird and adult. Curvy a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I really hope he can make that happen, that doc.

Yeah, I would love to learn everything I could about Shel Silverstein. Yeah, what an interesting character. All right, well, that's all. That's everything. Well, that was a doozy, and it was a fun doozy. It was. Doozy sounds close to snoozy, which is weird because they're opposites. They certainly are.

Boozy. Boozy, ding, ding, ding. Doozy also just means big. That was a doozy. I took a doozy. You say I took a doozy? In a pinch, yeah. Oh, wow. I have to reduce to a doozy. You say I took a doozy? In a pinch, yeah. Oh, wow.

I have to reduce to a few words. I more say a doozy as in like it really like took it out of me. Exhausted you. Yeah. Yeah, which also can happen during an evacuation. Sure. I've been there. Call a duty.

I was thinking about this last night in bed. Okay. What? Someone's clearly parodied Call of Duty, right? And made a D-O-O-D-I-E. Do you think there's a porn about it? Oh, my God. Call of Duty.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And then scat play. Oh, Jesus. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. I don't know. I just thought someone needs to do something with Call of Duty.

There's a pet waste removal company called Call of Duty. Oh, good for wow. I don't know. I just thought someone needs to do something with Call of Duty. There's a pet waste removal company called Call of Duty. Oh, good for them. Wow, they really snatched that. It feels like that would be hard to get IP. Call of Duty. Look it up about the porn. That's what I have after my cup of coffee and a dip.

I got to play Call of Duty. It's a call of duty. It's a call of duty. Yeah, it calls me. Yeah. All right. I love you. I love you. Congrats on your 350% increase.

Thanks. That's pretty stellar. I like that phrasing of it. Yeah. It's last half full. Huge, huge, huge. 3X full. Yeah.

All right. Love you. Love you. Love you.