Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Welcome to Yearbook

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

In the inaugural episode of Yearbook, Dax and Monica sit down with Chad Sanders and they discuss season 1 of Armchair Umbrella's new anthology series. They talk about the working process, the reason they wanted to make the show, and the discomfort that accompanies quaking what you believe to be a solid foundation of identity. They prep the audience for what is to come in the following 7 episodes including self-exploration, death, sex, love, and redemption.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Not Armchair Anonymous. You can't listen to this episode because we're not releasing it. So it was so foul. It was so bad. That we decided not release it. No, that's not the case. You're about to hear an introduction

for a new show we're doing called Yearbook with Chad Sanders, who we had on the podcast. We love and adore. He's so smart and talented and creative. And he tells this incredible story about one year in his high school life. Yes. We've been working on it for a couple years altogether. Yes. And we're ready to show you. Yes. We're so happy with it. He did a great job. And so what you will hear first is a conversation about how we got into doing this with him. And then you will hear the very first episode of the show. And they be on every friday on our feed yep and armchair

anonymous will be back next yeah so you'll have two episodes every friday for the next seven weeks congrats well done Although I'm trying to put mine in a different way, and it's hard. So that you can keep your top knot? Do we call that a top knot? Sure. Top knot. Chef. Top chef.

Top knot chef. Tell me more about your sleeping. It's just been bad. But I mean last night specifically. Did you have candy last night? I had one piece of candy. What one? Twizzlers. Oh, Twizzlers. sleeping it's just been bad but i mean last night specifically did you have candy last night i had one piece of candy what one twizzlers a twizzlers wouldn't be my pick i went twizzlers because i'm never buying that well that's an interesting i'm never seeking it out but i do enjoy it so if it's

there chad if you could only you were only allowed one candy treat last night on Halloween. What would it have been? Sour Patch Kids. Wow, you guys are both freaks. Twizzlers and Sour Patch Kids. For Halloween only. I like chocolate in my normal life. You just have all the options. You got Butterfinger.

You got Snickers. Kit Kat. Whatchamacallit. I don't like Snickers. Three Musketeers. Milky Way. I do like Three Musketeers and Kit Kat and Twix and Reese's. But Twizzler.

But I want Twizzler. Yeah. Do you eat candy, Dax? You're a strapping lad, man. What kind of, what kind of, I knew I was going to feel this when I saw you, but I was like, Dax, you look really strong, dog. Oh, wow. Dax, you look great, man. Oh, thank you.

Come on, man. Thank you. Well, I got to make up for the fact that I'm not as cute as you. I got to do something with the area I can control. You're cute, Dax. Get out of here. You're the cutest. Thank you. Well, I got to make up for the fact that I'm not as cute as you. I got to do something with the area I can control. You're cute, Dax. Get out of here. You're the cutest. I know.

Oh, right. There's a moratorium on. Yeah, we're trying not to say that anymore about ourselves. What, cuteness? That you're cute? That we don't like our looks. Because we've realized it's gotten to a nauseating level. Or it's just like we've talked about it enough.

Ungrateful. We beat the dead horse to death. Yeah. No, I get it. Yeah. On some level, we think it's really relatable because nobody likes how they look. I mean, even we all know gorgeous people that don't like how they look. Yes.

Yes. I saw many driving here today. I'm jogging. Yeah. LA's full of them. Mm-hmm. So to recap, we interviewed you February 2021. No, 2021. Yeah, it would have been COVID. Yeah, yeah, yeah interviewed you February 2021. No, 2021.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was COVID. And it was the most lovely interview. I liked you so much. And I did something I've never done with a guest, which is I reached out to you afterwards. And I was like, you don't need a mentor. But if you have any questions at any point through any of this, I would just love to be available for you. You slid.

You slid in my DMs. Is that i approached you you did okay not what you were looking for in your dms yeah i um it was one of those moments where the thing that i was hoping would happen happened i was probably gonna try to follow up with you and establish some kind of connection if you were open to it. Yeah. Which can be hit or miss with people. People are busy.

Yeah. And I think I might have even gone to DM you and the DM was sitting there. I beat you to it. Yeah. It was really special. I appreciate it. Yeah. So then we just chatted.

Yeah. And what? Ding, ding, ding. I'm Chad. Oh, Chad. Thank you for picking up on that sorry I missed that it's so early for me

it was a wild night last night sober Halloween it went hard but we started chatting and then I had no selfish motivation to get you under the umbrella but then when you seemed open to that I was like oh well that would be incredible.

And I would love to do that. We both would love to do that with you. So then we started talking about what would we do? And I can't even really remember how we stumbled upon this. You came up with some ideas for us. I did. I had, you know, I could pretend like I just magically came up with those in the moment.

But my book was coming out which is how i ended up on the show black magic yes and still read it oh still buy it oh yeah yes please do that it's still available it's still you know kind of buzzing and doing its thing but i wanted to have you know people give you advice like have your stuff ready to go when windows open yeah yeah and i pitched i think i might have pitched you all maybe like three or four concepts uh-huh and um as it happens you all were just like nope that's the one ding that one right there well there was some really weird overlap because it was also one of your ideas was loosely related to an idea i also wanted to explore right so i thought oh well this would

be amazing and then in the dream outcome, you would do your version. And then I would do my version at some point. And Monica would do her version. And we'd have guests. We have seasons. So we have collectively all created this together. Yes. And we'll produce this together.

And should this all go as we would hope, we'll get to hear other people's story of the same era. Yeah, absolutely. And I would add all of that has truly taken place over the last two and a half years. You know, this has been, it's not one of those things where it's like someone starts something two years ago and then they finish it two years later in a month. It has evolved over these last two and a half years, including my going down to Maryland for a month to live there in 2022. Yeah.

Among many of the people who are featured in the show. And when we talked ideas, there were easy versions and there were hard versions. And this was certainly the hardest version. This is a full-on investigative journalist piece that took months and months and tons of interviews and really submerging yourself back in the place the story takes place. It is. One of you had what I thought is the best casing for what exactly this is, like the Hollywood pitch version, which is serial meets Friday Night Lights. Probably in the reverse order in terms of the proportions. It is more high school nostalgia than it is true crime.

Yes. But it has elements of both. Yes. It does. And then an element that appealed to me greatly was I think all of us have a story. I certainly have a story of the year I became who I am. Like the person that's still here. The day I kind of figured, not the day, but the year that I figured out,

oh, I see my lane finally. I know what my niche is and I'm going to commit to this and invest in this niche. And for me, it's seventh grade. That was the year. Your identity was cemented. My identity was formed. Yeah. Like I was trying a bunch of different stuff on and then I met Aaron and I was like, oh, no, this is what I am all about.

And for you, what grade was that? It was this one. It was 11th grade, which is what is chronicled here in this piece. And it was that for a few reasons. The set pieces here are my best friend died that year in a terrible, tragic car collision that I'm still processing to this day. Every time someone dies or every time I lose someone in any way. But this person was a soulmate. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, she was my friend. When people say best friend, I know people use the term loosely. I knew her from birth. Her older sister and my older sister were in pre-K together. And so we were just put together as you know friends and like you said soulmates like the way that you two are and um layered on top of that is that i as a kid like i had a crush on her and an unexplored crush we get to really deep dive into that during this whole process one of the beautiful things sorry to go on

but that's what we do one of the beautiful things about this show is you discovering things in real time. And that was our hope, right? Is that, yeah, it's not just look at this year of mine. It's you looking back at the year and understanding, oh, was I right about some of this stuff? Or, oh, wow, I had this thought then, but now in retrospect, I can see actually it was this. Like, it's a real true exploration that I think so many people can relate to. Well, yeah, you have the story in your mind, but then you go start talking to other characters in the story and it turns out, well, maybe that's not the same story. And then you got to start kind of wondering, oh, that's interesting. And then you're learning stuff real time. Yeah. And they are not just ancillary characters. They are the people who were right there at ground zero, so to speak. We're talking about Alicia's parents. Alicia is the deceased. We're talking about best friends, my own parents, my own sister. A part of this story is also that the tragedy of Alicia's death is immediately followed by

my high school basketball team, which I'm a part of going to the state. I'll kind of trail off how far we get, but yeah, having a hugely successful season and going on a run. Yeah. And like being the Beatles in our hometown. And I'm, I'm supposed to be a teenager processing grief. And all of a sudden I'm thrown into like this, you know, hyper masculine. Yeah. Like little fame bubble. And it's, it's just a, as high school is, it's just like such a concoction of feelings. Yeah.

That, that goes crazy. And throughout it is so many questions of identity. Yes. Like we're saying, these are the years we think we kind of cemented our identity. And so, yeah, really figuring out who you are in the world is so relatable. I think when we are capturing these particular years for this series, like for me, like you said, is 11th grade for you, 7th grade. The reason why I chose this year, and I didn't even choose it.

It's just the story that I keep replaying over and over and over again in my head to this day. I'm a 35-year-old now. I was 15 at the time, so it's 20 years. And it's because even when things happen to me now, I'm reaching back into moments from that year for my identity. As an example, if I get bullied today, I think about a moment that is in this show and how I responded then as a 15 year old. And I try to go recover some of the bravery I had then. If something happens in my life that is racial,

like if I'm in a, if I'm in a white environment and I'm a black person. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah. Like. Well, it's a diverse crowd. It's okay. But like, you know,

you come in the Dax Shepard household and you're just like a monster truck outside. A million paradise. No, but you know, I feel like it formed me this year and we're also you know we're bearing a lead here which is that also i was one of many witnesses to a very terrible crime a murder that that year in front of my high school you got your whole life in one year yeah exactly yeah i got a whole life in one year that's well put yeah every single experience you're gonna have like deep heartbreak of a horrible horrific violence fucking glory on

the basketball court yes anything life could throw at you threw at you that year yeah and like you know that's the year that i lost my virginity that's the year that i got a driver's license we start driving around you know we're a bunch of knucklehead 16-year-old dudes on a basketball team with car keys now, going to house parties and stuff like that. And another part of the context of this show that I think is important is I had never experienced death before.

I had never encountered death in a real way. I had lost relatives who I was not close to. I had never lost someone close to me. But in the national context, the Pentagon in 9-11 had just been a few years ago. And I grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, which is very close to the Pentagon. Columbine High School had happened in 1999.

So that was just a few years prior. So there was high school violence happening. It was starting to enter the zeitgeist. And then the DC sniper, which I don't know if people remember who aren't from dc but like yeah there was five minute walk from my high school there was someone was a part of that the father and son combo they were it was a i think it was a stepfather and son stepfather yeah the wicked stepfathers ding ding ding and i just remember during that season of life even with the dc sniper kids couldn't go to the prom kids couldn't go to football practice football practice was happening

in gyms people were running you know running around like from the car to the gas tank and back like hiding ducking underneath windows and stuff but you're a kid so it all just seemed like it almost seemed like play play yeah it seemed like for fun well you're you're a kid so it all just seemed like it almost seemed like play pretend yeah it seemed like for fun well you're you're an apex immortality yeah exactly you might witness a bunch of people get killed around you but even your mind like but yeah but i'll witness that and i'll be the one that gets out because i'm the main storyteller you kill the hero of the story it's too early yeah this is all happening to cultivate my story. And I would say going back and to give some of the tapestry of the show, the story is told through the eyes

and through conversations between me and people who were all there. I would say maybe 25 to 30 people who were all there. In having those those conversations i learn how much i am not special in that that year stuck with people i did these interviews right after covid in fact right after covid um depending on how you look at it covid is still going on but it ended in tennessee on um april 40th okay great all right i'm so glad that's behind us. Like, you know, there are people who had lost relatives in COVID who are three months removed from that experience. And now talking about how losing Alicia back then is affecting the ways that they process grief to this day. And I would add also, like, this is not a sob piece. It's not somber.

I want to make that really, really clear. Yeah. That when we first started this process we were so explicit this cannot be super saccharine yeah this can't be a sob story even though there's tons of sadness and that there's tons of light high school's fucking fun it is it's crazy and we get to have that too yeah that's like i would say the tone that i have now is the tone is the tone of the show which for us luckily works perfectly with ours which is that's like i would say the tone that i have now is the tone is the tone of the show which for us luckily works perfectly with ours which is there's like some poignance there's

some irreverence there's some fun there's some humor and then there's some super real real moments i guess everybody thinks their hometown is special maybe yeah i don't know but i know that i feel that way there are 25 or so people whose voices are in this thing i would say 20 of them i still talk to on a semi-regular basis you know i still have laleh who's in there she she used to run like the fashion show fashion exit our high school we went to an art high school i just called her on the way here to be like should i wear this uh funky dog chain necklace or should I wear it? Because she like she styles me for stuff.

The guys on the basketball team, I still FaceTime with those dudes every day. I still play basketball with them. Alicia's parents, the way that I dropped in on her house to go to these interviews, I could drop in there to get dinner, you know, anytime I go back to Maryland. And I either that's just circumstantial or these events of this year actually truly did bind us in a way that is something. Yeah. Yeah. I actually decided before I came here today, I've, this is a new thing in my life right now. I was like, I'm going to do my job, but I spend so much time talking and writing about race. Like I'm going to leave it in the work a little bit and like uh-huh you know who really wrestled with that and was a big portion of our interview was jordan peele really yes because here he does the most profound work on

it all of all time in the movies for sure in my opinion yeah and then there's this maybe internal poll i i can't make everything about race yet he's so good at talking about race. Should he not? You know, like just the internal dilemma of it. It can be a feature if you so choose to use it. Like I think I'm among the best writers at that particular subject genre when it comes to black experiences.

Like I'm not a social scientist or anything like like that but like pretty good at describing experience and it's funny because something i will never forget that you also there's there's a couple things from when you reached out to me dax that i i liked i got a hunch of what one you're gonna bring up go do you know this one i mean you said to me you were like i can't remember how you said legs long beyond the moment of blackness is what's in the zeitgeist like i want you to have a long and it resonated because it was already in my heart you know what i mean it was all and you knew that you could see me you saw you were like oh this dude he can do something that is going to be i don't want to say bigger but has more dimensions than

just writing and talking about race that's the fucking both sides of the coin with you dax which is like most people would not be bold to enough to say that to me right but it was something i needed to hear in that moment and so i don't know what you do with that like it's just yeah i don't mean there i just i what i felt was just remember the stories you're telling they're very human stories and especially when i'm listening to your year that changes your life like the stuff with masculinity it was so my experience and you talked about it openly when i interviewed you which was so fun is that you're like you know i was warned like don't get in here start laughing with the white folk and i'm like yeah you have to carry that pressure i have this weird yeah hillbilly blue collar, fuck rich people.

Like I got a thing too. I got to hold up. Yeah. And it's like, we all got these fucking things we're holding. We're trying to make peace with all these elements and what like in our heart might not match what context we were born into. And I think you almost uniquely wear

the complexity of those things that are at odds on your person like you specifically in a way that i think in a way that i really do think draws people in like i'm not here to um but yeah i only got one other nice thing to say to y'all let me just get let me just get out the way the thing is like i i know you guys probably know this about what you've built here, but this is something I've looked forward to since February 2021. My book tour took place in my office in New York. Right. On Zoom screens. Yeah.

And that's a bummer. Yeah. And you guys made it feel big. You guys are like Madison Square Garden for thinking, talking writer people. Exactly. It's really nice. That's so awesome. It's really cool for me to actually get to be in the place.

I'm thankful that y'all invited me. And Monica has, I don't know how much Monica has portrayed that I'm in Monica's hip pocket all the time. I'm like, because I'm like, you know, I'm excited. He's advocating for himself and he's excited and he's ready. And we are too. So we're happy to have you. Okay, thank you. That's the last thing I'm going to say.

Well, and then I would like to compliment you. Like, you're a real artist. You have a real point of view and it needs to be serviced. And you shan't compromise it, nor should you. And I know that you and I have a similar, I'll say for me what it's derived from is an insecurity, which is like notes don't sit well with me. Notes shake my own confidence. And like, I'm barely teetering on the thought that I'm worthy of telling a story and other people listen.

And when I hear notes, it starts to shake that already very shaky foundation I'm on. Sure. And so I just maybe projected, but I think we have the same sensitivity. And so whenever we had ideas, I knew I was sending it someone similar to myself. And I was always really, really blown away with your willingness to, if not take it, deduce what was being said and run it through your filter and do some pivots

or do some adjustments. I appreciate it. It was really impressive. Every time you went back at it, it got better and better. And we mostly, I'd like to say for people who are about to listen to it, Monica and I listened to them together up here. And after every one, we were like, wow, it's already pretty much there. It's great.

Without a lot of work. We are really, really happy with it. And this gets revealed, I think. But we did do a pivot in the middle of this where we were like, I think we need another dimension here and we need to hear something else and we need to explore another piece that isn't getting explored. And that was a little bit further on in the process. And to your credit, you agreed.

Yeah, because it meant a lot more work for you. Yeah. And I think it made- And a lot more awkward questions. Yeah. Yes, it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable what you've had to do. We listened to the last episode and we're just- Crying. Yeah. And thrilled. Just so thrilled. It feels so, not to pat ourselves on the back, it feels so not to like pat ourselves on the back it feels so armchair expert to me it feels so much under our umbrella of everything we do which is like life is fucking complicated and nuanced and there's no good or bad right or wrong angel devil like you you really get to see all the

pieces we're just really happy with it i I am too. And this is a very precious story to me. It involves the life and death of my best friend. My mom is on this project. You know what I'm saying? It needed to be handled as something precious. And I do think, Dax, to your point, part of that artist impulse, that storyteller impulse that is part insecurity, for sure, the impulse is such that you want to get it out. And that's why I've been chasing, chasing, chasing Monica so much over these last, like, not that she was running, but that's why I was just, you know, you want to get it out, even if it's not perfect, even if it's at 70% of what it could be. And you all were very

thoughtful and measured about making sure that it got to what it should be. And you didn't, in your notes, you didn't ask me to differentize anything. You were opening up new subject headings that needed to be explored so that maybe that 10th person out of 10 could really feel themselves in this project and see themselves there. Well, I hope what was obvious is you gave us the notes to give you. You stumbled upon some things that deserved a lot more. Yeah, it wasn't known at the beginning, and we were just open to the idea that things will present themselves, and they did.

When magic happened, I think we were just always committed to circling that and building that out a little bit. And it was incredibly fun. It was so fun to do that with you. That's the most kind of development we've done on the show. It is. It is. And most like definitely doc style. I mean, we have been talking since the beginning of our show when we started adding shows, doing something more serialized and a little more serial-esque. And so this did feel like the perfect opportunity to do that. But it was scary. It's like, we don't really know.

feel like the perfect opportunity to do that. But it was scary. It's like, we don't really know. We're just, we just talk. Like, we don't really know how to do that. And is it going to kind of like when you enter any documentary style, anything, is it going to be anything? We don't know. And we got really lucky. I'll go even further. It was almost the most ideal experience listening to a podcast ever, because let's say we were listening to cereal and on episode one something popped up and i was like god i'd kill to know more about that i don't have no saying that right yeah this was like it was participant listening so i was like oh my wait wait wait there's so much there i want to know more about that and to be clear on that monica already said it but i just want toash. That meant sometimes three months of going back and having like 10 conversations with people

and calling around and to the high school quarterback at this school and someone who was on the Palms team at that school and saying, does anybody know how I can reach so-and-so and being thrown around to people's grandmothers and principals? And some of those people ended up in the show. So it wasn't like, just go change a sentence.

You got a lot of no's. Oh yeah. You did a lot of chasing to no end, to some extent. But a lot of that came out of that too. Yes. And to speak to the no's really quickly, the no's came because this is not processed. 20 years later, people in my hometown, Silver Spring,

Maryland are still processing. People's lives are still affected here. And so to that point, we also wanted to be thoughtful to make sure that we were going to create something here that is journalistically, you know, has its integrity and honest and goes in there and goes there, but that's also going to help people process and not send them backwards, basically. Well, the fact that you did it is proof that you haven't processed it. You wouldn't have taken it on

if you understood everything about it. That would be so boring. When I say I think about those events every single day, still, like I am telling a full-hearted truth I talked to Alicia in prayer still as a 35 year old you know I only knew her until she was 15 yeah so I know almost everybody on the show better than I ever really even got to know her I only now get to know her better through doing the show. We already mentioned it, but it's so true that I'm sure in your mind,

your story is so unique. Mine is so unique. But the nostalgia is so, it's so catchy. It's all the same shit. Like you're just, you're young and you're figuring out. And yeah, she was only 15. But those first 15 years are much longer than the next 30 yeah yeah right they occupy a bigger percentage of your memory and everything they're so important

yes i think everybody knows the scene that is walking into the coolest house party they ever got invited to right they finally get invited to that party you walk in either by yourself god forbid probably with a couple of friends. Hopefully. You get in there and you look around and it feels like you're in the arena. It's like, where do I stand? Who do I talk to? What do I drink? What do I smoke?

What's the right alchemy of being myself and being someone else that's going to work for me here? It's a process that you never perfect. I think the kids who are all the way at the top of the food chain, we're like well you're at that party assuming everyone else knows the playbook right and you never stop to go like no everyone in here is as uncertain as i am about what i'm supposed to do next which is why people do crazy shit at those parties one guy's like oh i bet if i jump off the roof of this thing in the pool everyone will like me you know no one knows what they're doing yes yeah right so funny and endearing oh and then there's the fighting and the masculinity oh i just love it so can we talk about the masculinity a little bit because i'm you know it's not over it's not over no a couple

weeks ago i was playing basketball and a woman jumped in with us because she worked at the gym and we were short on bodies and she was good like she was very good she guards me i'm usually the smallest guy out there and you know i i did the wrong combination of something i was probably too physical yeah and she she erupted on me and some of the things she said to me she called me the f word she uh you know yells that i get no pussy and she's like i went there she and she's like you got feminine energy and she like really went and i'm and and it kind of like you know even today i was literally just staring at the floor waiting for it to be over you know because i didn't know what else to do i think dax i've heard you talk about things like this like i am really pretty solid in my masculinity at this point but i also

know some of those things are sort of true like the part about me having something that is like a femininity in my spirit somewhere it's real i'm a i don't know i'm a pisces yeah and i think that's a i think it is a good thing yeah yes listen this is another thing i really related to i was listening to is like girls liked you that kind of becomes was listening to it. It was like, girls liked you. That becomes very obvious. And the dudes don't like that girls like you. And girls like you because you do have a bit of a feminine energy. And you have a safety to you.

What do you call a feminine energy? This is what I mean. And it would be easy to conflate the two. He's super communicative. Most boys are not super communicative. They don't want to look you in the eyes. They want to walk next to you and chat so just that's what's feminine about it is that you'll sit down with a woman you look her in the eyes and you can talk for three hours and i think that's really unique for boys and i have to add that same thing there's an emotive connection

there yes yes they're talking to you the way they're able to talk to their girlfriends as opposed to when they're talking the guys like yeah yeah let's go uh-huh i don't know let's go to that party you know yeah no that's right yeah monica do you corroborate i always use the word corroborate and sometimes i'm like am i using this wrong but i don't care do you corroborate this point of view on like yeah people throw femininity at boys as an insult like they do it to hurt them but they're commenting on something i think that is generally aspirational, which is like, maybe you're a little more gentle. Maybe you are, you're a better listener. Sensitive in some way.

EQ, high EQ. These are assets. It's a disservice to women to throw that as an insult to men. It doesn't serve them in the long run. No, it's like, that's a compliment. Yeah, I would get, I I'm sure you're the same like I could talk on the phone to girls for three hours straight

you couldn't get me off the phone I love talking on the phone I'm so sad people don't like talking on the phone anymore I know you do like to call I actually wanted to talk about it so most people who have oh did you hear the voice crack feminine most people who listen to all have oh did you hear the voice crack feminine most people who

listen to all of you all's stuff all of your canon at this point have no i feel like i have the unique experience of getting to relate to monica as monica the executive yeah which has been quite it's been very enjoyable to witness Monica, the executive, because, you know, Monica, you're so, you do have such a disarming presence. You're an excellent listener. You do everything Dax just said that he and I do basically, but like better. Like you look people in the eye, you listen

and you ask really good questions and you're disarming. You're very comforting. Also, you have the executive function, which is like, you are not to be sped up. If I call you 10 times and text you 10 times in a week, you're going to respond as you think is responsible. You're not going to like make bad decisions for the business or for the show because I'm like so thirsty, you know? And I, I think that's a, I just want to chronicle it here because it's a part of you that nobody's going to get to watch you be an executive

because that's not something you really like broadcast. She's a boss. She's a fucking boss. She's a big time boss. I was like, I want to be more like that. And she bosses me around too, which people don't get to see. Well, I guess I get to hear it a little bit, but.

That's very nice. Thank you. The best compliment I ever got, I don't know if I've said it on here before, but Emma, our assistant, when she took on the role of starting to answer emails and stuff that I was answering, I was like, i'll step in and she was like the way you respond to these publicists is so both cutthroat and nice that there's nothing for them to do there's nothing left to do i think it's fair but firm as hell yeah fair and firm i mean it's just direct it's

just very direct you you leave so very little space for misunderstanding or like squirreling. You know how people try to squirrel around your answer? Oh, like that was the answer. I will. Here's a reveal for you, which is that you all know how it is. Like two years in, I'm like, Jesus. I'm like, is the project going to come out? I'm, you know, it's a baby of mine.

I'm like, it's going to come out. So I called Rachel, who is your bestie a couple weeks ago shout out rachel field and i was like rachel will she will give me the truth and she'll also like be caring and giving me the truth and i was like she's a boss too she's a boss and she was like just call monica and just be totally honest with her and she will give you the truth and that phone call happened like a couple of weeks ago and you did. And then we're just trying to protect your money. That's literally all it is.

That's all it is. Like we don't want you to have done all this work and make no money. So it's only singularly been about that. We think the show is great and we would have loved to have released it immediately as well, but everyone's doing their part, right? Like you are doing your part in protecting your project and looking out for it and checking in and doing all the things.

I'm doing my part. Dax is doing his part. Rob's doing his part. Like everyone's doing exactly what they should be doing. And that's great. And there's inherent friction. Yes. It's going to be there.

It's part of the process. It's part of it. And everyone just has to accept it. And as long as you do, it's a great working relationship. You know, I've done a few. I have done another scripted project, same amount of episodes and at a giant studio with like gazillion resources and budgets and all that stuff. And I will just tell you, this experience has been so much more enjoyable than that experience.

Oh, that's nice. And for a million different reasons. And I bet it would surprise people also to just know how much your hands are in your business. Like you two, Rob, like it's not like- It's all of us. 10 other execs floating around and shit. We're aiming for that.

We're just not there yet. No, you say that but we can't we can't that's your baby but this is our baby the whole thing is and it's really too hard to even even i even thought recently i was like i think it's good enough i don't think i need to go in and do the thing i do on every single show which is just like maybe we take out this word, which to me changes the whole, you know, I think I can let a little bit of that go.

And then an hour later, I was like, no, I'm going to go in there and I'm definitely going to do the thing I have to do because I have to. It's an impulse. It's right. It's like under your skin. Yeah. It's really good to have some geometry in in the relationships you don't want like you're

attracted to people like yourself it's tempting to get into bed with people like identical to yourself but it's so great to have such different skill sets between everyone in this room yeah you and i probably not shouldn't start a business we have the same no we've like burned some bridges together and stuff it wouldn't nothing would actually hurt. Yeah, get really sensitive and be hurt. Light the whole place on fire. Yes. Yes. Can I pull the thread on the... I talked about where I'm at with masculinity today,

but I do think that... I would say gender is an element of this show. Again, it's 20 years ago. So gender is a lot more rigidly defined even then. Like very much so. And it's very clear in this show. It's like here's the basketball boys here are the cheerleaders yeah and what i think is special

here is like there's a relationship here between a basketball boy which is me an artistic girl which is alicia and we're really on other sides of the track at our high school. But like, we are so much in a friendship love. Like we're so much in a friendship love. And I really want as a basketball boy who also has the pressure of family and community and, you know, people looking at you and wanting you to be such a, like a tough boy. Yeah.

I so much want to be like her. And I probably have spent the next 20 years trying to be more like her in a lot of ways. Oh, God, do I relate to that? Yeah. I'm not who I was at all. I would have liked to have just been sweet and talked about feelings with my male friends. But I thought I'd get murdered if I didn't learn how to be masculine. I just felt like I would get destroyed.

I got destroyed at times. Right. I think you do have would get destroyed. I got destroyed at times. Right. I think you do have the added layer of blackness. There's the masculinity. And then there's yet another category altogether about like varying levels of blackness and feels extra cool because I already know how rough just the masculine shit was. But then they have the added layer, which you're also navigating at all times. Yeah.

And we really get into it in the show in a way that i think adds to the show artistically and doesn't sort of distract from the entirety of the show no it would be insane to not be acknowledging it yeah like i mean i'll just say one of the things that is a scene of the show that i don't think you get many places which is very honestly and directly confronting the relationship between athletic black boys and white girls in high school. And like, I'm from suburbia, you know what I mean?

My high school was half white, 40% black, 10% what they were calling at the time, other, which is just everybody else thrown into a bucket. Speaking about feeling other, you're actually labeled other. Literally, yeah, other. I had the experience of being a part of a small group of black kids, the basketball team, that was invited into the white houses, the big fancy white houses where I'm from,

which is not the common experience for the black kids where I'm from. And that does something to your identity around making you feel like you're special in a way that's unhealthy and in a way that you try to steer into for the rest of your life so you can keep getting invited back into the club and then high school already has that like this part i think is cool about high school there's this wonder just about each other you know you see other people and you're growing into like adult-ish bodies kind of, and you're watching each other shape into like real human beings. And there's just this like, this is an example of someone who was in many ways very similar to me. Like there's a black guy on the basketball team named Brandon Driver. He's probably two inches taller than me.

He's faster than me. He's stronger than me. He's a better athlete than me. He's the starting point guard. I'm the backup point guard and i'm like to this day i'm like how can i be more like brandon every day there's a wonder about another person who just seems to be special in high school and i think we capture that electricity about how you see someone who's different from you and what you imagine their life to be. Yes. It's spectacular.

Yeah. Yeah. It must be. It must be great. Yes. And then he's looking at someone. I don't know. He's looking at you like, why does every girl like this guy? I'm the fucking star of this basketball team.

Right. But he had the girls too. And I hated that. I hated that part. I was like, can I have anything, Brandon? He was cooler. He's taller. You know what I mean?

He was better than me. He was so good. We all have one of those people. So this series, yearbook, will be an anthology. And so this is Chad's, and I can't imagine a better kickoff to it. I am curious, Monica, so everyone knows I would do seventh grade. Yeah. What would you do? What will you do? I've thought about it a lot since we started this. It's really hard for me because I think mine also might be 11th grade. Is that the state championship?

That was the first year we won state and... Football. Cheerleading. Oh! I won state. Monica, you're a cheerleader? High flyer. High flyer.

Two-time state champ. How did we get through this entire project and you didn't reveal to me you're a cheerleader? Still learning. All right. So junior and senior year were really big for me. But I bet it was earlier than that where I established I have to be white. It was probably the time when I really cemented my identity, which was, I'm sure, earlier. So maybe even like sixth grade.

Yeah, maybe the cheerleading's more the result of the change. Yeah, that's like, that's the payoff. Accomplishing the, yes, yes, yes. But the dive in was much earlier. I don't know. I'd have to think about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My last thought is when you went to interview everybody,

you must've had some anxiety, especially because you're really tackling a very sacred event that needs to be done perfectly. Were you shocked by any of the responses? I mean, for me, I was shocked immediately with how seemingly willingly everyone, which is probably a testament to her, everyone was pretty excited to talk about how much they loved her. Everyone was excited to talk about how much they loved her. I'll start with sort of the, I don't know, the scary side of asking. I had to ask the kid who was driving the car that crashed into a phone pole and killed her instantly if he would participate. I had to ask him multiple times i was surprised that he didn't understand how meaningful

she was to me in fact he barely even knew i existed yeah yeah and that blew my mind that that did something to me around like the story i've told myself about this whole thing which is that this was such a story in my head about al dying and the relationship that I had with Alicia, Chad specifically. And in these conversations, I came to understand Alicia was a special person who made everybody feel like they were that person in her life. Yeah, she had a bright light. Yeah, it was humbling in that way. On the other side of this whole thing, I am still trying to understand death because of that how that happened it's really weird as a teenager when your friend just is like disappeared gone that's it like the last

time you saw them they were normal and now you can't call them you can't talk to them nothing yeah and 20 years later there were so many still unanswered questions that each person had about like what does this all mean about life? What am I supposed to do with this still? As an example, one of the people who appears on the show, she lost her dad to COVID a couple of years ago. She still doesn't know what to do with that. So I guess the surprise was just that we don't get any more certain as we get older. Yeah. We don't get the answer sheet.

You're right. Think about when you're writing something and your computer crashes and you lose the whole thing. I think we've all had this experience. Oh, my God. The amount of time I will spend not accepting that. Yes. I wonder if I, like, do I know a computer expert that will, did it save but it's not saved? Like, I will just resist it.

Yes. And then the next step is, like, here's what I got to do in the future. I got to be backing up every five minutes. I know there's an auto set. Like, it's just gone and you can't accept it. And then you're thinking of all the ways you could have prevented it and then how you must prevent it in the future. And then that's just a fucking thing you wrote for an hour.

Yeah, exactly. You're like, maybe Apple has it in the cloud somewhere. You can't accept that. So how on earth do you accept that someone you love has disappeared into the ether? And I think every school has the kid that dies. There's the car accident. There's the drunk driving thing. There's the suicide.

There's whatever. And I was among the kids calling and leaving voicemails on Alicia's phone. We had a big mural that went up in the school that people would write messages to her. You're a teenager. You're still trying to reconcile life and afterlife and like here i am 35 still trying to reconcile life and afterlife so yeah well listen i want everyone to check this out because you do a really beautiful job uh the other thing is you never know how vain someone's going to be when they go off to do a project like this and you whatever vanity you have you certainly left it uh in New York when you went down back to Maryland because you let people talk about you in a way that I find really

refreshing and I think you're incredibly honest about the path to discovery you're on I think it's really cool I appreciate it we're excited it's so good's so good. I encourage everyone to take the ride with us. First episode is available right now. You could immediately listen to it after this on the Armchair Feed. Wherever you listen to your podcast, you can subscribe and you'll get a new episode every Friday. Chad, I love you. Thanks for doing this. Love you all.

Thank you so much. Thank you for everything. Bye.