Dave Eggers (writer and publisher)

Dave Eggers (Contrapposto, The Circle, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) is a bestselling author, founder of McSweeney’s, and Pulitzer Prize finalist. Dave joins the Armchair Expert to discuss the strange family lore behind McSweeney’s, growing up in John Hughes-era Illinois, and falling in love with writing and designing books as a kid. Dave and Dax talk about moving to Berkeley to help raise his little brother after his parents died, shaking up literary readings with They Might Be Giants, and building a creative community out of rejected magazine pieces. Dave explains why kids should be published, how writing can give order to chaos, and why the happiest creative life might be the one with the least preciousness. 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. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:05Dax Shepard?

  We have one of my favorite authors on today, Dave Eggers. Dave Eggers is a bestselling author and founder of McSweeney's. His books are The Circle, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, The Every, and of course, my favorite book, What is the What? He has a new novel out now, Contraposto. Please enjoy Dave Eggers. We get support from Quince.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  I have to say, I am so ready for fall. I want sweaters. I've been craving a true crisp morning where I actually need a jacket. I can't wait.

• 0:39Dax Shepard?

  I'm fully there. The second it dips below 70, I'm like, this is my season. Give me the layers, give me the boots, give me a reason to wear something other than a t-shirt. And honestly, that's why I love Quince, because fall is when your wardrobe actually has to show up. And everything at Quince is 50 to 80% less than similar brands. We're talking 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters, starting at $60.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  $60. $60 for cashmere that you'd expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. It's amazing. Gets me every time. It really shouldn't be real, but it is because they go straight to the factories, they skip the middlemen, and they just hand you the savings. The stuff isn't trendy. It's the kind of pieces you grab over and over because they work every time.

• 1:19Dax Shepard?

  The 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters for me are it. When I look at Steve McQueen, this man owned a couple of sweaters he wore all the time, and he looks iconic.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  It's a uniform.

• 1:30Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  And Quince isn't just about the clothes. They have hotel-quality bedding, cookware, bath essentials, thoughtfully designed furniture. You can really go there and outfit your entire apartment or house. So if you're in need of any kind of fall refresh at home, too, same quality, same attention to detail for every corner of your life.

• 1:48Dax Shepard?

  Find your next fall favorites at Quince. 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. We get support from AG1. Fall is that time when your body and mind are getting ready for the winter. You're settling in, bracing for the cold. Your body's already running a deficit from the shorter days and broken sleep patterns. You don't want a nutrient deficit stacked on top of that, too.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  That's where your AG1 routine earns its spot. It's not fixing your sleep or your alarm time. It's giving your body what it needs so the dark mornings don't tank you before you even start. One scoop, cold water every morning before anything else.

• 2:36Dax Shepard?

  AG1 Next Gen has 75 plus ingredients, vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, superfoods, backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials. Key nutrient levels improved with three months of consistent use.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  That's the part people miss. It's not a one day fix. It's what happens when you stay consistent.

• 2:55Dax Shepard?

  It's an easy, everyday thing. I've added it to my morning routine and I'm going to tell you, I actually love the taste of it. It's like Pavlovian. I drink it and I know, mm, I'm going to get that little vitamin buzz.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Well, that's also the thing. When you do it first thing in the morning, you already feel kind of self-esteem because you're like, I already did something good for myself.

• 3:12Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Go to drinkag1.com/dax and for a limited time, get a free immunity bundle, including a bottle of omega three fish oil and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/dax. And after checkout, be sure to let them know that Armchair Experts sent you.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  We have not. So Monica, nice to meet you.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Amanda made me want to give you guys these. This is a new McSweeney's in the form of a Trapper Keeper.

• 4:02Dax Shepard?

  Oh my God, a Trapper Keeper. Monica, did they have Trapper Keepers?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Yes, of course.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  I've been testing people and you're the first, like, are you more millennial?

• 4:11Dax Shepard?

  1987.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Yes, 87.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Nobody's had any idea what a Trapper Keeper is yet.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  No, I loved Trapper Keepers.

• 4:18Dax Shepard?

  Which one did you have?

• 4:20Speaker 02

  You know what's funny is that I did not have it because I didn't like the artwork. I was such a snob. I thought it was too gaudy.

• 4:28Dax Shepard?

  You were already bratty about it. You're already pretentious.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  I was. I had to have like a leather.

• 4:34Dax Shepard?

  In Detroit, you grew up in Illinois.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:36Dax Shepard?

  In Detroit, you aged out if you were a boy of a trapper keeper very early. Third grade and beyond, you were a target if you had a trapper.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Anything Velcro on your shoes?

• 4:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you're dead.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Velcro.

• 4:49Dax Shepard?

  Kangaroos with Velcro?

• 4:50Speaker 02

  With us, you wore a watch or calculator watch or anything like.

• 4:54Dax Shepard?

  Casio, you're done.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  If it was cheating?

• 4:56Speaker 02

  It was really a.

• 4:57Dax Shepard?

  No, it's just, anything, I'm gonna guess it has to be the same. Anything could flag you as being girly or gay.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 5:06Dax Shepard?

  It's just like.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Or nerdy.

• 5:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  That's why like when the rise of tech, it freaked me out because I was like, well, these were all the kids that always got beat up. If you had like boop, boop, boop on your wrist or whatever.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  And now those.

• 5:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, why aren't they more benevolent?

• 5:21Speaker 02

  I know.

• 5:22Dax Shepard?

  You were born in Boston, but moved pretty soon.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  I never lived in Boston.

• 5:27Dax Shepard?

  Never lived.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  My grandfather was an OB-GYN in Boston General, so we were all born there under his.

• 5:33Dax Shepard?

  Now, that's an interesting dynamic. Did your grandfather deliver your mother's children?

• 5:37Speaker 02

  No.

• 5:37Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  But his colleagues, so he's nearby.

• 5:40Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  But he was fascinating, like he was the gyno to all the nuns in Boston. And also all the unwed mothers, he ran a hospital for unwed mothers. I mean,

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  Fascinating stuff that we have been uncovering more and more lately.

• 5:53Dax Shepard?

  Is that your mom's dad?

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, McSweeney, Daniel J. McSweeney. So he's delivered half of Boston at some point, probably 10,000 babies, you know?

• 6:02Dax Shepard?

  It's a cool job in that way, that if you've been in practice for many decades, you really have effectively delivered or brought a significant percentage of the population into the world in your area.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  That's wild. And you're part of everyone's best day of their life.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Well, that's where the McSweeney came from. Like there was a guy that was adopted in this home for unwed mothers. And he was adopted by a different McSweeney family. But he saw my grandfather's name on the birth certificate and later in life he went, he thought that was his real father.

• 6:33Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  So he would seek us out and write crazy letters to us all my childhood. Saying he was coming any minute on this train. He's gonna come and reunite with his long lost sister, my mom.

• 6:44Dax Shepard?

  Ooh, that's stressful.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Timothy McSweeney, and that's why we named this whole thing after him. Sort of this lunatic screaming from the woods, which we thought we were at the time, like as a magazine. But I just found a bunch of more of his stuff. Like it got a little scary here.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that sounds it.

• 6:58Dax Shepard?

  That's an intense feeling. If you're like, oh, my father's there waiting for me. That's a very motivating.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Right, I'm coming home. Prodigal son. He's been looking for me. Yeah, some of these relationships are just too intense, or they make them intense.

• 7:13Dax Shepard?

  So what kind of attorney was your father? What kind of law did he practice?

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Commodities law.

• 7:18Dax Shepard?

  Commodities, because of the exchange boards there?

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, so at the time, there was only a handful of people that did what he did. So he never went to court. And it's just a brief letter. I trust this settles the matter. John Eggers.

• 7:31Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 7:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:32Dax Shepard?

  You had some unique experiences early on that really, I met you could acknowledge, set you up for the life you ended up having. Just this notion that I learned, Mrs. Wright, second grade?

• 7:42Speaker 02

  First.

• 7:43Dax Shepard?

  First grade, assigned you to make a book.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  I still have this book. It's cardboard cover, yellow lined sheet of paper where we wrote the story and then illustrations above, bound with yarn, blue yarn that it still holds up. And we spent months on it. These books were perfect. They had no typos, no errors were allowed. We had to redraft, redraft, and then draw the pictures very carefully. And on the back, it says copyright David Eggers. Would have been 1978.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, that's worth so much money right now.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Then I had a teacher, Mrs. Dunn, that had us do it again in fifth grade. Or did another book in eighth grade. So by the time I was in eighth grade, we'd written and illustrated and produced three books. And then in high school, we did the first literary magazine with a computer. So they were brand new, it was 1986 or something. First Macs, first desktop publishing. And so I learned design and all of that stuff when I was 16. And then I was just.

• 8:40Dax Shepard?

  You were set.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Hooked.

• 8:41Dax Shepard?

  When you made the first two, first grade and fifth grade, were you more into and proud of the illustration portion?

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I only saw myself being a cartoonist. Like, that was all I did 24 hours a day till I was maybe 13 or so. And I thought, you know, I started the Disney animators, or I wanted to be, you know, Calvin and Hobbes came about, I was gone. Peanuts, I studied, and all I did was draw all day.

• 9:09Dax Shepard?

  What about like far side? Were you into the notion that you could communicate comedy through this?

• 9:13Speaker 02

  For sure. I might have been 14 or so when he popped up.

• 9:16Dax Shepard?

  What's his name?

• 9:17Speaker 02

  Gary Larson.

• 9:18Dax Shepard?

  Yes, I listened to the weirdest interview with him on Sam Harris.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 9:24Dax Shepard?

  He has studied the art of persuasion.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:28Dax Shepard?

  To an insane degree. Where I'm like, who are you trying to persuade to do what?

• 9:33Speaker 02

  So weird.

• 9:34Dax Shepard?

  He knows the science of persuasion. It's his big hobby.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  But isn't it weird? Like, you have these amazing cartoonists, him, Berkeley Brethardt, and Bill Watterson from Calvin and Hobbes, and they all retired at like the very top of their game. Like, Bloom County just went away.

• 9:49Dax Shepard?

  Like, what age were they?

• 9:50Speaker 02

  40s, 50s. It's so weird because I go to the Charles Schultz Museum up in Santa Rosa, which is incredible.

• 9:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  You go to his desk and you see all of his stuff. And he worked till the very end, and he was really good till the very end. But uniquely, it's a job that people tend to knock off and quit at a certain point and just go out on their best note, I guess. But I do miss the far side, but still, there's nothing as good as it.

• 10:13Dax Shepard?

  I have a theory about comedians. Comedians don't tend to age all that well. I do wonder if it applies to these cartoonists. Comedy is about being shit on and calling out the powers that be and the injustices and the grievances and the friction of being a shithead at the bottom of the ladder. And with success comes a much more frictionless existence. You're not getting angry at the boss.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  You ever heard Dana Carvey talk about this?

• 10:42Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  On the Conan podcast about like the billionaire comedian that's still trying to find things to be upset about?

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  You have to see it and cry laughing. It's so funny. It's like, yeah, there's another fucking thing. And he just like, it tries to manufacture this outrage about tables and about forks.

• 11:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  It's so good.

• 11:02Dax Shepard?

  Private air travel.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, I get it.

• 11:04Dax Shepard?

  But I wonder if that's the same cartoonists generally have a chip on their shoulder, right?

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Some of them, yeah. There's some strange folks in that medium.

• 11:12Dax Shepard?

  You're friends with Kimmel?

• 11:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, in part because he's been really supportive of our nonprofits and he's hosted some events and then just a very normal guy.

• 11:20Dax Shepard?

  And he's a cartoonist?

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:22Dax Shepard?

  I bet you, yeah, yeah, that's his big hobby.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  He's right there behind you in a statue.

• 11:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he's one of the best boy.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  We figured this out. He did a comic when he was a kid that they featured on the show and sort of fleshed out with everybody in costumes and stuff, all these ridiculous characters. And I asked him if we could have a copy of it for this international library of young authors. So we feature like books written by well-known people, but when they were under 18 amidst all of our books.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  That's so cool.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  By young authors. And he gave us a copy of it and it's so ludicrous, but you gotta keep these things. And that's why we publish so many young authors, because their minds are untethered. There's no structure. Characters will pop up and disappear and narratives.

• 12:00Dax Shepard?

  No rules.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  No rules. And they're still really fun to read. You gotta remember how unhinged narratives can and maybe should be because all of the rules and constraints and everything, it's applying sort of an accountant's brain to what should be an anarchic process.

• 12:17Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  But anyway, but yeah, he was a good cartoonist.

• 12:19Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna campaign to get a yellow limousine put in here.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Did you write a book when you were a kid?

• 12:25Dax Shepard?

  In junior high, they put out one little zine at the end of the year and it was all short stories from kids. Mine was in there and I fucking thought I had won a Nobel Peace Prize.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Well, that's why we publish kids. We have kids that are like 14 and they've been published every year since they were six and they stand 12 feet tall. They're not like so grateful. They really feel like it's the right thing to have happened. I worked hard on it. Of course I'm gonna be published.

• 12:49Dax Shepard?

  Well, in the truest sense, if you succeed at getting the thing in your head out, whether that's in a movie, or a clay, or a drawing, there is a intrinsic pride that can't be matched by any other external validation.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:03Dax Shepard?

  And yeah, you should feel like your shit doesn't stink to some degree. If you executed exactly what was in your brain, that's the moment to be happy.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Well, and also, I'm gonna do a little twist on that, and that's telling the kids that like, all right, fifth draft, sometimes they do have this perfectionism where they're like, shit, it's not ready yet. We're like, it's really good. It's ready to let go of it. We're gonna put out this book, being humble enough to know that somebody else's opinion that it's ready, or it's okay, or it's good enough. So it's like, it's okay, we're gonna publish this, and we're gonna put it in a nice paperback book. It'll be read for decades. It relieves that so many different things of a reluctant or hesitant kid, or an English language learner, doesn't have to be 100% perfect, but we're gonna work on it. Draft after draft, we're gonna honor it and put it in this platform that other people will see it.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  And then we're gonna do something else. It's not just the one chance, the not one bite out of the apple. You can keep creating, and again, I always say it's all practice till you're 30, especially in writing. Reluctant writer, they're always think that they're gonna be judged in a biblical sense on their first draft. Like, you're either unworthy and cast down, It's vulnerable. Or you're Jesus. And it's like, no.

• 14:14Dax Shepard?

  You're Hemingway.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  It's one of like, 10 drafts you're gonna do. We'll get there either way.

• 14:20Dax Shepard?

  Do you not like talking about your life? Because generally in this show, we go through your life, that leads to your work.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  No, I've always preferred talking about anything but my life.

• 14:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:31Dax Shepard?

  Even though you've written about it?

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Did it 26 years ago.

• 14:35Dax Shepard?

  And you were like, that's it?

• 14:37Speaker 02

  No, it was just like, you know, you find this with a lot of memoirists, or somebody that wrote it. That was like, that was why I wrote it, so that it's like, it's gone. You tell it, it's truthful. And this, again, what we teach for kids that have like chaotic lives in any way, or every kid feels that the world around them is not under their control necessarily. They're not controlling every part of their experience, but on the page, it's all yours. And you can write this linear narrative that makes sense, and no one can mess with it. And so, once they write these... Stories out or mini memoirs or just a diary entry. There's like a calm that comes over the kids. And especially if they've done it every year. Those are the sort of most self possessed, self knowing kids you'll ever find are the

• 15:22Speaker 02

  ones that have been asked every year. Write your story. Who are you this year? And I always say that should be the first thing of every school year, the first two days is write your story on day one. And then the other kids get to read each other's stories. Day two, teacher knows all the students far better and the kids are like, all right, now everyone knows who I am, my truth. And it's really different on the page than if you have to verbalize it to a bunch of kids you don't know in front of the class. You wouldn't ask them to do that.

• 15:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  But just you pass them around and they get to know each other so intimately. And there's just like a confessional safety on the page that isn't there in any other place. I was trained as a journalist and we've had oral history series, voice of witness for years. And it's quite clear that there's seven and a half billion more interesting people than me out there. So it just feels like nonsensical to talk about my stupid, boring life, you know? It doesn't make any sense.

• 16:19Dax Shepard?

  There is no stupid, boring life.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I like that premise. I would never bore people with it because I did pass two people on the way here, like Anne Franklin, I think. It was like a guy shooting a film with his iPhone and there was a woman in a grocery cart and they were careening down the street. He's filming and she's bouncing up and down. And I really, I was so desperate to stop. Yeah. As a journalist, you get an excuse to ask questions of people.

• 16:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, what's going on here?

• 16:47Speaker 02

  What are you all up to?

• 16:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  And so it always pains me when I don't have the time or the window to do that because I've always had like a press pass and a reason to do it.

• 16:57Dax Shepard?

  Did you have though favorite authors that you are not really interested in?

• 17:01Speaker 02

  I've never read a biography of a writer. I'm not interested in any writers' private lives. And I also really want to preserve the sanctity of the illusion. And then again. Biographers of writers, unless they're authorized and the writer's talking to them directly, most writer biographies are horribly mistaken. They make connections that don't exist.

• 17:24Dax Shepard?

  Well, it goes through their filter.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  Their filter. So, one of my favorite writers was another Chicago guy, Saul Bellow. You guys read Saul Bellow? Can't get anyone to read Saul Bellow anymore, but anyway. Won the Nobel Prize, he was the man for a long time, but nobody's reading him right now, but I do recommend him. Start with Herzog, which is a fantastic book. And there's never been a better sentence writer in the English language, in my opinion. But there was a big biography of him, I think in the 90s. And the biographer just spent the entire time just green with envy about why he's not Saul Bellow. So, the entire book was about, "I went to Harvard, he only went to University of Chicago. Why does he have a Nobel and I don't?" And this whole thing. Everything is filtered through this twisted lens that he's looking through.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  And so, I know enough about any writer by reading their work. And then if I peek behind the curtain and find out that they're left-handed or lactose intolerant or whatever, I'm like, it diminishes the fun.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  You don't wanna know, yeah.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I know plenty by reading their body of work, and I don't need to know anything more. And I think it's sort of like peeking behind any curtain or knowing how a magic trick is done. Why? You know, why?

• 18:37Dax Shepard?

  I have an answer to that, but I will say I can relate to you in that I loved Bukowski. That was my gateway into even liking writing. Then after he died, someone put together some biography of him, and it was all about how he was a communist. And I was like, what the? Where the fu-- like, he's the most anti-political person, period, that ever lived, much less a communist.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  The writer was a communist. And they're always trying to get people into their tribe.

• 19:00Dax Shepard?

  That one went terribly bad, but I love biographies. One of my favorite books of all time is Titan, the John D. Rockefeller biography. It's just astounding.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  And I'll read Churchill biographies left and right. I mean, there's a lot of people that I'm interested in in that way, but not artists of any kind.

• 19:14Dax Shepard?

  The reason I like it is that-- All of these things, even our hard sciences, there are very few binaries. It's like, at best, someone got it 60% right. We'll have another expert on from another university, they pitch the other side of it, and it's very compelling. And you're like, the world is at best, you're like 60% certain. And that is why it is entirely relevant to know what someone carries into it. Because you, as someone trying to discern reality, it's like, you need these other plot points so that you can give it its right weight. It's like, well, this person was abandoned by their family and grew up with bikers. Of course, there's, you know, like, I need to keep that in mind when I'm reading their research, or when I'm just hearing their point of view. It feels very relevant.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  If it comes from them, yeah, I would put that very important distinction.

• 19:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, posthumously telling us how someone was, I reject.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, if they're telling you themselves, I always think you don't know anything about anyone until they tell you. Any assumptions that you make otherwise are going to be false or misguided. But if they say, you know what, I was always curious about the human mind because I suffered from epileptic seizures as a kid, or my mom did, or whatever, then that makes perfect sense. There's so many people like that, that are into it, or they become law enforcement.

• 20:26Dax Shepard?

  Teddy Roosevelt, right? He had terrible asthma, he couldn't play with other kids, then he has this period where he goes to a ranch, and he finds out he's actually strong and virile, and it like changes his whole life.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  Or the people that are sickly kids, and they make plays at home because they're in bed for so long.

• 20:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  They come into theater because they have to entertain themselves. There's so many of those. The polio generation all ended up really interesting because of that. They all had that time in bed and alone.

• 20:50Dax Shepard?

  Or, yeah, these people with agoraphobia that were writing, looking out their window. This is pretty fucking relevant.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Emily Dickinson.

• 20:56Dax Shepard?

  Emily, yeah, yeah, yeah. Suffice to say, I must note, you went to school with Vince Vaughn. Were you in the same grade?

• 21:01Speaker 02

  We were same grade from fifth grade through high school.

• 21:04Dax Shepard?

  No way. So you like truly saw the young...

• 21:07Speaker 02

  He was exactly the same guy.

• 21:09Dax Shepard?

  He was!

• 21:10Speaker 02

  He was hilarious from day one. We had a uniquely... Cohesive class and there were two people that were really key to that. Everybody was great, but Rob Pelinka was also in our class. He's the GM of the Lakers.

• 21:23Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  And so Rob was like the best basketball player in Illinois at the time. We all went to his games and then Vince hosted the talent show every year. And with my buddy Paul Baze, who lives down the street still. And then they were in the plays, Vince was. But he was also hanging out with the football people. But Vince was cool with everybody and especially the artists and the theater people. So he united a lot of different people by saying it's cool to be with the football guys. But if you're theater, that's very cool, too. So we had a weird class in that everybody kind of cheered everybody on for whatever they were good at.

• 21:57Dax Shepard?

  That's very unique.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  It's unique, but you gotta teach it. It's teachable. You need leaders. The captain of the football team, the quarterback, was in all my AP English classes. Right next to me. Super smart guy, interested in Faulkner and Heller. But I think that you could say like, listen, a rising tide lifts all boats. If all the basketball people support the mathletes and the mathletes travel to see the football team when they're in quarterfinals or something, which all happened in our school. We were so cohesive. Everybody was okay with everybody.

• 22:28Dax Shepard?

  Dave, that's impossible, especially in the eighties and nineties. I'm blown away.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  But we also had John Hughes making movies about our area. We knew that we were in a charmed period.

• 22:39Dax Shepard?

  And Vince worships him. Were you also?

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was into all those movies.

• 22:42Dax Shepard?

  They're so special.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  They were in our town. And Ordinary People was filmed in our town when we were kids. And there was a lot going on and then the Bears practice in Lake Forest. So we could go see the Bears practice and.

• 22:52Dax Shepard?

  The Refrigerator Perry and Super Bowl Shuffle. Was that eighty-four?

• 22:56Speaker 02

  That was eighty-four, eighty-five. So, yeah, it was a really great time, but I give a lot of credit to those guys for being really nice to everybody. Everybody had to be in the talent show in our school.

• 23:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 23:07Speaker 01

  It was required?

• 23:08Speaker 02

  No, but all the cool kids did it. And even if you're just dancing to a Beach Boys song, which Vaughn did and all of his friends. It was pathetic, some of these acts, but we all put on something. I did a thing with Pee-wee Herman's song, Tequila. We all did, yeah. Did that and we would do Monty Python sketches.

• 23:26Dax Shepard?

  Did you go on your toes like Peewee had in those platform boots?

• 23:31Dax Shepard?

  I would have thrown tomatoes if you hadn't.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  What's weird is it didn't seem risky because everybody was doing it. So there wasn't like you're facing this wall of unbelievers. Everyone's like, I don't know, in a talent show, of course you do the talent show.

• 23:43Dax Shepard?

  So were you stereotypically kind of an art kid or no?

• 23:47Speaker 02

  No, I was on the soccer team for years and tried out for tennis, got cut twice. But we were all sporty. Our group was a little different than the football guys. We tended to be a little artier. My friends did the filmmaking telecom classes. I was in art classes and good at English class and stuff. And we did the literary magazine, columnist for the newspaper, wrote the yearbook, that kind of stuff. But we played football every weekend down at the end of my street. There was a park and we played all year round. Like in the winter, we played, you know, three on four, all time quarterback, you know how that is? And tackle, we were really into that.

• 24:24Dax Shepard?

  So what called you to Berkeley? I mean, it seems obvious, it's a very literary.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Oh, no, I mean, that was where my sister was in law school. So when my parents died, she had deferred a year, so we went to Berkeley.

• 24:35Dax Shepard?

  That was the nearest support system.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  It wasn't a choice.

• 24:38Dax Shepard?

  For the people who didn't read a heartbreaking or work of staggering genius, you were taking care of your little brother from 21 years old on? I think is a pretty unique scenario.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, now looking back, I would have been in the Bay Area. I'd never been there before I moved there, I don't think. So I really spent my life in Chicago and then we would go out east to Boston to the McSweeney clan. And so one of the first times I'd ever been on a plane was going to California.

• 25:07Dax Shepard?

  To live.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  We were a family of six with a Ford Pinto, driving around vacations where Kentucky, you know, to see a cave.

• 25:14Dax Shepard?

  Mammoth Cave?

• 25:15Speaker 02

  Or the Lesser Caves, dude, a lot of them. But, you know, I've been in the Bay Area, what, more or less 34 years now. It really is, to me, the colors, the palette of a place is really important, the topography and the landscape.

• 25:30Dax Shepard?

  It's incredibly dramatic city.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  It's so dramatic and then you really only have to go. So if you go over the bridge and into the headlands, it's exactly three and a half miles from basically the center of the city. And you are in wild open land, all the way up to Oregon, basically. There's nothing on the coast.

• 25:44Dax Shepard?

  There's redwoods directly on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Near woods, the oldest trees there are. And I never thought I would stay in one place for so long. It's not really my way of thinking about moving through the world, but I haven't been to a prettier urban environment.

• 26:00Dax Shepard?

  How quickly do you find your footing as a writer there? You put out Mite pretty quickly after YAP.

• 26:07Speaker 02

  Day one, no one will tell you no in the Bay Area. That's the great thing and the burden of it. Every stupid idea happens.

• 26:15Dax Shepard?

  Gets entertained.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  There's no friction.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  You already knew you were gonna write when you got there?

• 26:19Speaker 02

  No.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  I had no clue. I got there and the first summer I spent painting furniture. I thought maybe I would decorate furniture for a living.

• 26:28Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  And then I worked as a temp until I was 28, more or less. You know, if you needed a graphic design, if you wanted somebody to make a lawn sign, I would do your graphic design for that. We had clients all over the city. And then we put out Mite at the same time. But I didn't make a living as a writer till I was 30.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  So not Berkeley the school.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  No, but Berkeley.

• 26:51Dax Shepard?

  The area, yeah.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Okay, that, I got a little confused. I thought you went to Berkeley the school.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that was easy.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Let's pretend I did. Let's say.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Okay, well, yeah, let's rewrite that.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  We can blur that line a little bit. Yeah, but we put out that magazine, it was five of us. Nobody ever made a living, but we had a blast doing it.

• 27:07Dax Shepard?

  At that moment, had it changed at all? I mean, I know you have a degree in journalism, but was it still art first at that moment?

• 27:13Speaker 02

  No.

• 27:14Dax Shepard?

  When do you remember changing, like, no, no, it's gonna be writing?

• 27:17Speaker 02

  It was probably college because I worked at the daily paper every day for four years. And I did graphic design and illustration for that paper, but I did a little bit of art school and realized like the immediacy and the impact you can have in journalism. You know, front page paper, there's a strike, there's a protest, there's a war going on, whatever, compared to, I'm gonna sit alone in a studio and maybe sell a painting 10 years from now.

• 27:41Dax Shepard?

  And maybe nine people.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  To a very wealthy people that'll put it in their Bathroom, you know? So that to me, I was like, ah, that doesn't sound like what I want to do.

• 27:50Dax Shepard?

  Journalism is instant gratification.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  And it just impact every day. You write it, you're finished at sometimes nine P M. Goes through copy editing, call it the slot. They write the headline. You're there pasting it up because I was a paste up guy. And you send it off at midnight and then two hours later or three hours later, it's like on the street. That rush, you could never.

• 28:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, some guy's taking a dump, reading it within hours.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Sure. That's the goal.

• 28:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's a high watermark of journalism. If a guy yells to his wife from the commode, honey, you're not going to believe what I just read. That's the real Nobel.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  And it goes away. Pre-internet, if it wasn't good, it's completely forgotten. And then you're on to the next thing. But every so often, there'd be something that would really make an impact. And then I edited different sections in magazines of the paper and you get to bring up other voices and maybe discover somebody in your little way and help them get a platform, I guess. So that was what I'm still doing now. It's much more fun publishing other people than publishing your own stuff, always.

• 28:52Dax Shepard?

  Because?

• 28:53Speaker 02

  There's no complication. It's like producing a movie where A, you're not on the masthead or on the marquee. So it's not your fault if it's not good, but.

• 29:03Dax Shepard?

  You can take all the credit if it's.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  You could just sort of, you know, be in the wings and say.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  It's egoless.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  It's totally egoless and it's such a pure celebration. We had a writer for the Believer magazine win a award a couple nights ago for the National Magazine Awards. We've only met this writer a few times, but it was way more pure joy than any other thing that we can do as a company. Because we're so tiny. It's like really six full-time people. But every so often, we have a chance to kind of elevate a voice in our little way.

• 29:35Dax Shepard?

  How old were you when you started writing for Salon?

• 29:38Speaker 02

  Probably 24.

• 29:39Dax Shepard?

  Is that your first kind of pay?

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:41Dax Shepard?

  And was it enough to live on, to support yourself?

• 29:44Speaker 02

  I was a cartoonist, so I had salon, graphic design work, and then I had a weekly cartoon in the SF Weekly. Those three things combined, I was making decent money. We had this little design company where I looked at these invoices that we used to send. I'm looking through all this old stuff lately. Our main client was the SF Chronicle. We'd do like their in-paper ads, like, "Read the Chronicle."

• 30:03Dax Shepard?

  Well, you were on the inside and the outside.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  A little bit, always. In journalism, it's that way. An ad would take us half an hour to make, but we had to just make up some number that sounded like, so it'd be like $507.32.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  All these numbers that I saw us make up were so ludicrous. There was no math or consistency, but we were undercutting the real businesses an established place would charge 10 times that much. So we made really good money by being nimble and quick and cheap. And so I always tell anybody, like, out of school, if you undercut the bigger companies in any business, you'll do incredibly well, whether it's making rugs, or landscaping, or temping, or design, or whatever it is, there's a very easy way to just be a little cheaper, a little faster than anybody else.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 31:01Dax Shepard?

  We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking that your keys are actually in your hand before you close the car door. Have you ever stood in a parking lot full of sun, staring at your keys, sitting right there on the seat, four inches away and completely useless to you? It's a very specific kind of humbling. Yeah, checking first is a good idea. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. And for fast, reliable help when you need it, add an Allstate roadside plan today. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary. Insurance and roadside assistance plans are subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Insurance provided by Allstate North American Insurance Company, Northbrook, Illinois.

• 31:45Dax Shepard?

  Roadside assistance plans provided by Allstate Motor Club, Incorporated and Allstate affiliate. This episode is presented by YouTube Premium. YouTube was already great, but Premium supercharges it. If you like YouTube, you'll love Premium. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com/premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. Now let's get into today's episode. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. We've talked before about Rob building our website on Squarespace, and I bring it up again because it's a perfect example of what they do well. Rob had all the pieces, the content, the vision, the ideas, but he needed something to actually take all that and make it public facing. And Squarespace was that bridge.

• 32:30Dax Shepard?

  Maybe you're in the same spot. You've been developing something, a business, a skillset, a body of work, and it's been private. It's been yours, but at some point you're ready to put it out there. And that transition from private to public can feel like a huge leap. Squarespace makes it feel like a step. Beautiful templates, built-in SEO, email campaigns, scheduling, analytics, everything you need to go from I've been working on this to here it is. Come find me. All in one place, no code, no stitching together a bunch of different tools. So if you've been sitting on something and waiting for the right moment, this might be it. Head to Squarespace.com/dax for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

• 33:16Dax 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?

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Which is a fair question.

• 33:33Dax 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.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Sleep mode is genius.

• 34:01Dax 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.

• 34:16Speaker 01

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

• 34:20Dax Shepard?

  Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts.

• 34:34Dax Shepard?

  In 98, you start McSweeney's.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:38Dax Shepard?

  What prompts that?

• 34:40Speaker 02

  I was working at Esquire, big corporate magazine for the first time. Mike got us all jobs in real industries for the first time. So we were offered different jobs, like Buddy and mine, one of the other Mike editors, we were offered a gig writing for Letterman, like the two of us.

• 34:55Dax Shepard?

  No kidding?

• 34:55Speaker 02

  As a team, I guess, and it was Rodney Rothman, who was the head writer at the time, and he was younger than us. We were like 27, I think he was 24.

• 35:04Dax Shepard?

  Wow.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  And the producer was Kate Adler, and we all met and it was like the most exciting thing that you could ever imagine.

• 35:10Dax Shepard?

  This is when he just went to CBS, it would have been, yeah?

• 35:12Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  We worshipped Letterman as growing up, Chris Elliott, and we had everything taped, and we watched everything over and over. But the hours and the uncertainty, you'd get like a 12 week contract, I think, at the time, and then you had to renew. I was not in a place where I had that kind of uncertainty. I had a dependent, and then the hours, you can't be a parent and write as a young.

• 35:35Dax Shepard?

  Oh, late night talk show.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, trying to prove yourself. But then I took this magazine job and I really learned quickly that I was not meant to. I had never had a nine to five anything. I never had to wear clothes of any kind to any job. In the Bay Area, it was all shorts every day. Nobody cared. So I'd have to wear pants and a button down shirt and then try to get things published and they say no. I was like, and these are all brand new ideas to me.

• 35:59Dax Shepard?

  You were just doing whatever you wanted prior to that, right?

• 36:01Speaker 02

  In the Bay Area, again, no one says no.

• 36:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  So suddenly it was 90% no. It's not their fault, like, there's only so many pages in a magazine. So we started McSweeney's. It was all stuff that was rejected from other corporate magazines.

• 36:15Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  And it was like the land of misfit writings. And so we did that, published it out in my apartment in Brooklyn and just a couple of us.

• 36:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, so you would move. Moved to New York at that point.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:26Dax Shepard?

  How did you do in New York?

• 36:27Speaker 02

  Manhattan was not my thing, but once I moved to Brooklyn, it was much calmer. It was really Oaklandy and great, near Prospect Park, which is a beautiful park. I just have to be close to some kind of open space. So suddenly, you know, we had a ball. Putting out McSweeney's was just everything you want it to be. You go from this corporate constraint, everything to just being back in your kitchen with a couple of friends, doing anything you want to do, printing the book in Iceland, which we did. I got to go to Reykjavik for each press check and spend a week there, going back and forth to the printer among all the blonde pressmen in their blue jumpsuits. The whole thing was so surreal.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  But so much fun.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Was it always like this? Was it always like in a fun?

• 37:09Speaker 02

  No. Okay. The first three were just white paperbacks, like black and white. They were really nicely made, but just black and white for the most part. And then the fourth one was a box with a bunch of booklets in it. And we made that, it was the first time, there's no boxes in Iceland. They have no pulp, they can't make anything like that, there's no trees. So it was such a big thing, it was a big meeting, how are we gonna make a box, you know? And like all these Icelandic guys trying to figure out how to make a box for this. So much fun. But that started this thing where I thought, well, why don't we reinvent the form every time? Because if you're gonna pay us and subscribe to us, maybe we'll surprise you each time with what it looks like. So we've done a lunchbox in the last few years.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, we got a lunchbox recently.

• 37:51Dax Shepard?

  That was what we got, yeah, lunchbox. There's definitely the archetype of the lone wolf writer, but you clearly like the communal aspect of it, yeah?

• 38:00Speaker 02

  I can only think of a handful of actual lone wolves. And the visual arts too, it's a trope that isn't borne out that often in real life. Bukowski is one of those guys, right? And you have Van Gogh, whoever.

• 38:13Dax Shepard?

  John Fontaine, probably.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  There's a handful, but the people that I've known or met, I don't know a lone wolf writer. I can't think of one.

• 38:22Dax Shepard?

  I would feel so comforted.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:24Dax Shepard?

  If I had surrounded myself with other people who are just like banging their head against the wall, fucking getting that rejection SE fucking postcard.

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Well, or, you know, I tell this to students in MFA programs all the time. I was like, there was two of us in a kitchen that started McSweeney's for $2,500. That was the print bill for the first one. You sell those 2,000 copies, you have enough money to print the next one and print 5,000 copies. You sell those, you can certainly print 7,500, which was our trajectory. It's such simple math. I can't add anything together. I cannot balance a checkbook, but I could do that simple math. And so we just published everybody we wanted to publish. So that built up this little community of people. And you start something, the magnet, you know, you just, everybody's drawn to it, whether it's Upright Citizens Brigade or the ground, you know, it's the same kind of thing.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  Everyone's like looking for somebody to start that thing. And then they're like, thank God, because not everyone is necessarily a starter, I guess.

• 39:23Dax Shepard?

  Or ambitious or organized.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  A little bit.

• 39:26Dax Shepard?

  You need people to fill a little gap.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:28Dax Shepard?

  Like Melissa McCarthy, this would crack people up, but like Melissa McCarthy and Ben and I, we had this comedy troupe, nobody came, we did shows. It was like Melissa was the manager. She told us where to be.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 39:39Dax Shepard?

  She negotiated the theater rentals, she delegated, you're bringing beer.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Someone has to get the space and do the thing.

• 39:46Dax Shepard?

  She was organizing on it and we were like, okay, I'll bring beer. Ask Melissa what we're supposed to do.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Well, if she has you there to help do those things, then yeah. You only need two or three people. I saw a student of mine that was at a crossroads, he's 35 now, but I knew him when he was in high school. And I was like, just find a couple people. Because alone, it's just sad and lonely or whatever, but a couple people, you're like a little cadre of people and you're gonna buck them up if they're down, they can buck you up if you're down. And together you can get, you know, a lot more done in a given day and it's gonna be a lot more fun. So the idea in any art form of being that lonely person in the cabin, throwing crumpled up sheets of paper in the corner is a canard. I don't know it very often to be true and also it's so unnecessary.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  Sometimes you need isolation. I can only write when I'm alone, but then I can send a draft to all the different writers, mostly in the Bay Area. Like, hey, what do you think? Is this anything? And then you're in community with people that are like, yeah, keep going. And then you feel, okay, you have jet fuel. But the idea of like, I'm not gonna show it to you for seven years and then you create some mangled.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Frankenstein novel that nobody wants. It's such a mistake on so many levels. I think that always trying to figure out, is this the way I wanna do it where it's fun? Or is there some other way to do it?

• 41:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Is like worth the moment that you can spend. I worked in my garage for years. It was exactly like this except for one window in the corner. But it was the only space that was free and big enough to have all the stuff I needed in it. But it was really kind of grim.

• 41:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  And I was like, boy, I really don't want to be inside in a dark garage eight hours a day. Like, there's something wrong here. So I just had to, like, think about it finally after thirty years or however long it was. And I was like, well, what if I had a friend, it's funny to say this, but she's a ship captain.

• 41:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Has a giant.

• 41:42Dax Shepard?

  I don't have any ship captain friends, yeah, that is.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  She sails in the bay. And I was like, would it be possible to get like a little sailboat that I could work in? And I'd find a slip in one of the marinas in the bay. And she guided me through this process and helped me buy this boat. So now I've been working in this boat, which is, you know, not so much bigger than this table, really.

• 42:00Dax Shepard?

  Was it moored in Sausalito?

• 42:02Speaker 02

  It's moored like right under the Golden Gate Bridge on the north side. It's an old Air Force Base marina, but it's a rickety, ridiculous marina. But I'm outside more, you know? I'm like, there's so much more going on. And you get mad thinking like, why didn't I do this twenty years ago? And I think sometimes just to take that moment, whenever you're at a transition moment, and I don't know about you, but a lot of my friends at our age are like in between jobs right now. So there's like a thing that's going on in the business world in particular where they get priced out. Maybe they're too expensive for their company. They get laid off and they're looking for the next thing. But we're all talking about it. Maybe it's an opportunity to like, think hard about exactly what you'd like to do,

• 42:46Speaker 02

  how you'd like to do it, how do you want to spend your days and hours? And sometimes if you can get a little bit like, I definitely don't want to do that again. I don't want to commute an hour. And so you can get a little bit closer to something that can never be ideal, but you can get closer to an intentional way to live a life.

• 43:05Dax Shepard?

  Well, I definitely think for me, that comes with age in that the motivation at the beginning is like, you're a piece of shit, you're a failure if you don't do this. You know, it's just hatred.

• 43:14Speaker 02

  A little bit of that's good. Self-loathing, you need a little bit.

• 43:17Dax Shepard?

  And then at some point you go, well, what's the point of all this if I don't learn to enjoy the process? This is all a waste, so I'm gonna die with like a bunch of posters hanging. That's the proof of this thing. You realize this isn't worth doing if I don't enjoy the process.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:30Dax Shepard?

  It can't be about the reward.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  Are you enjoying the podcast?

• 43:34Dax Shepard?

  Oh, absolutely. This is the greatest job I've ever had. Yeah, you've had, I guess, periods, right, where you've taken breaks?

• 43:40Speaker 02

  For sure. Every three years, I'm like, what if I instead?

• 43:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  There's so many other things to do. Nature photographer, wouldn't that be cool, right? Sit there looking for the snow leopard all day. Like, I really honestly see that

• 43:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  as a thing, but then you also have to pay the mortgage and stuff.

• 43:57Dax Shepard?

  I do have a question about the heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius. You had so much going on at that time. Was it hard for you to carve out the time and the commitment to sit down and finish that book?

• 44:07Speaker 02

  I had to quit the job at Esquire to do it because I couldn't do both.

• 44:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  I would need eight hours a day of writing time to get anything done. I just have to get my head clear. That's like the first half. And then the self-loathing kicks in at hour five, like, what are you doing?

• 44:23Dax Shepard?

  Like, you've been in four hours. Little wind in your sails and you're like, oh, I gotta get as much out as I can.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  The afternoon, you're more urgent about it and maybe you could hit a word count that makes you feel like you've done something that day.

• 44:34Dax Shepard?

  What a life.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  It's still there, right? I'm trying to make it a little bit more fun. And then there are books that just come out a lot easier than others. Now, The Eyes and the Impossible was a couple of years ago. That was like the most fun I'd ever had. And I was like, how do I stay in that zone where it's fun? A lot of it has to do with voice and it has to do with writing about something that you love. And so Contra Posta was like, I love talking about and thinking about the art world and these characters. And so I was like, okay, that book too was just pretty much joy all the way through. But as a journalist, that's not as fun.

• 45:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Because you feel the duty to like cover Trump or to cover a disaster or go to Ukraine or whatever. And then you have to write it out and you have to get every last word right and check every fact over and over. It's a slog that you are happy to have done at the end.

• 45:23Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  And you feel like maybe you enlightened a person or awakened somebody, but it's really no fun in any point of the process.

• 45:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. How did you take on the success of that book? That was new to you, right? I mean, you were a finalist for the Pulitzer for that book.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  The main thing, I mean, I'm looking at McSweeney's stuff because McSweeney's was brand new too. And so we were able to kind of take that new readership and sort of channel a lot of them. And so we went on the road because I was finding all of these show runs. We went on the road with They Might Be Giants.

• 45:58Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  And it was like me, writers like Arthur Bradford, Zadie Smith, some others, and we would do a variety show. And there'd be, you know, sometimes have like exotic dancers doing stuff. And then there'd be the band and then Arthur would smash a guitar on the stage. He did this whole act. It was like to try to enliven what at that point was the most boring thing you'd ever could imagine, which was going to a bookstore to see a reading, you know?

• 46:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  People would just get up and read for an hour. And we were trying to sort of shake that up. And I saw Arthur, who was like a filmmaker the other night, and we were just reminiscing. He would buy an acoustic guitar in every town we would tour in. And then he told the story while he played. And then he would, during a crescendo of the story, he'd raise it up above his head and then smash it as like the punctuation mark of the story. And then a stagehand would come out and hand him a new guitar. And then he'd finish the story with his acoustic guitar. So he had to buy two guitars in every town we went to. But it was ridiculously fun time. But to think that at this point, like, I don't love getting on stage. I don't love having to follow They Might Be Giants or anything like that. It's like, I can't believe that we did that because these days I'm much

• 47:08Speaker 02

  more content to be in a smaller setting, a bookstore setting, not a big hall. But at the time, we thought, well, maybe we could make books slightly less sedate and slightly less predictable.

• 47:20Dax Shepard?

  Have you ever been to a Sedaris reading?

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. That was right then.

• 47:24Dax Shepard?

  Naked had come out.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  1,500 people would come and he would just read his work. Sarah Vowell was in our little coterie and she was really tight with Sedaris. And Sedaris did benefits for our nonprofit in New York, 826 New York. And so he was always a hero to us and a mentor.

• 47:40Dax Shepard?

  What he's done, though, like reading literature out loud is insane. I currently can't stop listening to the live recordings.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Barrel Fever was how I met my editor, Jeff Klosky. He was the editor of Sedaris's first collection. He made humor literary. Before that, there was always the picture of like the, you know, the humorous mugging on the front.

• 48:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  But then he put it in sort of a literary format, Jeff Klosky, this editor did. And I thought, okay, whoever did that, I want to meet. And so that's why he became my editor.

• 48:11Dax Shepard?

  It's a fun evolution too to watch, cause like Naked You Can Tell is written without any real notion that it'll be read out loud. And then now his writing is done like a stand-up by doing a draft, reading it out loud, rewriting. His workflow is so fascinating.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  Well, really, I mean, it started with The Santa Land Diaries. And that was a This American Life thing first, I think. And that was performed from minute one, and that was just like a thunderclap. Everybody was like, what the hell? You could do that? Wow. Because there used to be something in The New Yorker called Casuals. They were like long format literary humor, kinda like that. And then it sort of went away. And then Sedaris started that up again, where you could have like a 20-page essay slash-

• 48:55Dax Shepard?

  Comedy show?

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then people would go out to it. But you know, what's funny is that he's still, there's him, there's Sarah Vowell, there was David Rakoff for a while, there's not that many people that still do it. And it just shows how hard it is to do.

• 49:08Dax Shepard?

  And he's gotten better and better. There's points where it's like, I'll listen to the most recent ones, like maybe Calypso on tape, and I'm like, I don't know, man, you put him up against Chappelle, laugh for a laugh in a fucking one and a half hour show?

• 49:19Speaker 02

  It's the precision of the writing.

• 49:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  Everything is about extra syllables. And Chappelle's really good at that. Seinfeld's talked about it, but one extra word, and there you don't get to laugh. You've gotta be there at the end of the sentence before they're ready. And Sedaris is unique in that he never puts on extra verbiage or whatever to sort of-

• 49:42Dax Shepard?

  It's lean.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  It's really lean.

• 49:44Dax Shepard?

  Yet it's so full.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  And then he's funnier in person even than on the page.

• 49:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  It's just his voice and his attitude. And then if you go to one of those events, he's signing books for six hours afterwards.

• 49:54Dax Shepard?

  He sees every single person. And he's writing wild shit in there. He's like, the amount of creative output just to write in there, fucking-

• 50:00Speaker 01

  He's connecting with each person?

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Well, to me, that's my favorite part too, and I would much rather just be signing books and chatting with people, because the high-wire act of being up there with a microphone is a lot different. So to me, I'm always looking forward to the sitting and signing, but I do feel for the people that are waiting.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Hours.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Sedaris waiting hours, but they go in knowing it, and the venue knows it, but the times that you're there, and there's like a union venue, and they're like, you gotta get out of here. So then you're on the street, and then the cops come, you gotta get out of here too, you can't be there. That's happened to me, but to me, that's the most fun part, is just the reader-to-reader. Because in person, all people are normal. If you're just talking to an actual person with enough time, human to human, eye to eye, this solves everything.

• 50:47Dax Shepard?

  This is our conclusion after a thousand plus episodes is like, we have guests semi regularly that I don't like, that I've had interactions with around town. I'm like, I don't like this person. And Mike is like, we gotta have them. They're great guests. And 100% of the time, Dave, at the end of two hours, I'm like, I fucking love this person. And I'm like, literally, I challenge someone to sit for two hours with someone and be sincerely curious. And I just challenge you to not like the person.

• 51:10Speaker 02

  Well, the body wants to find common ground. Just chemically, we want this. So I covered a lot of Trump rallies as a journalist and I would embed. I never presented myself right away as a journalist. So I would just wait in line with everybody, get to know people.

• 51:26Dax Shepard?

  Hope you take this as a compliment. You could blend in. You're not coming across as like some lofty professor.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  You should see my full uniform. Cause I've got the trucker hat and I have my flannel. These are clothes I own. So it's not like.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  It's not a costume.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  It's not so much costume. And, you know, I sort of believe hate the sin, love the sinner. The folks that you meet, the people that you've seen on TV are usually the fringiest fringe.

• 51:51Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  But in the middle, I mean, I do think it's so misguided and he's by far the worst president that has ever been or could be conceived on so many levels. And certainly the most corrupt that we're seeing recently. But the people voting for him, I would find common ground with everybody. And they would have some reasonable explanations for supporting him for the most part. Out of every hundred people, there'd be one true lunatic.

• 52:14Dax Shepard?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  Wow, that person. But as a journalist, you really, especially if you're listening and not like hit and run journalism, but like, I'm going to give you as long as you want to talk. I'm going to learn an explanation that I wouldn't have thought about. And sometimes they're voting in very narrow. My 401K went up last time he was elected and I need that money. Okay. You can't really argue with that. My parents waited 17 years to immigrate from the Philippines. I want everyone to wait the same amount of time.

• 52:41Dax Shepard?

  I live in a border town. 250,000 people have come over this month. That scares me.

• 52:45Speaker 02

  Well, I did cover the El Paso rally, so that was. Beto O'Rourke on one side of the street having a rally when he's running for the senate. About 4,000 people came to that one, crossed the street, 90 feet, 15,000 people to Trump in El Paso, a week after he said that El Paso was a dump and whatever, doesn't matter. 50, 60% of that crowd was Latino. They laugh at this idea, I interviewed so many people, that like the border, people are going up and down, back and forth every day from El Paso. It's very porous, there's underground tunnels, there's all these different things. But then you have that conservatism of recent immigrants, right? So there was a family where the mom came over from Mexico illegally, got her green

• 53:28Speaker 02

  card, one daughter is a cop and is a Trumpy and won't talk to the mother anymore because she broke the law to come over.

• 53:36Dax Shepard?

  Oh wow.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  But she's an American because her mother.

• 53:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 53:40Speaker 02

  And so now no one's talking to each other because she's iced out the mother, the sister won't talk to this other sister because, and it's all because of one guy.

• 53:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  And so, you know, you gotta back up and say, it wasn't this way. For so long, the border was much more porous. You'd work in the US because wages are higher and then you'd go back home because it's cheaper to live in Mexico. It was just back and forth for farm workers, for construction, for a lot of different things. And then suddenly, it wasn't Trump that did this, but everything became much more heightened and sort of you have to pick a side and choose. And it's wildly mismanaged. I don't have the solution in this podcast, but I will say that like.

• 54:19Dax Shepard?

  If you drop the solution. I know. Hey, why were you sitting on that corner? We're on year 10 of this.

• 54:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:26Dax Shepard?

  I do want to say this, I cannot remember, but I bet it had to be Kimmel who told me to, but what is the, what was the first book of yours I read?

• 54:33Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 54:34Dax Shepard?

  And I talk about it on here all the time. I just love that book. It's just outstandingly beautiful.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  You know, Valentino and I, we went to Kimmel's taping a year or two ago.

• 54:44Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  Jimmy Kimmel and Molly have given money to Valentino's schools in South Sudan. He has a foundation and so it was really weird, there was a guy doing crowd work before and he was like, where's everybody from? I want to see who's from the furthest place away. And he happens to find Valentino sitting next to me. And he's like, where are you from? South Sudan. And it's like.

• 55:03Dax Shepard?

  [Laughter]

• 55:05Speaker 02

  You won, you got it. After the book came out, we went back to South Sudan and all the money from the book went to this foundation. And then he had the decision to make, like, what do you do with it? And he decided to build a high school in his town. He was so successful that he became the Minister of Education for his whole region. So basically, New England size. And now he's running his own schools in a town close to Mariel by where he grew up. You read about him until he was probably 22, I guess.

• 55:33Dax Shepard?

  Was it Atlanta that they got sent to? The heartbreaking part of this book, if you haven't read it, I really encourage. One of my very favorite books. But, you know, what these kids went through to cross the desert, I mean, there's literally lions picking guys off, which is just unimaginable. And they have this notion of getting to America. And then they go to Atlanta and just the violence that's happening in the motel that they're at.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  And this speed of life. Like, when I met Valentino, he'd just gotten in an accident like two days after getting his driver's license. They had three months of aid from USAID or whatever group it was. Maybe it was the UNHCR. But then they're on their own. And it's like independent nonprofits and churches that supported the Lost Boys all over the US. But to the credit of the churches and our ability to absorb refugees and people from the toughest post-conflict zones, they were absorbed and did quite well, almost everywhere. And it was mostly the churches that did it, because most of the kids were brought up Catholic. Churches reached out, whatever you need, come to us, you're part of our family. And then in Atlanta, it was Mary Williams who started the Lost Boys Foundation and got in touch with me.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  But you had 4,000, mostly boys, all unaccompanied, 18 to 25, sent to Fargo, sent to Omaha, cheaper places to live, San Jose, never in the middle of a city. And suddenly, after three months, it's like, well, you gotta pay that electrical bill. What's an electrical bill? Okay, well, and you've got to get to school now. You have to have a job within three months.

• 57:00Dax Shepard?

  You have to know everything it took all of us 18 years to figure out. You have to know it in the next three months.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Three months. Most of them, if they were lucky enough to sort of have a family that takes care of them. Valentino had this couple, the Mazes, that are still in Atlanta that became sort of surrogate parents and guiding them through all these questions. And you realize like whether it's the Lost Boys or whether it's first in their family to go to college in this country, you just need an advocate. You need somebody to pick up the phone and be like, okay, no, that's not what you do. Pick up this form, you gotta fill this out, I'll help you do it. I'll file that for you. Go to this website. Because otherwise, it's just reading Sumerian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at the speed of light. And if you don't do it, you're on the street. Like, all of those things at once. And you realize, like, I've been to Kakuma, which was the refugee camp that they grew up in.

• 57:48Speaker 02

  And for the most part, there's not electricity or running water. In a lot of these camps, they were lucky to have a meal a day for years. These refugee camps are still there because they become cities unto themselves, right? And they're still called refugee camps even though they've been there, at this point, 34 years or something like that. But there's a simplicity sometimes, or a system you know. And our lives here in this country are so complex. We don't even realize how complex and needlessly complex they are and how irrational so many of our systems are. Until you go to somewhere else. These cities in South Sudan, now that there's been relative peace for some time, are growing exponentially.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  Like, Juba, the capital, when we were first there, maybe 20 years ago, I think it was maybe 20,000 people. Like, you could really get across it in an hour or two. And now I think it's 2.5 million. And it just grows out, and there's entrepreneurship everywhere, and things popping up at schools. And if people have anywhere, whether it's this country 200 years ago or South Sudan, just if there's relative peace for a little bit of time, everything can happen. People will flourish, they'll figure it out. They'll flock to these centers. They'll solve problems. And it's the job of the international community to just invest, not aid. Mm-hmm. Invest in businesses there. Yeah. So you have Ethiopian Air Train Restaurants and businesses and places from Uganda that are going to South Sudan

• 59:14Speaker 02

  to make money, which is good, right? They employ people, they're selling them phone plans. Yeah. This is the way that countries get out of a post-conflict situation. It's like actual living, not just... But actual investment. Valentino is doing a lot of that, too.

• 59:31Dax Shepard?

  OK, well, we I've eaten up way too much time. I would have loved to talk about the circle a little bit in the every because I like hearing you talk about the post apocalyptic cyber age we're in. Find it. You're fun to listen to talk about this. But at last, your newest book, which is what we're here to talk about is contrapposto.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  That's the name of my botox place, by the way.

• 59:51Dax Shepard?

  Is it really?

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:52Dax Shepard?

  I didn't know this term before the book.

• 59:54Speaker 02

  Oh, I've never seen it anywhere else.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's the first time I had heard it.

• 59:58Dax Shepard?

  It's a form, right, in painting where a portrait subject is holding two positions that are in tension.

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like the Michelangelo's David would be the first or best known example where the pose is off balance a bit. You're putting weight on one leg or your hips are one way, your shoulders are another way, as opposed to a stock still kind of rigid pose. So most poses we know could be qualified as contrapposto. But it's something you learn in art school and you ask of the model. And I like the word always. I felt like it applied to the relationship between cricket and Olympia is where there's sort of balanced imbalance between them.

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 1:00:45Dax Shepard?

  We get support from our presenting sponsor, YouTube Premium. Now, you already know I'm a big YouTube person. It's incredible on its own, but Premium makes the whole experience feel enhanced. Like, you don't realize how much better it can get until you try it. The biggest game changer for me, background play. I love long, two hour deep dives, you name it, motorcycles, travel, cars.

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  Cooking shows for me.

• 1:01:11Dax Shepard?

  Cooking. Listen, with Premium, you don't have to keep the screen open. So I can lock my phone, slide it into my pocket and listen to a podcast while I'm folding laundry or working out. It's also completely ad free, meaning when a narrator is building up to the climax of an insane story, there's zero interruption. And for travel, offline download saves the day. I love this one. Relying on airplane Wi Fi can be a gamble, so I just download my favorite videos before takeoff. Smart downloads premium will automatically download new videos from channels you actually follow without having to lift a finger. I'm covered if I forget to download a video I want to watch, or even if there's no service. And the home run for me is that YouTube premium remembers exactly where I left off and lets

• 1:01:54Dax Shepard?

  me continue watching on another device from right where I stopped. So I can start a video on my TV while brushing my teeth and pick it right back up on my phone on my morning walk. So yeah, YouTube was already great, but premium supercharges it. If you like YouTube, you'll love premium. Try YouTube premium for two months free at youtube.com/premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. We get support from our sponsor Lilly. For adults with obesity or with excess weight and weight-related medical problems, it's time to find out about Foundo or for Gleepran. Foundo is a once daily prescription GLP-1 medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight

• 1:02:37Dax Shepard?

  who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

• 1:02:42Speaker 04

  Foundo should not be used with other GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Foundo is safe and effective for use in children. Don't take Foundo if you're allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had major lary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type two. Stop and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, or severe stomach pain. Serious side effects may include inflamed pancreas and gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes, if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills, and before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. Taking Foundo with an insulin or sulfonylurea may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and may cause kidney problems. Once daily Foundo is available by prescription only in 0.8 milligram, 2.5 milligram, 5.5

• 1:03:27Speaker 04

  milligram, 9 milligram, 14.5 milligram, and 17.2 milligram tablets. Learn more at foundo.lilly.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX. Now is perfect to talk to your doctor about Foundo.

• 1:03:39Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Skims. So Monica just informed me that she's a girl's girl, and I nodded like I knew exactly what that meant.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the girls who get it, they get it.

• 1:03:51Dax Shepard?

  Okay, but for those of us who are clearly not girls, walk me through it.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  Well, you know how much I love my Skims fleece joggers because the plush fleece is so soft, it's cozy, it's really comfortable without feeling too heavy. Well, I went to friend them, and she would not stop talking about how comfy they were. She almost didn't give them back to me, which was upsetting, but I'm a girl's girl, so I let her have it.

• 1:04:12Dax Shepard?

  Great, great, great.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  So the sleep sets are awesome because they are very soft and comfortable, but they're cute. If I'm in my sleep set, I feel fine about going down the street to pick up my food. I'm still looking cute, but I'm comfy and I'm cozy.

• 1:04:26Dax Shepard?

  Roger.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  A really fun thing to do is if you're going on vacation with your girlfriends, to get matching Skims pajamas. I've done this with Callie, and it is so fun. First of all, the pics are so cute, but also it's just fun and friendship.

• 1:04:39Dax Shepard?

  So a girl's girl is looking out for your friends with better loungewear. I get it. Am I one of your girls now?

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  You are. You and the other girlies can 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 our show in the dropdown menu that follows.

• 1:04:59Dax 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?

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  They never are.

• 1:05:42Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:05:54Dax Shepard?

  So the book starts with a little boy, Robert, and he ditches that name because he has a shitty, not a stepdad, but mom's boyfriend is terrible. You're not gonna let me draw any parallels?

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  I never had a stepdad.

• 1:06:08Dax Shepard?

  He sounded very familiar to me. But Cricket gets this name because he doesn't want to be called Rob because it's now associated with Robert who's upstairs, right? The book starts with like this sanctuary this little boy has. Do you want to describe it a little bit?

• 1:06:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, his grandfather lives at home in the basement and then has created kind of like a botanical garden almost in the middle of a Indiana basement in the middle of winter. It's frozen outside and white and probably below zero. But down there, it's humid and full of plants and green and...

• 1:06:38Dax Shepard?

  And spiders, he likes spiders.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, insects. So it's this humid, sort of fertile, kind of womb-like world almost that Cricket spends most of his time down there with his grandfather, who's pretty old and not super mobile. He doesn't really leave the basement. But he draws on the floor in front of him while listening to records and his father reading above him. And I think that those early sections about the grandfather, I just wanted to establish that when you're a kid and you can draw, or if you can write, or whatever you're doing, there's this like incredible peace that comes over a kid that he's got all this chaos going on upstairs. But on that page, he controls everything, can create any universe or world he wants to. He has validation from this grandfather

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  that loves everything he does, which is what grandfathers are supposed to do or grandparents.

• 1:07:29Dax Shepard?

  Well, he treats them seriously, which is like this huge gift that someone can give you when you're a kid.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  For sure. It's different, his mother's working full-time and is under all kinds of stresses. But down there, you know, I think every kid needs that sort of place where you're validated, I guess, you're competent, you're good at something. Everybody's got to find something that a kid is good at. And that's the parent's task. It's like go to karate, tai chi, I mean, anything you can do. But until you find that, it's tricky. Once that kid finds that he's really good at something, then that competence carries over into everything else. Like, all right, good, I have a place. I can do this one thing well. But then, you know, that leads into him taking more and more sort of art classes around and leaving... Home grandfather doesn't last too long, but has taught him, I guess, the skills.

• 1:08:20Dax Shepard?

  Well, also this thing he's good at becomes a bridge also to friendship and to potential romantic interests, right? He's encouraged. It's kind of discovered that he's a good drawer and he's encouraged to graffiti.

• 1:08:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, everybody knows that kid, right? That can draw the angel guy and the Led Zeppelin cover, right? So hey, can you do that for me too?

• 1:08:41Dax Shepard?

  Or Eddie from Iron Man. There's a couple of kids in every high school that could draw Eddie.

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  Same in prisons, right? If you can draw, those guys make money doing it. Like I've met a lot of those guys. But yeah, for cricket, it's really just like he's a quiet kid, but he meets Olympia, who recognizes that he has a talent. And then of course, uses it to have him deface a public play structure using some form of calligraphy via a giant Sharpie. And so I wanted to take it away from being like too cute. They say horrible things on this play structure, but in an ornate, kind of almost old English sort of font. But he's madly in love instantly with this girl who's maybe a year older.

• 1:09:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, she's very worldly and provocative and dangerous, right?

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. Not to spoil it, but the rest of the book is about them together over the years. But I think that she's so captivating and at every stage, she's captivating in different ways. She morphs and shape shifts a bit, but she's always infinitely more sophisticated than he is and more verbal and more worldly. And she knows how to sort of navigate through the art world, whereas like he generally doesn't have a clue and doesn't seek to.

• 1:09:51Dax Shepard?

  We get into your kind, or I'm assuming your take on art. We're exploring a lot, this kind of tension between it's pretentious, it's exclusionary, it's inclusionary. Like it has all these dynamics. What were you able to get off your chest about art?

• 1:10:07Speaker 02

  Well, it was fun because I don't think I would ever write a book about the book world because I'm in it and that's to me maybe just too close. And also for me being adjacent to it, like I paint and make prints and I draw and sell them and stuff. And I have a little gallery that sells them for the last 15 or so years. So I have like a little bit of a. Into that world. Used to write about art and everything, but there is something really unique in all art forms like music. Go to a concert and well, it used to be $20 and you'd see your favorite band and it's $15 for the CD. And you could take it home and own it and look through the booklet and it's very democratic. The art world and the visual art world in the last hundred years or so is incredibly exclusive. And very hard to like just experience as a regular person.

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  You can't really own much. You could tear out a piece of paper from a magazine with your favorite painting. That's as close as you can get.

• 1:10:59Dax Shepard?

  Well, even like the Banksy rise is so fascinating, right? Cause it starts as like incredibly democratized. It's for all to see on the side of a building. And then I have been to billionaire's house who has an enormous Banksy in his.

• 1:11:11Speaker 02

  Oh, is that right?

• 1:11:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, in his hallway.

• 1:11:12Speaker 02

  Somebody tore it off a building, maybe.

• 1:11:14Dax Shepard?

  No, well, Banksy does artwork for sale.

• 1:11:17Speaker 02

  I didn't know that.

• 1:11:18Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  He did a piece on the side of the McSweeney's building years ago.

• 1:11:22Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 1:11:23Speaker 02

  So he got in touch when he was coming in San Francisco and he said, I'd like to do something on the roof. And one of our staffers led him in at midnight and led him up to the roof.

• 1:11:31Dax Shepard?

  Did he have to sign anything?

• 1:11:33Speaker 02

  That's a good question.

• 1:11:34Dax Shepard?

  Or did he have to be blindfolded?

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  I mean, that's funny. I always want to ask.

• 1:11:38Dax Shepard?

  They've just discovered who he is, right? Have you been following?

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:41Dax Shepard?

  It's like an English dude?

• 1:11:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's always been an English guy. We didn't know. It was Chris Yang who was on our staff. He led him up and then he did this really cool mural, sort of, I don't know what you call it, picture on the side of what he would consider the roof or this, the wall on our roof. But we have a flat roof and he did it there and we were so happy. We wake up, we see it. People were stopping on the street for a week in the middle of traffic. It was a big deal. Everybody knew that he'd done it. It's before social media though, so it was like just word of mouth. And then one day we wake up and it's gone. And we realized it was on the building next to us. So our roof is flat, but then there's an apartment building next to us.

• 1:12:21Dax Shepard?

  They painted over it?

• 1:12:22Speaker 02

  And we didn't even think that. Tell this guy because we, anyway. So it's painted over within a week and we could have, uh. I don't even seen a picture of it in years. It was tragic. There's a few other pieces in San Francisco, one in the port that they're trying to figure out what to do with and authenticate. Cause he won't authenticate either. I really like his work, always have. I like the way he goes about things on his own.

• 1:12:44Dax Shepard?

  He's so fucking punk rock.

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  Or tertiary. People making money off of his stuff, but I was always looking for and I think trying to explore in this novel, like, how do you bring it to that democratized kind of level that music and even books, books are so simple, you buy it's 25 bucks, you take it home, that's the experience. Anybody can access it, there's no exclusive part of the book world. But art is mostly exclusive, meaning like if you want to own anything and that person is really making a living doing it, it's incredibly expensive.

• 1:13:18Dax Shepard?

  That's where I've called bullshit on art a little bit, which is like, why is the print to you not valuable?

• 1:13:23Speaker 02

  I love the prints.

• 1:13:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm just saying, most people, yeah, like if what you love is this image, you can't tell the difference. What are we talking about? Why is that not desirable?

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  Or the lithograph versus the real thing.

• 1:13:36Speaker 02

  They make comparatively so few. So if an artist is doing 40 paintings a year, they'll only make a couple prints or lithographs of those works, and then maybe a book at the end of a show. I did different series of prints that looked exactly like the original, so no one could tell, and I would sell them in a portfolio. You see them anywhere in people's houses, and you cannot tell the difference, and I did that on purpose.

• 1:13:59Dax Shepard?

  Did you mark the original?

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  No, I just signed it, you know, so it has the original signature in the corner, so if you were gonna really look closely.

• 1:14:07Dax Shepard?

  I like the idea of someone has the original, no one knows. It's kind of fun.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  That takes place in the real world all the time. What you think is an original in certain museums is not the original. There's often a fake there because of wanting to preserve it or rest it, or the danger of theft or whatever, so you don't always know. But I do think that this sanctification of these certain little objects, and Mona Lisa must be so much better than the painting next to it, and this sort of hierarchy, all of these things are very unique, I think, to the art world, whereas there's so much phenomenal work being done every day by people that we live among, and LA is obviously such a fantastic art city. But there's something intrinsic to it that's snooty, and that really attracts

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  kind of a snobby sort of person, unfortunately, and at all twists and turns, we've got to try to. A favor, the artists, the curators, the gallerists, the museum directors, everybody that makes it accessible, makes it more fun, explains things. Why is that on the wall?

• 1:15:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:08Speaker 02

  Why is that Barnett Newman on the wall? Why am I supposed to like that? If you can't explain that, then you shouldn't be doing the job. You know, you should explain why a white square is on the wall.

• 1:15:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18Speaker 02

  And is worth six million dollars or whatever. And I think that for so long, it's getting a little bit better now. It's pretty pluralistic atmosphere now. Like if you go to Lachma, you'll see every kind of work imaginable, which is how it should be. But for a while, sixties, seventies, eighties, it had gotten so exclusive and so narrow, where it was all about abstract work and abstract expressionism, little conceptual art. But anything outside of that, representational figures, anything like that was like really frowned upon.

• 1:15:47Dax Shepard?

  Passé.

• 1:15:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it was like an art form uniquely susceptible to that. And you would never find that in music. Where it's like, well, now from now on, John Cage has brought us to this place where only silence and-

• 1:15:59Dax Shepard?

  Stones are over.

• 1:16:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we don't like the Rolling Stones anymore.

• 1:16:02Speaker 02

  Everything else is invalid. But we had reached that place with visual art for a while. It was a tough place and very unaccepting and very close minded.

• 1:16:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, my grievance is like it's the apex of arbitrary.

• 1:16:14Speaker 01

  I just moved into a house and I was like, okay, I need art for my house now. And this has been crazy. Similarly, my parents bought me a housewarming present and it was a painting. And it's not a cheap painting. And then I got it and I love it. I do love it, but when I'm staring at it, I'm like, why is it-

• 1:16:31Dax Shepard?

  Why was it that much?

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  So money.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  Do you like the painting?

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  I do. I love the painting. And I look at it and I look at this print that's much cheaper, that's framed next to it and I'm like, yeah, none of this makes any sense.

• 1:16:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was talking to a friend. She just had a show. All of her prices are super random. She has a formula that's actually based on like area, you know?

• 1:16:51Dax Shepard?

  Based on what you were charging the San Francisco Chronicle for your-

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  It's exactly the same. It just came to mind. So is it like by square footage that you're doing this? Like, why would this be four hundred and twelve dollars and that one's six hundred? And if it's by actual area? Isn't that seem weird like you're charging by the foot? But I think that that goes again toward how they've created a sort of a self seriousness about it. And a little bit like I could explain it to you, but you wouldn't understand that kind of thing.

• 1:17:22Dax Shepard?

  Well, it reeks of elitism, the whole thing like reeks.

• 1:17:24Speaker 02

  You don't find that in any other medium, even classical music. Like the first thing they want to do is explain it to you, you know, like, okay, here's why. This movement is about this, not like, well, I don't know. You have a degree in music theory, then maybe I could talk to you.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, if you don't get it, that's on you. So you kind of have to be like, no, I get it.

• 1:17:41Dax Shepard?

  We should add too, the world is filled with more criminals than any other. There are more paint salesmen who have gone to prison than any other art medium. It's just riddled with crooks who are selling paintings they don't have.

• 1:17:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:53Dax Shepard?

  They're selling fake paintings.

• 1:17:55Speaker 02

  There you go. And why is that? Why does it attract so many charlatans? And it's always been fascinating to me because you really just don't see as much of it in any other form. But the art forging stories, I do love those, like watching those. And also you'll see the gallerist in between who's sort of winking and nodding like, does she or doesn't she know that she's selling a fake for five and a half million dollars to this gullible couple? And is she just running out the string before putting that in a Swiss account or whatever? And then somebody's going to get caught, but she's just the pass through. It's fascinating, but there is no equivalent in music or writing or whatever, where you could defraud one person out of five million dollars based on picture, you know? Like a bunch of paint on a four by four canvas,

• 1:18:39Speaker 02

  which the intrinsic value of that is like a hundred and fifty dollars, right? Of like materials. And everything else is about this sort of suspension of disbelief or this shared illusion that we are all going to dream together, that this is worth something now.

• 1:18:53Dax Shepard?

  It's comforting weirdly to go like, oh, there's a handful of things that are so beautiful. They're invaluable. Something about that story is appealing.

• 1:19:04Speaker 02

  Well, and also there are people in between, like art consultants that will say this one's appreciating and that one's not. This one's on the downslide and that artist's star is rising.

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  So a lot of it is sort of stock market like it's like. Paperware, crypto, or whatever, where if we all believe together that this person is on the rise, then we can justify that. And then you do have a lot of manipulation. You'll find the same buyer buys a painting for a million dollars, shows it in some gallery or traveling show, which raises its profile, sells it to some friend for 10 million, who sells it again for 20, and everybody's sort of in on this, creating the marketplace. There's a famous story, the Christopher Wool painting that says, whatever that quote from Apocalypse Now. And it's just type, and it's like a long, tall painting. Within a handful of years, it went from $800,000 to like 22 million dollars. And it was just like this turning.

• 1:19:58Dax Shepard?

  Also, there's no sympathetic victims in any of these cases. You don't really feel bad for someone who has an extra 22 million dollars to get taken advantage of. Now, I do want to bring it back to the book for one second, I gotta say though, although Cricket's obviously observing all that madness, Cricket's also experiencing the real value of art in two kind of pivotable moments in the book. One being, he gets singled out in high school for this painting of a weasel, right?

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  Even before, I think they're like 10.

• 1:20:27Dax Shepard?

  And that is extremely hurtful to Robert.

• 1:20:31Speaker 02

  He puts his stepdad or whatever's face on a weasel that's been hit by, he's roadkill. Police put on an art fair, and it's sort of like a PSA about careful on the road or something. So he uses it as a way to get back.

• 1:20:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so he experiences the power of it.

• 1:20:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:47Dax Shepard?

  And then he's working at this store. He makes a painting of someone that's dear to two people in his life.

• 1:20:54Speaker 02

  Well said.

• 1:20:54Dax Shepard?

  And it gets hung up, and he experiences the love of art, right? The transmission of love.

• 1:21:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:01Dax Shepard?

  So he's felt the power of it.

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:03Dax Shepard?

  He's felt the love of it. So there are these glimpses of what it's really about.

• 1:21:08Speaker 02

  For sure. I mean, I think at every step, Cricket, in the moment. And I don't know if you've had this experience, but with any art form, I certainly have painting where you're painting and in the moment, there's nothing better in the world than moving color around a canvas. And you think you're doing some masterpiece every single time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially if you're really up close to it and you're inhaling the fumes and stuff. And so, on every level. And then you back up and it's a piece of garbage. It does not look like anything like what you intended to do and it's not working in any way. But how can you sort of like stay in that moment when you were in love with the process and what you were doing? And Cricket always is struggling with transferring that moment of being in it to like the result, which is never what you want it to be.

• 1:21:52Speaker 02

  And then there's that second stage, that artwork being put out into the world, which is often a miserable process that you don't want to have anything to do with. So I think he never masters it, whereas Olympia would and most people, or a lot of people would master like, okay, well, I'll figure this out. But he never can transfer the love of what he wants to do in that moment or a tribute to his friend or drawing spaceships on the floor of his grandfather's basement, but to something else and do something in public or make a living at it or master the business side of it. Because the teacher, Carpenter, at one point is like, probably the most talented guitarist in the world is playing for a Journey cover band in Reno. Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:35Speaker 02

  But there's many different reasons why that person isn't heading up some innovative band. But there's so many other things that you have to do to sort of achieve whatever kind of success, however you might define it, but it's not just talent. And there's a lot of other things, showing up on time. There's having or being burdened by ambition and Cricket really doesn't have any. Olympia applies this ambition to him, come on, do this thing. Show up at this one thing, do more of that, people will buy this. At no point can he do it. And I'm fascinated by those people and I can't say I know a lot of them, but like every so often you will find some artist in a little town off the beaten path in Alaska and they just do this brilliant work,

• 1:23:19Speaker 02

  but never want to go anywhere else or do anything else. It's very pure. Yeah.

• 1:23:22Dax Shepard?

  I often ruminate the stories I consider telling. They're my fears, right? Like, I think about writing a movie about something with children. Cause I'm so afraid of that.

• 1:23:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:32Dax Shepard?

  Do you think some part of you recognizes how fucking precarious the whole thing is? What an improbable result that you have made a living and a good one out of pursuing something artistic? In that you know somewhere in the back of your mind, like, I could also be cricket.

• 1:23:48Speaker 02

  Sure. For anybody that has the luck of being able to do this for a living. And it's really just about the publisher saying they'll publish the next thing. That's all there is. That's the hundred percent of the success of it. It's like, really? You're gonna do? Oh, all right, good. And if you can pay the bills doing it, won the lottery. But these days, even though not everyone's reading as much as they used to, there are more readers by a factor of a million new people every day than there have ever been in the history of the world. Nineteen hundred, how many literate people were there, right? It's a tiny percentage of the globe. And then suddenly we have almost universal literacy around a globe of eight billion people. So even where some things are getting a little harder, probably the best time ever to be trying to make a living as a writer.

• 1:24:32Speaker 02

  Cause there's more people, more ways to do it. The internet gets books out in different ways. You get the word out.

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  There's Substack now. Everyone can have their own Substack.

• 1:24:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you can make that work, that's income. But in terms of publishing and in terms of it being a time to do this for a living, it's really the very best time in the history of human evolution to try to be a writer making a living. There's more people making a living out of it than ever before. Cause nineteen hundred, you could probably count a few dozen people, right, as novelist?

• 1:25:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, my other last just curiosity is I went through this program, The Groundlings. I think three thousand people enter for every fifteen that get to The Sunday Company. Was the number that was given to me. Maybe that's right or wrong. The point is, I saw and worked with and met so many people that were better at doing characters than I was. They were better writers than I was. They didn't have some combination of ambition or show up and do whatever the thing was. I have this kind of weird survivor's guilt. And I could imagine myself writing this book motivated out of that a little bit. In my travels, I met crickets and it's not fair and I wanna honor a cricket.

• 1:25:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I always say to my students, I've met a lot of brilliant first draft writers.

• 1:25:50Speaker 02

  That will not revise. They do the one thing and that's it.

• 1:25:53Dax Shepard?

  My offering.

• 1:25:56Speaker 02

  I honor you.

• 1:25:56Dax Shepard?

  Feel free to read it multiple times.

• 1:25:59Speaker 02

  I honor you with my first draft and I'm going to lunch. Those people, we know what happens to them, right? They can't do the work. So humility is a real thing. And I'm not endorsing cricket's way because I don't live that way myself. I'm happy to take feedback. I'm happy to like do the 20 drafts. I want to learn and I also know how bad my first drafts are. And so when you come up through newspapers, you're beaten down. You have no choice but to be humble.

• 1:26:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:25Speaker 02

  Because they chop every single thing you do. But then it makes you a little bit less precious and a little bit stronger. And you meet deadlines and you work a little harder. You can do an all nighter without a problem. But I think there's so much humility involved and also knowing. I don't know. I mean, the guilt part, I feel bad that, that.

• 1:26:44Dax Shepard?

  That you don't have it?

• 1:26:44Speaker 02

  That I don't. Well, because I always see anybody that does the work. I see, and I always believe, every good book will be published. We're all looking for them as publishers. So if you put in the work and do the 10 drafts or 12 or 15 like the rest of us do. And you listen and there's maybe some spark there that's something unusual. It'll get published. We're all looking for those books. So I think, again, it's the most democratic medium. Because you don't need a degree in anything to be able to do it.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  The problem is people's bar isn't just to get published. It's to be a you, you know, to be a household name. And that's ego, really.

• 1:27:21Speaker 02

  Depends on who. Then we get into like, how do you measure success? For a lot of people, it's publisher will put out your next book. And then they spend a lot of time teaching, maybe, you know, they're teaching at UCLA. That's a great life to have. The luckiest life anybody could ever have. Is being able to convey what you know to the next generation. You get your books out every few years.

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:41Speaker 02

  I have so many friends doing that. And they are unbelievable teachers. Couple at USC. USC has an incredible department. You know, there's so many people making a living adjacent to. We have Rita Bullwinkle, the editor of McSweeney's as a novelist too. And she's balancing those two things, but that's a very lucky life too. But there are way more options than there ever were before. Do a little advertising writing, you do a screenplay there, maybe there's this, there's that, there's a Substack, there's a podcast.

• 1:28:09Dax Shepard?

  Two people are probably writing tweets and they're writing Instagram copy, you know, as a side hustle. The people are managing other people's accounts.

• 1:28:17Speaker 02

  One of the funniest writers I've ever met has been at Facebook for like 20 years, writing like internal stuff.

• 1:28:22Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 1:28:23Speaker 02

  A little brighter, but raising kids on it and doing great, and she's been treated very well. And if she wants to do side stuff, then that's great. What Cricket learns early, when he's working at this gallery, is that the ambition and the gap between where you want to be and where you reasonably should or could be, that's where misery comes from.

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:28:42Speaker 02

  It's like, I should be this, but I'm not realistic about getting there, or I'm not willing to do the work to get there, or maybe I just don't belong there, whatever it is. That's where you get the tortured artists. And so trying to find like, where's my equilibrium? What don't I love about this? Cricket learns he can't possibly be at an art opening with his paintings surrounding him, people pouring wine on him or whatever. So how do you rule out, you've probably done this 100 times, like, how do you rule out the thing I really don't like to do?

• 1:29:08Dax Shepard?

  That'll stop you.

• 1:29:09Speaker 02

  Is it this?

• 1:29:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:11Speaker 02

  And say, okay, well, how do I gravitate to this and put together a different mosaic of the things I really like? And it might be on a different scale, might not live in New York, but you'd live in Indiana, whatever, cut your expenses by 90%. You know, all of these different things, you sort of have to think about it at so many stages of life to be like, well, now that the kids are out of the house, what does life look like for us? And are we happiest as opposed to just moving along at the expected rate of things? But I'm not saying I successfully do this all the time, but periodically you can assess, what do you need to cut out? What miseries can you cut out of your life? There are no longer obligations.

• 1:29:52Dax Shepard?

  I just want to say, I just love 826 Valencia. I got to see like what you've done with these places. The first one, I guess, in the Mission, right? To have the lease that you guys had to sell shit.

• 1:30:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, zoning obligation.

• 1:30:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so they sell pirate stuff, Monica, and it's really just a place for...

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  Wait, sorry, explain that.

• 1:30:09Dax Shepard?

  826 Valencia is where kids can come and get tutored. And they can get help writing and they get mentorship, but you can't just open up a mentorship clinic in certain zones. You have to sell products in the storefront. So a lot of these locations now, there's one in Echo Park, right?

• 1:30:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, Echo Park, time travel, Mark.

• 1:30:26Dax Shepard?

  It's a 7-Eleven?

• 1:30:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:27Dax Shepard?

  From the way back.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:30:30Speaker 02

  Do you know how that place was funded?

• 1:30:31Dax Shepard?

  How?

• 1:30:32Speaker 02

  So Judd Apatow's been a supporter. He had an idea one time. He's like, let's do a fundraiser. He had been giving money for years, but he's like, let's do a fundraiser where we parody LA's tendency to pat themselves on the back for any sort of charitable stuff that they do. He's like, let's do a night of good intentions where we honor Seth Rogen. This was a long time ago. He'd only done Freaks and Geeks. We're gonna honor Seth Rogen for the philanthropic work he's considering doing in the future.

• 1:30:59Dax Shepard?

  I love it.

• 1:31:01Speaker 02

  Will Ferrell gets up and Ben Stiller and like Foo Fighters, all in one night. Like, you know, we're so proud of you Seth for considering possibly in the future, doing something for somebody. And then he gets up and he's like, I have no idea who these people are. I mean, I don't know what 826 is, I don't know any of this stuff. I don't know what I was talking about. But Judd charged like a thousand dollars a plate and so all the people in LA came. He had the 10-day-old flower arrangements from the Golden Globes. He had like rocky five decorations. But it was a really fun night to parody all of that. And then he raised enough money to build the entire center in Echo Park.

• 1:31:40Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:31:41Speaker 02

  Which is like, you know, $250,000 in a night by parodying LA's, uh,

• 1:31:46Dax Shepard?

  Self-indulgence.

• 1:31:47Speaker 02

  Self, yeah.

• 1:31:47Dax Shepard?

  Self-congratulatory indulgence.

• 1:31:49Speaker 02

  That one's been open almost 15 years now. It's a beautiful spot. After-school help, publishing. It's been home to a couple of generations now of kids that have grown up there.

• 1:31:59Dax Shepard?

  And they publish these kids' work. These kids get to have published work and the books are solid. They're fucking, yeah, it's the coolest.

• 1:32:07Speaker 02

  They got a library of 2,000 of these books now up in San Francisco. So if you're ever up there.

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:12Speaker 02

  But come by there because it looks like a 7-Eleven and you walk right past it because it's exactly a 7-Eleven. Like Bad Robot helped decorate it and then Mac Barnett, who's a Children's book author, he's the ambassador for children's literature right now from the Library of Congress. But he was the guy in charge. He was the executive director at the time. They all built it, so you'll walk right past it, but then if you go in, there's a secret door that leads to the back. And then that's the tutoring center. So for kids that get extra help, there's no stigma about it. You know, it's like going into this cool place as opposed to the sterile after school help for kids falling behind sort of spot. So all of the centers around the country have different themes.

• 1:32:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you don't want to be behind a glass window with classmates like fucking looking at.

• 1:32:54Speaker 02

  I mean, these places exist.

• 1:32:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:55Speaker 02

  It's horrifying. And usually you're paying for that tutoring. And to be seen, I won't name those ones that I know of, but it is horrifying. This is all free. Everything's free.

• 1:33:04Dax Shepard?

  If people want to support eight two six Valencia, is there a website?

• 1:33:08Speaker 02

  Eight two six Valencia, eight two six LA is the one down here, eight two six Boston, whatever city you happen to live in. We accept money.

• 1:33:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:16Speaker 02

  People who want to donate it, we still accept it.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  That's so awesome.

• 1:33:20Dax Shepard?

  It's very cool. I watch a lot of footage of these kids and they have these assignments, like go out on the street and interview people right now. And like these little kids bump into someone who's like, this woman's the very first test tube baby.

• 1:33:34Speaker 02

  That was my class.

• 1:33:35Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you're okay. It was your class.

• 1:33:36Speaker 02

  San Francisco. I sent my kids out to interview the most interesting person they see. And they went to a bookstore and they met the woman that says, well, I happen to be the first test tube baby. You got lucky. So they interviewed them, came back, wrote this up. I mean, the other thing is you end up, we have a thousand tutors down here. So you end up meeting kids that you share the city with. And these kids meet all these caring adults that give a few hours a month. So it sort of tightens the fabric of a city, especially a vast one where you can feel disconnected by roads and neighborhoods. But there, it's like, oh, I saw you live around the corner in Echo Park.

• 1:34:10Dax Shepard?

  You see the kid at the grocery store. You were both there. Yeah.

• 1:34:13Speaker 02

  And it's like you get to know the parents, everybody. And those kids, especially right now, when they're being villainized and like ostracized because their parents are there immigrants. This is like a way to say, no, you belong, you have all of us, we're all behind you. You got a thousand advocates, you got a thousand allies. Come to us. And so these are real safe havens, especially in the. Last ten, twelve years, the work has been a lot more urgent.

• 1:34:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:35Dax Shepard?

  Okay, the last thing that's very frivolous and not philanthropically motivated is, do you go to the jetpack academy?

• 1:34:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, in Moore Park, California. Been there?

• 1:34:43Dax Shepard?

  I have not. I didn't know one could receive training for jetpack flight.

• 1:34:47Speaker 02

  So, it's still there. I mean, you're only like an hour away. You gotta go.

• 1:34:52Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:34:52Speaker 02

  It's in an avocado farm.

• 1:34:54Dax Shepard?

  What's the propulsion system?

• 1:34:56Speaker 02

  Jet fuel.

• 1:34:56Dax Shepard?

  It is an actual jet engine?

• 1:34:57Speaker 02

  It looks exactly like the cartoon of a jetpack.

• 1:35:00Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:35:01Speaker 02

  He's modeled it after every image you ever saw in sci-fi. And a version of it was in the Olympics back in like nineteen eighty.

• 1:35:07Dax Shepard?

  The guy came in and landed in the, yeah.

• 1:35:09Speaker 02

  So it looks the same. There's this crazy Australian guy that made his version of it. And you've got, whatever, twelve pounds of jet fuel or however you measure it on your back in the two things. But you're on a tether. So you're testing it in the middle of this avocado farm. And, you know, there's a, you know, landing strip. You know, you pull the throttle, you do a little bit of this and that. And then you're on a tether, which makes it extremely difficult because it catches.

• 1:35:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:38Speaker 02

  And then, bah. So it's.

• 1:35:39Dax Shepard?

  You can't really get a feel for it.

• 1:35:40Speaker 02

  No, it's not as romantic as you want it to be. And then it burns the absolute shit out of your feet because like there's got jet fuel coming and it's going, spreading out on the concrete where your feet are. So it's not a super romantic process. I really like experimental flight. I've tried a lot of different weird.

• 1:35:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, are you into, the drones are gonna work. I'm watching people fly drones around.

• 1:36:01Speaker 02

  Any minute. Those are the most promising. The problem is fuel and like, how do you carry enough to take you really as far as you want to go? They all have pretty limited scopes.

• 1:36:11Dax Shepard?

  What I almost did up in Ventura is the motor paragliding.

• 1:36:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:15Dax Shepard?

  That interests me and you can do that in a weekend.

• 1:36:18Speaker 02

  I've done ultralights. So that's more like a motorcycle with a hang glider on top of it. But my friends that know what they're talking about say that the, they're called parasailing. No, it's not parasailing. But that's the better vehicle.

• 1:36:31Dax Shepard?

  It's like motor and paragliding mashed up somehow.

• 1:36:33Speaker 02

  That sort of fan in the back.

• 1:36:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I watched a dude land on the beach in Malibu. I started talking, I'm like, where did you take off? He's like, oh, I took off from Thousand Oaks. And I'm like, what is this?

• 1:36:42Speaker 01

  That thing where you're like in like the bat suit and all these people die?

• 1:36:44Dax Shepard?

  No, that's a wingsuit and those are deadly.

• 1:36:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:47Dax Shepard?

  Everyone that does it dies. This is you have a paragliding parachute above you and then you have a gas engine on back with a fan.

• 1:36:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:54Dax Shepard?

  And it propels you and you can fly. Oh, another, I was doing this movie without a paddle and the stunt coordinator had shipped his to New Zealand. And we had to go into this jungle. It was either an hour and a half drive or they started helicoptering us because it took so long. And this dude was flying from his hotel, his motorized paraglider to work. And I'm like, what a stud. Look at this.

• 1:37:11Speaker 02

  If you have a field that can land on any kind of field, you see a lot of in like Nebraska. That's where they fly a lot of those.

• 1:37:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:19Speaker 02

  And you don't even need a license because it's ultralight. It's below the category where you need a license. But I check every time they get a little bit closer to one of these. They're super expensive still. I mean, the real drone technology is like half a million dollars or something.

• 1:37:32Dax Shepard?

  And I need a really good self deploying parachute that noticed I'm falling quicker than I would want to fall.

• 1:37:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it's fun to go see the jetpack. The other problem with it is that you can only carry enough, even if you knew how to fly it. The problem is you can only carry enough fuel for two, three minutes.

• 1:37:47Dax Shepard?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:37:48Speaker 02

  So that's why you never see them anywhere because it's like, poof, you know, you're back. But it's kind of fun.

• 1:37:55Dax Shepard?

  Well, Dave, even though you don't like talking about yourself, we got through it. I want to applaud you. We did it. You revealed just enough for us.

• 1:38:03Speaker 02

  So gentle.

• 1:38:04Dax Shepard?

  I think you're just a beautiful writer and Contrapposto is in keeping with all of your really wonderful work. So I hope everyone checks that out. What a delight to meet you. I've been hearing about you from Kimmel and you deliver.

• 1:38:16Speaker 02

  Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:19Speaker 02

  See you guys.

• 1:38:21Dax Shepard?

  Just a quick reminder that as part of our summer break, here's a rerun of one of our favorite fact checks.

• 1:38:29Dax Shepard?

  From your picture board?

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  No, this one wasn't on my board.

• 1:38:32Dax Shepard?

  This one's impromptu? Oh, wow. Improvised? It's great. You know, it's funny as I was in the shower today and I've been ordering a lot of slacks. You've seen me in them. There's new slacks.

• 1:38:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:41Dax Shepard?

  Drawstring, a little baggier.

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  Trousers.

• 1:38:43Dax Shepard?

  Trousers, pantalunas, multiple colors.

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:47Dax Shepard?

  All this to say, I get them. I like them. I put them in my closet and then they're gone forever.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  You forget about them?

• 1:38:52Dax Shepard?

  Well, I wear the same two that are in front of me. And I actually was thinking in the shower like, I need to do what Monica does. Or just another thought I had is like lay out seven outfits and that's what I'm going to wear that week.

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  Over the week.

• 1:39:06Dax Shepard?

  Have you ever tried that technique?

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a Common technique.

• 1:39:09Dax Shepard?

  It's very common. Okay, so I didn't discover anything.

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  No, you did.

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  You're on the brink, you're on the precipice. You should, because it's

• 1:39:17Dax Shepard?

  Healthy?

• 1:39:18Speaker 01

  Stupid to buy clothes and not wear them.

• 1:39:19Dax Shepard?

  No. And then I think I don't have any because I wear the same two pants that I like.

• 1:39:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:23Dax Shepard?

  And then I get more, and then as I'm putting those away, they're next to brand new other pants I bought that I like.

• 1:39:28Speaker 05

  And that's a guy thing, because I have the same way with my pants.

• 1:39:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you are?

• 1:39:32Speaker 01

  I don't think it's a guy thing. I think it's everyone thing, like people have their go to jeans and their go to. You forget when you buy new stuff to mix it up, unless you commit yourself like I have to fashion. Did you see my closet video?

• 1:39:45Dax Shepard?

  This could be, no.

• 1:39:47Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, I posted a closet video.

• 1:39:49Dax Shepard?

  Oh, and does it include your photographs?

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:52Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:39:52Speaker 01

  It's a bit regretful because it was also impromptu improvised. Very random. Jess came over.

• 1:39:59Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:40:00Speaker 01

  And I was telling him about my fashion endeavors and then I was like, oh, I should show you my closet. So then I was doing that and then he was filming.

• 1:40:10Dax Shepard?

  So you didn't even realize it was something that you might post, but then you saw and you're like, I'm gonna post it.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, oh, it's funny, but it is funny. It's not fashion.

• 1:40:19Dax Shepard?

  Aspirational?

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, I know, sad.

• 1:40:24Dax Shepard?

  Well, you gotta stay a little relatable.

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:40:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  I am relatable because right now my clothes smell bad. This outfit smells bad.

• 1:40:32Dax Shepard?

  Oh, God, what kind of stink?

• 1:40:34Speaker 01

  I, I don't know if it's from the dry cleaning.

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  I did walk, so the sweat probably made it worse.

• 1:40:40Dax Shepard?

  Oh, it smells like sweat?

• 1:40:41Speaker 01

  Well, no, it doesn't. It doesn't. It smells like a weird smell and the sweat, I think exacerbated it.

• 1:40:49Dax Shepard?

  Okay, if you had to compare the smell to something, could you?

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  Well, then I wondered, like, is it moth smell? But then I don't know what moth smell is.

• 1:40:58Dax Shepard?

  No, are you thinking of moth balls?

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, moths don't smell. Moth balls smell to repel moths.

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:41:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. That's the thing I always curious about. There's always kids in school whose mothers just chalk their closets full of moth balls. And then they reek like moth balls, because it's human repellent as well.

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  That's not because it's nasty. Okay, well, that makes me feel good. It's not. Moths. I thought moth balls were made from moths.

• 1:41:23Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  I thought they like were.

• 1:41:25Dax Shepard?

  Sure, left behind little balls.

• 1:41:26Speaker 01

  You know, like they leave wet.

• 1:41:28Dax Shepard?

  Little eggs.

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  Ew. Anyway, so it's not that. So it's the dry cleaner.

• 1:41:32Dax Shepard?

  Oh, well, okay.

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  It definitely is. I've noticed it on a lot of my clothes lately.

• 1:41:38Dax Shepard?

  This makes me think of something that I don't think I should share, but I'm going to. So I was in my Miami trip and I have a system when I travel. I throw all my dirty clothes in the corner of whatever room I'm inhabiting.

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:41:49Dax Shepard?

  At the end of the trip, I have two sides of my suitcase. I keep all the fresh ones on one side and I put all the dirties in a ball in the other side. Then when I get home, I just take that ball, I put it in the hamper and then I put away my fresh clothes.

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:42:01Dax Shepard?

  So I had showered, I did very minimal things. And I went to work out and then I, you know, I pee next to the garage.

• 1:42:10Speaker 01

  Today?

• 1:42:10Dax Shepard?

  No, no, this is maybe a week and a half ago. Well, it was after Miami.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:42:14Dax Shepard?

  This resulted from Miami.

• 1:42:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:42:17Speaker 01

  I think I know.

• 1:42:18Dax Shepard?

  You do?

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  I think I can.

• 1:42:19Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  Continue.

• 1:42:20Dax Shepard?

  Well, take a guess. That could be fun.

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  Okay, so you peed by the garage.

• 1:42:25Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  And when you peed by the garage, you took your underwear down.

• 1:42:28Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  And when you looked at the underwear, it was definitely dirty because one of the dirty clumps moved into the clean clump.

• 1:42:34Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:42:35Speaker 01

  There was poop stains.

• 1:42:36Dax Shepard?

  No, okay. Okay, so I guess it's not that bad.

• 1:42:39Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:42:40Dax Shepard?

  I don't in general have shit streaks.

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  I wouldn't guess that about you.

• 1:42:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  You're pretty clean.

• 1:42:44Dax Shepard?

  I'm pretty meticulous. Well, just specifically, I don't even think I'm that clean. My anus is an obsession of mine. You know, I have the.

• 1:42:50Speaker 01

  Bidet.

• 1:42:51Dax Shepard?

  I have the brondle and I squirt water in there and I'm just, yeah.

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  You put your fingers in.

• 1:42:56Dax Shepard?

  I do rub my finger on that. People don't like that, but I do. You know, fuck it. I put my finger on it in the shower. I clean it and then I use toilet paper to dry off and then I wash my hands.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:09Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so.

• 1:43:13Dax Shepard?

  Okay. So I peed next to the garage and then I went in and then I sniffed my fingers as you do.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:20Dax Shepard?

  I thought, oh my God, there's a little bit of like ball smell like I would, which I don't, again, I also don't really ever get stinky balls. I have to not showered for a few days to get that.

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:43:31Dax Shepard?

  But I just showered that morning. I was like, what the fuck? How could I already have stinky undercarriage when I just showered? It was driving me bonkers, right? And then I peed another time and I'm like, God damn it. It's there. Maybe it's even worse.

• 1:43:44Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:43:45Dax Shepard?

  Now I'm consumed with it. So when I finished my work and I'm like, I'm gonna have to shower. Well, actually I didn't think I'm gonna have to shower again. I thought I'm gonna have to wash my testicles and penis in the sink, which I sometimes do.

• 1:43:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:43:58Dax Shepard?

  And so I went upstairs and I was about to do that and all of a sudden I just thought, oh my God, I'm gonna smell my underwear. I took off my underwears. Lordy Lord. What's obvious is they were not clean.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:10Dax Shepard?

  So although I was very clean, I put on my undies and it contaminated my testicles and my penis.

• 1:44:16Speaker 01

  Dirty one made its way into the clean.

• 1:44:19Dax Shepard?

  That's exactly right.

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:44:21Dax Shepard?

  And I'll add, I can't remember having pantaloons, undercarriage, men's unmentionables that even smelled that bad.

• 1:44:27Speaker 01

  Right. Why would it smell that bad?

• 1:44:28Dax Shepard?

  Miami, okay.

• 1:44:30Speaker 01

  Sweat.

• 1:44:30Dax Shepard?

  Very hot, very humid.

• 1:44:33Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:44:33Dax Shepard?

  Then take them off and they're, God knows, you know, and they're just not getting any better smelling. And then they're in the, oh God. Anyways, what a humiliation.

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  Well, you were by yourself at least.

• 1:44:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's true. That's true. I'm like you. I go to the worst place. Like I have a headache. Okay. I got a tumor. So I'm like, oh my God, now I'm someone whose balls stink three hours after a shower.

• 1:44:54Speaker 01

  That's scary.

• 1:44:54Dax Shepard?

  What's happening with me hormonally?

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:56Dax Shepard?

  You know, I'm going to all these crazy explanations, never even thinking maybe my panties smell. And they did.

• 1:45:02Speaker 01

  Wow. Well, that's an easy fix. So best case.

• 1:45:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I haven't experienced it since, but now I'm a little shook about that pair of panties and I love that pair of panties. They're dark black with very colorful hearts on them. So I wore them the other day and I sniff sniff. Cause I was like, were they clean and they're permanently? Something's wrong with them. But then I sniff sniff sniff. Clean as a cucumber, but I had some anxiety all day. I was like, every time I peed, I was like.

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  You thought maybe it was gonna get released?

• 1:45:31Dax Shepard?

  Yes, I just, cause I had had that traumatic experience with them. Yeah.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I mean, there's reason to fear because sometimes when pheromones get crossed. Weird stuff can happen.

• 1:45:43Dax Shepard?

  I think you're referencing when you borrow a girlfriend's shirt and the girlfriend doesn't have BO.

• 1:45:47Speaker 01

  Zero.

• 1:45:48Dax Shepard?

  And you don't have BO.

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  I hope I don't.

• 1:45:50Dax Shepard?

  You don't. I've known you for quite a while. Never smelled BO on you. And then.

• 1:45:54Speaker 01

  But when I wear the shirt, I do have BO. I have like, it smells crazy, but it's the mixture of the pheromones.

• 1:46:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And you have, you know which friends you can't share tops with? Callie's one of them, right? Is she one of them?

• 1:46:08Speaker 01

  No, she's not.

• 1:46:09Dax Shepard?

  It's not gross, cause neither of you have BO.

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  I know, but it's not her. Ding ding ding, Callie. This is relevant. So I had dinner with her and she just got out of COVID. And during COVID, she got really into Drive to Survive.

• 1:46:25Dax Shepard?

  She did not.

• 1:46:26Speaker 01

  Yes, so.

• 1:46:27Dax Shepard?

  Her MX?

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, they've been watching it. And so she was, you know, cross referencing with me a lot, like, okay, what, do you like this person? Do you like this person? Who do you like? You know, that type of thing.

• 1:46:38Dax Shepard?

  And then she had probably a whole new jealousy that you're friends with Daniel Ricciardo.

• 1:46:42Speaker 01

  Okay, this is what I'm getting at.

• 1:46:44Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:46:45Speaker 01

  No, you're not gonna like it.

• 1:46:46Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:46:48Speaker 01

  Okay, so she said, what teams? And I said, I just like whatever Danny's on. He's my favorite. And she was like, really? And I was like, yeah, what do you mean? I was like, I love Danny. He's the best one. And she was like, oh, he seems, he seems a little full of himself. And then I said, oh, my God, that's the thing Dax was talking about on the show, where some people think he's.

• 1:47:10Dax Shepard?

  Sincere about that.

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  I guess, or something. And I was like, oh, that's that thing. Then I told her that he's perfect and lovely and very nice. And she said, oh, I was wrong.

• 1:47:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, nicest manners in the world, gentle boy, not arrogant at all.

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:47:26Dax Shepard?

  That's his character.

• 1:47:27Speaker 01

  I am. I had to correct that. I had to right that wrong. She was receptive to it.

• 1:47:31Dax Shepard?

  Oh, good.

• 1:47:32Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:47:33Dax Shepard?

  I'm glad she was flexible in her.

• 1:47:35Speaker 01

  She was.

• 1:47:36Dax Shepard?

  Who does she love?

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  She likes Sains.

• 1:47:40Dax Shepard?

  Okay, sure. When you look at Sains, you go, this is, this guy is dirty.

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  I do think that when I see him, but I think the same thing about Leclerc, like they all stink bad.

• 1:47:49Dax Shepard?

  No, not stink. No, no, no. Stop saying that. You're perpetuating a false rumor. I'm saying, like nasty. Like get in the bedroom. He's throwing you all around, moving your body, doing all kinds of advanced Spanish lovemaking techniques. That's what I think.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:48:07Dax Shepard?

  I think she's responding to his carnal sex appeal.

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  Okay, maybe.

• 1:48:11Dax Shepard?

  Like Leclerc is much better looking than Sines.

• 1:48:14Speaker 01

  Well, that's all in the eye of the beholder.

• 1:48:16Dax Shepard?

  To me, I'm only speaking for myself.

• 1:48:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:48:18Dax Shepard?

  I think Leclerc is, is much cuter than Sines.

• 1:48:21Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:48:22Dax Shepard?

  But if I had to guess, there were 10 volunteers who slept with both of them. My guess would be Sines comes out as the better lover. That is my spidey sense intuition.

• 1:48:34Speaker 01

  Okay. You're worried about me perpetuating rumors?

• 1:48:38Dax Shepard?

  That he's a good lover?

• 1:48:39Speaker 01

  Well, that also that Leclerc is not.

• 1:48:41Dax Shepard?

  Didn't say that.

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  No, basically.

• 1:48:43Dax Shepard?

  Did not say that.

• 1:48:44Speaker 01

  That's what he's gonna hear.

• 1:48:44Dax Shepard?

  No, he's not. I, what he's gonna hear is I think he's better looking. And then I think that Sines is a little bit better of a lover. Although Leclerc is a very generous lover. Although, no, last time I was talking about Leclerc, I was, I was hypothesizing that he was a two pump chump.

• 1:48:59Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:49:00Dax Shepard?

  For fun.

• 1:49:00Speaker 01

  You've really made it clear you think he's bad.

• 1:49:03Dax Shepard?

  No, I love Leclerc.

• 1:49:04Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 1:49:05Dax Shepard?

  He's in my top three drivers.

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  What if I said, you know, Dax is obviously better looking, but I would much rather have sex with.

• 1:49:17Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah. Well, that's true.

• 1:49:18Speaker 01

  You'd hate that.

• 1:49:19Dax Shepard?

  Well, hold on now. Let's just be real. That was really good. It was kind of a cheap shot.

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  Bradley Cooper would be mad that I said the other part.

• 1:49:27Dax Shepard?

  Well, so what you would need to say, though, it's gotta be identical. You'd say, you're much better looking than Bradley. But I think if you and Bradley had sex with 10 women, the women would prefer having sex with Bradley.

• 1:49:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:49:38Dax Shepard?

  And that's still rough. That's rough. But not as bad as what you just said before.

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  Well, I say.

• 1:49:44Dax Shepard?

  Way better than you.

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what you're saying.

• 1:49:48Dax Shepard?

  I didn't say that. Stop putting words in my mouth. I said that Sines is preferred, not way better.

• 1:49:59Speaker 01

  You are splitting hairs.

• 1:50:01Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh, I am.

• 1:50:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:50:02Dax Shepard?

  That's what we do here with nuance.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:50:05Dax Shepard?

  Non-binary.

• 1:50:06Speaker 01

  Preferred. I'll change my verbiage to preferred.

• 1:50:10Dax Shepard?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  Ten girls would prefer sleeping with Bradley over you.

• 1:50:15Dax Shepard?

  They preferred the experience.

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  Preferred the experience. They had sex with both of you and they prefer the experience. You'd hate it, of course.

• 1:50:21Dax Shepard?

  Well, of course I'd hate it.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:22Dax Shepard?

  You know what a good question is? We're getting somewhere good. We're actually, we're approaching something good.

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:50:28Dax Shepard?

  So here's a, here's an option. You only get one of these two. Great looking or great in bed? What would you rather be known for?

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  Oh, known for?

• 1:50:37Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm. I, I know for me what it is.

• 1:50:39Speaker 01

  Well, I know for you what it is.

• 1:50:41Dax Shepard?

  What is it?

• 1:50:43Speaker 01

  Good in bed.

• 1:50:43Dax Shepard?

  Oh yeah, of course. Cause that's where the rubber meets the road.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  I think every, I think everyone would rather be good in bed.

• 1:50:50Dax Shepard?

  I don't know. I think some people who don't really give a fuck about sex, they're not super sexual, they'd rather just walk through the world being super attractive and people smiling at them and buying them drinks and whatnot. And they're like, I don't care if I'm good in bed. I'm good enough. Now, what would you rather be, Robbie?

• 1:51:06Speaker 05

  Good in bed.

• 1:51:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:08Dax Shepard?

  Good, three for three.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  The hard thing is if you're, if you're not good looking, it's hard to prove you're good in bed. This is the conundrum.

• 1:51:16Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 1:51:18Dax Shepard?

  So does she wanna start watch, is she gonna start watching races and shit, Kelly?

• 1:51:21Speaker 01

  She wants to, I think. Now she's in, she loves it.

• 1:51:25Dax Shepard?

  Great.

• 1:51:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I might have to have him over for a race day.

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  Oh, they would love that. Max asked if I liked Pierre Gasly. So also, here's the problem.

• 1:51:33Dax Shepard?

  Brother's favorite.

• 1:51:33Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:51:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he loves him.

• 1:51:36Speaker 01

  I said he looked greasy.

• 1:51:42Speaker 01

  But then Max said, no, it's just the sweat from driving.

• 1:51:47Dax Shepard?

  They're playing a sport, basically. Like, you would never call a basketball player sweaty.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  No, I didn't call him sweaty, greasy.

• 1:51:52Dax Shepard?

  Oh, greasy.

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  That's a different.

• 1:51:54Dax Shepard?

  That's got a little bit of a, potentially a racist connotation.

• 1:51:58Speaker 01

  Why? He's white.

• 1:52:00Dax Shepard?

  I know, but there are certain populations of white people that have a reputation of being greasy.

• 1:52:04Speaker 01

  Who?

• 1:52:05Dax Shepard?

  I'll tell you off the air, but I'm not gonna do it here.

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  Tell me.

• 1:52:08Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:52:09Speaker 01

  Anyway, okay, so Max likes Pierre.

• 1:52:12Dax Shepard?

  Does anyone like Max?

• 1:52:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:52:14Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  That's pretty.

• 1:52:15Dax Shepard?

  Ah, universal.

• 1:52:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:17Dax Shepard?

  Wow.

• 1:52:18Speaker 01

  He's so arrogant, Dak.

• 1:52:20Dax Shepard?

  He's not even arrogant. That is not the word I would use to describe him.

• 1:52:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:52:25Dax Shepard?

  Like, he never says he's great.

• 1:52:26Speaker 01

  That's not for me.

• 1:52:28Dax Shepard?

  First of all, he is the best driver in Formula One.

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  I don't disagree.

• 1:52:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and he doesn't even really say that.

• 1:52:36Speaker 01

  I don't love a fuck-off attitude in general in life. I'm not attracted to anyone who's like that.

• 1:52:41Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:52:42Speaker 01

  He carries himself like that, so he's not for me.

• 1:52:45Dax Shepard?

  I know, but you love Michael Jordan. Like, Michael Jordan was punching his teammates in practice.

• 1:52:49Speaker 01

  But Michael Jordan does not have a fuck-off attitude. He's not like...

• 1:52:55Dax Shepard?

  If someone who doesn't know as much as him tells him what to do, he has a very fuck-off attitude. And that's what you see with Max quite often.

• 1:53:03Speaker 01

  But even just the way he talks to, like, interviewers, he refuses to play the game even a little bit. And I don't like that. I'm like, these are fans, these are people who are paying a lot of money to see you.

• 1:53:15Dax Shepard?

  Can you cut him a little bit of a cultural break that he's Dutch? They don't do the pleasantry thing. Everyone in the Netherlands, in the North, they don't believe in the in the little small talk, the pleasantries, they get right to it.

• 1:53:27Speaker 01

  I don't believe in small talk either. I hate it. But you are a popular sports figure, making a ton of money, doing exactly what you love. You have a great life. Just be a little, just be a little nicer.

• 1:53:43Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I'm just gonna make an argument for him.

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:53:46Dax Shepard?

  Which is, he's not paid to do any of that stuff. He is paid to win races for Red Bull. Hold on, you said your piece.

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  Okay, go on.

• 1:53:54Dax Shepard?

  He has one job, win races. That is his job. And that's why he gets paid more money. If you wanted a PR guy, you should have hired a PR guy. If you want a guy that thinks about nothing but winning races, is a psychopath about winning races, then hire me and I'll go win races. But if you need a guy to go sell Red Bull as a beverage, or sell Formula One as a sport, I'm not the dude. I care about a single thing, winning races. I respect that.

• 1:54:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay, that was my piece.

• 1:54:25Speaker 01

  I get it. I hear what you're saying. It's not attractive to watch someone be rude or

• 1:54:32Dax Shepard?

  Short with everyone.

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  Could care less when people are excited. Like, it's, it's, to me, very off-putting.

• 1:54:38Dax Shepard?

  Even when he wins, though, do you ever listen on the radio when he wins? Like, when he comes across the finish line, and they'll go like, "That was P1, Max." And I'll go, "Oh, all right. Whoa, that was a good race." That's it. The other people are like, doing backflips in the car and screaming and stuff. He's just a very, you know, robotic, yeah.

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm not trying to convince you to not like him, you know?

• 1:55:05Dax Shepard?

  I don't think you are.

• 1:55:06Speaker 01

  Love him. You can keep loving him. But it's not my preferred personality.

• 1:55:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:55:11Speaker 01

  I like Danny, who's nice and kind and always looking out for the little guy and who's conscientious. I like that personality. That's what I'm drawn to. One of the questions lobbed my way was, what do you think of Will Blank? I forget his last name. The journalist on Drive to Survive.

• 1:55:31Dax Shepard?

  Well, back up. What, what now?

• 1:55:33Speaker 01

  That was a question from Callie to me. You know, like, what do you think of this person? What do you think of this person? What do you think of Will Buxton, the journalist?

• 1:55:40Dax Shepard?

  That's great. He's handsome. The English dude, right? Yeah, he's very handsome. He kinda looks like a driver a little bit. She's deep if she wants to know.

• 1:55:48Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:55:49Dax Shepard?

  Will Buxton.

• 1:55:54Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 1:56:00Dax Shepard?

  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've thought about trying therapy with our long-term partner, BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. October 10th is World Mental Health Day, but you don't need a day on the calendar to give yourself permission to talk to someone. I've been in therapy for a long time, and the stuff rattling around in my head always just quiets down the second I say it out loud. And it doesn't have to be some big life crisis. Maybe it's a work thing that's taking up too much space or hardwired. Relationship moment, or just a feeling that something's off. That's enough. That's worth talking about.

• 1:56:38Speaker 01

  You know, I love therapy more than anything gets me through. Often I'll want to cancel because I'm like, I don't really have anything to talk about. And then I'll go and I have some major revelation.

• 1:56:50Dax Shepard?

  You know, I was just talking to a friend who has just started it. And I said, one of the most powerful elements of it is just hearing yourself say out loud, the thing that's been ruminating in your head and how different it sounds. Once it's out into the world, you gain perspective immediately just by hearing yourself say it.

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do.

• 1:57:05Dax Shepard?

  If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance. Don't have insurance or live outside the US? You can still get 10% off your first month. Do yourself a favor and just try it. Future you will be grateful. Visit betterhelp.com/dax to explore your payment options. That's better H E L P dot com slash DAX.

• 1:57:39Speaker 01

  Okay, what does Ashante mean? Ashante means, nice to meet you.

• 1:57:46Dax Shepard?

  Nice to meet you. I can't really say it to you because I, I met you a long time ago.

• 1:57:50Speaker 01

  I know. It also does, it does say enchanted.

• 1:57:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, good. Maybe we get enchanted from that. It's a very elegant word.

• 1:57:58Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:57:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:00Speaker 01

  It's greasy. Um, farts on an airplane.

• 1:58:04Dax Shepard?

  Like snakes on a plane, farts on a plane?

• 1:58:06Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Why you fart so much on planes?

• 1:58:09Dax Shepard?

  Is that how it was said? Why you fart? Not, why do you? Oh, it's why you fart. It's an answer, not a question.

• 1:58:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. This says, as it turns out, there's a scientific reason people often fart more while traveling on planes or climbing high mountains. And it's even got a name, high altitude flatus expulsion.

• 1:58:29Dax Shepard?

  Ooh, flatus expulsion.

• 1:58:31Speaker 01

  The gastrointestinal syndrome was described in a 1981 study as characterized by an increase in both the volume and the frequency of the passage of flatus, which spontaneously occurs while climbing to altitudes of 11,000 feet or greater.

• 1:58:46Dax Shepard?

  I've never heard flatulence just shortened to flatus. Oh, my God. Excuse my flatus. Ashante.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  That study found that as air pressure decreases at higher altitudes, gases inside your body expand and need to be let out. Although it was based more on being up in the mountains than inside a pressurized plane. But additionally, a 2013 study that our participants record how often they farted while driving up an Australian mountain hypothesized that quickly moving from a low altitude to a higher one draws more carbon dioxide into your gut. Isn't that great?

• 1:59:21Dax Shepard?

  It is, you know, and if you think about it, it's the reverse of the bends.

• 1:59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:26Dax Shepard?

  So you have less pressure on you, so the gas comes out, but when you have extra pressure, it condenses it so much and get in your bloodstream. Less pressure in your asshole, more pressure in your bloodstream. Keep it in your asshole, folks.

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 1:59:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Jesus. Okay, this is the transition.

• 1:59:46Speaker 01

  Okay, so backstory.

• 1:59:49Dax Shepard?

  Almost the second after I said that the bends is on the opposite scale.

• 1:59:53Speaker 01

  We stopped down, as we say in the biz.

• 1:59:55Dax Shepard?

  What did we call it?

• 1:59:56Speaker 01

  Stopped down.

• 1:59:57Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 1:59:57Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Okay, I taught you something.

• 1:59:59Dax Shepard?

  Cool.

• 1:59:59Speaker 01

  We stopped down and we did a really cool interview. And then things got cray.

• 2:00:07Dax Shepard?

  Then we stopped up and all of a sudden the kids were home from school.

• 2:00:09Speaker 01

  Yes, so this next section of the fact check includes some guests.

• 2:00:14Dax Shepard?

  It's chaos. Please enjoy the chaos.

• 2:00:18Speaker 01

  We had just finished farts on an airplane.

• 2:00:21Speaker 06

  I was getting my class taken and I don't know who it was. I was suspecting.

• 2:00:27Dax Shepard?

  Here, sit over here, love. So someone ripped in class. And you were trying to figure out who it was?

• 2:00:32Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:00:32Speaker 01

  This is a ding ding ding to our fart story because what happened today?

• 2:00:38Speaker 06

  But I was just sitting there and everything was normal. We were redoing multiplication unit and then I just smelled something in the air. And I was like, oh, it's just a small. And then it came at me. It came at me so hard.

• 2:00:52Speaker 01

  Oh, no, it grew and grew.

• 2:00:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, I had to stand up and pretend to stretch.

• 2:00:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 2:00:57Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 2:00:57Dax Shepard?

  Did you look around the classroom to make eye contact with other people like, are you smelling this too?

• 2:01:02Speaker 06

  I, I have farted in weird places, so I know what position I love to sit in when I fart. So it just is silent. I saw the people sitting next to me. I looked at Harper and she was sitting on her knees and I said, that's not a good place to fart.

• 2:01:17Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 2:01:17Speaker 06

  It would have like skinned against your feet, so it would have made a loud sound.

• 2:01:21Dax Shepard?

  Oh, right.

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  Really good sleuthing.

• 2:01:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:24Speaker 06

  And then I looked at Trayvon.

• 2:01:28Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:01:29Speaker 06

  And she was sitting in the Criss Cross applesauce and I was like.

• 2:01:33Dax Shepard?

  No way.

• 2:01:34Speaker 06

  No, you're just sitting on too much weight. So then.

• 2:01:37Dax Shepard?

  That'd be, that'd be thunderous. If you farted during Criss Cross applesauce, it would be like a trumpet in your pants.

• 2:01:43Speaker 06

  Um, and then I looked at Dylan and he was sitting like, he was hooking his knees technically.

• 2:01:50Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 2:01:51Speaker 06

  That's not a good place to fart.

• 2:01:52Dax Shepard?

  Also a blast. That'd be a trumpet.

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  Unless you, unless you rolled up a little bit.

• 2:01:57Speaker 06

  You're right.

• 2:01:57Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:01:58Dax Shepard?

  Imagine pulling your, your knees tight to your chest.

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:02Dax Shepard?

  It would be like.

• 2:02:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it would fucking rip. What you're trying to get is like your buns as pushed together as possible. No pressure anywhere in your body. So you can let it leak out. Exactly. You don't, you want it to.

• 2:02:15Speaker 01

  Wait, you guys, I have a much, this is fascinating. I have a much different tactic for a silent fart. Yes, I want the butt cheeks to be spread.

• 2:02:26Dax Shepard?

  Splayed open?

• 2:02:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:28Dax Shepard?

  Oh, so you'll what? Do the splits?

• 2:02:32Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I guess I don't really fart in public anymore.

• 2:02:37Dax Shepard?

  Have you bent over and spread your butt cheeks and then it smelled a minute later? You might as well have just made a noise.

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  Okay, normally I do this if I'm in like a public bathroom.

• 2:02:46Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:02:46Speaker 01

  So I can use my hands.

• 2:02:48Dax Shepard?

  And you spread your butt cheeks apart physically?

• 2:02:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:52Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. That's wonderful.

• 2:02:53Speaker 05

  Was anyone doing that, Lincoln?

• 2:02:56Speaker 06

  Not that I saw.

• 2:02:59Speaker 06

  And then I done it for the culprit.

• 2:03:01Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and what was it? A male or a female?

• 2:03:04Speaker 06

  It was a female.

• 2:03:05Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and how was?

• 2:03:07Speaker 01

  Good for her, I will say.

• 2:03:08Dax Shepard?

  Me too.

• 2:03:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:08Dax Shepard?

  I was afraid you were only gonna blame it on a dude because we're gross, but.

• 2:03:12Speaker 06

  You are.

• 2:03:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 2:03:14Dax Shepard?

  I'm the worst. What kind of position was she in?

• 2:03:17Speaker 06

  I'm just slowly lifting up my butt.

• 2:03:19Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 2:03:21Speaker 06

  Her butt was like high, so.

• 2:03:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 2:03:24Speaker 01

  Okay. Wow, I'm impressed. You figured it out. And then did she ask to go to the bathroom like five minutes after that?

• 2:03:33Speaker 06

  No, but then I actually had to pee during that time. So maybe I thought, oh no, did somebody think it was?

• 2:03:39Speaker 01

  Were you scared?

• 2:03:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, I was like, I actually had to go to the bathroom before the fart came.

• 2:03:44Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:03:44Speaker 06

  And TJ said, I can't go right now. So wait two minutes.

• 2:03:48Dax Shepard?

  Oh, boy.

• 2:03:49Speaker 06

  And then the person started just letting it air out. It was like load and load and load.

• 2:03:56Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:03:56Speaker 06

  There was this one time where I thought I was gone and I was like, fresh hair. And then.

• 2:04:02Speaker 01

  New round.

• 2:04:02Dax Shepard?

  Second wave.

• 2:04:03Speaker 06

  Hmm. And it was even worse than the first.

• 2:04:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, oh, oh, oh.

• 2:04:07Speaker 06

  And I feel like it was another person. This was also a female. She, she always points out farts on somebody fart and she did not point at that.

• 2:04:17Speaker 01

  Oh, whoever smelt it, dealt it. Oh, no, that's the opposite.

• 2:04:22Speaker 06

  But she was sitting cross, cross applesauce. So maybe she lifted up her butt.

• 2:04:29Dax Shepard?

  She might have a different technique like Monica, but I have to say that's a really good proof. If she's always busting people about farting and it stunk in there like a dead raccoon and she was quiet. That's very incriminating.

• 2:04:41Speaker 01

  Unless the teacher pulled her aside at one point and said, please don't do that anymore. It's embarrassing for the students and I, I wish the teacher would do that because that's mean.

• 2:04:50Dax Shepard?

  Well, you should be embarrassed for farting and stinking up the classroom. Sure, but we must agree some things are embarrassing in society. Cause this is what I think I feel bad for you kids is like you're in your home. You've been farting since you were born. We don't care at all. We think it's funny. And then we send you to this box that you sit in with other kids and we haven't even told you it's not cool to fart in public. And you gotta learn the hard way, right? Like, did, did you ever get embarrassed at any point? Like, did, did you rip one at any point that someone busted you?

• 2:05:22Speaker 06

  No, nobody caught me.

• 2:05:24Dax Shepard?

  You just knew somehow to keep them on the down, down low.

• 2:05:27Speaker 06

  Nobody caught me unless I accidentally didn't know it was coming.

• 2:05:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:05:31Dax Shepard?

  A surprise fart.

• 2:05:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Sure.

• 2:05:35Speaker 06

  That was a good fart noise.

• 2:05:36Speaker 01

  That was good.

• 2:05:36Speaker 06

  I brought of that.

• 2:05:38Speaker 01

  I'm impressed.

• 2:05:39Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:05:40Speaker 01

  I do think maybe it's evolutionary that we know not to do that in front of strangers. We'll get removed from the group.

• 2:05:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you'll be exiled.

• 2:05:48Speaker 01

  Because of stinkiness.

• 2:05:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. It's a good reason. You look like Zazzy today, Zazzy.

• 2:05:53Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 2:05:54Dax Shepard?

  Um, okay, quick, last question. How frequently do you smell farts in the classroom? Is it every day?

• 2:06:01Speaker 06

  There's only been, I don't know, three or four, five farts this month.

• 2:06:05Dax Shepard?

  That's not bad at all.

• 2:06:06Speaker 06

  People have been holding them in or just haven't had to fart.

• 2:06:09Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:06:11Speaker 01

  Do you think it correlates to the school lunch?

• 2:06:14Dax Shepard?

  Great theory, like whatever hot lunch is, like cabbage, kimchi.

• 2:06:18Speaker 06

  The weird thing is, a lot of people fart before lunch.

• 2:06:22Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 2:06:23Speaker 01

  That's interesting. Breakfast farts?

• 2:06:26Dax Shepard?

  Well, maybe they didn't evacuate in the morning.

• 2:06:29Speaker 01

  Oh, they're not on a good schedule.

• 2:06:32Dax Shepard?

  Who's there?

• 2:06:33Speaker 06

  Delta.

• 2:06:34Dax Shepard?

  Hi, D Money.

• 2:06:36Speaker 06

  Oh, he fell.

• 2:06:37Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Purple hair. Hi, beautiful purple hair. It looks so good.

• 2:06:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, and it matches your sweater.

• 2:06:49Speaker 01

  You look like a little rock star.

• 2:06:51Dax Shepard?

  You look like a rap.

• 2:06:55Dax Shepard?

  Um, Delta, did you smell any farts in your class today?

• 2:06:59Speaker 06

  Co- co- coffee thingy, called teddy bear.

• 2:07:03Dax Shepard?

  Uh, yeah, that's a Starbucks teddy bear, but it has to stay in here because David brought it for the attic. You can come up here and play with it.

• 2:07:11Speaker 01

  That's fine.

• 2:07:15Speaker 06

  He does.

• 2:07:16Dax Shepard?

  That's from New Zealand, my love. That's from a faraway country, like 17 hours in an airplane away. But you can come up here and play with it. It'll make you, it'll give you something to look forward to when you come up here. But did anyone fart in your class today, Delta? Oh, criminy, now you got chocolates. Yes, those come from New Zealand as well.

• 2:07:31Speaker 01

  They're not that good.

• 2:07:32Dax Shepard?

  They're not good at all. They're terrible. Don't tell David. It's like a Skittle, a chocolate Skittle.

• 2:07:39Speaker 06

  Those sound bad.

• 2:07:41Dax Shepard?

  You, Mikey likes it?

• 2:07:43Speaker 06

  You wanna take it?

• 2:07:44Dax Shepard?

  Oh, boy. When's the last time you smelled a bad fart?

• 2:07:49Speaker 06

  A Friday.

• 2:07:50Dax Shepard?

  A Friday. And what happened?

• 2:07:53Speaker 06

  I just smelled a toot.

• 2:07:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you did?

• 2:07:55Speaker 01

  When you smell a toot in class, do you say ew, somebody farted? Or do you just keep it to yourself?

• 2:08:01Speaker 06

  I just keep it to myself.

• 2:08:02Speaker 01

  That's nice.

• 2:08:02Speaker 06

  Because that's nicest.

• 2:08:03Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 2:08:04Dax Shepard?

  How often do you fart in class?

• 2:08:07Speaker 06

  Twenty times a day.

• 2:08:09Dax Shepard?

  Twenty times a day? So there does smell like farts in the classroom, just your farts?

• 2:08:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 2:08:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, well, you're making a real name for yourself because you're you got purple hair and you're farting twenty times a day. I think the sky's the limit for you.

• 2:08:23Speaker 06

  Wait, what is this? What are we on?

• 2:08:25Dax Shepard?

  We're on television right now.

• 2:08:27Speaker 06

  They can see us.

• 2:08:35Speaker 01

  We're doing a podcast and then Lincoln was up here, so we invited her to chit chat.

• 2:08:39Dax Shepard?

  You know, after the interview is a fact check, so just Monica and I talk. She and Monica bust me on what facts I got wrong.

• 2:08:46Speaker 01

  A fart check.

• 2:08:47Speaker 06

  Fart check.

• 2:08:47Dax Shepard?

  This has become a fart check, yeah.

• 2:08:49Speaker 06

  But why did it end?

• 2:08:51Speaker 01

  Oh, I do have like one.

• 2:08:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, well, listen, why don't you guys shut up and listen to Monica and you guys will learn.

• 2:08:56Speaker 06

  Oh, wow. So now you're shutting me up. You know, this is what boys do, I think, because I was explaining a math problem today. And Draven didn't get it. And then Dylan said, don't worry, I'll explain it. And I said, excuse me, this is my problem. I can explain it.

• 2:09:11Dax Shepard?

  Oh, there you go.

• 2:09:11Speaker 01

  I'm proud of you for doing that.

• 2:09:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:14Speaker 01

  You can explain it.

• 2:09:15Speaker 06

  Mm hmm.

• 2:09:15Speaker 01

  You're capable.

• 2:09:16Dax Shepard?

  Boys are the worst. That's why you guys don't want.

• 2:09:18Speaker 06

  No one wants to sleep with daddy.

• 2:09:20Dax Shepard?

  Yes, no one wants to snuggle daddy.

• 2:09:21Speaker 06

  Absolutely wants to sleep with daddy.

• 2:09:23Speaker 01

  Because of the farts?

• 2:09:24Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 2:09:24Speaker 06

  No, those are bad also. But I feel so bad for daddy. He has to sleep with his stomach.

• 2:09:32Dax Shepard?

  That's what they no one wants to sleep with me at night. They're fight to sleep with mom. And I said, you guys, how do you think I feel? I always have to sleep with daddy.

• 2:09:40Speaker 01

  Let's just be practical about it. What about sleeping with mommy is better?

• 2:09:44Speaker 06

  Mommy, I don't know.

• 2:09:48Dax Shepard?

  She's just not daddy, which is enough.

• 2:09:50Speaker 01

  Lincoln, you were so little, three, maybe, or four. And, um, and I was carrying you and you, you said that-

• 2:09:59Speaker 06

  Can I poop my pants?

• 2:10:00Speaker 01

  No, well, sure, I cleaned up lots of your poop. But I was carrying you and you said something like, I don't, I can't hold you like a mom holds you. And I was so sad, but it was also the truth.

• 2:10:11Dax Shepard?

  Oh, these kids are heartbreakers.

• 2:10:15Speaker 06

  This is very recent, Mom, very recent, this was when we were in the old house. And I was in the bathtub. I didn't know why, but this fart just came up and said, hello. And I turned around to grab the shampoo and I found that I pooped in the bathtub.

• 2:10:31Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah, that'll happen.

• 2:10:33Dax Shepard?

  These things happen from time to time.

• 2:10:35Speaker 06

  Lincoln, did you name your poop?

• 2:10:40Speaker 06

  You had a baby.

• 2:10:43Dax Shepard?

  A poop baby. We have a pee baby, Monica and I have a pee baby, so why not have a poop baby?

• 2:10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 2:10:49Speaker 06

  Wait, what's a pee baby?

• 2:10:50Speaker 01

  A pee baby is I peed in a toilet and there's no flush. And then daddy had to pee, so he pees. And then our peas were in the same toilet and never flushed, so they turned into a baby.

• 2:10:59Dax Shepard?

  He said it turned into a pee baby.

• 2:11:03Speaker 01

  Lives at my house.

• 2:11:04Dax Shepard?

  Still there, just getting out of kindergarten at this point, I think. Can I tell the one story about you, Delta?

• 2:11:10Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:11:11Speaker 01

  I'm ready.

• 2:11:11Speaker 06

  I love this story.

• 2:11:12Dax Shepard?

  I was putting you guys to bed. Delta, you were probably three and you said, oh, I gotta poop. I said, okay. You went in and you took a poop and it was the size of a moose's poop. Like, I thought a moose had pooped in the toilet. And I said, oh, my God, honey, when's the last time you pooped? And you're like, I couldn't, I don't remember. That was the biggest poop you'd ever taken. So then I put you in your diaper and then I put you in bed and I put Lincoln in bed. And we read a book and we snuggle. And then I go outside, I shut the door and I just turned on the TV and all of a sudden I heard, Daddy, I farted. It's diarrhea.

• 2:11:53Dax Shepard?

  And then I went in there. I thought, how could you have possibly just had diarrhea? You just, you just had an entire evac. I went in there, I picked you up. Your diaper was completely ruined.

• 2:12:05Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 2:12:06Dax Shepard?

  I took you into the bathroom, if you remember, and you had poop on your back.

• 2:12:10Speaker 01

  You had a full blowout.

• 2:12:12Dax Shepard?

  Full blowout. And I was like, where did all this come from?

• 2:12:15Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 2:12:16Dax Shepard?

  Daddy, I farted. Okay, last thing, this is the last time you're gonna get to talk, Delta. Okay. Will you do your song?

• 2:12:24Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 2:12:35Dax Shepard?

  She just learned this. Do you wanna do it one more time?

• 2:12:37Speaker 01

  This is my favorite new thing in the whole world.

• 2:12:48Dax Shepard?

  She did that 1,100 times this morning before she's full.

• 2:13:00Speaker 01

  Wait, where'd you learn that?

• 2:13:02Dax Shepard?

  That's what, mommy does that.

• 2:13:04Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Oh, I love you.

• 2:13:07Dax Shepard?

  Thanks, Dee, honey.

• 2:13:08Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 2:13:09Dax Shepard?

  All right, now you guys have to be quiet so we can do our business. We got a great fart story and we got a great didal didido.

• 2:13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, that was great.

• 2:13:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, let's hear the fact. They gotta see how the sausage is made.

• 2:13:19Speaker 01

  Okay, we have one fact left. The fact is, oh, and actually, this is relevant. Lincoln loves F1.

• 2:13:26Speaker 06

  Excuse me, everybody, um, I'm Monica.

• 2:13:31Speaker 01

  Okay, the fact is about how many employees work on the Mercedes team.

• 2:13:37Dax Shepard?

  Oh, good.

• 2:13:38Speaker 01

  More than 950 employees. An F1 team, but this isn't specific to Mercedes, but an F1 team directly involves between 300 and 1,200 people, depending on whether it's at the front or back of the grid and how much in-house manufacturing it does and whether it produces an engine or buys one in.

• 2:13:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:59Speaker 01

  Um, and then how many people work at Mercedes? More than 700 employees work 24 hours a day.

• 2:14:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow, that's confusing, because that would have to be 1,400 employees.

• 2:14:09Speaker 01

  It makes me wonder if they're talking about Merce, even though the thing is how many-

• 2:14:13Dax Shepard?

  No, Mercedes has a million employees.

• 2:14:14Speaker 01

  Right, okay, then, yeah, it is saying that. And then the other one said 950. More than 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on the Brackley site.

• 2:14:22Dax Shepard?

  Ah.

• 2:14:23Speaker 06

  Daddy, do you think my, um, di da di do do is better than mommy's di da di do do?

• 2:14:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, boy. This is, this is the tough question. Mommy's is technically better, because she's got control of her instrument. Yours is 20 times more entertaining, so how do we know? How would I decide?

• 2:14:46Speaker 06

  Wait, what do you mean?

• 2:14:47Dax Shepard?

  Like mommy's sounds identical to the actual Jib Jib song, right? Because she's a mimic. And yours-

• 2:14:54Speaker 06

  It's so cute.

• 2:14:55Dax Shepard?

  Is yours, and it's incredible, so I'm, I would say, I would rather hear yours than mommy's, and I got a hunch I'm gonna, tonight.

• 2:15:03Speaker 06

  Can I do it one more time for a goodbye?

• 2:15:06Dax Shepard?

  For a goodbye?

• 2:15:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:15:08Dax Shepard?

  Is there anything you want to say before we go?

• 2:15:09Speaker 06

  Farting in public should be weird.

• 2:15:12Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great. Good to end on. And then, we're gonna go out with a song. This is not an original, this is a cover song, from the artist formerly known as Delta.

• 2:15:28Speaker 01

  Beautiful. Who did it?

• 2:15:30Dax Shepard?

  You look like a chipmunk when you do it. Alright, I love you guys. I love you. Love you, love you, love you.