Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers - JAKE TAPPER Loved to Name Drop

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Seth and Josh learn all about Jake Tapper's celebrity friends...and a few of his family trip stories too. Jake talks about a disaster international trip when he was younger, taking his kids to Paris, and his love for fly fishing.

Hi, Pashi. Hi, Sufi. We're about to do another episode of our show, but we, as promised, we can discuss the fact that we just had a family trip together. You and mom and dad came in and visited me and my family. Yeah. And we actually said we were going to be in the same room for our first podcast, but we ended up being in different rooms because it's better audio. Yeah. ended up being in different rooms because it's better audio yeah so uh for all of that when we recorded this episode with our friend jake tapper we were in different rooms yeah um but yeah it was

really uh it was really fun to be out there boys are very happy to see you you had a good time with the kids good time with the kids and i gotta say that little one she is a flower and sunshine and joy and uh yeah i mean i know there are times when she cries and yells but i'm sort of not uh called into duty in those moments so i really get the best of addie do you feel like you think addie is sunshine and flowers because her two older brothers are just full-time ass-aches? Maybe. Yeah. I feel like you got about half best of boys and half full-time ass-aches. Yeah, it was a mix.

You brought parachute men for the boys, and I will say they enjoyed parachute men a great deal. Yeah, I shouldn't be so nervous when I bring, like, a toy for the kids, but I'm like, well, I hope these are good parachutes. Yeah, the parach't be so nervous when I bring like a toy for the kids. But I'm like, well, I hope these are good parachutes. Yeah, the parachutes were good. There was a rock. The boys went up on a rock and they threw the parachute men and they actually worked.

They looked like what you would want them to look like when you buy a toy with a picture on the box. And then, yeah, your middle son, Axel, wanted to go up onto a balcony and throw them out. And part of me, like he threw one and it just ended up right on the roof. And part of me wanted you guys to be gone and to come back and to see eight parachute men sort of speckled on your roof.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing that my wife would react to in a very chill way. Plastic parachute men on the roof of our of our home if i know her and again i've known i mean we've not been together for almost 15 years i feel like she'd say look at that garbage on our roof i like that i like that i like that that makes me that reminds me of youth and joy. We had one night where our oldest came out and had dinner with us, which was very fun. Stayed up way past his bedtime. Yeah, and he showed up.

He also, I feel like he had thrown an outfit together. This has been happening a lot. I'm glad you're bringing this up. He threw an outfit together because he got a chance last minute to come to dinner. Right, and it looks like he grabbed stuff that maybe he wore two or three years ago, or it's stuff that belonged to his younger brother because he looked like, it was like, it's like those British school boys who look like they're wearing like

shorts and a uniform, but it's all very small. Insanely short shorts. I think the problem is both of those things are true. They are A, clothes he used to wear, and B, his little brother's clothes, because it's just hand-me-downs. So I understand his confusion. He opens up the drawer.

He's just been told, if you get dressed fast, you can come to dinner with your grandparents and your uncle. And I mean, it's a look. It's very short shorts, very high socks, and too small a sweater, too. Yeah. No, I mean, they were hand-me-downs that he turned into take-em-backs.

He did. He wore an outfit of take-em-backs. But yes, it was very nice. It was very nice to have you all here. I'm extremely happy when I have my parents and my kids all in the same place. And that was great. And oh, the other exciting thing was we didn't know how quickly Addie would process that you were poshy. Yeah, because the last time I saw her, she just called me Daddy.

Yeah. As evidenced by the fact that if you're listening to this, not only do we look a lot we sound a lot alike so you were getting a lot of daddy last time but she was great i would say the second she saw you she was locked in on poshy yeah and then it's like it's such a satisfying thing i'm sure as a grandparent as an uncle as anyone who's sort of related to a small child when they start saying your name and they say it with such delight. It's it, you can't help but be happy every time she says it like our conversations weren't deep, but they didn't need to be.

You guys didn't really, yeah, you didn't get into it. It was all very surface, but it was very nice. Yeah. Um, there was, um, uh, you know, obviously this will, you know, time stamp, uh, stamp uh when you visited but um uh very something very sad happened while you're here uh paul rubens known for playing peewee herman passed away and you he was a dear friend of yours yeah i uh i was in he did a play of uh of peewee that we did out in los angeles and then we took to Broadway. And through that process, I didn't know him previously. When I got the audition for sort of a peewee show, I didn't know if it was a movie or a TV show. I did not think it was a play, but I went to this audition

and then I got cast. I was the firefighter and did a lot of puppet voices. But sort of through that time of the run of the show here and then the run of the show on Broadway we got to be very close and he lived uh he lived in the neighborhood so I'd spent so many nights sitting up in his kitchen just talking and I you know I loved him I loved Pee Wee as a child. I love the playhouse. I love big adventure. And getting to know him and call him friend, I consider myself very lucky.

And he was so funny. And he had all of those sort of Pee Wee quips would come out all the time. If you said, I just need a minute, he would say, who has that kind of time. If you said, I just need a minute, he would say, who has that kind of time? If you said you loved something, he would say, why don't you marry it? He was always so fast with those things that seemed so sort of like, I don't know, so childish, but when delivered well and when delivered by him, it just, it was, yeah, it was pure joy. And he also like, there was something in the show, you know, we worked together to try and make some parts of that show work a little bit better.

I'd pitch jokes and there was something in the show. I really forget what it is. I need to watch it again. And it would never land. It was a joke in the show that would never land. And I would come up with alternative jokes for it. And I would be like, what about this? What about this? Like, it's just dying. It dies on the vine every night. And he would say, oh, he's like, I get so excited every night to know that that joke's going to bomb. And it's so like, it's just, he had a different way of looking at the world

and it's things like that. He also, this like, it's just sort of blew my mind. I was crushed when I heard he passed and I was looking back at our messages. And on my birthday this year, he sent me, he started, he had started doing cameo um which is like an app where you can pay celebrities to send you a personalized video message he's a perfect person for that he's a perfect person for that and i dare say that he

probably gave everyone whatever they asked for and he delivered i don't think he ever mailed it in i know for a fact that he would like take a day out of his week and he would only do so many, but he would take a day and he would try to do a good job on them. So he was doing that, which I had kind of forgotten about, but on my birthday this year, he sent me what is essentially a cameo, but it is so heartfelt. And when he passed, I like scrolled through and I watched it because it's like you know people are always they say like you know say what you want to say to people while you have the time you know tell them that you love them tell them how important you are and in this message it's like two and a half minutes and he says the nicest most heartfelt things to me in the world. And it was just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And then I called Lynn Marie Stewart, who played Missy Vaughn,

and has kind of been in all the Pee Wee stuff. And I was talking to her, just remembering Paul. And I said, well, he sent me this video. And she's like, oh yeah, he sent those to everyone. And apparently on people's birthdays this last year, and it's pretty general, and I hadn't quite considered it, but I feel like the message that he sent me about how important I was to him

and how much he loved me and admired me, I feel like there might be countless versions of this out there, which just makes me laugh. Well, I should also say, you know, I had him on the show. I was also a fan of his. But because of you, I got to be friendly with him. And one thing you could count on was that he would send you a Christmas card every year.

Yeah. And the two people from my youth that are massively important to me that I am so happy to say I received Christmas cards from were Paul, who was always on the card, dressed like Pee Wee Herman, and Weird Al. And when I think back to our youth and there was something, I don't know, there was a similarity with both of them because they just came from this really there is something mischievous about what they were doing that appealed so much to kids and yeah it's really cool there there were two people who meeting them never let you down at all they were everything you needed them to be. So rest in peace, Paul Rubens. Yeah. Really going to miss him. But man, what a legend. And prior to his passing,

4th of July this year, there's a cemetery in Los Angeles called Hollywood Forever, and they show movies on the weekends. And the 4th of July movie this year was Big Adventure with fireworks at the end. And I've seen it. I can't tell you how many times. But we went. And there are so many things in that movie. There are so many jokes that you forget about. And it's so good.

People were so happy to be there. And yeah. Yeah. Rest in peace. Rest in peace, Paul Rubens. And before we get to the wonderful Jake Tapper, we want to remind everybody that we're going to do a listener episode. We want to hear your stories about trips you took during Labor Day

or at the end of the summer. Also, if you have any questions for Josh and I, you can record them. Just go to speakpipe.com backslash family trips pod. We are begging you to do this because one of our producers sent a message to us that was submitted as anonymous, I think. Definitely our dad. It's definitely our dad. And guys, we don't, the last thing we want is for our listener episode to become more conversations with our parents so please participate yeah so that we can get some fresh voices yeah also i feel like he's trying to like work the uh work the jury yeah he's basically saying that he didn't think that the that our mom was nice enough to our dad on the podcast yeah i mean

we'll probably end up playing it i mean i think look if i had to put money on it you're gonna hear that message but we'd also like to hear from you so uh do uh leave us a message speakpipe.com backslash family trips pod and now our wonderful conversation with jake tapper Family trips with the Myers brothers. Family trips with the Myers brothers. Here we go. Yeah! Yeah! How's it going? Oh my God, look at this. Jake is wearing a late night with Seth Meyers shirt.

I only have about 30 different options to choose from. I went with old. This is kind of like old school, just like regular, not like one of the options. No, that's actually a limited edition. Is that the Washington, D.C.? That's from the week we did shows in Washington, D.C. Oh, that's right. I forgot.

Yes, you're right. I'm sorry. And you were a guest for us, correct? Yes. Yes. I have many of these, and I was going to do the gag where I take it off, and I have another one on underneath. Yeah.

But then I have these microphones, whatever they are, earbuds in my ear. Also, a far better gag for a visual medium. Yeah. that's right i was thinking you would have done it as a gag at the washington dc event which would know but i was already told of who did it uh it was like john bon Jovi or somebody came out seth told me like wearing the shirt with the bag and the coffee mug that it was um it was uh it was a musician definitely horowitz from the Beastie Boys. OK, there you go.

Yeah. It's so funny because this is, people always said, who was your favorite guest? And Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys, a band that means a great deal to me. Of course. He came out wearing the t-shirt. This is all in the guest tote backstage. He came out wearing the t-shirt, tote bag over his shoulder,

and a coffee mug full of red wine. It's so good. It's also funny because if you said, who is the musician least like Ad-Rock? I would say Bon Jovi. And yet that is what your memory. Well, you're such a Philly homer. Well, he's a, he's a.

He redid the story. Well, he, well, Bon Jovi's a jersey guy not not a philly guy but sure sure but for the rest of us you know that's the same but well i guess it was just to me it was just like i knew he was from the tri-state area yeah yeah those are both cool guys but that's not i hope nobody's knocking john bon jovi here yeah i don't know what the jbj hatred is that seems like a little and i definitely don't think the opposite ofJ hatred is. It seems like a little... And I definitely don't think the opposite of Ad-Rock is JBJ. To me, the opposite of Ad-Rock would be, I don't know, somebody from Slipknot or like...

Okay, interesting. JBJ, didn't he own a Philadelphia arena football team? Wasn't there some... Oh, that might be right. There is some reason that i i mean obviously i know he's a famously a jersey guy but i also do feel like i did see him wearing a philadelphia jersey i will tell you that when the democrats uh do their like end of election rally in philly they always steal a bunch of jersey people and bring them it's a it's never like you know i mean we we actually have a pretty

good group it would be like pink uh but you know then all of a sudden next thing you know you're in holland oats territory you know frankie valley i don't know you know it's it's some they somehow they could have been springsteen and jbj to cross the river and like sure and we claim them we claim that would be fair enough i think that is i think it's close enough that you're allowed especially in times of uh elections sure somebody from new hampshire would say that now real quick i do also want to i want to point out the limited edition late night with seth meyers and washington dc t-shirt is even more limited than this because we traveled our show exactly one time in october of 2016, we took our show to the Warner Theater in D.C. And it was really fun.

But it's really expensive to travel a show. And you know what the reality is? It doesn't make a single difference in ratings. No one at home who is not a Seth Meyers viewer thinks, oh, gotta see how that show goes down in D.C. It's a different crowd. It's a different crowd. Let's see if we can make this New York City humor work

in Washington, D.C. Challenge accepted! Guests didn't have to take the Acela to do this show. I should do it in the deepest, the reddest county in america that would be i think then you'd tune in for it yeah i mean then you know but it would it would end tragically i mean it wouldn't be like it would be like the blues brothers it would be i think

it would start like the blues brothers obviously we'd have chicken wire up and then ideally i'd win the crowd over. Yeah. With the, with the rendition of maybe stand by your man. Yeah. I don't, I don't see that happening, but I, but I appreciate the confidence. I appreciate the optimism. I appreciate the optimism. Jake, I forgot this. Or maybe I never even knew it. Born in Staten Island. Yeah. So this is jarring because I think we're maybe only 10, 11 guests in, and I believe you're our third guest native to Staten Island. Yeah. So this is jarring because I think we're maybe only 10, 11 guests in,

and I believe you're our third guest native to Staten Island. Well, I would really not call myself native to Staten Island. I do bring it out every now and then just because it's such an odd, unexpected birthplace. First of all, I think that a lot of people misidentify me as a New Yorker, probably the same way they do for you. Both of you, I would imagine, for probably a lot of the same stereotypical reasons. Yeah. But but even those who know I'm from Philly, like I think the Staten Island thing takes them by surprise. I don't really have like a Staten Island vibe. I'm surprised. I don't really have a Staten Island vibe. No. I did want to bring it up because our friends, Pete Davidson and Colin Joseph, recently bought a decommissioned Staten Island ferry.

I'm aware. Based on conversations with them, they'd love another investor to throw some good money after bad. I'm much more, it's probably more likely that I'd go in on a, you know, like a cheesesteak shop with Rob McElhaney than that. I don't really identify as a Staten Islander, and I certainly don't identify as myself as a terrible businessman. Or cool enough to hang with Davidson and Scarlett Johansson's husband. I mean, I don't think that, Yeah, I guess based on what they're, if they're trying to create some party vibe with their New South Island Ferry. I mean, in the same way, look, they haven't come to me either. So I think that I'm not, no judgment,

but Davidson, Jost, Tapper. I don't say like, I mean, unless they want to turn it into like a news ferry. Yeah. Yeah. But that's, you know. Different floors of the ferry. You would, you know, the ground floor would be, that's where you go for of the ferry you would you know the ground floor

would be that's where you go for your news and then you go up and they're kind of goofing on the news people like there's nothing like seafaring and news at the same time the two the two things two great tastes tickets still available you have one sibling i do have one one blood sibling and three step siblings okay did you ever travel with the step siblings? Yes. Oh, wow. Okay. My dad remarried when I was 10. And so all of a sudden, we're splitting our time between my mom's house and my dad and my stepmom. And there was one older stepsister and two younger stepsisters.

And we're all within like five or six years of each other. And it was nothing like the Bunch but everybody would be like oh it's like the Brady Bunch but it's not like it wasn't anything like the Brady Bunch would you say in general the five of you got along yeah we're fine I mean we still keep in touch we're still seeing them at reunions yeah I mean and when I and publicly I'll refer to them as my sisters just because I feel like it's just I feel like saying that they're my stepsisters inserts like a whole uh it's I feel like it's just, I feel like saying that they're my stepsisters inserts like a whole, I feel like it's presumptuous. I'm like saying, you want to know more about this, don't you? And it's like, and no one does. It's also, let's say that Disney did a giant disservice to stepsisters in particular.

And so to even invoke the idea of Stepsisters, I think it seems as though there was issues. Yeah. Also, how come Step, well, except Stepbrothers isn't really a thing, right? Except for that one movie. Stepbrothers isn't, there's no stereotypes about us. No.

There should be. You guys get off to God free. Except, I mean, I guess that one movie, you're dumb as a bag of rocks. It's a great movie. It is a great movie it is a fantastic movie i have my kids my boys sleep in bunk beds and every time i i think about bunk beds i think about a bunk the top bunk collapsing on the bottom bunk constantly i had bunk beds with

my brother josh and i did too yeah we had this i had the uh i think i had the upper bunk because I was the older. Seth, you're the older, right? I'm the older, but we were talking, we're with our parents right now. And my mom was asking and Josh recalls him having the top bunk. Yeah. I think it was because Seth was afraid. Yeah, fear. Yeah, fear led a lot of my decisions.

I remember Aaron, my little brother, who is now six, six. Aaron, we thought this was really funny. He would lie in the bottom bunk. He must've been like three and I must've been like seven. And he would put his foot up and I would reach down and I would just grab his foot. And we just thought this was the funniest thing in the world. I thought it was funny because his foot was so little. I just remember laughing because his foot was so little. But I mean, when you're that age, the stuff that makes you laugh. Well, also, this was before iPads. So pretty much grabbing feet. And cable. And cable. So just like, if you could put your hand on a human foot.

There was books and holding foot. Holding feet and books. That's what we did back then. So how young are you guys when your parents get divorced? I'm like eight and Aaron's like four. What were family trips like before your parents went their separate ways? I remember visiting my grandparents in North Carolina, my mom's parents. I remember camping trips, but I don't remember my mom being on them. I remember my dad doing them maybe with like one of his college or med school friends who brought his sons. I think my mom opted out of the camping trips because it was real.

It was real camping. It was, there were no trailers. There was no rv it was tents on the ground was it were you in campgrounds like was it car camping still or were you hiking in with gear and setting it up sort of in the middle of the woods or by a stream with nobody else around some something in between like it was definitely a campgrounds but it wasn't like with a big bathroom and right community shower it was definitely rough and not particularly fun as i recall oh interesting because i i sort of now would would think of you as sort of being pro camping and pro outdoorsy i'm definitely pro outdoorsy and i have no problem with i actually i'm very uh pro outdoorsy. We go to Idaho and we fish and all that stuff.

He goes to Idaho with Jimmy Kimmel, everybody. Well, you don't have to make it sound less rugged than I was trying to. Oh, look, we've all seen the big Instagram of all of Jake's. Somehow Jake, the newsman Jake Tapper has so many more famous friends than I do. And I've been in this biz.

I think Tapper's got you beat for how And I've been in this biz. I think Tapper's got you beat for how long he's been in the biz. I know, but he's, look, but he's news biz. Well, that just means I bring something different to the table. That's true. I think you're right. There's a lot of redundancies

with what I would bring. I mean, there were two Jimmys in that picture. There were two late night host Jimmys. I would be the third. And you weren't there, sir? So it was Kimmel, Fallon, Tapper, and no Colbert. Yeah. Dax, right?

Dax was there. Great guy. And by the way, I'm not airing your laundry in public here. There were Instagram posts. This has been. Well, Kristen Bell posted it, not just for the record. It wasn't me bell posted it not just for the record it wasn't me right but i just for the record it's out there i'm also not breaking news right correct correct it's it's been out there yeah yeah it's like i didn't i didn't put together the dossier but like you can report on it i reported on its existence i did not report

on the contents just for the record the same I did the same for what it's worth. Just for the record. I think we both approached that the same way. Yeah. You know that Dossier, I know we're getting off track here, but you know who my guest was the day the Dossier news broke. Holy crap, I do remember this. I do remember this.

It was Kellyanne Conway. Kellyanne Conway. Yeah. And it broke while she was in the dressing room, and we felt it was only right to go to her dressing room. And I had printed out the CNN story. My story, yeah, that I wrote with her. And I said, hey, do you know about this?

And she's like, what is it? And I handed it to her. And she just sort of skimmed it real quick. And very politely and very quickly looked at me and said, I'm going to need a few minutes. And, and I walked out. She's a pro.

She is a pro. Let's just make one thing clear. She is a, she is a pro. All right. So we got off track. So you, now you sort of,

obviously you camp with the stars. We've established this. It's fishing. It's a fly fish. Fly fish. Was there any fishing in your early family trips no no i would have liked it by the way i mean that sounds fun and that's an activity camping just for the record is not particularly an activity it's just setting up and then survival it's just you know okay now we need to light a fire now we need to put out the fire Now we need to put out the fire. Now we go to bed. The roughing it thing wasn't particularly fun. And then later I did an RV

with my mom and my brother. We did an RV trip up to Canada and through Maine and back. And then we did a camper trip with my dad and my stepmom and my stepsisters and my brother. Also, I think to Canada. Yeah. And those weren't particularly fun either. Josh and I didn't take many camping trips, but that is also my memory is there were no activities. And I wouldn't say that I wish I'd fished more, but I do think it would have given more purpose to being in the woods. In defense of camping. Okay, you're a camper. Here we go. I love camping.

Josh, it should be noted, is in the pocket of big camping. Yeah, I love setting up a site. I love getting it all there. I love walking around sort of the campgrounds. I feel like you find the nicest people in the world in campgrounds, particularly in national parks, state parks.

They're just, it's so friendly. And then it's sort of, you have your base of operations to go on hikes, to go fishing if you want to. I'm a big lawn game fan. So you can have any number of games that you play, sitting around conversation. I went camping with a friend on the beach recently and surfed. Really? Yeah. So that stuff's all great. I slept on the sand once. I slept on the sand once with my brother during like our errant 20s period when we would just like do trips, sometimes in Europe, sometimes like let's go hang out. And, you know, we tried to crash with a friend at the beach, but they tried to charge us for sleeping on their floor and we didn't have any money.

This is in our 20s. And so we ended up sleeping on the on the beach. And sand is remarkably like a Tempur-Pedic mattress. It's quite nice. Yeah, it is. It has a really body memory element to it. Which beach? Where were you?

This feels like it was one of the Delaware beaches, which is where people go when they live in D.C. There's a run of... By the way, because you mentioned Europe, I had elevated so high up where you and your brother were sleeping on the beach. And the fact that it was the shore, the Delaware. The Delaware shore, not even the Jersey shore. It just collapsed for me. No, the trips that we did in Europe were like real hostile, H-O-S-T-E-L, hostile trips. real hostile h-o-s-t-e-l yes hostile trips like in where did we go we went to Greece we went to Spain it was real like how much money do you have in your pocket kind of trips like do you did you

love those they were fun I mean Aaron it was a good time to do them and Aaron and I are very close and we had no uh obligations really in the world On the Greece one, I took my girlfriend at the time and it was right after 9-11, which was not a fun time to be traveling abroad. Yeah. Although the planes were very empty. And that might've been our last trip because we got into a big fight

because he had been studying in Egypt during 9-11. He's a religious studies major. He speaks Arabic. He speaks Hebrew, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, and I brought my, I wouldn't call her spoiled or anything like that, but I brought a girlfriend who was like, you know, it was like a big,

like we didn't understand that she brought a hairdryer with her to Greece. Like to us, that was like, who is this, a Rockefeller? Like, you know. Yeah. I hope you also brought an outlet because we're not good. We're going to be sleeping on the beach. But I mean, I remember thinking like, what?

She brought a hairdryer? Like so outraged and like looking at it, I'm like, of course she brought a hairdryer. What the hell? But we got into a big fight about, I remember this very vividly. We're in some cheap hotel in Greece. It was right after the US invasion of Afghanistan.

And I don't know if you remember this, but like the CIA put out like a, they were putting out flyers. They were dropping flyers everywhere in Afghanistan with a picture of like a westernized Osama bin Laden. It was like part propaganda, part wanted poster. And it looked like Frank Zappa i don't know yeah do you remember that at all i do i do it was like this image of osama bin laden it was like i mean and my brother to his credit thought it was hilarious and ridiculous and can you believe how insane the

u.s government has gone and look and like you know but we were we had just been a city in a city that had been attacked in dc you know when we were cowering and uh anyway we had a big fight that was uh and that that might have been the last one of the of our family trips the fight was between you and him yeah so do you feel like looking back that you maybe uh incorrectly took your girlfriend's side correct yeah but it wasn't you you know, but it wasn't like I was taking her side. Like, we were both on the wrong side. We were both hiding under our desks, you know, hiding under the hotel bed. I mean, you know, that was just a, you know, everybody remembers.

Well, those of us old enough to remember after 9-11, like, there was a lot of fear. And I definitely was experiencing a lot of it myself. I 100% I remember uh in the early days after it a friend of mine I had a cousin an Israeli cousin who was telling us all like this is actually really good for you like this what you've gone through this is like will only make you stronger sort of thing right and I remember thinking oh I don't know this is this is the right time for this conversation. Well, I mean, I wish I had had my brother's attitude at the time, because now looking back and doing a lot of reporting on decisions that were made by the government, by people who are supposed to have a more clear-eyed view of it all, I wish I had been more clear-eyed about it all at

that exact moment. It was a tough time to be clear. Now, do you also even independent of taking a trip with your brother and your girlfriend after nine 11? Is that a good idea? Anytime? No. Yeah. Okay. Definitely not.

It's not a great lineup. No, it doesn't bad idea. Yeah. Cause with everything that we could, you know, a nine 11 led to so many terrible things, but I don't,

I feel like this it's unfair to pin this on nine 11 led to so many terrible things, but I don't, I feel like this, it's unfair to pin this on nine 11 as well. It feels like this was doomed from the start. This came from, you know, inside, inside the house. It came from a,

right. This was, you can't put this on Al Qaeda, right? This was a bad decision. I'm not going to give them a free pass on anything, but I feel like it's fair. This is a bad decision to go.

I should either go to Greece with my girlfriend or with my brother but not with both of my girlfriend and my brother i agree that's that's smart josh and i have traveled with our significant others a couple times and i feel like yeah but we each had one we each had one yeah we never did josh and i really didn't you know we worked together in amsterdam um but we didn't i wouldn't say we ever traveled we worked together in Amsterdam, but we didn't, I wouldn't say we ever traveled much. We took that adventure together, but we had our own, we were never on the road together. Yeah. Hey, we're going to take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors. Getting back real quick to fly fishing. Now I have a lot of friends who love fly fishing.

It's great. I've done it once, hated it. Just hated it. Really? Yeah, I've done it once hated it just really yeah i've done it once too we were in a boat and we had a guide and so there were two people in each boat and a guide and he just would say like cast mend it cast mend it cast mend it and it was like so repetitive and i just wanted it to be over and i would i would try it again when you're sort of just standing stationary in the water. But for me, because my good friends haven't been able to explain it. But I just, I don't get it. Sell it.

Sell it, Tapper. I find it very zen. I find it very, like everything is out of my brain except for trying to catch fish. Which is, I don't, and like, I know people like, I think Stephanopoulos meditates. I know a bunch of people who meditate and I, I don't even think I could ever even come close to meditating. I just can't, there's so much junk in my brain. I can't get it out. And I can't not think about anything and it just impossible for me, but fly fishing is the closest I can come to that because I'm only thinking about the objective at hand. Yeah i i mean i will say i do meditate but if i was meditating and somebody kept saying cast mend it mend it well

maybe you're a bad guy mend it i mean is it is that not just possible that you're that's possible that's possible i mean he never stopped saying the same two words over and over and over again it was really it was yeah so there's this late night host named Jimmy Kimmel. Sure, sure. And he's got a- A dear friend. A dear friend of mine. And he's got a fishing lodge in Idaho. Yeah.

And I'm like, I would, I can hook you up if you want. Great. I'd love to go. I'd love to go. I think Seth is not into it, but- Oh, no, but I would go. I would go to a famous person's lodge. I, the one time I went fly fishing, I I hooked my own eyebrow you have to wear sunglasses you

have to wear big oh yeah well thanks I wish you'd been my guide you guys have had where where are you going fly fishing it's New Hampshire it sounds like it was a guy in an unmarked white van and it's sort of it seemed like it had been very recently painted like where you like like your stencil is no I went I was in Colorado I was visiting friends in Colorado who were all It seemed like it had been very recently painted. Like where are you going? Like Lake Erie? Not proper stencil. No, I went. I was in Colorado. I was visiting friends in Colorado who were all enthusiasts for it. And they sort of believed if they took me out, I would also fall in love with it. So, by the way, since this is about family vacations and such, like, this is a great family vacation that we do every year.

The Idaho trip. Because it's not just me and fancy uh fancy folks yeah you didn't mention but jennifer aniston was there too and jason bay but but um it's not pretty big list yeah i mean corny cox uh but uh mark rober if you're into youtube and david shang the chef anyway that's not important none of that's none of that's important no i mean it's cool though it's like um that the wife goes off with a whole bunch of women and has a great day. And the kids go off with groups of kids. Like Alice, my daughter, runs off with Bateman's daughter and Adam Scott's daughter.

And my son runs off with Adam Scott's son. It's amazing just in this story how you keep finding ways to drop new names. I'm not dropping them. They're just there. They're sort of just tumbling out. P.J. Clapp's son, P.J., you know him. He's John Knoxville. His son is also there.

My God, you're such a good friend with Johnny Knoxville. You call him P.J.? Well, that's his real name. Yeah, sure, I get it. So let me tell you, here's a story that you might enjoy, even though it involves at least two names being dropped but i've dropped so many already yeah we are gonna i do want to say out of fairness to you we are gonna put in sound effects after this with just a giant clang okay every time you mention a celebrity so but let me ask you a question once i drop a name if, if I mention that name again, am I picking it up?

No, but we're going to, if you mention a second time, we're going to put in a boing sound effect as if it ricocheted back. Yeah, like it bounced. So first time you say it, it's a clang and then a boing. You are the one who brought up the photo just for the record. That's true. I do think, I do want our listeners to know, I don't think Jake would have dropped all these names, but the Pandora's box. You are the Pandora. I'm the Pandora of this story.

Anyway, so Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel tells my son and Graham Scott and Rocco Clapp that they can ride around on the golf carts. Great. Dream. A dream for kids. Yeah. Adam and I are fishing. Adam Scott and I are fishing and I get a phone call from my son because there's been an accident. Now, obviously this is terrifying because golf carts can actually kill people as you know. Sure. Most important thing up front, nobody seriously hurt, but he had flipped a golf cart, dented it. And, um, because he and Graham and Rocco, they weren't just riding it around. They were doing stunts and acting like you would expect teenage boys to act if you gave them permission to ride around in a golf cart. Especially if one of them was the son of PJ Claps.

You're way ahead of me. So Adam and I are furious. And Adam and I are lecturing our sons from the banks of the snake river on our cell phones and mad. And we're calling the guy that runs the lodge and we're saying, make them do manual labor and make them, you know, all this stuff. And, and I say to Adam, should we be getting PJ involved in this? And like, will he care? Will he remotely care? And so PJ texts us out of the blue and he's just, this is Johnny Maxwell again.

And he's like acting like he's really concerned and blah, blah, blah. But then later I find out that he asked Rocco if they had it on videotape. Yeah. Yeah, had to. The lecture Rocco got was like like if you're gonna do it right you gotta film it and like at least three cameras at least a three camera shoot yeah yeah because you're gonna want to slow it down you're gonna want to see it from a different angle right slow-mo

where's the slow-mo does your son have any interest in fly fishing yet? Yeah. We'll go every trip. We've gone out three times now. And I think we've gone out fishing, he and I, once every time. So that's good. Those are good father-son memories. And he's good. He's a good fisherman. I have another quick question about just logistics of fly fishing. How far away does your son have to be from you? Because I know you can't stand side by side when you of fly fishing. How far away does your son have to be from you? Because I know you can't stand side by side when you're fly fishing.

Well, we're in opposite sides of a boat. It's a big fly fishing boat. Oh, so you do it from a boat too? Oh yeah, yeah, you do it from a boat. So you never, have you ever done, the time I did it, I was standing in the water. Have you done that? There've been times that I've gotten out

and done it for like a little spell. Gotcha. But, and Kimmel's like an little spell. Gotcha. But, uh, and Kimmel's like an amazing fly fisherman. Like he's really, really good at it. And like he, you know,

for him, like the bigger, the challenge, the more fun it is like, it's this whole other thing. Well, I would say then catching it with your hands. I mean,

let's be honest. Or catching it with my hands. Yeah. Right. Even sort of like, uh, like whose line is it anyway? He has,

you have to put your hands underneath. So it whose line is it anyway he has you have to put your hands underneath so it looks like his hands and then you have to catch a fish i can barely catch it with like you know tnt and a big hock of meat but if you go out for a day in idaho what's an average haul for tapper it's all catch and release you throw them all back but it's probably but you know how many catches maybe like on a good day like uh somewhere between 10 and 20 and how many hours are you out there a long time you'll be out there from like 10 to like four that's pretty rewarding i mean i think 20 fish in six hours that must feel nice yeah yeah i mean i'm probably overstating when i say 20 but like 10 to 15 let's well it's a fish story

obviously a lot of the people who are there are one day going to be guests on this. So we'll just be checking in with them. Yeah. I think 20 is high or low. I know people who are. I mean, I am one of the worst fishermen on the trip. I'll just say that right now. Who's number two after Kimmel?

You know, you know, caught a big fish. His first time out was Mulaney. There we go. We got a new name. You know what? Guess what? I just caught one because that's what I was fishing for.

I knew if I asked you wouldn't go back. You'd give us another name. Mulaney. Mulaney's a good fisherman. All right. There you go. You caught a big one.

I'm going to try to get it back to these family trips. But this is just for the record this has all been a family trip. Just it's been a modern thing. Josh. Josh I should note

is now becoming a real purist about the pod. She doesn't like when we get off track. Seth loves talking about backstage stuff, Hollywood stuff. Get that somewhere else. We were here to talk about family trips. Yeah. Thank you,

Josh. Thank you for keeping it pure. Yeah. Well, I mean, you guys are going to keep veering back into your sort of, well, I'll go back to the, to the, to the camping trips to canada one with my mom and one with my dad it's separate ones

because of the divorce and i'll say both and both of them featured breakdowns of the camping apparatus the rv that my mom rented she was you know she was a a nurse in Philadelphia, didn't make a ton of cash. And the RV she rented, I think what my brother or I said when we first saw it in the rental agency was like, you know, you're like, you drive in and there are all these incredible campers and RVs. And my mom points to the one that we're getting in. And one of us said, that old box, which is is just you know what a rude yeah this poor blue collar nurse has saved up for months to take her sons on a trip do you hear about that comment or does she sort of just swallow that she no no she never okay never brought it up again i remember

saying it that old box anyway it breaks down in Maine it breaks down in a town called Monson Maine and uh and the part like has to be ordered so we're like stuck in this town with nothing to do and uh yeah that was it was it was rough and then another um like literally what we did was we found an old basketball and we found like a milk crate. And we like just for hours, just shot baskets into a milk crate that was like, you know, seven feet up or like not even. And then the other thing was the camper that my dad rented and attached to my stepmom's Chevy Impala. You know, you fasten it, you know, you fasten it to the I don't know what all that stuff is called, whatever. No, I don't either. But I know that they have to be fastened. They have to be fastened, and at some point he took a turn

and it broke off. It's pouring rain. Pouring rain. We're in Canada. The thing is broken off. At some point, the decision is made for us to go to get a hotel room. The only hotel and the only room is an expensive one.

There was softcore porn on the TV, and the only room is an expensive one and there was like soft core porn on the tv and the movie's name was vanessa so that's it those are my memories you couldn't you couldn't turn the tv off we kept turning it on my dad and stepmom kept turning it off and all the kids were united and laughing and laughing and turning it on it wasn't even the movie itself it was like a preview for the movie that kept airing on the in-house cable channel hotel you can buy this you can buy this for yeah for 7.99 or whatever it was at the time and the movie was called vanessa if we had been in a um sort of car trailer situation and the uh it became unfastened i would have absolutely no confidence in my dad's ability to fix it.

Oh. But I certainly would have confidence that he would try and that he would also not maintain a level of cool over the course of this. Oh, boy. Was that your dad? He was not. No, a not. First of all, let me just say very both my parents are alive, although I don't think

they're interested enough in me that they'll be listening to every podcast I do, including this one. I don't even think they know what podcasts are, to be completely honest. But if they listen to this, they'll get that info that they're both still alive. Well, somebody might tell them about it. Ted, I heard your son on the Seth Meyers, Josh Me Myers Family Trips podcast. Who? We'd be really impressive if it had that name recognition from an old person.

Yeah. That's what we're gunning for. My dad would, by the way, he would be happy because he immediately would assume that you're both Jewish, of course, even though I know you're not, and I know you have the whole routine, and it's a good shtick. But what does that mean?

Shtick. What is shtick? When you say shtick? By the way, the girlfriend I took to Greece, you'll appreciate this. Sarah Feinberg, not Jewish, not Jewish Sarah Feinberg. Um, and I didn't tell my dad that she wasn't Jewish because I just wanted him to assume that she was Jewish. Yeah. Why would I provide the other information? I would say you guys, there's three data points there. It was Sarah Feinberg brought a hairdryer. Although from West Virginia,

I mean, that's, that's, there you go. So at one point we'd been dating for like six months and, uh, I think, uh, we were getting pretty serious and, uh, I, she went to synagogue with me for the high Holy days. I was complaining about the services to my dad because that's what, that's what my, my people do, um, complain and specifically about services. He said, well, what did Sarah think? And that's when I chose to tell him the truth. It occurs to me, father, you probably are under the impression that Sarah Elizabeth Feinberg is Jewish. But at that point,

I'd gotten this, the commitment that she, that if it got serious enough, she would convert, but it didn't, it never got there. Well, six months, you got that, you got that commitment. Six months. It was like, we were in our thirties, you know, we were on the track. Yeah. Third date, Alexi told me um when we have kids we're gonna raise them jewish third date oh i got it i got it out of my wife jennifer i got it on the first date you got her to agree wow i i said i said yeah i mean it was a first date conversation at that point because i was in my mid-30s anyway yeah how did this all come up feinberg uh myers i think it podcast did it out of cruelty to josh

who wanted you to stick oh you said stick oh you said no no but we were also talking about your dad and you were saying both my parents oh wonderful guy smart doctor very caring person not handy no with a broken car thingy and um and not cool as a cucumber with a broken car in the pouring rain with five bratty kids in Canada. Definitely not. Our dad always had something wrong with his car that was dry. It would always drive him insane. Oh yeah.

For example, he would say there's a knock. It was, he was like, it was like the telltale heart always with his, like just something because he had killed somebody because he had killed a woman yeah he did i well that's what i think and then we found out that he had hit a drifter with his car right and that the knock

right in the trunk yeah yeah but so he would always tell us stories about how he brought the car to get it serviced and tried to explain the knock. And they all thought he was crazy. Does that ring a bell, Josh? Yeah, he had, I remember he had a Lincoln town car and he got like hubcaps.

They were wire wheels. And it was like just a, you know, a pretty thing. Like they were cool, but there was some little tick that would happen, but there would always be like, there'll always be a knock. He'll get in my car in LA and be like,

this is making a noise over here. He hears ghosts in cars, and then he brings it to a mechanic and says, find the ghosts. You know those ghost hunter shows where they bring that, like, you know, green light into houses? We should just do a show where it's just people

doing that for Dad's car. Yeah. Weird dude with a long gray ponytail. Just make sure it's not a blue light. That's true. You don't want a blue light in my Dad's car yeah weird dude with a long gray ponytail and just make sure it's not a blue light yeah that's true you don't want a blue light in my dad's car they filmed uh they filmed vanessa in the backseat it's a classic we still haven't seen just telling a story about that lincoln town car which i also remember which is i totaled it and uh i was driving with my friend and it was icy new hampshire roads and it was it also i was probably 17 it's an insane car for a 17 year old to drive like a big lincoln town car but it was

you know the only option and i went off the road and landed it on top of a rock wall like a robert frosty rock wall yeah and i called i had forgotten this that i called my dad and his memory in the conversation is that i said there's something wrong with the car and he said what what's wrong with it and i said it i think it's better if you just come and look and he said is it is it is it running and i said it's not running and uh and it was we were just one street over at this cul-de-sac that a bunch of our friends lived on so then he took my mom's car and he came over and we walked he asked me he's like you want to go for a walk and i was like okay oh you walked over yeah i was there and uh and i remember him saying uh next time feel free to describe that as uh it's on top of a fucking rock wall

it was like three days after you got insurance. I feel like you got your license. Oh, my God. And then it took like a couple, you know, a week or whatever, and you got insurance. It was like you would just start driving. Yeah. All right.

But I can remember. I'm going to be impressed. I've got a trivia question for both of you. Because I remember the song that was playing on cassette tape when it crashed. OK. The song was that song. Back to life.

Back to reality. I sang that song. How long do you want it? No, I don't want it. I don't want it. Right? A soul to soul. Soul to soul is correct.

Yeah. Oh, nice. Very well done. Dad, I'm wondering, does this car have a wall? Does it have a wall? What do you mean, does it have a wall? Because the car has a wall now. Yeah, I guess the best way to say it is the car now is either the car is part of a wall or a wall is part of a car.

The car is at one with a wall? Was it like that before? Yeah. I can't remember, Dad. Was this wall here? When you bought the car, did it have a wall? Because you get upsold easily. Did the dealer maybe sell you a wall? I'll throw in a wall. I'll throw in a flinty wall.

You know, obviously all our family trips were with our parents, both of them. Were the vibes massively different when you were on vacation with your mom or vacation with your dad? Yes. My mom's a pleaser okay my mom was trying to please her two boys and and uh she would she would have done anything to make us happy and yes and the and the family trips with my dad and stepmom were um not that did he sort of have his own agenda was your dad a guy who would plan out the things he wanted to do on vacation? Yeah. I mean, honestly, I don't think we did any other trips with all of us ever again.

I think from then on, it was like Shelly, my stepmom, and the girls would do a trip, and my dad and me and my brother would do a trip. Did you look forward to that when you were going on vacation with your dad? I remember a lot of trips to like Sturbridge Village, like like whaling isn't that like a whaling town in massachusetts yeah i feel like places where you could look at scrimshaw carvings on whalebone yeah yeah does that answer your question so we're not looking forward to it i mean are you looking forward to Scrimshaw? You tell me. You're a 14-year-old boy, and you get to do anything you can do. I think it might have been Scrimshaw. Well, you're from New Hampshire.

You're from New Hampshire. I'm thinking back, and I do think the answer is Scrimshaw. I do briefly want to circle back, in case Josh doesn't know this story. And again, hopefully Josh will will allow it because it's about uh the famous person no it's about jake and i so it's about two famous people so um there was uh and martha's vineyard i guess a whale a dead whale washed up and so there were whale bones on the beach and uh wait a second how long was it how long was how long was this whale sitting on the beach it was uh i was just i remember man we just heard it moaning for a year no uh just a year

of whale rotting i just feel like my father-in-law and my brother-in-law all of a sudden got real excited because you know it's like hey dead whale and then sure they somehow got a whale bone yeah and they were so excited there There's a whalebone. And then they just, you know what, you know where it is. Yeah. It's like lashed to a post on the porch.

I hope that the statute of limitations here have passed because I, I sense that it might be illegal to remove a whalebone from a beach. It depends on whether or not you've carved on it. I mean, I think it's really just a question of... But to me, it was so deeply stupid that they put all this work into getting this whale bone back, and then all they did was tie it against the post of a porch. And yet, I would say five times a summer,

I hear someone going, cool whale bone, Tom. I mean, people are just over the moon that they know a guy who's got a whalebone i like it every time i see it so funny yeah you make it sound like it's really uh lashed to the porch in a very haphazard and unartistic kind of way like um i was i will say i was thinking the word lashed before he said last oh is that right that that? That is, I mean, it is, but he's also, his father-in-law is a home builder, so he knows what he's doing with rope. Yeah.

It's on their, had Seth, Seth would have like tied it to the porch and it would not be a good, a good knock. Quick correction. Seth would have left the bone where it was. You wouldn't have left the house to go look at the dead whale. I would not have disturbed the whale grave. Right.

That's the knock Tom's going to hear. I'm still curious about the people of Martha's Vineyard just letting a whale rot on the beach. Again, I don't know the details. I just know that all of a sudden- I want to say it was a beach that people don't go to. It was just a part of the shore. It's called Dead Whale Beach beach so it doesn't get a lot of tourists but had they been attacked by i feel like the whale bone washed up it wasn't like

he ripped a bone off a carcass i don't believe it had to have been he had at some point but i don't there were two bones and he and tolya each took a side and made a wish no i don't know i feel like we're gonna do some digging um and find out the real story of the whalebone. I do think, Josh, at some point, we should just have Tom because he is family at this point. I think Tom, my father-in-law, who is so endearing and lovely,

mostly it would just be great to have him on, tell his stories, and then have his two daughters on to correct him. My father-in-law gave a speech at our wedding, and this is the most, the perfect illustration of his relationship with my wife, Alexi. He said, you know, I'll never forget a trip we took to Barcelona. And my wife screamed, we've never been to Barcelona.

That's how it started. It's a good speech. By the way, if he does get in trouble for the absconding with whale bone from the beach, which I'm sure is in violation of many Massachusetts statutes, I'm sure that Tom can prevail upon local defense attorney Alan Dershowitz. Alan Dershowitz, Alan Dershowitz, who is, who is, who I do not know, but. Yeah. But he is a member of your circle, of your Martha's Vineyard circle, I believe.

He's a, he's a, I am a, there's a circle of constitutional scholars. Right. Which I am a, and we just believe that, that the law, the law is blind. When it comes to Wales. When it comes to Wales. Ladies and gentlemen of the law is blind. When it comes to whales, it comes to whales. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Jake, I want to, because again, we're talking about my father-in-law. The first time Jake and I met, and I should note,

this was one of the nice things about Twitter early on. Now, I know that Jake is already calling it X. I still call it Twitter. So, Twitter, X for Jake. So, you would actually meet people on Twitter, and that's how we met. We DMed. Astoundingly, as I recall it, you reached out to me, which is, I say I'm surprised because you are a much bigger deal than me yeah but he's also thirsty yeah very thirsty i thought you were gonna be my back door to being friends with camel is that right you should have just been you should have just been more up front about it i would have

i did reach out to you i was a fan of yours and uh and i think i was in pittsburgh oh maybe that was it i think i was in i was either in pittsburgh Pittsburgh or New Hampshire, but it was someplace that you had a tie to, Pittsburgh being that you're a Steelers fan, right? You're a Steelers fan. Yes. And I think I was in Pittsburgh with Obama, because I covered Obama, and you recommended a sandwich place.

Is that possible? Oh, yeah, probably the original, the hot dog, or Permanente's. Or Permanente's. Permanente's, yeah. So that's where it was very nice. And then we got to be friendly, but then I came to. I like that you also probably suggested the two top sandwich places

if you had Googled them. It's okay. One of the best places in Pittsburgh. But if it came from me, then I'd get the credit. These little hidden gems. This might have been pre-Google. It was pre-Google. It might have been Bing. Everybody was on Bing at the time. It was Bing. This is have been pre-Google. It was pre-Google. It might have been Bing.

It might have been. Everybody was on Bing at the time. It was Bing. This is before everybody was X-ing. We were on Bing. I was just on Yahoo. Oh, then Jake, when I came to do the Correspondence Dinner, Jake and his lovely wife, Jen, took Lexi and I out to dinner.

He took us to a real foodie place. Because you told me you were foodies. Yeah. And then we went to this foodie place in D.C. And it was a wonderful meal. But it was really funny because there was one thing on the menu, Josh, that Alexi would not eat. Can you guess what it is? Based on 2011 Alexi. 2011.

I mean, something with gluten? No. Think about her pets in 2011. Oh, goat. Yeah, she wouldn't eat goat and the tappers brought us to a restaurant where one of the one of the one of the meals one of the dishes was goat yeah she had a goat uh she had a pet goat named raisin yeah and i i think i actually knew that but i also did not know that they were going to be serving goat. It was a foodie place. So like they just brought you food. You know, you didn't order anything. You

just, you just, sorry about my dog. Uh, that's Clementine. Yeah. I got Seth's baby out here. So yeah. Um, so anyway, uh, we're about to get a new puppy by the way. It's very exciting. It's very exciting. Yeah. Well, you know, Winston, winston my my dear dog uh winston passed away a few weeks ago anyway um yeah so they brought goat and it was like a big thing between alexi and seth it was like a very uncomfortable moment they brought goat out and i said well you i asked you if you had any dietary restrictions and you said you said you didn't and seth goes i didn't think you meant pets well hold on I also was just I mean it's crazy it would be even crazier if you said you have any dietary restrictions and I said we don't need goat that would be an insane thing to say and now my sister-in-law has pet ducks and she won't

eat ducks so let me just say I mean it's not though it wasn't it wasn't raisin right it wasn't our goat I feel like I know of I'm not sure it could have been related though. It could have been raisins kin. Most goats are related. It's sort of like, uh, Genghis Khan. It's all goats in some way. Yeah. And all goats go, that's what makes their eyes sideways and, uh, look like they're all sort of reading. Isn't that a cake song by the way, goats Goats go to heaven, sheep go to hell? Or is it the other way around? Oh, it is a cake song. But it might be the other way around. Soul to soul cake. And now we're going to take a

quick break to hear from one of our sponsors. Jake, you just finished a family vacation with your kids and wife, and you guys went to Paris or France? Just Paris? Yeah, mainly Paris. We did a day up in Normandy Beach. But we did a family.

This was a very big experiment to see if we could do something like this. We'd done Caribbean and we've done California and we've done Idaho, but we've never attempted anything like this. And? I mean, I think it was successful, but we also called it early we um

because cnn was kind of kindly but also somewhat passive-aggressively suggesting to me that it would be better if i were in the anchor chair when the trump indictment came down sure remember there was like a thursday friday last week when they thought it was coming down it turned out it was just something else it was like some other guy at Mar-a-Lago or Trump Doral or whatever. But anyway, so I looked into how expensive it would be if we canceled the last three days of the trip and ended up being negligible.

So I asked the family and they were all like, yep, let's go, let's go, let's go home. Interesting. So they were ready to go. Yeah, I am the more adventuresome, more willing to be gone for like two weeks person in the family. And it goes in order of my wife is the least willing to leave the home followed by my son.

And then my daughter is closer to me. Where do they want to go? If they were to go somewhere, like what was it just too far away too long? I think the whole sleep schedule being out of whack for like a month is not fun which i agree with that and then also i think it's the duration i think like four or five days is the max but both my kids are super athletic now and alice is really into crew and jack is really into. So they also missed like really intense workouts.

Because they're 15 and 12. I think if I remember that age, I had a social life. And in the summer, the idea of it just no matter where you were, it felt like missing something. Yeah, there was definitely a lot of FOMO. But also just I think we, you know, one of the lessons we learned from vacations is that we need to have an activity at least a day. Right. Or else people get really bored. Like I'm fine going to the beach and reading and sleeping all day.

Like I am fine doing that. Sign me up. But they are not. So we need to do at least an activity a day. We had too many activities. Because you used to go to camp in the summer. Yeah. I did. Eight weeks.

I still can't believe they would ship us off for eight weeks. That's nuts. Your kids ever go to camp or no they've tried alice alice has been okay going away for a week or two jack hates it so much oh wow it's not it's you know it's a very jewish thing i feel like to go away to camp for like two months when jen and i married like and i told her you know i would spend summers like away from my family for like two months like she was was just like, oh, we're not going to do that. Yeah. She made a good point.

It's kind of crazy. Especially as your kids get older and you start seeing the sort of end of them living with you. But did you, because I have a lot of friends and I will say the higher percentage of them are Jewish that did this and went away for eight weeks and they loved it so much. And they're closest friends, these are friends of mine from college and they have far tighter friends from those camp years than anywhere else. Was that you? Did you love it? No. Interesting.

I loved it until I was like 12 or 13. And then I was, you know, a little bit more bookish, which is not a trait that does well at camp, even a Jewish camp. Just because it's a Jewish camp doesn't mean we're all sitting around studying. It was all- Just reading the Talmud. Little canoeing and then mostly Talmud. What do you got there? The Times business section? Can you pass? No, it wasn't that. It was, no, it was the same as any other camp. The guys, the big athletes with the big shoulders got the girls, and the nerds didn't.

I loved my summer, and I'm certainly, not that Josh isn't bookish, but I think I enjoy, my first choice is to sit and read a book. And I remember just being in my bedroom with the windows open in the summer, just lying in bed reading a book and thinking that was the absolute pinnacle of how a summer should be spent. Have you read this book? I haven't read it, but I'm so glad. Josh, will you allow it? Will you allow the book plug? I'll allow it. All the Demons Are Here, the new thriller by Jake Tapper I'm holding up right now, which Seth was nice enough to do a little Instagram photo of.

Seth was nice enough to do a little Instagram photo of. This is, I mean, again, jealousy is the wrong word, but I should, I'm going to frame it as a positive. I'm so massively impressed. This is your third. Third novel, yeah. I feel like you must structure your time very well to do your job and also manage to now write three novels in the course of what, five years, seven years?

Yeah, seven or eight. And these are only the three fiction novels. Right, I wrote three nonfiction. And Josh, I don't have your address, but text me your address and I'll send you a copy too. Yeah, I would love to have one. He doesn't love to have his address out there. It does, yeah.

I said text it. You don't have to give it to me right now. Yeah, I know. But you've obviously, you've mentioned so many famous people. I don't think we can trust you to not get the address out there. I'm sure you've sold a ton of these books, Jake. But it also looks like you have thousands of them stacked up behind you.

Jake has been doing some media hits. I've been doing media hits. I actually just put this up. I was just trying to figure out. I had like 20 books in the foyer and I put them behind me. Is that? Oh, I thought i i didn't know that was one deep across i thought it was like maybe 20 stacked no no no just i don't know i

was just trying to be creative it's great so all the demons here there's a third book in a series and these are fiction but they also play off uh your uh deep knowledge of history both and it should know like kind of fun history. Like this is 77. This is Evel Knievel. This is Elvis. Also, this is an incredibly fraught time. Yeah. I think sometimes people forget the late 70s was awful.

I think we all assume we're living through the most fraught time. It was pretty fraught back then because we'd just gotten through Watergate and the Vietnam War. Although, you know, we've also today just gotten through January 6th and the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. So, I mean, maybe it's similar. And I know this is not a podcast about books. I did want to mention it. That's all. No.

The idea for including Evel Knievel, I should note, came from Jimmy Kimmel. Just so you know. Wow. Evel Knievel, I should note, came from Jimmy Kimmel, just so you know. Wow. Now, I also want to say real quick, because I do think I have a great love of what I would call a beach read. And this, I do think your book is a wonderful beach read. I think you'd like it, honestly.

When were you guys born? What year were you guys born? I was born in 73 and 76. Okay. So you wouldn't remember these events, but so I was born in 69. So the only thing I remember from 77, which is the year that this takes place is Elvis dying and disco. That's really it. But when I went back to do this book, cause the first book takes place in the fifties, the second in the 60s. So then I picked 70, the 70s for this one. When I went back, and you're right, Seth, it was just like a really wild time, not just fraud, also like insane,

like the Studio 54 disco era was there was a lot more sex and drugs in the 70s than the 60s, to be to be frank. Yeah. It's also funny that the footprint of that time is a lot shorter than I think its cultural relevance. You're surprised when you look back at how long Studio 54 was a thing. And yeah, and it came out in 77. It launched in 77. But also, 77 was Star Wars.

77 was Saturday Night Fever. 77 was Elvis dying in the Nixon Frost interviews and all this other stuff. But I feel guilty because I know Josh is getting irritated because this is a podcast about family trips. No, no, no. I appreciate the indulgence. I appreciate the indulgence. I mean, we can't have people talk about TV shows right now because of the strike. But if you wrote a book, we can talk about a book.

So I'm happy to talk about a book. We're pretty happy to have a plug that is. Yeah. I also feel like it's sort of been glossed over that maybe I don't read, but I do read and I'd be happy to read your book. Yeah. I'm offering a free one. Yeah. You don't have to pay me.

Just send it to me and I'll send it to Josh because I can really tell he doesn't want to give you his address. Just send it to me and I'll send it to Josh. Cause I can really tell he doesn't want to give you his address. They're just, I mean, is there a, is there a local library that I could send it to and just have them hold for Josh Myers? Is that,

I mean, why don't you, why doesn't Josh go buy it and you just Venmo him? Is that maybe the best way to do this or PayPal? If that's better for you, Josh, whatever. Yeah.

I just asked this cause this is summer. Obviously you're working. Obviously you're covering in diamonds. There's no rest for you. True. But I want to ask, does the summer feel a little bit nicer being on the other side of your book coming out? Because I imagine not just the writing of it, but then what, about a year, a year and

a half after you finished that it actually came out? What's the lead time for a book like this? Yeah, I mean, I handed in the first draft about a year ago. But then, you know, then you edit and edit and edit. So with Twitter all weird and the late night shows, it's been a lot more challenging selling the book than in the past. Well, I do. The nice thing about books is people come back around.

And it is in a series as well. You don't have to read the others to get this one, though. No, but I think the drag for you is you have to write a fourth one we'll be back on we'll help you plug the fourth one on all the late night shows and then people who maybe forgot about this one will be like oh there's god i didn't even realize there was a third one you're gonna see a huge spike or i just give it a new title and sell this book again pretending it's a fourth book there you go yeah and i call it the myers the myers chronicles yeah yeah maybe or just change the names change a few names because i know it's a there's a brother and sister yeah just make it just make it seth and john john okay

yeah i'm trying to think with like a robert ludlum-esque title, like the Myers conundrum. Yeah. The Myers. Fine. You know, conundrum is better. Well, I was going to say the Myers mysteries, but that sounds like a TV show. That's a kid's book. That's like a Hardy Boys.

Right. But that would be good. Did you guys read the Hardy? No, Josh doesn't read. Seth, did you read the Hardy Boys when you were? Yeah. Josh is functionally illiterate. Yeah.

No, I read Hardy Boys. I did. You know, one of my first sketches, Encyclopedia Brown, to be honest. Yes, loved Encyclopedia Brown. I think that was... But I don't think I ever solved any of them. I think I just ran to the back and read the explanations.

I think so, too. I am in a room in Seth's house right now, and he is reading great short books. Now, hold on he doesn't like the long ones yours might be too long for me too long he likes the little shorties no here's what great short books was a gift a Christmas gift from mom and she gave it to me and she said I'm sorry I thought this was a collection of short books but I think it's just descriptions of short books is that what it is's just descriptions of short books. Is that what it is? I think it is.

I love how she realized what it was as she was giving it to you. The wrapping paper wasn't even off. And she explained. Are you reading anything now? Like, I mean, I know this isn't a beach summer for you, but I'm reading a ton. I'm often reading many things at once. Interesting. And you probably read a fair amount of nonfiction.

You strike me as a nonfiction guy. I'm reading right now about the French resistance. Cause when we went to France, my son and I, Jen and Jen and Alice went shopping and Jack and I went to Jack's a real world war two buff. So in addition to going to Normandy beach and, you know,

and seeing, and the, and the Normandy cemetery, we did this, we visited the Frenchandy cemetery, we did this, uh, we visited the, um, French resistance museum, which is a brand new museum in, uh, France that was very empty. Um, and I think it's because they are very embarrassed about their role in world war II and the, and the resistance museum is very like eyes open about how many French were collaborators or just went along

with, with the Nazi regime. And anyway, so I did, I knew nothing about the French resistance and there was a guy named Jean Moulin who like headed the resistance. And so I'm just, I'm reading a book about him.

He's really, he's like, we're not cool with this. Yeah. He was, he famously, obviously in France. Yeah.

Have you ever seen the movie army of shadows? No. Is it good? It's great. It's a wonderful French resistance movie that you have to see immediately. Is it fiction? It is fiction. It's late 1960s, I want to say. Army of Shadows?

Army, it's a Melville, Jean-Pierre, Jean-Pierre Melville. You guys have so many guests on who write books. Do you guys actually read those books? Oh, good question. I read a lot of them. Yeah. But some of them you don't. True.

Jake, I have this issue, which is maybe, so I found early on in late night, I would read all the books, or at least try to. But then if I read too much of the book, my questions were about the book and I felt like the audience was bored because they didn't want to hear me ask questions about a book they hadn't read. Right. So it's almost better to ask questions. If that's how you want to justify it to yourself. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's what I came up with. I think it's better if I don't read the book. Yeah. I think it's better. I think I sound like more of an expert audience. Yeah. It's better if I don't read the book. Yeah, I think it's better for the audience. I sound like more of an expert. Not for me, for the audience. Yeah, it's about the audience.

Well, movies I really try. I also don't want to lie and say, your movie's great, or your TV show's great. So if I ever am worried about that, I like to be in a position to say, I'm so excited to see it. You know what I mean? Yeah, because you don't want to say boy that sucked yeah or or the best i think the play would be like so i saw your movie

but don't you think now as somebody who like puts content out there that you are more generous with your judging of other people's art. One thousand percent. And thank you for, I think that's a very important distinction. Once you start making content and putting it into the world, you realize anyone who has made a film or a TV show or a book, you have such appreciation for everything they were up against creatively. Should we ask Jake some questions? Oh, yeah.

I got to minimize my screen here. You have, these are the questions we ask jake some questions oh yeah i gotta i gotta minimize my screen here you have these are these are the questions we ask our guests jake oh everybody gets asked the same thing yeah uh yeah yeah it's like the back of vanity fair or the thing at the end of the actor's studio by james s lipton yeah did you ever get to do the back of vanity fair no no you know who did you yeah me there you go You get the Idaho invite. Weird. I don't know. Well, the night is still young.

The Proust questionnaire. The Proust questionnaire, right, right, right. Oh, yeah. We used to do those as a family. That's a true thing. We would be driving, and my mom would ask us all our answers to the Proust questionnaire. Really? Yeah.

So we'd just do roses and thorns. What's roses and thorns? Oh, you don't know? Well, it's actually perfect for your kids at the age they're now. How old are your kids now? Seven, five, and almost two. Yeah, it's perfect. It's an end of the day conversation.

It's a dinner table conversation. It's like you're, what's the best thing that happened today? And what's the worst thing that happened today? Roses and thorns. Oh, great. You go around the table. I got it from, there are two things that I got from Barack Obama, from president Obama, from covering him. One was roses and thorns. Cause he talked about how he did that with Sasha and Malia. And I

thought, oh, that's smart. It's a good way to prompt a conversation. And then the other one was when I do Q and A's anywhere, he would always do, let's go boy, girl, boy, girl, which is a way to make sure that women are heard because otherwise men monopolize and women, for whatever reason, don't raise their hands as much, which is the top. And you know what? I will use this. I will shout out the other author in the Tapper family, Alice Tapper, now 15. How old was she when she wrote? It's Raise Your Hand, right? Raise Your Hand, 11. 11. So Jake's daughter wrote a wonderful book about encouraging. Is your daughter old enough to be read a book about this?

Because we'll send you one. Alice will write one, sign it to her. I'll give you Josh's address. You can send it to her. She's almost two, but she'll get there. She's smart. She's definitely smart. The boy-girl-boy-girl thing, I'm telling you, it's great.

Because otherwise, it just ends up being men at the microphone yeah that's very good all right josh is gonna fire give me the proust hit me with the proust marcel all right here you go uh your ideal vacation is it relaxing is it adventurous is it enlightening or is it educational we're relaxing okay it's me drinking on a beach what are you drinking on a beach what do you drink on a beach oh well since it's fictitious i mean like uh i mean it's something uh sweet like so it might be lemonade and bourbon it might be a pina colada yeah it might be those are really fucking heavy though you know so heavy i we just had one yeah we had them together it's like a milkshake it really is.

You know when you have too many of a drink and you forget that you're eating basically like six gallons of ice cream and then the next day you wonder, what happened? And it's like, oh, right. Just because it's some way the alcohol makes you forget about the caloric intake. But if I'm going to do a pina colada, I'm like, can you make it a lot of rum? And just a lot. If I'm going to have a 2,000 calorie milkshake. like, can you make it a lot of rum? Just a lot. Like if I'm going to have a 2,000 calorie milkshake. Yeah. Right.

You don't want to have to follow it up. No, I just, I don't want to. Right. I want this to be the drink. Right. But anyway, lemonade and bourbon is actually a good way to get around that. Sounds good. I like that.

I like the sound of it. You might be able to put one of those together today. Do you prefer to travel by train, plane, automobile, boat, or on foot? Well, we have boats now. We became a boat family because I married a Midwestern girl from Missouri and she loves lakes. We actually have a lake house. I love lake life. I have two boats. And I love Lake life. I have two boats. I own two boats.

I own a pontoon and a speedboat and I love them. And I, yeah, I'm becoming a redneck. It's really quite a thing. Well, there is a lot to say. Yeah. We've got friends who say when they're in the pontoon boat,

no one in a speedboat will wave at them. And I don't know if you've experienced this. No, I wave at everybody. I wave at everybody. Do they wave back? But do they wave back? Would a speedboat wave at you when you're in your pontoon? They're the snobs.

The speedboat people are snobbing you. Yes, that's true. But no, like on our lake, which is Lake Anna in Virginia, everybody waves at everybody. It's very nice. Yeah. If you could take a vacation, a family vacation with any family,

these people could be alive or dead, but other than your own family, who would you like to go on a family vacation? Oh, my mom's parents. It sounds like it's your family. Yeah. Yeah.

So they can't be your family. Oh, they can't be my family. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. I misunderstood. They can be fictitious.

They could be. Oh, I could go on vacation with anyone. Yes. In the world, but it be your family. Oh, they can't be my family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. I misunderstood the question. They can be fictitious. They could be... Oh, I could go on vacation with anyone. Yes. In the world. But it has to be... But they're family. Yeah. It has to be a family of gifts.

Yes. Family trips. That's what we're trying to... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. I know you thought you were on a book talk. I mean, so I can go like on a boat with John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy and John... A thousand percent. You sure can.

Off the coast of Hyannis Port. I mean, this sounds like your answer. It's a pretty good one. I mean, I'd love to do that. And he's like, he's got sunglasses on, he's smoking a cigarette, he's reading the Times, Jackie's there and she's taking pictures. He's like, do you need a white sweater, Tapper? Can I get you a can I get you a white sweater? Do you have like a knitted Greek fisherman

sweater? I'll take it. Yeah, can I get you super short white shorts and a big ol' bulky sweater? i don't know about the short shorts i might go with the khakis but i appreciate it but that sounds fun doesn't it yeah that's a good answer yeah out there quick to appreciate it if you had to be stranded on a desert island with one member of your family who would it be well my my wife right interesting well that's not always the way it goes but it seems like it is for you well how long am i going to be on this island okay let's just give it this is a pure answer let's just let you have it yeah yeah i think jen hopefully she'll listen i mean will she listen this deep into it i don't know but also like i mean at the mention of the

second girlfriend she probably turned it off but yeah i should know i guarantee you alexi's not listening so i don't know why i'm expecting jen to exactly um and then you're from uh you're from philly yeah yeah uh would you recommend philly as a vacation destination i mean i don't think of like city like i don't even think of new y or LA as vacation destinations. For me, like a vacation destination is like wilderness or beach. I mean, that's honestly, so no, not really, but not because of like, I think Philly is great. And if you were saying, I want to teach my kids about Benjamin Franklin, I'd say, okay, go to Philadelphia. But, but that's just not how I think of vacations. I think because I live in a city, I just think of getting away from cities.

Yeah. I've never, I've never been to Philly and I I just think of getting away from cities. Yeah. I've never been to Philly, and I always feel like I would just love it. It's a great, it really is a great city, and there's great food, and there's great museums, and there's great, it's really fun. Yeah. Next time Philadelphia's in a sporting championship of some sort, I'll invite the Myers brothers. All right. Or maybe I'll invite one Myers brother, and that would cause the Myers conundrum. Yeah.

Available now. Therein lies the rub. Paradox would be another one, the Myers paradox. Myers paradox, yeah, yeah. That's a good conundrum still there. And then Seth, you want to ask the last question here? Okay, it's a two-parter because based on the first part, there's a follow-up depending on the answer.

Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon? Yes. Okay. Is it worth going? Yes, but it's really hot. Okay. And you really have to plan. You probably went years ago when it was less hot in general. Yes. I went in the 80s on my teen tour. So hot in the 80s is now this is a this is a big strike against the Grand Canyon Josh but also you can't I don't think you can go in August at all like I think it's just like no don't go to the Grand Canyon in August it's so hot you have to go in like June or July and even then you're pushing it I mean you could also go in October theoretically I think they cover it I think they cover it oh yeah they cover cover it. Oh, yeah. They cover it in the fall and then they open it.

You say you've never been? No, no, I've never been. And I've been to the rim, but not below the rim because I had a dog with me. You can't bring a dog below the rim. Seriously?

Yeah. You can throw it over the side, but I'd say, like, almost no one does that. But then you have to get it out. It's like having your car fall through the ice if you're ice fishing.

Great movie, by the way. Great 80s movie, Below the Rim. Oh rim oh yeah it's about skateboarding right came after vanessa no i'd love to go but i think like yeah you can go when it's not hot i'm pretty sure people find themselves with a lot of free time in august that's the thing yeah by the way one of the things that was fun about France was everybody was about to shut down for August. Right. Like that's what they just, they don't work in August.

Yeah. The entire country shuts down. That's the new French resistance to working in August. If they made them work, they'd go on strike. Resistance to a hard day's work. Yeah. Oh no, I don't want to. Look, we got a on strike. Resistance to a hard day's work. Yeah. Oh, no. I don't want to.

Look, we got a lot of French listeners due to my mom's years of being a French teacher. We've got a real connection. All right. Thank you, Jake. We love you. Thank you so much for joining us. This was great, guys. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Jake, his brother, and his girlfriend, they all went to Greece. Not a great idea to travel in threes. They couldn't believe she brought a hair dryer. The type of boy's fault that was the end of her. Oh yeah! Well now

Jake just goes fishing with celebrities. Dropping names of Batemans and Mulanies. Says Adam Scott is such a lovely chap So tight with Johnny Knoxville calls him PJ Clap But Seth's never been What's with that? Yes, Seth's never been

What's with that? He dropped some Aniston Both of the Jimmys, Kimmel and Fallon Courtney Cox and David Chang Mark Roper of a YouTube fang But Seth's never been Jake rubs it in, what's with that? No, Seth's never been

Jake rubs it in, what's with that? Drop those names