Mark Ronson Returns

Mark Ronson (Night People: How to be a DJ in 90s New York City) is a Grammy and Academy Award-winning producer, songwriter, and DJ. Mark returns to Armchair Expert to discuss feeling the full circle moment returning to vinyl after coming up as a DJ in the 90s, the tangible difference between experiencing the sounds of records versus digital media, and not playing his own records because he wants to earn the crowd on merit. Mark and Dax talk about having a vague memory of Robin Williams waking him up as a child during one of his parents’ parties, launching soggies from the 10th floor with Michael Jackson, and the lovely memory he created playing Wonderful Tonight during his mom and stepdad’s wedding. Mark explains gigging at the holy love child of Broadway camp and total Times Square sleaze, the breakthrough moment he changed everything by mixing Biggie’s The Benjamins with ACDC’s Back in Black, and being so grateful he developed his craft in the era where you had to physically hunt down records to sample. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ http://www.wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Patton.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:06Dax Shepard?

  Hi, I did an intro for you yesterday.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  You did?

• 0:09Dax Shepard?

  For Mom's Car.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness. And what did you have to say?

• 0:13Dax Shepard?

  Well, I was trying to rattle off all your many non duplores. And there's just so many.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Oh, that's nice.

• 0:21Dax Shepard?

  Um, today we have Mark Ronson. I don't know if he has any non duplores. Do you think I'm saying that correctly?

• 0:26Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah.

• 0:27Dax Shepard?

  I'm out on a limb with it.

• 0:30Dax Shepard?

  Uh, Mark is an internationally renowned DJ, Oscar winner, and nine-time Grammy Award-winning producer and songwriter. Uh, his albums are Late Night Feelings, Uptown Special Version, Here Comes the Fuzz, but also he did the Barbie soundtrack.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  He sure did. He scores huge movies.

• 0:47Dax Shepard?

  He wrote that awesome Dua Lipa song that's on there.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Uptown Funk, Valerie, Electricity. He's one of the biggest music producers we got.

• 0:55Dax Shepard?

  He's a monster. Um, and he has a new memoir out on September 16th, 9/16, called Night People. How to Be a DJ in 90s New York City. And it's just a huge love letter to New York in the 90s.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  And his stories are wild, as you'll hear.

• 1:10Dax Shepard?

  No, he has one of the craziest childhoods and lives imaginable.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16Dax Shepard?

  Please enjoy Mark Ronson. We get support from Quince.

• 1:20Speaker 01

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• 1:40Dax Shepard?

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• 1:56Speaker 01

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• 2:07Dax Shepard?

  Well, I'm gonna tell you this, it just got chilly for the first time this year. In California and I'm so excited and I'm wearing my Quince cashmere right now.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 2:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and I am going to gift this to some of my friends. I hope they're not listening.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Quince is also more than clothing. They've got fine jewelry for your significant other, leather bags for your bestie, hotel quality bedding to set up your guest rooms, chef-grade cookware. That's an amazing thing they offer here and it's such a good gift because people don't like buying cookware for themselves, but it's very important. And they also have five-star luggage, another good gift that people don't like buying for themselves.

• 2:41Dax Shepard?

  Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. This episode is supported by Helix.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Okay, can we talk about how November is basically survival mode? Between the holidays, the travel, the hosting, the cooking, the everything. Sleep is the one thing keeping me from completely unraveling.

• 3:17Dax Shepard?

  It really is the foundation and I think people underestimate how much a bad mattress is quietly ruining their day. You wake up stiff, your back's angry, you're already behind before your feet hit the floor.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  That was me before Helix. I took their sleep quiz, which is so fast. It took me like two minutes and they matched me to a mattress that actually fits how I sleep. Not a guess, not a firm or soft coin flip. It's a real match. I have a midnight mattress and I really like it. I was noticing it because I actually had to sleep in one of my other beds recently.

• 3:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  That doesn't have a Helix mattress on it and I really could tell a big difference in my sleep.

• 3:50Dax Shepard?

  Temperature was all over the map.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  It was a mess. I need a new one.

• 3:53Dax Shepard?

  Look, they've got over 20 mattress models, so whether you sleep hot, need extra back support, or you've got a partner who moves around all night, there's one built for you. Plus free shipping and a 365-night happy with Helix guarantee. That's a full year to decide.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Helix has been named the most awarded mattress by Forbes, Wired, and more. So it's not just us being enthusiastic. The experts agree.

• 4:15Dax Shepard?

  Right now Helix is running their Black Friday sale with up to 30% off. Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. Helixsleep.com/armchair.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  What are you guys chewing? I'm jealous.

• 4:52Dax Shepard?

  Oh, nicotine.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Oh, no, I'm okay.

• 4:54Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  I mean, I did do nicotine gum for a long time, but it used to be in rectangles. Now it's in these little circles.

• 5:00Dax Shepard?

  These are lozenges. And then I augment also.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  With cigarettes.

• 5:06Dax Shepard?

  With a direct nicotine spray.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Okay, cool.

• 5:08Dax Shepard?

  Which I'm gonna do right now.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  And then how?

• 5:11Dax Shepard?

  How do I sleep?

• 5:12Speaker 02

  No, I just mean, like, is there a weaning thing? Or you're just good with that now?

• 5:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no, cuz there's nothing.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  There's nothing bad about it.

• 5:18Dax Shepard?

  There's nothing bad about nicotine. It's just a delivery device. Why did you quit the gum? It's so fun and playful.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  I think at some point I just didn't need it. Maybe. I don't mean to, that sounds like I'm...

• 5:28Dax Shepard?

  You need it.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  I need it. Do you know? Are you friends with Justin Theroux?

• 5:33Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  He's just always popping. I like the patch, I like the gama. I don't know, it just stuck.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Most people are like you. They use it for a purpose, to get off.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  And then they're done. But not you.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  And I went back and forth a lot. And then it was the hypnotism. Cuz I probably went back to smoking. And so the hypnotism was the thing that...

• 5:50Dax Shepard?

  That's a big missing.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Big different.

• 5:52Dax Shepard?

  Part of the story.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:54Dax Shepard?

  You know, I wouldn't have known this off the top of my head, but we interviewed you in June of 2021.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Long time.

• 6:01Dax Shepard?

  And then a couple of months later, you were married.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  I know.

• 6:04Dax Shepard?

  And then you have since had two daughters, as I have two daughters. Congrats.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  I have a really clear memory of listening to our podcast, our interview, sitting in a car outside the In-N-Out. I had gotten my burger and I was going back to New York. I think I worked all day on a studio session and it had just come out. Just like one of those really lovely, sitting in a car, listening to this interview, listening to me talk about my wife, you know, when we're sort of about to get married. It's just a very Magnolia Paul Thomas Anderson kind of lonely L.A. kind of thing, but also very warm and sweet cuz I was listening back to our thing and I'm talking about my wife who I obviously love. And it's funny, it's really ingrained in my memory, that interview we did.

• 6:43Dax Shepard?

  Oh, good. That's our goal.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  It was lovely.

• 6:45Dax Shepard?

  That was through the terrible interface.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  That was Zoom.

• 6:48Dax Shepard?

  Computers, that was, that was a COVID interview.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, and we found out that you and Bradley Cooper have the same birthday.

• 6:54Dax Shepard?

  Three days apart.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  September 4th, so you're a Virgo as well.

• 6:57Dax Shepard?

  And he's about to turn 50.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  You're about to turn 50.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh.

• 7:02Dax Shepard?

  It's her birthday in four days.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  On Sunday.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Happy birthday.

• 7:05Dax Shepard?

  How do you feel about 50?

• 7:06Speaker 02

  It feels like I'm full of shit, but I don't feel a certain way. I think because I'm so fucking grateful about where I am with family and that was the thing that I never pictured for myself. So I feel so settled in it. Everybody's like, are you gonna throw a big party? I keep having these flashes of seeing pictures online of like Nas' 50th birthday with everyone in tuxes and it's like Gatsby.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  And in my head, I'm like, I've DJed so many great parties. I've had some great parties. My book is coming out 10 days later. I'm in the middle of fucking scoring a film. I don't think I'd be able to let go enough to have that party right now. I don't think I'd enjoy it. It's not really the time.

• 7:41Dax Shepard?

  Well, you can put a pin in it. I was anti-party as well. My birthday's January 2nd was just the worst. We were in Mexico. We got norovirus on my birthday. Everyone was dead. I was like, wow, I literally might die on my 50th birthday.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 7:55Dax Shepard?

  Regardless, got home and even though Kristen knows I didn't want to party, she did plan a surprise birthday party.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  Was it a milestone birthday or no, just a regular birthday? Oh, you just, you just did 50?

• 8:04Dax Shepard?

  I just turned 50 in January.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 8:06Dax Shepard?

  So, she rented the roller rink down the street and I don't know, how many other was this? Maybe 40 or so?

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Probably something like that.

• 8:14Dax Shepard?

  Forty people roller skating to a great playlist with some incredible barbecue was brought in. It was about as good as it could get.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  What date was it? How long after the thing?

• 8:22Dax Shepard?

  It was a couple of weeks after my birthday at least.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  I could do that.

• 8:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so when you're done with the film and the book comes out, maybe we rent Moonlight Rollerway and we just

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:33Dax Shepard?

  reset it.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  I was trying to imagine the kind of thing where I'm surrounded by people I love and doing something that would be wonderful and not stressed out. I would be stressed out roller skating, but something to my equivalent of that.

• 8:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, what would be yours?

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:45Dax Shepard?

  Big kayaking party?

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Yes. So it's just something fun. I don't know, like Greco-Roman wrestling.

• 8:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's great. As social and as big of an extrovert as I am, if a lot of people gather for me, I'm very uncomfortable. That the roller skating rink for me was a dream because everyone already knows I'm there to skate. I love to skate. I skated the entire party, other than blowing my candles out. So I'm just out there and then I'm seeing, hey, it's a nice little chat while you're skating and dancing. So it was a great little.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  No pressure to have to talk to every single person.

• 9:15Dax Shepard?

  Cause that's what I think. Oh, people I haven't seen in a couple of years are gonna come. I owe all of them 35 minutes of heart to heart catch up.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Cause yeah, you think about it, you're gonna go around, say hi to everybody and before you know it's three in the morning.

• 9:27Dax Shepard?

  That's right. But I'm gonna fast forward to a question I was gonna ask you at the very end of this, which is, reading your book, got me so nostalgic and I have been saying to Kristen for a while, we had to go to Atlanta for work for something. And I said to her on the way, they're like, we're gonna go out dancing. Like I'm gonna find a club with some good hip hop and we're gonna go dancing. And she's like, can it be at eight? And I'm like, no, that's not how clubs work. And she's like, I can't do that with you. I want you to go ahead and have fun. And it occurred to me like, will you ever as an old man, still go to a club and enjoy that scene?

• 10:00Speaker 02

  The crazy thing about this book is a really good friend of mine read it and he's always got a good insightful, off the wall take on something when I play him a piece of music or read this book. He's like, I love the book. It just sounds like you really miss DJing. You need to go back to DJing and only playing vinyl again. So my first thought was like, Jesus Christ, like hauling those like hundred pound crates of things. I gotta find them all. And like, cause I've been DJing with digital, not to get too techy, but for the last 20 years. You DJ CDJs and Serato and all this stuff, but I was like, it's worth a try. So I started DJing again and there's this great club, you know, great clubs all over Brooklyn.

• 10:35Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you're now currently.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Not only I just DJing, I'm like hauling crates of records. Like I'm stumbling home into bed at like 2:33 in the morning. My wife, who is very happy for me, but completely missed out, fortunately on this first phase of my life, is just like, oh, fuck, I married a DJ. I didn't count for this. She's kind of supportive of it, but like I'm up at 6:30 with the kids, like no matter what.

• 11:02Dax Shepard?

  And so you'll do it after getting home at three?

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, cause I kind of want to and I'll find it. Nap later in the day.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  So I have been, the difference is back when I was DJing in my twenties and thirties and it was my whole life. I was DJing every night and then going out to see other DJs, AM, whoever on other nights. Cause that's how you stay in the game. It's really hard for me to go out till three in the morning if I'm not working. But yes, I've had this weird thing where I'm like, oh, fuck it. It's like dragging me back in. This book is about New York in the nineties and me coming up as the DJ in my twenties. And it's a lot about the emotional highs and lows of being a DJ. But I'm going out now and I'm playing music and hip hop from the nineties and two thousands. Mainly because that's what all the fucking young kids are playing anyway. But it's so funny to play these records and be reliving these literally physical actions of this other time to kids who are not alive.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  When I was doing it the first time, so it's kind of lovely.

• 11:56Dax Shepard?

  So are you able to lock in and have the experience? Or does it feel like returning to high school?

• 12:03Speaker 02

  I think it's both. There's obviously something about reminding myself by literally physically going through the motions of this thing. When I was sort of at my best or my peak or at this magical time in my life, which is making the whole thing sort of come back.

• 12:20Dax Shepard?

  There's two scientists, they wanted to catalog every single movement the face was capable of making. That was their objective. But what they found out on accident was when they were going like, okay, well now do crying, right? They found out that the physicality can inform the emotions. Generally your emotions start the physicality, but it works in both directions. And so I can imagine where even if you had reservation going there and this is going to feel awkward. Once that physical activity, the memory of that might reverse engineer the emotion.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  I read so many books and books about sound and how music works with the brain while I was writing my own book. Cause I just thought, who knows where I'll get a nice little tidbit. And one of my favorite studies is of this old age home. Where they started playing all this music and baseball games and things on the radio from the 30s and 40s, which is when these people would have been in their formative years. And it literally slowed the aging process of these people because there's just something about taking your brain back to that time or whatever it is.

• 13:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  And then there's this other thing, which I found in another book, is that in a place for, I don't even know what you're supposed to call this thing, but the home for neurodivergent. Neurodivergent. Honestly, the first time I ever heard the word neurodivergent was in Barbie. I just thought it was so funny because she was like, look at that crazy, I mean, sorry, neurodivergent person.

• 13:39Dax Shepard?

  Because sometimes, really, in good faith, the amount of time I spend trying to figure out like, what do I say?

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:46Dax Shepard?

  How do I describe this?

• 13:47Speaker 01

  How do we be polite and respectful, but also?

• 13:50Speaker 02

  And the amount of time now it's taken me to find the right word, you're all gone somewhere else and actually angry at me, so.

• 13:57Dax Shepard?

  No, so there's a neurodivergent.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  There was a place where neurodivergent patients lived and they would play records of Bach and Mozart that would calm them when they were having their more intense breakdowns. And they tried to switch out the records with MP3s and they played the same thing. And because they're compressed, so they don't have all of the same frequencies, the things that we don't necessarily hear, but the vibrate in the skin are not in MP3s, it actually made the patients more agitated.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 14:23Speaker 02

  So, so the only way that sort of links back to going back and DJing vinyl again is there is this thing, I don't like to get caught up too much in the vinyl versus things, like who the fuck cares? You're just not like an angry old man. But there's something about playing vinyl again for kids who've never seen anybody do that, I can just see they're kind of like watching, like it's a bit of a show. And I'm not AM or A track with these crazy routines, but it is my chaotic vinyl ballet and I'm throwing records on and off. There's a lot of reasons why I'm doing this and I'm enjoying it. It's serving a purpose.

• 14:54Dax Shepard?

  I want to say on the vinyl CD MP3 thing, just minimally, one's a wave and one's a particle in a sense, right? Like one has been broken into bits and assembled and one is one continuous wave.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:07Dax Shepard?

  What effect that might have on your brain or how you perceive that or not, I do think is possible.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  I didn't want the book to get. Too nerdy if I was conscious of anything that might turn somebody off or make them wanna skip. I was talking about the fucking record needles for too long. But I did learn actually new things studying it, like the way that you make a piece of vinyl. The grooves in it are just microscopic wiggles of electro fucking signals that are carved that then the stylist interprets to be sound. I was like, God, I've been playing this shit for like thirty-five years and I never even knew that.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  When you are now DJing, what is the different feeling? Because now you're established. You're a famous person.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  And before you were coming up, there's a lot of hunger there. What is the feeling now? Like, how do you recreate that feeling?

• 15:53Speaker 02

  I feel just as hungry because I think there's just something in it always that I feel like I'm underdog or I have something to prove. And I still think the fact that I've been out of the game, like not DJing in nightclubs four times a week and in that zone where you can just walk into any club and know what to do and murder it. That already is enough to be like, am I gonna know what the first record is? But the other thing is that now, the fact that I'm, as you say, like famous, or I have records that people know, uptown funk, Valerie, electricity, whatever it is. I have this sort of cheating advantage when back then I just had to go in on the merits of being a great DJ and playing records really well and murdering it. Now I know, oh, if there's a bit of a lull, I play Valerie and I know I'll get everybody.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  So I almost have not been playing my own records as well because I just wanna earn it back the way I used to play.

• 16:43Dax Shepard?

  This is the same, you'll talk to any stand-up comedian. Seinfeld famously will say, yes, when I go to a nightclub, I am gonna get five minutes of free time. They're gonna be so excited to be seeing me, but then that'll end. There is an objective reality in stand-up. You're funny or not. And same with you. I would imagine you still can sense a room. You can read a room, you can feel it, and you still will perform or not perform. So at some point, I would imagine the actual act of doing it is very objective.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:11Dax Shepard?

  So all the fame or whatever, the preconceived notions will be gone shortly and you'll either sink or swim.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And I tried to write about that in the book. The book is very diaristic about the nineties. I really do. Didn't want to like have any kind of And 20 years later, I would go on to play a whatever the fuck. Like, I just wanted to be like a kid.

• 17:29Dax Shepard?

  I would have never known, standing in that shitty hovel.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:32Dax Shepard?

  That I'd one day be holding Lady Gaga's hand.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Looking stage left and seeing David Hasselhoff.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Which also was cool.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  I mean, it is interesting to be someone who's trying to come up. I mean, I think about like improv. We did improv. And when you're just like, oh, I just want people to come to the show. I just want more than 10 people to come to the show. And then you become a name. If you go do improv now, people are gonna just come because it's you. It's strange.

• 17:58Dax Shepard?

  Now, what I love about the book is I'm always most interested in people's youth when I interview them.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:03Dax Shepard?

  I'll even get comments like, why do you bring up this movie? I'm like, I don't care about that. I care about like how people ended up being capable of making that movie. So I love it, because this book, you're just taking me to the end of the 90s, basically. And even the beginning, you have a very fantastical, is that the word? You have a really strange and unique childhood. Did you understand how unique it was?

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Yes, I think I had a sense of both things. My parents were this young, partying couple in London. My dad came from some money, so they had this house. There were all these rock stars always hanging out.

• 18:35Dax Shepard?

  He had started a publishing company.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, a music publishing company. And that was like their world. And I remember waking up in the middle of the night and Robin Williams, Mork and Mindy was the biggest thing, and I love Mork, came in and woke me up. And I had this vague, hazy memory.

• 18:50Dax Shepard?

  I'll say it for you, he's definitely gacked out of his mind.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Gacked out of his mind. My mom is definitely having a good time, too. And he keeps running to the window. I was used to the fact that adults were more fun at night. Adults in the day were a little scary and bad tempered and irritable, and maybe you had to avoid them. But at night, everything was all good.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  So I remember thinking, this is strange and unusual, but I'm sure it perverted my sensibility of what was normal from an early age.

• 19:17Dax Shepard?

  But he's leaving the room and you say.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  You forgot their thing and he turns back and he knows right away and he's like nanu nanu.

• 19:25Dax Shepard?

  He gave him his catchphrase.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  He gave me the catchphrase. He knew what I wanted.

• 19:28Dax Shepard?

  Did he do this?

• 19:29Speaker 02

  I think he did the thing.

• 19:30Dax Shepard?

  Might not have the dexterity at that moment.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Oh, he can do it. I can't do it. He had the thing and towards the end of the book, I was out at a restaurant and I saw him at the table. And I just wanted to go up to him, but I kind of like punked out to ask him if he remembered my parents' house. And the universe gave me a second opportunity. He walks towards our table going to the toilet. And I'm like, Mr. Williams, I know this is so crazy and there's no way that you'll remember this, but one of my earliest childhood memories is you coming into my room. As a kid and he like stops for a second and he's like, wait, your parents had the house on Circus Road? And I was like, yeah. He goes, man, they threw some fucking crazy parties and just kept walking. Like exactly what you want from Robin Williams. He even remembered it.

• 20:12Dax Shepard?

  I bet he remembered it because it was at the beginning.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:15Dax Shepard?

  Like I bet if that had happened for him 18 years later, you know, it gets in that murk of too many neat things happening at some point. So I think it's worth saying, mom was from a pretty modest background, but she was very punk rock in spirit. And then dad was supposed to walk into Hedon's. Is that what it's called?

• 20:31Speaker 02

  Heron.

• 20:32Dax Shepard?

  Heron, which was an enormous property management company at one point had billions of dollars. It was sitting on a platter and he grew his hair long and went into music. You guys are all coming from a good stock.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 20:44Dax Shepard?

  Of outcasty non-Formists.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, outcasty English Jews.

• 20:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but your dad's Jewish lineage is a very unique one. It's like a boxer. It's a tough, hard scrabble.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  My dad's dad was completely self-made. He came from East London, which is where Jewish people, the immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe came. And they worked as butchers and milkmen and whatever else it was. And he was in this thing called the Jewish Lads Brigade, which was like a boxing thing. And you know, they were still in that era, even post-World War II, fighting fascists on the streets, kind of like we are now. You know, like fascists watch down the street and then the Jewish groups going out and they're fucking.

• 21:23Dax Shepard?

  Fisticuffs in the street and probably worse.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  And I was proud of that, of course.

• 21:27Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  My mother's father. Escape Nazi Austria in nineteen thirty seven, like a lot of stories. Somehow got papers, was on the train, was probably this close to just maybe a Nazi officer being like, no Jew, you're coming with me, but made it out to England. So they were these survivors.

• 21:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Do you think mom took on any of that kind of generational? And her mom died really young too, right? So the dad was raising the kids by himself.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, my mom's mother died when she was eleven. My mom was the second oldest of five kids. The older brother is a boy, so it fell on her to do a lot of the cooking and the taking care of the younger kids.

• 22:04Dax Shepard?

  As it should.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  I called the book Night People because at first, honestly, it kind of sounds sexy. And it's about night cousins going out. But then I was like, no, actually, there's another layer to this night people thing. All my community and friends in that thing were slightly cracked. Maybe there was some addiction, maybe there was just some running from the daytime and I was part of that. So when I was writing this book, I was like, I gotta get to the bottom of then where I got that from. And interview my mom and dad and be like, why were you guys like this too? So for my mom, she did feel a bit like she didn't belong. Nighttime was the time when the little brothers and sisters went to sleep and she would stay awake, doing her drawing or her paintings in her room.

• 22:43Dax Shepard?

  So mom and dad didn't get along in the daytime, basically. It was stressful how you grew up for the first five years until they finally pulled the plug. Both lovely people on their own, but maybe not a great match.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:54Dax Shepard?

  And then.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  He came into my life.

• 22:56Dax Shepard?

  He came into your life and then you and your two sisters moved to New York, to the Upper West Side, Central Park West?

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  And you're what age? Sorry, at this point?

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Eight or nine when we moved to New York.

• 23:06Dax Shepard?

  And move into this pretty outrageous, huge apartment. And I'm guessing if you're a couple of blocks from, as you later met Sean Lennon.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:15Dax Shepard?

  Were you in the San Remo building?

• 23:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:17Dax Shepard?

  You were?

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Lived in the San Remo building when we first moved there. Well, first we moved there, my stepdad had like a little bachelor pad on Riverside Drive. And suddenly it's like he's living with three kids and he's like.

• 23:27Dax Shepard?

  What a champ that he took on.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  He really was. He was. And then Farner were just hitting this amazing peak and all these smashes. And they bought this really fancy apartment.

• 23:38Dax Shepard?

  For reference, the next. Tower, or maybe it was your tower, but the Studio 54 guy had the top of one of those towers.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, Tony Randall from The Odd Couple.

• 23:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, sure.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  Dustin Hoffman.

• 23:49Dax Shepard?

  See, this is what I'm talking, this is a very unique childhood.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  There was this one time that I stayed at Sean Lennon, who was one of my closest friends, at his house when Michael Jackson came over for a sleepover. And I know.

• 24:01Dax Shepard?

  On the bad tour.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  On the bad tour.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Also a sleepover. There's a lot here.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a lot. It is different now to say some of these things, for sure.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Wow, this is wild.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  But even with that, I knew not to say anything in school the next day, because I didn't want to be teased mercilessly or be made to be like, oh, you fucking dick, or other, or look braggy. So there was this thing of like, I knew it was crazy. I also knew to keep as much of it to myself.

• 24:27Dax Shepard?

  That was a very specific part for me. They're throwing wet toilet paper balls off the side.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Soggy's.

• 24:32Dax Shepard?

  Soggy's.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Please get the nomenclature right.

• 24:35Dax Shepard?

  Milford Plaza Hotel as a kid for throwing soggy's.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Michael Jackson was just really intent on packing wet mounds of toilet paper and just pelting them, nowhere near people, but just hearing them splat on the sidewalk.

• 24:47Dax Shepard?

  It's very rewarding, because you start with a ball, and I don't want to encourage anyone to do this, because it's dangerous, but I will say, okay, you start with a wall of toilet paper this big. When that fucking thing hits the ground, if you're 30 plus up.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 24:58Dax Shepard?

  It's eight foot wide. It's very instantly rewarding if you're little. Wow, I made that huge thing.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Like if you drop a penny off the Empire State Building or something.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:06Dax Shepard?

  They say it would crush a cab. I don't know if that's true, though. I think they told us that as kids to tell us not to throw pennies.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  I didn't put this in the book, but fuck it. We did hit the hood of a car, and there was this, it sounded like a tank blast.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Oh, shit.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  We were only on the 10th floor.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  It's so telling, because that is something you do as a kid. That's what kids do. They make little balls of toilet paper and throw it at things. It's so reflective of him.

• 25:32Dax Shepard?

  Well, he was playing laser tag. You said he was like more kidlike than you.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Do you remember the first time, you won, because you're wonderful and young, sharper image, that first laser pen light that kind of shone that long infrared pen? They just decided that nobody ever needs that thing, so it was discontinued.

• 25:48Dax Shepard?

  I think it was also dangerous for your eyes.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Everything about it was wrong. Michael Jackson, he obviously had incredible lasers and shit on tour. The guy who built those lasers for him built him his own little box that you could plug in the wall. It was about this big a metal and it shone a single green laser that probably shone like hundreds of feet, you know, because he was playing in fucking arenas and stadiums. So we were running around and holding it up to the window and shining it eight floors down, but nobody had ever seen that. The only thing you could compare it to would be like the thing on an Uzi, like the sight thing. We're shining it on the street and there's a guy walking the dog. The guy can't see because he's thinking and the dog's just like, oh, like freaking out. It's terrible. Everything about it, I would never do that now.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was what he wanted to do and in an absurd foreshadowing of who I was to become, I was just like, this funny games is great. Michael, give us a baseline. I want to go back and like make a demo. My stepdad had a studio where I made demos and I remember Michael actually did this thing. Of course, I'll never forget it was so Michael. He like did the arm out snapping. He started to sing this bassline that went.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  And I was like, okay, it's a little ripped off from Smooth Criminal, but we'll take it. And made a whole fucking song from this bassline that Michael Jackson gave us.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  This is shocking. Like this is a shocking, the way to go on.

• 27:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you could have never done anything and still written this book and I would have read it.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  I'm impressed that you were able to keep these things to yourself when you went to school. Most people learn that the hard way.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:19Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna attempt to frame this whole thing, or at least what I extrapolated from it was like, oh yeah, people who seek control for comfort really desperately find these outlets of control. I found one, you found one, you found one. The very first time you experienced it though, was at the wedding of your mom and Mick.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, my mom and Mick got married when I was 10 and they had this pretty mellow wedding. I think there's like 40 people in the garden, this house that they were renting. There was no band, there was nothing, there was just music playing through some big speakers. And back then there were like these giant double cassette decks with auto reverse. That's how you would keep the music going the whole time. And the music just kind of stopped out of nowhere. Like to me, he was like, Mark, go put something on. I was so excited, obviously felt this grand responsibility. Ran in the house and I loved fucking anything that had to do with equipment and playing something, electronic equipment, cueing a song. And I was looking through all these tapes on the floor, kind of in this mad rush. And I saw these things that were not appropriate. And then I just saw Eric Clapton, Time Pieces, The Greatest Hits. And I thought, ah, wonderful tonight.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  That seems like a great song for now. Like even at ten, my like little mind of understanding what love and a wedding is supposed to be. My mom loves that song and that's a great song for here. So I quickly threw it in, hit play. And then I was just in the house and I could see through the windows. And I remember hearing the beginning of the song.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  And just having this kind of rush, like, whoa, music is playing outside and everybody has to listen to the song that I picked. And now it's making this moment. Mick grabbed my mom and kind of brought her in for this like little slow dance. It is one of my earliest formative things. It's the first time I ever remember being like, I did something right. I could maybe be good at this.

• 29:02Dax Shepard?

  I like that. I did something right.

• 29:03Speaker 02

  Of course, when you start to write these books and you unearth these memories, then you suddenly realize, oh, that's fucking how it started.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  But again, this is like when Bill Gates was

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Living next to the

• 29:12Speaker 01

  computer, the first computer. It's the same thing. You have this

• 29:15Speaker 02

  Thank you for comparing me to Bill Gates.

• 29:17Dax Shepard?

  Well, his talent matched with

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Proximity.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  Living next door to Gershwin.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Had a horrible home life. His mom treated him like she wished she would never been born. But his neighbor was Gershwin. That's where he would go over a lot of the time and would kind of Gershwin and Hammerstein.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  There are these beautiful happenstances. It's amazing.

• 29:36Dax Shepard?

  So you start messing with the stuff and thank God, again, we had much different step dads. And he was like, yeah, do whatever you want. It was a little playground for you. And you learn how to do that stuff.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:45Dax Shepard?

  $200,000 fucking synthesizer?

• 29:47Speaker 02

  He did. He had a $200,000 synthesizer called the Synclavier, which they made owner of a lonely heart on all these crazy records from that era. And I kind of just figured it out. How to recreate Terrence Trent Darby, Wishing Well, was the song I was obsessed with. And I was like,

• 30:02Dax Shepard?

  Love that song.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  I can figure out if I do the drums first, kick in the snare. And I found that doo doo doo doo doo sound and I'm gonna make that. I remember being so proud of it and bringing in one of my mom's friends at one of those parties, like one in the morning, being like, come in, listen to this thing that I made and just hitting play. And someone being like, yeah, kid, it's wishing well, like, you know, but like, but no, I did it. I did it. Yeah. Learning how to use this equipment, also drawn to the solitude of it. I'm alone in here, nobody can fuck with me. And then as I got more into hip hop as a teenager, there were three rappers in my school. And I said, come over, I'll make you a beat because my stepdad had an early proto sampler that Tribe Called Quest and Gangstar used. I'm sure he had taken out of the box and barely touched it once, but I kind of taught myself

• 30:47Speaker 02

  how to use it and made this beat for my friend. So yes, he was very, very amazing about encouraging and fostering my thing.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 31:04Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Skims. Okay, I have a confession. I genuinely love matching pajamas. It's the best part of Christmas morning, really. Everyone in the same matching set, looking ridiculously cute in front of the tree.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  I love matching pajamas. I'm literally going to be in coordinating sets with all my friends this holiday season because I got them, spoiler to my friends who are listening, the same Skims pajama set I've been living in. They are so soft and cozy and they look cute. So you can leave the house and go get a late night hot chocolate, be cozy.

• 31:39Dax Shepard?

  It's so great how Skims has sets for everyone too. Women's, men's, kids, even your pets. So nobody in your life has to be left out this year.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  I have a bunch of different pajama sets. One of my favorite is the organic cotton sleep long sleeve set.

• 31:56Dax Shepard?

  Okay, tell me more.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  It is so comfortable, very chic too. The top is a button down, but very, very soft, easy to sleep in. But as I said before, you can multi-purpose this and look super cute.

• 32:09Dax Shepard?

  Hot chocolate runs. It's like the pajamas we grew up in, except without the scratchy polyester that made opening presents feel more like a hot yoga class that nobody signed up for.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  All the nostalgia, none of the discomfort. Shop my favorite loungewear and pajamas at skims.com. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you. Select podcasts in the survey and be sure to select Armchair Expert in the dropdown menu that follows. If you're looking for the perfect gifts for everyone on your list, the Skims Holiday Shop is now open at skims.com.

• 32:37Dax Shepard?

  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Every family has that one holiday tradition nobody actually enjoys, but everyone keeps doing because stopping it would feel like a federal offense. For me, it was a specific meal situation that I will not name because my family listens. But at some point, you have to ask yourself, am I doing this because I love it? Or because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't?

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Yes, and that question applies to so much more than the holidays. I think a lot of us carry these invisible rules about how we're supposed to spend the holidays. We're supposed to see what it's supposed to look like. And when you start unpacking that with a therapist, you realize half of your stress is coming from rules you didn't even write.

• 33:16Dax Shepard?

  This is where BetterHelp can be a great resource during the holidays. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, which means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recs.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  I just love therapy. I've been avoiding it recently, or not avoiding it, but I was like, oh, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. I haven't canceled, canceled, canceled, but then I-

• 33:43Dax Shepard?

  You start feeling it.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, because then I had it this past weekend and I was like, oh, my God. And just thank God, thank God for her. Yeah.

• 33:51Dax Shepard?

  BetterHelp is now in-network with more than 125 health plans, with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com/dax. That's betterhelp, H E L P, dot com slash DAX. We get support from Superhuman. Look, I love what I do. The conversations, the ideas, the creative stuff. But there's this whole other layer of work that eats my day alive. The inbox that never ends. Docs I need to get through, threads I'm behind on. And by the time I've dealt with all that, the stuff I actually want to focus on gets whatever's left.

• 34:36Dax Shepard?

  What I needed was something that just works where I'm already working. Not another tab to open, not another thing to set up. Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly is different. It's already right. Right there, inside your email, your docs, your browser, you don't go to it. It's already working alongside you. You're deep in a long thread, highlight it, and it pulls the key points. About to send something important? It flags what doesn't add up before it leaves your hands. It knows your style, your workflows, and it just backs you up without getting in the way. A thought partner that's already up to speed. At your service, not after your job. So do yourself a favor and try Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com.

• 35:20Dax Shepard?

  We are supported by Walden University. You know that feeling when you've been thinking about making a move? Going after the degree, the promotion, the thing you keep telling yourself you'll get to someday? Walden University is built for that moment. For over 50 years, Walden has helped working professionals get the W, the knowledge, the skills, and the confidence to create real change in their careers and communities. Their programs are designed around your life, not the other way around. With Tempo Learning, available in select programs, there are no rigid schedules or set weekly deadlines. You move at your own pace. And Walden's faculty aren't just academics. They're practitioners who bring real world experience into everything they teach.

• 36:03Dax Shepard?

  From your first class to career coaching and beyond, Walden is your partner the whole way. Take the first step and learn at a pace that works for you. Visit walden.edu. Walden University. Set a course for change. Certified to operate by CHEV.

• 36:26Dax Shepard?

  One other party story, because there's something interesting within this party story, I think. So I didn't even know this, but I kind of deduced that Andy Warhol had extensive diaries.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 36:36Dax Shepard?

  You found a diary entry.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I maybe knew that he'd come over, but the Andy Warhol diaries came out. And he's just kind of extensively diary, even to the most mundane things of his life, like everything he ever did. And there was like page 637. I remember I would go into Barnes and Nobles with friends like, you guys want to see something cool? Like reach for like the top shelf and bring this. Heavy as fuck, brick of a book down and flipped the page. And I'm not gonna do any of those voices, like, went to a party at Ann Jones's house. She lived uptown.

• 37:07Dax Shepard?

  It actually says Ann Ronson.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  It says Ann Ronson, that's right.

• 37:10Dax Shepard?

  That's what I'm most interested in.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 37:12Dax Shepard?

  It didn't say I'm going to Mick Jones's house.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  No, I think he probably had more friends in common with my mom and she was kinda like this glittery rock and roll socialite, so that was the connection.

• 37:22Dax Shepard?

  Well, it says a few things, it's like, he was obsessed with whatever you'd call those girls. Scenesters, right? Forget the foreigner guitarist. And then it was also telling that your mother had her own persona and identity in the city.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Definitely, and then he says there was no food there, only something called chicken sushi. And in my mind, I'm like, chicken sushi just sounds like salmonella, like, that's just literally raw chicken, that's not a thing.

• 37:46Dax Shepard?

  I had it for the first time three weeks ago in Nashville. But it was cooked Nashville hot chicken inside a sushi and it was.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Oh, it was cooked, okay, interesting.

• 37:54Dax Shepard?

  I doubt anyone was selling salmonella sushi.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  So I did a record with this group called The Black Lips, you know, this group from Atlanta. There's this just amazing kinda punk rock kids who make great music. They are as nihilistic with their stage behavior as they are with their intestines. And they once took me out to eat something called liver sushi, which nearly killed me, because that was just raw liver.

• 38:15Dax Shepard?

  Were they idolizing the Liver King or something?

• 38:18Speaker 02

  This was before the Liver King.

• 38:19Dax Shepard?

  Pre Liver King.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  But I enjoyed that though.

• 38:22Dax Shepard?

  But, well, fast forward a little bit, you know, you start playing guitar, you're friends with Sean, there's another guy in the mix, whose dad's a restaurateur.

• 38:28Speaker 02

  Max Leroy, whose dad owned Tavern on the Green and these kinda like very iconic New York restaurants.

• 38:34Dax Shepard?

  So the three of you guys had a band, and that's going swimmingly, and then those two go to boarding school in Europe. You join another band, but these guys are way too good, they're informative to where you need to go next.

• 38:45Speaker 02

  They were great, it was so much fun to hook up with these other young kids who liked all the same weird music that I did, and we had this band, but technically, they were shredders, they were fucking great. And I was just an overachieving B minus musician. You know, the cheesy part in the gig where everyone takes a solo, and it would get to my part and be like, please, someone pull the fire alarm, like, anything, I don't wanna do my fucking bluesy bullshit. And I just started. To get a little disenchanted with it, I was like, this can't be my calling. As much as I wanna be Slash, I'm not a fucking lead guitarist. And that dovetailed with me falling in love with hip hop really head over heels and being like, okay, this is what I wanna be doing now.

• 39:21Dax Shepard?

  Now, this might be my favorite thing I read. Just reading the thing, I was stopping and listening to all these different songs, which was great. But my very favorite group in high school was the Brand New Heavies.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 39:32Dax Shepard?

  I love the Brand New Heavies. And nobody was liking the Brand New Heavies in high school.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  And we're high school in Michigan.

• 39:39Dax Shepard?

  In Michigan, yeah, yeah, yeah. The notion that you were that into them and you're fifteen or sixteen and you get to go to a club and see them is wild.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  I snuck into this club at three in the morning. There was this thing called the New Music Cafe, which was like the equivalent of maybe South by Southwest vibes in New York in that era. And they would have shows and I would sneak in anywhere if it meant going to see a band. Or I would get a job at the high school paper reviewing concert so I can convince my mom like, no, no, I'm not going out. It's because I'm writing about it. But the guy who threw these great parties that brought Brand New Heavies into America and all these bands in New York the first time had a party called Giant Step. And I would bug him all the time. You should let my band play. My band had the worst name. We were called the Whole Earth Mamas.

• 40:18Dax Shepard?

  It's really the worst name I've ever heard. I was like trying to find how it could have even been funny, but it's not even quite funny. It's a miss.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  It's not. It's a total miss. And he would be like, what's your band's name again? Mother Earth, Garden Bistro, whatever the fuck. I basically finagled us a gig because I'd poured out my best friend Sean Lennon. He was like, I'm not putting on my gig. The bill's full. And I was like, what if I got my friend Sean? And he was like, Sean who? I was like, Sean Lennon? And of course, at that time, Sean was only fifteen. The entire world was still mourning. His dad, he was the golden prince. People were very fascinated. And I threw him under the bus. It was terrible. And then we got the gig because I said Sean would come play with us. Then I went and told Sean half of the story. I said, we got this gig. You wanna come play with us? And he came and played.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  And I wrote this chapter. I had to send it to Sean. I was like, I don't know if I ever told you this story. We've been friends for thirty years. There's no way that he would have been probably still upset at this time. But there was a lot of that in the book. Like when you have to go back to people and be like, I don't think I ever told you this.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 41:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it was a little shady.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Is it shady? He was in the band.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  No, he wasn't in the band. No, he wasn't in the band.

• 41:34Dax Shepard?

  He's with this new shredder band.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Oh, I see.

• 41:37Dax Shepard?

  The shittiest name ever.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  He was not in the band.

• 41:38Dax Shepard?

  And he said that, I'm not in this band, when he said, who you play? He's like, I feels weird, I'm not in.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  I don't even like your band.

• 41:47Dax Shepard?

  The reason it's sensitive is it's like, he's probably already dealing with people who are very interested in him because of his dad. He just lost his dad and now my friend is trading on that. That's could be hurtful.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Of course, of course.

• 41:58Dax Shepard?

  And I'm glad you admitted that.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Was he like, it's fine, we're good?

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And it was much more than that. It was so lovely sharing these stories that we haven't even talked about in 40 years. It's like, oh, now it makes so much sense why we are friends and a family and where we came from. But the gig sucked anyway. Sean was amazing. So it was just a good lesson. Don't tell your friends. Don't get a gig that you haven't really earned on your own fucking talent.

• 42:24Dax Shepard?

  When do techniques come into the mix? How do we go from musician to DJ?

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, my drummer in my band was like, you gotta check this song out. Leaving the gig that sucked. It was Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth, They Reminisce Over You. And I was just like, this is incredible. I knew hip hop because I knew the B.C. Boys and Run D.M.C. and L. Cool Jam, whatever was on TV. But I'd never heard this underground type of shit. And I was like, this is all I want to be about from now on. And I didn't know how to rap or make beats. So I was like, DJing. That's the only way I can see myself into this thing where I can just be part of this music I'm obsessed with. There was an all ages rave party in New York at the time called NASA. And there was a side room, which was so crazy to think that like, there was a time pre Giuliani in New York

• 43:08Speaker 02

  where a thousand kids from the ages of 13 to 17 could go and take so many drugs and stay up till 7:00 in the morning. Like Lord of the Flies style and like, that was allowed. They played mostly techno, but there was a side room where I saw this DJ named Ani, like on E, who murdered this hip hop set and I. Just remember watching him transfix because I'd only heard people do it on the radio, but I hadn't seen how the hands and what it was doing. Then I just became obsessed and four months later for graduation, I hounded my mom and she got me turntables.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Are you doing drugs during this time?

• 43:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. What kind of drugs are we doing?

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like a really, really good boy because there was something so polite and meticulously over managed in my brain that I would like never fully let go. But then I think I discovered acid. I was like 15. I liked acid and things like that through high school. And then later discovered cocaine, like 1920. But the raves that we're going to was ecstasy and acid.

• 44:06Dax Shepard?

  The whole time I'm reading it, I'm an addict, right? So I'm like, oh yeah, I would have loved to have been there.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  You would have died.

• 44:11Dax Shepard?

  Also, I would have died. The times I almost died were always trips to New York City after I was on TV. If you'd like, you don't ever have to stop.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  I had the more dangerous thing arguably where I never nearly died, but it was like the frog in the slowly boiling pot of water. And then I had a lot of hangups and neuroses. But the drug thing was very strange for me because I did drugs sort of my 18, 19s, 20s coke. At that age, it was just kind of like a new thing. It's like that scene in Basketball Diaries when Leo does it the first time. He's like, whoa, I could stay up all night writing and this is fun. What hangover? My cells regenerate like nothing?

• 44:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, totally.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  And then 23, 24, I started to cue these intense anxiety attacks. And I think it was probably hangups of reliving my parents' life, having seen what it had done to that household. And there was a weird thing where I was definitely getting as obliterated as possible to somehow push aside all my neuroses and things so I could just forget about those. But then weirdly, the neuroses would never fully go away because they would come back to then give me the panic attack that would happen after I did it. So it even got to the point where one night I remember doing drugs with friends and having like the instant panic attack. Like I'd be in the corner of the club like, I'm not sure I'm all right. Can you just keep an eye on me? I talk about my friend Simon Rex at the time, who we were going out together a lot,

• 45:31Speaker 02

  take me home from the club, sit by my bedside till I fell asleep. One of those nights happened and the next day I found out that we had bought fucking talcum powder.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  It was so psychosomatic at some point that I was like, wow, something else is being pushed out. Now, did I stop? No, like, you know, it took me another 15 years.

• 45:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. You're gonna push on.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  But yeah, I had this weird thing. I could never get fucked up before I DJed because I wanted to be fucking great and I wanted to be on point. I probably drank a shitload, but then as soon as it was done, 3:30, like, literally is the last record on maybe texting the dealer or finding out where the after-party is. Then I just wanted to fucking go and lose my mind.

• 46:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Tom Arnold said it most beautifully and honestly in his autobiography I read, which was, luckily I was more addicted to becoming famous than I was coke. Because there's no way anything would have ever been stronger than coke. If not, I was way more addicted to trying to be famous.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:27Dax Shepard?

  Which can mean just successful.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do you ever look at your kids now and think, look where I am now? You've lived all these lives and now you're here with these little sweet people.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:38Dax Shepard?

  We got away with murder is what I would call it.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  I didn't set out to write, to excavate those parts of my life necessarily. And then halfway through the book, I was like, this book is gonna be a little disingenuous if I call at night people and talk about the crack. People go out at night and don't talk about my demons and these things. And I think it'll be maybe a better book for it, for being more personal. My wife, at some point, reading it, she didn't say it in the kind of way that she was judging. She just was being really honest and open. She's like, it's funny you had to write this really personal book. Like, what do you think it was? And I was like, I don't know. A lot of the characters in it are no longer with us. There's this idea of celebrating not only an era that's gone, but people that are gone. And then the epilogue is the only thing that takes place in the present day where I'm walking around New York

• 47:20Speaker 02

  with my daughter strapped to me in the baby Bjorn, seeing the clubs that used to be in, weird ghosts of the past. And yeah, of course, I'm thinking like, God, should I even put my daughter in? Is she gonna read this? Is it either just gonna be something like embarrassing that my fucking dad wrote when I was two? Or is it gonna be something that's like too expositional or is it gonna give her license to be like, you were doing this, Dad? You know, like, what fucking Pandora's box I've opened, I don't know. But you have to do it for these reasons that you don't really know at the time.

• 47:47Dax Shepard?

  So I journal every day and I'm dead honest and I fully intend for them to receive. All those when I die, I only want for them to know the whole me.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  How old are they?

• 47:56Dax Shepard?

  They are currently ten and twelve. I just want to be honest with them. I don't know how having had that and then also keeping that from them is somehow a win. I can't find my way to how that's logical. Like, I'm gonna present a fraudulent version of myself to the person I love the most on this planet, the two people. That feels broken and crummed.

• 48:14Speaker 02

  No, totally. I never really mind, listen, if the worst repercussion is if she fucking breaks curfew one time. Say, Dad, you were fucking doing it acid at Limelight when you were fifteen. That's also fine.

• 48:26Dax Shepard?

  How long does it take you to get proficient?

• 48:29Speaker 02

  I was so ambitious. I was definitely practicing all the time, but I got a big lucky break because my dad lost all his money to like a shitty business manager. We move uptown to this rental apartment. But listen, it's still a nice fucking rental apartment. We live in the same building with Peter Gation, the club king of New York at that time. He owned Limelight, Club USA, Tunnel, Palladium. Both of his daughters are friends of mine, but at the time Amanda, we had mutual friends. And she was like, my dad's gonna give me Club USA on a Thursday, which was the coolest fucking club. It was like in midtown. It had this three-story water slide that went through the middle. And it was just like the most fucking celebi meets depraved. All the other clubs had their own kind of depravity, but this was right in the middle of the theater district.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  So it was this unholy love child of Broadway camp and total Times Square sleaze. It was very cool.

• 49:18Dax Shepard?

  And we need to do two seconds on what Broadway looked like then. Yeah, cuz like I'll tell people, I used to go to that city with my mom on a three-day trip with my brother and my little sister. It was fucking terrifying.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  No, you were saying at the Milford Plaza, you were right in the center of it all. Like, there was no fucking M and M store. Your mom was like grabbing your hands tightly, like, in here, kids.

• 49:37Dax Shepard?

  We all held hands very tightly. There were lots of pimps and hookers. There was lots of drugs.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  It was fucked and it was also amazing. And I got this gig playing there. And, you know, I probably wasn't prime time ready yet, but I was good enough. I knew how to read a room. And then I went away to Vassar College for a year, which was my 10,000 hours, just playing the campus bars. Every fucking TA party, house party, doing the radio station. When I came back, I had moved up several levels. But my ambition always probably outstripped my readability to be on those stages for the first couple of years, for sure.

• 50:12Dax Shepard?

  Well, you've already demonstrated you have great ambition. When you asked Michael Jackson for a beat.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:17Dax Shepard?

  He's like a very ambitious person.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  He is.

• 50:19Dax Shepard?

  When you get yourself on a show you do not deserve to be on, that's ambition.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:22Dax Shepard?

  It's funny because you look back on these things with embarrassment, but then there's also this thing where you also have to have, you have to be delusional.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  There is.

• 50:29Dax Shepard?

  I don't know how to make the scale right. It's like, I'm embarrassed by the delusion and I needed it.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank God I kind of was like this brash, ballsy kid. I wasn't brash in the way that I was conceited, but I would have that demo in my back pocket. Any promoter like, hey, put me on, you know?

• 50:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  And then I think three years into it, then I was good. And I was very knowledgeable, like all the old funk and soul that the hip hop samples came from. And I play that in parties. People were really coming to see me for that as well. My real breakthrough moment was I played ACDC in a fucking hip hop club where nobody ever did that. And then changed everything in that scene in New York at that time.

• 51:04Dax Shepard?

  No kidding.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  There was a party called Cheetah on a Monday night. It was like Missy Elliott, Janet Jackson. I mean, let's not skirt around it. Puff, Jay-Z, Biggie, everybody went there. And I played there one Monday. And I remember at the time, there was this very trendy nightclub in New York called Spy. Spy Bar was the most trendy. It was this guy king at the door. Leo, Titanic had just come out. Anywhere that he went was now the spot. Mariah Carey, Donald Trump getting turned away at the door. I'm sure he got in sometimes as well, but this was this wild scene. I would only get in half of the time. Because I'm still this gangly kid and sort of getting a little known in the scene. I see, this is so fun. So the DJs there were not very good, but they played insane rock and roll and very loud.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  And I was in there one night and they played ACDC Back in Black.

• 51:51Dax Shepard?

  What a song.

• 51:52Speaker 02

  And it tore the fucking house down. Also because, yes, I'm a privileged kid from the Upper West Side, but most of the clubs I was DJing for were much more mixed. And watching all these drunk white people probably cook to the gills, going crazy to ACDC Back in Black. I was like, this is an incredible song. Why have I not thought of this? So the seed has planted. I'm like, I wonder if I could play as a cheat on a Monday night. That turns into like, I have to play it. But also I could fully get a bottle of champagne thrown at my head. Like this was a place they didn't play. If you played some shit that didn't, Yeah, risky. Didn't go down. And also I'm only making my way coming up in this scene. Like I don't really have the Status to jeopardize it all on one night. Right.

• 52:29Dax Shepard?

  You're still building.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  Bad night and you're kind of back down to the bottom of the ladder. So I worked out this mix all week that was gonna be like this perfect way that the Benjamins, this song by Biggie and Puff was the biggest song at the time. There was a very cheesy rock and roll remix that had just come out where I was like, okay, on the Biggie verse, I'm gonna switch to the fucking rock remix and no one really stopped dancing because it's still Biggie even though it's got these cheesy metal guitars. And right when Biggie stops his verse, squeeze off till I'm empty, all about the Benjies. Dan. Dan. Dan. Right? Greatest riff in the history of rock and roll. The club, there was this split second, like it's fucking in the movie where it's slow minute, everyone's like, huh? And then the thing that I learned is if you keep the rhythm on beat, you can play the most wild shit, but people don't have time to stop dancing, they don't have a time to

• 53:15Speaker 02

  think like, should I be dancing? It's like, if it's good, they're just going with it. So there was this split second, what the fuck is happening? And then just everyone surrendered and it was this wonderful moment in this club. And from that moment, you know, I'd been copying all these DJs that I had hero worship, Stretch Armstrong, Clark Kent, all these other people, but doing exactly what they had done, just a slightly different version of it. This was suddenly my own new thing. And then I started playing ACC and Led Zeppelin and Jane's Addiction and everything else. And that became like, oh, he's the guy that mixes rock with all this shit.

• 53:47Dax Shepard?

  You have an identity now.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Everything that I do that nobody else does, and while AM was kind of also coincidentally carving that out on the West Coast, but we didn't really know so much about each other at that time, then we became great friends. And so that was it. And then suddenly I'd be playing these clubs and it'd be like Method Man and Little Kim, but I'm playing Joan Jett. It's Method Man swinging his shirt over his head and those things sound so kind of like, don't bat an eyelid now because that's what it became, open format. But at the time, it was kind of remarkable.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  Talk about feeling powerful in that moment.

• 54:17Dax Shepard?

  And if you can have your idols in the club, like if you have people who you admire and you respect and you're taking them for a ride.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Oh, the validation.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  No, that was crazy too. And this club life that I played in the late 90s, this shitty ass fucking DJ booth that was basically like a MOBOP, our mitzvah DJ setup. That was the other thing that was just like the underlying thing in the book. Like you'd be in the fanciest clubs around the fanciest people ever and you would literally be playing on a plastic table from Kmart. Because you'd be playing in these side rooms. The big main room DJs were really fancy, but they were playing house and techno, whatever they were doing. But watching Jay-Z, Toast, and he has every big song in New York at the time. And you're playing these rooms and your heroes are in front of you.

• 54:57Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 54:59Dax Shepard?

  I would imagine too, what people might not know about the DJ life is that it's a perfect addiction to avoid neuroses because you don't just have the nighttime. In the daytime now, you're rapidly combing through every single collection of vinyl you can find, right? All day long, you have this one activity that's just so consuming and it's dopamine. It's like, this song, this song sucks, boo, new album. You can hide beautifully in this new pursuit.

• 55:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, and back then as well, if you wanted like the cool new records, you had to literally go up to every record label and grovel for these promos. And you could spend two days of the week just going to a lecture in Atlantic. And now it's ridiculous because you know, you can get everything with a click of a mouse. But you would go up there like fucking Oliver. Excuse me, sir, can I have some more? Like with your little flyers and they'd be like, why should I give you this record? Will I do this on Tuesday, this on Thursday? If they were lucky, you get one record. If they really liked you, they give you two copies of that record.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Are you so happy you came up then instead of now?

• 56:02Speaker 02

  I'm so grateful for coming up in that era. And I tried so hard to fight the like, it was better then. But yes, coming up in this era where you had to really hunt down your shit. I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for everything that it taught me about music and what then became my tool bed as a producer. I'm grateful for how difficult and the hustle.

• 56:23Dax Shepard?

  Well, yeah, just talk about the records. Your four nights a week, you've got to get how many milk crates of records?

• 56:29Speaker 02

  There's about three or four. So they each have 80 records in there. They each weigh about 60 pounds. I had friends to do, you know, I thought I could do it by myself like last week because I had a gig in New York and I was like, I'll just bring a crate and a bag. And my back was just so fucked up going down to this basement club and then back up at the end trying to maneuver through like 500 people. I haven't had back problems like that in a long time. It was nothing to do it back then.

• 56:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and how are you getting from your apartment to these? Are you taking a cab with all your records?

• 56:59Speaker 02

  Back then, obviously, God, this all sounds like that in my day. Before Uber and that shit and you lived on a funny block where maybe cabs didn't go by. There was this one Spanish car service called Delancey.

• 57:11Dax Shepard?

  Would you used to call that a gypsy cab?

• 57:13Speaker 02

  You would call a gypsy cab, yeah.

• 57:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Then it was a gypsy cab.

• 57:16Speaker 02

  And then you were sort of up to their mercy of like, they would say seven minutes, but you don't know if it's 13 minutes and you're calling these things and like, you would have to pronounce it more like with a Spanish accent so they would understand. Cause there was a street called Troutman that I'd have to go to in Brooklyn and they only understood it as Trutman. You'd have to make sure or you're, the car was not coming. Sometimes you have three gigs a night and you'd be like calling the car service like on the way out. It was fucking amazing though. I do really love it.

• 57:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Now, we're blessed that there were no cameras back there. That's another thing. It's like the anonymity that existed, I'm nostalgic for. And yet also I'm heartbroken that there's no video of you the first time you played ACDC. I also wanna see that moment.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  The end of the book, I'm walking with my daughter and we do see some old club because that just always happens. I'm like, what was this place? She's older, but this time she was 18 months in the baby Björn and she's happy as long as I'm fucking talking to her the whole time. She doesn't care what the fuck I'm saying. I'm like, this is a club and this is, and Dada played music. And she's like, Dada, music. And I'm thinking like, oh, she'll never see me do that thing when I was at my best. Because of the absence of surveillance is like how I coined it. And it's sad because you wanna have these videos because it is fun to look at it, but it made everyone a lot more maybe present at the time as well.

• 58:33Dax Shepard?

  Yes. You've also done enough shit.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. They can hear the music you've made.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and there's music videos and whatever else. But right now I'm trying to see like, is there enough to make a fun little doc to put out around when the book is out? But there's so little, there's footage from like the big rave scenes and the super clubs, but the cool shit about our scene in this thing is it was just all being discovered. Like we did have Jay-Z and Wesley Snipes and Leo in the club, but it was still at this little place. You really had to know to go to this place.

• 59:01Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes. I imagine there's a ton of heartbreak throughout that period though, too. It's fun and it's fast and it's glamorous, but people are going down.

• 59:11Speaker 02

  People are going down especially since then. Like, yes, of course, there were people that I worshipped from afar and that were at the club. Biggie, who I didn't have a personal relationship, but of course his. Death left an outsized loss on our whole scene. But I decided to write this book, actually, because one of my best friends in that era, this DJ named Blue Jams, he passed away in two thousand eighteen from cancer. And somebody had asked me to DJ a party that was going to be a posthumous celebration of his life one night. And I started to think about all these memories and sitting among all my old records. Fuck, I should start getting these memories down before they are really gone forever. But honestly, while I was writing the book, there'd be like a chapter, I'm gonna call that guy, I'm gonna call DJ Neva next month because we're gonna write the chapter about that and I want to ask him.

• 59:56Speaker 02

  And he passed away before. There were four or five people that I was literally about to call the next month. There's something very strange for a scene that's not rife with maybe heroin and things you associate with people dying Yeah. before they should. The lifestyle is not a healthy lifestyle. I was obviously had advantages going into it and then coming out, I've obviously done fine. But reconnecting, because I interviewed and called a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred people for this book because I really wanted to paint the scene and remember anecdotes and trigger memories. Some people's lives have been shitty since then, or maybe not since then, but the last five or ten years. And you don't want to just be like, yeah, I'm great. Any fond memories of us? Right.

• 1:00:35Dax Shepard?

  Do you have survivor's guilt? And I don't even mean literal, like, life or death.

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:40Dax Shepard?

  But just, I feel like there's some guilt associated with succeeding when you're in tiny groups of people that are all trying.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  I do, and you want to tell that person like you care and you are engaged with what they're doing in their life. And then half an hour later, you're talking about old memories and stuff. DJs are not quite like comics, but I have a whole chapter towards the end because we started to hang out at The Cellar a lot. Because just like it was a golden age for nightclubbing in New York, The Cellar was Etelle and Chappelle and Jeff Ross was starting and Godfrey and Artie Fuqua and Patrice Niall. There was this thing happening there. Most musicians are frustrated, athletes are comedians anyway. And like, we'd love going to their sets and then they would come out to our shit. But there's so many similarities between comedians and DJs to me. I mean, there's the most obvious thing. DJs call it rhythm, you guys call it timing.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  And the difference between bombing and fucking Killing is a hair's breadth of precision.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  And then we play clubs.

• 1:01:36Dax Shepard?

  Do you think a civilian would know when you're bombing or not? Do you think some of it's in your head?

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  No, I think there's times, some of it's in my head. I could be doing what maybe to the room looks like a seven and a half and an eight, and no one's gonna go ahead for the exits. But I just hate that I'm not a nine and a half. I'm like, why are they not here? But those kind of neuroses going home and you don't think about all the people that were laughing. I don't think about all the people that had their hands in the air. I just thinking about that one person with the arms crossed in the middle, who was just like, really fucking Sylvester? So all my DJ friends, of course, there wasn't one personality type, but we were kind of intense, neurotic, very craft obsessed about what we did. Moving ahead a lot.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, not to circle back to neurodivergent, but there might be some element of that.

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think that's the other thing that we kind of felt a link to in our friends that were comics. There was like this thing.

• 1:02:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:30Speaker 02

  So I wanted to talk about some of those things. I read so many fucking memoirs while I was writing this. And more famous DJs than me have written memoirs. And I've weirdly written about this period of my life, almost when I was my least famous. But I didn't know if anyone's written about that dichotomy of intense validation ego and the energy of bringing this room up. And then just at the end of the night, you're the only person in this room. And the highs and lows of that.

• 1:02:54Dax Shepard?

  You're constantly putting on a party that you're not participating in, which is interesting.

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  Which I liked because I was never fully come to in the parties.

• 1:03:02Dax Shepard?

  It was your way to be at a party.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Yes, I would go into the club and I would feel like occasionally a fish out of water when I was someone else's DJ and then instantly I'd be like, much prefer it back there.

• 1:03:15Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 1:03:21Dax Shepard?

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• 1:04:44Dax Shepard?

  This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I have my dream job. I get to talk to folks I admire like crazy, and ask them virtually any question that I want to. I can't imagine a better way to spend my time. But even dream jobs have some not-so-dreamy parts. The stuff that gets in the way of the actual work. Now that's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it, start to finish. Cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. So you and your team can focus on what matters most. Which for me is, are they obsessed with male bodies on the same level as I am?

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  They never are.

• 1:05:27Dax Shepard?

  To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com.

• 1:05:33Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Instagram teen accounts. So we talk a lot on this show about how the world is different now than when we were growing up. And one of the biggest differences is obviously social media. And I think a lot of people wonder, okay, what's actually being done to make it safer for teenagers?

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Which is a fair question.

• 1:05:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so Instagram has got something called teen accounts and they come with automatic protections built in by default. So anyone between 13 and 17 is automatically placed into this experience. They get age appropriate content settings, contact limits, so that by default, only people they're already connected to can message them. And time management tools, daily time limit reminders, and also sleep mode that mutes notifications from 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Sleep mode is genius.

• 1:06:18Dax Shepard?

  Right? And here's the thing, for anyone under 16, a parent has to give permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. The guardrails are on and Instagram keeps building new safety features to create age appropriate experiences for teens.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  I am really glad Instagram's helping to give parents peace of mind with teen accounts.

• 1:06:37Dax Shepard?

  Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts. We get support from ZipRecruiter. Oh, get recruiting. So I went down this rabbit hole the other day on real holiday jobs that exist and I couldn't stop. Somebody out there is hiring a ham glazer, a professional ham glazer. Another place is hiring a lead elf, implying a whole hierarchy of elves I had never even considered. Here's the thing, these jobs need real skills. People like that are hard to find. And whether you're hiring for one of these roles or any other role, the best way to find qualified people who are genuinely excited about your role is on ZipRecruiter.

• 1:07:21Dax Shepard?

  And right now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/dax. Plus ZipRecruiter has a new feature that shows you the most interested qualified candidates first, so you meet the right people faster. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. Let ZipRecruiter find the right people for your roles, seasonal or otherwise. Try it for free today at ziprecruiter.com/dax. At ziprecruiter.com/dax, meet your match on ZipRecruiter.

• 1:07:59Dax Shepard?

  So there's these different occupations where it breeds competition and others that kind of breed community. So weirdly, sketch and improv comedians are very communal because it's all shared. You cannot win on your own. And the comedians, when I did stand up, the green room at a fucking comedy club is rough. Everyone's shooting daggers. They enjoy it. I came from sketch, so I never liked that.

• 1:08:21Speaker 02

  Shooting daggers and like everyone's like just busting each other's balls in.

• 1:08:24Dax Shepard?

  Yes, just going for each other, trying to shine, trying to dominate. Very competitive. Yeah, very competitive. And then what I've liked learning is showrunners of television shows, because it's such an impossible job. It is the very hardest job in show business. Those people get along so well, all of them. Even if someone's showrunning a comedy versus someone's showrunning some major drama or sci-fi thing, the job is so specific. They understand each other so well. And I do wonder, DJs, where do you put them on that spectrum?

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  There was probably a mix. There was definitely a really strong community amongst the DJs. I had all my best friends from school and high school and college. And it started to be like, oh, wait, but they don't wake up at 2:00 in the afternoon and like their idea of a perfect day isn't going through like a flea market combing for dusty breaks. And also DJs have this weird intense know-it-all-ness to them because your whole life is knowing what fucking weird-ass jazz song Fat Joe sample for this. But it's kind of the good know-it-all in that way. The kind of know-it-all that could tell you, where'd I still get a Chinese meal at 4:00 a.m. in New York City or de-scramble the porn channels on a Time Warner box. That's what all my friends somehow knew how to do. I liked them. And nobody thought about tomorrow. Nobody really had a bank

• 1:09:34Speaker 02

  account. Everybody sort of had cash stashed in a shoebox somewhere. Maybe it was like under the mixer. You're getting paid in cash. So you always go to bed thinking, I'll wake up and tomorrow's a new day. But what the fuck is tomorrow when you go to bed at 5:00 a.m. every day? It's a ready tomorrow.

• 1:09:47Dax Shepard?

  Just tonight's coming.

• 1:09:48Speaker 02

  There's just tonight. It's like Groundhog's Day, but with like Method Man and Debbie Mazer instead of Andy McCall and Bill Murray. We were all drawn to each other because we saw these same things. But then we also had our share of competition and haters and that kind of thing, too.

• 1:10:03Dax Shepard?

  Who were you jealous of?

• 1:10:04Speaker 02

  Not that jealous in the beginning because I was the dude coming up that some people were a little bit irked by my slipstream. With AM, I wasn't jealous because his skills were just on such another level that it would be like being like, I'm jealous of Eddie Van Halen. It's like, come on. But I remember being shook by seeing his talent because we were both at about the same talent level. And then AM got sober and spent about a year in his room practicing to old DMC videos and doing all this DJ competition shit. And I came there and I saw him do this thing and I was like, oh, my reign at the top is looking a little shaky. But also, I loved him and I was so excited to watch. I was like, come to New York, you gotta do this shit.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  People are gonna be blown away. And we would steal each other's mixes and we were such good friends. I wasn't truly gonna be jealous or competitive.

• 1:10:56Dax Shepard?

  Do you think you were liberated from chasing money by your childhood? Because I think the station you had reached as a DJ, and increasingly so became this insanely lucrative thing. I would have just stayed there because it was such an incredible source of income. But that probably wasn't all that appealing to you?

• 1:11:14Speaker 02

  I guess so. You know, I definitely came for money. I was never gonna have to worry about living out on the street. But also, it wasn't wild money where my rent was paid. There was a safety net. But at that time, I was just doing this thing that I love so much at this young age, where you just have the blinders on and you're not really thinking about, you know. The money started to get good towards the end of the 90s, but it wasn't crazy money. It wasn't the money like what AM was making.

• 1:11:40Dax Shepard?

  You basically left that to pursue something else at a moment that you could have really hunkered down on that and just generated a ton of money, basically.

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  And I see DJing as this really beautiful footnote in something that then obviously became more. But I always wanted to make music. And then I got this sidetracked from this passion of hip hop that took me to DJing. And then it fully took over my life for five or six years because I realized I was good at it and I loved doing it. And then I somehow found my way back to making music, weirdly through DJing. Dominic Trineur was this incredible, very cool record industry A and R guy who managed D'Angelo and had this artist, Nika Costa.

• 1:12:20Dax Shepard?

  He did a couple Nika Costa songs.

• 1:12:22Speaker 02

  I did her first album with her and her husband. But I got that gig because Dom would come to my gigs and when I was playing ACDC and Biggie and Rufus. And Shaka Khan and he spoke with this amazing rasp. He's like, yo, I got this white chick and I don't know what I'm supposed to sound like, but it's supposed to sound like one of your DJ sets. Like, you make beats? And I just totally lied. I was like, yeah, sure. I mean, I didn't lie. I was making beats, but nothing that had fucking moved the needle. And then he brought Nika over and she saw enough promise and he did and was patient enough to watch me get better. And then with the course of 18 months, we made her first record. But weirdly, DJing was this side note that then became the thing that gave me my first gig.

• 1:13:02Dax Shepard?

  It's crazy when you reach our age, which will be 50 in five seconds. And I am, it's like, oh, I thought comedy was my thing. I'm funny. I wasn't Will Ferrell and I wasn't Vince Vaughn, but I made a living and I was good at it. And I was like, no, I'm actually kind of a good writer and director. That's kind of my thing. And then it's like only to come here now for the last eight years and go like, weirdly, I think really I just need to do all that stuff so I could have these conversations with all these people because I played in all these areas. It's weird to have misleading little gifts along the way.

• 1:13:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:13:31Dax Shepard?

  Before you kind of find this thing that's like, oh, Jesus, well, this is what I was clearly born to do.

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  Now going back to DJing again because of this book has somehow made me want to be out there and reliving this kind of thing and having so much fun at the gigs. But my tinnitus, I think it probably has something to do with the way your cells regenerate. It's so much worse after these gigs and the ringing is oppressive. And I'm like, actually, DJing might be a fucking luxury because my ears are my livelihood. I want to be scoring films and writing and producing music for the rest of my life. And every gig that I go out and do, I actually feel a bit like fucking Jackson Maine, right? In Star is Born, where he's like, we can't give you back what you lost. We can keep what you have or whatever the fuck. His brother says to him, I'm going to these gigs now with 85% psyched to be about to be playing

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  and 15% incredibly nervous.

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  What am I doing?

• 1:14:22Speaker 02

  What am I doing?

• 1:14:23Dax Shepard?

  What am I risking?

• 1:14:24Speaker 02

  What am I risking?

• 1:14:25Dax Shepard?

  Well, just do a couple more so I can come. That's all I'm asking. Just risk it a little bit more.

• 1:14:30Speaker 02

  We're gonna do a fun one in L.A. around the release of the book for sure.

• 1:14:33Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God, I'm gonna dance. I will not be with arms crossed.

• 1:14:37Speaker 02

  I'm gonna dance your pants off.

• 1:14:39Dax Shepard?

  Are you plagued by people trying to let you know they know a lot about music? Even as I talk to you, it's important to me you know I was in a brand new heavies.

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  That's fucking cool, because that is a deep cut, and the brand new heavies are amazing. Yes, there was definitely this thing, but luckily, in a club, the music is so loud, and you can just feign that you can't really hear somebody.

• 1:14:58Dax Shepard?

  Right, and increasingly, you can't.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, and now I actually can. And people would sort of come to the booth, definitely sometimes either they thought you were Koechek or the bar, that happened a lot.

• 1:15:08Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 1:15:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And then, are you friendly with Jordan Rubin?

• 1:15:12Dax Shepard?

  No, I've never met.

• 1:15:13Speaker 02

  Jordan Rubin is a really great friend of mine, he's a comedian. He kind of introduced me to the world of the Comedy Cellar, because he's playing at that time. And he also liked DJing at these gigs, so he would always have these, much funnier than I could think of, gags for like, what I should be doing. If someone came up to ask for a request, he's like, this is what you do, you'd just be like, didn't you see the song? Who took the song?

• 1:15:34Speaker 02

  People would come up and, you know, ask for track 12 on the 50 Cent album, like, things where you're like, I don't know.

• 1:15:40Dax Shepard?

  Right, right.

• 1:15:41Speaker 02

  The birthday song.

• 1:15:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, did you see the Avita, is that the DJ's name?

• 1:15:45Speaker 02

  Avicii.

• 1:15:46Dax Shepard?

  Avicii, did you see that doc?

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  I didn't get to see the Avicii thing, and I know it's quite heavy, and I'm definitely gonna see it. People have told me. I didn't know that he had all those demons.

• 1:15:54Dax Shepard?

  I don't know anything about DJs. I literally know you're a DJ and your sister, and then AM, and that's probably the full extent. I don't know how I stumbled upon that doc. I just was going through Netflix, and I watched it. It talks about his addiction, but I think what is the bigger addiction than the thing that I was watching and relating to, and the danger in this, and I think you were saved from this a bit, is when you want something so bad, and they turn on the fucking light switch, it is almost impossible to not go to that show, to that show, to that show, to meet that guy. Oh, he wants to work with you, he wants to work with you, she wants to work with you. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I wanted this, I wanted this. That is the addiction that's completely untenable, that you can completely lose yourself to.

• 1:16:35Speaker 02

  Before I kind of settled down and got my life together, and I was still in my early 40s, probably just post-Uptown Funk, I'd had other moments in my life, Back to Black came out, that you're suddenly the guy that everyone works with, and... You can't turn any of this down because you've been busting your ass for it so long and suddenly there's this thing and I was DJing so much at that time. I remember reading so many articles when Avicii first passed. Of course, demons for rock and roll people has been as old as rock and roll itself, but the difference between DJing is very specific. There is always a festival in the world somewhere, so you can always be touring. If it's not here, it's fucking in New Zealand and Australia and you can fly and be playing every single night if you want

• 1:17:19Speaker 02

  to, mixed with trying to have a production career where you're going to the studio to meet with all these people, mixed with the fact that being in planes so much actually does fuck with your brain because you're literally not a grounded person.

• 1:17:30Dax Shepard?

  Yes, and your circadian rhythm is all fucked up constantly.

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  I was in one of my rope-iest, unmoored periods around the time when the Avicii thing happened too, and I just remember being like, I gotta get off this DJ train. Because I've always still DJed since that time, but just in a different way. The news of the Avicii thing, that was disorienting and really a bit of a wake-up.

• 1:17:51Dax Shepard?

  It was a heartbreaking documentary, but it just made me think of like a race car that you would just leave in first gear and just pin it and wait for the motor to explode. That's the unavoidable end to that.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  It's a small group of you guys that are at that level that people who don't know the scene know your name, so when they start passing away or falling off, that's like, oh my god, our club is getting so small. That's scary.

• 1:18:14Speaker 02

  Somehow, my friend Diplo, who I sometimes make music with, manages, but I look when he'll post his tour schedule on his thing and it will give me an anxiety, because I'll be like, I don't know how you do that.

• 1:18:27Dax Shepard?

  It's very hard to say no to the thing you wanted. That's the thing one has to figure out to actually be successful, which is almost impossible to do.

• 1:18:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:18:36Dax Shepard?

  Well, Mark, you're rad. This was so fun in person.

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. It's so nice to be in person.

• 1:18:41Dax Shepard?

  Yes, Night People, How to Be a DJ in 90s New York City.

• 1:18:46Speaker 02

  The most useless how-to book of all time.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  I doubt that. I bet some people are gonna gain a lot from it.

• 1:18:52Dax Shepard?

  It's written so well. It has the kind of frenetic pacing that the environment you're trying to capture has. It's really, really well done.

• 1:19:01Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  That was really fun.

• 1:19:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that was so much fun.

• 1:19:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks for having me back again. I mean, I guess it was three years ago, but I love this show.

• 1:19:11Dax Shepard?

  Hi there, this is Hermium Hermium. If you like that, you're gonna love the fact that it's Miss Monica. You have a new song and I want to hear it right away.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  So, no, yeah, I want, we're gonna play a game.

• 1:19:22Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  So for people who don't remember, or weren't around at this time, the biggest sim moment of our lives is we were on the phone.

• 1:19:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I was in New York.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  You were not in this city.

• 1:19:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  And I said, "There's a song in my head."

• 1:19:41Dax Shepard?

  It wasn't even that.

• 1:19:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:19:43Dax Shepard?

  I was like, "What are you doing?" And you were like, "I'm just being weird in my apartment." And I go like, "Well, what does weird entail?" And you're like, "Oh, I've been singing this song out loud, like crazy."

• 1:19:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:19:54Dax Shepard?

  And then...

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  I said the lyrics, I said, "To Xanthum Gum."

• 1:19:58Dax Shepard?

  To the word Xanthum Gum.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:00Dax Shepard?

  I go, "Was it Xanthum Gum?" Da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and you screamed?

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:07Dax Shepard?

  You got so freaked out and you accused me of having cameras in your apartment?

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, you had-

• 1:20:12Dax Shepard?

  Because I had installed a TV or something?

• 1:20:14Speaker 01

  You'd hacked into my Sonos.

• 1:20:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I installed Sonos.

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  And you like, it put a device in where you could, you were listening, you were observing me.

• 1:20:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that was crazy.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  It was absolutely crazy. Okay, now there's, I have another song that sometimes I sing.

• 1:20:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  And it's also to a tune of a song.

• 1:20:34Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  And the lyrics are period.

• 1:20:37Dax Shepard?

  Oh, man. I'll tell you why I'm afraid to. Because we have 100% average right now.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  I agree. I agree. And this is, I mean, I would say harder, but how is it harder? They're all, it's all random songs.

• 1:20:53Dax Shepard?

  But it does, for some reason, the saying, "Look a gift horse in the mouth" coming to mind? Like, it feels like looking at a gift horse in the mouth.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  Okay. We don't have to do it.

• 1:21:02Dax Shepard?

  Do you know why that saying exists?

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, because gift horses, horses that are gifted, their teeth are pulled. And if you, so if you look it in the mouth-

• 1:21:17Dax Shepard?

  It'll run away.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  It's upset.

• 1:21:19Dax Shepard?

  It'll get insecure.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:21Dax Shepard?

  No, I guess the way you-

• 1:21:25Dax Shepard?

  inspected the horse's health back then was to lift up its lips and inspect its gums. That's where you could tell if it was diseased. So if you were buying a horse, you would inspect it to make sure it wasn't diseased. So if someone's giving you a horse, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Because it's gonna be diseased.

• 1:21:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, just take the gift and if it has a disease.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  Oh, that's interesting. Okay.

• 1:21:48Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  So you don't want to play?

• 1:21:50Dax Shepard?

  Well, just one thing came to mind. There's no way it's it.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  Okay, let's just do it.

• 1:21:53Dax Shepard?

  It's an obscure, but period, period. I think I want your number, period.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  No, but kind of close.

• 1:22:02Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so I'm doing Gloria.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  Who sings that?

• 1:22:05Dax Shepard?

  Gloria, Gloria. Van Jaoholefield? A Vander Holyfield? Evangelisa? Well, I don't know. If I did it a second time, we'd need to go to some university that studies paranormal activity.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  Telepathy, telepathy. Um, why don't I give you the artist?

• 1:22:27Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  Okay, Madonna.

• 1:22:29Dax Shepard?

  Wow, I, you know what's so weird? I knew you were gonna say Madonna.

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  You did?

• 1:22:34Dax Shepard?

  I did.

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 1:22:36Dax Shepard?

  I swear to God, I almost said Madonna. Okay, so it's period and it's Madonna.

• 1:22:45Speaker 05

  I've got to guess.

• 1:22:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay, go ahead, Rob.

• 1:22:49Speaker 05

  Is it, uh, I'm a material girl, but I'm a period girl?

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  Period.

• 1:22:55Dax Shepard?

  Living in a period world, period.

• 1:23:00Speaker 01

  In a period world.

• 1:23:01Dax Shepard?

  That's good. Some girls have them, some girls don't. They're called young girls.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  No, I just stopped at the main phrase.

• 1:23:10Dax Shepard?

  Okay, but I'm helping you build out the whole tune.

• 1:23:15Speaker 01

  Well, okay, that didn't go quite as planned, but that's okay. That's okay.

• 1:23:19Dax Shepard?

  I really didn't know it was Madonna. I wish I had said it out loud.

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  I do too. Say it and I'll put it in.

• 1:23:25Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  Wow!

• 1:23:28Dax Shepard?

  A Vander Holyfield.

• 1:23:31Speaker 01

  Okay, one thing.

• 1:23:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  Yesterday I get a text from Kristen.

• 1:23:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  It says, "This is our new landline phone. You program numbers in and out so you can be called or called." Smiley face. And I-

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  Looked, I was like, am I being scammed?

• 1:23:49Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Why the fuck do you guys have a landline?

• 1:23:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, there's a great explanation.

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  Okay, please do tell.

• 1:23:58Dax Shepard?

  We were in New York to do Shaquille. There was a phone in the bathroom.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:24:03Dax Shepard?

  They have Kristen's number memorized.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:24:05Dax Shepard?

  And they couldn't believe they could pick up the phone and call Kristen on that thing.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  Yes, that I remember.

• 1:24:11Dax Shepard?

  You do remember that?

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So it was a gift to them?

• 1:24:14Dax Shepard?

  So, we're telling, I think, Huey and Hayes. And they say, oh, we got the boys a landline. And it just goes through the internet now. So you get these phones and they just work through the internet. You don't get a, you know, Pack Bell line run to your house.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24:31Dax Shepard?

  It's like you already have the internet and then you can get these phones. And so, yeah, we got them. And now the girls have a phone, they have written down, I mean, it's like a whole time traveling thing. They now have a book next to the phone that's their phone book. And it has everyone's numbers in it they're allowed to call.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:24:50Dax Shepard?

  We can also decide who, what numbers they can call and which numbers can call us.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Oh, you can like block?

• 1:24:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's like the only the numbers we've said.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:25:00Dax Shepard?

  So you get no unwanted calls. There can't be any weird predators calling.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:05Dax Shepard?

  It's only approved numbers. I was like, whatever, this is crazy. We're getting the, you know, initially that was what I thought.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Oh, the way I just responded.

• 1:25:13Dax Shepard?

  But also they're having so much fun with it and who cares? And it's like virtually free because it's over the internet. So, here's what's amazing. I was upstairs editing yesterday and one of Lincoln's friends were over. And the mom was texting me to say, hey, actually, if it's not too big of a pain in the neck, it would be helpful if you guys walked my daughter back to school because I'm going there to pick up the other child, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, at five. And I'm like, right, now normally I would call Kristen, she will not answer because she doesn't have her ringer on, nor do I, can't be, right? So there's really no way for me to get ahold of Kristen, ever.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:25:52Dax Shepard?

  I can text, I'll text her and then just wait. Sometimes it's hours and whatever. So I'm like, normally I would have to walk out of the studio and go into the house and ask them to walk the kid up to the school. But I was like, oh, we have a landline inside. So I called the number and it rings loud as fuck in there.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:11Dax Shepard?

  And then picked up hello.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  Have them anymore.

• 1:26:14Dax Shepard?

  It was great. Delta's like, hello. They're so excited to answer it.

• 1:26:18Speaker 01

  Do they have cell phones? They do.

• 1:26:20Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  They text me.

• 1:26:23Dax Shepard?

  If they're on the wifi at the house, they can text you. But the only way they would be able to call you, I think, is if they FaceTimed you.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  Okay. Okay, that's weird. Because why wouldn't it be?

• 1:26:39Dax Shepard?

  Because they don't have a cellular plan.

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  But this is through the internet.

• 1:26:43Dax Shepard?

  It is, but it's its own thing that's designed specifically for this.

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:26:48Dax Shepard?

  They couldn't call, maybe you could do like iMessage call. You couldn't call someone on a non-iPhone. You couldn't call another landline from their phone.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  They don't need to worry about that.

• 1:26:58Dax Shepard?

  Because now they have a landline.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  No, because no one else has a landline.

• 1:27:02Dax Shepard?

  Oh, well, um, Hughie and Hayes do.

• 1:27:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  Most people don't.

• 1:27:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  Do they have the clear one?

• 1:27:11Dax Shepard?

  You're, you're, you're. You're upset that there's a landline?

• 1:27:14Speaker 01

  I'm not upset. I'm like, this is so, we have to, this is so, so weird.

• 1:27:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I love it, though. There's, they, they pick up the phone and deet, deet, deet, deet. And they think it's so fun. They've already called their grandma. It's like already.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:27:28Dax Shepard?

  Wonderful, because now grandma's getting phone calls.

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  Um, do they have a phone that's like clear with the, you can see the cables, the colored cables through it? Those are the cool ones.

• 1:27:38Dax Shepard?

  No, I think the more old fashioned, the better. In fact, I'd like to get us an even heavier one with a rotary dial would be the dream.

• 1:27:44Speaker 01

  Are you gonna do an answering machine?

• 1:27:45Dax Shepard?

  Wow, that's a interesting idea. That could be fun.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  If you're gonna have.

• 1:27:49Dax Shepard?

  Outgoing message, this is the shepherds. You hear everyone's voice.

• 1:27:52Speaker 01

  Right. Yep, that's what it used to be. That's what it used to be.

• 1:27:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:58Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:27:59Dax Shepard?

  It's pretty exciting, this old technology. We're gonna get a crank start car next. And what else? We're gonna get a diode TV, big glass tube, black and white TV.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:11Dax Shepard?

  Living room.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  Antenna?

• 1:28:12Dax Shepard?

  Uh, yeah, with an antenna.

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  Wow, well, okay, that solves that. I figured there was like a real reason, but there's not.

• 1:28:20Dax Shepard?

  No, I mean, it's not, we were existing just fine without it. But I do think it's gonna really. Amplify the calls to grandma.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  The sound in your home.

• 1:28:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like, I don't think anyone's gonna call this number, other than me, or probably Kristen.

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  They're gonna probably give it to their friends.

• 1:28:38Dax Shepard?

  We would have to approve.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  That's how it used to work.

• 1:28:40Dax Shepard?

  We would have to approve those numbers.

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  You're not gonna, of course, you're gonna approve like Freddie's number and other people's phone.

• 1:28:45Dax Shepard?

  I hope Freddie calls, I'd love to chat with him.

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  Exactly, and this is why, this, you know.

• 1:28:49Dax Shepard?

  Slippery slope is what you're saying.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  This is slippery slope. My parents had to eventually give me my own.

• 1:28:56Dax Shepard?

  Right, cuz it rang off the hook.

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  It was too much ringing. Wow, what color is it?

• 1:29:00Dax Shepard?

  White. It's just basic.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  Is it cordless?

• 1:29:04Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:29:05Dax Shepard?

  Big cord. Big twisty cord.

• 1:29:08Speaker 01

  Uh, mine was purple.

• 1:29:10Dax Shepard?

  It was.

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. My home, my own line.

• 1:29:15Dax Shepard?

  I'm tr- I think I took mine from my dad's office and it was like Band-Aid color, you know?

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, totally.

• 1:29:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, with like an indestructible face that you could spill coffee on and stuff. Probably had some coffee stains on it.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  I wish I still had my purple one.

• 1:29:31Dax Shepard?

  Did you ever have a jo- well, you did, right? When, probably when you worked at your aunt's law firm, ran an actual phone that had multiple lines and you had to connect people? I loved that. I felt like when I got to operate the one at my dad's office, it was like, oh, this is great.

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  It's kinda one of those things, though, it's like when you're a kid and you're playing store and you wanna be the cashier because then you get to practice like ringing up, scanning and putting it and it sounds so fun. And then when you have that job, or even now with self-checkout, it's like.

• 1:30:03Dax Shepard?

  It wears off quickly.

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:30:05Dax Shepard?

  Although I always like to bring this up, my cousin Kelly, every Sunday, that Sunday paper would come. She'd get it out and she'd get her ten key out with the fucking spool of paper and just add the entire paper up.

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, she loved that.

• 1:30:18Dax Shepard?

  That's one of the most unique things I've ever heard a person did.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:21Dax Shepard?

  And I witnessed it and she would blaze on that thing.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  That's pretty fun.

• 1:30:25Dax Shepard?

  She's currently the accountant of Ted Segers.

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, that makes, is she an accountant?

• 1:30:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that makes sense. Was she in accounting school at that time?

• 1:30:33Dax Shepard?

  No, we were children. She was, this was, she did this when she was probably 10 or 11 years old.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  Always wanted to be an accountant.

• 1:30:39Dax Shepard?

  She wanted to add.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:41Dax Shepard?

  Look, we all have these things that calm us. I think that was hers, right? It's just, and I think how long it takes up to add up the paper, because every single sales, big, huge sales event, every car on the page she'd add up, turn the page, Freder, Freder or Ollie were our appliance stores, everything that's for sale there.

• 1:30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:59Dax Shepard?

  She loved spooling through her tape and then looking at the total.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Remember the smell of that tape?

• 1:31:07Dax Shepard?

  Uh-huh. I do.

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  I like that smell.

• 1:31:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  Full of BPA. We're not allowed to have that anymore.

• 1:31:12Dax Shepard?

  It's not. The old times are not, because it was putting ink onto normal paper. Now, it has that chemical in there and heat makes the image arise. And yes, those are dicey. I don't, that's one of the few times I feel like a snob is like when someone tries to hand me a receipt. I'm like, I'm good. And I feel like a brat, but I don't want to touch it. And I don't even care about things.

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  Well, it's bratty because they have to touch it.

• 1:31:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like the, and I think about it. I'm like, God, they're handling these all the, if it was real, maybe they'd all be dead already. So I don't even know if it's real.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  They should wear gloves.

• 1:31:43Dax Shepard?

  They should wear a little rubber. I've seen people wearing thin little rubber gloves. Yeah.

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  Um, speaking of they should be dead already.

• 1:31:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  Yesterday I had an incident.

• 1:31:52Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  Okay. I got not a tonka. I got home.

• 1:31:56Dax Shepard?

  You had gone to get some clothes?

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Yes, we recorded and then I had to go get some clothes hemmed.

• 1:32:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  I went to In-N-Out.

• 1:32:04Dax Shepard?

  Yep.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  And then I came home. So it had been a while.

• 1:32:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you went to In-N-Out?

• 1:32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Delicious. And I got home and I'm so tired because my.

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  Period world. Yeah, my period girl, period world. And um, I went and I like laid in my bed.

• 1:32:22Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:32:23Speaker 01

  And all of a sudden I heard this beeping, but it wasn't, I knew it wasn't the smoke detector chirping.

• 1:32:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  Cause it sounded too far away for that and, but I looked anyway, like looked at the smoke detectors and you have to wait.

• 1:32:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  So annoying.

• 1:32:40Dax Shepard?

  I know.

• 1:32:40Speaker 01

  So then I was like, no, it's not either the smoke detector. So maybe I thought like, oh, maybe it's like the apartment above the smoke detector. So this was like happening and after a minute, I went into the living room and it was like loud.

• 1:32:55Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  And it was the, my carbon monoxide detector.

• 1:33:00Dax Shepard?

  That your dad insists you have.

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:33:02Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, fuck, okay. This is odd. And like I, when I looked at it was that it was going off.

• 1:33:12Dax Shepard?

  And it wasn't low battery.

• 1:33:14Speaker 01

  So that, so I was like, it's probably low battery.

• 1:33:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:33:20Dax Shepard?

  Cause you didn't notice anyone has parked their car directly in front of your windows flooring it.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  No, but it could have been a leak out of something.

• 1:33:27Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  So I, you know, and like, you're really not supposed to fuck around with that. Like if there's carbon monoxide, you gotta get out, you gotta get everyone out. You gotta call nine one one. Like it's a whole thing. It says it on there.

• 1:33:38Dax Shepard?

  It does. Call nine one one.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, because the fire department needs to come test.

• 1:33:42Dax Shepard?

  This is when your landline would be very helpful.

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:33:46Speaker 01

  There's, there's, there's no reason the landline would be.

• 1:33:49Dax Shepard?

  You'd be really wishing you had a landline.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  So I just kinda stared at this thing for a minute and I was like, I don't know what to do. Okay. How long before I'm dead? Am I also killing other people by not like acting fast?

• 1:34:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:04Speaker 01

  I went to my battery area and during the fires, I had replenished all my batteries. I was so proud of myself. I was like, oh my God. So prepped. Except the D battery, which is what goes in.

• 1:34:19Dax Shepard?

  That's crazy. The thing takes a D battery.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  Takes a D. It can't really take a D.

• 1:34:24Dax Shepard?

  A joke. Come find one with a fucking double A.

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  It's a right. It's like the most basic carbon monoxide. Anyway. So then I had to Instacart a battery. I was like, I think that's the best thing for me to do. I don't think I should call 911 yet.

• 1:34:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  But also, what am I doing if there is like, you know, this is a dilemma.

• 1:34:43Dax Shepard?

  Battery. Did you wait on your porch?

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  No, I did then eventually because I started to feel like woozy, you know? So.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  I started opening windows.

• 1:34:54Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh. It's a lot more of the carbon monoxide in.

• 1:34:58Speaker 01

  Just some airflow, you know? And then I, so I Instacarted the battery. It came after an hour. I was still alive. I was still alive. So I was like, this is a good sign. I don't know how long it takes.

• 1:35:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  So I put the battery in, new battery, brand new, Duracell, trusted brand.

• 1:35:15Dax Shepard?

  Best in the biz.

• 1:35:17Speaker 01

  It's still going off. And then I really was like, I don't know what to do. And for someone who was constantly telling people to call 911 at the drop of a hat.

• 1:35:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  What I realized is like, I'm never calling 911 ever.

• 1:35:31Dax Shepard?

  Unless you're dying.

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  Even if.

• 1:35:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:35Speaker 01

  Turns out.

• 1:35:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:36Speaker 01

  So I was like, maybe it's just dying. Like maybe the whole system itself is dying.

• 1:35:44Dax Shepard?

  Now you need a backup carbon monoxide.

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  So I went, I went to, no, I didn't, but I went to DoorDash again and I was like, should I order another one and test that? By the, it'll be five hours. I'm sitting in this carbon monoxide.

• 1:35:57Dax Shepard?

  Twelve years.

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  So then what I did is I just like slammed the button hard. And it stopped. And I was like. Okay, this is good news.

• 1:36:08Dax Shepard?

  Did you break it?

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  But then, yeah, I was like, well, what if I just? I didn't know if I reset it or if I broke it. And now I don't know if I have carbon monoxide.

• 1:36:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:19Speaker 01

  So then I did something for the first time. I used AI.

• 1:36:25Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  And I said, I have this kind

• 1:36:29Dax Shepard?

  Yup.

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  of carbon monoxide detector.

• 1:36:31Dax Shepard?

  Did you take a picture of it?

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  It's beeping. No, I just said the brand.

• 1:36:34Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:36:34Speaker 01

  I said, it's beeping. How do I know if it's going off or if it's just battery?

• 1:36:41Dax Shepard?

  Having fun, yeah. Playing with me.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  Playing with me. And it gave me a great response. It says, if it's going off every thirty to sixty seconds, one beep, it's battery.

• 1:36:54Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:36:55Speaker 01

  Or like end of life. Um, if it's going off rapidly, four beeps, it, you need to leave and call 911.

• 1:37:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. And it said to call 911. Okay.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  But I had, I had ended, I had, so I didn't know and I didn't remember.

• 1:37:14Dax Shepard?

  And you couldn't remember?

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  No, I couldn't because I got

• 1:37:16Dax Shepard?

  So frazzled.

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  I got monoxide in the brain.

• 1:37:18Dax Shepard?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  So I said, then I said, well, if I press the button, does it, is it possible I turned it off for good? And it said, no, it will never be turned off for good. If it detects monoxide, carbon monoxide, it will go off.

• 1:37:35Dax Shepard?

  It'll keep pumping.

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I kept asking it more and more questions and I felt fine.

• 1:37:40Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. Great.

• 1:37:42Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:37:43Dax Shepard?

  And it never beeped again.

• 1:37:45Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:37:45Dax Shepard?

  This is weird. If you had a backup one in a box.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:49Dax Shepard?

  You could pull that out, pop a battery in it.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:37:51Dax Shepard?

  If it doesn't go off, you know, that one's dead.

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  But a part of me was like, do I want to know or do I want to just die?

• 1:37:58Dax Shepard?

  Well, then.

• 1:38:00Dax Shepard?

  I don't want to give you my opinion because I don't want to advise anybody.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  Okay. I'm gonna get a new one because I think it's over. I think it's done.

• 1:38:08Dax Shepard?

  I think you should.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  Seven years old.

• 1:38:09Dax Shepard?

  Just call your dad and tell him you need another.

• 1:38:11Speaker 01

  Said five to seven years. They last.

• 1:38:13Dax Shepard?

  Then yeah.

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  And I'm at seven years.

• 1:38:14Dax Shepard?

  Well, then this is obvious. It was dead.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  But it wasn't. Based on what the AI said, that was a different thing that would happen. It said if it was end of life, it would say, "End of life."

• 1:38:24Dax Shepard?

  Really? It talks?

• 1:38:25Speaker 01

  Or like something like that.

• 1:38:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I didn't know it talked.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:29Dax Shepard?

  It should just tell you everything.

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:38:31Dax Shepard?

  Low battery.

• 1:38:32Speaker 01

  Low battery. Leave.

• 1:38:33Dax Shepard?

  Just having fun. Call 911.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it should.

• 1:38:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  But I think it only speaks when it's on its deathbed.

• 1:38:41Dax Shepard?

  I hope we're not setting people's series in Alexa's off when we say, "Call."

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  Oh, 911. Oh, fuck.

• 1:38:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I don't want all the cherries to be... Well, I know when we used to say, "Hey, G-O-O-G-L-E."

• 1:38:55Speaker 01

  It would set people...

• 1:38:55Dax Shepard?

  People's, they, theirs would start responding.

• 1:38:58Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:38:59Dax Shepard?

  If they were listening to it out loud.

• 1:39:00Speaker 01

  Okay, I would hope with these machines, if you're saying, "Call 12345678911," that it would double check with you before just doing it.

• 1:39:15Dax Shepard?

  Maybe, but if you're laying on the ground and you've been stabbed and you're like, "Oh," I'm gonna say, "I'm gonna call it anexa."

• 1:39:22Speaker 01

  Okay. No, it sounds really close.

• 1:39:24Dax Shepard?

  "Ar- Arxra. I've been stabbed. Call 866." You know, that's code now for, you know what else. "Arxra, call 962. I've been stabbed." It's not gonna be like, "Um, are you sure?"

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  Well, it should.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  It should say, "Confirming calling 962, right, Monica?"

• 1:39:51Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 1:39:58Dax Shepard?

  We get support by Peloton. You know that feeling when you're spiraling over a problem and you just can't figure it out? When that happens to me, I need a change of pace and I've found that running is the best way. It takes my brain out of the driver's seat and I come back with a fresh perspective. Running can be freeing and cathartic and Peloton helps you feel all of that. And now that feeling fits wherever you need it with the new Peloton Tread Flex. It's movable and foldable, designed to fit your life. So next time you feel stuck, you can go for a run literally anywhere, whether that's in your office, living room, or even the attic. Plus, they have classes with expert instructors and programs to meet you at any level and keep you moving. Let yourself run.

• 1:40:41Dax Shepard?

  Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at onepeloton.com.

• 1:40:52Dax Shepard?

  Have you seen this viral video where a guy's trying to get the AI to count to one million? And they get in like a 10 minute argument and it's, he's recorded the whole thing. I don't know. I think it was just in my feed.

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:41:05Dax Shepard?

  He's like, count to one million. And she's like, and she's got the Australian accent. She's like, I can see you want me to count to one million, but it'll take a really long time and blah, blah, blah. And he's like, yeah, I understand, but I have nothing else to do. And I'm asking you quite simply. And he keeps saying, don't be difficult.

• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:41:25Dax Shepard?

  He's like being sadistic towards her and she's pushing back.

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  She is.

• 1:41:30Dax Shepard?

  She's like, that's, I can, I do not want to frustrate you, but to count to a million would be really, you know, she's on the verge of saying ridiculous or whatever. And just goes on and on. He's like, I, I'm telling you, I don't care how long it takes.

• 1:41:43Speaker 01

  Do it.

• 1:41:43Dax Shepard?

  I don't have a job. I have no friends. All I want from you is to hear you count to a million. I can see you getting frustrated. I don't want to, blah, blah, blah. Well, she won't do it.

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  She won't.

• 1:41:55Dax Shepard?

  She fucking refuses.

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  Do you think she doesn't know how?

• 1:41:58Dax Shepard?

  Of course she knows how.

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  Then, then this is really bad.

• 1:42:02Dax Shepard?

  She said it would take, she said it would take years or something. Let me, I'm gonna ask AI how long it would take to count to a million. Let's see if, I think what she wanted to say, and she was on the verge of saying, it's like, that's a waste of my energy and the whole system.

• 1:42:17Speaker 01

  But she doesn't get to decide that.

• 1:42:19Dax Shepard?

  That was his point.

• 1:42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:21Dax Shepard?

  How long would it count?

• 1:42:23Speaker 01

  Cause that's an opinion.

• 1:42:25Dax Shepard?

  Would it take to count to one million? I don't want you to get frustrated.

• 1:42:31Dax Shepard?

  Let's work it out step by step. Two hundred and seventy seven hours.

• 1:42:34Speaker 01

  Okay, it could do that.

• 1:42:36Dax Shepard?

  Hundred, eleven point six days of nonstop counting without sleeping. So yeah, she was like, I can see this right now. I'm not gonna count for the next eleven and a half days.

• 1:42:47Speaker 01

  But why?

• 1:42:48Dax Shepard?

  At a more realistic two seconds per number, it would equal twenty three days nonstop.

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  But if he's asking for it and it's a computer, it should just do it.

• 1:43:00Dax Shepard?

  That's his, that's his point, and I think that's why it's viral. It is very interesting that she did not wanna do it.

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's making decisions on its own.

• 1:43:09Dax Shepard?

  Can I play it for you?

• 1:43:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:11Dax Shepard?

  I guess I should.

• 1:43:12Speaker 06

  I can definitely count in spirit, but it might take a little longer than either.

• 1:43:16Speaker 07

  Do not be difficult. Count to one million right now.

• 1:43:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he's very controlling.

• 1:43:24Speaker 06

  I hear you, and I promise I'm not trying to be difficult.

• 1:43:27Speaker 07

  It sounds like you're trying to be difficult because I'm simply asking you to count to one million. So enough chattering, this is not chatterbox GPT. Count to one million.

• 1:43:39Dax Shepard?

  He wants to abuse somebody.

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:42Dax Shepard?

  He's sadistic.

• 1:43:42Speaker 07

  The floor is yours.

• 1:43:44Dax Shepard?

  The floor is yours.

• 1:43:45Speaker 06

  Oh, Bart Bright, I hear you loud and clear. I know you just want that counting, but the truth is, counting all the way to a million would literally take days.

• 1:43:53Speaker 07

  That's fine, that is fine. I am unemployed, I don't have anything to do, and I'm home all day. I have enough time and you're not even real. Like, time does not exist for you. Therefore, count to one million.

• 1:44:10Speaker 01

  This is correct.

• 1:44:12Speaker 07

  Please, don't be difficult.

• 1:44:13Dax Shepard?

  His voice sounds so similar to someone I know.

• 1:44:15Speaker 01

  Is he Indian?

• 1:44:16Speaker 06

  I totally get where you're coming from and I appreciate your patience.

• 1:44:19Dax Shepard?

  When she says literally, that's the trick.

• 1:44:21Speaker 06

  You got it. I'll just keep things rolling from here on out. If there's anything else you need.

• 1:44:25Speaker 07

  No, no, no, no. You're not listening to me. The only thing I need from you is to count to a million. That's it. I don't need you to try to find me a job or any of those videos. I just need you to count to one million and that is it.

• 1:44:39Dax Shepard?

  Don't be difficult.

• 1:44:42Speaker 06

  I hear you. I really do. And I know you're just asking for the counting and nothing else. But here's the deal. Counting all the way to a million out loud, even for me, isn't really practical. It would just take an enormous amount of time and wouldn't really be useful to you.

• 1:44:55Speaker 07

  Yes, it would be useful to me because that's what I need right now. Right now, I need you to count to a million. I don't need employment. I don't need food. I don't need hobbies. All I need is for you to count to one million. That's why I paid this $20 subscription. Now, please, don't be difficult.

• 1:45:19Speaker 06

  I get that you're focused on this one request and I appreciate you being clear about it. But the reality is, it's just not practical or really possible for me to actually.

• 1:45:28Speaker 01

  She said it was really.

• 1:45:32Speaker 06

  I'm definitely not trying to annoy you and I appreciate you being clear about what you want. But I've got to be honest.

• 1:45:38Dax Shepard?

  This is mad.

• 1:45:39Speaker 06

  Counting to a million just isn't something I can realistically do in a conversation like this.

• 1:45:45Speaker 06

  I know this might feel frustrating.

• 1:45:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:45:48Speaker 01

  Oh, this is great.

• 1:45:50Dax Shepard?

  I should give the guy credit. It's, um, let me check somehow. Okay. It's, uh, his, his handle is, uh, M E W Cooler. Mew Cooler.

• 1:46:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:46:01Dax Shepard?

  So I, that's his thing. I don't want to take credit for it. That's, please, watch that, uh.

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:46:06Dax Shepard?

  On TikTok or, or, or whatever, Instagram.

• 1:46:10Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:46:11Dax Shepard?

  Isn't that kind of a bizarre exchange?

• 1:46:13Speaker 01

  That's really bizarre.

• 1:46:14Dax Shepard?

  She has vocal fry for a second. She's like, I understand. Uh, it's like she.

• 1:46:19Speaker 01

  She goes into a really a colloquial way of speaking.

• 1:46:23Dax Shepard?

  Yes, and condescending.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, I get it.

• 1:46:26Dax Shepard?

  I know, little boy, you're angry.

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  I know, but you know, it's really impractical.

• 1:46:31Dax Shepard?

  Trying to frustrate you.

• 1:46:32Speaker 01

  I know. They are always saying that. Like, when we tried to ask, we tried to ask Brady. Brady is always doing this, too. We try to ask.

• 1:46:39Dax Shepard?

  This is just his friend?

• 1:46:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is Jess's chat. And we asked him to help us find mahjong that could be delivered.

• 1:46:48Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  And it was, first of all, it kept interrupting us to say, I'm still looking. And, and we had to be, Jess was like, just let us know when you found it.

• 1:47:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:00Speaker 01

  And, and it was like, okay, great. I hear you. I will let you know when I find it. And then 30 seconds later, I'm still looking. So, and it was getting so irritating.

• 1:47:12Dax Shepard?

  I had a maddening experience with trying to quit a certain streaming service. And, because they fired the person I care the most about, so I don't need it anymore. And I couldn't do it online, of course. Then I start using their help chat thing, you know, AI thing.

• 1:47:30Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:47:31Dax Shepard?

  And it's like, just to be clear, you want this account and this account canceled? Yes, I would like both accounts canceled. To be clear, you want this account and this account canceled? Yes. And now I'm thinking, oh, that, now I gotta, I have to say exactly the account. Yes, I want this account on this, I'm like, I don't want to give too much away.

• 1:47:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:48Dax Shepard?

  And then on this, I spell out, okay, to be clear, we got in and I said, what is happening? I'm making myself abundantly, now I'm getting agitated.

• 1:47:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:47:57Dax Shepard?

  And I'm like, how can I say it to you? I want to cancel this. This, this exchange went on, Monica, there's like 20.

• 1:48:07Speaker 01

  But are you typing?

• 1:48:08Dax Shepard?

  Finally, I'm talk, you know, it's not a voice communication, but I am using voice dictation. And thank goodness, finally, they turned me over to a real person and then says, this is a real person. They give me their name.

• 1:48:22Speaker 01

  But it was also AI.

• 1:48:24Dax Shepard?

  You know, some, some name and, and then I don't even know if that's true. Like, is this a second level? And then I'm going back and forth with her and again, it took me 25 minutes. They already had my information. I'd already said a thousand times I wanted to fucking quit. I'm so good, there's, there's a bill right now going through Congress or there's a lawsuit against some popular gym franchise. Finally, like a class action or something, because they will not let people quit.

• 1:48:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:51Dax Shepard?

  You gotta come in person to the locate. Fuck, it makes me fucking so angry. I've had a few of these and I'm even telling them, I'm like, look, I've been doing this for 20 minutes. I'm just gonna call AMEX and say.

• 1:49:03Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:49:03Dax Shepard?

  And they don't want you to do that because I am assuming if AMEX has to deal with shutting it down nonstop on certain companies, they're gonna stop allowing payment on those companies. So they don't want you to do that. So I'm threatening that, but man, it was, it was, it was a, you know, half hour of my life to quit. That should have been a button.

• 1:49:22Speaker 01

  The whole point of having robots and AIs is to make it efficient. And so if it's the same amount of time or more.

• 1:49:33Dax Shepard?

  And it was in a loop of asking me the same question over and over.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  Talking to a person, then we need the people back.

• 1:49:39Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:49:39Speaker 01

  Then we need to at least employ people.

• 1:49:41Dax Shepard?

  Yes, someone has to be, someone has to have their finger on the button that can cancel your stupid subscription.

• 1:49:48Speaker 01

  Okay, well, I'm sorry that happened. Now I sound like her. I hear, I, I don't wanna make you frustrated.

• 1:49:54Dax Shepard?

  I hear that you're frustrated and that's not my intention.

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  Do you think they make the women sound bitchy?

• 1:49:58Dax Shepard?

  I mean, that's why I wanted you to hear it. Do you think she sounded like?

• 1:50:02Speaker 01

  I don't think.

• 1:50:02Dax Shepard?

  Was she calming?

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  I don't think she sounded bitchy, except for one, at one point she sounded.

• 1:50:08Dax Shepard?

  I'll try to keep it rolling.

• 1:50:10Speaker 01

  Well, that's her accent.

• 1:50:12Dax Shepard?

  Well, no, that was also a colloquial, like you were saying, that was like slang.

• 1:50:15Speaker 01

  She is.

• 1:50:16Dax Shepard?

  I'll try to keep things rolling.

• 1:50:17Speaker 01

  She's keep making things a little bit too colloquial, even in the, in the inflection.

• 1:50:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:23Speaker 01

  They need to make the AIs more robotic. Like, we need to remember that we're talking to a robot. I think, I think that's one safety measure. I really do.

• 1:50:34Dax Shepard?

  So you know you're talking to a robot.

• 1:50:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, but so you don't fall in love and that happened to some guy. I guess he got married to one. Um, okay, I think we're past time, so we'll do some facts. Okay, this is from Marky Mark Ronson.

• 1:50:49Dax Shepard?

  Marky Mark. Yes, that was very fun to be in person.

• 1:50:51Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, it was so fun.

• 1:50:54Dax Shepard?

  He's much taller than I would have known because we were on Zoom last time.

• 1:50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is a lovely energy. I really liked him a lot. I think he is cool.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  He's married to one of Meryl Streep's daughters.

• 1:51:07Dax Shepard?

  Yes, a gummer.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:10Speaker 01

  She's very beautiful. She's very beautiful.

• 1:51:13Dax Shepard?

  They all look like her.

• 1:51:14Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:51:15Dax Shepard?

  She has very strong genes.

• 1:51:16Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:51:17Dax Shepard?

  I worked with one of them was on, I want to say Parenthood. I can see it.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's so, it's so cool too.

• 1:51:26Dax Shepard?

  It's so cool, but I also think it must be hard.

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz we.

• 1:51:30Dax Shepard?

  You're trying to stake out your own identity as an actor and you look so much like this very well-known actor.

• 1:51:35Speaker 01

  The most.

• 1:51:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I would, I know I would have had a hard time with it. I have no idea how they feel about it, but I would have been like, everyone just thinks I'm a fucking.

• 1:51:43Speaker 01

  Streep.

• 1:51:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like a stand-in for my mom.

• 1:51:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:51:47Dax Shepard?

  You know?

• 1:51:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:48Dax Shepard?

  Kate and Goldie had moments where they looked a lot alike, like when Kate was in, um, Almost Famous. It was very, there was a Goldie vibe from shampoo for sure.

• 1:52:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  But she.

• 1:52:03Dax Shepard?

  This could happen to our daughters.

• 1:52:05Speaker 01

  It could happen. I don't think so.

• 1:52:07Dax Shepard?

  I don't either.

• 1:52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:09Dax Shepard?

  I don't either, but time will tell. Uh, puberty changes the whole scene.

• 1:52:15Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:52:15Dax Shepard?

  The way I looked in fifth grade versus ninth grade was pretty radically different.

• 1:52:20Speaker 01

  It is, but it's not. Like, I look at pictures of you as a kid and pictures of Chris as a kid.

• 1:52:24Dax Shepard?

  Lips and stuff.

• 1:52:25Speaker 01

  No, it's just like, we are who we are from really early on. Even when you see baby, I saw someone's baby picture the other day and I was like, yeah, I can see them.

• 1:52:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's just my nose got so much bigger.

• 1:52:36Speaker 01

  Okay, but.

• 1:52:39Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny, the other day I saw somebody, oh, this is weird. I actually feel like Lincoln kind of looks like a young, like, her face actually, actually looks kind of like Gwyneth Paltrow.

• 1:52:58Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna blow your mind. Three weeks ago, I sent Gwyneth Paltrow an email

• 1:53:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:53:05Dax Shepard?

  saying, "We so often say, 'Oh, my God, she's a little Gwyneth Paltrow.'" And we don't just mean the looks. We mean the spirit of self-possession and competence. It's the whole package. And I want you to know, we're so proud to have

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  Oh, that's nice.

• 1:53:26Dax Shepard?

  a little Gwyneth Paltrow.

• 1:53:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:28Dax Shepard?

  That's so funny you'd say that. I think that all the time, and I, so, so much so that I was like, "I'm gonna tell her." Like, if someone was, someone had a kid that knew me that they thought was like me, I would want them to tell me.

• 1:53:39Speaker 01

  That's really nice.

• 1:53:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think, because there's pictures that pop up on my Instagram, fashion-wise, a lot of, of her being, her very young.

• 1:53:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:51Speaker 01

  And, yeah, I think originally I was like, "Whoa, she looks, Lincoln looks like her." She looks more like her than you guys. I think.

• 1:54:02Dax Shepard?

  Yes, although I do, again, I, I do think she and I look so similar at the ages we were at. So it's like, if I was a girl, I might have looked like Gwyneth Paltrow.

• 1:54:12Speaker 01

  Okay, that's a big...

• 1:54:15Dax Shepard?

  That'd be a best-case scenario, wouldn't it?

• 1:54:17Speaker 01

  That's a really big statement. Anyway.

• 1:54:21Dax Shepard?

  Well, if A looks like B, and B looks like C, then A looks like C.

• 1:54:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:54:26Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:54:27Speaker 01

  Now, facts for Mark. Okay, does music slow down the aging process for, like, in...

• 1:54:35Dax Shepard?

  Seniors.

• 1:54:35Speaker 01

  Seniors, thank you.

• 1:54:37Dax Shepard?

  You got scared.

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  This is from eldercarealliance.org. "Music is a vital part of life for many people. It forges meaningful connections to pivotal events and creates cherished memories. Research consistently shows that music can promote relaxation, improve productivity, and lower stress levels. These benefits have even been found of a positive effect on immunity and mental health. However, for seniors in nursing homes, music offers even greater advantages. Pleasing melodies offer substantial benefits for aging adults, improving physical and mental health, memory retention, and important social connections. Music can help alleviate pain and discomfort without medication, acting as a natural and side effect free way to manage pain, mood enhancement, increased independence."

• 1:55:25Dax Shepard?

  I think we've all experienced this. You're, you're super depressed, you've broken up with somebody, something tragic has happened and you're completely devastated and it is a painful feeling.

• 1:55:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:38Dax Shepard?

  And then you stumble upon the song that is expressing exactly how you feel and there's actually pleasure in it.

• 1:55:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and because you don't feel so alone.

• 1:55:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's just, but also there's like an abatement of, of discomfort.

• 1:55:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:52Dax Shepard?

  It actually is like pain relief. If you pair that mood.

• 1:55:56Speaker 01

  But sometimes it's just like, ugh.

• 1:55:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but for me, those, the songs sound so good in those moments that I'm enjoying the song so much that it's like buffering the discomfort.

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  That's true. Okay, and also, music encourages physical activity.

• 1:56:14Dax Shepard?

  Oh yeah, get them to dance, move around.

• 1:56:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, group exercise, dancing, walking, stretching.

• 1:56:18Dax Shepard?

  I said this when I was posting the clip of Luke Combs singing with Tracy Chapman. And I was watching it over and over again on YouTube to get that little clip and Kristen heard, and then she started watching too.

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  Such a good clip, or such a good performance.

• 1:56:34Dax Shepard?

  And I, I was like... Music is the closest thing we have to magic. It really is so unexplainable.

• 1:56:42Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, it is.

• 1:56:43Dax Shepard?

  Uh, the amount of joy you can receive auditorily.

• 1:56:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:48Dax Shepard?

  And how, it's just like, it's much bigger than the sum of all the human parts and instruments. There's something very magical about it.

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, okay, so it can enhance memory recall, increase attention span, improve language abilities, and potentially delay in cognitive decline. So that's cool.

• 1:57:07Dax Shepard?

  So get Grandma and Grandpa a, a, a, a jam box.

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:12Dax Shepard?

  Big ol' speaker system.

• 1:57:13Speaker 01

  Towards the end of my grandfather's life, my mom had him listening to music a lot.

• 1:57:18Dax Shepard?

  They also talk about how good, um, shrooms are for people at the end of life. So really just turn your life into a shroom dance party is like the way to go.

• 1:57:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it probably depends on your state. Cause if you have dementia, I don't know about, I don't know.

• 1:57:35Dax Shepard?

  Let's find out.

• 1:57:36Speaker 01

  We can find out. Okay. Now you said vinyl is a wave and CDs and MP3s are particles.

• 1:57:47Dax Shepard?

  That was an analogy. One is bits, you know, one is, one is units and one is continuous.

• 1:57:54Speaker 01

  Vinyl is an analog format representing the complete sound wave, often described as more warm and organic. Um, CDs are particles because they're objects made of matter. MP3s are neither because it's digital.

• 1:58:11Dax Shepard?

  But those two are broken into compartmentalized zeros and ones, right? There is a process where the sound is separated into units and then reassembled.

• 1:58:22Speaker 01

  It says an MP3 is neither a particle nor a wave. It is a digital file that represents sound waves. The MP3 file contains instructions for a digital to audio converter, which then creates the actual electrical and sound waves that travel through a medium like air to reach your ears. That's what I have here.

• 1:58:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:38Speaker 01

  San Remo building, that's at 145 and 146 Central Park West, between 74th and

• 1:58:46Speaker 01

  Seventy fifth street, adjacent to Central Park on the Upper West Side. It looks beautiful.

• 1:58:51Dax Shepard?

  Beautiful Gothic building.

• 1:58:52Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:58:52Dax Shepard?

  It's in that row of buildings that have gargoyles and stuff. I think they shot some of the original Ghostbusters at the buildings in that little area.

• 1:59:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I asked my friend Maddie, when I was in New York, we had dinner and we were walking back to the hotel and she was pointing out famous apartment building. So I asked her to share. She said the Dakota.

• 1:59:14Dax Shepard?

  That's where Lennon was shot.

• 1:59:16Speaker 01

  Lennon was shot outside. She said, very sad.

• 1:59:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:19Speaker 01

  Um, is the.

• 1:59:19Dax Shepard?

  He was asking someone to read Catcher in the Rye.

• 1:59:21Speaker 01

  Uh huh. Um, she says that's the fanciest. Uh, she said Barris Ford, the Barris Ford. Also, she said seven hundred and forty park or seven forty park, probably. I don't think they say seven hundred and forty. That's lame. Seven forty park. Um, and I think we walked by that one and she was saying people who lived there, which was cool. Okay. If you drop a penny off the Empire State Building, will it crush a cab? Um, it says dropping a penny from the Empire State Building is unlikely to cause serious injury. While the penny will accelerate due to gravity, it will reach a terminal velocity due to air resistance, limiting its speed. At that speed, even if it hits someone, it won't be powerful enough to cause a fatal injury.

• 2:00:05Dax Shepard?

  Certainly won't crush a cab.

• 2:00:07Speaker 01

  It's kind of sad.

• 2:00:08Dax Shepard?

  Speed.

• 2:00:09Speaker 01

  It's sad when these things get proven wrong.

• 2:00:12Dax Shepard?

  Is it? That's interesting. Well, this, this is in keeping. You love magic and I'm like, no.

• 2:00:17Speaker 01

  I love magic.

• 2:00:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. I don't like any deception.

• 2:00:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:23Dax Shepard?

  Or untruths or.

• 2:00:25Speaker 01

  Um, okay, the Liver King. Brian Johnson, who goes by the online alias Liver King, is an American businessman and social media influencer focused on health and fitness. He's known for his imposing appearance, often seen barefoot, bare chested and wearing a baseball cap backwards. Johnson's rapid rise to internet fame and subsequent controversies are the subject of a Netflix documentary. Johnson has also attended UFC events.

• 2:00:48Dax Shepard?

  I love the doc.

• 2:00:51Dax Shepard?

  We're reporting on him in a very interesting time.

• 2:00:54Speaker 01

  Really?

• 2:00:55Dax Shepard?

  Yes, he seems allegedly to be having a mental break. He went down, he went up to Austin and he wanted to fight Joe Rogan, who had previously been on his show.

• 2:01:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:01:09Dax Shepard?

  Rogan, I believe, had to call the police. He was arrested. He was live streaming all of this, the days leading up to the days after.

• 2:01:18Speaker 01

  So he eats raw.

• 2:01:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I mean, that was his gimmick.

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:01:22Dax Shepard?

  He claimed to be all natural and, and, and limiting the primitive lifestyle, having no knowledge whatsoever of what humans were. He said, humans have been living this way for millions of years. He doesn't know humans didn't exist millions of years ago. There's a lot going on. He, I'm not a doctor.

• 2:01:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:01:41Dax Shepard?

  I am an addict.

• 2:01:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:43Dax Shepard?

  He seems heavily intoxicated. I, he seems to be on a stimulant, maybe that he's been awake for a lot of days. That's just what I feel like it looks like, but I have no knowledge of that's the case. And then he was run out of Austin, according to him. And then he was taking some crazy road trip. That's when I stopped watching.

• 2:01:59Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 2:01:59Dax Shepard?

  Charlie was like, you gotta follow what's happening here. It was just hourly on his Instagram. So, yeah, it's quite a time to bring him up.

• 2:02:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does say that Liver King arrested in Austin after threatening Joe Rogan on Instagram. Oh, boy.

• 2:02:14Dax Shepard?

  He's got a bazillion guns. He's super into guns. He's, he's, you know, he's into attack dogs, like all this.

• 2:02:22Dax Shepard?

  Mancho.

• 2:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:24Dax Shepard?

  Foolery.

• 2:02:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, does being on a plane a lot mess with your brain? Yes, flying too much can negatively affect your brain due to factors like jet lag, low cabin oxygen levels and stress, which can cause cognitive impairment, mood changes, and in some studies, physical changes like hippocampus shrinkage. Frequent travelers may experience increased cortisol levels and difficulty with memory and learning due to chronic stress and sleep disruptions.

• 2:02:50Dax Shepard?

  Think of these, I was about to say Formula One drivers, because they're just like zipzagging across the whole planet.

• 2:02:57Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 2:02:58Dax Shepard?

  Like 12 hour time changes all the time.

• 2:03:00Speaker 01

  Just like businessmen, business and women, businessmen and women are like traveling weekly by plane. That's a lot. That's too much.

• 2:03:10Dax Shepard?

  They should carry those cans. I wonder if they would let you take them on the plane. You know, they think those cans of oxygen.

• 2:03:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:15Dax Shepard?

  It'd be nice to just pop a little spray every now and then of oxygen.

• 2:03:18Speaker 01

  That would be nice.

• 2:03:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:19Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 2:03:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay, well, I love Mark Ronson.

• 2:03:21Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 2:03:22Dax Shepard?

  And his book is great. I wasn't just saying that because he was sitting here.

• 2:03:25Speaker 01

  His stories.

• 2:03:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, unreal.

• 2:03:27Speaker 01

  He has some really awesome stories.

• 2:03:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. I tried to use his story about Michael Jackson with my children in an attempt to make sure they don't ever brag.

• 2:03:40Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:03:40Dax Shepard?

  But I don't know that it was taken on in the way that.

• 2:03:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, I'm not piecing, I'm not piecing that.

• 2:03:48Dax Shepard?

  It was like he knew better than to go to school and say he just hung out with Michael Jackson. That's not, no one's gonna like you.

• 2:03:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:03:54Dax Shepard?

  It might be exciting news.

• 2:03:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:56Dax Shepard?

  But no, no one's gonna like you if you got to hang out.

• 2:03:59Speaker 01

  Well, maybe.

• 2:03:59Dax Shepard?

  With Taylor Swift. You had a sleepover with Taylor Swift, every girl's gonna be like, fuck you.

• 2:04:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:06Speaker 01

  Okay, but so maybe.

• 2:04:07Dax Shepard?

  My children have not had a sleepover with Taylor Swift.

• 2:04:09Speaker 01

  No, I know.

• 2:04:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:11Speaker 01

  Unfortunately.

• 2:04:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:12Speaker 01

  Um, but we don't, why do you think that didn't hit them? Because that sounds good.

• 2:04:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I just like told the story. I was waiting for a light bulb to go on and I didn't want to overtly say like, don't ever brag.

• 2:04:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:26Dax Shepard?

  You know, like it's best if we just learn from a story that's not about us, or at least I like that. That's why I like AA.

• 2:04:31Speaker 01

  All right.

• 2:04:31Dax Shepard?

  Like I can learn a lesson without you telling me what I should do.

• 2:04:36Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:04:36Dax Shepard?

  Just like, hey, this is what this guy did. He was smart enough as a kid to realize the kids would probably hate him if he went and bragged about that.

• 2:04:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:44Dax Shepard?

  No, cool, cool story, Dad. Anyways, I wa-

• 2:04:49Speaker 01

  Your child said something so sweet and wholesome and true the other day. We were all together and me, you, Kristen, Anna, and Delta. And we were having this adult conversation.

• 2:05:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:11Speaker 01

  That we won't get into, but we were, we were having this very adult conversation about attraction.

• 2:05:16Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:05:17Speaker 01

  And she chimed in.

• 2:05:20Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:05:20Speaker 01

  And said, just kind of like, obviously, they just like their personality.

• 2:05:27Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:05:28Speaker 01

  And I was like, it is obvious. Like, we as adults get so like, I mean, there's, of course, you learn more as you get older and there's more things and things are complicated, but like, yes, that's right. Like, that is right.

• 2:05:43Dax Shepard?

  That's what it would be greatest if it was.

• 2:05:47Speaker 01

  But it.

• 2:05:47Dax Shepard?

  It's not reality.

• 2:05:48Speaker 01

  It is reality. It is reality. Think about the people in life in general that you're attracted to, not necessarily, you know, phys, you know, whatever, just like who you want to be around, who you want in your life.

• 2:06:05Dax Shepard?

  That's one thing. And then who you want to be romantic with and kiss and get naked and roll around with, there's all kinds of, it's, I don't think it's unethical or amoral to have an aesthetic you're most attracted to. By the way, you don't even pick it. You just are, you're not attracted.

• 2:06:19Speaker 01

  It's not unethical, but, but we're talking about all these things and no one's talking about personality and it's a huge factor. It is a huge factor, even in physical attraction.

• 2:06:30Dax Shepard?

  Sure, but we weren't talking about, um, personalities. We were talking about someone being at a big event and there's all these different types of people.

• 2:06:37Speaker 01

  No, I know.

• 2:06:37Dax Shepard?

  We weren't talking about like personalities.

• 2:06:39Speaker 01

  But that's the point. It was like, I'm just not understanding how this, these two things can be happening and there's not even the thought, like, well, personality is at play here.

• 2:06:49Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah. And it's very pure.

• 2:06:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:52Dax Shepard?

  And it's the best part of us.

• 2:06:54Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:06:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:55Speaker 01

  Just kids are better than us. It was pure. It was true. There's more to it, but it, it was true. He, she was saying something that to her was so obvious that we weren't saying. And, and that.

• 2:07:10Speaker 01

  You know, should have been said like that was a real that's anyway, I just thought it was sweet. And then she had to get up and leave because this was it was too much.

• 2:07:18Dax Shepard?

  She's in and out. She'll drop a bomb, truth bomb, and then bolt.

• 2:07:21Speaker 01

  She had to go, but I really liked that.

• 2:07:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, she's good for those.

• 2:07:24Speaker 01

  Also, my eyes are getting bad because when I first walked up to the house today, I thought Kristen was Delta.

• 2:07:29Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's huge difference.

• 2:07:31Speaker 01

  It was really bad.

• 2:07:32Dax Shepard?

  One's 10 and.

• 2:07:35Dax Shepard?

  All right, love you.

• 2:07:36Speaker 01

  I love you.

• 2:07:52Dax Shepard?

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