Monday Morning Podcast - Monday Morning Podcast 12-12-18

Episode Date: December 12, 2018

Bill sits down with Judd Apatow.

In the mountains, in the kitchen, even in the living, they are really everywhere to drive those empty batteries. But now we are going to the finish, bring them to a Bebath collection point quickly. You will always find one in your neighborhood on Bebath.be Bebath! Together, better for nature and for all of us. Campaign in cooperation with the OVAM. It's coming out, I guess, what? Tuesday, Wednesday? We are going to put this out as soon as we can. I have a special guest here. You know, I don't do a lot of guests, so if I bring somebody in, they got to be a heavy hitter.

That's right. They got to be a mover, a shaker, a shot-caller. We have the one and only Judd Apatow here. Pleasure to be here. Judd, how are you, buddy? I like to be here. Usually you are all by yourself, just talking to the wall. Yes, I am. And usually you are in the midst of producing, which fascinates me. I try to talk to you about this because I like to think I am kind of a busy man, too.

Yes. How you manage to have movies, TV shows, stand-up special, master class, documentary on Gary Shandling. How the fuck do you keep all, like, how big is the war room? It's all management technique. That's what you want to know. I'll tell you a good management technique. The staff of Crashing is in the room right now writing the fourth season. The third season comes on in January, but they're writing the fourth season and I'm here with you. Yes.

That's management. So how do you check in with that? How do I check in on that? Every day, do they send you a draft and you just kind of keep it in bounds of where it needs to be? Or at season four, is it sort of up and running? Well, usually what it is is Pete and I and also Judah Miller and Orrin who work on the show will kick around a little bit what we think the season might be. Right.

We bring in writers for a month and we just kick it around very openly, like anything is on the table. And I'll pop in and out of those meetings and then there's notes and I'll read the notes and then sit in for half a day and then take a day off and then pop back in. And usually that gives me some perspective because you've been in those rooms. There's a lot of Chinese food. There's a lot of Danishes. You get tired. Lunch is huge.

There's a lot of people talking about things that have nothing to do with the show for very long periods of time. And then at some point I'll sit with Pete and we'll go through everything. Right. And go, OK, which ideas do we like? You know, my favorite thing is the mental break you take in the writer's room. It's like you're pitching, you're pitching, you're pitching, then you're fried. And like, I always look around the room and I'll just see someone hasn't pitched a minute. And they're just sort of staring down at the ground for about 15, 20 minutes.

And then they just come back up to like, yeah, all right, what a frank did that. But you literally, you have to do it. And what I learned on efforts for family, though, was like, I didn't realize how fried you get in the writer's room. And like, my drinking went off the rails a little bit. It was one little scotch and then it just became like three. So last season. At what time of day, though, are you having your scotch in the room? Oh, not in the room.

No, it was when I got home. When I got home, I would literally just, you know, put on the fireplace, turn it on now because you don't light a fire anymore. You just turn it on. And then I would just sit there like, yeah, and I was getting to that shit. It was just like, I need this at the end of the day. So in season three, like I did this thing, I go, not only may not drink in this season, I'm actually going to try to do the impossible, which is drop weight in this room, which I did. How?

I packed a lunch like I was a second grader. So every day that they would be going out, no, I had like this quinoa bean thing that I would always have. And then just fruit nuts, you know, would be my snacks or whatever. Because it's all reward. You want to reward yourself. You know, you get to work, whatever, nine, 10 o'clock. And all you think whole morning is, I think at 1230, the food's going to land. Oh, yeah.

The food's going to land. Then we could stop talking about this show and eat this food. And if everybody voted a place that you fucking hate, it's just like that is the longest day ever. But if you're going to like, you know, it's like a Friday and they picked an awesome like lunch place. That can literally, you pitch better. But I like that you are not in charge of that because the only area I will throw my weight around is if they say, hey, we're going to eat here today. I'm very comfortable going, we are not going there today. Daddy needs this.

No, there's definitely a, there's a, there's also, there's a generation gap. And that also goes with nutrition. Yes. You know, so there's people like my show takes place in the 70s. So there's, there's people that grew up in the 70s and other people were born in the 80s. So they're, they're more likely to go to something a little more healthy than the old sort of John Wayne people in the room like, hey, I'm not eating that shit. And some days there's a little bit of a mutiny, but it's not about the writers from here. I actually, they sent me, which is really cool.

Thank you. You guys sent me a link to the first episode of season three of crashing with the great Pete Holmes. And just once again, it's like, like watching that show, it's like, I've lived this. I've, I don't want to give away what the episode is about. But I mean, generally speaking, it's like Pete has now gotten to the point where he actually has his own place, which is awesome. And he's mentoring a young man. Yes. Jabuki from the daily show who's on the daily show.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Who's great. And it's he, he finally feels cocky enough to give someone else advice. Yeah. Oh yeah. He's talking like he's in the mix. He's kind of feeling himself a little bit.

And as always, this business will humble you. So he ends up getting humbled. And it's like, just the way the, the, uh, how you, when he gets humbled, I don't want to say it is the way it's written that, uh, he then lashes out at this person that he kind of smooth stuff over with. And that's just like the worst, especially with the woman that you get that whole, you're enjoying this, aren't you? You're enjoying that. I mean, I literally had that fight with my wife like two days ago. What was she enjoying that I lost my temper? Yeah.

And then she, you know, then she gets to, you know, like, you know how the deal is, you know, with women, nothing is off bounds. But like with you, you have to stay within the lines or else she'll never hear the end of it. So, you know, she, you know, you know, she was driving the car all over the place all over my life, let me know who I was. But, you know, she was right about a lot of it. And, uh, That's the worst part is that they are right about a lot of it. No, but they're all so wrong. So out of this whole period now where women, like they went from nobody listening to them to now everything that they say is spun with gold.

It's, it's, it's, it's, it's getting ridiculous. It's like, we have to be, okay, let's, let's, you know, women are like guys. A lot of them are just full of shit, you know, as our men. So, I mean, that's the art of life is trying to figure out who actually has the information that you need, which is why when I talk to you how to, you know, manage your show, you have the goods with everything you got going on here. Well, sometimes, you know, the thing about it is that you do need someone who has the perspective to judge ideas and how things are going. So there's a process of generating maybe a thousand ideas for a show. But if you're burned out from being part of that generation, it's hard for you to pick what works. And so like at girls, I was very involved in the writing, but I wouldn't go to the set because it was so well directed.

There was no reason for me to be there. The footage always was great. And Lena and Jenny were great at monitoring the directors and directing themselves. At what point did you have confidence to be like, all right, this thing is cruising? Well, I don't think I ever felt like it was, it was cruising, but I had confidence in if the script was good, they would shoot it great. Right. And then I could put all my energy into just reading the scripts to give them a person who could tell them the scripts worked. Right. You know, so they were tired from shooting and writing and they're exhausted.

And I'm able to have a little more energy to just read and go on page four. It's weird why they say that. Right. It's not tracking. And it's that's hard to do when you're in the thick of it and you're exhausted. And so there is a value to, you know, picking where you're helpful and where you're like, you don't need me here. I don't have to sit and look at over the director's shoulder. You're nailing it.

Let me save that energy for the writing part. I hate to admit this, but actually enjoy being in the writers room. Oh, yeah. I was like kicking and screaming thinking about God, I'm a comedian. I'm free. Why the fuck am I going to go back into the math class or whatever? And I should say this on days where it's working, when it's working and it's cruising and we're getting good notes, you know, we always get good notes. But I mean, positive notes from Netflix.

Like we enjoyed this, but then on the days were like, this doesn't really, there's too much of that. And then we go, all right, and then we try to fix it. And then it's just not working. Those are the days where I feel like I'm back in high school and I'm just like, is the clock broken? Like what, what, what are we doing here? So you're the teacher. That's the thing. You know, when you work on a show and you're not the teacher, like at the Larry Sanders show, if we did a table read and it wasn't working, then suddenly there is someone upset with you.

Right. And you are a shamed child that the script didn't work out. And then you're like, how can I fix it? And there's almost a daddy or mommy character that you're disappointing if the show isn't working or if the script isn't working. There's a lot of ways for it to be super unhealthy, but it is more fun. You're right. When you're that person and you can treat people well and you have your own strong point of view, it's not as painful. Yeah, I would say in my room at Mike Price is he's the captain of the ship.

So I'm the guy that sort of chimes in and tries to like, I don't know, keep it like certain things tethered to reality. If it starts getting a little too like absurd. But you know, you brought up Gary Shandling who like, you know, anybody who's even remotely in the comedy just, I mean, that guy's like on the Mount Rushmore there. And I just remember, you know, I watched, you know, you know, this is the theme, the Gary show. The first one I watched everything. I used to watch this tonight show sets. I just always just thought the guy, he just always, it was funny when, even like when I was in junior high as like in seventh grade, I knew that his stuff was just funnier. Yeah.

This is like a different level. Like this guy is better than all of these other guys. And I was wondering what was that like, you know, because I really, I sent an email about that. Like I thought the Gary Shandling documentary that you did was, that's my favorite thing you've done. And I have a 40 year old virgin and all this stuff. But what was that like? Cause you were friends with somebody. Sure.

Like that. You know, myself, I've lost a couple of friends and I know that certain things, it just gets like really emotional. What was it? But I never delved into their life to the level that you did with, with Gary, who was like a friend and a mentor to you. Like what was that process like, like how long did it take you to, to, you know, cause that was on par with like, did you see that Eagles documentary? Oh, I love that. It was like three hours long and it felt like it was 20 minutes. Yeah.

And it got through like a cross country flight watching that. I felt like the Gary Shandling doc was like that. What was that like? It was like the Eagles doc. If, if Gary wasn't on Coke. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny cause now that it's over and I've been, you know, I finished it six or eight months ago, something like that. Looking back, it's almost like a fever dream that I even did it.

Right. Because he died. I was really depressed and it threw me more than I thought because he was a constant presence of support. And I didn't realize what an important beam he was in everything. And, and, and I thought, I think there's just a lesson that he wants to teach everybody. And I'll tell you a story that it kind of launched the documentary is that I went to Gary's cremation. And so Gary's cremation was very, I mean, people don't go to cremations. You're not supposed to go.

Yeah. To cremation. No way. You saw him like sliding the body in. Well, kind of. It's Jesus, Judd. Basically, you know, what the fuck? Basically, how did you get tickets to that?

I mean, and I only tell the story because I think it's helpful to people in their own lives. Is that, you know, a friend put together a very small service. So if you can imagine, there's only like eight people there and, you know, and an oven. Basically. And, and like for Buddhist monks, right? So that takes the edge off a little bit. They're like, they're here. They're not freaking out.

Yeah. They were fine with it. That's their whole religion. Okay. So we go to this place and it's in the valley and it's not that far from these offices. And it's, you know, a crematorium. Is it part of a strip mall? There's like ramen noodles.

Get your tax done. Watch your friend get burned. Even worse. It's deeper in the valley where it's just next to a place that like, you know, makes glass bowls or something. It's in an industrial area. So we go there. It's clear no one's ever had a service in this space.

This isn't what people do. So there's no like room to do it. We're literally in like the lobby of a place that looks like a sham business of some place, right? And like what they're selling in the lobby, there's literally just like one desk and empty space. And did you make sure it was Gary underneath the sheets? It's like a fucking crash test dummy.

That'll be 50 grand. Like what they were selling there, they had these little pamphlets where you could take some of the ashes of your beloved and have them put into like a little glass figurine you could put on your table or like something you would wear. Oh God, let it go. It's old. They're gone. They're gone.

So we go, we go to this, this place and we go into this little room and again, it's like it couldn't be raddier really. They have a service which is very sweet and it's beautiful and moving and all of the ideas of Buddhism and then they take us in this room. Now the room with the crematorium, it's like the kitchen to a restaurant. It's just like a big room with a cement floor and like four or five ovens. So they did a little service. They hit some little fucking gongs or something like what happened?

Yeah, they're just, they did Buddhist prayers and they talked about Carrie's life and what life is about. You know, you live, you die, you learn the lessons that you can, you try to be as loving and kind as you can. Hopefully you grew and it was very sweet. That actually sounds cool. Now do they believe in a heaven and hell, Buddhist people? Here's my issue with Buddhism is that you get deeper and deeper into it.

It heads to reincarnation, I believe. And I always get lost when things get too magical. I like something that's clear like life is about being kind and that's it. That's as far as I usually can get. That's the script writer in you. You need it to land. As soon as it becomes magical in any way, as soon as someone's reborn or goes to heaven or hell, I'm lost.

Now I'm not 100% closed, but I'm pretty close. But I do, I can get interested in ideas that are about how can we, you know, let go of our egos and be kind. That's all I need. Okay. So we have the service and it's, and it's moving and then we go in the other room and it's literally, you know, a table with a cardboard coffin and then they say some more prayers and then at some point they open up an oven, which looks like almost like a dishwasher

and a restaurant and they roll it into the flames already going or do they turn it on after they close the door? There's a pilot light and then a Viking stove. What do they stick in? It's literally not that far from a pizza oven. Okay. And, you know, they put the cardboard coffin in and they close, close it almost like if a dishwasher in a restaurant and then they ask who wants to push the button.

Oh Jesus. And you know, they're saying, do they have a bunch of fake buttons like a firing squad like somebody gets blanks and one guy really blows his brains out. Yeah, no one wants to know who pushed the button. You don't want to carry that. And then a friend of Gary's, you know, push the button and then suddenly. You hear it fire up, you know, it's getting hotter than your normal pizza oven and the room gets hot and then it's like you smell something burning.

Like it's like, you know, if it was like a fire at your neighbor's house and suddenly like your chest hurts a little bit, then you realize it's Gary. There's no vent. I guess, I guess it maybe was a place that needed more ventilation. No, I mean, there is a vent. It's not like overpowering. Like the room is all filled with smoke. So do you realize like someday if you go on a fast to get rid of toxins in your body,

part of that is Gary Shanling? Exactly. And that would sadden me. But, but that's what was crazy about it. So now I love Gary so much, I will never go on a fast after I breathed it. Wow. So I'm, you know, watching this, crying my eyes out, just bawling. It's as intense as anything I've ever experienced.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty heavy. And I'm feeling it in my chest and I'm aware like that's Gary. We're breathing in Gary. And at first it, you know, part of me, it made me laugh like. Yeah. Because this is super creepy, dude.

You know, it's, it's creepy. It's kind of weirdly like, like Gary always would make the joke like, I'm inside you. You know, like there's like a sexual joke to be made there. Right. And then I just thought, God, Gary would find this so funny. All of us sitting here crying, watching them cremate his body. He would think that this was fantastic. Like me here bawling my eyes out, Gary would look and just go like, that's right.

That's what it is. That's what it is. And, and I thought in that moment, this is a lesson. Like having to look at that will change your life. Having to be at the crematorium about, you know, what's important. What do we care about? How do we treat people? What do you want to do with your life?

And I thought Gary wanted me here. He wanted me to go through this hell in this freaking, you know, Oh, is this part of his like, No, he didn't ask for it, but I just, I'm in like a spiritual level. I thought, this is it. Gary wants me to learn every freaking lesson to the point of his incineration. He wants me to look it in the eye and take from it, whatever I can take to be a better person. And I think in that moment was, you know, the seed of how do I tell other people this lesson?

Because I think in Gary's life, he was trying to figure out how to talk about this stuff. And, you know, it's very hard in comedy to do it without seeming really corny or weird. You know, as soon as people start talking about their spirituality in a sincere way, we're all like, shut the fuck up and it feels strange. You gotta be like interviewed by Oprah and she has to bring it out of you and act like, well, she asked me. That's the only way to, that's the only cool way to do it. I mean, and I had so many friends that tried to and they always seemed odd. And I think Gary, when he did comedians and cars, getting coffee was the first time he found a way to be really funny,

but talk about some things that he believed in. And I think that was his goal near the end of his life. He was trying to figure out how to reinvent how he did stand up and get some of these ideas in and he hadn't quite cracked it. He was really into silence. He loved not getting a laugh. He loved putting people through weird silences and he would say to the crowd that that's where it all is. It's all in that silence, right? And he didn't have a joke.

He didn't even know what to do with it. He just knew when the room went dead. Contemplating is what they're doing. They're contemplating what was just said. And so when I was working on his memorial service, I cut together four or five little mini docs about Gary. And when I was making them, I thought, oh, yeah, there's a whole movie about Gary, about what he believed in. And that's how it started. Well, it's incredible.

And it just came out on Blu-ray. People out there still have the Blu-ray players. You know, I still have a DVD VCR player, but my TV's too advanced. And I can't hook it up to that. So if anybody knows that there's some sort of adapter or some fucking thing I can do to try to make that work, I would appreciate it. I gotta ask you this, because I finally became a parent, so I had to get my affairs in order. You know, as a guy, you gotta make sure everybody's going to be okay. You got the will?

You got your state planning? To the point, I hooked my wife up so much she has motive. Like if I die suddenly. I've had the conversation with my wife and the insurance agent. Have you done this conversation yet? Where you sit with an insurance agent about life insurance. And he's like, well, if Judd lives to this age, you get this. If he lives at this age, you get that.

And it's gambling. You're gambling on me dying. Yeah, you're betting against yourself. Like, aha, I died before you thought I was gonna. Now you gotta give him all this money. And my wife wouldn't buy the extra insurance because she said, I feel really weird, you know, having any, you know... Handicaping your death? Yeah.

And she was deeply upset at the conversation. That was like six or seven years ago. And just the other day, she's like, maybe we should get that insurance. Yeah, that's what happens after a while. You know, once you have kids and stuff. But like, I, you know, I went with the cremation thing. I think it's so stupid to stick yourself in the box. And then there's like that important that there's got to be like a headset.

I guess it's for the living people have someplace to go. But I think now just with the world population. I mean, the graveyards at some point, I mean, I don't know if they're gonna dig deeper. You're gonna be underneath somebody else. But I've had a lot of people go, well, what if you still feel stuff? And it's just like, well, then let's get it over with. Which friend of yours thinks you still feel stuff? A lot of people are afraid of death.

It's just the stuff that, you know, something I don't even know. Because I, my short term memory is bad, but a lot of people say that about like, you know, if you get cremated, what if you still feel stuff? It's like, well, I'd rather just get it over with in a minute. I guess I die again somehow in that minute. But rather than laying there waiting for the worms to slowly work their fucking way in. Burn it, just toss it out of an airplane. I want to go, I want to, I wish, I don't just probably isn't legal in this country, but I want to do it like the Viking way. Like make a little ship.

Sure. Yeah. Send me out there. Gives people shoot some flaming arrows, you know, give me a little contest. It's like burn it on the Ganges. Yeah, it's like a clay pigeon type of thing. But anyways, what else we got? We got a benefit coming up too, that you're doing at the Gramercy for the Ronald McDonald house is one of the great charities out there. You can go to Juddapital.com slash tour.

That's January 15th. Gram is a Gramercy theater. Yeah, in New York and it's Pete and John Mulaney. Pete Holmes and John Mulaney. And Regina Spector and some cast members from, from crashing. Like Jabuki and Jamie Lee and me. And yeah, it's for the Ronald McDonald house, which is. Monster line up.

John Mulaney. That guy's just, he's just a. In New York, by the way. Genius, genius guy. So, all right, what else? What else can we, can we discuss here? We've promoted. We've promoted.

Oh wait, your masterclass. I have a masterclass. We are in the presence of him. How do you get, how do you like get, does somebody approach you with like, with something like that? Like you want to, like I could teach a masterclass on how not to read out loud. Yeah. How to fuck things up. How to make your wife mad at you for three days in a row.

Sure. I have that mastered. Three. What was your masterclass? Well, I, I did it because my friend Jay Roach, who directed Austin Powers, he directed my masterclass. So it's basically several days of talking to Jay Roach, who's asking me questions. Oh, there's no crowd or anything like that.

It's not like a Ted talk or anything. No, it's just, and they just edit it, edit it up. And I think it came out really well. You know, the thing you probably know, because you've worked with a lot of people and staffs is so much of it is just inspiring people to work hard. People are so damn lazy. Like people just don't put in the effort at all. I told, I told someone that the other day, I was like, look, you got to have a certain

level of talent, but what separates people is just like, I mean, the people who have like that work ethic, and it's almost got to be like, and people in this business are kind of workaholics. Um, I've learned that with the episode family. Some of these people, hey, I want to go through it again. I was like, oh yeah, yeah, like these people are fucking insane. Like they don't want to go home. Um, but the people that I saw, like just really, really, really work.

I don't want to name any names because then if I don't name names, people are saying, what are you saying? I'm fucking lazy. But I just, I saw a lot of people that weren't the guy, but work their way like into being the guy. But like, you know, with you, it's got to feel good when somebody comes and asks you to teach your masterclass. I mean, you certainly have the body of work and all the stuff that you've done.

Because that's, I think the last three times I've talked to you, that is what I've asked you. How do you, and my delegation of that shit, because I still want to be a comedian and still, you know, and the only way to still be in good is you have to be out there doing it. But if, if, how do I, you know, but I also love doing the show and then I also got to be a dad. Like how do you, how the fuck do you balance all this?

So is some of that in there, the master? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that like a lot of it is that you're just pushing, pushing balls forward. So you may be on the road doing standup and you have a great idea for a movie and it's just making sure in some consistent way, you're pushing it forward and making progress. Now you might finish it in three months, you might finish it in three years. But if you have four or five things going at the same time, that's really what it is is, you know, I might get up in the morning and go from the moment I get up to lunch,

I'm going to work with Pete. And then the afternoon I'm doing a movie with Pete Davidson. I'm going to, I'm going to rewrite Pete Davidson. Do you ever get burned out? Do you get frustrated? The illusion attempt? You seem like a chill guy. Is this like a, is this how you are?

Or like you behind the scenes, you, one of those guys throwing laptops like it doesn't work. We're going to stay here all night. I only get crazy on two issues. What, like two or three issues. One is if the food order is wrong, I just, I can't handle it. Like if they don't bring the salsa with the burrito, like I so reward myself with food. That could go viral.

That could go bad. You're, you're, you're flipping out. That's okay. That's, that's, that's understandable. My biggest moments of shame where I go, you really lost it or mainly around food. But the areas where I get crazy, one is I used to, people would tell me I couldn't have my casting and that would always drive me crazy. If I said, you know who the star of the show should be, it should be Jason Siegel.

And then Fox would go, no, that's where my head would explode. And where would you explode on the phone to them in your car, to your windshield? Every, every scenario. I mean, I, I'd be, I'd be screaming. I'd be in tears. I would be threatening. I'd have agents calling and I never won as a result. It took me years to realize all my emotional reactions have never won me the fight.

And then when I stopped behaving that way, I started winning more of those debates, but I would get so upset because to me, the worst thing in the world is if, you know, you have an edit of a movie and someone forces you to change it and you've ruined your own movie due to someone else's thoughts. How often has that happened? Well, it, it, I, that's the one area I just can't allow to happen. Now I have had things change in the past that I look back at more so, you know, a couple of decades ago where I did give in and not even right now,

if I thought about that movie, I'd be like, oh, why did we cut that scene? They told us to cut that scene. And there was a scene in. And did you feel it because you were young and just trying to get your foot in the door? Everybody always says that thing. You know, you just got to let him get him, get you the first time. And then the next time you'll be able to write your own ticket. Now, do you, do you subscribe to that?

Well, I think it's true only in the sense that you can't win. You just don't have the power. Right. So we made this movie heavyweights and Paul Feig was in it and Stiller played the bad guy. It was a summer camp for fat kids. And it was, it was a Disney movie. And then when we finished it, Steve Reel directed it and wrote it with me. It was just a little darker than any Disney movie you've ever seen.

And it ended with. So it was funny. Yeah, it was funny and not in the way that a lot of those movies are. Yeah. I'd still, at the end of the movie, he's lost his mind. He's the owner of this fat camp. He's like this like demented Tony Robbins guy. And he's got a bow and arrow and he's like threatening to kill all the children.

Right. And Disney said, you know, you really can't have him like point, pointing bow and arrows from children at children or like three feet away. Right. And so we had to re-edit the sequence. That's the kind of stuff I'll wake up at two in the morning and go, why'd we cut out the goddamn bow and arrow sequence still eats at you? Yeah.

And I might have five of those. And so that's where I can. So what point in your career were you like, all right, all right, Judd, screaming at people and flipping out during these moments isn't working? Yeah. Like how did you, because I am like my big Achilles heel is, it's not, but it's funny. It's not at work. I don't flip out in comedy clubs.

I don't, I've never flipped out at F as a family. I've raised my voice. I'm like, Jesus, cry away. How do we fuck about, but I never like got to the point of like, you know, never had a big, you know, storm out fucking throwing shit. Never had one of those. But like, it's more like at, at, at home. Yeah.

I, I, you know, I just, I flip out about just stupid shit. Like I fucking suck at these iPhones and laptops. I get so, I'm so frustrated because I don't like them. Technology doesn't fascinate me. It's not something I'm interested in. It's, it's ruined the world. So, and, you know, many ways it has it now, the other ways it has it medically is, it's nice.

When your kids older and they don't look up at you for hours, you'll, you'll go, they ruin the world. Yes. Yeah. That aspect of it. But I definitely like, I just don't like how yesterday I knew how to use this device. And then now I don't. Now I have to go through this fucking bullshit.

It's just every time, you know, you move three feet ahead, they knock you back with a new, you know, updated system and then you can't, you can't opt out of not updating it because you should be able to keep your phone for years. And they're just like, no, we're going to fill up this fucking phone until you have to bring it in. And then we're going to take everything off it and sell to some kid in the Philippines. And you just feel like you're just part of this thing. And like, that's the type of shit.

Like I'm trying to, you know, and I'm failing miserably at it. But explain the flip out. Is it a loans, like throwing it against the wall? Are you yelling at another person? Like what does it turn into? I just literally, like my wife will be just totally chilling watching TV and then out of nowhere, I'll just be like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. You fucking piece of shit.

I flip out like that. And like what I don't know, because I grew up with that. I didn't understand what it was doing to her as far as just really just having her be on edge. And yeah, so I mean, how does she tell you not to do it? What's her approach to telling you to chill out? Oh man, she's just straightforward. She's straightforward.

She said, she said some, I'm not going to, you know, this is too intimate a detail, but she said some shit to me like two days ago that I will never forget. And I was like, wow. Well, because when you have a kid, it changes everything because you're, she knows you're about to do it in front of a child that understands it. So when they're little, they're babies and you can go in the other room, but at some point you just spend so much time with your kid that they will absorb it. Yeah.

And then you go, do I like the way I move in the world? Because I think my kid's going to copy it. Yeah. So fortunately, I am really on my best behavior for the most part around my kid. She's seen me flip out a few times, but I quickly try to turn in and do a joke. But it's something, yeah, I got to go to therapy, dude, because I don't want to, because she's getting to the point now where she's repeating stuff. And I just don't, I don't want to, this is the deal.

She's not going to be like me. I already know she's not going to be like me as far in a good way. So I mean, that's, that's kind of, what does that say about me? Like my job as a dad is to make my kid not like me. Well, the one thing I've learned. Hey, you're half me, but I don't want you to be me at all. I want you to be like your mom. Well, they don't really have the damage of us, you know, so that's the thing I've noticed

is, you know, my kids are hilarious, but they're neurotic kids too. But they didn't go through some of the intense things that I went through that really built how my mind works. But I'm sure they have their own, their own menu. I bet. No, I bet there's a whole new level of shit with just like social media didn't exist. So like what I liked about my childhood was one school was over, the ass kicking was over, whatever thing, humiliation, I could go home.

It was fine. It didn't continue. The Mike Douglas show was on. You'd watch it. Yeah. He'd heal. Yes. Yes.

There wasn't this think tank of kids trying to, you know, getting all online and piling you in the shit that they deal with. So and they know when they're being excluded. So the biggest issue is because of Instagram, you're aware what you've been invited to. So when people are hanging out, you're like, oh, they didn't want me at this thing. When I was a kid, I was excluded by everybody. I had one or two really good friends. But basically, if I thought it about it, if I think about it now, I was excluded from

every possible social thing that was happening. You weren't tasked at the club. But I didn't know it. You know, I just would go home every day and just watch the dinosaur show and be fine and wait for my friends to get back from football. But now the kids know like, oh, those three girls went to the mall. Oh, those two are hanging out at this concert and they feel bad. No.

And then they take a picture, which is not an accurate depiction of what it's like. It's like they're selling the movie of like their life or anything. So that's the thing I get nervous with. And that's been, you know, a source of, you know, back and forth. Me and my wife is like, I don't like her watching TV and all of this shit. And I don't like her eating junk food. And, you know, and she has more of like, look, she wants a little bit TV. She occasionally has McDonald's.

And it's like, it's like, all right. But, you know, I mean, this is the fights you have because you when you're married, you're instantly deciding how much do I care about each thing? And what, how far do I want to push my wife like in knocked up one of the scenes that I like, but it's, it's a intense scene is Leslie sitting there and she's looking at a website that tells her where sexual predators live in the neighborhood. And Paul comes in and he just keeps making jokes about it. And she's really freaked out.

Like, do you know there's a guy like three, three streets over and Paul keeps making jokes like, well, let's not go to his house on Halloween. And then finally she's like, that's what I would do. And then she finally says, like, sometimes I just want to rip your fucking head off because you're so fucking stupid. And that really is what marriage is about. Is there, there are issues that you care about, like how much McDonald's should the kid eat?

Now, when I was a kid, I swear to God, I had McDonald's. I'm not kidding you six times a week. And I loved it. I ate it. My mom had no issue taking me there every single time. We used to go out as a family. Like it was fine dining. We go out there.

We had a big family. So it was five cheeseburgers, five small fries, five chocolate shakes, two Big Macs, two large fries, two Cokes. That was the order for years. And it was awesome every time. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, and I used to be jealous when I got older because I kept getting

a cheeseburger and I was big enough to get a quarter pound of cheese, but I was afraid to ask as you get shit. And I just be looking at theirs and they were only like halfway through it with their little mouths trying to eat it. And I was, it wolfed mine down. But, uh, yeah, I remember what I used to, when I was really young and I lived in the North Shore of Boston, I remember there was a McDonald's and there was this train track that was right by.

And you would throw some of your French fries to the seagulls. Yeah. And you get to see a train go by and you'd be sitting outside and it was like some of my fondest memories as a kid. And, um, you know, yeah, there was no, yeah, you know, they were roughly the same age. So it was just all, uh, you know, peanut butter and fluff and all these, these, you know, And there's nothing bad about it.

When did you even realize McDonald's was bad? And what, like, how old were you when you were like, I guess I shouldn't eat this. Well, you knew fast food was bad, but you didn't know to the point, like, I mean, McDonald's, remember a few years ago, they had a bulletin bulletin, a billboard just came out and it's like now with a hundred percent beef, which is obviously, well, what the fuck was it before? Did you, did you watch that movie founder with Michael Keaton? Oh, you got to watch that.

Michael Keaton's amazing in that movie. And it's such a, it's such a well done movie about like all of that type of stuff. So, um, But then, you know, your wife says, uh, I want to give the kids some McDonald's and you're like, I think it might be awful. Now I have the, I have the reverse with my wife. Well, it used to be poison. I think now it's more like it's a little more healthy, right?

Now it might be just nothing. I don't know. No positive anything, but my, my wife early in our relationship when I would get McDonald's would look at me like, what is wrong with you? Are you an adult? Like you eat this food. She was so disgusted. She shamed me to such an extent that I don't even sneak out and get it.

Like she, she programmed me to be disgusted by the thing that made me so happy. Yeah. My thing was when I was going to be healthy. I went to Wendy's because Wendy's seemed like it was actually burger meat. Yeah. It probably wasn't either. No, it probably wasn't. Well, dude, I got to tell you a minute.

It was, it's such a thrill to have someone like you come on, on the show and like, and I really appreciate the advice both on this and on off that you've given me as far as like how to, you know, you know, keep it all kind of going without, without screwing it up. And I'm definitely going to check out that masterclass that you were in. Everybody check out January 15th at the Gramercy. I want you to want to say hotel Gramercy theater. John Mulaney, Pete Holmes, Judd Apatow for the Ronald McDonald house is going to be

a go to Judd Apatow.com slash tour. Once again, season three of crashing with the great Pete Holmes. January. In January, Gary Shanley documentary is on Blueway and it's masterclass.com where you can just, I guess, imagine search Judd Apatow. And Pete Holmes new special airs, I think on the 15th, which is, he's got a great new standup. What's it called?

It's called dirty clean. Dirty clean. And where, where can they see that? That'll be on HBO. On HBO? I love it. Oh, that's why, why wouldn't it be on HBO? He's in business with them.

All right, Judd. Thank you so much for coming in. Everybody thank you for listening and check out Judd Apatow January 15th, Gramercy theater. All right, buddy. Thank you. Thanks buddy. Thank you so much for watching.