Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Sebastian Maniscalco
Episode Date: May 27, 2024Sebastian Maniscalco. (It Ain’t Right, Bookie) is a comedian and actor. Sebastian joins the Armchair Expert to discuss his first pair of Jordans, why his dad is the focal point of his comedy, and hi...s time waiting tables at the Four Seasons. Sebastian and Dax reopen the Santa Claus debate, talk about children yelling at their parents, and the relevance of comedy in this moment. Sebastian discusses Italian stereotypes, what playing arenas is like, and how he feels about the current state of comedy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.
I'm Dan Shepard, I'm joined by Minnie Mouse.
Hi there.
This is a gentleman I've been wanting to have on
for quite some time, I find him so funny.
Very funny.
Sebastian Maniscalco.
Sebastian Maniscalco is a record-breaking
stand-up comedian and actor.
He's got a hit show, he's got a world record setting comedy tour.
He's a beast.
He's at the top of the pyramid for stand-ups.
So fun.
So fun, and boy, did I get to experience his hysterical,
just the moment in this episode when he goes,
what's with the spray?
I was like, oh, I got Meniscalco'd.
Yeah, you did.
His credits include Bookie, if unfrosted out right now,
the Super Mario Brothers movie, Somewhere in Queens.
He has a new tour starting in July.
You have to go see him live.
The tour is called It Ain't Right,
and you can get tickets for that at sebastianlive.com.
Now, also before we go, we have Armchair Anonymous prompts.
We got a big batch.
This is covering two months' time.
So buckle up, get a pen and paper.
One of these prompts may apply to you.
They are as follows.
Tell us your best dad story.
Now we've been collecting dad stories
as we get other stories. In fact, we met two gals that had the same Dad.
Both stories crazy.
So in time for Father's Day, tell us your best Dad story.
Tell us your best parent-teacher conference story.
Is that from teachers or parents or either?
I think it could go either way.
Yeah, if something insane happened
at a parent-teacher conference and you're a parent,
that would be fine too. Great.
Yeah, like if the teacher you were talking to
was smoking a doobie durian or something,
who knows what could happen.
Fingers crossed.
Tell us about an embarrassing sex experience.
Sorry guys, still a pervert.
Tell us about a near-death experience.
Tell us about a time you pooped yourself.
Tell us a crazy beach story, summer's upon us.
Summer time.
We wanna get in the mood with some crazy beach stories.
So if you have a crazy story for any one of those prompts
please go to armchairexpertpod.com and submit your story.
We would love to talk to you about it.
Please enjoy Sebastian.
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He's an armchair expert.
He's an armchair expert.
He's an armchair expert.
How are you brother?
Good to meet you.
Nice to see you man.
How are you?
What a sexy machine you brought over here.
Oh man, that's my sexy machine.
What do you think of that?
I've had it for a while. It's been like 17.
I got two small kids.
Seven years?
Yeah.
I feel like that's kind of responsible for a man of your means.
You and I both know you could have any number of vehicles.
I'm a modest man.
Are you? Yeah. I don't like to number of vehicles. I'm a modest man. Are you? Yeah.
I don't like to buy a lot.
I like to do experiences.
That's good.
And was that learned or that your natural disposition?
I grew up.
Next to Rob Rob.
My hometown, Northwest suburbs of Arlington Heights.
Everyone will think you're from Queens.
That's gotta be a common way.
But that's the Italian-ness in you, right?
That's the immigrant dad.
Yeah, he's staying with me right now for 10 days.
Where do you live?
I live in Los Angeles.
Oh, okay.
I can't believe I've never bumped into you in my life.
Well, I...
Go ahead.
Are you on the west side?
You know where there could have been an incredible bump in,
now that I've learned about you?
I could have been at a junket at the Four Seasons.
You could have.
In your, what would we call that, your duration there?
My time frame.
Yes.
90, 80.
Because you were there in 2005.
Yeah.
You lived at the Four Seasons?
He was a waiter at the Four Seasons.
Oh, great!
I knew you would like that detail.
I do love that.
Seven years I was there.
Seven years!
Okay, so besides that, that's a possibility,
because first movie I was ever in came out 2004,
so I did do some junkets there.
Was it?
Without a paddle.
Without a paddle.
When was the Dane Cook movie?
That was 06.
06, okay, so around that time.
Yeah.
Okay, back to you by experiences.
Did you have to learn that?
Did you go buy a bunch of flashy shit and then go, eh?
No, no, no, that was just upbringing.
Because in my world, I always think it's going away.
Oh, well duh, my therapy this morning was singularly about
when will the amount of money happen
where I'm not terrified?
Because I've passed the number I told myself
I would not be terrified anymore many times.
And nothing's helping.
Do you have that?
Yeah, so are you ever content?
Are you ever satisfied with where you are at professionally?
Or is it just a game?
We just, oh, you know, gotta get the next podcast out before people don't think we're
around anymore.
Before they realize.
Yeah.
Even deeper.
They catch us.
Before they realize we ain't shit and that I don't deserve their attention.
Yeah, it's hard. We ain't shit and then I don't deserve their attention
And you know I bet you and I have some of the same scar tissue as well because you were out here for a fucking minute as was
I I moved here in 95 and that first movie we're talking about is
2004 so when you're 20 and that's a third of your life, you're not getting shit done. It's scarring
No, it is. Is it gonna happen? When is it gonna happen?
So you go through all those different ups and downs as you're building it
But once you get to a certain level and you're like, okay, I'm here now what I mean, what are we doing here?
What's the game? I got two small kids. I got a six-year-old
I got a four-year-old if I keep doing this the way I'm doing am I gonna look back when they're 19 years old going?
What was I doing in Montana? Yeah, well you do 200 dates.
Yeah, so it's a struggle I deal with.
I think it's harder for you, it has to be harder for you
because implicit in your job is your traveling.
This is a hack, it's in my backyard.
I don't even have to go on a movie set anymore.
And I have two little kids.
I imagine it weighs on you.
It does, so doing this, we're gonna get into the Jordans too
because I have a whole thing on Jordans.
Okay, great, I can't wait to hear it.
As long as we're there.
Yes!
Let's stop here. It just popped in my head.
I addressed this about two months ago.
How old is too old to be wearing Jordans?
By the way, we had this debate about 12 episodes ago.
Oh, you did?
Yeah, when do I look like a fucking dumbass?
Already?
Ha ha ha ha ha! Maybe you'll answer this for me,
but is that what your inquiry was as well?
I'm 50.
Yeah, I'm 49.
Okay, so what are those, the fours?
Two threes, threes, threes.
Okay, and I grew up in Chicago,
so I had a pair of Jordans when I was in sixth grade.
50 bucks.
Used off a truck.
Oh, this was...
They were 100, we're the same age.
They were 100?
You go to Foot Locker, they were 100.
In fact, my very...
Were they 100?
Yes, and my very first pair were fives,
and they were 110, and my mother said,
I'll only get those for you if you can talk the guy
down to $99 at Foot Locker,
which they don't even fucking do,
but I had to do that, and I did.
I don't know, 50's hanging in my head for some reason
So low Sebastian for 19 what I guess you're comparing 86 or I don't know
Tell me what year is sixth grade for you Jordans came out in
1986
93 so I guess they could have done boy that boy, that would be something. 50 bucks, I'm sticking with you.
50 bucks.
We'll do some fact checking later.
Okay, 50 bucks, I have two pairs of Jordans.
One I got as a gift.
Currently, not back in 86.
Currently, right now.
And I'm looking at myself in these things,
and I'm going, 50, you're like a grown individual,
you have kids, should you be walking around
in children's shoes?
Yeah, children's gym shoes. I'm assuming neither of us play much basketball.
I don't play basketball. No.
So I came across these. These are Jordans.
Okay. These are cool.
These are Jordans 23. Alright?
Meaning the year 23 or his number?
This is the 23rd Jordan
They put out that feels important because his number was 23 it would think
but
The guy I got these from Joe over a complex sneakers or complex not sneakers. Whatever it is some cool place
Complex
It's the shoe guy. That's all the interviews.
Yeah, I've seen it. I saw Ben and Matt were on it.
It was cool.
So I go, where does these land in the world of sneakerheads?
Not too many people have those because they're kind of ugly.
Oh!
I said, let me have them.
This is perfect for me.
Because I don't want to walk around with what everybody's got.
So that's my story on my particular pair of Jordans.
Yeah, terminal uniqueness.
Ugly.
Yeah, better to be in something ugly
but be the only one in it.
That's it.
Not a bad approach.
That's my take.
That's kind of my approach to cars.
Not specifically ugly,
but I got to be in something different.
I can't be in a 911 at a street light looking next to me
and there's an agent in front of me with one
and the director behind me's got one.
I don't like it.
Okay, now, I don't know if I could talk about
what I saw when I pulled up in your driveway.
Please do.
There is a, I don't know what you call it,
but it looks like it's an off-road vehicle. Oh, yeah
Yeah, there's a four-seater razor right there. Now. Are you that's gotta get all the shiny shit? Yeah
Yes, okay
So where you and I differ is that I didn't get those fucking Jordans in sixth grade
I got him in 11th grade when I had to haggle down the price
So I coveted them there were you know, four years where I wanted them so bad
So I'm in Detroit doing an interview 12 years ago, and I'm talking to a guy and god damn it
He's wearing brand new fours, and I'm like holy shit. Did you keep those that nice, and he goes no man
They sell them I go they sell the 93 he goes yeah, and I'm like how much are those
He's like there are 130 bucks, and I'm like oh my god. I've got 130 bucks
He's like, they're 130 bucks. And I'm like, oh my God, I've got 130 bucks.
I'm like, you bought them on the internet?
I bought them in the interview.
In the rush of poor kid done good was so euphoric
that I was off to the races.
And then every month I had to buy a pair
because there's so many good ones.
Now, two things, I don't want you to file me
into a category of spendthrift.
Spendthrift, yeah. Spendthrift, because I'm not, I'm't want you to file me into a category of spendthrift? Spendthrift, yeah.
Spendthrift, cause I'm not, I'm actually really frugal.
I gotta make a lot of money to let some go.
But cars are also his thing.
I'm from Detroit, that's all I give a fuck.
That's the only reason I try to make money is for cars.
I don't give a fuck about this house,
other than I can park my bus out front.
You're on a bus?
Did you see when you pulled in?
No.
You got hung up on the off-road vehicle.
There's a tour bus in the front yard.
Oh, I didn't see the tour bus.
We'll go through it on your way out.
What?
Where does that come from?
I go to the sand dunes, you saw the vehicle,
always rented motor homes, got to rent one,
got to get a buddy to drive the trailer out.
I got to pack the shit all the time.
We go four times a year.
I need a fucking bus.
The one thing you're worried about, money.
It's kind of true. That's very astute. What are you worried about money? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha That's why I asked if you came to it because I have now come to it, which is really all I want is trips with my family.
That's all I'm gonna remember.
Some of these are actually pleasurable.
The bus is pleasurable, but the family's in it.
We're out two weeks every summer.
We're driving around the country in the bus.
So it works out.
Okay, back to where did I wanna go back to?
Well, dad's staying here.
How often is he out?
Comes maybe two or three times a year.
77 years old, he wants to come enjoy his grandkids.
My sister's out here, she's got three kids.
So he's really enjoying his time.
And he moved here when he was 15 from Italy.
Yeah.
And he's a hairdresser.
He's a hairdresser.
So that to me, I've got an image of a 70s, 80s
in Chicago hairdresser.
Is there some natural flamboyance?
No, growing up he was bald with a ponytail.
Oh, that's a lot.
That might have been a giveaway.
And he always dressed like he was going to a funeral.
So always in black, but very stylish.
I borrowed my dad's clothes growing up.
It's not like I had one of these dads who was a square.
But I am wondering,
because so much of your comedy is about your dad.
First of all, I'm a huge fan.
I just love your shit.
Also, I grew up on dice
and I missed the dice energy so much.
And you certainly have some of that dice energy I love.
But so much of your comedy is about your dad.
Weirdly enough, when I did Stand Up,
most of mine was about my dad.
And I just know that had I gotten huge doing comedy,
he would have loved it.
He would have wanted to come experience it a little bit.
Does your dad like the fact that he's so present in your comedy? He loves
The fact that he's a staple in the act
He also loves kind of the residual effect that's having on his life since he's so prevalent on my Instagram and what-have-you
He gets noticed a lot. He actually gets upset when he feels like somebody
Recognizes him and they don't come up to him
So listeners if you ever see him, please go up yeah, you'd be inconveniencing him by not
He told me the airport on his way over and he's like I noticed a couple looking at me and
I was upset that they didn't approach. I'm proud of you that you give that to your dad generously,
and it's not a complex situation.
So my dad left when I was three.
As I got famous, he was enjoying too.
I called him one time out of nowhere,
middle of the day on a Wednesday,
he picks up the phone and he goes,
oh good, tell this woman who you are.
Hands the phone to a stranger.
I'm like, who's this?
He's like, no, who's this?
I go, dad.
She goes, no way.
And I go, okay, can you give the phone back to my dad?
Yeah, good thing you called.
I'm in an argument with this woman at the Walmart checkout.
She says, you're not my son.
I go, you're in the middle of the afternoon at Walmart
having a fight with a woman about whether or not
I'm your son.
I got the showbiz bug from him.
He would have loved to have done this.
I had a hard time, A, acknowledging
I probably got all this from him,
and then B, inviting him in more.
I regret that. I wish I had done that.
But it sounds like you're good at that.
My dad's always been kind of a critic
of what I've been doing my entire life.
We just actually were talking about this before I came here.
And I don't know how you are with your kids.
You seem like a positive guy.
Do you have kids?
No, I don't.
Okay, so, oh, good job.
That type of, you know.
Affirming.
Yeah.
Supportive, you mean?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I grew up really with that environment.
I grew up with, if I scored two goals in soccer, he would point out it was never that compliment
than constructive criticism.
It was kind of always constructive criticism.
Or just criticism, yeah.
It's nice of you to euphemize it on his behalf, but it doesn't sound like it.
But he acknowledged now, he's like, yeah, I probably could have massaged the message
a little bit better.
But then I always come back with, yeah,
but if you did, would that have made me weaker
and not who I am today.
Are you still slinging hash at the Four Seasons?
Yeah.
Bozo actors on their first movie junket.
Oh.
Hard to know what's right, what's wrong.
I guess you gotta go on instinct and, hey, this is what I know. But now having kids, I'm a wanker. Hard to know what's right, what's wrong. I guess you got to go on instinct and hey, this is what I know.
But now having kids, I'm firm, but there's a lot of I love yous going around the house
and a lot of hugging, a lot of kissing.
Not that I was growing up not giving those things.
Well aren't you Italian supposed to be so affectionate?
Was he affectionate?
No, I think he's more emotional now than he ever was.
I always feel like he's on the brink of tears
at any moment in a day.
And I don't know.
But that's getting older, dude.
I am too now.
I was bawling at my...
Gilsens?
Pick it out fruit.
I saw a fucking peach.
Made me cry.
I've always been emotional.
And my wife is the complete opposite.
We'll be watching a movie,
and I'll be the one crying.
I look over and I'm like,
nothing, I'm not just dying.
But I'm seeing a lot of that in my father now,
in his 77.
And I think what happens with parents is they get older,
they're reflecting back on their life,
and maybe they're analyzing,
maybe should have went down this road
or maybe should have done that.
And it brings up a lot of different turmoil for them.
You also have these moments,
I'm sure your dad's having them,
where you just go like, oh, fuck, it worked out.
Yeah, really?
Like you just carry so much anxiety.
Am I spending the money right?
Am I on the road too much?
Am I too loving?
Am I not?
You're just tormenting yourself your whole life.
And occasionally you let yourself go like, yeah it's working out. Look at these
little beautiful kids. I wish I had more of those moments. Did you say four and six?
Yeah, it's gonna be seven tomorrow. I think they are smarter at this age than I ever
was at their age. Just what they have access to. These kids nowadays are so
much more well-rounded than we ever were. And that has a lot to do with the
exposure to even information.
Like I was on the iPhone looking up stuff.
Back in the day, if we didn't know something,
you would talk as a family and go,
who am I to know this?
Uncle Joe knows it.
He's on vacation.
When he comes back, we'll ask him.
Right?
If you remember.
Yeah.
I know you were way more comfortable
just not knowing much. Yes. There's a lot of you were way more comfortable just not knowing much.
Yes, there's a lot of wondering.
And being comfortable and not knowing,
which I think increasingly people are so uncomfortable
if they don't know something.
Even if somebody tells me something,
I ain't gonna remember it anyway.
My memory, you're young, but you know, you're 49.
I'm doing this TV show right now, memorizing lines.
Bookie, yeah, season two.
Some of the actors, I know they look at it, yeah, okay, let's lines. Bookie? Yeah. Season two?
Some of the actors, they look at it, yeah okay, let's go.
If somebody gives me lines going, we changed the line,
hey, I need to, we need to shut it down,
and I gotta go home again.
I need this.
I gotta be in my bedroom to learn this.
You're on season two, how many episodes was season one?
Eight, and this is eight.
I had a hard time in movies memorizing lines.
It was a beat down.
I had to write it out, like I'd write it on yellow paper.
I had all these tricks.
Get on parenthood.
First season, maybe I think 18 episodes, maybe 20.
Season two, you could come in and hand me a five page scene
while I'm in the makeup chair and look at it.
Okay, you will get good at it.
Yeah, I think it is definitely a muscle that needs to be worked. Because don't you find by episode seven last year, you will get good at it. Yeah, I think it is definitely a muscle
that needs to be worked.
Because don't you find by episode seven last year,
you're like, oh yeah, it's half as long.
We've been four weeks production right now,
and I'm feeling I'm hitting a stride.
That being said, I feel like I transpose words
and flip them around, and when you're at a movie set
or a TV set, 150 people are waiting to go home.
That's the hard part of acting.
Yeah, yeah.
It's not acting, it's the stress of performing
and everyone's waiting for you and looking at you.
It can be even harsher.
You're gonna fail at your job five times in a route
to getting it right on the sixth time
and 100 people are gonna watch
and they wanna go to lunch.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Yeah, it's a unique situation.
For a comedian doing this, it's a unique situation.
For a comedian doing this, it's hard not to look at the crew and go,
is this funny?
Yeah, are they smiling?
You're hearing crickets.
By design.
Well on purpose, yeah.
I'll catch the corn in my eye, like a guy's texting,
and I'm like, hey, these guys, you don't even want to watch this.
Have you caught them watching another show
They're binge watching other shows while they're doing my different Chuck Lorre show fuck I wish I was on young Sheldon
Well, what was mom's vibe my mother often asked me where the hell am I you know you go on these podcasts
You're not talking about me mom here. We are yeah my mom is not as big of a character as my father, so there's not a lot of comedy there with her,
although she's extremely funny,
and she's the one, I don't say test my material,
but if I'm talking about a funny story,
and my mom is dying laughing,
I kind of know that's gold.
Yeah.
So my mom has been extremely supportive,
both of them have been supportive,
but she's kind of been the quiet one.
Not so much coming up to me after a show going,
you screwed up a line.
Still honest.
Can I test some of my Italian stereotypes on you?
Sure.
I had a very limited data set where I grew up,
but my best friend in sixth grade was Joey Riccardi,
and his dad was a bricklayer.
He was fucking Luigi, Hardest working motherfucker.
Bought a Bertoni, remember?
He wanted a Ferrari, but he bought a Bertoni.
Bertoni?
Is that a shoe or a car?
I don't even know what that is either.
He was one of the designers for Ferrari
and he made more of an inexpensive Italian car.
But then I heard later he did get the Ferrari.
But great family, four sisters,
Joey Riccardi, the mom, always cooking,
I loved going over there.
The way they were allowed to speak to their mother
was like something I had never seen in my life.
And the way the mom doted on Joey
was also something I never really observed
outside of that microcosm.
Did mom dot on you?
She did, but rabble the test,
Northwest suburbs of Chicago.
A lot of negativity. What brand of negativity?
Just like... I did a movie. Yeah, anybody see it?
Oh, like nagging kind of. The friends, everybody.
I'm from a Detroit suburb, it's the same thing. Boston's got it particularly bad.
It's the you think you're better than me chip on their shoulder.
Is that what it is? Yeah. Oh, you think you're fucking better than me?
Oh, you were in a movie, huh? That's cute. Yeah, it's like taking everyone down a notch. Yes. It's required. It's required learning
Back in the Northwest suburbs. It's taken as a joke and fun. I get it
It's not like I'm sitting there losing sleep over it, but there's not a lot of complimentary good job
You made it my mom. She's always proud
I'm talking about just the people that you kind of grew up with not that they're not proud
But we always kind of bring no they're super proud when you're not there. Yeah, exactly
It's just when you're there. Well, I gotta tell you when I'm there. I think they're proud because no one's
They're grateful
They're grateful you're there. I got my friends now, they don't even bring out a wallet when I go out.
I go, not even an offer?
Yeah, has that changed relationships?
I haven't had anybody ask for money.
You haven't?
No. Everybody's got their own thing, and if I see somebody that might need it,
I'll give it to them before they even ask.
You offer it out.
But I haven't had the money thing. What was it?
Nicotine. Even you offer but I haven't had the money thing. What was it?
You can't just shoot something in your mouth in the middle of the thing and not like listen Sebastian
This is an improvement. I quit dipping on January 1st and half the people I interview half are you how far professors? And they'd be sitting across from me and they'd spend half the amulet. He's spitting into that container
What did he just put in his mouth run through half a tin in one of those interviews?
And it would be like a chief justice of the Supreme Court
Trying to figure out what the fuck I'm doing over here. So this is an improvement. How many squirts a day whatever it takes
Did you ever smoke no no smoke never smoked, never dipped, none of that.
Drinking? What's your relationship?
I like wine.
Yeah, me too.
Vino.
But you know, you listen to these podcasts
in Tuberman Lab, Instagram you go on,
everybody's got a take on alcohol, poison,
you lose sleep, then you get caught up in all this,
which we never even had access to 15, 20 years ago.
You just went to sleep, he didn't sleep
while you were like, oh, what the fuck?
I just had a bad night's sleep.
My back hurts.
It's true, you didn't spend the next whole day
thinking, oh, I had that glass of wine
and that's why I didn't sleep.
Because you didn't optimize yourself.
I had a couple glasses of wine last night.
Apparently I'm stealing hours now from today.
What the fuck, what?
I got a sleep ring on because now I gotta know
how much deep REM sleep I'm getting.
I don't even do anything with the information though.
You know what I'm saying?
Do you sleep ring it or calorie intake?
My wife has done all of it.
The best version of myself just doesn't say anything
about it, but occasionally it comes out
and I go, exactly what you just said.
What do we do on this data?
Are we sending it to NASA we know what to do go
to sleep eat well move your body why do we have to introduce all these different
devices to reinforce every one of us knows what the fuck to do nobody's
literally scratching their head right now at Dairy Queen on their third blizzard
going wait a minute is this not the best choice for me we know yeah we know what
to do it's just you feel like you have to
Quantify your whole existence.
Monitor.
You have a ring on.
Yeah, so this is the aura sleep ring
that I look at in the morning, I get up in the morning,
I'm like, woo hoo, look, I slept in.
What score do you average?
I'm in the low 70s.
Okay, we can live with that.
My ideal world, I should be around 82, 85.
I don't even know what
What a bizarre gap you just laid up 82 or 85
Perverted goal
Okay, but I was talking about a friend and my friend still does it and he hates it Charlie gets like a fucking 40 every night And so all this thing does is you wake up and you look at you go. Well, I'm gonna have a shit day
It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah. Well, I don't necessarily look at it like that. My wife does
That's what she doesn't look at in the morning. She looks at it at night. So she goes, okay
Yeah, I had a great day, but my sleep score was 53. So doesn't correlate
This doesn't mean much.
Me, first thing I do, it's like a game to me.
It's like, you know, I look at my stocks in the morning.
You know, what's going on here?
Do you own a lot of stock?
I invest in the stock market, so.
Yeah, I mean.
Well diversified.
Do you play Wurbl or Connections?
No, I don't play any games.
See, when Monica and I wake up,
first thought is Connections.
Yeah, it's so fun. New York Times, it's got a game app, a puzzle app,
the crossword's on there, spelling bee's on there.
One of them's called connections.
We just got into it.
It is 20 words?
No, 16? 20, no, yeah.
20, yeah, five categories of four words that go.
Oh no, you're right, 16, four and four.
Four and four.
And it's a random group of words
and you gotta figure out which four go in each category.
Which group together.
Like royal, navy, baby.
Sky.
Sky, what do we got?
You play against each other?
No, we're on a chain and so you do it
and then you send it to the chain.
You send your results to the chain.
Oh, okay.
That's really fun.
Yeah, I'm so blown out.
All right, I wanna go back to Illinois.
So you weren't allowed to yell at your mom, were you?
I guess that's what I'm getting at.
Oh yeah, no, I was yelling.
Okay.
I mean, it wasn't disrespectful, but you know.
Are we sure?
It's a loud house.
It's loud.
Would the Wasps have thought it was disrespectful
No, my house was the house that everybody came to to hang out
So my parents were part of our clique almost I wasn't a combative kid. I was very disciplined
I thought my parents were king and queen. I do what they say not rebellious
I like raised myself with them. My sister was a little different.
Older or younger?
Five years younger, a little bit more like, yeah.
Like my dad one day asked my sister,
go get me a, we'll call it pop in the Midwest.
Go get me a pop in the garage.
She's like, well, you go get it.
You know one of those?
And my dad went, what?
So a lot more combative on the sister side.
But our house was like the house
Look you have children who yell at their parents. That's true. That is allowed
I'm not into that but I want to get your take because I see this sometimes
I'm at the grocery store, right kids getting out of line. No, ma not doing that
Cows from the parents like it's okay Johnny in my house
First of all, that doesn't go on if there was a hint of it, it'd be like,
I'll leave the groceries right there.
We're leaving. And we get in the car,
and we're gonna have a discussion about it.
You don't talk to your parents that way.
It's disrespectful.
What should take your kids mounting off?
Well, let's be very clear about what happens.
So, first of all, I think Monica would also add,
my kids are insanely good at going, I'm really sorry when you said that I felt smaller and I felt like
no one respects what I'm saying, but I realized I overreacted and I shouldn't have yelled
and I'm sorry.
That's correct. They do do that.
So as long as that's where we're getting, all I'm hoping to turn out in the world is
two kids that can take responsibility for their actions.
I do not expect them to have ideal reactions all the time.
But what is absolutely unacceptable in my house
is that you don't clean up your side of the street
and that you don't take responsibility for fucking up.
So yeah, I'll be upstairs and I hear cereal bowl drop
and I'll hear,
your fucking piece of shit.
And this is a nine year old talking to an 11 year old.
And I think, man, she can let it rip.
And then we talk about it and then there's apologies.
Now listen, it's not all that frequent,
but I'm not panicked.
I don't really care.
Their words, it's a way to communicate.
The nuns aren't clutching their pearls. Their words and sounds. They're words, it's a way to communicate. The nuns aren't clutching their pearls.
They're also not doing it to teachers.
They're kind, they're loving, and yeah, sometimes they blow.
Okay, let me clarify.
Okay.
Is the behavior between the siblings or is a bowl drop
and your daughter to your wife goes,
you fuck it, what are you doing, you shithead?
No. Okay, This one just went
Her face is betraying her
Yeah, you're not a good side
Okay, yeah, like if you and I now know if you and I ever become friends and we're at a table so and someone says
Something super bozo and I look at you and I raise my eyebrows,
you're gonna put me on blast immediately.
So you've just now absolutely ruled out the fact
that we will ever have inside communication.
Okay, okay, okay.
Now, just really quick so I can clarify.
And I think you'll agree on this, Monica.
Once every two months, it's always the nine-year-old.
The nine-year-old and my wife have a disagreement.
It escalates, it escalates, and as she's walking away,
she lets a few swear words rip.
It's not every day.
It's not habitual.
It gets to that threshold.
It's the only thing left she can do
to really express how outraged she is.
She's also my favorite person.
By the way, there's no kowtowing.
There's no like, oh, I'm sorry, honey,
I'm sorry you're upset.
There's none of that.
It's go chill, come back in 10,
when you got your heart rate under control,
and let's chat about what just happened,
because clearly we're not talking to each other that way.
Wife and you on the same page in a lot of the upbringing.
Yeah.
Was this just by design, or is this like, oh yeah, no,
she grew up kind of the same way I grew up?
No, it's been a huge evolution,
and it has taken many years,
and I'm dying to know what you and your wife, Lana?
Lana, yeah.
What your evolution has been.
I did not want to be a dad who like rolls in at dinner time
and there's a whole system in place
and I just stay out of the way.
I want ownership of the experience.
And my wife and I are opposites,
and we came from very opposite families,
and she went to a private Catholic school.
I'm a fucking scumbag junkie with a single mom,
and it was chaos.
So I have a thing, she's got a thing.
Over time, it has gotten very cohesive,
and we're very much on the same page.
And it was a learning curve.
How about you guys?
So I'm the disciplinarian.
My wife comes from completely different background.
I come from a working middle class,
she comes from very wealthy.
So her upbringing was a lot of whatever you want,
whatever you need.
Semester at sea.
Oh wow.
Studying on a boat going to visit 13 countries, right?
Oh wow.
Sleep away camp.
That vibe.
Horse riding?
Not so much horse riding.
Only because she wasn't interested.
Yeah, it was probably offered.
Part of the package.
One of the amenities.
So a lot of racket sports, a lot of that.
So it works in a way because she's very nurturing, very,
hey, you know, what's wrong?
I'm a little bit more aggressive and firm.
So it's a good balance there.
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["The New York Times"]
One thing that I did read in preparation for this podcast,
and I gotta get your take on this
because we're on two opposite ends of the spectrum here And I want to clarify if this is true. Let's dance
Santa Claus. Oh, yeah, I heard you on Kimmel railing about this. So go ahead lay out your Santa Claus
Your child asked if Santa Claus was real and
You said it's different than that. What is the story?
So I get it right.
Yeah, the story is like, okay, Santa's coming,
whatever age that is where you can actually
have that conversation.
Maybe it's three.
Three years old?
Yeah, like zero to two, just there's presence
under the tree.
Yeah, yeah.
And they're, right?
They're not communicating.
Like introducing Santa.
Here is the lore.
So yeah, Santa's coming, I think around three,
and she's like, oh, cool, cool, cool.
Next day, it was like, how does Santa go to every house in the world in one night?
I'm like, okay, so, you know, he's on a sleigh. It's magic time travels differently
He goes at the speed of light, you know, whatever the hell I'm saying
I'm looking at her little face and she's like none of that makes sense
None of that makes sense what you just said to me and I'm like, huh?
I felt a little weird I'm looking directly in her face and I've just made up like five fucking weird lies
But I let that go. I wanted to have the magic of Christmas two days later. There's another really good question
So he's gonna come down the chimney
There's gonna be a man in the house and then what does he look at us?
Does he do this as you walk through the house?
What I realized within about a week of explaining Santa Claus was that I
had to come up with about 12 other lies to justify this fairy tale. What I saw was the
best part of my child, her critical thinking, going this smells, the person she trusts the
most is saying ignore that and trust me. And I'm like, I'm out. I told my wife, I'm like,
I can't do this.
Then it'll be fucking elf on the shelf.
Oh, don't touch the elf, he'll die at the North Pole.
Why, to test your purity of temptation,
the apple and the fucking tree and we're in Eden.
And I realized the whole thing is the foundation
to buy into the other big one that I don't do
and probably you do.
There's this guy, he's his son and his dad.
He created the earth in seven days.
The earth is 4,000 years old.
It's all a primer.
If you ignore all your critical thinking
and all your good, smart senses,
you'll get this huge reward on the 25th.
I also find it a little repugnant
that you would need leverage over your child.
You know, he's watching you, shame, sin,
you won't deserve it, you'll be denied this.
Some people get cold.
I mean, the whole thing is madness.
And jump to one last thing, is my final point on it.
They like Christmas exactly as much as I did.
You wake up, there's fucking presents galore,
the tree's lit up, the house is decorated,
it smells good, we're eating good food,
we gather around, we were thoughtful,
we bought each other stuff, we're sharing our family.
It's beautiful.
Santa was kind of irrelevant.
I wouldn't have guessed that.
I'm like, I want them to have what I have.
It's just as good, but I'm not 36 lies deep into it.
It's a pretty, family.
I like the argument.
Rebuttal.
No, I'm not gonna break it down.
And I agree with what you said.
You're lying on top of lies to perpetuate this.
Little faces trying to compute what you're telling me.
I mean, three, to be thinking that way is pretty advanced.
So I gotta tell you what we did.
I'll do it, I'll support it no matter what it is.
Yeah.
Wait, can I say that to be really clear?
People will hear that and think I'm judgmental of them.
I don't give a fuck what anyone's doing.
I don't think what I'm doing is right.
I think what I'm doing is right between me and my two girls.
Yeah, that's great.
This is the problem I got.
Okay.
My daughter comes up to me and goes,
I think you and mommy are putting the shit under the tree.
And she says, shit.
And I think you and mommy are putting the shit under the tree. And she says, shit. And I'm like, shh.
And I think you're hiding the eggs.
Now I'm like, why would you think that?
Come on, they don't got time to do that.
Right?
Oh yes he does.
So I go, are you hearing this at school?
That's where I jumped to.
You gotta find a rep.
She goes, oh well, you know.
And she kind of alluded to the fact
that this was going around school.
So I leave the room crying.
I go up to my wife and I say,
on this mother thread you're in,
see who's talking shit on Santa.
I'm gonna figure out what's going on.
Sure enough, one of the women says I-
Kristen Bell.
My husband refuses to go with this, sorry.
I told my kid that there was no sin, I couldn't lie to them.
Okay, that's what the other parent said.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that kid now is coming to school and spoiling it.
Yeah. Yes.
For the rest.
Now if you want to do that at your home, that's fine.
Can I tell you something?
Yeah.
The immediate next thing I said is,
you are not to tell anyone this.
Other people enjoy it, other people believe in stuff,
other people believe in God, other people believe in Jesus.
That's not our business.
In this house, I'm telling you the truth,
and it stays in here.
So just so you know,
I don't want my kids going and ruining it.
So that's what was happening in my situation.
Yeah, it's no good.
They made the decision for you, that's not cool.
Not cool.
So, and I get your take on this. I go, we got to restore Santa. Santa's got to
get back up in this house. We need a big bit of proof right now. So I'm at a party
with a Santa Claus. Talking to this Santa and I tell him, I go, Santa, my kid don't believe
anymore. Wait, I should clarify, do you believe in Santa? Like, did you think you...
Ha ha ha ha!
You're going...
My dream for sure.
Ha ha ha ha!
So Santa, here's the fucking head scratcher.
So I'm telling Santa at this party
that this is what's going on at school,
and he goes, I offer a service.
I said, what?
He goes, I come to your house Christmas Eve.
I'm going to.
Well, that's the first question I ask.
Of course, what's this gonna send me back?
I say, Lana, get this guy's number and let's call him and see what this is going to cost.
$300.
This fucking guy comes.
Hold on a second.
Okay.
I think I'd prefer to spend a grand in this situation.
You're not looking for a bargain for a dude coming in your house in the middle of the night. So this Santa starts at 800 bucks. 600 bucks I can't pay you $400
dollars fine take the $300 dollars. Spray it up. Long story short.30 Christmas Eve.
What? I want to hear it.
11.30 this guy shows up in his suit, the whole thing.
Wake up my daughter. San is here.
Like in the chimney, under the tree.
He's hudd, under the tree. He's in the tree. He's huddling under the tree. No, he's putting presents under the tree.
I wake up my daughter.
Oh no.
He's in the living room, right?
I go to get my son, he can care less.
Do you have your camera?
Yeah.
You gotta play it all real,
because if Santa really did roll through,
you're gonna try to get a pic.
Cut the whole thing on video.
Oh.
Son don't want any part of it, he's tired.
He goes back to bed.
She sees him, she lit up, right?
Oh my gosh, I go, come out, we gotta go back.
And it's restored, okay?
Now, when she finds out, she finds out after this.
Not like I'm gonna be hiring Santa every year to come by.
But I just didn't like the fact that that kid
found out at home, told my kid, and ruined it.
And we didn't say, hey, yeah, we're Santa.
Yes!
So she went back to school, and she confronted that kid.
Said he was in my house.
No, I saw him.
I saw him in my house.
And now what?
And now what, yeah.
Because that girl's like, no, you didn't.
I don't even know what happened at school.
This could cripple my kid's upbringing.
Minimally it'll be brought up in some therapy session
at 23, I think.
And in conclusion might be my dad loved me so much
he invited a stranger into my house,
a guy that only charges $300 to come in your house
at 1130 at night.
My dad loves the deal.
Did you smell any booze on him or anything?
Not any booze, but you haven't lived until you're come in your house at 1130 at night. Did you smell any booze on him or anything? Not any booze, but you haven't lived
until you're outside in your slippers
peeling off $300 bills to Santa Claus
at midnight on a Christmas Eve.
Listen, I'm gonna throw another couple hundred in here.
You know the Bromsteens?
Yeah, they're Jewish.
I want you to fucking go in that house.
There's another thing though.
Go ahead.
You know, growing up, we didn't have a lot of Jewish people
in our school.
So everybody, Santa.
So now we got a lot of Jewish people in the school.
They must be going, Santa don't come to our house.
Yeah, exactly.
Tell me about it.
It gets confusing.
You know, we have a good friend who's from Venezuela
and they have the most hilarious thing,
which is they don't get Santa,
but they tell their kids it's because it doesn't snow here. No, they have baby Jesus baby Jesus brings presents and stuff
They have like a completely but they're aware of Santa. They know he exists in North America
But there's no snow down there. So he can't drive his sleigh down there. That's a good one
So you'd be very up for that
But Sebastian you must consider
as the next holiday approaches, she'll be told again.
I mean, I can't even imagine this poor fight
she's gonna be in on the playground
trying to explain no, he was absolutely.
No, he was there.
I have a picture.
Isn't that the embarrassment
that's gonna set in eventually?
Is she armed with the picture?
You know what?
My daughter is smart.
I think she's pacifying us. Yeah,
she probably knows. And she kind of knows. Okay. She's seven tomorrow. It's over. If
it comes up again, we'll have to tell her, listen, it ain't true, but make it true for
your brother because he's four. Okay, let me ask you this because the first time we
pitched the Santa concept to her and it didn't go well. Two seconds later, it's Easter. And
I'm like, I'm willing to lie over Christmas.
But to say there's an Easter bunny
that came through the house.
I mean, now we're talking about-
That was crazy.
Now we're talking about like a sentient bunny
who's full size.
It really strikes you at how mad it is.
And by the way, it's not like we're honoring
some 3000 year old tradition.
This Easter bunny thing was probably invented
in the 60s or something.
The Easter bunny for me, I'm sitting there,
even though my four year old going,
you ain't putting this shit together
that there's a bunny walking around with baskets.
Yeah, what is the bunny?
It's not a normal bunny.
It's a full size human, right?
Yeah, and the fact that he's breaking into the house.
Exactly.
Well, and Santa does that.
They're all robbers.
He'll be a heavyset dude entering through the chimney,
big combat boots.
He's been tracking you all year.
I think a lot of people don't even do that with Easter.
They say, we're doing an egg hunt.
Mommy and daddy did the egg hunt,
and Easter Bunny's just like a character.
But because it's not as widespread, not everyone's on the same hunt, and Easter Bunny's just like a character. But because it's not as widespread,
not everyone's on the same page with the Easter Bunny,
so I think it's the first one to go.
Yeah, I mean, in talking to you about this,
I see another perspective.
Tunnel would go down, and I'm more enlightened
than I was when I came in here.
Wow, that's a huge compliment.
Am I going to go explain that to my kids?
Probably not.
No.
But at least I understand the other side of the coin.
Coming in here, it was...
Let's be really honest, though.
I want you to be really honest with me.
Yeah.
Because I'm not totally unself-aware.
Like, I understand when you read a headline,
Kristen Bell and Jack Shepard
aren't telling their kids about Santa Claus.
I'm in the real world.
I'm like, these idiot liberal holly weirdos.
Just get with the program, man.
Like, I get it.
So be dead honest about, like, when you heard that about me,
what blanks did you fill in?
I put you with the person at my school
that their kid now is going to tell everybody else
at school, right?
Yeah.
What I didn't think about that you said to your kid,
he stays in the house.
So that's what I missed.
Yeah, I wish that were a part of a headline.
Yeah, I mean, it's not like I'm like,
oh, look at this fucking asshole.
I kind of might though.
I wouldn't fault you.
I associated that mindset with the people
that were doing that at the school.
And I'm like, really, Santa Claus is bad?
No. I'm totally with you. This just happened like, really, Santa Claus is bad? No.
I'm totally with you.
This just happened, I was on Kimmel a couple weeks ago.
I didn't even know this headline existed.
I'm pretty good at not knowing what's out there.
And he brought up on the thing behind me,
he's like, what about this article that came out
after you interviewed Bradley Cooper?
Well, when Bradley and I were talking,
we were talking about the fact that our daughters
come in while we're taking a shit,
and they just chat with us in the morning.
And the whole time I'm like,
do you not fucking smell what's going on in here?
Like, how are you standing here?
How does that not affect them?
And we were just bonding over,
that's so weird, your kids don't care.
Of course there's multiple headlines
like Bradley Cooper and Dax Shepard
let their kids watch them take a dump.
And I'm like, let was never part of this conversation.
They come in, I don't know what to do about that.
But again, if I'm in the real world,
I'm like, guys, you guys are fucking weird.
They're like insisting their children join them
while they take a shit.
Is that some new liberal thing too?
Kind of fucking weird shit's happening over there.
The whole coming in the bathroom thing has happened to me.
Of course, you have kids.
Hey daddy, and I, get outta here.
I'm like, I'll talk to you when I get out.
I can't even talk while I'm doing that.
You're a folk man.
Evacuating.
You're not even comfortable saying shitting or pooping.
I can already sense your relationship with evacuating
is already tenuous.
And you had a spectator.
I can't have an audience.
I wanna go back to your story,
which I really, really love.
You are, what kind of kid in the social hierarchy?
Like in high school, what kind of kid are you?
Not in the popular group, played soccer.
I wouldn't say a loner, but I went home for lunch
and watched Thrice Company.
Okay, Ritter.
Ritter, everybody was throwing a Taco Bell.
I just did my own thing.
A lot of my friends went to another school.
So I just had a hard time fitting in with the school culture
I was never on prom court or anything like that never in the theater just was average student shy and
Dudes fought in your school. I imagine was there a realistic threat of violence. No, okay
So you aren't afraid of getting like your ass kicked. You weren't trying to lay low to just be ignored not that school
Okay, were you not a class clown? No, you weren't no despised it. It was fucking guy needs so much attention
It's amazing. You came here. I must trigger every
Button you have don't I be honest? No, I was class clown. You look at my yearbook. That's class clown needs a lot of attention
I don't believe in Christmas
I look at my yearbooks, I was a class clown. Needs a lot of attention.
I don't believe in Christmas.
You believe in Christmas, don't let that be the headline.
Almost more than anyone.
God.
When do you know you're funny?
At home.
I'd come home and I'd report the news
of what I saw at school.
My dad would do that with his salon too.
So make the family laugh.
There was a lot of table time growing up.
A lot of family dinners.
Yeah, and we stayed.
This is the thing I'm most envious of,
the Italian family.
There was a lot of bonding over food.
I shined at book reports.
Anytime I had to get up in front of the class to do something,
that's when I would be funny, and I would sit down,
and people would go,
what? This guy didn't say a word all year.
And now he came up and blew us out of the water.
Okay, I know that archetype. Okay, that's great.
But then what's a little incongruous with that
is you go away to Northern...
First of all, the vocabulary you're throwing at me.
You're with it, don't even defend.
You're like placating your audience right now.
Yes you are.
Yeah, fuck you.
Communications major, you went to an actual university.
Bullshit.
You're like, you're afraid you're losing fans.
Now listen.
You go up there, and then somebody,
you're the fucking president of a fraternity that feels incongruous
With the dude who goes home to watch Ritter. Yes
But over time I became a lot more comfortable within my own skin. What were your insecurities in high school?
I had bad acne. I got bullied early on in junior high a little bit
I just felt like an outlier felt Felt like it didn't fit in.
Like they were all having some experience
that you were just observing.
Still feel like that way too at Hollywood.
I feel like I'm not into Hollywood
and everybody says this, right?
I don't have Hollywood friends,
I don't hang out in the parties,
I'm not at the Emmys, I'm not there.
You know what I'm saying?
By the way, you didn't have a TV show,
now you got a TV show, you might end up at the Emmys.
I'm not saying I want to be.
Right, exactly.
No, I know.
I think you're maybe better off.
I feel like you know a lot of Pete,
like you know Bradley Cooper, right?
Oh.
No.
Bradley.
I just feel like you're in the scene.
Yeah, you know what it is?
I started working in 2003 on Punk'd,
then I did a movie, and I literally said to myself,
wow, you know what this is? This is a chance to go through high school all over again and like everyone and I'm gonna take that
I mean it was a conscious decision like I'm not gonna roll through here as the punk rock
Skateboarder kid whose thinks no one wants to be with him and is gonna judge everyone. This is second chance
I'm like going to high school again, and I'm gonna like everyone
I did movies for 20 years in TV shows and I met all these incredible people and most of the people I worked with I really like
and I've been friends with.
Now, do I hang out with celebrities all the time?
No, Monica can tell you what my real life is.
What is that, once a month?
Yeah, we have our group of friends that's not.
That is our core group of friends.
I'm still best friends with my childhood best friends
since I was 11, Erin.
So it's like, yeah, I do.
I have a lot of relationships,
people I've worked with and I've adored,
but am I immersed, am I like at some Hollywood sex party?
I wish, but I haven't been invited to those.
But I do think the human condition's
to feel like you're not.
Yeah, I always felt like I was not at the party.
And I didn't have that feeling coming out here,
I just felt like, okay, here I go again,
I'm a lone wolf, strange town,
I'm gonna go and try and do stand up.
I work alone, just me. The answer to wolf, strange town. I'm gonna go and try and do stand-up. I work alone, just me.
The answer to nobody, just me.
If I screw up, I screw up.
If I do good, I do good.
So I think that's the nature of a comedian,
where I kind of feel like we're on a fringe of life.
If you had maybe ended up at the Groundlings,
I'm just curious what your relationship
with that would all be.
Well, I ended up at Second City in Chicago.
Oh, okay. And I hated it.
What part? Working with other people? Yeah
No, I was just like let's take a suggestion or let's do a scene and then I'm like
I got my own thoughts and I want to go my own way and I don't really want to play this game
I don't want to yes end my preference was I got my own funny thoughts
I want to share those funny thoughts and I don't want to be impeded by anybody else.
You don't want to compromise.
No, I don't want to compromise.
So I went to stand up, bro.
I've always wanted to be a stand up,
no doubt in my mind since I was in second grade.
So I just always felt I was always
watching other people behave.
But when you're the president of a fraternity at a college,
you're in the thick of it.
The way I looked at it, no one wanted to do it.
And I don't like to see things fail. And I'm like, no one wants to do this, I'll take the thick of it. The way I looked at that no one wanted to do it and I don't like to see things fail and I'm like no one wants to do this
I'll take the reins of doing this. Also I like getting up in front of people so
every chapter meeting on Monday it was like a comedy show for me yeah so I would
get up there and hey we got to do this we got to do this we got to do this
what's the sorority and I would be doing monologues up there. Is that where you
discovered that moving around was amusing to people?
No where I discovered that was just an evolution of doing stand-up within the first five years
I did this one joke about Ross for less work
I'm chucking stuff across the store and I noticed when I did that like oh wow people like the physical
Action and explaining the story with movement. Your physicality is so fantastic.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah, it's so fucking amazing.
I try to make that a part of what I do.
Monica and I were watching a clip of you on Kimmel.
You were mimicking.
No matter what you're talking,
there's this group over here
and you're swirling your hand.
It's lovely.
Yeah, I just think that took time to come out though.
That's not the way I normally behave.
When you're first doing standup,
you're afraid to like, ooh, can I do that?
You're frozen.
Yeah, so you're just kind of telling the jokes
and then the layers start to peel off
and you feel freer and loose
and like you do anything up there
and not even thinking about it.
Which is why I wish I could get there in acting
because right now I'm like so worried
about doing two things at once.
Like talking, learning a lot, and then drinking a cup of coffee. I'm like so worried about doing two things at once like talking learning to like and drinking a cup of coffee
I'm like too much. Yeah, that's why I like car scenes
Seated with a seat belt they ask you to roll the window down your house
But it's so long as you don't have to make a turn or all the window down or shift
I only do scenes with automatic. That's it
Think about all at once it took me a long time to get loose on camera.
I can't even watch early stuff.
I'm like, I am frozen.
Like they told me the mark is there
and I am not leaving that mark
and I am looking in that direction.
I'm never looking anywhere else.
By the way, in real life, you watch me.
I'm never looking in the same direction
for more than five seconds.
But in a scene, I'm like, uh-huh.
Yeah, and then what happened?
Yes, and I'm locked right in.
Well, you were doing punk.
That's definitely all improv
No script on that. By the way, were you in any of the auditions in the room with Ashton watching people?
I auditioned for that show. I tanked in the audition. The first season. I don't even know what season it was
Were you there in the room sometimes?
I auditioned for the first season when it was just a pilot called harassment and I auditioned like 12 times and
Maybe the last four it started becoming obvious
Maybe I was one of the people and then they were kind of chemistry testing me with other people so not impossible
Maybe but you're saying like the casting director
Ashton yeah, yeah, I would have never been there sitting watching an audition
But I was brought in to interact with other finalists,
I guess.
But you think you have a memory of me
staring at you while you auditioned?
Yeah, I think you were there in some way, shape, or form.
And then second season, I was gone.
I never was around for anything.
You did one season of that show?
Because I got recognizable after that.
Like a light switch.
So did you feel that that was like a launching pad for you?
Yeah, and then a huge chip on my shoulder
about it for 10 years.
I would be doing Press For Without a Paddle
and they'd go like, what's it like to act?
Because it was a reality show.
God, they think I'm not an actor.
Everyone thinks I'm not an actor.
Everyone thinks I'm a reality show person.
And I so distanced myself from that show
for like a decade and one day I woke up
and I was like, I'm fucking proud as hell of that show.
That was impossible what I had to do on that show.
I love it now, but it was a rough curve for me.
But you move here, you're waiting tables
at the Four Seasons, and then you're starting
to do stand-up, but you're here for a while
before you're at the Comedy Store, yeah?
Right away, 99, I got into the Comedy Store, so one year.
Tell me what the different culture is
between what determines whether someone's
gonna be a Laugh Factory person or a Comedy Store person.
So I started taking comedy classes at the Comedy Store
with Mitzi Shores daughter Sandy Shores,
it was called the Sandy Shores Sandbox Comedy.
Paulie Shores sister?
My thinking was, oh, the sister likes me,
she'll tell the mother.
And I'm into the club.
That was my outlook. Sure, of course.
Bingo, bango, bongo.
So I find out that the mother and the daughter didn't get along.
First day of class.
So $550 going. Found a drink.
Could've got one and a half Santas.
So I just loved the comedy store. I just loved being there. There's something about it.
Oh, it's got a big vibe. I went to the original room. I thought well wow this feels like I'm at home the pictures on the wall
It's almost feels like going to Saturday live. I've never done Saturday live, but it feels like there's history there
This is kind of where it all started Richard Pryor was he a Comedy Store guy Richard Pryor Jim Carrey
So Laugh Factory, I liked it. It was just kind of bright and young but no real history there.
It's kind of like an old Italian restaurant.
It's a comedy store.
Yeah.
What's the vibe at the Laugh Factory? I don't even really know. I'm asking sincerely.
Yeah, it was just like more high-energy, younger kids.
Still locals or mostly traveling people?
You get like a foreign contingent at the comedy store.
You know, sometimes people are visiting from Germany and they don't know what to do.
They end up at the comedy store.
I feel like the Laugh Factory was like the young, hip,
just younger people.
You look in a comedy store, there'd be like 50-year-old couple,
and then maybe like a group of businessmen.
So I felt like it was like a diverse group of people.
That's kind of where I gravitated towards.
She gave me spots at midnight, 12, 31 o'clock,
I would go after a lot of big names.
Eddie Griffin would go up and then I would have to go up.
So she would kind of test you, like, can you follow that?
What are you gonna do?
So there's a lot of that there.
That is a unique aspect of stand-up man.
Who you're following, who follows you,
that whole dynamic is very fascinating.
When you're starting out, it's very nerve wracking.
Yeah, intimidating for sure.
Or going up at 1.30 in the morning
when there's five people in the audience and they're gone.
Yeah, they're out to sea.
She had a way of building the lineup
and structuring it to where you were in your career.
And other clubs, they're not curated that way.
That was just like, okay, we got a show
and there's a lineup.
So you benefited, I imagine, greatly from that.
I definitely felt like that was my gym.
When did you start feeling, you started in 99, you said?
98.
98, what year would you say you start feeling like,
okay, I'm kind of approaching the thing
that's actually gonna work? I felt like 05, 06, I'm kind of approaching the thing that's actually gonna work.
I felt like 05, 06, I started coming into my own.
And that's amazing, dude, that's seven years.
I look at seven year in tapes, and I was still learning,
but I just felt like, okay, I'm getting my feet here.
I'm starting to hit the three pointer
a little bit more than normal.
Yeah, and you're assembling, I'd imagine, a toolkit.
You've got some backups and some go-tos.
You assemble some tricks, yeah?
When you first start doing stand-up,
you don't want to deviate from your material.
A bomb could have went off in the room
and wouldn't have acknowledged it.
Right.
Gotta get through my seven minutes.
It's just like anything else, though.
It's like you start bodybuilding and you're 160 pounds.
You got no muscle.
Then you do some chest and you start to see development.
No, here I'm getting biceps.
Same way with stand-up.
You keep doing it, oh, there's a heckler.
Okay, you dealt with that one night, went awful.
And then the next time it happens,
and you're like, oh wow, I kinda handle that better.
And thinking about it, and I don't know
if this is happening now in stand-up,
just because the evolution of the internet
and social media, but the time that you have to put in
to stand up comedy, anything, but stand up in particular.
I don't know if the comedians now
are putting that amount of time in
because I think they're being thrust into
being a comedian right away
because maybe they have some popularity on social media.
Well, and let's be honest,
let's say that in that seven year learning period,
certainly you had shows that were really good and you're right home. You're like fuck. I can't believe that happened
I hope that happens again now that could have been on video you could have posted that on Instagram and on my assumption is that's
What going to see Sebastian is like every time so it could be a little misleading to the consistency could not be there yet
You could pop so you could have like a three or four minute great set and put that up and be like, oh my god,
this guy's hysterical.
And you go to a show and he's like, he's just great.
It takes a while to get material.
The way I look at comedy is every joke
has to be equal or greater than the previous joke, right?
Because it's like you can't have a dip off
and come back up, dip off again.
People are going to go, what the fuck, that's not funny.
It's got to be consistent. And that's the hardest thing to do, in my opinion, in stand up. People are gonna go, what the, this one, that's not funny, it's gotta be consistent.
And that's the hardest thing to do,
in my opinion, in standup.
That's what I pine over, I go, this is funny.
Should this even be in the act?
Does it match the level of material
prior to this, after this?
And also, you know, you wanna come out
and you wanna get the attention of the audience.
You wanna prove to them, like,
the next hour and a half is gonna be worth listening to.
So, you gotta be careful.
You don't wanna come out of the gate too strong.
And then they go, okay, that guy,
the first 10 minutes, where did he go?
Yeah, treating it like a sprint instead of a marathon.
Yeah, but then you wanna smack him in the mouth,
going, you ready for a good time?
Because if you like this,
I got so much more to come that you're gonna die.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You gotta grab their attention.
Especially in this day and age.
I mean, you gotta come out of the gate.
Dick out.
Dick out.
Seconds away from his brain.
Dick out.
To get anyone to listen to an hour of anything
at this point is hard.
It is.
And then there's like, when do I end?
When do you get off stage?
The whole adage of leaving with them wanting more.
But if it's 50 minutes in and you start to see, oh wow. A lot of people going to the bathroom.
A lot of yawns.
Yeah, you want to maintain,
okay maybe I should put this chunk here.
So you gotta go out and practice it.
Well let me jump to, I should have said this
at the beginning, but currently you're
an American record holder.
Your run at Madison Square Garden's
was a record setting event.
You're one that you're doing this year, which is you're doing five shows sold out.
You're at the apex of this art form.
You don't want to hear that compliment,
but let's just move on.
It's nice to hear, but go ahead.
And you're 30 years into being out here.
When did the rocket ship start?
It started in 2014, 15.
I just started to feel like at the comedy clubs,
I come back and they're like, you want to add a show?
I'm like, add a show.
I remember two years ago on a Thursday night,
we were like, do you want to cancel the show?
You know?
All right.
So yeah, I started to feel momentum.
And imagine too, what must also change
is your publicity commitment.
Like when you were on the road, I would imagine there was a period where you had to go to
every radio station in town and try to sell seats.
And now you're showing up, it's like you're debating whether to add a second or a third
show.
Yeah.
That's a pretty significant evolution in the experience.
And then even presented with, okay, I think we should go to theaters now.
And I'm like, theaters?
I don't know if I can sell 3,000 seats.
Even though I sold 3,000 seats at the comedy club
for the week, theaters?
Again, it's a business, okay, that's more money
to rent the theater out.
Now we got ushers, now we got a lighting guy, a sound guy.
And then that's starting to factor into everything.
You make that jump, okay, we're doing theaters,
now we're adding theaters.
If you're doing theaters and you're doing,
I don't know, however many dates,
you're now making a fucking living.
Yes, you're making a living doing comedy clubs.
Sure, but now you're gonna buy a house and stuff.
It's a big ratchet up.
You're making 100 grand a night, potentially,
everywhere you go.
That's huge.
Yeah, it's big.
It's tempting to stay there, no?
Because you know the show works at that size.
It's damn good money.
The venues are gorgeous. it's a comfortable life.
Yeah, but then you run this risk.
If you're in theaters, right,
let's say you're going to Cleveland, Ohio on Friday,
and they said, you sold out 3,000,
I think we could do a Saturday.
Okay, I book a Saturday.
Saturday sold out, as soon as we put it on.
I think we do a Sunday.
We'll put that on sale, too.
That sells out, right?
The next time you go to Cleveland,
they said, you know what, forget the theater.
You do one night in an arena,
and then you could go to Detroit the next night
in an arena.
You're tripling your time in a sense.
Yeah, it's like, let's consolidate the crowd in one thing,
and we can do more.
Now this is where we get into the whole,
how much is enough?
Yeah. Right? Yeah.
How much you gonna do?
Well, also, I wonder if you're evaluating,
because even in our limited experience,
for us at a 2 to 3,000 seat theater, it's golden.
It's a great experience.
It's still quite intimate.
We go to this place in San Francisco, it's like 5,000.
I'm like, we need a monster truck show in here.
Like this place is fucking too big.
Even Chicago Theater, that's a big theater.
It works, but you're also, I imagine you're evaluating
how enjoyable will the show be as I scale up.
Absolutely.
And you have an integrity and commitment
to the people that come spend money and get a babysitter.
So that's in the mix too, no?
Absolutely.
I think about that all the time.
Like is comedy really supposed to be in a basketball arena?
At the scale, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But then you go, okay, what kind of production
are we gonna bring in here to kind of offset the fact that we're in a
20,000 seat arena how big are the screens gonna be you go in a theater?
I don't know if you guys use screens
But you put two screens on the side of you changes everything for me
It does because half of my act is expressions and movement ain't gonna get that up there and JJJ
317 and then you get people looking at the screens not even you so you get somebody in a second row and you're right there
And they're looking right at the screen. Yeah
Which could take focus and energy off the center of the performance?
So you got to like kind of factor all these things in as you grow and get into these bigger venues
And you say breaking records listen this arena thing now is almost commonplace
Everybody's not everybody but a lot more people are doing arenas now.
Let's be honest, there's probably eight people.
This is perfect timing
because I had never seen stand up in an arena
and I did on Friday in Austin.
I saw Andrew Schultz for the first time.
Okay, at the Moody Center?
Yeah, I think McConaughey told me maybe that was like 14,000
or something like that.
So how was it?
It was great, two huge screens
and I'm in a suite with a dude,
so we're pretty far away and I absolutely loved it.
I mean, he also I think is phenomenal.
I do think there's a talent level required to perform
in that big of a room.
I think you gotta be really high energy
and really confident and be physical.
I think there's some stuff that has to go along with it.
I don't know that Cosby could've sat down on his stool
and done it in an arena.
Yeah, I think in an arena there's certain comedian
that plays well in there. Just gotta fill an arena. Yeah, I think in an arena there's certain comedian that plays well in there.
Just gotta fill the room.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stay tuned for more of Firefighter Expert, if you dare.
Do you remember your very first arena show?
Yeah, it was in Philadelphia at the Wells Fargo Center.
Or it was Toronto.
One of the two.
It's a blur.
Sorry Toronto and sorry Philadelphia.
No you don't remember.
My apologies.
I think we had a...
I had a chili dog.
Where would have I eaten a chili dog before this show?
I had a kabuki.
You know what a kabuki is?
No.
Is that one of those cookies with the ice cream?
No, it's when I think of...
It's a bad sexual term.
Oh, it is?
La la la la la.
It's a scrim that comes down over the stage.
So it was in the round and it was like a cylinder sheet.
Silk.
Yeah, that covers the whole stage.
I'm thinking, okay, Michael Jackson's
a huge inspiration for me.
I want to go see him in concert.
Oh, the molestines.
He said, how do you not believe in Christmas?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Told his children and bubbles that Santa was.
No, I love Michael Jackson too.
I'm looking at the performance
So I'm like I want to put some production into this so I did a thing where up on the scrim
You would see me climbing up this ladder and I would fall off and you would say oh my god. He's in there, right?
He's in there and then the kabuki would drop and then I would be kind of just there on the center of the stage
Just to give this
some feeling like we're at a show. This is show business, right? Of course. And I'm sorry,
a lot of this shit that's out there right now, it's not like you're putting on a show. Yes.
In an arena. And to Schultz's credit, you go to his show. I haven't been to it, but I've seen it
online. He's got lights. He's a gangster, he comes out to hip hop.
It's a vibe, yes, it's produced.
Put some thought into this shit.
So I just want to give the people their money's worth.
Now that I think about it, it was in Philadelphia.
You had just had a beautiful Philly cheesesteak,
little too much, you're up on that ladder,
you're like, oh, onions, shouldn't have got peppers.
None of that.
None of that bullshit.
Rocky statue.
That's where I went prior to the show.
Did you?
Took a knee.
Say a couple prayers.
Took homage.
That must have been so surreal though.
It was surreal, but the whole thing now,
to your point in regards to hey, is this sustainable?
When do you put the tickets in
for Madison Square Garden and they tell you
one show is 30% sold.
Right. You know what I'm saying? That's always a fear in the back of your head you one show is 30% sold.
You know what I'm saying?
That's always a fear in the back of your head.
Well look, I think, and we've been talking about this,
ad nauseam probably makes the listeners so sick of it,
but what is a very interesting and very privileged
experience is to go from trying to get something
and then trying to hold on to something.
And it's a very precarious and weird mental space.
Building is you get it.
Yeah, let's sell those shows out.
Okay, great, if we do this third, we could do an arena.
Now it just switches to like, okay,
now I don't wanna lose it,
but I don't have a game plan on how to not lose it.
I have a game plan how to build.
Yeah, it could be compared to,
you build a beautiful house, right?
But then there's stuff gonna go wrong with the house.
Are you gonna leave the grass grow? Are you gonna let the gutters rust? You got to maintain it, right?
So if you pay attention to it and you nurture it and for your podcast, right?
I'm sure you pine over and I don't know maybe you don't but just listen to you say that okay
We had this guest and we had a dip and then
Are we gonna come back next week? Where are we in the rankings?
How do we keep this at the level?
I love this, I wanna keep this.
But I don't have any experience.
I have 29 years of experience trying to build shit.
So now that it's built.
Yeah, exactly.
It's an interesting transition and I have a sense
if we don't navigate it correctly
and with a lot of thoughtfulness we will lose it
So is it harder to build or maintain thus far harder mentally to maintain mentally?
I mean, I think the truth is it's harder to build and gain success
I mean, that's what most people would tell you
99.9% people who don't have the thing would say that but it's just a weird position to be in where you got there
You love what you have and you like it and then it's just a weird position to be in where you got there. You love what you have.
And you like it, and then it's like,
oh fuck, I don't want it to go away.
And it could at any moment, it's scary.
This stuff's all gross to talk about out loud,
but I like that we're doing it.
I thought the building was the best part of it.
Going back to Gotham Comedy Club
and taking pictures with the fans outside
and signing DVDs and like, oh, you're from this?
I wasn't even thinking about,
are these people gonna come back next time?
You were taking it for what it was in the moment.
Yeah.
I wish I had that same mentality to maintain it.
It seems to be a lot more stressful now
than it was 10 years ago, right?
Yeah.
But you would think it would be.
But is that just revisionist history?
It's kind of hard to really think back to how it felt then because I'm sure it was stressful then too
I think we forget some of that
I agree with you
But also I have said many times in here the highlight for me was the Sunday company at the groundlings
The fact that I went out on stage on Sunday nights and the place was sold out and I was doing the fucking thing
I had come to California to do,
and people were laughing,
and people wanted to meet me in the lobby afterwards.
That was incomprehensible.
And I felt like I was in it.
But again, you were an alcoholic who was worried
that you were failing all the time.
You are deciding to take that piece out
when you recall it.
That's all I'm saying.
You were smoking crack in Ghost Town,
and Venice also, by the way.
I mean, it's a fair, like we just remember things
with a very gross face.
You were fucking strangers hoping that would
make you feel good.
Yeah, you were.
But I agree with you, there's something to the process
of building that's very fulfilling.
There is, and maybe there's another way to look at it too.
A weird analogy would be, I'm sitting on a beach
over Christmas at a hotel I have no business being at and it's the dream and I'm there and I did
it. I'm looking around and I cannot help but notice my trips to the Holiday Inn
Express people were having much more fun because they still had all this stuff
they could look forward to. They could sit there and they could dream of this
and maybe this time we'll do it. The people I was looking around like they all got here
we're here there's no place left and this isn't that much fun.
And now, not only is it not that much fun,
I've robbed myself of hope and daydreaming in a weird way
because this is it.
And there's some weird sadness.
It made me think, of course Elon Musk and Bezos
are going to Mars.
It's literally the only thing left they can't do.
Yeah, that's a good point.
If you and I are sitting at the hotel pool
and we go like, wouldn't it be titties
to have an island and some offshore race boats?
We don't have that.
We're gonna have to do some tricks to get that.
And we can fantasize about you and I,
Miami Vice style on a race.
You know, it could be a whole thing.
If Elon and Bezos are sitting there and they're like,
we should get, yeah, in two hours we could have that. But you
know what, are those things really... They're not that fun. Yeah, but if you're at the
hotel, right, and you're looking around going no one else is having fun, but if
you're with your family and your kids and you're having a blast, what else
matters, right? It doesn't matter and not a great trip, but I just could feel it. There is a, oh we have to act a certain way now. Everybody's quiet and you're having a blast, what else matters, right? It doesn't matter, and I had a great trip, but I just could feel it.
There is a, oh, we have to act a certain way now.
Everybody's quiet, and you go up to somebody
and no one's doing cannon balls like they're doing
at the Radisson Inn on Beltline and Bounce.
No one's swimsuit failed them.
Everyone's got a pretty new suit.
But a fight could break out at the Holiday Inn Express.
It's got him exciting.
And you get an accidentally stabbed.
All right.
Yeah.
So you take the no fun five star hotel and stab him.
He's including the stabbing is the fun part.
You like that.
Yeah, yeah.
You want that.
I would have loved it if there was a stabbing
at the Four Seasons in Mexico.
I would have been first on the scene.
Okay, really quick, we already touched on it.
I wanna know, do you have gratitude for this?
A lot of the stuff you're now getting to do at 50
is the stuff a lot of standups would have been doing at 29.
And I think there's a lot of good that comes with that,
and there's probably some shit I'm not thinking about
that's challenging about that.
But now you got a sitcom, now you're in movies.
You got to make a movie where De Niro played your fucking dad.
In some weird way, I'd imagine it's a blessing. I've even had a blessing that it didn't happen
for me until 29. If I was in punk at 21, I would have been dead. There's no question.
And you start on this other chapter in your entertainment life, already having kids,
having some foundation, having all this stuff. What are your thoughts about getting all these
dreams later? I couldn't have done what I'm doing now as far as the bookie or being in movies when I was
25, 30, 35. I didn't have the confidence. Now I'm confident. I could go up to Chuck Laurie now and
go, I'm not feeling it. And maybe when I was 29, I would have not said anything. I don't want to rock the boat, or I'm just happy to be here.
And over the years, it's given me confidence
to speak up for myself and trust my instincts.
Sometimes I would have great instincts,
but wouldn't react on them because I felt like,
oh, that's not what they want.
And it took me a little bit to learn that.
And now I'm 50, and I'm getting an opportunity
to be on a TV show.
You're right, Friends and Seinfeld, mid-30s got this opportunity.
Ray Romano.
So I needed those years to build my confidence.
By the way, it kind of explains potentially why the collaboration wasn't fun at Second City,
which is you were likely to get gobbled up.
You're right. It took me a while. I needed to go out there and earn my confidence.
And meeting my wife 15 years ago,
having a family later on in life,
there's some pros and cons to that.
I often look at my age, and I look at my kid's age,
and go, oof, man, I got a six-year-old and a four-year-old.
I'm 50, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
My dad was 50 when I moved out to California.
Sometimes I compare the life
I had growing up and the life I'm living now and wishing oh man, I really like my childhood
I wish my kids could have that same experience, but they don't so how do you adjust to that?
I'm able to do that now at 50 and I wouldn't be able to do that if I had kids at 30
Yes, I'm sure you and I wrestle with the same thing
which is I need them to grow up the way I did.
It scares me.
No, it should.
I don't want my kids to assume
that they will have a swimming pool at their house.
Well, I think you won already because you know that.
There's some people that give the kid the swimming pool
and they don't let them know,
hey, not everybody's got. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And every party you go to, they're gonna have what we have.
And that doesn't make those people any less than us.
Beat it into their heads.
But circling back to Santa,
because we should keep talking about that.
All roads lead back to Santa.
That's what I actually think
is the most problematic thing about Santa,
is that if everyone's. Oh, this is good.
Yeah, if Santa's's real why are kids that
don't have as much money getting fewer presents and why did Santa bring me
ponies and you Jordans exactly you know what you're like I already said the Santa
thing I think we've covered it that you have some valid arguments I just it's
another one I'm piling off. Just trying to keep the dream alive
over at the Maniscalco.
Yeah, try to explain to your daughter why
Santa spent $6,000 on her Christmas.
Yeah, and then that boy got.
Two scratchers.
Ew.
What?
What?
What?
For a comedy bit, I like that whole mindset,
but I don't think any other kid other than yours
can figure this out.
Some kids are just like, you got what?
I got this and they don't equate.
Except for your kids.
Your kids are on another level when it comes to this.
You got a book?
Cool, I got a Power Wheels.
What book did you get?
Naughty and nice and stuff.
It's like, I guess I was naughty.
I guess he was just naughty.
He got a book. Yeah, and really he's just like, I guess I was naughty. This is bad. I guess he was just naughty.
He got a book.
Yeah, and really he's just poor.
Mike got a fucking book.
I don't know what he did this year,
but I do know this, Santa brought him a book.
Guys, listen, I don't know what Santa ever did to you.
Will you please, will you flesh this out?
I hope to God I see you do stand up one day
and somehow this is all fleshed out.
This is in.
Yeah, incorporate.
There's something here.
Something's here. Something sticky sticky about this isn't there?
That argument, I will make the complete opposite
of my argument, because I'm going to make you guys
look like the enemy.
Okay, sure, sure.
You have to, you're the hero of your stand up routine.
And then the audience is gonna go,
yeah, those people, can you believe?
No.
No.
Liberal.
Oh.
The last thing I wanna get your opinion on,
at the risk of Monica and I getting a little heated here.
Oh no.
You have to be observant.
As someone who watched Stand Up like crazy as a kid,
then got into comedy, did sketch comedy,
tracked everything that happened on Saturday Night Live,
tracked everything that was, like I've been following it.
We're at an interesting point in comedy,
and I think probably Bill Burr and Chappelle
being the kind of vanguard of it,
coupled with this movement of wokeness
and a pushback to wokeness, comedy is seeming
more and more relevant at this moment.
Do you feel that?
I think people are turning to comedy for the unfiltered truth of it all.
The original thing comedy did, which was bring truth to power
or to challenge the status quo or to disrupt,
even the jester, its inception was this goofball that would go in front of the king
and have the ability to make fun of the king and no one else could.
But he was so funny at doing it that they were able to bring truth to power.
And I can't help but observe that there's this big swell of America going, we need y'all's
voice right now.
Oh yeah.
I think people getting offended whatnot are just very small group of people
I'm speaking from my own experience when I go on the road
I'm seeing it first hand that the jokes that seem to hit the hardest are the jokes that tend to
Kind of push back against it's not even pushing back
It's like you used to just make fun of everything
But then now all of a sudden we have these parameters of what you can and cannot joke about and I don't do a lot
Of jokes that are cultural.
Mine's like family.
I went to Universal Studios with my kids.
I just feel like people are dying to laugh at the absurdities of life.
Yeah.
And all of us that are here.
Yeah.
I don't feel like it's as big of a problem as it might be presented.
It is misleading by virtue of where you live.
We live here.
I'm ultra aware of all this stuff, but then yeah, I'm down somewhere else and I'm like,
oh right, that's not even a thing here.
No one's even talking about this.
Definitely misleading even when you're on this podcast.
I'm sure you're like, hmm, should we air that one?
That could be a cancelable offense.
Yeah.
And before it was just like, oh, that was funny.
And now all of a sudden you got to be a little bit more cautious
About what you put out there, and if I'm being fair a lot of the comedy was just
mean and
Superior there was a spirit to some of it this pendulum swung all these different ways
But I do think it's landed with a handful of people
I really like right now the intentions right the spirits right the hearts's right, the heart's right, and we're gonna fucking
laugh at every one of our neighbors together, because that's what we do.
So I think it evolved, like I'll watch some of the stuff and I'm like, I'm glad that's
gone.
That kind of was mean.
Yeah, I mean there is mean-spirited comedy and you could feel it almost.
Yeah.
And it's just a gut, but you don't go online and, hey, this is a mean thing, you know,
it's like, all right, that was mean,
all right, maybe that's a mean thing.
I'm gonna see this person again.
Wasn't that funny?
Yeah.
But I've always looked at it as,
hey, I'm making fun of life in general and all of us,
and we all could laugh together about being 50
and wearing Georgians or whatever it might be.
I just feel like we gotta just loosen up a little bit.
That's all.
Yeah.
I also think like the comedians are letting us know like hey we can also have some fun again
Yeah, we've got a lot of correction to do but also hey
This is a pretty fun place planet Earth this country flawed as it is pretty great one
It's okay to have some fun still we can laugh and have a good time
We don't have to be crying all the time. Why was this a point of contention between you two?
You said oh, we're probably gonna get in an argument
Why was this a point of contention between you two? You said, oh, we're probably going to get in an argument.
Well, just yesterday we were debating one of these comedians
and navigating the very legitimate fact
that it's different for Monica than it is for me.
My issue sometimes with certain comedy,
I don't think it's the comedian.
I think generally the comedian's smart
and has a fun take and a funny take, depending.
But if they do, I worry about the people in the audience who don't get that it's making
fun of all of us.
They hear the eyes joke.
I sent her the Schultz thing where he's in Taiwan.
This is why it works for me.
The audience is thousands of Taiwanese.
When you said that, I was like, are you sure they're in Taiwan?
There was a lot of people.
No, he's in Taiwan.
He said, listen, I'm here in Taiwan and you realize if you guys get invaded by China, that's going to be us in Australia. Also, there was a lot of people. No, he's in Taiwan. He said, listen, I'm here in Taiwan, and you realize if you guys get invaded by China,
that's gonna be us in the Australian.
Also, that was so funny.
I'm not saying he's not being funny,
but when he makes the joke about open up your eyes,
if the Taiwanese people are laughing, great.
It's the white person who is racist who laughs.
They're like, see, they do have clothes,
their eyes don't open, see?
It's that that I feel is aligned to Toe.
That person, regardless of what the comedian says,
is going to probably hear that from...
They're already think it.
That was my exact retort was simply,
that joke didn't make that person that way.
That person was that way,
and they're in search of all kinds of reasons
to continue to think that way.
It's like kind of my defensive stern,
if we even take it out of any wokeness
and just go back to the 90s and go like,
yeah, a lot of people weren't in on the joke.
I think that person's not in on any joke they hear.
Or they're just out there trying to gather
some arsenal of shitty things to say to other people.
And I don't know how we account for those people.
I don't know that it's our responsibility to.
I get what you're saying.
You're saying, oh, you're fueling the idiots.
It can.
I mean, obviously I come here
with a much different perspective on those jokes.
Plenty of jokes have been used against me in life
that when I see it on stage,
I can't laugh at it when it was used to punch me.
I do recognize
Monica in Junior high where the only Indian person on TV is a boo and then every kid in school
Is calling you a boo and stuff like yeah that fucking blows
I do a joke about Indians being smart right generally engineers and what-have-you. It's a good generalization. Yeah
the engineers and what have you. It's a good generalization, yeah.
Safe one.
It's pretty safe.
Well, even people get bent out of shape,
even me mentioning.
That they over index in engineering.
Well, in school, Indians were the smartest kids
in the school, them and the Japanese.
That's the way it was.
Namisha Patel was the smartest kid in my class.
So when I make reference to that,
I get sometimes Indians do other things
other than engineering. Okay, but their people are gonna. It's that, I get sometimes Indians do other things other than engineering.
Okay, but there are people who are gonna...
It's easy, it's crazy, what are we gonna do?
Oh, sorry, come on.
I agree with you.
That's not offensive though.
But people will find offense anywhere.
I agree.
And I get sometimes annoyed here
because I don't want to get lumped in with that person.
I'm not that person.
But I am a person if you say like, shit,
I mean not you, but something about brown skin
being shit colored.
For one, I just don't think it's smart comedy.
Like there's just a lot of bad comedy.
That's not smart.
And then those were actual things used against
these minority groups.
Being smart wasn't.
Well you just said, the shit.
It's not funny, it's mean-spirited.
That type of stuff, you don't laugh at.
But some people laugh at it.
People gonna talk that way, it's a shame.
You don't like to see it, it hurts.
I get it, I'm just saying, I wouldn't concentrate on it.
I don't think I actually do.
She doesn't, and now I feel bad.
I get roped in in these conversations. My apologies, I don't mean I actually do. She doesn't and now I feel bad that I even position. I get roped in in these conversations.
My apologies. I don't mean to position you and I on opposite ends of any spectrum.
Cut it out.
Yeah, get it all snip snip snip snip. Keep it clean.
Anywho, I guess in summation, I just think it's a really interesting moment in comedy.
I think it's the best time to be a comedian, to be honest with you.
People more now than ever need to laugh.
That's why you see a lot of people selling out arenas
and theaters.
Comedy is flourishing.
Yeah, so there's a good question.
So you first sold out The Garden four nights in a row
in 2019.
And so we're five years beyond that.
And when you were doing it, it was kind of a novelty.
And so I think there's a really clean parallel
between this show and that,
which is we've been doing it for six and a half years. In the last three years, a whole bunch of folks entered the fray.
A lot of people get millions of downloads.
Does it scare you or encourage you?
I can see it going either way.
It makes me question my prevalence, my popularity.
Where am I in this whole thing?
My ascending or descending?
Yeah, we'll see.
I mean, I got a big tour coming up in July and we'll see how the tickets sell in the
hot markets.
They're great. You know, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, New York City, Toronto, but you know, you go to Norfolk, Virginia, we're going to have to get on the horse and start selling tickets.
It's all stressful. You look at the blue dots. I don't know if you guys do blue dots on Ticketmaster. You don't look at blue dots?
Tell me how blue dots work.
So when you go and you're doing a theater to see how you're doing, you go master And there's a map of the seats and blue dots are seats that are not sold not sold
Actually, John Mayer and I have talked about this. He's a blue dot guy. Okay
You go on to see how your tickets are selling and if you see a sea of blue dots, you know
Your hair starts falling out on the keyboard
So Kevin Hart comes out. He's doing theaters for his next theaters.
This guy's an arena act going to theaters now.
So I'm thinking, he is Kevin Hart,
the biggest comedian in the world.
He's doing theaters.
What the hell am I doing in North Fork, Virginia,
trying to sell out an arena?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's really heady.
Yeah, it's heady.
To hop on the hamster wheel and start sprinting.
That's why, you know, in 2025, I'm gonna retire
and just hang out at school events.
And see my kids' gala.
Fundraisers.
Oh, you must be the first up.
Oh yeah, I know.
You must get called six times a week.
I'm doing the gala in three weeks.
So your current tour that people can buy tickets to
is Ain't It Right Tour.
And you're gonna be in LA August 17th.
Where are you at in LA?
At this new Intuit Dome.
So Bruno Mars opens it up Thursday and Friday
and I come in Saturday.
So I took a tour of the dome.
Where's it at?
It's right next to SoFi.
Oh it is.
State of the art.
Gorgeous.
Gorgeous.
I mean it's designed for basketball.
It's gonna be home to Los Angeles Clippers.
Steve Ballmer owns not only the team, but the building.
And he took me through a tour.
He's a rad dude.
Yeah, have you met him? Yeah.
And he's from Michigan.
He's a big personality.
He took me through the bathrooms.
No mirrors in the bathroom.
Ah.
You don't want people looking at themselves
because it takes away from cheering for the team.
Oh, wow.
So the whole objective of this stadium is to keep people in their seats.
The concession stands all face recognition.
You don't have to take out a wallet or anything like that.
The toilet seats have spikes on them so no one wants to sit too long.
No toilets.
No toilets.
Cool.
So it's a pretty spectacular place so I'm looking forward to playing it.
And how many cities will you do on the Ain't It Right Tour?
I think it's 94 shows over the course of nine months.
So it's my biggest tour ever.
What does that work out to?
Like two a week-ish?
It's one week on, one week off,
maybe two weeks on, two weeks off.
So generally speaking, I'll go out
for about three or four nights,
come home and then maybe have a week off.
It's not like I'm gonna be on a bus for nine months
like Motley Crue in the 80s.
You can barge in.
Do you want me to drive you to some shows then?
Can you drive me to and do it though?
Of course.
Parking might be rough, do you see the size of it?
But I'll figure it out.
I can see this thing.
When we walk out.
I pulled in, I was looking at the dirt buggy.
Well, Sebastian, I'm so glad I finally got to meet you.
Yeah, man.
I think you're spectacular.
I love everything I've seen you do. It's so good. I'm so happy for you. Also, man. I think you're spectacular. I love everything. I've seen you do. It's so good
I'm so happy for you. Also what just a rad story for it to all come together
Yeah, really cool after just fucking battling or seasons for seasons brother
What's the craziest thing you ever saw waiting tables there? I'd like to see what the celebrities tipped
So Shaq would come in Sunday by himself sometimes,
come up in one of those cars that has a convertible,
like 1950s car, order a fruit plate.
What?
With a coffee.
I felt like I was serving a giant I had to bring out.
Big spoon.
Hahaha.
Serving spoon.
Serving spoon, yeah.
You just leave $100 under the plate every time.
No check, no nothing.
Just very generous.
Sean Penn would come in as a regular and kind of be a little trepidatious about waiting
on him just because...
You're scared, yeah.
Scared.
Who knows?
It is TUNA ROLL!
For me, coming from the Northwest suburbs of Chicago in 1998, next thing you know I'm
waiting on Nicole Kidman.
It was exciting.
I would have loved that.
Did you have to police yourself about putting on too good of a show for them?
You must have wanted their approval.
I would have been like tap dancing every time I brought the fruit plate.
The only guy I was like that with was Jerry Seinfeld
because I felt like he gave me the energy to be a little bit more open.
A little more extra?
Yeah, Four Seasons was very, you know, don't say anything.
This is not casting.
Yeah. Yeah.
But with Jerry, I kind of goofed around with him
and we had a good exchange and actually remembered it.
I was going to say, cause you're in his movie now
that's coming out.
Yeah. I'm unfrosted.
And I did comedians in cars with him.
And I told him that I worked at, he goes,
I remember you there.
How cool.
So yeah, it was a great place to work for seven years.
Do you feel like you're in that party?
The comedian party?
I mean, getting to do comedians.
In cars, yeah, it's like almost a Johnny Carson
getting called over to the couch vibe.
Exactly.
I feel like I'm in that comedy community with standups.
Yeah, I feel like I'm in the game.
I feel like I'm in that.
Good, you are.
Well, you are, yeah.
You deserve that feeling.
Well, thank you.
Yeah, and where do people go to get tickets?
Sebastianlive.com is where you get your tickets for the tour.
It Ain't Right, starting July 11th in Norfolk, Virginia.
The aforementioned Norfolk, Virginia.
Lot of blue dots.
Let's clear out those blue dots.
Red state blue dots.
So.
Well, Sebastian, this was awesome man.
Great meeting you.
I appreciate you having me on.
Take care.
Stick around for the fact check.
Because they're human they make lots of mistakes.
Update.
Okay.
And behind the curtain,
we recorded Thursday's fact check yesterday.
Yes. Because. We normally have Thursday's fact check yesterday. Yes.
Because- We normally have a bigger gap.
Yeah. Yeah.
But a lot's happened in the last 24 hours.
Yes, we're not out of material, as luck would have it.
Exactly.
The peel has started to really kick in.
Now we have actual peeling.
Yes, but again, and you likely won't believe me,
you can't see it from across the room at all.
I could only see it when we were standing
in the very harsh sunlight on the stairs when you first came and said, and you likely won't believe me, you can't see it from across the room at all. I could only see it when we were standing
in the very harsh sunlight on the stairs
when you first came and said, oh no, it's begun.
Because what really, this is like a really sick,
the universe was really,
I don't know what lesson it's trying to teach you.
That I don't deserve love.
The day that the peeling started,
and this is a very broad Easter egg,
but two of the handsomest guests we've ever had in one day.
We had two very handsome men.
Men guests.
In the attic today.
I knew that, I saw it, well first of all,
the second guest was added to the calendar later than I knew.
The original decision.
Yeah, or what, anyway,
I saw on the calendar what this week looked like,
and I had to do the emoji that you hate.
You had to say whatever.
Yeah, I had to say whatever, like,
mm, like this is my life, this is me.
Does the emoji stick their tongue out?
Because when you do that emoji, you also stick your tongue out.
I'm not sure if that's part of the emoji.
She doesn't, but she wants to.
But yeah, it's probably good for me.
Well, two things.
One, neither of these men are eligible.
They're both eligible.
Is he married?
Neither of them are married.
I thought he was married,
talked about his wife multiple times.
They're both divorced.
Oh my God.
I guess it's good you're finding out
now they were eligible.
Can you just text him and tell him about my face?
I was really, really on the fence.
I was like, I know this person well enough
and trust this person.
I almost wanna just get it out for you.
Hey Monies, she had a peel, and you're gorgeous.
But I was like, you know, in the past,
whenever I weighed into that area,
I generally choose wrong, so I was like,
I'm just gonna, if she wants to do it.
But I did feel like for the second guess.
Me too.
For the second guess, I would have,
and I thought, oh, I'm just gonna say.
Let's just get it out in the open.
Yeah, but then I was like, I don't need to take up time
to talk about my face.
Oh, I see, you saw it as a growth opportunity.
Yeah, I just don't need to take time out
to talk about myself, and then what?
He's gonna be like, oh, it's fine,
like, what's he gonna say?
It is good for me to just say, like, I look bad.
And that's, it's okay.
Be careful about what language.
How about you don't look your best?
Because even you not looking your best still looks good.
I don't think we can cosign on you look bad.
You're not at your optimum looks.
Yeah, well, because my skin is peeling off. That's not at your optimum looks. Because your skin's peeling.
Yeah, well, because my skin is peeling off.
That's right, it's in the, you're molting.
I'm molting, as my witch says, this is what creatures do.
It's very natural.
It's so natural.
And I am getting excited.
Oh, you are, that's good.
I'm getting excited about it to come off
and have baby skin
Also, there's just something about knowing when you're at the bottom of something and things are only gonna get better
It's kind of nice. Yeah, it's almost the definition of depression right where you think the future is gonna be worse than the present
This is like well, it can't get worse. It's gonna give it's like force
Not have depression. The problem is with depression, you don't think that.
That's true.
You don't have any optimism.
Speaking of.
Yeah.
Oh, should I not say that?
So sorry, I was holding a lot of my yawns in
because it's been a long day.
And I want you to think of,
do not read any of this as disinterest.
Maximum interest level.
I've gone up on my medication.
Right.
I did go up on my medication. Right. I did go up on my medication.
I have mentioned on here before
that I've been keeping an eye on my depression.
Yep, yeah.
I think we've all been tracking that.
Oh God, in the comments?
No, no, no, no, no, not at all.
But you have been vocal about it
several times over the last two months.
I have, yeah.
And so I was keeping an eye on it vocal about it several times over the last two months. I have, yeah. Yeah.
And so I was keeping an eye on it,
and at a point I decided that it was important
for me to adjust slightly.
This is a, boy, we're in a real pattern,
which is similar to me trying to figure out
whether I should say to our guests,
hey, Monica had a peel.
Let's just talk about that.
And similar, and of course I have this with Kristin as well,
like when you have a friend who has depression
and is medicated, and you notice they're struggling
for a really long period of time,
I'm trying to decide whether it's my place to suggest like,
hey, do you wanna look at your dosage?
Yeah. Yeah.
A, I'm very supportive, and I'm very grateful
that that was your conclusion,
because I had several times wanted to suggest that.
Because I-
Well, you care.
I care.
I know.
And I have a friend who's suffering
and I think unduly and not fairly.
There isn't, like if you had shit collapsing around you
and stuff and there were a lot of things,
then obviously that would make sense,
but this felt like undue suffering.
So what I feel is that there was some thing
I went through earlier in the year, beginning of the year,
and what I feel like happened is I got like shaken,
and when all the pieces
went back into place,
one piece did not go back into place fully.
The puzzle piece is like halfway in,
but it's not clicked in.
But the medication has helped just snap it back into place.
It doesn't mean I'm happy.
It doesn't mean it fixed any of the problems.
It doesn't feel like I can't handle it.
Right, to me that's what from the outside it seems like.
It's like we're all gonna have challenges
and we're all gonna have to struggle,
but depression can make it that you are unable
to take up the fight in the way that you need to.
Exactly, I definitely understand your position.
Yes, I know you had some.
I would struggle too.
Yeah, it's really tricky.
It's hard to know.
I can't promise you,
that's the hard,
like I can't promise you if you had said it.
That it would have been met with.
Well received.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a very, very tricky thing.
Cause you're already depressed
and now I'm basically saying,
I know you're depressed.
Yeah.
And, yeah.
But also, this is a little tricky because I said it, right?
I'm like, I'm keeping an eye on this.
I know I'm not fully where I should be,
but I think it'll pass, or, you know,
I'm being pretty vocal about that,
which I think makes it actually easier for you to say something.
Yeah, in a way, you're inviting me into the conversation. But depending on when you said it, I might not have been you to say something. Yeah, in a way you're inviting me into the conversation.
But depending on when you said it,
I might not have been able to hear it,
I might have, I don't know.
And I will say, Kali told me.
Ah, good.
And I was like, yeah, I have to.
Okay, good.
I was texting with her,
oh, it was when I was home from Mother's Day.
I texted her Happy Mother's Day,
her first Mother's Day, so exciting.
Inaugural.
Yes.
And she asked how the show was,
she asked about me, and I was like,
yeah, and to me what I was saying was pretty...
Inane.
Let's see if, let's see what I said.
You got a geological record of it?
Yeah.
Yeah, it does, it is pretty...
Does it read a little differently?
It's pretty dire. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I was like, I'm gonna be a child longer than two seconds. She said, it came close to at least two seconds. And I said, good job, her baby's name.
And then she said, how was your event?
I said, it was really fun, glad I did it.
I was dreading it a little.
And then she said, yay, do one in LA, please.
And then I said, I've been dreading a lot these days.
There we go, a little cry for her.
And she said, oh, I'm sorry.
And I said, it's fine. And then she said, a lot these days. There we go, a little cry for. And she said, oh, I'm sorry, and I said, it's fine.
And then she said, a lot of events like that
or just a lot of different things?
And I said, just a little anxious, I guess, it'll pass.
And then she said, have you talked
to your psychiatrist about it?
Yeah.
I guess that's the safest way to say it.
Because you're not actually saying,
I think you need to do X, Y, or Z.
It's just like, hey, have you?
Totally. And her and I, I've done that for her.
If another alcoholic says something to me, it's a little different.
I know.
It's helpful if you yourself have experience with it.
I know, which I don't like.
Yeah.
Because I want to be able to hear it from everyone and I should be able to. And I want
you to be able to hear it from people, and I should be able to, and I want you to be able to hear it
from people who aren't just in your club,
because it affects everybody, both of these things do.
But there is something about her that I have,
I just have so much gratitude,
and I've been thinking about it for a bit.
And I think you have this with Erin.
I believe, like there is no agenda ever.
Well you, yeah.
You have total trust, and unconditional love,
and no judgment.
Both ways.
Exactly, and that's Erin and I.
Erin can tell me anything,
and he knows there won't be an ounce of judgment.
Must be like, oh yeah, I feel for you, I know.
Yeah, it's more than not having judgment,
because I do feel I'm fairly blessed with that
in many relationships.
I don't know how to explain it,
because I don't even think it's,
I was telling one person about this,
and they were like, yeah, sisters.
And I was like, it's not even that.
It's something else.
I just know in my cells that she only wants the best for me.
There's no other goal.
Yep.
And you just said the word that I most identify with Aaron,
which is somewhere along the way,
I have infused him into my body.
Like, it's not an exaggeration, like he's in my DNA.
Yeah, I know, it's very special.
Oh my God, I'm so lucky.
I'm so lucky too.
So shout out Aaron and Kali.
Good job, guys.
Yeah, good job.
I can only hope they feel that way about us.
I sure hope they do. Me too.
I do too. I think my young son us. I sure hope they do. Me too. I do too.
I think my young son does.
I think Callie does too.
She's not my son.
Yeah, but she is my daughter.
Yeah, no she's not.
That's another, like we don't have that either.
I would say almost every other relationship in my life,
there's a tiny bit of that.
Someone's playing a little bit of a role at some,
I don't know, I don't know, I don't.
Yeah, Erin and I is interesting
because I think on the surface you could go like,
oh, that's a lopsided.
I don't think that, by the way.
Yeah, but he and I have this weird understanding
of what that means, which is very mutually lovely for both of us in a way
that no one's in a lesser role or a power dynamic.
It's just, I live to care for that boy.
I know.
It's so sweet.
That's why each relationship is so specific and so different.
I'm very grateful for her and that friendship.
And I have other ones that I'm as grateful for,
but they're different.
Like even Kristin and I have a very,
I think interesting, for a long time,
like maternal baby dynamic.
But it would switch around because I was also working for her
and so I was taking care of a lot of her.
You were her mom sometimes.
And she was very maternal towards me.
And that was very symbiotic, that worked really well.
They can take all these shapes.
They do, it's just funny.
And I mean, being fully honest, I think,
and I won't speak for her, but I feel that part of when I left that position,
that was hard for us.
You had to redefine.
Exactly.
We were in such a clicked in dynamic
that didn't exist anymore when we were not working together.
Yeah, that's really common just in general.
Even like on parenthood, you go to set
and I'm Adam's little brother and I am.
And then we hang out and go for a hike
and it's like, I'm not Adam's little brother,
I'm like a peer.
Yeah.
And so I think it's common for people to have
like different relationships in different contexts.
And some people manage as well as in some don't.
I've had friendships where it's like the dynamic
changed dramatically and we didn't do well with it. Right don't. I've had friendships where it's like the dynamic changed dramatically
and we didn't do well with it.
Right, exactly.
You have to work at it
and maybe sometimes it's easier than others.
Yeah, or Joy and I, we're at work and we're married.
Right.
And then we go get some grilled Brazilian chicken
and clearly we're not married, we're bros.
That part of acting is very odd.
It's funny.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, very, very odd. It's funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, very, very odd.
Anyhow.
Well, the results are in per the comment section
and I'm weirdly delighted to report this.
I don't know why, but many people said
they do go straight to the fact check.
That's lovely. It's very common.
I like that.
You do.
I don't like it in that I don't want the guests
to not be heard, but I like it.
Well, we love you guys out there who love the fact check.
Very flattering.
It is extremely flattering.
Anyhow, very far behind the curtain today.
What was in my underwear drawer at this point?
Well, because my face is peeling off,
so I'm very vulnerable.
Yeah, the new baby you is coming out.
I'm not supposed to pick.
Yeah, must be. It's really hard. I'm not supposed to pick. Yeah, must be.
It's really hard.
You gotta get a fidget toy.
I did pick one piece off.
Oh fuck, I would've done the same thing.
I can't be judgmental.
But you need a fidget toy for this duration.
How many days do we think the molting takes place?
I think it's moving at a rapid pace.
I think by the next time I see you,
I'll look like a baby.
Oh, a baby, okay.
Will you wear that dress from that?
Yeah.
You should get a full-size version of that dress made.
You can afford it.
You should hire someone.
If Mary Kay and Ashley make it, I'll buy it.
You'll wear it.
I'll wear it.
Speaking of Peter, I'm still watching Six Feet Under.
Okay, you got.
Still loving it.
Got back in. I did realize something.
Since we've spoken.
Yeah, since last night or yesterday.
There's been an update.
Because I watched a couple episodes last night.
And I realized, I think I had started it
at some point in my life before.
And I remembered why it stopped.
Too much death?
Not specifically too much death in the actual show,
but you know, the cold open is a death.
There's a death every episode.
How we meet the corpse.
Exactly, it's how we meet the corpse.
And it's, to me, incredible storytelling to me.
I think it's so fun and funny.
Yeah, it's a weird procedure.
And sometimes they're funny, and sometimes they're horrific.
Like there was a SIDS.
Oh yeah. Oh my God.
Like, and then I remembered,
oh yeah, I think I stopped because all I could see
walking through the world while I was watching it
was ways I could die.
You have had always a healthy fear of death?
I wouldn't say healthy, but.
Oh right, an unhealthy fear of death.
Probably.
Boy are you and I on opposite ends of that spectrum.
It's just kind of comical.
I know.
I mean I just don't ever think about it.
I'm not afraid of it at all.
It's not that I'm afraid of dying. I'm actually not.
I die, die, you know, like I won't know.
I want someone to leave my universe.
And so that's sort of all I could see
is like how vulnerable everyone is all the time,
which is scary to me, but I'm getting better at it.
But I have these like,
I'll have these dark fears play out
when we're all together,
the family on a flight, let's say.
Yeah.
And even when I have that terrible thought,
I go right to like, what an experience we had together.
And we're all gonna shut the light switch off
at the same time.
Well, that's different.
Okay.
Because I agree.
Like, if we're all going out at the same time,
I'm not scared of that.
Yeah, I kind of go straight to the gratitude of like,
oh my God, I met these people.
God, I met these people.
But it's about them leaving you while you're alive.
Yeah, that's exactly, that's like an unspeakable,
we can't think about it or talk about it.
Oh my God, I finally understand Voldemort.
Yeah, he who shall not be named.
Yeah, I'm just recklessly. Oh, and, I finally understand Voldemort. Yeah, he who shall not be named. Yeah, just recklessly.
Oh, and right now, Kristen got sent a script.
It's like a modern retelling of Macbeth.
Oh!
And she literally will not say it.
She will not say Macbeth.
She's such a theater girl.
I know, it's so real to her.
I thought it was only in the theater.
I did too, but it's in our bathroom as well.
Oh, and I'm like, wow, we're really not gonna,
and I'm saying it, and she does not like when I say it.
If she were to knock on wood.
You shouldn't say it if she doesn't want you to.
No, it's preposterous,
because I think the filling for it is the Scottish play.
Scottish play, yeah.
Which is preposterous, we're saying the same thing.
What are we saying?
I like it in the context of the theater
because it's a like a familex thing.
Like it's a community.
There's probably someone in a movie theater
that is running out of the room right now
because they heard it out loud.
They're allowed to hear it.
I don't think they are.
Yes they are.
It's insane.
Yes they are.
And then she had to bring up the hat on the bed.
She's like, but that's real?
I'm like, well, that is real.
That's the difference.
Oh my God.
I agree with her. If you have like, well, that is real. That's the difference. Oh my God. I agree with her.
If you have yours, she gets to have hers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It is really funny.
She'll go like, well, in this telling of the Scottish play,
I would play the Scottish play or whatever.
Oh really?
I don't know.
How is she gonna do press if she takes this on?
Well, this would be great.
I hope she does it just to see her try
to promote this movie without saying.
By the way, a lot of people probably don't know,
I would have never known this
if I hadn't married a theater person,
but you're not allowed to say Macbeth in a theater.
Yes, that's right.
Because apparently there's been some legendary,
like some sandbags fell on people or something like that.
Yeah, there's just like, it's theater lore.
What is it?
So the actor playing Lady Macbeth.
Oh geez, Robbie just made it worse.
Lady Macbeth unexpectedly died in the first show,
and then an actor stabbed King Duncan with a dagger
instead of the prop knife, killing him on stage.
This is like in the 1600s or something, 1500s?
Yeah, I guess so.
It just has bad juju, everyone knows it.
Also there was a dude playing Macbeth,
let's just also acknowledge that.
Well, right.
You know girls weren't allowed to be on stage.
So you got a guy playing the Scottish play.
Okay, listen.
I...
You don't like to say it?
No, I won't say it in a theater, no.
You won't, that's where you go the line.
Yes, because I also grew up in that world,
but I don't think it's a thing to not say it outside.
Well, it is for her.
That's so cute.
And Shansby said, it's like, I guess, Voldemort.
Do you say Voldemort?
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm not gonna right now, but.
No, I say Voldemort.
I'm not giving him the power.
I wonder if we should have like some kind
of submersion therapy, the three of us,
where we'll get in a room,
we'll put all the hats on the bed,
we'll start chanting Macbeth.
Oh, God.
Voldemort, Macbeth.
We should do this in a theater.
Yeah, we should put a bed in a theater.
Yeah, and what are you gonna do about Terrence Posner?
How do we make this the most religious?
No, mine's gonna be more of a knot knocking on wood.
No, it's gotta be a theater in Hogwarts
with a bed on the stage covered in hats,
and we'll chant and chant.
But I'm like Harry, I say it.
Oh, Harry says it.
Yeah, because Harry doesn't wanna give him the power,
and I don't either. That's my point, although not with the hats on the bed. I don it. Oh, Harry says it. Yeah, because Harry doesn't want to give him the power and I don't either.
That's my point.
Although, not with a hat on the head.
I don't think it's really your point.
I don't think so either, I just jumped onto yours.
Yeah, but we could do a no wood insight
and then just horrible, someone saying horrible.
Death nonstop.
Yeah, okay, I don't want us to do this.
Yeah, yeah, thank you.
It's also funny to me that I can do the knocking for you. That's also a weird rule in all this. Yeah, yeah, thank you. It's also funny to me that I can do the knocking for you.
That's also a weird rule in all this.
But I mean, all the rules are completely arbitrary,
so it does make sense at the same time.
Oh, boy.
Brains.
Brains.
Okay, but anyway, the Peter thing ding, ding, ding,
because on this episode,
you're talking about first season of Parenthood,
and you said 18 or 20 episodes.
Season one had 13 episodes.
True, we were mid-season.
I think I meant season two.
Season two we had a weird number.
We never did 24. Season two you had 22.
Oh we did?
That's a big order on a one hour drama.
It is, and then 18 season three.
That's what I was thinking of season three.
Four, 15, you guys were all over the map.
It was a mess.
You never knew how many pages you were gonna get.
22, season five.
What?
What were they doing?
And then 13, season six.
What a mess.
Well, the guests we had on one of the aforementioned
gorgeous men that were on earlier,
they were on a show that's gone on for years,
and I was really trying to imagine,
what would have happened if parenthood went on for 20 years? Yeah, what would have happened
if parenthood went on for 20 years?
Yeah, what would have, you would have left, probably.
I know, that's weird.
So it was perfect, that's why,
like, you know, Mike has said that about the good plays,
he called it, and for that reason, like, this is done.
And I think it's really smart.
I know, because it was so pleasurable,
so why would I ever want to walk away,
but at the same time, I want to try
a bunch of different things in life.
So it's, I don't know.
And you want the integrity of the show.
You want it to be good.
Well, let's assume, though, that it's just always good.
20 seasons?
Well, Seinfeld never got bad.
Seinfeld was great the whole ride.
How many seasons?
Nine. And Friends never got bad. Whateld was like great the whole how many seasons nine and friends never got bad
What was that ten there you go, but ten is the most 60 minutes is still great
They're on episode a cabillion. I don't think that's that doesn't count. No, it's always sunny in Philadelphia
They're on I don't know what's that's true 18 something crazy. All right, and still great. So
For which one show always sunny 16. Okay still great. So for which one's show?
Always Sunny, 16.
Okay, yeah.
Yeah.
But I mean, yeah, you gotta assume
that parenthood stayed great,
and then it would be really,
I don't envy these people have to make that decision.
Yeah.
What?
Nothing.
I was just thinking about my skin flaking.
Oh, okay, sure, yeah, yeah.
And then I almost said, how much would it cost
for both of you guys to eat some of the skin?
Okay, you go first, Rob.
But then I didn't, but now I am.
Yeah, I think it's a really good question.
I think it's an important question.
Okay.
How big is the chunk?
Oh, that's...
Let's go dime size. No, that's too big. Dime is that's. Let's go dime size.
No, that's too big.
Too big?
That's way too big.
I mean like a booger size.
Wait, match head?
Can I eat it with something else?
Match.
The head of a match.
A fiery match.
Sure.
The head of a match.
Can I eat it with something else?
No.
You got a raw gorgon.
Plain, and you, yeah.
No sides, no salt, no garnishing.
Probably like 25 grand.
Okay, that's a lot.
It is, it's pricey.
That's a big number.
You'd have to be very perverse to be willing to pay that,
to watch somebody eat your skin.
Oh yeah.
Okay, now, well I wanna hear your answer.
Yeah.
But what about your own, your own skin?
Not that much.
Five dollars.
And this is also like the party thing
where it'd probably be lower if.
If it was real money.
Yeah, if I pulled out 15 grand in a stack of cash right now,
you'd eat her whole face.
I'm pretty certain of it.
Exactly.
Okay, what about you?
I would do it for free. Yeah. Yeah, we're do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I there, I had a moment. Where you gonna eat it?
I was like, I kinda wanna eat this.
I didn't, I didn't.
But I wanted to see what it felt like
in between my two teeth.
Well, here's what I think we could all relate to.
So yeah, I think where the line is for people.
But don't tell our attractive guests that I said that.
But I think eating, there's all these rungs of this, okay?
Everyone's eaten a booger or two, we accept that.
Now, I had a lover who would eat their dander, yes.
And for me that was too much, but I wasn't judgmental.
In fact, I kinda love that she did it,
because I'm like, this is so unique and weird.
It is unique because I don't even understand it.
Well, she'd be scratching,
she'd have like a scab on her head from dandruff,
and then she would like pull her finger away,
and then she would see, I guess,
like a scab or something in her.
People are getting sick.
And then I would notice that she was just kinda
chilling with her front teeth,
and I'd go, you're eating your head,
aren't you, you're eating your scalp.
But it made me love her more, I kinda liked it.
Was it an Olsen twin? Because if she did it, it'd be fun. No, it's scalp. But it made me love her more, I kinda liked it. Was it an Olsen twin?
Because if she did it, it'd be fun.
No, it's not anyone famous.
Then it's hot.
Yeah, I think it's okay.
People would pay money to see.
Okay, so that one obviously I think,
you almost have a unanimous group saying
they wouldn't eat their dander.
I agree.
Okay, now what I will chew on all the time
is when you get a callus on your thing
and you bite that off with your,
it's already in your teeth,
and it's so, you can feel like the fingerprint of it.
You can feel the ridges of it,
and I will chew on a big chunk of skin from,
not a blister, but a callus.
And I love it, and I'll chew on that all day,
and I don't care.
I don't swallow it, but if I swallowed it I wouldn't care.
But I wouldn't eat a scab off my mouth.
I do that with the skin around my finger.
Do you ever do like just like chew on the skin?
Sure, you get a little from the cuticle.
Yeah, like that.
And then you get it in between your teeth
and you move it around.
But then there were other kids in school
that would eat their scabs.
Now I would never do that.
Tuck.
That part is like.
Did you see that though?
No, I knew about scab eaters.
Yeah, I think that's more common than we would, yes.
But I thought that was like pica.
No, I don't think so.
Do you think your lover maybe had pica a little bit?
No.
Or like 5%?
Sure, I guess everything's a spectrum we've learned.
We've learned one thing.
But what I'm saying about my face is similar to the dander.
Like it's not that different.
Well that's my point.
It's all skin off of your body.
Exactly.
But we draw these kind of arbitrary lines.
One's disgusting.
I think we all eat our calluses, right?
I don't, because I don't have any.
Yeah, cuticle skin, do you?
It's very gamey.
Okay, you do.
So most of all of us do.
I think so.
Although I try not to do this
because my mom probably wouldn't like that I'm saying this,
but she used to do it a lot when she was a kid.
So she monitored you a lot.
No, her nails.
Oh yeah, were a mess.
Still is completely fucked up.
Yeah, I feel really bad for people
that have that as a nervous habit.
I had so many of them, but that wasn't one of them.
This brings us perfectly to this thing I need to address
because there was several people in the comments
that were upset about my portrayal of OCD
when we were interviewing Camila.
Okay.
Because I was saying having an obsessive mind
is also a gift.
Yeah.
And we had also been talking about OCD.
So I think people, well, they had two complaints.
One is that they don't believe I know what OCD is
and they want us to have an expert.
I reached out to one.
There's a popular one.
So I invited one on the show.
I like that.
Yeah, happy to do that.
Secondly, they didn't like the notion
that I was making it sound like some kind of a blessing,
be OCD.
Many people wrote, it's a horrendous condition that I have
and there's nothing good about it.
Oh, okay. Right. many people wrote, it's a horrendous condition that I have and there's nothing good about it.
Oh, okay.
Right.
And so I hear them and I respect them.
I can't relate to that reaction, to be honest.
If I'm listening to someone on a podcast
say that they're an alcoholic, when they're not,
I don't care at all.
Yeah.
Like I don't think they're making light of my condition.
But can I push back a tiny bit?
Yeah.
What you can relate to is JD Vance,
who wrote about having a hillbilly life
and who you believe did not.
True.
And that did bother you.
That did bother me, huh?
That's a good pushback.
The reason I feel entitled to it is I have technically OCD.
I had crazy tics and I was plagued by them.
I certainly had OCD.
I don't have it now, clearly.
So in a weird way, I do feel entitled to identify with that
because I did spend eight years of my life
completely riddled with all this behavior
I did not want to do.
And now, yes, I guess now I'm playing it fast and loose
with the fact that I also attribute
whatever little personality was that person
who was thinking that obsessively about things,
I have come to think that is me and I like it.
The same way I like that I'm an addict.
I like that I'm an addict.
Now someone's struggling right now
on their first hour of trying to quit something
and they're like, there's nothing to like
about being an addict.
And that's fine, but that's not my experience.
I have gratitude for it.
You're just speaking for you.
Yeah, I apologize if anyone felt demeaned
or trivialized, minimized.
I agree, and I will also say I have an obsessive brain.
I don't have OCD, but I do have obsessive thoughts,
that's part of what we're just talking about.
The death, the do you see it every,
like intrusive thoughts, I have all of that.
And it's a big ol' spectrum.
It's a big spectrum, it used to be much worse for me,
but I also, there are parts of my personality
that are connected to that obsessive nature
that I am very grateful for.
And I don't expect everyone to be grateful
for the things they have?
No one has to, everyone can make their own decisions
about what they're grateful for and what they're not.
I'm only speaking for me at all times,
but I know it gets complicated.
I like molesting jokes a lot.
There are a lot of survivors that hate that.
And they'll tell me I can't laugh at that.
And I get a little offended by that,
which is like, you can't actually tell me
how I'm supposed to feel about this experience I had.
Right.
If you get to decide how you feel about it,
and I get to decide how I feel about it,
I'm not going to change who I am
because we don't feel the same way.
You're not gonna feel worse
because other people want you to feel worse.
I mean, that's how you break it down.
Okay, I have some facts.
Updates or facts?
I have both.
Okay, great.
In this episode, you say,
Who is this?
This is for Sebastian.
People already know.
They always know, but I don't always know.
How did they skip ahead?
Oh, you're right.
They didn't even look.
That'd be incredible.
Could be Brad Pitt.
Oh my God, if Brad Pitt got added to the schedule
after I had had appeal.
What would you do?
I would really honest to God ask you
if we could reschedule it.
I really would.
Okay, and then, now let's play it all out.
Nope, it's the only day he's ever gonna have available.
Would you then decide to not come?
No.
Okay.
I care, unfortunately, more about this job
than I do about...
Your looks.
Yeah.
You just do full glam or something, hire someone.
No, you're not allowed to put anything on it.
You would if it was bread tape.
You're not allowed to but you would.
I don't think it would work.
Like that's the problem.
If it was just color, you could glam,
but because it's actual flakes,
there's not much you can do.
It'd be more like taping a mudding job on drywall.
They'd have to fill in the separation from the wall.
I guess maybe I would.
Just wear like a mask.
Like a.
A COVID mask.
That or the C-Wood chick, doesn't she wear like.
Oh, does she wear like a.
She has in the past.
A buck club or whatever that's.
There is like a hip.
Yeah, that's fun.
It's like a fashion thing.
There's like a fashion mask.
I could try that.
Oh, Aaron the other day, Aaron's been driving Uber
and he answered a call in downtown Detroit.
He had dropped someone off in downtown Detroit.
So another call came in and he went to this address
and a fucking dude in a full ski mask got in the car.
And only Aaron, who's not afraid of anything,
he's like, yeah, this dude with a full ski mask
gets in the car, and I'm thinking, it's a voice memo,
and I'm thinking I would never let someone,
ski mask get in the car with me.
And he just drove him, he drove him,
and the guy was going to work.
To burgle?
No, like had a real job, went into his job,
and wears a face mask.
And I saw a guy in the park the other day
wearing a full face mask.
So I think there's like some quadrant of fashion
has people in ski masks.
So you'd be fine.
I would probably call my witch.
I would say a work thing has come up.
Emergency.
Yeah, this is an emergency.
What do I do?
And she hopefully would have a tip or two.
Spell or something?
Yeah, well, yeah.
Some frog legs and some nude eyes.
No, I'm not, I'm feeling a little anxious
about calling her witch.
Okay.
You don't think she would like that, the dark arts.
I think she would think it was Voldy.
And I don't want it to get back to her
because I will die without her.
Anyway, I would do that and I would show up and-
You'd get through it.
I'd get through it, but I would be so sad
and I would want you to do everything in your power
to make sure I didn't have to experience that.
Right, what would be, what could I do?
Keep distracting him every time he looks at you.
Hey Brad!
No, no, I want him to look at me.
This is the problem.
This is the catch-22. Yes.
Well, look, there's a chance too.
What if I didn't look vascular that day?
Stop. Impossible.
Ah!
Ew.
Bars.
That's what you were saying stop for.
No, I was saying stop as in don't make that equivalency
because that's not even close.
You know what?
You know what I would do?
Or I would ask you to do?
Get a peel.
Oh my god, so.
And when he sat down, I'm so sorry, we had an acid leak in here.
Yeah.
We act like there was some kind of workplace.
Yeah.
We're eating each other's skin.
Money's changing hands.
Yeah, exactly.
Um, how do we get on this?
I totally forget.
Anywho.
He's never gonna come on now that he hears.
That I had a peel?
No, that we're all gonna have peels
and eating each other's skin and stuff.
I think it sounds fun.
You're memorable. We're all gonna have peels and eating each other's skin and stuff. I think it sounds fun.
You're memorable.
Okay, I checked with Ana because we bring up Santa
in this episode and you said in Venezuela,
they say that there's no snow.
And I was pretty sure you were wrong about that
because it's mainly baby Jesus.
But I checked with Anna and she said,
I've heard it before in the way
that a parent is trying to lie.
Of course.
Where the kids see Santa on TV and they ask,
and then they would say, oh, there's no snow.
It's such a simple answer.
Yeah.
But they also have baby Jesus.
Baby Jesus brings the presents and stuff.
Yeah, very generous.
Baby.
Yeah, very generous baby.
Yeah.
Good baby.
Okay, you didn't know about this guy.
His name is Joe La Puma,
and he has a show called Sneaker Shopping.
It's a YouTube show, and it's really good.
I've seen it. You watch good. I've seen it.
You watch it?
Oh, you had seen it before.
Yeah, and he has people on, you know.
They talk sneaks?
Yeah, and then they pick out sneakers and stuff.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah, that's a good idea for a show.
So, anywho, cool show, check it out.
I recommend the Ben and Matt one, obviously.
Well, so that's a slam dunk cross promotion for Air.
That is what it was for, yeah.
That's why you had seen it.
Yeah.
Okay, now there was a big debate
over how much the Air Jordan was when it came out.
Oh, yeah.
Okay, Air Jordan 1, designer Peter Moore, released 1985.
Wow, long before I was in the market for them.
Original price, $65.
I don't doubt that.
You said 100.
I'm talking fours.
Oh, well he had said 50.
Maybe that was the confusion.
Because I had to talk mine down.
It certainly was probably part of the.
Okay, the fours, 1989 was the release.
Original price, $110.
There we go.
I had to get 10 bucks off that price tag
for my mom to buy them for me.
Fives are 125, these are original prices.
Threes were 100.
Maybe he was talking about threes.
He said $50, so he must have been talking
about the original.
And he was $15 short, yeah.
But he and I are the same age.
So 85, he was 10 getting these shoes.
Probably.
That's wild.
Although funny enough,
I went to my cousin's birthday party last night.
Oh.
Yeah, at a Chinese restaurant in Sherman Oaks.
My uncle Randy's in town.
Fun.
Yeah, it was great.
Jason's birthday and my cousin Jamie was there.
They're two and four years younger than me. So I was kind of their older cousin. It was great, Jason's birthday, and my cousin Jamie was there. They're two and four years younger than me.
So I was kinda their older cousin, it was so fun.
I would go over to my Uncle Randy's house,
they had a ton of toys, they had it good.
My Uncle Randy really doted on those boys.
And I'm looking at pictures of them as little kids
at this birthday party, I'm just blown away
with how cute they were, unbelievably cute.
We were looking at pictures, okay, sorry.
My Uncle Randy brought a bunch of photo albums.
Got it, but they're adults now.
Yeah, Jason was turning 44.
Okay.
And Jamie's 47, which very much tripped me out.
And they're both boys.
Boys, yeah, because Jamie's a misleading name.
Yeah.
Could go either way.
Yeah.
But I'm looking at these pictures
and I already knew Jamie had it good
because he had a very enviable Garbage Pail Kids collection.
That was the currency of the day when I was a kid.
You wanted certain ones, and you had to buy a ton of packs
to get these really coveted ones, and he had them all.
He had the full sink.
Were they rich?
No, my uncle worked in the union for the Baker's Union. He did end up becoming the president of it,
but they lived in like a modest house,
but they had all the shit.
They had the great cereal, they had a cool stereo system.
You know, they had good stuff.
All this is saying, I'm looking at these pictures.
And I realized fucking eight year old Jamie
had Jordan Wands on.
And I was like, you had Jordans when we were a little kid
I didn't even notice that and Randy was like yeah, I had to get him Jordans
Oh, he's like eight years old and $65 shoes Wow
My uncle Randy is so fucking sweet
He brought with him because he's visiting from Michigan and he brought photo albums
Which were so fun to look at and then he brought a poem
He wrote about his boys when they were little called Two Beautiful Boys
and he read it.
It was so sweet.
And then he cold cocked me and he pulled out a letter
I wrote him when I was 25 thanking him
for being such a great uncle.
And how I lived daily haunted by the fact
that I didn't tell my Papa Bob how much he meant to me,
and then I didn't wanna make that mistake again.
That's sweet.
Do you remember doing it?
Vaguely.
It's funny, because I still have the same urge.
I really want Uncle Randy to know what a great uncle he was
and how fun he was and involved.
And I was relieved I did do that when I was 25, but I weirdly still feel like I haven't
and I need to more.
Was it because you don't feel like you talk about him enough?
What do you mean?
I bear his name, my middle name, Randolph is from him.
I know, but you never talk about him.
I guess I don't, but he was.
I didn't know you felt that way about him.
Oh my God, I loved him, Monica.
He and my aunt Sue, they were so fun.
They were younger than my parents.
He drove a Corvette.
He had a motorcycle, took me for a ride
on his street motorcycle.
He had this kick ass sound system in the basement.
And the first time I ever heard Erotic City by Prince,
which was never on the radio,
and nor was it on one of the LPs.
It was a backside of a 45, and he had that.
Every time we were at his house,
he'd dance party in the basement,
and we would listen to Erotic City.
So he was your dad's brother?
Yeah, younger brother.
And he was a good time Charlie.
And he and my mom were really great friends,
because my mom was younger than my dad by one year,
and then Randy was one year younger than her.
So in high school they were friends,
and they had tons of great times together. But yeah, he was just, he took us to the drive-in
all the time.
Beautiful man.
I'm glad you said it finally.
I know.
All right, that's my two cents on Uncle Randy.
Wow.
In this episode you said incongruous.
Yeah, I always do.
Just saying. I don't say incongruous. I know, always do. I'm just saying.
I don't say incongruous.
I know, I'm just saying you said it.
In the last episode, we talked about the words
you say all the time and one was that.
And then in this episode, you say it.
Right away.
Delivered immediately on that promise.
Exactly.
I don't think I said over indexing on that one.
I have 33 minutes left.
So I have some time.
Uh-huh.
There's a chance.
Okay, when was the Easter bunny invented?
I'm gonna talk about what history.com says
because that's very trusted, even though it's on org.
According to some sources,
the Easter bunny first arrived in America in the 1700s
with German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania
and transported their tradition of an egg laying hair
called Osterhass or Osterhass.
Not as cute.
Their children made nests in which this creature
could lay its colored eggs.
So that's how it started.
Eventually the custom spread across the United States
and the fabled rabbit's Easter morning deliveries
expanded to include chocolate
and other types of candy and gifts,
while decorated baskets replaced nests.
Additionally, children often left out carrots for the bunny
in case he got hungry from all of his hopping.
Why don't you eat some of the chocolate he was carrying?
Well, he's the last guy I'm worried about being hungry.
He's moving around with tons of food.
He doesn't want to eat the kids' chocolate.
He's very nice.
There's enough for him and us.
Bunnies can eat chocolate.
They're like dogs.
Really?
They'll die if they eat chocolate.
You're guessing.
Probably.
Oh my God.
Okay, now I'm on Wikipedia.
Okay.
The Easter bunny, also called the Easter rabbit
or Easter hare, is a folkloric figure and symbol of,
I just realized that that's something Wina would do,
is put hair and mean bunny.
Just keep your eyes out for that.
Chocolate is dangerous to rabbits.
That's good to know.
Folkloric figure and symbol of Easter,
depicted as a rabbit, sometimes dressed with clothes,
bringing Easter eggs.
Originating among German Lutherans,
the Easter hare originally played the role of a judge,
evaluating whether children were good or disobedient
in behavior at the start of the season of Eastertide.
I knew it.
Similar to the naughty or nice list made by Santa Claus,
as part of the legend,
the creature carries colored eggs in its basket,
as well as candy and sometimes toys
to the homes of children. As such, the creature carries colored eggs in its basket as well as candy and sometimes toys
to the homes of children.
As such, the Easter bunny again shows similarities
to Santa and Christmas by bringing gifts to children
on the night before a holiday.
The custom was first mentioned in
Georg Frank von Frankennau's
Die aww-wosh
pa-shaw-woss.
It sounded like you went into Polish there a little bit.
Translated to about Easter eggs.
In 1682, referring to a German tradition
of an Easter hare bringing eggs for the children.
So that was the original thing we talked about.
But when would it, do we know when it became
a nationally accepted, where everyone non-Christians
and Christians alike are celebrating it?
I mean, that's like same with Christmas.
Like just over time, it becomes non-denomin denominational. I mean my parents never did Easter. That was something they could not get on board with
It's fair. I don't miss it, but you can't miss what you don't know. I said that interesting. I don't know I coined that okay
That's my phrase people began to celebrate it
It was until after the Civil War
Okay, and to celebrate Easter, it was until after the Civil War. They began to celebrate Easter.
Maybe a bit of a healing.
Maybe.
Yeah.
But I don't think that probably still wasn't
non-Christians for a while.
Like now it's just everyone.
It was led by Presbyterians apparently.
Yeah, they're Christians.
Yeah, they sure are.
Big time.
They're the best.
I love Sebastian. Yeah, he was cool. Yeah. All right the best. I love Sebastian.
Yeah, he was cool.
Yeah.
All right, love you.
Love you.
Love you.