Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Tom Hansen

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Tom Hansen is an entertainment lawyer and Dax’s best friend. Tom joins the Armchair Expert to discuss what knowing people from the Dust Bowl era is like, how much he loved working on his grandparent’s farm as a kid, and why he thinks he isn’t a good listener. Tom and Dax talk about why some people just aren’t ambitious in life, why he got into a lot of trouble in school, and their experiences with illicit drugs. Tom explains how going to Europe as a young man altered his perspective, how he was introduced to the world of entertainment law, and how raising daughters changed his definition of what it means to be a man.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi there. How you doing? Pretty good. Did you have a good Halloween? The best. Oh, perfect. The best ever.

The best of all time. Good, good, good. This is a sweet episode. This is kind of like when I got to interview my mom. This is my idol, my hero, my best friend, Tom Hanson. I talk about him a lot. Comes up all the time. Even came up with other people. Robert Downey had a lot to say about Tom Hanson. Yes, Kimmel. He came up on Kimmel's. He comes up and you guys get to meet him today.

It's pretty universal when he comes up too. Everyone loves him. Always makes me happy. Yes, Tom is one of the greatest entertainment lawyers to ever live, to ever do this. He's just as good as it gets at that job. And, of course, he's my best friend. It was so fun to get to talk to him and hear, you know, new stuff. That's fun.

It was. You know, all that immigrant stuff was really fascinating. Yeah, we got a good history. Yeah. Well, I hope everyone enjoys as much as I do Tom Hanson. Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to have strong opinions about sand. We were made to help you and your friends find a place on a beach with a pool and a marina and a waterfall and a soaking tub.

Expedia. Made to travel. He's an archenemy. He's an unchained spy. He's an unchained spy. He's an unchained spy. You got to scoot all the way to the corner. Oh, I know. I know, we have rules. I know.

The technical joy for the people in charge. And the mere guests. Tom, you came in Eric Richardson style with your iPad. Eric doesn't travel anywhere without his iPad. I didn't know if I would want to do any research about my copious life and all of the things I've forgotten in the last six months. Some of it a blessing, some of it a curse. It's a little bit of both, you know.

Why do you have all those warships on there just to keep making sure you don't accidentally torpedo the wrong aircraft? That's right. I don't want any friendly fire to happen on my watch. It's a cheat sheet. Are we recording? Yeah, we're always recording. The mysterious part is why in the world anyone would want to interview me? Other than the fact that I'm your pal and you seem to mention me from time to time, which is my only claim to fame. That's not your only claim to fame among first starters, certainly among young people.

Listen to me, Tom. I know you don't listen to the show, but you know, on Thursdays is experts. So we regularly talk to attorneys and professors and academics. So it's not people that are just losers like in film and television. You're very par for the course. And I wouldn't even say more because you are a famous lawyer. Except, so we did, that was the plan. Oh, but you are Monday. But we have now moved you to Monday, our celebrity slot. Oh, wow. You must have been a dearth of good.

It is a strike. What exactly? Penny Youngman was not available? No, because Dax's mom came on the show. Uh-huh. And now Dax's dad is on the show. That's right. Oh.

Chosen dad. That's very charming. I think maybe the real dad was probably more amusing. I mean, I have heard some stories. I've only met him a couple of times. You got to meet him. I did. He came to his house, to the meeting.

Came to my house, and he was hilarious. You can be, you know, fully honest. You can be rude honest. You can be rude. Well, no. I'm trying to remember exactly the context, but he was asking questions that were completely unrelated to what we were all doing. It's like, in the middle of sharing, where'd you get that watch? I know exactly what you're thinking of. And by the way, this is a little bit common in Michigan AA. People chat a little bit while you're sharing because in Michigan AA, or at least all the meetings I went to, you come in, they read all the stuff, and then you break off into tables.

And what's really cool about that is often the tables are set up like that's a step one table, step two. If you want to talk step four, you sit at a step four table. And then each table has a leader. This is where it got confusing for my dad. I see. So the leader shares first, and then it's tons of crosstalk. Just a little chat-a-thon there. Yes. Which suffice to say is not how our meeting works at all, but you're right in remembering that he was abnormally engaged conversationally with people

he had never met. I think I brought my uncle too and he did the same thing. It's always interesting to meet someone who's as legendary as Bob's name, right? Dave. Dave. I always screw up his name. Well, you always call Barton Bart, which amuses me to no end. My stepdad. Yeah, who's also nameless Dave.

We'll talk about him later. I know exactly what you're saying. Oh, I can't wait. So many pins. It's always interesting. I don't want to forget this one. I'm exactly. Oh, I can't wait. So many pins. It's always interesting. I don't want to forget this one. I'm sorry. But this is the funniest joke Tom has ever made.

I think about it once a month. I laugh. As you know, I assisted Barton in his passing. Yeah, yeah. Heavily assisted. And so my mom had a boyfriend for a minute that I didn't really love. And I was kind of venting to Tom about this new boyfriend that i didn't like and he says well does he know what you did to the last guy i actually said does he know you killed the last guy yes oh my god and then i think

the next day you called me and you were like was that an okay joke he's like oh my god i'm still laughing about this it wasn't exactly appropriate but part of what has bound us together in this bizarre friendship is that we can be somewhat inappropriate at times. But we're smart enough to do it in the correct environment. Until today. Well, no. You're easing your way out of this job, right? You're softly retiring. I still have a bit to go, so the stakes are a little higher for me. So your cancellation is significantly more…

It's treacherous. Serious. You clearly have to spend a lot of money to finish this house. Right. Just in deference to Monica, who has to look at this shit pile here, just being able to finish it someday so she can look out of her glorious window and not see 1,800 disabled vehicles. The Clampetts. Yeah, definitely the Clampetts. What would you be the, it's not the Beverly Hillbillies or the.

A little bit. I think so, yeah. Yeah, but it's not the neighborhood. So it'd be the Lost. Oh, right. Feel is, we have to come up with a. Degenerate. Title for you.

Hillbillies. But what's great about it is you're a hillbilly but you can function okay. Like Jed never really made the leap. You know what I mean? You're right. He never became self-actualized.

He never was able to have an interview with Bill Gates. You know what I mean? He always lived in doggies. It was always the same thing. And he continued

to drive that old pickup truck around Beverly Hills. Correct. He never upgraded the way I did. And you know, he had so many

opportunities to do so. He did. You're a little bit more like Jethro, I think. Sort of got with the program and you got a cool car. One foot in Kentucky, one foot in LA. Nice haircut. He spent the summer at Martha's Vineyard, so. I know.

Definitely losing my hillbilly status. That is not a hillbilly. That's points off of hillbilly. That's not a hillbilly hangout. But you are reasserting your hillbilly credentials with the Tennessee place. Aren't you going to have like a go-kart track? Enormous pyrotechnic display on Fourth of July. Are you going to have a pontoon boat?

Oh, God, yes. Way too much motor on back is the plan. You're kind of, and the great thing about it is I think they modeled it on you in the beginning of Idiocracy. You know, the parallels between the highly educated family. You could have been, had it gone a different way, the model for that other side. The football player. Yeah. With the truck and the 400 children and the whole thing. And somewhere along the line, there was a strange evolutionary break that sort of took both of us to some degree out of this kind of protozoan stream that would have ended us up

living if we were lucky in that Quonset hut that we long for. You know, it's evolutionary. It's genetic. We're like salmon that want to return to our river. We want to return to a Quonset hut. We want to go home. In Palmdale. That's right. And start a hut. We want to go home. In Palmdale. That's right. And start a religion. We'll get into that. In fact, maybe we'll hopefully get some recruits.

Let's start at the beginning because you just mentioned it, which is, I think when we first met, we wouldn't have known this about one another, right? I met you. You just mentioned before we started recording that you're two days away from 20 years. Correct. Congratulations. Yeah, so fucking amazing. It's impossible. Amazing.

It's impossible. It is. Yeah. And you rolled up to this meeting, and I want to say you were driving an S-Class at the time. Of course I was. Yes. And I thought, look at this rich asshole. How old were you?

Well, it was 20 years ago. I was 28. Wow, yeah. Yeah, 28 years old. And he rolled up, and his hair is so thick, as you're now looking at, Monica. His hair was so thick. Gorgeous. Darker then, yeah. Yeah, 28 years old, and he rolled up, and his hair is so thick, as you're now looking at, Monica. His hair was so thick. Gorgeous. Darker then, too.

To be envied. And he is in this S-Class Mercedes, kind of like a tycoon's car. And I was like, oh, this is a rich guy. But then, slowly, as I heard you share over the years, I was like, hold on a second. This guy's also a clamp-it. Yeah, it's a clamp-it from a different part of the southern San Fernando Valley. You're from Reseda? Correct.

I was born in Van Nuys. Never lived in Van Nuys. I was taken home to the house that I grew up in. And never left. Not until my parents moved out and left me there. That was a whole different story. But I mean, you had the house the whole childhood. Yeah.

And what was Reseda like in the 50s working class very white most of the dads worked in the defense plants because there were all the aircraft plants douglas lockheed were all over the place there were car plants at a chevrolet plant they made chevelles in van they made chevelles they sure did i had no idea right on van nuys boulevard and kind of Sherman Way, Roscoe. And there was a rail line. And they would actually take the Chevelles out to various parts of the world. Dropped one off in Livonia, Michigan to my father in his senior year, 68 Chevelle.

Probably did. They were still making them. I think they made Camaros there at one time. Oh, really? It was a very working class environment. Most people owned their little houses. They were kind of post-World War II bungalows. A hundred percent.

Ours was, you know, tract houses. That was the beginning of tract housing. We lived in a 1,500 square foot house that my father bought on the GI Bill because he was in the military. The reality there was the dominant events of most everybody's parents' lives were the Great Depression and World War II. Most parents were born in 1918 to 1923, so they were all eligible for military service. They all ended up scraping through the Depression. A lot of people, not as many as in the Central Valley, but a lot of people who I grew up

with, parents were from the Dust Bowl, were from Arkansas and Oklahoma and came out because there was farming in the San Fernando Valley. Isn't this unimaginable, Monica? It is. It is. And to add to it, it's kind of inconceivable to me even to think about it. I don't have a grandparent who was born in the US. My grandfather was named Rangwald Hansen, born in Norway, Oh, wow. Came here with his brother and sister when he was four. It was interesting because I tried to find him on the Ellis Island website. I figured how many Rangwald Hansen's couldn't find him. Oh, really? And my great-grandfather's name was John, and there were a bunch of John Hansens.

And then there was my great-grandmother's name was Caroline. So I looked that up and I found her. And she came in in like 1902 with my grandfather who was four and his two younger siblings by herself. Oh, my Lord. And I then saw the ship she'd come in. She was from the town of Arendelle. No, no way. From Frozen?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. They grew up in Arendelle. And so I traced the ships. And about a month later, my great-grandfather came. And I asked my uncle, who was the last surviving member of that generation, I said, was there some story about them not being able to come together? And he said, yeah, selling their property.

And there was a hangup. And he had to stay. Ship only ran once a month. So he had to stay an extra month. And you think about, she was 28, spoke not a word of English. Ay yi yi. And came into the US by herself. They ended up in Chicago.

My great-grandfather was a coffin maker, so he was a master carpenter. My grandfather grew up in Chicago. He met my grandmother on a wrong number. Which back then was like G18 or something weird. They were in Chicago and they started chatting and she was the youngest of her family. She was actually just barely born in the U.S., conceived in Sweden, and came over. And their story was their boat hit an iceberg and sank. And everybody got off, but her father came off only with his money belt and nothing else.

So they had to start completely over in Chicago. So they met in a wrong number. She was 16. He was like 20. But 16 back then was like 31. Yeah, bro. Let's just be clear. She was like behind that she didn't have any kids yet.

They met and they kind of got married secretly and all these stories. And he died in her arms. That's my romantic story that brings tears to my eyes. How did everyone get to California? Well, during the war, my grandfather, he was a milkman. He started with a horse and wagon. And the horse would know where to stop. It was, you know, like that.

And then he also sold railway tickets as a part-time job in the lobby of the Drake Hotel, which if you've ever been to Chicago is one of these, it's like the Miramar downtown or the Biltmore downtown. And they had a ticket office for the railroad. So he saved money and he was pretty industrious. And at some point when the boys were in the war, my uncle and my dad, dad was in the Navy, my uncle was in the Air Force. They heard about California. So my grandfather at that point was probably about 45. And he and his brother-in-law decided they were going to go to California and buy some property. And they were going to farm it. And this California was going to be good someday. It's going to be a good investment. So right near the end of the war,

they moved lock, stock, and barrel with my uncle who was younger and my aunt who was younger. Bought about 80 acres together. They built two houses. The boys came back from the war. My dad had a job in Chicago. He was a machinist. And my mother, who was from Sydney, Australia, they met during the war, spent one winter in Chicago and said, we can either move to California where your parents are or I can move back to Sydney.

So, my sister was born in Chicago. She said, we can either move to California where your parents are, or I can move back to Sydney. That's fair. My sister was born in Chicago, and then they moved to California in 1946. And the boys and my grandfather, my great-grandfather, built the house. And this house was there until 1977. And I could pace the floor. I can tell you where everything was. I can describe every wall in it because it was this magic place. And I would go help my grandfather in the chicken ranch and

scrape the poop and get the eggs. And my grandmother was the grandma that every single one of her grandchildren would tell you, I was her favorite. Every one of them. She was that grandma. Isn't that the goal for everyone to think that about themselves? She was just the greatest. I can't even begin to describe. It's so common. My affinity is for my Papa Bob, right? And my Grandma Yolis.

They were just saviors. And they were, as I think grandparents get to do, it's kind of a second chance. Like they got to raise my brother and I in a way that maybe they were harder on my dad and my uncle. Yeah, it's weird. As time went on and I got older and more perceptive and paid more attention, I became very close with my father's youngest brother who passed away last year. The best one of the bunch, in my opinion. It sort of reaffirmed some of my senses that my grandma was not crazy about my dad.

He was not her favorite. And I think he knew it and kind of felt it. There was one daughter who was completely doted over and took advantage of it and created some resentment within the family. But it was such a magical place for me. I could ride my bike from where we lived. It was 10 minutes away by bike. And there were geese and ducks and sheep and boarded horses. It makes me think of when you're reading like the Cornelius Vanderbilt biography or the Titan Johnny Rockefeller and that these guys had stables in Manhattan.

Well, Vanderbilt used to love to race them. Oh, he sure did. He was really competitive and he always wanted the fastest horses. He and Rockefeller, and Rockefeller almost killed himself a few times racing randoms with his fucking race horses. It's kind of funny because it's the original car.

Like, the rich dudes have always wanted. Of course. I mean, you read some of the Sherlock Holmes novels. When somebody comes to Baker Street, you know, he looks out the window and he sort of judges them by how fine their carriage is. Oh, right. A fine pair of sleek roans, you know? Clearly a man of means.

I wonder what it was like for your dad if he felt that growing up to then see your grandmother so affectionate towards you. Yeah. I wonder if that was- Triggering. Either good or bad.

I don't know. It's hard to tell. Trying to review your parental scenario, even when you're an old geezer, is complicated. My parents had a complicated relationship. Everybody has a complicated relationship. But my mother came from poverty in Australia. She was one of five kids. She was the oldest. She had to quit school when she was like 14, go to work. And they got divorced when I was in my 30s. Like, oh, the light went on. That answers the question. Because they were never terribly affectionate. They didn't fight a lot, only a couple of times. But there was always

like, this doesn't feel quite right. And sort of the light went on. And unfortunately, when your parents get divorced, one of them at least has to tell you a lot of stuff you'd really prefer not to know. Right. Like your father wouldn't pay to have the dog you loved fixed and put her down and supposed to pay for the... It's like, I don't really need these... I don't need more ammo. I don't need more ammo. Don't fire me up.

The chamber is locked. But my mom, I think one of her big motivations was to escape this bad situation she was in, in Australia, where she really had a heavy burden for a woman of her age. And she was very smart, very attractive. And my dad, I think, promised her the moon. You'll never have to work. And my dad couldn't keep a job until he got a job at the post office. Never was ambitious until my mother drove him to it. So I think he lived in a constant state of someone being disappointed in him.

And I think that wore on him as time went by. You know, and he drank. And can you tell if your parent was an alcoholic? I think so. He drank every day and he got weird sometimes. And I would occasionally have to go out the back gate over to the bar, the Mountaineer, the beer bar, and drag him out of there. You could support or shatter. I have this weird stereotype about postal employees.

Sincerely. And a lot of it comes from reading Bukowski. And he, for years, worked at the Postal Service. And his explanation of it, and I probably have just bought into it, was it was a place that people that were very smart but not ambitious went because you had to pass this test there was a pretty lengthy test of your intellect to become a postal employee so a lot of people found their way there that were inordinately smart to have a job that wasn't going to have any real growth to it do you think that's consistent at all because your dad had to be fucking smart as hell he showed no interest in any intellectual pursuits whatsoever really none didn't read and watch the news all of your curiosity to your mom yeah and i don't even know

most of them because they stayed in australia a phone call to australia was a huge deal yeah in the 50s. You know, it was really expensive. It was like seven or eight bucks. And that was a lot of money for people in the 50s. So I don't really have that much contact. My dad just was not ambitious. He was a guy who just wanted to get along.

And by the way, so many people of that generation, having lived through the Great Depression and World War II, I just want to get along. Yeah, I don't want any fucking action it was the 50s there was no reason to raise your head above anybody else's i think they were just so happy to be okay but i think the really relevant thing because this is one of the many things i've kind of looked to you for guidance on is suffice to say you had a tough relationship with your dad for whatever reason you guys butted heads a lot yes we did i guess what was your reaction to that you were you know again is that a good i would say what would we use i was more than that insufferable would we use that yeah i was in stuff it was this weird thing and it was this combination of things which is I was the worst listener the world's ever known, as far as I can tell.

I didn't want to hear anything from anybody. Because you knew it already? Because I decided I knew it already, and I was busy talking. And I was so, which I still am to a large degree. I don't know if it's clinical ADD, but my attention span is very short. I was a good student. I don't know if I'm any smarter than anybody else. You are. You're not going to be able to say it, but you're insanely sane. But I was really, really good. This is what distinguished me from my derelict friends who I've told you about, is I was really good at doing what school was asking you to do right very good at that narrow curve of learning

which involved some memorization some analysis some logic i was really good at it and i finished work very quickly and i was bored as hell so i disrupted everything yeah Yeah. And that was my MO. And you were drawn, so this is another similarity, we love other shitheads. We love other scumbags, right? Like all of my friends are the same as me. They're all divorced kids. They like to get into some shit and get into an alley.

You had that too, right? You're drawn to- Yeah, but that came later. In the early days, I was not big. I was a petite individual. Uh-huh. And I was very emotional. Uh- individual. And I was very emotional.

And I was very poor at accepting criticism. And I would react violently to things I didn't like. And I did a fair amount of socking of other kids when they sort of represented something that was standing in the way of what I wanted to do that very second. From like the third grade on, I was always in trouble because I just couldn't do it. I was just too wound up. Right. And since they'd had all those tests, they decided I was being smart wasn't my problem. And so they had me tutoring other kids and it just didn't work.

And finally, this one teacher, again, thanks mom for telling me all this shit, said either he goes into the next grade or he has to get another teacher. I can't do it anymore. So they skipped me in the middle of the year. Oh, they moved you up a grade. This is a bad idea. And you were already small. And I was already young.

My birthday was like two days ago. So I was at the end of October. So then they moved me up a grade. So I was a year younger than most of the people. And the real difference was between 11 and 13. That was later on. year younger than most of the people. And the real difference was between 11 and 13. Yeah, that's huge. That was later on because, you know, the girls are mature and, you know, I was this pipsqueak. So they moved me up in the middle of the year and I got bullied for a while until I reacted.

And the way I would react to bullying was ranting and raving. Eviscerating people verbally? Yes. They put me into this class and I'm sure they did it on purpose. It was a man teacher, first man teacher I ever had, and he was tough. And he made me write on the blackboard thousands of times, I will not. He made me take it home, so I would write, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, They were harassing me on the schoolyard shortly after it, and I went into a tirade of profanity that was like unbelievable. So the teacher hears me, brings me back in, and he gets out a piece of paper. And what he used to do is write on a piece of paper, this is what you're going to write 10,000 times. But no, dear Mr. and Mrs. Hanson, I was a combat Marine in Okinawa, and I never heard language coming out of a wounded soldier like i heard your son today oh my because i'm sure i used some of my choice or things but you know then i ended up deciding it was easier to be a bully so i found some bullying techniques and once i got out of that particular grade it was okay the theory with everybody And once I got out of that particular grade, it was okay.

The theory with everybody was once I got into middle school, which was seventh grade in those days, called junior high, they had periods. So you'd have an hour of class. They figured that that would help me. Yes. And it did. Yeah. Because I got to get up and have a different move around, et cetera, et cetera. And it was a big change in me getting in trouble with the teachers because I wasn't as wired.

And they weren't spending eight hours with you. They were spending an hour. Yeah. And what was really different is in those days, they put you in these limited classes with a bunch of other smart kids. Right. So I was in the same academic classes with the same 20 kids from the seventh grade virtually to the 12th grade these were not obviously the bullies these were the eggheads no these were mostly the eggheads and the socias you know yeah yeah i don't know if they had that expression and yeah greases and socias yeah who were the cool kids and ran for public office sweaters wore sweaters and were polite and stuff yeah drove thunderbirds no not not in my school nobody drove thunderbirds

in my in outsiders they do the socialist drive there was only one guy in high school i was thinking about this not too long ago his name was ed reed and he was like a great ahead of me he was very handsome guy very stylish work out of continental clothes and everything pointy shoes and he drove two different cars to school in high school one was a 62 impala convertible oh baby and the other one was a xke no he drove a jaguar and occasionally he would ride into school with a female teacher in a little porsche this guy was so, no. This guy was so cool. He was the coolest. I wonder where is Ed Reed? He was just very suave.

He was like very Italian looking. Ed Reed. That was much later. That was so funny. How did you? Oh, Monica, were you watching? No, yeah, I was. But I keep asking dad questions, but I'm just curious.

Do you think he was jealous of your intellect? He was intimidated by me to some degree, but he was mostly angry because my mom loved me and didn't love him. God and his own mom. Yeah, I would have hated your guts. You kind of deserve this wrath. And neither one of them. Look, you know, it's funny because you have refrains, your parental refrains come in. I supported my mom for the last 15 years of her life, and she lived in a place.

And I was over there one time, not long before she passed away, and she said, oh, you were such a difficult child. And I said, mom, I've been hearing that shit for the last 60 years. I don't want to ever hear it again. And she was like, wow. I don't think your parents even know the the kind of impact so i was branded in my own mind as this difficult kid yes and that's how i looked at myself still yeah to some degree and by the way i'm sure i was but you needed help you're a child yeah i'm sure they would have riddled the holy crap you would have had the whole pharmacological toolkit at your disposal. I did. You found it. Well, we laugh at that, but it's fucking true.

It's part of the recipe. You needed relief. By the time you're in high school, probably, you're ready for some relief. Well, my high school career, I told you I went into all these cool kids. And I really tried to be a cool kid. And I tried to run for student office, always defeated, tried to have a girlfriend, always rejected. And I would act out my rejection. So the end of junior high school, I didn't get invited to one graduation party. And I was really bummed because I had tried so hard to be one of the cool kids. Really quick. This is unimaginable to me. Well, it's- Because I've known you for 20 years and everyone's so attracted to you. It's so hard to be one of the cool kids. Really quick, this is unimaginable to me. Well, it's-

Because I've known you for 20 years and everyone's so attracted to you. It's really hard to make peace with that. I was probably four inches shorter than I am now. Right. Maybe five inches shorter than I am. And more to prove. Well, just a child.

Yeah, yeah. So I've mentioned my friend, Jim Titus before. Jim Titus, no more. Jim Titus was one of the celebrity junior high school kids because he was a child actor. Oh, wow. And he was very smart,

but in the eighth grade, he was in The Twilight Zone, which was the most popular show for kids of that age. And he got to have long hair because he had a letter from his agent. And it was bleached blonde.

And so he was quite a celebrity. He was always in trouble. And he took great joy in being in troublemaking exhibitions. Yeah. I had one class with him. So I was in Carpinteria State Park camping in our trailer, in our family trailer. And he was there too. And I kind of recognized him.

And that's when we became. Both from TV and school. Well, really quick. This was one of my questions that I don't think I've ever even asked you. But what was it like growing up in the shadow of Hollywood? Because A, you love movies. And it was so close. But I have to imagine it also felt like it was in another fucking planet.

Completely other. Hollywood, it was a foreign country. I mean, it was so close but i have to imagine it also felt like it was in another fucking planet the other hollywood it was a foreign country i mean it was so far away you didn't go beyond your little town right but you were enamored with it already i didn't know anything about it i was enamored with the product i loved movies and interestingly enough you watched them at the recita walk-in which is the star of Boogie Nights. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I've talked to PTA about it a bunch in the day. And at one point, he wanted to sort of buy it and turn it into like the new Beverly. But my movie diet was that and what 30s and 40s movies were shown on television.

I am curious at what point you decide you might have a role in show business, but certainly not then. Very, very much further on. You just had this weird kid who was a movie star at a campground. He wasn't really a movie star. When you're in that grade, that's a fucking movie star. Twilight Zone? Yes. The episode was called The Crazy World of Horace Ford.

There was one year of Twilight Zone, one season, where there were hours. And this was one of the hour shows. And this particular show was about a toy designer played by Pat Hingle. He was a character actor. He's enamored of his old childhood neighborhood. So he keeps going back there. And then he goes back there and he sees a kid that he knew. He says, hey, Joey, you haven't tried to chase him.

He can't get him. So he goes back a couple of times, keeps seeing the kid. And the final scene, he goes back and he reverts to his kid person, and that's Titus. And then the other kids knock the living shit out of him. Oh, boy. They beat him up. He imagines he was one of the guys, and in reality, he was an ass bite and they kicked his ass.

Okay. And so it was very famous. He was my key. You know, he smoked and hitchhiked and all this stuff. And also now, is hippie culture starting to burble up? Not yet. Not yet. Just gangster culture at this point. So he had a whole other group of friends who were in my school. And so by the time I got to high school, I had been so rejected by all the smart kids, but I was still in class with them. And I really started hanging out with Titus and these other guys.

He's your Aaron Weekly. 75% of your stories involve Jim Titus. Some of them are horrifying and some of them are hilarious and most are both. There was a very charismatic bad kid who had a 1935 Ford panel truck with a Chevy V8 in it. And he was very charismatic, very criminal. And, you know, that sort of began. I was sort of law-abiding, and my parents were very law-abiding. And that was not part of the deal. First time my parents got really mad at me, we went to a surf movie in the panel truck.

We didn't get back till like one in the morning. My parents were so pissed. No cell phones, no nothing. Yeah. What are they going to do? So that was the beginning of my parents may be concerned. And then shortly after that, I had my first real drink with those guys, with this group of guys. I thought it was terrible. I blackout drunk, threw up on my father and you know, that was that. And I didn't like it. I didn't like the lack of control. Then I had to live this dual life, which was went to school every day. I got good grades. I like school. I like learning. It was fun. And had no social contact with any of these kids in my classes. As time went on in high school, my friends got deeper and deeper in the

shit. Most of them got kicked out. They would kick you out to another high school and you'd go there for a while. And if you made it great, then they'd kick you to another high school. And after that, they'd make you go to something called continuation school, where you just sat. Because you had to go to school until you were 16 or 18. So I got more and more isolated in school where I would go to class, but my friends weren't there. It was the beginning of that dual life for me. I was this kind of bad kid in some ways, but I was a smart kid as far as the school was concerned. And on the few occasions that I got in trouble with my derelict friends, I'd get dragged in and they'd basically say, you're one of our success stories, so don't let us catch you.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Sasha hated sand, the way it stuck to things for weeks. So when Maddie shared a surf trip on Expedia Trip Planner, he hesitated. Then he added a hotel with a cliffside pool to the plan, and they both spent the week in the water. You were made to follow your whims. We were made to help find a place on the beach with a pool and a waterfall and a soaking tub

and, of course, a great shower. Expedia. Made to travel. When does drug use start? Shortly after I get my driver's license in October of 1965. And needless to say, I'm with Jim Titus. I'd been hearing talk of it. It was just weed at that point. And it was really illegal. It was a felony. They put people in jail for just having a joint. And our idols, of course, were Gene Krupa and all the other big drug addicts. So I was over at this older guy's house and they had weed.

I was very nervous about smoking weed because I only had alcohol. And I didn't like to drink. I don't like the taste of beer. And they had some pot and a couple of hits. And it was like, wow, this is cool. I'm not out of control. I drove home. I really enjoyed driving home. I only had my license for about a month. But it really was a cool sensation. And I liked it. Move your mic a little. You're a little off mic. I want to have rational deniability. When they replayed the table, I was like, that's not what I said. All this drug stuff.

If you listen closely, what I actually said was. It was very interesting because here's a generation of kids who's been raised by parents who are law-abiding, who cut their grass, paint their houses,

don't turn left on a red light. And all of a sudden, into this comes drugs. It starts seeping in, not just into the pop culture, but into their kids' lives. For the first time. Absolutely. And at the same time, you've got the Vietnam War starting to percolate. Some of the anti-war movements are just beginning to trickle out. You have a completely different attitude about sex. Liberated, we might say.

Yeah. The sexual revolution in some ways preceded the women's movement of equal rights. But the beginning was, well, you know, this is kind of fun. Right. And it's kind of harmless. And I don't know what the big fucking deal is. I don't know why we go to hell over this. Yeah.

And the slut shaming and everything, which exists to a degree these days, was, you know, if a girl had sex with her boyfriend, she was a slut. Yeah. That was all happening kind of at the same time. And my parents, most of the parents, had no clue how to deal with this. There was no idea that maybe this was the new normal. This was bad. There was no question normal. This was bad. There was no question they thought it was bad. And look, from an actual point of view,

the problem in my area, in my generation, and particularly in my working class environment, was that there was no education about drugs. No one knew shit about it. And everybody started smoking pot and said, hey, this is pretty cool. I don't have a hangover. I don't crash the car.

I don't punch anyone at a bar. Maybe I should try some pills. Yeah. Uh-huh. Because this is all right. The progression was pills. People were taking uppers. And then they started taking downers.

Then the psychedelics. And LSD was sort of in the news. And it was legal. For a short period of time, it was not a controlled substance. Uh-huh. So this is such a classic. There's a famous first episode of the new Dragnet TV show, and it was totally right wing. And it was all about LSD, about wasn't it legal? Blue Boy. And the great story is that Titus and I were

watching it in my room with my TV, and my parents were watching it in the next room on their TV. And we're like hooting and hollering and laughing our asses off. My parents were like, what were you watching? Oh, we were watching a comedy special. It was a big divide. We didn't know how to deal with it with our parents. We were also 15, 16, and 17. And our parents had no idea how to deal with it.

One of my best friends, he was older because he was in the right grade. And his mother found a bag of weed weed and they turned him into the police. No. Oh, my God. Yeah. He was 18, but we were still in high school. But that was not considered insane. Yeah.

Because they didn't know what- Yeah, I feel like if they murdered someone, I guess we have to turn him in. They didn't know what to do. Well, they're terrified. Yeah. Terrified. Let's just, yeah, be generous. Don't know what to do.

Yeah. So for me, it was a breach that i never could return from particularly with my father it was so dire and it lasted longer than it should have because they threw me out and then i moved back and i wasn't very sympathetic about it one of the things about getting sober is you look at your side of the street and yeah i was not a easy piece of work no i would hate would hate to argue with you. If you were fucking 17, no one wants to argue with you. That's why you're a great lawyer. It must've been torturous. And I went from their valedictorian kid to this tattooed Harley riding junkie.

Let's fast forward to that really quick. So we start with marijuana. We get into psychedelics. We end up shooting dope. Yeah, we do. Which do which is crazy crazy what was working when it worked just hearing your story it's like well obviously you wanted companionship so fucking bad sure and this was the group that brought you in they thought i was funny yes they're even protective of you very much so several times my ass was not kicked when it should have been it should have been because of my wise mouth. Yes. So that's so obvious to me. But then also the drugs themselves are probably giving you some relief or some comfort. So here's my life.

I'm a really smart kid. And I am working as a junior high school janitor. My boss is a recently retired warrant officer from Vietnam who does not care for my hair length. Right. And I am working from two in the afternoon to 10 at night. And I have become a zombie. And I am living in this world where nothing looks good. I'm just waiting to get drafted to go to Vietnam because I wasn't going to school anymore.

I went to college for a year and a half. And I'm living with my parents, and I have no hope. And the dope makes everything good. You're protected. More than tolerable. I mean, that's the great thing about opium. You don't care. You could be hanging upside down from a flagpole somewhere.

In a state of elation. Yeah. It's a wonderful drug. There's a reason that people do it. I was just miserable. I was completely unfulfilled. You were not living up to your potential. You had no purpose.

I didn't even care about my potential. Right. And then I had another job where I worked during the day. And I drove a little delivery van from North Hollywood to where the Beverly Center is now, three times a day through Laurel Canyon. And I picked up Frank Zappa hitchhiking. Oh, my God. And it was like 1968, so it was hippier than shit.

This is like Laurel Canyon's golden era. It was the absolute golden era. Yeah. I would park the truck in San Vicente Park behind West Hollywood, and I'd go back and lay on the mailbags and shoot dope. And when I crashed the truck for the third time, they kind of let me go. So my level of companions dropped and dropped and dropped and dropped. And by the time I was getting close to being done with all this stuff,

I was hanging around with some really raspy individuals and I was in a house and they had been selling dope from the house. And the cops came, took everybody to jail, including me, and charged me with possession of heroin. What age are you at this point? I'm 19. Just turned 19. And a couple of days in Van Nuys Jail. And there wasn't any there.

They found cut, so they were really mad. And there was a tiny bit of a reefer in one place. And they basically charged about four or five people who were in the house, including me. And I think I was charged with being in a place where marijuana was being used, which was a felony. Oh my God. I went to trial. My parents, God bless them, paid for a lawyer. I got out of it. And that was kind of the wake up call that this is not what I want. I didn't want the establishment, but I didn't want this. This was criminal low life. It was just dark and weird.

And hopeless. Yeah. Nobody was going anywhere good in this group. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My sister, by that time, who had had a failed marriage, had moved down to the marina and was living on a boat with some hippies. And there was a vacant boat in the neighborhood. So I moved down, just disappeared. Geographical cure. Correct. Still smoked pot. Still took psychedelics. But no more junk. So I moved down, just disappeared. Geographical care.

Correct. Still smoked pot, still took psychedelics. But no more junk. No more skag anymore, no. And met some fairly interesting people. The most interesting of which was a woman who was older than I. We started fooling around. She asked me if I wanted to go to Europe with her.

And I was 20 at this point. I'd lived down there for a while. And she was the interior designer for a big home builder. So she would design the interiors of all the model homes. And she was well-educated and artistic and all that stuff. And she basically said to me, just pay for your ticket and I'll take care of everything else. So I dropped everything.

I went to Europe. I was there for a year with her. A year. Wow of everything else. So I dropped everything. I went to Europe. I was there for a year with her. A year. Wow. She was 30. I was 20. Turned 21 there. Incredible.

Oh, I love this. Yeah. Good for her. I'm really waking up to this. She also liked girls too. Wow. She was way ahead of her time. That's a lot of women for a 20-year-old.

Yeah. She was successful. Marianne Day. I lost track of her. I hope she hears this and will reach out. And I can testify that I've heard many times fondly of this year in Europe. Well, it completely changed my life. I had no idea the world that existed out there, outside of Reseda and outside of dope and outside of cars and dumb shit.

And outside of dope and outside of cars and dumb shit. And so she was very well educated. And we would go to every museum, go to opera in Vienna. No TV, no radio, books. Everywhere you could get a book. I bought a full set of Dickens in London, a used set. Read like every Dickens book. And if we were going somewhere, like we were going to Spain, so I read Michener's España or I'll dress you in mourning, all these

bullfighting things. Never went to a bullfight, but I just had no idea. You woke up. Completely woke up. Yeah. Lots of people were traveling, English, Aussie, Americans, but different kinds of people than I'd been exposed to. People who were well-educated, came from big cities, educated, came from big cities, lived big lives. So I got really, really, really motivated. So I realized that the best thing for me to do was to come back. One of my closest friends, I was the best man at his wedding. He was a fabulous guy and it breaks my heart every day, died in Vietnam right before I came to Europe. I was already scheduled to go. So when I left, I did not want to come back. This bad knee had been the reason I didn't go. So I was cool, but I didn't want to come back. He was dead and he overdosed. And he was one of my bad buddies, but who was one of the smarter, it was bad. But I figured at some point I could come

back, get an education and then go live somewhere else. So I came back. I moved into a big old rundown house in the San Fernando Valley. I had no money. I went to a junior college, Pierce College in the Valley. Rode my bike every day. I was 22. Having had the year I'd had, it was like I was a different kind of creature. Right. Than most of these 18-year-old kids who were going to junior college because their parents

wanted them to. Yeah. And I zipped through that place and then transferred to UC Santa Barbara and became a film student. So that was the beginning of me even having an inkling that there could be a career, not as a business person, but I'm so sorry. That's okay. Oh, that's so spooky for Halloween. Yeah, my head is just halloween i love it spooky setting yeah so that was just the beginning of oh there's actually a world out there where people pay attention to movies but it was french movies of the 30s and italian neorealism and all this stuff i had a ball i had started dating this woman up there whose father was a lawyer down here.

So we were pretty serious and lived together for a while and stuff. So I got to know them pretty well. And he said, have you ever thought about being an entertainment lawyer? And I said, well, what in the world is that? Yeah, yeah. And he said, well, you know, you're an asshole and you like to argue and you like movies. This is made for you. It's a good combo.

So he said there's a whole group of lawyers who represent actors and writers and directors and they negotiate deals. He wasn't one, but he was a West Side lawyer, so he knew all about that. So that was the first inkling that maybe there was a career there. It's funny. I want to pause to just say we all love this story that we're self-made, but it's just so crazy. You think without the trip to Europe, where the fuck are you? You don't date a woman whose father advises you. I mean, it's nuts how many things drop into your lap.

And I've tried to, over the last five or six years, reach out and acknowledge that. For example, one of the only good jobs I had during this period of time was I was the maintenance man's assistant at what is now the W Hotel on Hill Guard. It was a co-ed dormitory for UCLA. Oh, wow. 1970. Oh, boy. And I lived in the marina then and rode a motorbike every day and had really long hair. And I was very popular there and really had a good time.

Yeah. And that was a great job. I really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed that job. And the irony is years later, a young lawyer came to interview with us to get a job. And I'm talking to her and, yeah, what'd your parents do? He's an accountant. He does this guy's own business. And where did they meet? Oh, they were working at this dormitory in Westwood. And I said, yeah, I was the maintenance man there. No way. I thought there was a certain amount of joy of hiring somebody who's a daughter of somebody who's a student there.

Yes, absolutely. Anyways, there was a young woman there who I was friendly with, and her father was a doctor. And he really gave me great advice about the draft. I looked him up. He was in Santa Barbara. He was a psychiatrist. And I sent him a note. He was very respectable. I was a hippie.

Couldn't have been a nicer guy about it. And I sent him a letter. It meant a lot to me and blah, blah, blah. And like three days later, the daughter calls me, who was visiting. He said, my dad just got out of the hospital. He's like in his 90s. And it really meant the world to him. And I did it with the lawyer who got me out of the rap.

Yeah. And he didn't remember me. You were one of 700. Of course. And a woman who gave me a scholarship in law school, same thing. It takes a village. And so many things happened that any one of which had gone the other way. We're not talking.

We're not talking. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, dead. Yeah. I mean, I put myself in a bunch of ridiculous situations, and sometimes my feeling of a higher power is that there was something that was saying, maybe there's something worthwhile. So many others more deserved than I ended up on the pile. You go to USC, you go to law school, you pass the bar in 78, and then you start working as an entertainment lawyer. And I'm going to fast forward through what you would be uncomfortable acknowledging, but one of the very best careers one's had in this. You've had an incredible career.

And as Downey said when he was on here, you're the only person he knows that no one has a bad word to say about. You represented Robert Downey Jr. through quite an exciting ride. I have. Oh, yeah. Jr. through quite an exciting ride. I have. I have. Oh, yeah. You've been on the whole ride. I've been on the whole ride. Stephen Colbert, John Wells, who wrote and show ran ER for years.

Steve Kloves, which wrote every one of the Harry Potters. Not all but one. Sorry, all but one. Wait, wrote all? Yeah, the scripts. The screenplays. Oh, I was like, excuse me, I have a phone to pick. We thought it was maybe Joe Ryan.

Yeah, something about that. But you know, I didn't know much about him until I was reading about you today. But forget he wrote those Harry Potters. He wrote Racing with the Moon, which is like my favorite. Wonder Boys. And he wrote and directed The Fabulous Baker Boy. Yeah, which was great. But John Waters.

Like, you either in life, you get Robert Downey Jr. or you get John Waters. You don't get both. You don't get the two most psychedelic, exciting. Well, and David Lynch, too. David Lynch. For years and years and years. So when I was in law school going to the movie place, on midnights, it would either be Rocky Horror Picture Show, Eraserhead, or Pink Flamingos. And I thought, well, I got two out of three.

Wow. You know what I mean? Totally. Eraserhead or Pink Flamingos? And I thought, well, I got two out of three. Wow. You know what I mean? Totally. If you would have said to me, well, I'm watching these trailers for these movies that someday

I'd represent these directors. And not just represent them, but know them pretty well. It's an intimate relationship of a different kind. You know, you're very involved in their whole lives. And specifically at moments of like great fear. It's interesting, obviously, with Robert having gone through his ups and downs. Unfortunately, some people in the entertainment business have encounters with a criminal justice system, and it's terrifying. And the only lawyer they know is you.

For you not to be there, to be the liaison between them and the criminal justice system, even though you're going to hire a lawyer for them. You know, it's really important because that's a terrifying experience that you face the possibility of going to jail or having trouble and the impact now that it has on your career. So a lot of the stuff we did with Robert, which was interesting, was really finding a way to get him back to work. That was some of the satisfying stuff I've done. You must be absolutely heartbroken watching this kid. Well, I love him. Who has unlimited talent.

And he's such a beautiful kid. I mean, it's got to be fucking heartbreaking when that all goes down. It is. But like anything else with addicts, at some point you've got to say to yourself, I can't. I've got to get off this ride. Or I can't change it. Right. I'm powerless in this.

I had one of his agents called me once and said oh he's really off the rails and you got to go over there and get him to stop doing it number one i'm fucked up and number two get it in the bag someone needs to come over here well that was one of the ironies which i've talked about is being in these meetings and sort of coming up with all these plans and being all self-righteous and having to slip into the bathroom and pop a bike. Oh God, what a mess. Okay. Wait. Yeah. So how'd we get there? Yeah. So that's great. So you're successful from whatever it is, 70 on with opiates. You're off those. You drank a little bit.

Didn't like cocaine. Maybe smoked weed or whatever. Yeah. the genie was back in the bottle for a very long time because i substituted the roar of the crowd the peer group love the name and lights the money yeah validation beautiful wife yeah the kids nice house while you're building this incredible career in law firm, you partner up with Judy, your wife, who's also a fucking gangster talent manager. First woman in the CAA mailroom. Wow. She was Ron Myers' assistant. Left CAA at the height of its power with Mike Ovitz and started Inner Talent, which was the precursor to Endeavor. Ari was there.

Patrick Weitzel was her assistant oh my god no so she's a badass she's a bad motherfucker much tougher than i am as we all know of all these similarities you and i both picked tough ladies little deceptively same with monica it's like oh look at this little creature this little woodland creature yeah what is she five five foot? And then next thing you know, you're like, oh, fuck. It could be feisty. Yeah, and we all know that it's the right thing. It is the right thing, especially for you and I.

It is the only thing. But yes, you have this incredible wife and partner, and then you have these two beautiful kids and this very enviable career. You should feel great, right? I did for a good period of time. And you wake up one day, and I don't know if you had these kind of fantasies. When I was in law school, I'd imagine being at a party and saying, well, I was a film student, but now I'm an entertainment lawyer. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And that would make you feel great. Yes, yes. And you would be fulfilled. I am a combination podcaster and car mechanic. Absolutely fabulous. And so you had this fantasy that you would feel differently. And it's not conscious when this is going on. And probably 20 years in, I'd certainly hit a level of success that was so beyond anything I could have ever imagined growing up in Reseda, California. I remember so distinctly being a kid and looking

in the mirror and saying, the year 2000, I'll be 51. What could possibly happen? And I remember year 2000, it was like, great. I could have never imagined this, but why do I still have this longing? Why am I not ridiculously satisfied with everything? Why am I still searching? What is it I'm searching for? Yeah, angsty and irritable. Around the same time this started happening, I had a back injury, and I started taking Vicodin.

Yeah. And it was like, yeah, baby. This is great. This is my old friend. Completely manageable. I go to work every day. And I would take him for a while. And then I'd stop for a while.

I'd take him for longer, take him less. And then I found out you can get him on the internet. That was the problem. Once I found out I could get him on the internet, I didn't have to go beg every fucking doctor I knew. Then it was easy. My poor receptionist at the office probably signed for thousands of Vicodin. Right, right. So it just became my medicine.

I drank a little bit. But the problem, of course, is that it may keep out the pain, but it keeps out the joy, too. You live in this cocoon, and I had these beautiful daughters and this big life. And I was so dissatisfied. I was so soul dead. big life and I was so dissatisfied. I was so soul dead. And the more I withdrew, the more Judy wanted. And it was this really difficult time in our marriage because the more she would reach out, I would pull in and she's the child of alcoholics. And her pattern was to really engage with her mom and have a big fight and then make up. And that's how they felt

better. And for me, I would just get more and more withdrawn. So a few crisis ensued. And then 20 years ago, coming up in a few days. And I just thought, maybe this marriage isn't going to last. And I have these little kids. Yeah. How old were the kids? They were 12 and 9. They knew that shit was happening. I moved out for a while and said to myself, I probably need to at least get this shit out of my system. To evaluate your life. To at least evaluate what I'm doing here.

It's not just me. It's these kids, too. The most beautiful, too, little girl. They're pretty good girls. I love my girls. Now I have a granddaughter. It's even better. That was sort of when I met you.

And I was still in rehab. And they brought me to this outside meeting. And here was this tall, gangly, wise ass. His name was fucking Dax. What the fuck name is that? Yeah, strange. Stage name? I think it's like a porn name.

Maybe they got these tattoos. On a motorcycle. The motorcycle would have been a claim. That was the only thing I had to check him a positive for. Oh, you liked that part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you didn't talk about motorcycles. When we met, I think I had about three months and I went away to

do Without a Paddle. And you got fucked up again. And at the end of that movie, I went out for a while. And then you didn't come back in for a while. It was like maybe three weeks. Then I came back and got another couple, three months. Then I went out to do the press tour for that movie, Without a Paddle. Then I went off again. So right. When

you entered, I was kind of ahead of you. Yeah. I kept getting three months and going out for a month, getting three months. And then finally, September 4th, virtually when you were about to have a year, I came back for the final. And I think at that point, the meeting had moved to my house. You're right. It had started at someone else's house and then it moved to your house. And I still was, I think, largely ambivalent about you. We're separated by a few years. You're a lawyer and I was an actor. But I think when I started coming to your house you so much i loved the way you could talk with such honesty and how much you embraced your character defects yet you did it in a smart and controlled way i'm looking at your life you have these fucking daughters and this wonderful wife and i slowly just started admiring the fuck out of you we have this saying in aa right which is find someone that has what you want and ask them how they got it you're the probably only person i've ever been able to

surrender to and say i want exactly what this guy has i want to sound like him i want to be as honest as him and i want to walk kind of shamelessly through all the shitty parts of myself and the way you would talk about your regret of how you treated women. I'm like, oh my God, that's me. The fuck that's me. I can relate to that so much. You're like a decent fucking human being who, you know. Does bad shit sometimes. Yes, occasionally does bad shit. I just started falling in love with you.

And then thank God for some reason you were kind of taking a shine to me. And then pretty soon into that, we start palling around. It's weird. We both love motorcycles. We love cars. Well, that was the first breakthrough. This was the weird. We both love motorcycles. Correct. We love cars. Well, that was the first breakthrough. This was the greatest.

Monica, you'll appreciate this. So we are kind of getting a little friendly at the meeting. And it turns out we like motorbikes. And I say, I get this great ride up in the Angeles Crest. It's really a fun ride. And let's meet at this gas station at whatever. Sunland Boulevard. 11 o'clock.

Yeah. So I get there there and he's not there and all of a sudden i hear he's riding his gsx 1000 which is like 180 mile an hour motorcycle i hear this roar coming down the street and he comes sliding in like 20 minutes late and he's so humiliated because he's gone the wrong way he He's ridden at like 180 miles an hour. I went up the two. And it's like, then I love the guy. Yeah. It was so important for him to get there on time.

And we took this ride. And he liked the fact that I actually knew how to ride a motorbike. Like a motherfucker. You still do. You guys still ride. We still ride. He's too fucking busy now. The problem is our curve is going in the opposite direction.

He wasn't married. He was a barely employed actor. The problem is our curve is going in the opposite direction. He wasn't married. He was a barely employed actor. He had intermittently employed. Whenever I was available, he was like, yeah, let's go. I've got 14 appointments. I'm having my hair done. I'm having my toenails clipped. It's like I'm getting another tattoo.

It's unbelievable. It's very interesting. Men, particularly men like us, have been conditioned in a way, working class guys, that we have to be tough, that we have to know the answers. At my job, I know the answers. I tell people to do stuff. They listen to me. I'm that guy. I'm not the guy that shows weakness, that shows concern, that shows pain, that shows fear primarily. The response that we were conditioned, if you were afraid, fight physically, verbally, sneakily, passive aggressively. So the difficult part, and I think one of the reasons we've been attracted to each other and we've communicated is because we really don't want to

continue that thing. As guys who were Lotharios in their youth and were not particularly nice to women because we were so fucking insecure and just wanted the love and the selfishness, you know, our job is to raise these daughters and to raise these daughters in a way that they have decent relationships with men. That's something we talk about a lot because there's a couple of us who have these girls. The goal is to raise self-sufficient, strong girls. This one, she's got her jumping motorcycle over the Caesar's Palace fountain. So it's important for us to do that. And we can only do that if we're honest and vulnerable and decent with ourselves. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

Well, the universe gifted us really strong wives, gifted us little girls, gifted me you. You're one of my people I would have written a letter to, but I'm doing it publicly right here. But I just want to talk about a few moments over the last 20 years. One of the things I thank you for is a share you had about your dad. And I don't really know what motivated it. What year did he die? Like two months before I got sober. Okay.

Clearly, it was before my dad died, which we're coming up on 11 years. You had a share that went something like, I have spent my whole life blaming him for everything I don't like about myself. And he's been fucking dead now for five years or whatever it was. And you're coming to terms with, there's no one even here to blame. At what point is this going to be my responsibility? And then for whatever reason, broke through to me so much. Yeah, my dad's going to go away. I'm blaming him for everything I don't like about myself. And I'm going to be left with this. And that's on the horizon. So how do I want to kind of act? I just don't know that I go and I spend

all that time with him as he's dying. And I don't know that I do all those things without hearing that. Small for you, but for me, put me on a path that probably prevented what would have been my greatest regret if I had stayed angry. Do you remember we were together when you found out your dad was sick? We had that beach house and you would come down to hang out and you got the call that your dad- I walked outside. Yeah. Yeah. And I came back in. I sent my dad a letter before he passed away, sort of saying I did blame him for everything and it wasn't fair. I think I had this fantasy that we all have, and I was still using, that he would at some point say to me, I was a rotten father. I was really terrible to you. You're a great guy. I'm so sorry. I wish I would have been different. I blew it. Yeah. And when he died,

that possibility went away. And that was when it got the worst. And I was in rehab two months later. The sort of pressure we put on ourselves to sort of have, certainly in my era, the fantasy dad. It was like TV shows of father knows best and stuff that your father was the font of all rational reason and you'd go to if you were ever in trouble. Just was not my experience. And there's almost part of it I felt ashamed of, but I didn't have that experience. And so when he passed away, but I didn't have that experience. And so when he passed away, any chance of that being the resolution went over. But it's interesting, I've gotten so much from you too, to have some kind of a mirror in a way that's different because look on the outside, you're a big, good looking strapping guy. You're as funny as anybody. You're as quick as anybody.

You can fend people off emotionally as well as anybody, but to know what's underneath and to have been able to do that. You know, I don't have very many friends, and you certainly don't make friends in your 50s very often, particularly intimate friends. And to be able to have as much fun as we have in our completely shallow and preposterous. We're like two 13-year-old boys when we get out there. You have no idea.

When we get to Wrightwood, watch out. It's ridiculous. We get to the Big Bear Cafe. Well, the best part was we went for a motorcycle ride with the esteemed actor Edward Norton, and they only recognized Dax. In Wrightwood, that's why we like it so much. We're like, oh, this is our town. Oh, no, I've had this whole thing with this whole evolution recognized Dax. In Wrightwood. That's why we like it so much. We're like, oh, this is our town. Oh, no.

I've had this whole thing with this whole evolution of Dax. Because we would go to Wrightwood, and the only people who would recognize him were the complete slackers who were like riding up. Looking for a new fan belt for their snowmobile. Yeah, absolutely. Have you ever been to the sand dunes? Has Tom ever been to the dunes? No.

No, we've gone. Well, we went in Idaho. To a sand dunes. Oh, got it. To St. Anthony. And his presence spread through the camp like crazy. Oh, yeah. That he was out there.

But now it's a much more sophisticated crowd. It's like the armchairs. Yeah. They're very intellectual. They're a step up and above. It's a whole different deal. When I first met him, it was even before parenthood. So it was really a punked crowd or a let's go to prison

crowd so it was a very different crowd and it was like snowboarders short of binding you got a little scared when you got recognized you thought this could go any any way anything's on the table so we have this weird relationship it's like we've known each other since we were kids. Yeah, I feel like at the old house once, probably when I was babysitting, Dax was like, oh, my best friend's coming over. I was like, oh, cool. We're going to go ride motorcycles. He's this old man.

And they didn't say it. And then you ride, and I was like, oh, this is Dax's best friend. That's crazy. How cool. You guys are going to go ride motorcycles. It's been so great to watch your life get big, too, because none of this was supposed to happen. This was not in the cards

when they were dealt at the Van Nuys Maturity Hospital or Dog Shit Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. These were not the hands that were dealt. And what's weird about our relationship is in spite of the fact that we're different in age and he's very sophisticated and groovy now, it's like we've known each other for 50 years yeah we've done so many fun things

motorcycles to death valley we've gone to moto gp together we've done angelus crest a million times wyoming even two years ago we're on some donkey trail you found riding motorcycles people are crashing every five feet the only people we're running into are people who have been living on a motorcycle for nine days on the Appalachia Trail. You actually had to dig me out of the snowmobile. Snowmobiling, yes. I've gotten you to go snowmobiling, and that was an exhausting day for me. Yes, it was. It was an exhausting day. I've had to explain to the homeowners association what that bus was doing in my driveway for two weeks. Or the pyrotechnics show

they were convinced that maybe the ghost of whale and jenny was visiting the goal well he might have a five-piece band looking at the back side of me right yeah my favorite is on a greyhound bus i've been riding these highways i'm glad that you found your job as a podcaster as opposed to a country singer. Oh, dear. One other thing. So that gift you gave me, sharing about your dad, I think really, really impacted how I ended my relationship with mine. I'm glad. I know you did.

And then the single greatest thing that's ever happened in my life is named Lincoln Bell Shepard. And she was made in your guest bedroom in Wyoming yes but fortunately not by me yeah yeah well who knows who knows I could have had the however she arrived I'll take her it feels so perfect for me that we conceived this little girl at your house it seems so perfect to me that this person I met 20 years ago has been able to create this fabulous life filled with love, you know, and that's really what we wanted through this, all this other bullshit was love. That's what we wanted. And you'll have it forever. I mean, my daughters have their own lives, but the love, and I'm convinced that your kids give you back

in their adulthood, the time and love you gave them in their childhood. That if you didn't spend time with your kids when they were little. It's like a one for one. It's a one for one. And that's because you're putting fucking love in the bank. And you're going to get it back. And these girls will be attached to you. And Delta will tell you to go fuck yourself from time to time.

She better. And you will be tickled that she does. And Lincoln will stand by you when you do your second prison term. I mean, that's ultimately what matters. That's the real legacy is our kids. And by the way, you know, the cool testament, and I'll give my brother this compliment too, but certainly with you, your girls who are now women, Rosie and Charlotte, that was another thing Chris and I both were like, how do we get this? Because when we started hanging out with you and going on vacation, the girls were like 12 and 14. Like we went to Rosie's graduation. We've watched them grow up

and become women. And they're everything you'd hope your kids would be. And Chris and I both were like, what did they do? How did they do it? This is exactly what we want. And I think the testament to it is the men they've liked are fucking great dudes. I've got to meet them. My brother, his three daughters, they've never been with a man that wasn't head over heels in love with them. It's just what they expect. It's incredible. And I hope we do it without judgment. You know, I always felt love was conditional.

And I hope we do it without judgment. You know, I always felt love was conditional. As a kid, I always felt if I behaved, I would be loved. And my sister suffered from that a lot. And I think with girls in particular, you have to teach them that love is not conditional. They don't have to do what we want to be loved. It's interesting. And I think about this because I am an analog guy in a digital age. I was formed in the 50s and the early 60s. I think you're

pretty much formed by the time you're 15 years old, in terms of the way you've been indoctrinated. You're formatted. Yeah. And I lived in this homogeneous white environment where half of the jibes that people would use against each other are completely horrible. And it's interesting because I interact with so many younger, well-educated people in work, how different it is. And it's interesting because I interact with so many younger, well-educated people in work, how different it is. And in ways that I never want to offend anybody and never want to hurt anybody's feelings and sort of navigating the world for someone like me, who doesn't want to be a jackass. Of course. It's not a throwaway that I say I was looking at you and trying to model my own behavior in my marriage because you certainly didn't.

And I did a little bit because my mom was such a boss. But the men couldn't handle it. So they split. Right. So you never saw a husband and wife where the wife had the power and generated the money and you would know how to behave in that. It just didn't exist when you grew up. And even me in the 70s, every dad on my neighborhood called the shots. They showed up from work. Everyone did whatever he

wanted. The food was on the table. He fucked off on Sunday to play golf. I don't have an example of how to live co-equally with a powerful woman. You're my example. That's why I've had to look towards you. And you were doing it completely from scratch. Well, it's interesting because my mom was certainly the more powerful person in our family, but she didn't have leverage. And, you know, I think if she'd had leverage, she would have ended the marriage very, very early on. But she was a woman in another country. And I think it had a bad impact on us because we had this happy facade and it wasn't happening. It was a house of horrors, you know, because you feel it when you're a kid, when there's

tension in your family, you know, it's there, but it was trial and error with me because I certainly dated and women either wanted to take care of me or worship me. And neither one of those was very exciting to me. I meet Judy and she's this ambitious. She can take you or leave you. She likes you. You're charming. Yeah. But she'll be fine on her own. And she tells me right off the bat, I don't really want a boyfriend. Oh, boom. I'm in love. Yeah.

Because I'm really busy, and I'm going to be an agent, and I'm doing this. The funniest thing she said to her roommate after the first date, she said, I don't know. I'll sleep with him, but I'm not going to be with him. He talks too much. How about when she's right? That's funny. Okay, last, last, last two things. One's just one more thank you you brought mark into my life oh yeah that's going good still huh so i had therapy this morning okay 9 a.m good he said how you doing i said well i'm interviewing tom today and he goes

oh my god that's gonna be great are you excited and i said i'm excited but tom's nervous and i want to take care of Tom. I want to make sure he's feel safe and comfortable. And then we just kind of start talking about you for a minute. And of course he's handcuffed because he's your doctor. So first of all, thank you for Mark. And I think I started in a place of trust with him that I could never start in a place of trust with someone. I trust you so much. You've rolled in when i was relapsing and took charge of the situation and i'm like okay yeah whatever he says i'm doing the fact that you trusted him and i trust you so implicitly started me so far down the path that's good i don't think i could have ever gotten to on my own and that's been life-changing mark he's so

wonderful but in that we were talking and i said I realize you can't even really talk about Tom other than to say that he's smart and you like him. I said, and you know, that's one of the things I most admire about Tom. When I think of the things that were aspirational to me about you is that I've known you for 20 years. We've spent so much time together all over the world. You have never said one thing about one of your clients ever. And I wanted to know some shit.

There have been times you've had some clients that were in hot, hot water. And I'm thinking like, I would not mind knowing the behind the scenes of this situation. And we're best friends. You have never, ever violated that privacy that you have. You have such discretion. And the reason that's admirable to me is that I'm such an approval junkie. You have something tasty to offer. You're an approval junkie, but you've never violated that.

And I've always noticed it. And it's been aspirational to me because I, too, have some secrets to trade. And I have some fun people in my life that I could get my own approval through. And you've really been the model for me that I need to get it another way. That's got to be sacred. You make people laugh. You can do that just about on cue. So lean on that.

Okay, now the last thing I want to talk about, because I hate this, but you're at a stage that you're about to teach me a lot again, and you're already starting to. I've been watching it, and I've been absolutely amazed with the grace and the acceptance you seem to have

you're detaching your identity from your job which is crazy it's a very scary especially for you 45 years to detach your identity from that job and to back off from it and then you've told me numerous times over the last year you're like yeah I'm. Like, I can't recall shit the way I did. I don't have my superpowers. Motorcycle rides are a little dicier. You're like moving through that right now. And you're doing it seemingly quite graceful. And I'm just curious what the experience is like of doing that.

Because it's the thing I'm now going to model. This is what we lead up to our entire lives. The diminution of our capabilities in our eventual death. You know, a movie I love is Lost Horizons. I don't know if you've ever seen it. It's based on a novel from the 30s, Frank Capra directed. It's a wonderful movie. And it's about a guy who is a very powerful guy. He ends up crashing an airplane in the Himalayas and he finds Shangri-La. And you can live for a long time there. And there's a dialogue where the Dalai Lama is asking him to stay, the great Lama. And you're a relatively pale man now, but you'll have a slow diminution of your facilities as time goes on. And if you stay here, you'll live for hundreds

of years. And that really struck me when I heard it 50 years ago in that line that no matter what you are at any given point, at some point, and we've lived in a business where you've seen an awful lot of people who should let go before they did, and it's tainted their existence. Part of it is sort of what do I want? My identity and my success didn't fix me i learned that lesson the hard way as you know and with you so when i'm lucky i like to do a bunch of other stuff i like my old car this motherfucker monica he can get on the backside of a headlight of a 60s jag and polish that thing for eight hours oh my god like a beckham one mushroom at a time. How awesome was that documentary? So good. It's a 10.

I loved it. Me too. And I ended up loving Victoria. Me too. Because I had a very different attitude about her. And I didn't know anything about how they hated him for two years. And they called him every name in the book. Insane.

And this sort of thing that that's all he'd done since he was 10 years old. And it was a wonderful documentary. But you see a guy like that, who is one of the greatest players in the world, who's finding peace in something as silly as making mushrooms at a time. And so part of this is, I'm lucky. I have these other things I like to do. I have this family I love. I'm watching this grandchild, which is amazing. I'm these other things I like to do. I have this family I love. I'm watching this grandchild, which is amazing.

I'm probably going to go there on the way home. I'm going to add, my kids call him Uncle Grandpa. Yeah. Because he wants to be an uncle. He wants to be my brother. But unfortunately, he's, you know. Grandpa. So he's Uncle Grandpa.

That's the compromise. Plain Grandpa. He's Uncle Grandpa. Uncle Grandpa is the most enthusiastic human I've ever seen around kids. I love kids. They're so much better. Oh my God, does he love kids. So much better. He's on the fucking trampoline with the kids. I don't roll on the trampoline. I've ever seen around kids. I love kids. They're so much better. Oh, my God, does he love kids. So much better.

He's on the fucking trampoline with the kids. I remember on the trampoline. Oh, my God, me either. Delta's always trying to get me on that trampoline. Oh, he went out there with Delta, yeah. Wow. So, look, I think it's been a conscious decision of sort of trying to let go of that being my identity. Not of it being my job.

Right. Because I think as long as I do it as a job, I need to be all in. You need to be great at it. Yeah. And I'm not going to be crummy at it. If I get to the point where I'm crummy at it, I'm going to quit before then. But it's simply acknowledging, God grant me the serenity, except things I cannot change. I'm going to get old. At some point, I'm going to die. It's just the nature of the beast. So my goal now, and to be rational, is you think, I have time. That's what I have. It's my most important commodity.

I think I have enough dough, time. It's the one thing that I can't control. So why not do it in a way that's going to be the most satisfying to me? You know, sometimes I just like to sit around. Yeah, yeah. I just like to fart around. I have a little chair. I'll put it in my driveway where it's sunny and sit in the sun for 20 minutes.

It's just great. I don't have any guilt. Worked really hard my whole life. I am as self-made as you can be because none of us can be. We've had so many breaks along the way. One of the things we get from this program, if we do it right, is grace. We get to aspire to a state of grace, a state of equilibrium where our lives are in balance.

Yeah. We're in symmetry with the stuff around us. And I think it's all because we were desperate enough to decide that what we were doing wasn't working. I would have ended up divorced in some apartment building, younger, this ugly, meaningless, soulless life. One of my favorite lines is, you know, Lincoln says in second inaugural address, the better angels of our nature. I just love that. But I think the better angels of our nature will guide us if we allow it to do it. And the hardest part for me is ego, like somebody else i know yeah sure sure i think i've told you that a few times yeah yeah i don't need the recognition anymore it won't

fill me up i don't need that part of it most of the time progress not perfection baby right you know my favorite lincoln saying is no man's memory is good enough that he can afford to lie? That's a fucking. That's a great. That one hits home. As you know, as I found out quickly in my relapse, there's just one lie. That's all we're going to tell. And my God, does that turn into like. Sure had a few by the end.

End of the day. Yeah. And then you're like, you got so much shit to keep track of and it's all bullshit. So it's hard to remember. Yeah, that was a really salient on that note i want to thank you because when dax is in that mode protection mode i would say there's maybe two people that he can hear maybe one person and it's you. So I'm very grateful for you that you're in his life and tangentially in my life. It feels like a nice safety net.

I miss you. Oh, I miss you too. Your life is big. It's the only flaw in this love affair is we started at different times. That's true. Hopefully you'll take care of me. Oh, I cannot wait to change those diapers. I think about it daily.

Well, listen, if I could have gone shopping or even better gone into a lab and designed the dad I wanted, you're the one. And I have appreciated that. Not only have you given me so many fun times and advice, you don't let me get away with shit either.

I appreciate that. You're the last person to be charmed by me, which helpful you're like yeah buddy i wrote the book on this charming thing you can fucking leave that at the door i wonder if we are as charming as we think we are well to each other for sure i find you impossibly charming i'm convinced and this is interesting because of the generation gaps i think i'm charming as fuck in the office and i'm sure that when i walk away people go oh that guy doesn doesn't have a great place in wyoming it's probably a middle ground i'm mad at charlotte because she got me addicted to this tv show called below decks ever watched it oh yes they were a sponsor too on bravo right or something yeah uh-huh it's

incredibly addicting and and what happens is you, it's from the crew and the captain's point of view. And you'll see some Tom Hanson guest being, oh, my Lord. And then, you know, they'll turn around and the crew will be like. I'm convinced that maybe some of my charm has fallen on some deaf ears. It's like, who is this old geezer? and on some deaf ears. And it's like, who is this old geezer? The part of it's weird about getting old is you still have the same kind of emotional response

that you had when you were 15. That's why I'm convinced you're locked into place by inertia at that age. And everything you do after that, you have to kind of chip away at whatever you've been cast as. And you were cast as a brawling 12-year-old. I accumulated all the habits i've been trying

to break by 18 from 18 to 48 i've just been trying to get rid of these fucking habits i picked up before i even left michigan well tom hansen i love you so much me too i love you so much one of my greatest things that ever happened is meeting you 20 years ago and i adore you and i can't wait to be a part of the rest of everything we're gonna going to do it. Yeah. Can I do any commercials? What are your sponsors these days? Tell me about your sleep number bed. Do you like it? Love it.

I put my wife on 40. Do you want to publicly say how good I am on a motorcycle before we sign off? I will say that Dax is extremely, Dax is one of the few people I don't mind driving in a car with. He's an excellent driver. He pays a lot of attention. He can drive anything. One of my real character flaws is I'm not good at backing up a trailer. And in fact, I've seen Dax volunteer to a third party who was struggling with a trailer to back it up. He can put that thing

right up your ass. You won't even feel it. It's a 28-foot trailer. Very, very good. I'm going to correct you that that's not a character flaw. It might be a logistical flaw. It's shameful.

For me, Motorhead is that growing up the way I did is shameful for me. To not be able to back a trailer up. A man can't launch a boat in the one shot. It's a bad look for us. He's admirable, don't you think? Yeah, I do think. There's a lot of admirable characteristics.

I do think. The thing that gets him in trouble, we can be off recording now. No, no, no. Go ahead. The thing that gets him in trouble. We'll see how good it is. And it gets me in trouble is because honestly and this will sound very bragging we are both capable at a lot of different things

capable it doesn't mean we're smarter or better but we can do a lot of stuff we can fix stuff and drive stuff we can do stuff and that makes us believe sometimes that we are capable of handling things that we're not capable of handling, like emotional stuff, and particularly like drugs and alcohol, and that we can control everything else in our lives. So why not this thing? I can just do this little thing, and I'm so good and so capable that I can do this. And I don't have to tell anybody about it because nobody's going to know. And we like secrets. Secrets are big for guys like us. And that's when we get in trouble.

And I think the reason I can talk to you about it is because I know it. I know it viscerally. You grab me around the collar, but it's never like I'm not also guilty of it. There's no judgment. And it's not an indication that you're anything other than fabulous. We have weaknesses. And part of it is our strengths are our weaknesses. It's exactly the world we live in. And when you're really capable at most things you try, you think you're capable at everything. Yeah.

And it's ego. So too bad you have to be a drunk to have this life. It's ironic. Well, I do think it's ego. So too bad you have to be a drunk to have this life. It's ironic. Well, I do think it's been nice. We've had so many people on this show who Dax knows from sobriety. Everyone who comes on this show is hyper successful by the terms that society deems success. And to know that all of you guys have struggled with this and are in a room together talking about your character defects and stuff, I think is so important because a lot of people have this idea about addiction and who falls into it and the type. And I think you guys just shatter it all the time, which is very good.

I never connected to anything before that. And I didn't know I was looking for it. I didn't think I was a drug addict. I thought there was weakness attached to it. And I always thought, particularly because of my experience as a young person, I mean, I knew what a dope addict was. They were the guys who were fucking in jail and living in the cardboard boxes. And they didn't live in a house in Bel Air. We have a great group, too. Oh, my God, yeah.

Are you going to be around to give me a cake next Wednesday? Of course I would. Make the trek to Jeff's house? Yes, of course. I would love that. What kind of cake? Carrot carrot i hope oh i like carrot cake that's your cake yeah i do like carrot cake how is dax's group of lovers and syncophons are they doing okay my children yes they're children of the corn yeah it's halloween they're in costume every day i'm talking about all your adult children too all your followers you're You're like the Jim Jones of Las Feliz. Well, that's the goal. We didn't even get into the

religion we're starting. No. We're always looking for big swaths of land out in the high desert. You know what Charlie Manson's scene was like? Just that without the murder maybe? You know, I just missed Charlie Manson. Did I tell you that story? No. So there was a period of time where this one friend of ours was getting kilos of weed. I was like 19. And he would come over. I've lived with my brother-in-law in this house. He would come over there and we'd break up the keys and stuff. And he said, so why don't you come and check this place out?

There's a bunch of crazy chicks and stuff. So he was getting weed. And I would have gone. It just was the timing. Years later, he told me it was the Spahn Ranch in Chatsworth. Oh, my God. So my head could have been buried in the sentences in a past summer. You could have been Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time.

I probably would have been Tex Watson. I would have probably fallen right into it. Very charismatic. I would have been worshiping Charlie. Can you imagine all that crazy stuff? I love you. I love you, too. Thanks for doing this. It means a lot crazy stuff. I love you. I love you, too. Thanks for doing this.

It means a lot to me. I love you. Love you, too. Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. You just did a whole interview with your headphones off. I took them off. And it made me so nervous. What was the experience like?

Was it different? Well, you know, I'm on a roll because yesterday I did synced without my headphones on because we wore Halloween headbands. Okay. And I needed them visible. Right. And today you have a bow, which is why. Today I have a bow and a top knot. Right.

I wanted the top knot in front. Yeah. And the headphones just a top knot. Right. I wanted the top knot in front. Yeah. And the headphones just wouldn't stay. No. We might need kinds that like attach in the back somehow. In the back. So I took them off. You took them right off.

And what was the experience like? Felt great. It did. Yeah, it felt great. No. I don't like it as much. I know you don't. Yeah.

Yesterday, even though you don't like talking about. No, I've surrendered. Okay, great. Yesterday was Halloween. Yesterday was Halloween. And you did your hayride, which was incredible. Did the hayride. And you got a lot of cheers for your driving that last you through the year.

Made you nervous. You banked them for the year. You said it made you nervous. It made you nervous. You banked them for the year. You said it made you nervous. It was perfect timing because you walked up to the window of the car and someone was telling me how blown away they were with the turn into the alley. And I said, jokingly, because you were standing there, well, yeah, it's the number one thing people like about me is my driving. And then you said, oh, boy, this is potentially a destructive activity you put on.

I know. And look, the other thing is, I don't want to be untruthful. It is extremely impressive. Thank you so much for that. I also don't want to feed. Yeah, you know, it's hard for me. You know what's funny, though? If we think about the things that people could hang their self-esteem on,

there's certainly worse ones. Of course. Because it's kind of innocuous. You know, this little guy, he thinks he's driving around people, and the people really love it. But it's, no, and they certainly worse ones. Of course. Because it's kind of innocuous. I know this little guy, he thinks he's driving around people and the people really love it. But it's, no, and they do love it. That's not the problem. The problem is that you think that's your value proposition. Well, depending on what the circumstances are, if we got to escape a city under attack.

Yeah. Then it's a pretty big value. It's one of your, it's a cool part about you. It's a trick. I heard a few people say I like Dax so much more after seeing him. Lies. Lies.

I was ambivalent about him until I saw him enter that alley. Oh my God, it was so fun. It was so, so fun. I love that holiday.

Me too. Oh my God, it's so fun. It's a good time. I like that it starts early. That's a neat part of it because it's a school night. Yeah. So the party started at 4 p.m. were it was pretty busy at five uh the weather's perfect

this time of year the doors were all open you go in and out of the house so nice and there's little pockets of people and everyone's a monster or a ghoul well actually in this case everyone was it looked like hogwarts really did the house was house was Hogwarts. It really looked like Hogwarts. I did think when I parked a street over, that walk was humbling. The walk from the car to the house. In your outfit? Yeah. What?

Tell me how. At four o'clock. It was so embarrassing. I felt so embarrassed. You did? Yes, I did. Oh my God, you look so cute. I felt so embarrassed. You did? Yes, I did. Oh my God, you look so cute. Tell people your character. I was Rita Skeeter, the gossipy, bad journalist.

Yes, and you had your own journalist pad, which is an actual pad you had back in college. Man, I look a pad, man. That's right. An AP reporter's notebook. You would have been the perfect reporter because you're a pad man. You got your pad.

I would have. Padman the pad man. I was a good, I was good in those classes. I bet you were. You're good in all the classes. Yeah, so I had to take that. That's the risk of being great at everything. It's like, it's not very exciting when you're good at one. That's not true. I am not. I'm so bad at drawing. Drawing? You're a pretty good drawer, though. No. Seeing you draw is pretty good. No. You saw me draw one picture of Wobby Wob. Really good job. That was good. And you did it quickly.

I did it really quick. Under the gun. But, yeah, in PR, since I double majored in PR, I had to take a lot of journalism classes. And so we had these reporter's notebooks. And I, for some reason, still have one. Of course. And I brought it as part of my costume. Mm-hmm.

But I had to walk. And so I'm in this bright green, satin green skirt top thing, a blonde wig. Yeah. Bright red lipstick. Mm-hmm. White face. I did not go in white face. I decided not to do that.

I opted out of that. And I had this huge bowl of dip. Right. Lobna dip. Alison Roman, shout out. Got a lot of compliments on the dip. Good, good. I was going to force you to eat it, but I forgot to tell you to eat it.

Maybe you'll start thinking the number one thing people like about you is your chef skills. I'm starting to think that. Yeah, you're building a good repertoire. Yeah, I'm cooking for some gals tonight. You are? Where are you making them? I think I'm going to make this. I don't think you're going to like the sound of it.

Fish? No. It's a chicken, rice, pumpkin. Yeah, I thought that might get you. Kind of soup thing. It's going to be really good. I know what that is. You do?

I do know a like a cinnamony kind of pumpkin-y chicken rice soup. I've never made it. It's Molly Baugh's and it's a very popular recipe on her site, and it's festive. Is there any cinnamon in it? Did I make that part up? Actually, no. There's no cinnamon? Mm-mm.

Okay. Cinnamon. We have our own cinnamon. We sure do, a little cinny. I wonder how his Halloween went. I bet it was. He didn't stop by the hayride. Why not? I don't know, but I didn't stop by the hayride. Why not?

I don't know, but I didn't see him. You know he was somewhere super interesting. Of course. He was just on his street with his neighbors, he said. He has a lot of good friends in his neighborhood. Of course he does. Already more friends in his neighborhood than we have in our neighborhood. So the walk is just one of those.

I look so stupid. I was so embarrassed and I felt like I looked so stupid. Oh, wow. On my own. It's one thing if you're with one other person in costume. Yes. Then it's neutralized. Yes.

But by yourself and someone was walking their dog and they were looking at me like. But they knew. They knew. But of course, and there's like a little smile on their face. Cause everyone's embarrassed for everyone. We're just adults in character. It is embarrassing, but beautiful too. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I could have strolled down any street in my, uh, Dumbledore. Yeah. You didn't even look like you. Nope. Any street in my Dumbledore. Yeah. You didn't even look like it.

No regular Dumbledore. Door, no F. Yeah, you really want to say Dumbledore. I think I said it all last night. You did. Yeah. Dumbledore. Yeah, I'd stroll around anywhere. In fact, the more out of place, the better.

Like if they put me in downtown LA, that would have been really funny. That's the difference between you and I. But you didn't, you say it didn't look like me. It really didn't. It freaked you out. I had a little bit, I felt a little bit like when Delta looked at you after you shaved your beard when she was three and she said, you don't look like my

daddy. Yeah, crying. Yeah, that's how I felt. You did? Oh no, you were scared? You don't look like my best friend. And my character was ho, ho, ho, happy Halloween. Yeah. No, merry Halloween.

Yes, you made him into a Santa. Yes, because I felt very much like Santa. I had a big white beard on and long white hair. And you- Couldn't see a fucking thing. You had a spell you did. I did. Shall I say it?

Yes. Fartimus eruptus. I did. Shall I say it? Yes. Fartimus eruptus. And that would cause the person with the new curse on them to fart unexpectedly. That's right. Yeah.

It was all for the kids. Yes. Fartimus eruptus. Sure, it was quote for the kids. Yeah, me included. Yeah, so it was a lovely, lovely evening. And it is a ding, ding, ding because the car skill. Oh, yeah.

And I want to add one piece of this behind the scenes, BTS. So John O'Yang is the greatest neighbor of any human could have. He is so on top. He runs the neighborhood. He runs the neighborhood. Like in an official capacity. Yeah, and it's laborious.

I feel so bad for him. Me too. What a thankless job. So I don't want to bother him at all. He's so busy and it's a volunteer job. It's so nice. No, he's laborious. I feel so bad for him. Me too. What a thankless job. So I don't want to bother him at all. He's so busy. And it's a volunteer job. It's so nice. No, he's so nice.

But I did go, hey, if it's not too much, because I don't have the full email list for the neighborhood, but he does. Could you bless everyone? Just ask that they don't park just in these two places. I can make it through anywhere except for the very top turnaround and then the area right the alley, because I got to swing very wide to get in. And so he was immediately had a map, you know, he's the best. And then, so I didn't even trial run it. I'm like, yeah, John sent that email. I saw the email.

I'm sure everyone saw the email. And then I, first time out, I've got 25 people in the back and go up to the top. No problem. There's no cars. Great. Everyone read the email. Then I'm coming up to the alley and that's a point of no return it's either exit the

neighborhood onto los feliz boulevard in a trailer that's 3x overweight of what it was designed for and there's a fucking red car right where i need to be and i'm'm like, oh, no, here we go. Leap of faith. Let's commit. Let's commit. So it was much harder this year than it was in previous years. I had to be way over to the left, then go to the right, and just very little. But, of course, I loved it. I know.

Because I was scared. I was a little scared. I'm like this. Because, again, I can't imagine anything more humiliating for me. Not for a normal person but if everyone's back there partying look at that thriller thriller like the the notion of hearing a bunch of people go stop stop stop like i would get out of the car and just walk into los feliz boulevard get run over. It's the most embarrassing thing that could ever happen to me if I scraped the trailer across something.

Oh, my God. So I had those stakes and that anxiety. So every time we entered without incident, it was this huge burst. Really? Yes. It is incredibly impressive. I can't do that, I don't think, in my regular car. It really is.

It's an insanely tight corner. You're about six inches on either side of the wheels of the trailer. Yeah, it's really impossible. And you do it, and it is impressive. But I don't like that you would walk into traffic over. I couldn't face my children. My children were on board. Can you imagine how embarrassed they'd be?

No. Can you imagine? Oh, my God, the priorities. This is crazy. I got to go out with honor. This is how different we are. You're happy to walk around as Dumbledore. I'd walk around naked around town. Yes. And I don't want to walk a very short way in a costume. And yet I'm happy to scrape up any old thing i'm in yeah don't don't matter it's also arbitrary you just pick you pick the things you care about my identity is not connected to how well i drive at all i could i could care less yeah but you're a good driver thank you yeah you are you are a good driver it's kind of shocking because you have such little interest in cars and stuff yet you are a good driver. It's kind of shocking because you have such little interest in cars and stuff.

Yet you are a good driver. You're very confident. I'm confident, but I do hit a lot of curbs. Well, that's going to happen in a city with curbs. And I don't care, though. It doesn't bum me. It only bums me out if it scrapes up the car, which sometimes it does. On the occasion I scrape a rim, I have to go into this immediate.

I have a protocol for that. What? Because I will kill myself over that. Dax! So I go, I'm back in, and I go, oh, oh. Like, even by myself, I'm like, oh my God, I'm not supposed to do that. And then I go, you can't look at it. Get out of the car right now.

Walk. Don't look. Go about your thing. If you see it, it's going to ruin your day. Like, it's huge ruin your day like it's it's huge i've got to go through all these steps i basically ignore it for two days before i look at what i did because it's just too much that might be a guy thing i'm the same way mine are fucked and it's like i i think about it every day because i'm also like a parallel parker from Chicago.

It's really fucking hard. And the curbs are so high here too. I gotta say that's my favorite thing about my Raptor is the tires are so big that when I parallel park, I just purposely hit the tires on the thing and it doesn't matter. The rim's way above it. And I'm like, oh, this is the move for LA. You parallel park

so much. I bet, I would love to see dad on this. I bet this is the number one parallel parking city because there's more drivers. I bet. And people. So you're doing it all the time. Yes. And this is an Easter egg actually to an upcoming flightless bird. David does an episode on car.

Driving? Cars is what he calls it. Cars, but it ends up being a parking episode. Okay. And it really is interesting to actually start paying attention to how many cars are just fucking parked everywhere. Uh-huh. But yeah, in LA specifically, you have to parallel park so much. Yes.

And it was the bane of my existence when I first moved here because I couldn't, I barely could do that on my driving test. And then I never had to do it again in Georgia you don't have to do it you pull in the parking lot so there you go yeah oh it was so stressful I remember I was meeting a bunch of new friends at the Melrose flea market okay and that is a hectic area over there. Oh, it is. It's a shit show over there. And I had to park and I was just driving and driving and hoping and hoping there'd be a spot I could park at that wasn't parallel parking. This is like 15, 17 minutes in. I'm just going to be, I'm late. And then finally there's a parallel, I have to parallel park. You got to parallel park. You gotta just commit. And it is so hard and so scary.

And cars are waiting to go. And there's a man standing there watching. Oh, boy. This is the worst experience. There's nothing worse. I see this all the time. A bystander gets involved. Oh, to like direct.

Oh, yes. And they're always, they position themselves between the car. Like if the person lost control, they would lose their legs for sure. Like they're standing in a very bad spot. They haven't figured out how to get in the person's mirror so they can see their hands. And now they're yelling. And it's just strange. And the person was already self-conscious.

Like anytime I see that, I'm like, oh my God, I know you're trying to help. But this is, no one wants this. It's so bad, yes. I would say the percentage has gotten a lot better over time. But 20% of the time, I pull up. You go for it and abort. I abort 20% of the time. And then I just drive and drive.

Scares me still. I won't abort, as you would expect. I know you won't. I love parallel parking. Let me ask you this. By the way, your car might even have it. If you had one of those cars where you can hit the button and at parallel parks for you would you use it yes okay

i would never i know you i've been in cars and i'm like if the fucking automated thing crashed the wheels then i would i wouldn't even know what to do with that anger oh really you wouldn't be able to blame it no because i'd be like fuck Like, there's no one to even yell at. And who's taking responsibility for this? Like, just the notion of. But you could just be like, oh, this fucking stupid automated car. Yeah. And then that'd be so.

I wonder if they ever do. Crash? Yeah, they restrict the way. They must not. They just stop. Like, even my car, if I'm doing something it doesn't like, it just stops. Yes, I turn that off on my car. I don't like that.

It's very. Charring. Very charring. You feel like you got in an accident. Yes. Yes, yes. Because when I first got in my car, like I like the late break. I'm like in a Formula One race.

Me too. So I'm late braking up to lights and behind people. The car thinks I'm crashing like five times. That's why I had to turn it off because I'm late braking so much. It constantly thought I was getting in a car accident. And then it slams on the brakes and I think, oh my god, I hit like, it makes you think you hit it. That's what I, this happened when I was

parallel parking the other day. I don't know why, but yeah, it like slammed shut and I definitely thought I hit the whole side of my car. Yes. And then I kept parking and then I went to look and I was, I had plenty of space. No problems. There's no problem.

You know, one thing we didn't talk about that I want to talk about, because A, it was just such a fun time. And then B, it gave me so many feelings. But we went and saw the Groundlings put on something that's called, what is it called? One Night Only. One Night Only. And it's a tradition. And what they do is they come together and they learn a Broadway musical in a day. Yes. And this time they learn Chorus Line in a day, which is not possible. It's crazy. It's crazy.

It's not possible. Yeah. They did it for charity. Yep. To help out a work crew members. And we went and Kristen was in it. Yes. And we sat next to each other, which was really fun, because I always like knowing what makes you laugh. Also, half of them I've now known for 25 years. They're my friends, and I don't get to see them very often. And a bunch of things were happening.

One was just, boy, oh boy, what a special experience I had. Because I was just reminded what it brought me back to is not the shows it brought me back to rehearsal night when everyone puts up the sketch for the first time and how hard they made me laugh like I've never laughed harder in my life than watching those sketches and that the first hour and a half of that show I could not stop screaming laughing it made me so happy and then I was like oh and we're all getting older I know but we're all doing it still I mean they're doing it still and that that felt really wonderful I was like, oh, and we're all getting older. I know. But we're all doing it still. I mean, they're doing it still.

And that felt really wonderful. I was like, I was so happy for all of them that they figured out how to keep doing it forever. Keeping that joy. Mm-hmm. And then, and this is my soapbox, and this is not shade to any other comedy troupe. Yeah, but be careful because I'm coming at you in a second. Because I love UCB. I love UCB, and I love so many of the performers in there and some of the quickest-witted people I've ever

witnessed. But I will say UCB was a movement. Let's just say that Groundlings all of a sudden took a real backseat. It wasn't the cool place anymore. If you came to LA, you probably went to UCB over Groundlings, whereas when I came here, you would definitely go to the Groundlings. you probably went to UCB over Groundlings. Whereas when I came here, you would definitely go to the Groundlings. Right. So they just kind of went out of favor for a while, comedically.

And I was watching, and what I had so much pride in was these fucking Groundlings commit like no one else commits. That's the thing they fucking do. Yeah. With the characters and the commitment and the all in.

Yeah. Just fuck it. I'm going all the way. It's and the all in. Yeah. Just fuck it. I'm going all the way. It's such a unique Groundlings thing. It is because I would disagree with you. Like when I came out here and knew I was going to do a comedy school, it was still like, which one do you do? Right. But it just became more tailored.

Which one do you do? Right. But it just became more tailored. It was like, if you want to do SNL or like characters, you go Groundlings. Like that's the way, if you want to do improv and like be very shiny there, you go UCB. But also the makeup of the SNL cast started changing dramatically. It became largely UCB recruits. Yeah, I guess that's true. And also then UCB started developing

a lot of sketch stuff too. So then it moved into that a little bit. Yeah. But most of the work done at the Groundlings is character work. Yes. You know, above improv work. It's all character work and writing.

And so I just was like, no, no, this is spectacular. I know it went out of favor for a minute, but I was like, you're just never going to see humans commit like they do at the Groundlings. It's fun. It was really, really fun. Yeah, I wondered if you felt, anytime I'm in any comedy live, especially one of these schools' performances,

I get so nostalgic. Yes, it's such a special experience. I feel so grateful. And Kristen,'s such a special experience. I feel so grateful. And Kristen, she came home from it, you know, and she's like, that was its own experience. Like I've had the Broadway one and that's a super supportive group. Yeah. But she said this was a whole other. She said like right before the show starts, everyone just came up to me and said, hey, I got your back.

Yeah. You touch everyone's backs on their way out and you say, got your back. It's a thing. And it's real. It's real. You're in it together. Yes. There's no individual shine.

There's just like, we're all in this together. It's really special. It really is. Yeah, I just, that night I was like, just filled with gratitude and emotion and just happy for everyone. Yeah, I know. What a great way to spend your time on planet Earth, being silly. Just laughing. Literally, my main focus is to be silly when I get to be silly.

Oh, it's the best. It really is. Lots of talented folks out there. I've been also, to be honest, so I had all this gratitude. I know it's coming. Yeah, what am I going to say? I know exactly what's coming. So unfair.

Yes, it's not fair. This fucking business is not fair. It's so unfair that there's all these people bursting with talent to share and they don't get to. It's not false modesty for me to say vastly more talented than I am on stage. Yes, survivor's guilt. There's survivor's guilt sometimes in these circles. I have it a lot, too, where I'm like. And then you wonder also, are they like, why her?

Sure, sure. How'd she get that? I think they think that about me, yeah. Yeah. You are exposed to so many people. When we watch Beckham and you're like, that person's meant to do that. They were born to do that. There are people at these schools.

They're just born to make people laugh. And then you feel it's an injustice. They don't get to do it. But that's also our- Baggage. Yeah, that's our baggage an injustice. They don't get to do it. But that's also our baggage. Yeah, that's our baggage. And that's wrong. They do do it. That's what they're doing.

It's not pity. I want to be very clear. Like, there's no feelings of pity towards anyone. I'm just projecting my own obsession with financial security. And it breaks my heart that someone that's that talented, that dedicated, put in the time, put in the... I think minimally they should be very safe financially. That's really what I would want for anyone. To be able to generate, you know, enough to live comfortably when you can't do that anymore.

But they're going to be doing it forever. That's what I like. I really walked away also going like, oh no, no one's ever turning this off. Yeah. Yeah. It's really cool. Okay. Who's this?

This is for Tom. That's why it was a ding, ding, ding for the driving. Oh, yes. Yes, because Tom and I love driving. And you both think it's part of your identity. Yes, yes, yes. It was really cool to get to have him on. Did you like it?

Yeah, I did. I did. I did. He's very charming, isn't he? He is very charming. I did. I did. I did. He's very charming, isn't he? He is very charming. And it felt when I was editing it, I thought, man, this person, this life is as interesting, if not more interesting than so many of these celebrities we have on. Right. And we have them on and it's wonderful and great, but it just was a reminder that everyone has a story.

I know. Yeah. And it's not worse than this celebrity's story. It's sometimes way better and more interesting. And so, I don't know. I just, it was a good reminder of that. If you're feeling less than or something, you're not. Your story is as full as all of these people's. Yeah, we're just way more interested in the monkey who has the status. We've even had a couple that I would have labeled as borderline boring, but they were very big stars and people loved them. And I get it.

I'm the same way. If I could hear Nicolas Cage talk about really anything, I want to listen. Yeah. same way like if i could hear nicholas cage talk about really anything i'm i want to listen yeah i'm turning a corner on that because i i'm really feeling there's a level of toxicity happening in the world i do think celebrity gets tied into that in some way or people look to celebrity or feel that they they attack celebrities in a very specific way all of it that i i just i just think they're not supposed to talk. They're supposed to talk. But in the article by Taffy.

Yeah, Taffy. Yeah, Taffy. She says a line that I cannot believe. I have never put two and two together. She says something about how celebrities, aka the people we choose societally to celebrate. Ooh, celebrate celebrity. That's where that comes from. Don't even, never made that connection. Never made that connection in my life. I don't like the word.

Like I run from that word. So you never explored what it actually means. It's so accurate. And I've never heard it like that, but it actually gave me a lot of compassion for what it is and why they do what they do to celebrities, which is the thing I hate. It's because we've decided you're worthy of celebrating. Right. And now you got to live up to it. Exactly. If we're going to say you're worthy of celebrating,

then you got to be worthy of celebrating. And then that can lead know, can lead to a lot of- It's a trap. It can be a trap and it can be destructive, but it makes more sense to me. It just makes the person more and more two-dimensional, if that's the request. It does, but it also, it makes it a little more understandable for me right now, who's like very shocked and scared of the way people are reacting to celebrities. It contextualizes it a little bit for me of like, there's some pain and hurt when they've chosen to celebrate a person. Betrayal. Yeah, they feel betrayed.

Yeah. Not that they should because everyone's just a person, but I got it a little more when I, good old Taffy. I mean. God bless Taffy. She keeps it she delivers. She keeps it real. Yeah.

Well, back to the Tom having an interesting story. Yeah. I've loved a lot of interviews of people who I admire and look up to, but the most impactful ones in my life are like episodes of Radio Lab, Blaine. Yes. Like certainly, or I always talk about Raymond Carver as a writer. Like I actually am far more interested in pops of excitement within the mundane or, you know, these moments of beauty in an otherwise not beautiful world. Yeah.

I think I want to do that. I'm going to give you homework. Okay. By next fact check. Yeah. Monday. Well, Thursday. Mm-hmm. No, fact check. Yeah. Monday. Well, Thursday. Now you're doing it.

I want you to come to the table with your top five podcast episodes of all time. Like ranging all the podcasts. God, that's so hard. I know. You have to or you get an F. And also, what if it's one that's like serialized? Like I- Can be.

I do the whole podcast? No. Like how would I isolate one episode? Episode three of serial. Oh, wow. Well, I would do, I guess episode one of Dr. Death. I just don't know how I would pick within Dr. Death. You got to.

Okay. It's their home. To me, I got to go, between now and Monday, I've got to listen to all my favorite podcasts all over again. You don't have to listen. You just have to remember. Okay. Because I also like doing this with TV shows.

I ask people this a lot. Like, what are your top five favorite TV episodes of all time? Episodes. I don't feel like I'd be good at this game. Really? It's such a fun game. I don't know that I remember specific episodes all that much. I do.

You do. What's your number one? The Red Wedding. Oh, yeah. That's a memorable episode. Game of Thrones is tricky because there's a few you could pick. But I have to say, as much as I love that show, there's no Game of Thrones on my list. Right.

Friends. Friends is really hard to pick. Yeah. But it's also like, it's not what's my favorite show. It's what individual episodes that I think were just done perfectly. Yeah. Had a crazy impact. One is the bomb episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Okay. You probably haven't seen that. But there was a first kiss or something? No. Well, my favorite sex scene is also in Grey's Anatomy. Yeah, yeah. That's what I was thinking. I'm hung up on that.

That whole episode is also, that's high up there. That's the one where Denny dies. Spoiler. But there's a bomb stuck in this cavity in this person, basically. Yeah. And Meredith puts her hand in or something and then now she's basically like she's gonna die i kind of to be honest i kind of forget right but i remember that it was so enormous like i felt so moved, but also I was so scared. And then there's this song in it that this Michael Stipe and.

Oh, R.E.M. And Coldplay. Are they Athens? Yes. They are, right? Yeah. Anyway, so that's one of my fave TV episodes. Also, the episode. Well, this is more of a scene, but I'll count the episodes.

The episode of Parks and Rec where they are trying to get across a skating rink to get to this red carpet so that she can make a speech. And they're all just walking completely normally on ice. On shoes or ice skates? On shoes. Okay, right. And it is so brilliant because they're not doing anything but trying to get from point A to point B. Sincerely trying.

Sincerely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No hamming it up. Oh, my God, is it brilliant. Anyway, it's just a really fun exercise. Yeah. I don't know why that's not easy to access for me. Yeah.

But this kind of makes a little bit of sense because I have this certain kind of memory that's good. But I don't remember plot lines as well. And then Kristen has this terrible memory, but she remembers every plot line. If she saw that episode, she'd be able to go through everything that happened. Yeah, she would. It's freaky. And then song lyrics. I feel like there's two.

It's parts of brains. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Anyway, okay, so five podcast episodes. And then song lyrics. And I feel like there's two. It's parts of brains. Yeah. I, yeah, I agree. Anyway. Okay. So five podcast episodes. Okay. Five episodes.

Yeah. TBD, Easter egg. Come back for that. Yeah. I was hugging Anna Goodbye last night. Uh-huh. And somehow my mint came out of my mouth and got wound up in her hair. Oh my.

And then I had to like detangle my mouth. I felt so bad about it. There's so much gross stuff going on with my mouth. It's amazing anyone tolerates me. It's amazing your breath is so good. Yeah, I feel lucky. I think that, do you think part of it's because you don't, how was your breath when you drank? Do you think it was worse? Well, I also smoked, so.

Right. How was your breath back then? I was always neurotic about my breath that's all i know is like i constantly was like i had tricks to smell my own breath it's very hard to smell your own breath i know you gotta like what you gotta do is you you pop your your jaw up and down you cup your hand over your mouth and your nose yeah i'm kind of cupping over and then you pop your mouth while you're sniffing in. You go. You can really get your breath if you do that. Try it right now.

Wait, how do you do it? You start sucking in your nose. You sound like a computer. You go hard drive. And you're like, you're forcing air out of your mouth with a physical act. Because you can't breathe out. Oh, you're breathing out of your mouth? You can't breathe out because you're sucking in with your nose.

You're smelling in. Because you can't breathe out. Oh, you're breathing out of your mouth? You can't breathe out because you're sucking in with your nose. You're smelling in. And then you're, like, the way you would put air into a room with a door by waving a door back and forth, you're moving your chin up. I'm not smelling. Watch my mouth. I know.

I'm doing that. I don't hear any popping from your lips. Oh, there we go. Did you get any? Not really. That means your breath doesn't smell. When it's bad, you'll smell that. I'm cold, so my nose probably isn't good at smelling right now.

Okay, so I guess Rob and I are going to have to take turns opening your mouth like a lion and then sticking our nose. What could make you more nervous? That literally never. I know. Even if I felt like my breath was good, if you guys put your nose inside my mouth. No, absolutely not. That is an episode of The Office where Dwight smells michael's breath and he does just put his

nose straight in his mouth and then he says good not great oh that's not what you want to hear that means bad yeah yeah you gotta learn how to and this is how it is in japan like japan there's a lot of really subtle stuff we've learned this on a couple different episodes, but there's subtle ways. They're very reluctant to say no directly. So there's like, there's a thing where they won't look you in the eyes, but if they look you in the eyes and say yes, it is a real yes. But similarly, when you're asking someone some feedback that's very sensitive, anything short of like enormous expletives is probably not great. Yeah. Like, oh, it's fine.

It's fine. That means it's bad. It's bad. Yeah. Oh, God. How's this outfit? Oh, it's fine. Ooh.

It's probably not a great outfit. But breath? Oof. Do you think? Okay. Because I think if I smelled someone's breath and it was totally neutral. Yeah. I would say it's fine.

It's nothing. You might be able to say. I guess I would maybe a better choice would be, oh, I don't smell anything. I don't smell anything. Yeah. I believe that. Okay. But you wouldn't say it's great because that means it's minty.

Yes. And I want to be clear. I think because I'm so obviously not afraid of confrontation, people might assume that I'm okay with something like that. I am not. I cannot tell someone they have bad breath. I know. Or that their vagina smelled or something. Okay, obviously.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on. No, because this is what I want to say. I would not, like if I met someone that i really liked but their breath was horrible yeah i wouldn't have the gumption to confront that i would just move on to try to find someone else oh sure no it is right what do you mean it's not no it is a deal breaker and you can't really say anything you can't say It's too hurtful. But even if you say it, it's over.

The attraction's over. It's done. Yeah. It sucks, but it's also pheromones. Yeah, but there was a girl I liked that- Had bad breath? Oh, well, okay. It was say bad breath.

She had bad breath. She had bad breath. But I liked her. But I couldn't do it. And by the way, she might not have had bad breath. She had bad breath. But I liked her. But I couldn't do it. And by the way, she might not have had bad breath to everybody. That's what I mean. Pheromones. Yes.

That's right. There's no accounting for pheromones. Okay, but you've had a range, right? Of smells? Yeah. Yes. This girl, she was beautiful. She was so beautiful.

She was very fun. Yeah, we dated for a little while. I totally would have kept dating her really you think you would have married her vagina smell like dad and she was so hot that like only if you were down there with your face no when i was having sex i could smell you could maybe get through it yes it was that no it was it was i couldn't escape it while we were having sex really yeah and i was like I just can't do it. And I don't, there's nothing they can do about that.

No, you can't. You can't. I think it has a lot to do with what you eat. Yeah. What I've been told by gals who have told me that they- Oh, no, for sure. You can- You can change the flora of your vagina.

And what bacteria is in your vagina is important too. Microbiome. Yes. Microbiome. Yes. Microbiome's huge. What you eat, even if you eat something for dinner, sometimes... It's there. It's there, yeah.

Semen will do that too. Yeah, exactly. It's all the gut. I've always heard that about semen. And I smelled my semen many times. No, not smell, taste. Okay. I've only tasted it a few times.

No, when I had my wisdom teeth taken out, I was told to have pineapple juice and pineapples. Okay. I've only tasted it a few times. No, when I had my wisdom teeth taken out, I was told to have pineapple juice and pineapples. Okay. A lot, that it would help with the bleeding. Ow. And Natalie said there was a noticeable taste difference. But in a good way? In a good way. She's like, you should have pineapple more.

Pineapple is supposed to be good for any of your bodily fluids. Oh, everything. Yeah, for women too oh wow pineapple lemon oh maybe i should start banging some more pineapple not that anyone's having eating it sounds like it's chewy or something waited for it to solidify. Oh, God. Wait, also, it's not like every partner of yours, well, correct me if I'm wrong, both of you,

has the same smell, breath, or vagina. No, that's right. Or armpits. Or armpits, yeah. And belly buttons and stuff. Yeah. Ass. Ass.

Yeah. So do now, hmm. What question do we have? Is it like? Tom Hanson will be so happy that this is part of the fact check. Because what we barely scratch at is Tom is the biggest pervert in the world. That's why. That's the only thing when we left the interview, I was like, that was really lovely.

And I was really happy that he was so comfortable and it was great. The only thing I thought is I wish they got a little more taste of it. It's like, what our real bond is, is he and I are just like two 10-year-olds. He can't. Yeah, he can't. No, he can't. But we have so much fun being 10-year-old boys. He didn't say that, but he didn't display it so much.

He didn't say that, but he didn't display it so much. But when you have this range of partners, is there like, I like them all the smells, but they're different? Or is it like, this person definitely has a better smell than the other? Listen, I'm talking people you're in love with. Not just partners, but people you've been in love with yeah is it oh okay this is this person's smell i love i love it yeah now over here's this person's smell i love it or is it like yeah well i would add a third bucket somehow which would be almost no smell. Yeah, it's neutral enough that it doesn't really register.

You couldn't rank it. Don't you think we all have some smells? Kristen has given me the best compliment ever of my whole life. She said, I have no smell. Right. I would agree. In general, she's like, I never smell you. And Kristen doesn't really have a smell either.

Yeah. Which is great. Well, I don't want to say great because I've liked the smell of people too. Right. A lot. It can make me horny as hell. Sure. Like certain people.

That's what the whole point of the smell is all about. Yeah. So it's not to say that like presence of odor is inherently bad. Yeah. It's just like. It's just when it's bad. It's bad. If it's bad and strong.

Yeah. Yeah. Or even the good and too strong can be. Oh, that's an interesting spin. I think you're just saying that. I don't know if I've heard. I mean, I don't. If it's good for me.

It smells too good. Oh, yeah. I can't stay that way. Well, like, no. Our nanny wears really strong perfume. Oh, perfume is different. But the perfume smells fine. But it can be toxic smelling. But the perfume smells fine. It's just good.

It's a nice perfume. I got you. But it's very strong. I got you. That makes sense. So I could imagine a partner if it's that strong. Yeah, if you can smell

from across the room. But it smells good though? And everyone's clothed. You'd like it. That's true. I'd want to get in there. Exactly. It would make you want.

Well, you know, that is one of the reigning theories of pubic hair. You know that? What one of the reigning theories of pubic hair. You know that? What? That the whole reason we have pubic hair above our genitals is that the pheromones get on the pubic hair and the pubic hair dispenses the pheromones. It's a way to dispense pheromones. That's what it's there for.

Because if you look at where hair is generally, it's a lubricant. Like it's in your armpits where the crease of your arm rubs a lot. So it acts as a lubricant. It'd be great between your thighs to have, because that's also, you need, you know, there's friction there. But above this big tuft of hair we all have, if we're lucky, what's it there for? What's it there for? And then the reining theory is it is to disperse the pheromones. That's funny. I would imagine it to be the opposite, that it would stop the smell. It would suppress the smell so that you don't get eaten by bears. No, I think the smell would like evaporate into the air. Instead, it's

like living on all now this new surface area. It's just increasing surface area by a 10 million percent, right? Because each strand has got its own surface area. So it's just covering much more surface area that interacts with the air and disperses. Is it not like eyelashes and eyebrows like to keep things out of your eyes? Yeah, that's what it is. To protect your genitals from bacteria and like a wall. And that makes total sense if we had hair

around the tip of our penis where our urethra is where we'd be taking in the dirt. Oh, you're talking about bags. But we don't have any. We don't have. Well, both. You don't have it on the mouth. You don't have it in your vagina. Not in, but.

Or in the inner labia. You have it on the majora. Yeah. And then you have it on your mom's pubis. Well, sometimes you get a couple hairs. Sure. They're going to. You're going to have some errant hairs.

But they're not going to be in your anus. No. Right. But those are, you know, we can kind of see the function of all these things. But eight inches above your penis, it's the pheromones. It's a disperser. I don't know. I'm on the fence between you two.

All right. Well, that'll be your homework. So I'm going to come up with my five. No, I have enough homework. You need to do a little research on the pheromone disbursement. No. Wait, so you guys kind of didn't answer. Are you ranking it?

Then you added a third option of no smell, which I don't even, I don't. So this weirdly dovetails in the previous kind of debates we've had or conversations, which is I don't rank. I loved Carrie. Yeah. And I loved Brie. Yeah. And I love Kristen. Yes. and I loved Bree and I love Kristen they're different

and they can't really be made relative to one another yeah I think I agree as long as it's not bad I think that's the only time you would rank it oh wow okay anyway so yeah there's a wide range

yeah you sound like a little goblin there still how long it's still a little cold so i have zero memory of how we got here on this topic how did we tom started with breath oh i spit my mint out and on his hair yes and then it's shocking i don't have bad breath right because i'm chewing tobacco and stuff. Yes, but you have great breath. Thank you so much. You do. Right back at you.

Rob, too, never smelled Rob's breath. Yeah, never smelled your breath. We were lucky because we're in a tight little area. Yeah. Oh, it'd be so bad. I don't know how we'd deal with it. And I wouldn't fire anyone over it. I would just quit the show altogether.

Yeah, we'd have to stop. Yes, I would just quit everything. Okay, now, oh, we would just quit everything. Okay. Now, oh, we have to play something. Whatever we play. Something amazing happened. Oh, my God. Thank you, thank you, thank you for remembering.

Okay, it's on my phone. Okay, so just to set the stage for you, I'm downstairs on Saturday watching qualifying in the basement. And Lincoln runs downstairs and she's already screaming as she's running down the stairs. Like that's how excited, something huge just happened. Of excitement. Yeah, enormous. And she's yelling, they're talking about you on High School Musical.

They're talking about you. And I go, what? They just said your name on High School Musical. They're talking about you. And I go, what? They just said your name on High School Musical. And I immediately, I'm like, oh, God. They probably made fun of me, of course. They're teasing me. And my poor daughter had to hear it. And I'm kind of lazy because I'm in the middle of qualifying.

And I go, wait, what are you? And she could barely remember exactly. And I go, will you go upstairs and record it on my phone and then show me what it is? Yes. And then she came down and she showed me this. And she's the happiest she's ever been towards me. It's the first time she's been enormously proud

to be associated with me. It was the best moment of all time. This is it. This is from High School Musical 3. You didn't have a problem with me kissing a certain 2010s TV star during the reunion song though the only 2010s tv star i'm threatened by is dax shepard and i'm pretty sure he lives in the attic now so yeah that's so so amazing oh i think it's like it's it's up there with like

being on letterman or something yes and that it's like somehow for up there with like being on Letterman or something. Yes. And that it's like somehow, for me, what's cool is that. The writers like the show. Yeah. Or like that they think it's a good enough joke, like a quote ubiquitous enough joke to have like the attic. To say I'm in the attic? Yes. That's crazy. I want to just, I want to thank whatever writer put that in there.

Some writer likes the show. Oh, it's really sweet. Oh, that made my weekend. That's awesome. She was so excited. It was so funny. Oh, I would have been so excited if I were her. Just popped up on her favorite show.

Wow. Yeah, boy, what a moment. Wow, you know. Thank you so much, High School Musical 3. Okay, so he mentions the Drake Hotel in Chicago. Uh-huh. And when he said that, I know that a lot of people listening are going to have the same thought I have, which is My Best Friend's Wedding, one of my favorite movies of all time. Okay.

At the beginning of the movie, they meet at the Drake Hotel. Oh. In Chicago. So it was really. And they say, Chicago with the Drake Hotel. Oh, so it was really. And they say Chicago with the Drake Hotel. Oh, so it was nostalgic. Yeah. It took you back.

It did. Made me want to rewatch. I haven't yet. You haven't yet. No. My prediction is you will, and you will six times. Yep. Yep.

You got it. That's right. Okay. When I was listening back, his voice sounds so much like robert downey jr so much it does yes and like cadence and it's very similar and they're friends so i wondered like what 35 years right maybe there was a uh shared what's it called one like a molting. Oh, yeah, yeah. Combining, conflating. Molting. Molting.

Okay, we like molting. Molting is shedding your skin. Yeah, that's kind of what I mean. And then it gets on you and then it gets absorbed. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, probably Downey has stolen some of his stuff. I've stolen some of his stuff. He's great.

Transferred. Transferred. Cross-pollinated. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't get a full dose of it, but the two things about Tom that I find impossible are there has yet to be a book I've ever brought up to him that he hasn't read. Wow.

I mean, not one, not a single one. And then he's read 10X that, whatever I've read, and he'll have not read it for 25 years. Like I had read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which is like one of the most dense books on the planet. Yeah. And I just randomly was like, you ever read this book? Oh my God, yeah.

And then he just basically goes through the entire book from memory 20 years later. It's amazing. It's really outstanding. He's got the best memory. Now, one thing that he won't like, I've said so many nice things about him. I gotta tell one story of his, where he was bested. was bested, which I didn't think I'd ever see.

So I know a lot about cars. I know probably one tenth as much as Tom knows about cars. Oh, my God. OK. And so I got invited to Jay Leno's garage. And my first thought was, can I bring Tom Hanson? So I asked if I could bring Tom. And Jay was like, of course.

And then those two. Oh, boy. Oh, my could bring Tom and Jay was like, of course. And then those two, oh my God, I wish there was a video of this. Those two started going off, you know, cause we're going through and looking at all the cars. Tom knows all the cars, but they started getting, oh yeah. And it had this a single barrel Weber P shooter. And then Tom would go, oh yeah. And it had the vacuum secondaries. No, mechanical secondaries. And then they would talk. And then I noticed Tom ran out and Jay Leno kept going. And that was the moment I was like, okay, Jay Leno might be the most encyclopedic person on planet Earth with machines. Yeah.

Because he out-Tom'd Hanson, Tom Hanson, which I'd never seen, never thought could happen. That's huge. So it's kind of a big shout out to Jay Leno. Yeah, it is. I mean, he knows every single bolt that's in every single engine ever made. It's incredible. It's wild. Wow.

Okay. For people who don't know, which is probably a lot of people. How into that story before you tuned out? How far did you make it? Do you remember? I think you've told that story. You have. I do already know it.

Oh, okay. And then mixed with all the car detail, it was pretty early. Which is like, how long is it going to go? How many details will we get? Anxiety. Yeah. So for people who don't know,

which is many people, understandably, Tom told us that he was explaining Judy's career a little bit and how unbelievable it is. It's very admirable. And in telling that, he said Patrick Whitesell was her assistant. Yes. That is bonkers. Patrick Whitesell, for people who don't know, is Matt's agent. Matt Damon's agent, and Ben probably. Ben, I thought they were with Ari, but maybe one's with one and one's,

Wahlberg's with Ari, I thought, but you're probably right. You're probably right. I know he's Matt. I mean, they all also, people have multiples. Well, for people who, again, no one will know this or care, but there was an agency called Endeavor and it was started by Ari Emanuel, which people came to know from Entourage, because that was Mark Wahlberg's agent. And then Patrick White. Yeah, the Jeremy Piven character is based on Ari, and I think he's named Ari. And then Ari Emanuel, which is incredible, is his brother. Rahm Emanuel.

Rahm Emanuel was the Chicago mayor. And then the third brother was the Surgeon General or something. Or he was Obama's doctor, personal doctor at the White House. Those are the three boys, the Emanuels. Yeah, and there's a good book on them. Oh, there is? Yeah, I forget what it's called. But yeah.

And then Adam Bennett. So those three, Patrick Whitesell, Adam Bennett, and Ari Emanuel started Endeavor, which then merged or they bought or whatever happened. They became WME, William Morris Endeavor, and they're the big rival to CAA. Yeah. And yes, he was Judy's assistant. He's also devilishly handsome. Right.

And I think he actually came up on our episode with Matt about how handsome he is. I remember us talking about that. But anyway, he's huge. He's an enormous agent. Yeah. One of the top five. Yeah. And he was Judy's assistant.

And I think that's incredible. Yeah. All right. Let's see. Well, oh, is it today? Wait, when did we record with him? Last Thursday. Last Thursday, yeah.

So today is the day that Tom gets his cake. And are you going to go? Oh, I'm going. Yeah, yeah, when did we record with him? Last Thursday. So today is the day that Tom gets his cake. And are you going to go? Oh, I'm going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I already told Kristen that I will be. You have to go. Make sure he gets his carrot cake. That's what he wants.

He wants carrot cake. All right. Thank you for that. I think I might've forgot. But I wonder if my other friend who hosts, there won't be 16 carrot cakes there. Well, check with- Tom's very loved in our group, as you can imagine.

Yeah. Yeah, he is very,'s very loved in our group, as you can imagine. Yeah. Yeah, he is very, very loved. He says he wants carrot. Okay, well, I'll make sure he gets some carrot cake. And tell him I- He's got a little sweet tooth. I said- Happy carrot cake.

Happy carrot cake day. I will. To him. One last thing. We talked about the postal service. This is dad. And I keep perpetuating this. Yeah, you have a whole theory.

I got a whole story about it. But what you did say is that you have to take this test to pass, to become one. And okay, I have a friend who just applied to work at the library, a librarian, front desk. And she had to take an insane two-hour test. Like the LSAT. Yes.

And you had to show your computer around the whole room to make sure that you weren't cheating, like no calculators. You weren't allowed to have anything. And she didn't pass. She didn't. No. And she's very smart. Right. Now imagine what the postal service test is.

No, for me, it's what the fuck are we doing that we're making it that, if my friend can't get a job at the library. Right. When we walk around and say like, people can just get jobs. No, they can't. Well, not at the library. But you should be able to get a job at the library as a front desk employee. Well, what's crazy to me is you're going to have to pass this test that would get you into graduate school. But then you're going to get a very, very modest wage for it.

That's what I'm saying. This is an entry-level job. Yeah, yeah. People, entry-level, should be able to get it. I hate to speculate this, but I think a lot of these early and now vestigial policies were when they were singling out how to exclude people. They were. Yeah.

They want to like figure out how to not have certain people there and they just figure out what thing, what hurdle they can present that makes it look like it's, it's even, but it's not. Exactly. That was my main takeaways. Oh, this is an old racist. Exclusionary. Yeah, practice.

Yeah. It's so crazy. Anyway, I just hated that. Yeah. It was kind of like, you know, there was a competency test given in the South during Reformation to get your voting rights. Yeah. You know, you had to be literate or you had to be this.

And I was like, why? Yeah, exactly. What does that have to do with anything? I can show up. I can vote. Yeah. We have not only calculators. You don't have to do anything. You type in numbers. It comes up with, like, there's nothing. It doesn't even acknowledge the reality of the world we live in anymore. It's like a test from the 80s. Yeah. I just thought that was shocking and alarming.

I want to take the test now. Do you? I want to see if I can pass. I won't pass. Well, you don't know that yet. I probably won't. Let's get our hands on this test. Okay. We'll do it on here.

All right. Two hour fact check. And then I'll read Taylor Swift's commencement speech. Yeah. So that's going to be it. Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I love you. Love you be it. Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I love you.

Love you.