Curtis Duffy (chef and restaurateur)

Curtis Duffy (Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef, Ever) is a chef, restaurateur, and author. Curtis joins the Armchair Expert to discuss being dropped off at 6 months old on his 15 year-old stepmom’s doorstep, building a safe space in his closet at home and in home economics at school, and starting work in kitchens at 14. Curtis and Dax talk about the violent and tragic event that defined his life at 19, the eye opening moment he was exposed to through learning culinary practice, and how cooking gave him the structural pillars he needed as a young man. Curtis explains how a bad business deal lost him his three-Michelin Star restaurant, how the drive to continuously get better each day in some way keeps him going, and why his new goal is expanding his business so he can create opportunities for younger chefs. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ http://www.wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:06Dax Shepard?

  And Erin Michael-Weekley. Hello. Um, today's guest is Curtis Duffy. Any foodie in the world will recognize Curtis' name immediately. He's a Michelin starred chef and restaurateur known for the Chicago-based restaurants Ever and Grace.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Mmm.

• 0:23Dax Shepard?

  Uh, he has a new memoir out that is, um, hair-raising.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  He has really lived a life.

• 0:28Dax Shepard?

  My god, did he go through it all. Uh, the book is called Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef. Was it you that was just making fun of how I say memoir?

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Yes, it was.

• 0:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, what do you, because sometimes they say memoir.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  That is what you normally say.

• 0:41Dax Shepard?

  I want to say memoir.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:42Dax Shepard?

  And I correct myself to memoir.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is correct.

• 0:45Dax Shepard?

  That's correct?

• 0:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, memoir.

• 0:46Dax Shepard?

  How would you say it? Memoir, memoir. Yeah.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  You're good. Maybe it's a Michigan thing.

• 0:52Dax Shepard?

  We just don't know how to talk. Please enjoy Curtis Duffy. We get support from Quince.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Okay, can we talk about the fact that the holidays are already here? It's crazy. I feel like I blinked and now we're in gifting season, which I'm not really mad about because I do love giving gifts. And Quince is making it so easy to find something great for everyone on my list, including myself. Because let's be honest, self-gifting is a love language.

• 1:17Dax Shepard?

  Quince is seriously the gift that keeps on giving. Their high-quality staples are made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. Full-on luxury quality at prices that won't wreck your holiday budget.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  It's the dream. The cashmere sweater's starting at $60, down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories. You and everyone on your list are staying cozy and looking incredible all season long.

• 1:44Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:51Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 1:52Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:56Speaker 01

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

• 2:19Dax Shepard?

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

• 3:03Dax Shepard?

  to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  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 majorary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. 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, plant-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 0.8mg, 2.5mg, 5.5mg,

• 3:52Speaker 02

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

• 4:20Speaker 01

  You have two sleeves. You guys are matching.

• 4:23Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wait till you hear about his book. I think we have-

• 4:26Speaker 01

  The same life?

• 4:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  That's exciting.

• 4:28Dax Shepard?

  So, I'm gonna show you one thing right away.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:30Dax Shepard?

  Is that what's on his tattoo?

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:31Dax Shepard?

  J2C. Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  No way. Is he a J2C?

• 4:36Dax Shepard?

  July 2nd.

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Oh, no shit.

• 4:37Dax Shepard?

  1975.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 4:39Dax Shepard?

  July 2nd, Cancer.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're July 2nd?

• 4:41Dax Shepard?

  January 2nd, Capricorn. My very best friend is July 2nd, Cancer. So, in junior high, we came up with J2C. Very exclusive club. No one could be in it. Now, we have matching tattoos.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  But I already that you always make fun of me for astrology, and you have it tattooed on you.

• 4:57Dax Shepard?

  I do. It means nothing to me, other than the letters and the fact that Aaron has them too. But yeah, when I read your birthday, I was ecstatic.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Wow, that's very rare. It's a rare club.

• 5:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Congratulations.

• 5:07Dax Shepard?

  I had a guess that was J2C.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  I know a lot of people with July 2nd birthdays.

• 5:12Dax Shepard?

  You do?

• 5:13Speaker 03

  Which is bizarre to me. Maybe six or seven of them.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Huh, weird.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  July 2nd, July 3rd, and July 4th.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Mmm.

• 5:19Dax Shepard?

  And would you always just do a full birthday party into 4th of July, like Aaron did?

• 5:24Speaker 03

  I try never to celebrate birthdays. I'm turning 50 this year.

• 5:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, I just did it.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  How'd it go?

• 5:29Dax Shepard?

  It's okay.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  It's alright, right?

• 5:30Dax Shepard?

  It's alright, yeah.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Just a number. I feel better than I did when I was in my early 40s.

• 5:33Dax Shepard?

  Same for me. Physically, I think I'm doing my best.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Mentally, in a better place professionally. Some people are like, "Where would you go back in time?" I'm perfectly fine.

• 5:42Dax Shepard?

  So, you start in Ohio, and mom and dad are very young. You had 18 when they have you?

• 5:48Speaker 03

  Somewhere around that age. I don't know the exact date my father was, but pretty young.

• 5:52Dax Shepard?

  How much older is your brother than you?

• 5:54Speaker 03

  Just one year. He's a January-

• 5:56Speaker 01

  2nd? J2C?

• 5:58Speaker 03

  No, he's a little bit later, but in January.

• 6:01Dax Shepard?

  What if he just looked at me and said, "Brother?" "Brother?"

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Oh my god, weird. Mom lost.

• 6:08Dax Shepard?

  But yeah, what was the scene that your brother arrived into and the scene that you arrived into?

• 6:13Speaker 03

  I've remembered most of my time in Colorado, but as a child in Ohio, I would imagine it was terrible.

• 6:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, your biological mother and your father, Bear, were already in a violent, messy situation when you arrived?

• 6:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was six months old when they separated.

• 6:31Dax Shepard?

  But your dad initially caught your mom with another guy. Physical altercation ensues, and then he leaves with your older brother and goes to Colorado.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  And leaves you.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  And leaves me. Yeah, six months old.

• 6:44Dax Shepard?

  And how long did that last?

• 6:46Speaker 03

  From what my aunt has told me, some of the stories, not long after I arrived on my stepmom's doorstep. For me, that was my mother. That's all I knew from six months on to current state. So yeah, six months old.

• 6:59Dax Shepard?

  And your biological mom just showed up at this woman's house, Jan?

• 7:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, Jan.

• 7:04Dax Shepard?

  And she was 15?

• 7:05Speaker 03

  She was 15, still in high school.

• 7:06Dax Shepard?

  And Dad's 19 or 20 or something?

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, somewhere around that time.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  But they're together.

• 7:11Dax Shepard?

  They're together?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  So she's dropping you off to him ostensibly?

• 7:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, the words were something like, you have my ex-husband or my husband, you might as well have all of my children. And my brother was already there, but then dropped me off as well.

• 7:24Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  Trying to deal with that at 15 years old would be just mind blowing for me.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  She's a kid.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  Just trying to be a kid.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:30Dax Shepard?

  She probably loved being in high school. When she got to be in class and not dealing with two little kids, she was probably like, oh my God, I hope that school day goes on.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  I know. You know, I remember having conversations with my mom later in life, saying how much she'd never got to be a part of that. Growing up to experience those things as you do as a child, like going through prom, experiencing graduation, because it was all of a sudden, here we have two children in our life that were not hers.

• 7:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 7:56Speaker 03

  And felt incredibly responsible to take care of us all of a sudden.

• 7:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And what kind of guy was your dad?

• 8:01Speaker 03

  He would give his shirt off his back to you in a second, but he was incredibly intense. Angry, gentle, he was all over the place.

• 8:10Dax Shepard?

  Mercurial.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was just a lover of fast cars and motorcycles and he was a huge biker. I mean, just a ball of energy, full time, all the time.

• 8:19Dax Shepard?

  And violent as hell.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  Anything would piss him off.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  So you had to walk on eggshells a lot?

• 8:23Speaker 03

  That's what it felt like a lot, just constantly wondering what the hell is gonna set him off all the time.

• 8:29Dax Shepard?

  And when he went to Colorado, it was some attempt to be normal. He joined the army. And so in some ways, it seems like he was declaring he wanted to have some kind of a stable, better existence than he had.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, a big part of what he was searching through life was just trying to be stable and have that family structure. I think he went through a lot of bad times as a child himself. So what you know is what you pass on and teach.

• 8:58Dax Shepard?

  His dad, your grandfather, wasn't? Too dissimilar to him.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  Correct, and that's what he's learned. So I think he probably craved that a lot was to try to have a loving family, but obviously didn't know how to do it.

• 9:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I was a little shocked when I learned of his kind of relationship with partying because he reeks of an addict. But he wasn't very addicty, huh?

• 9:15Speaker 03

  He wasn't a constant drinker. I remember as a kid having that smell of marijuana in the house, but it was only when his buddies were over. And it was one of the smells that I love to this day. I don't smoke weed.

• 9:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  I can tell you I love the smell of it and I wanna smoke weed. I wanna enjoy it.

• 9:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  I don't enjoy it, but I love the smell.

• 9:33Dax Shepard?

  So Jan, though, she really kind of rose to the occasion. She stepped in and was a mom.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  She stepped in and really never let the foot off the gas. There's notes that I've read from her in the past that said she really thought that these two kids could be hers. That's how much she loved us at such a very young age.

• 9:52Dax Shepard?

  But she's violent too.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  To some degree, absolutely.

• 9:54Dax Shepard?

  You're just beating the shit out of the kids was totally fine and normal.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  It was back then.

• 9:59Dax Shepard?

  To varying degrees. You were on the wrong side even in eighty-four.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I felt it was in a way that she was trying to show that she was able to do it as well. I never felt it from like a intentional place.

• 10:11Dax Shepard?

  An anger.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, when we screwed up, we knew. I mean, come on, you're a kid. You know, you're getting your ass beat one way or another.

• 10:19Dax Shepard?

  But the strap they hit you with is like hanging on the wall from the stairs. That's like a real declaration. Like this is how we parent. We're not hiding it.

• 10:26Speaker 03

  No, you see that over there? You don't act straight. That shit's coming real quick.

• 10:30Dax Shepard?

  What would have been then your dad's father-in-law or your step-grandpa, Jan's dad, he owned a retreading tire place?

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 10:38Dax Shepard?

  And he took your dad in. I would guess it seems like it's all gonna kind of work for a minute.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  Some of my favorite times as a child was being at that retread tire shop. Maybe it was the tire smell. Maybe it was just watching these guys work incredibly hard.

• 10:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  I don't know what I loved about it, but I loved being there. The tires would produce these little warm rubber pieces. And if you caught them in time, you picked them off the ground, you can roll them into balls.

• 11:03Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:04Speaker 03

  Everybody would collect those things and then they would have a rubber ball fight at the end of the day. All the employees would be throwing them at each other.

• 11:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I love that.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  That was a blast.

• 11:12Dax Shepard?

  Do you think any part of the appeal of that? Was that your dad had to be somewhat in check of himself because he was at work? Was he more consistent and more predictable while he was there?

• 11:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think he'd get away with a lot more there because he was in front of peers or he was the guy who was running the shop. So he was the boss there, certainly not going to backhand one of us in front of all of them.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Did it make you really close with your brother?

• 11:36Speaker 03

  Growing up, yeah, we were pretty close till we got about 12, 13 years old. And then we kind of just separated.

• 11:42Dax Shepard?

  What age do you start skateboarding?

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Right around that time, 12, 13.

• 11:45Dax Shepard?

  Sixth grade for me is when it's time to skateboard.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  Right there is the time we moved back to Ohio. And yeah, I started skateboarding. My brother stayed in Colorado with my grandmother, which was my dad's mom. That's probably why we separated.

• 11:57Dax Shepard?

  He wanted away from your dad, yeah?

• 11:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, at that point, he never really got along with Jan, my mom. There was something there, I don't know what it was. At five, my dad and mom set us down and said that Jan is really not your real mother. She's out there somewhere.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  You didn't know that.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  We didn't know that until then. And I think around that point is when they were just always butting heads, always fighting, my mom and my brother. And if it was an opportunity for him to stay away from them, he stayed with my grandma.

• 12:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, grandpa sells the tire shop and you guys moved to Ohio. And it's a pretty radical adjustment, right?

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, then we moved into a two-bedroom apartment. And that's where it was like, all right, you're going to live in the closet.

• 12:35Dax Shepard?

  In your parents' closet?

• 12:36Speaker 03

  In my parents' closet, that was my house.

• 12:38Dax Shepard?

  No bed?

• 12:38Speaker 03

  That was my room.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  That was the floor. And shortly after, my brother had moved back to Ohio because my grandmother had passed away.

• 12:47Dax Shepard?

  The hits just keep on coming.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  So it wasn't long before my brother and sister shared that second bedroom, my mom and dad, and myself now in the closet on the floor.

• 12:56Dax Shepard?

  And you talk about actually loving that closet and loving the escape.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  It was an escape. You know, it wasn't that big of a space. I don't know if you kind of relate it to a dog enjoying the doghouse. They love that cozy. Probably for me, it was the same feeling. I was able to throw some posters on the ceiling and it was a daydreaming moment. I can escape everything else that was happening and just go in there and think about a lot of stuff.

• 13:19Dax Shepard?

  I would suggest.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, probably hide.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, your imagination works overtime when you're in areas like that.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:26Dax Shepard?

  I can relate to being the middle child. So my brother's five years older than me. So he was at like apex adolescent insanity. And my little sister was still a baby, like a toddler. So one of them always needed a lot of attention.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 13:42Dax Shepard?

  And yeah, I just kind of went and hid and was happy to be out of it all.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, kind of unseen.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  That's why kids make forts and stuff. They're trying to create.

• 13:50Dax Shepard?

  A little world they can control.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  Interesting thought.

• 13:53Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so another place that you kind of found comforting was home ec.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  Place to feel loved and I was excited to be there, but I was thankful to be there.

• 14:04Dax Shepard?

  Also, I imagine you're getting validated there because you're kind of good at all the stuff. Your teacher's impressed with the pillow you made.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:11Dax Shepard?

  Impressed with this and that. I'm sure you were in deep need of that. Were you getting a lot of affirmation at home?

• 14:15Speaker 03

  No, and you know, with Ruth Snyder, she was the teacher there. That's where it came from. I was able to cook some things and one have a nourishing meal that felt great for me because it wasn't like we were eating great at home.

• 14:28Dax Shepard?

  What were you eating? Chef Y R D?

• 14:30Speaker 03

  TV dinners, yeah, absolutely.

• 14:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Swanson's was really shitty.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  Aluminum tins, Salisbury steak.

• 14:38Dax Shepard?

  Boy, Swanson's, good for them. It didn't take shit to be a leader in that space back then. It just had to be like digestible.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  It's true. Other brands came in after like Stouffer's. I loved it.

• 14:50Dax Shepard?

  The microwave had just come out when we were kids.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, these moments, you were still putting Swanson's in the oven.

• 14:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, the aluminum foil ones, yeah. I think the main ingredient was salt. No matter if you got like a steak or whatever, if you looked in the back, it was gonna be salt.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Isn't it funny though, when you walk by those aisles, I have so many memories tied to those items and like I crave it.

• 15:12Dax Shepard?

  Oh, me too. They were my favorite items.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  You just grab one every once in a while just to throw back and put yourself in check.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did another show called Flightless Burden. It was about. Learning about America, basically. And so we did a frozen foods episode. And I was just throwing so much in the car. And I was like, and we have to get the Swedish meatballs. Oh, we have to get the Salisbury steak. And then we made it all. And yeah, it's so bad.

• 15:36Dax Shepard?

  It's bad. Yeah.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  I have so many memories.

• 15:38Dax Shepard?

  You know what I still crave like crazy, and I swear it's good. When you look at the back of the can, you just can't go forward, but Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Do you ever fuck with the Dinty Moore Beef Stew?

• 15:48Speaker 03

  I remember that.

• 15:50Dax Shepard?

  That's a powerful can of soup.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  I remember that. I remember. Wow.

• 15:56Dax Shepard?

  Aaron and I, we would splurge when we got paid and would get six cans of Dinty Moore.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Did you cook it or did you just eat it off the?

• 16:02Dax Shepard?

  You'd dump it in a saucepan, warm it up, and then white bread with butter. You'd go dipping.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Man, the struggles are real.

• 16:10Dax Shepard?

  Do you see this thing that, um, who's our guy, Rob? Michael? Voltagio? Voltagio. Where he does these things, where he takes a stab at these things he liked as a kid. These kind of shitty meals. He does some of these famous dishes that are like-

• 16:24Speaker 03

  I haven't seen that episode or any of those yet.

• 16:26Dax Shepard?

  SpaghettiOs.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Okay. Then he's trying to make it like professional level?

• 16:29Dax Shepard?

  Like the high-end version of all these things. Like, it'd be fun for you to tackle the Pop-Tart at your restaurant.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. A lot of that's been done.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 03

  Some of those nostalgic pastries people will bring back. My staff, they used to make every Saturday for family meal, we would do no-bake cookies. And I lived on those damn things in junior high and high school. They were 25 cents. They were peanut butter. There were no chocolate in them. It became such a thing for me. I had to search out a recipe and then adjust the recipe how I liked it. And then I would give it to my staff and see if they can make it.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 17:02Dax Shepard?

  And did it deliver.

• 17:02Speaker 03

  And they were always wrong. Almost 90% of the time, they're wrong. You don't have to bake them. You have to do a certain thing with the sugar. You gotta bring it to a temperature and cook it for a certain amount of time. Let's see how good you can follow directions.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  And they're always fucked up.

• 17:16Dax Shepard?

  They're not good.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  Bail.

• 17:17Dax Shepard?

  I wonder if that's similar to, my mother, all growing up, still my favorite dessert she would make is called Chocno Bakes. That's what they were called in my family. And it's chocolatey. It's got oatmeal in it.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 17:27Dax Shepard?

  Those are phenomenal. What a treat.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Most of the time, they have chocolate in them. The ones that I remember had no chocolate. Cocoa powder.

• 17:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, cocoa powder, peanut butter, oat sugar, oats. My mom still makes these every Christmas. They're so good.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  I bet she gets them right, too.

• 17:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. By my- Unlike your staff.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Unlike my staff or professionals.

• 17:48Dax Shepard?

  How were you doing in high school? How were you handling all of the chaos at home? How are you compartmentalizing? What's it doing to you socially? Certainly don't want to have a friend over for a sleepover.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  No, you know, when I was 14 is when I really stepped into the restaurant. Not a professional kitchen, of course, but it was a diner in my small town that I was living in.

• 18:07Dax Shepard?

  A Big Boy's?

• 18:08Speaker 03

  Similar, yeah. I did work at a Frishy's Big Boy.

• 18:10Dax Shepard?

  We had Elias Brothers and I worked there up in Michigan.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Yes, same, same concept.

• 18:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh, real quick, did you eat the food off the plates of the tables you cleared?

• 18:18Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 18:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. Good for you. I did.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  God, no.

• 18:21Dax Shepard?

  It started slow. And my best friend, J2C, he also worked there at a different time. One time, years later, we were talking about, I'm like, did you ever eat the food? He goes, yeah, you know, it started with someone leave a half of a grilled cheese untouched. So, yeah, I'd eat that. Or they'd make the milkshake and they give you the steel container that they mixed it in. So if someone didn't touch that, I'd have that.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 18:40Dax Shepard?

  But that grew into, I would just grab a Big Boy. By directly into the previous bite. Like, that's what it just unraveled to that. But they were paying $2.35 an hour and you only got half off on the meal. So I broke even.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  I'm gonna eat for free.

• 18:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I had to do that. Okay, sorry. So you got a job at a diner.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  Washing dishes and I was able to cook what would have been my family meal, my staff meal. I was able to have a meal a night there working. Plus, he'd pay me $15 cash every night. So I thought I was like the richest guy in the world.

• 19:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  Free meal, $15 cash in my pocket, 14 years old, was love and life. And I wanted to work. I wanted to make money. I was poor as shit. So I was smart enough that I started putting that money away. And over time, it built up enough to where when I was 16, I was able to buy a car. Then I could get a job further away. And then that spiraled into working in another restaurant, not in my hometown, but further away because I could drive. And that just all expanded into better opportunities for me. And I already knew at that point, I want something greater than what I could possibly have here. Living in that closet couldn't be the end of the world for me. There's gotta be something else out there. So through high school, I didn't have a lot of time at home. I was always get up, go to school, go directly from school to work. And I worked five, six nights a week. At that point, my parents were already on shaky ground.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  If I wasn't home, I didn't have to deal with any of the shit.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:00Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 20:01Speaker 03

  I would get home at 11, 12 o'clock at night, do some homework, go to bed, hit repeat. But I was loving it so much that exhaustion didn't even factor in my brain.

• 20:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Again, you're like Jan probably loving high school and.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:13Dax Shepard?

  A little grumpy. You're happy to be away.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 20:15Dax Shepard?

  So where are you at when you get the phone call?

• 20:18Speaker 03

  So I just got home from school.

• 20:20Dax Shepard?

  What college were you going to?

• 20:21Speaker 03

  Ohio State.

• 20:22Dax Shepard?

  Which is in Columbus?

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Columbus, yeah. At the time, my girlfriend was a senior in high school. So she had just got out of school and I was on the second floor. She came by and honked her horn. I looked out the window and she's like, hey, something's going on with your family. Your sister got picked up about an hour ago from school from the cops. And I'm like, what? What's going on? She told me that something happened where your dad kidnapped your mom or something. And I'm like, what the hell?

• 20:49Speaker 01

  What?

• 20:49Speaker 03

  And ironically, my father kept messaging me that morning or trying to get ahold of me saying, come and see me today at the house. I was so involved with school, so involved with work and trying to deal with my parents. I was stuck in the middle a lot. And I didn't want to be manipulating to my mom and telling my dad and telling my mom one thing because of my dad saying, hey, go tell her this.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  I hated those moments and it happened quite a lot. So I just decided, I'm not going to go to the house today and just talk to you later of the week. 20 minutes later or so, knock on the door from one of the local police department and asked me to come with him out to my dad's house, which was about 20 minutes away from where I was living.

• 21:31Dax Shepard?

  In the house that he inherited when your grandfather went to jail?

• 21:34Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 21:35Dax Shepard?

  And so what happens when you arrive?

• 21:37Speaker 03

  So ironically, I'm sitting in the back of a cruiser, completely innocent for the first time. Driving out there and I'm just trying to process what is going on. The cop was telling me, you know, your father took your mother. At gunpoint, kidnapped her in the car and is now holding her hostage.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  What?

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Out of your house. And I'm like, trying to process this for what felt like an eternity drive to where we were going. We couldn't get there fast enough.

• 22:02Dax Shepard?

  Turn on the siren, step on it.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's go. So, we finally got there. They took me to a house next door. It was in the middle of the country, so next door was down the street a half mile or so, to what they called a safe house. And there was my brother, my sister, my uncle, who was also a police officer at the time.

• 22:21Dax Shepard?

  But a terrible dude.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  A terrible man, yeah.

• 22:24Dax Shepard?

  Beat you unconscious while they were out of town once.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Oh, all the time. Just a piece of shit of a man.

• 22:29Dax Shepard?

  Thank God he had a badge.

• 22:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  It justified everything in his mind. So yeah, we stayed there as the standoff continued for 10 plus hours, I think it was. So it went in through the middle of the afternoon until well into the night, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock at night.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  So she wasn't living there with him?

• 22:51Speaker 03

  No, at this point, she had moved out. She'd got her own place. And one of the conversations I had with her was like, I need to live on my own. I need to experience all these things I didn't get to experience when I was younger. One of them was, how do I survive on my own, living on my own, having my own apartment, having my own bills, fending for myself and making it through life by myself. She had moved out six months prior to that. So I was in and out of the house a little bit with my father, staying there. But he eventually would come home to a place where we had everybody living there to the now, nobody, except for him. So I think it was very difficult for him to grasp that feeling of no one wanting to be there. Nobody wanted to be around him.

• 23:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  At this point, he's off the rocker a little bit, trying to stay on the meds of antidepressants. And that was a whole roller coaster as well. Some nights, I would decide to stay there instead of staying at my house, closer to school. And I would come home to unconscious, couldn't even wake him up, just out of it, out of it. No alcohol involved, no drugs involved, other than just the stuff he was taking. I don't know if it was overtaking it, or if he decided to stop taking it at that time.

• 23:59Dax Shepard?

  But brought down with depression and some other words.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, just didn't want to move, just didn't want to do anything.

• 24:04Dax Shepard?

  So he shot Jan.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:07Dax Shepard?

  And then he shot himself.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. Did Jan, like...

• 24:14Dax Shepard?

  Everyone's dead.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  And you're not? Nineteen?

• 24:16Speaker 03

  Nineteen, yeah.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  This is.

• 24:19Dax Shepard?

  And in a unique and cruel twist, for whatever reason, the police who hated his father ask him to identify the body and they're showing him a stack of pictures and they're showing both of them killed, dead. And he's like, yeah, that's them. The guy just continues to show him pictures, shows him the autopsy.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, all autopsy pictures, not just a picture of the face or anything.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  God, you've met the worst people on earth.

• 24:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  I mean, really?

• 24:47Dax Shepard?

  An abundance of terrible fucking people.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  It was so bizarre.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I'm sorry.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, because a few days later, they asked me to come and grab all of their personal belongings, the bed sheets that they were laying on, anything they used for evidence, come and get. The clothes, the jackets, all their personal belongings. And then as I sat down and grabbed all that stuff, they sat me in that room and just started dropping pictures, Polaroids of my parents and one or two's enough. Yeah, I get it, guys.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's so twisted. Well, when you see the pattern of erratic decisions, we're moving to Colorado, we're moving back, we're gonna be a cop, we're gonna join the army. These are all from the outside. They seem like attempts to fix what's going on mentally.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  Running from something.

• 25:28Dax Shepard?

  Yes, hoping that this big reset will somehow change him.

• 25:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're right.

• 25:32Dax Shepard?

  What's clear in the book, you still have a lot of love for your dad, though.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  I do. It is bizarre because I did go through a long, long time of hatred towards him. He's disrupted, interrupted, fucked up my life to some degree, our lives, our family, the whole thing. There was a lot of hatred, stuff I had to work through personally to overcome that. But I try to see who he is, I try to understand the position and the things that he went through, where his mind was at that age. I mean, I'm well older than he was at that time, forty years old.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  So I've outlived him. My mom never saw forty.

• 26:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Did you ever reconnect? With your biological mom?

• 26:11Speaker 03

  You know, speaking of Frisha's big boy.

• 26:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  My brother, when I was working one day, he's like, hey, I got a friend outside who wants to meet you. He's dying to meet you. I'm like, all right, cool. Think I'm 16 or 17. I go outside. Hey, this is your mom. Sue is her name. And I'm just in complete shot. I'm thinking I'm going to meet one of his buddies.

• 26:31Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  And I'm here, this lady is standing and she tries to hand me $50. I'm like, what the hell am I going to do with that? I don't need your money. I didn't take it. $50 doesn't capture the last 17 years. So I never really reconnected with her. My brother has a relationship with her to this day. I just chose not to. Meeting her, it hurt me because I didn't want to upset my mother. I felt disloyal. I told her right away. I had to tell her it was killing me. I was so worried about breaking her heart. I didn't put myself in that position. I was forced in that position. To this day, I probably would have never met her.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's weird because if you don't see her, you can kind of compartmentalize it like she doesn't really exist, maybe.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  The seeing her, you have to face this person dropped you off at six months old, made a choice. Your life is tough and part of it's because she put you in that situation.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  And never looked back.

• 27:22Dax Shepard?

  Well, yeah, as far as the compartmentalization, there's layers to it. It's like, A is best to just ignore she even exists. And then if she does exist, it's actually a lot easier if she doesn't want to meet you.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:33Dax Shepard?

  It's very complicated if, wait, she's gone and now, no, she isn't gone. And I don't know if I can handle that. She actually wants to have a relationship with me?

• 27:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:42Dax Shepard?

  That's kind of overwhelming.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  It is. There's a lot of things that I want to know from her medically, you know, the lineage of her father and all the things that maybe could affect me and my family, but not so much that I want to have that relationship. Because I'm sure if I reach out, it's going to open a can of worms.

• 27:56Dax Shepard?

  You're not in the market for that.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  I'm not. I'm good. My life is great.

• 28:00Dax Shepard?

  What do you major in at Ohio State?

• 28:02Speaker 03

  It was a culinary degree in applied science. It was a three-year program for culinary.

• 28:07Dax Shepard?

  You knew from that first restaurant job you got, this is what I want to do?

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, once I got into high school and I started working like in a professional kitchen, this is all I want to do.

• 28:15Dax Shepard?

  When do you decide to go from, for lack of better terminology, like a pedestrian cook to, oh, I actually want to be an artist?

• 28:24Speaker 03

  My last two years of high school was in a vocational school or a tech school. Luckily, they had a culinary program there. So I spent the last two years of high school in that culinary program. And I met a lady named Kathy Zay, who was the teacher and the instructor there. She was very well-connected to a lot of professional chefs in the Columbus area. And she would take students every year, once a year, to a place called Mirfield Village Golf Club. It was owned by Jack Nicholas that held one of the PGA stops of the tour. And I went out there consecutively for two years. And that's where I really wanted to work. So she was able to connect me with the chef. And I just went there to work that week. But then I started going there on the weekends to work for free because I just wanted to be there.

• 29:09Dax Shepard?

  What was he doing that was so intriguing? Because I think it's important for context, anyone that's 25 years old right now, they've grown up in an era where there were many, many cooking shows on. There are Instagram accounts where you follow this. There's knowledge of Jose Andres teachers in Spain. Like, you could really know everything.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Celebrity chef culture.

• 29:31Dax Shepard?

  Yes, pre-Bourdain's book. But for you and I, I don't know, what would you see in a magazine? Like a travel magazine? How would you even be exposed to this kind of far end of cooking?

• 29:43Speaker 03

  For me, it was the environment that was there. Being able to go there and the houses around the golf courses. This one has an elevator and this one has eight rooms. And it's just a massive eye-opening moment for me that I wanted to be a part of. And the only way to be a part of it is if I was working there.

• 29:57Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  Not only that, the chef, John Souza, was so great with the young cooks and was a very educational and a great hands-on teacher. So any opportunity I got, I went there to work for free or whatever. They didn't hire me, just let me spend my time that I wasn't working somewhere else here. So he agreed to take me on. As an apprentice as I went into college, I spent a total about six years there. Everybody would leave at night and I would stay there and I would start creating. I would leave at three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning where everybody else is out drinking and partying. I'm still in the kitchen, working for free, doing my thing, trying to create, just trying to learn and learn and learn. That's where I put the blinders on and just was like total focus.

• 30:38Dax Shepard?

  And would you ever be experimenting and discover something and then pitch the chef?

• 30:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, as a young cook, that's the greatest thing is like to try to have something on the menu.

• 30:46Dax Shepard?

  It's like seeing your name in the credits of a movie when you're an actor.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  It's the greatest thing for a young cook was most of the time there was always like, no, it's the chef's restaurant, his ideas, it's his everything.

• 30:56Dax Shepard?

  Yes, in 2000, you're now 25. You are working at Charlie Trotter in Chicago?

• 31:04Speaker 03

  That was the draw to come to Illinois. The internet was around a little bit at that time, so wasn't a lot of communication through there. It was just like sending resumes, sending a cover letter, just trying to get in the door. And finally they called and said I could come there and do what we call a stage, which is basically work for a short amount of time for free. It's a way to interview you, if you will.

• 31:26Dax Shepard?

  How standardized are the cultures in these higher end restaurants? So like the golf course that you were coming from, what was the culture in there versus what it was like at Charlie Trotter? I'm presuming some of these are more dictatorial.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, there is a brigade system that you follow by you have chef, you have the executive chef, chef cuisine, sous chef. There's a banquet chef in there somewhere, depending on how large the operation is, pastry chef. And then what we call chef de parties, which are all the cooks. So the hierarchy there is very interesting and something that's pretty standard across most high end restaurants. But culturally, huge difference. Going from Muirfield, which was more laid back, although there's a lot of great standards there and culturally there was a great time in place. But when I got to Charlie Trotters was completely different, just really intense work environment.

• 32:15Dax Shepard?

  And yelling.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  Not so much yelling. It was just very demanding physically, mentally. Like you had to be on point all the time. Charlie was relentless for putting you in positions of uncomfortableness.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Because of the perfectionism?

• 32:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you think he wanted everybody in that restaurant to be great.

• 32:33Dax Shepard?

  I imagine myself in some of these kitchens, at least that I hear about, and I'm like, that would be too much for me.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  You'd punch them.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  For me, I think it was welcoming to some degree.

• 32:41Dax Shepard?

  I guess you admired the people. That's the key, right? You probably did admire this chef.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  Yes, you're right.

• 32:47Dax Shepard?

  And want their skills enough to tolerate it all.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think even dating back to John Susan, also a good friend of mine, who was the banquet chef, Regan Coivisto, I admired these chefs so much that they could have told me to jump off a building. I probably would have done it.

• 33:02Dax Shepard?

  Right. You wanted what they had.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that was the structure I was craving. That was right at the time my parents passed away. And now I'm like, all of a sudden, this malleable teenager that needs structure. I need it, but I don't have it.

• 33:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  So I could have went any direction in life I wanted to, had I not had these structural pillars in my life. You know, Regan was a huge asset for me.

• 33:25Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 33:32Dax Shepard?

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

• 33:46Speaker 01

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

• 34:07Dax Shepard?

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

• 34:17Speaker 01

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

• 34:23Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 34:24Speaker 01

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

• 34:36Dax Shepard?

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

• 34:46Speaker 01

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

• 35:05Dax Shepard?

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

• 35:49Dax Shepard?

  Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at onepeloton.com. We get support from Superhuman. Look, I love what I do. The conversations, the ideas, the creative stuff, but there's this whole other layer of work that eats my day alive. The inbox that never ends, docs I need to get through, threads I'm behind on. And by the time I've dealt with all of that, the stuff I actually want to focus on gets whatever's left. What I needed was something that just works where I'm already working. Not another tab to open, not another thing to set up. Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly is different. It's already right there. Inside your email, your docs, your browser, you don't go to it. It's already working alongside you.

• 36:32Dax Shepard?

  You're deep in a long thread, highlight it, and it pulls the key points. About to send something important? It flags what doesn't add up before it leaves your hands. It knows your style, your workflows, and it just backs you up without getting in the way. A thought partner that's already up to speed. At your service, not after your job. So do yourself a favor and try Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com.

• 37:04Dax Shepard?

  You end up in 2003 as the pastry chef at Trio?

• 37:08Speaker 03

  Correct, yes.

• 37:09Dax Shepard?

  Again, I'm stupid. I know nothing about this. But I would imagine a pastry chef is solely gonna be a pastry. I just think of someone as cooking dessert. That feels like a specialty unto itself that that would be the end goal.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  For some people, right?

• 37:23Speaker 03

  For most people in the pastry world, it is a completely different discipline. And that is exactly what they do. They are set on pastry, and this is what I do. I don't really screw around with the savory world like I want. Pastry, sweet world's my thing.

• 37:36Dax Shepard?

  I need shit to rise perfectly, and that's all I want to think about.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  Restaurant Trio back in 2003, it was a different mindset. Like, sweet and savory could intermix. So I never really looked at myself as a pastry chef. I spent a lot of time in the pastry department in every job that I was at because I felt like it was important to be well-rounded. And when the opportunity came, when Grant had said, hey, you want to take over the pastry position? I jumped at it because I felt like I had base knowledge of it. And it was a way for me to express some creativity.

• 38:10Dax Shepard?

  Because the pastry chef I'm imagining is a little more empowered to create?

• 38:15Speaker 03

  A hundred percent. They're basically the chef of the whole sweet side.

• 38:19Dax Shepard?

  The head chef's gonna leave them to that kind of...

• 38:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I felt so obligated as a younger cook to understand that side of it. Because the language barrier... Talking to a pastry chef and someone who doesn't understand the pastry world can get blurred really quickly. But if you can have that conversation about pastries as a savory cook, how much greater could you be? You can now conceptualize together.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like at other businesses when you should have worked every single piece of it, even when you're at the top, so you can then speak the language.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  So you understand, yeah. You understand where everybody's at.

• 38:54Dax Shepard?

  And so you're two years there, and then in 2005, you go to Alenia?

• 38:59Speaker 03

  Alenia.

• 39:00Dax Shepard?

  Alenia. And Rob, that's where you ate? Yep, a couple times. How long had Alenia been a prominent restaurant in Chicago at that time?

• 39:08Speaker 03

  We actually opened Alenia. So Grant Aketz, who was the chef at Trio, where I was the pastry chef. We closed Trio with the idea that Grant is now going to open Alenia, and he asked me to be one of the chefs that would help him open it. So then we spent the next year and a half in an office creating what would be Alenia. We were working in one of the investors' home to create dishes.

• 39:33Dax Shepard?

  For a year and a half?

• 39:34Speaker 01

  These are not normal dishes. You should watch The Chef's Table.

• 39:38Dax Shepard?

  I watched.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  It's incredible.

• 39:39Dax Shepard?

  I watched several different videos of what happens at your restaurant ever. It's mind-boggling. You take this amaki, you cut it up, then you freeze it in little blocks, then you put it on a meat slicer to make it crazy thin, and then you let that curl up and you put that in.

• 39:56Speaker 03

  Liquid nitrogen.

• 39:57Dax Shepard?

  Liquid nitrogen. And now it's this little curly tail, and then it's gonna basically thaw at the perfect time that it's on the plate. Yeah, it's wrong first.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Yes, it's science and art.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a little bit of everything.

• 40:09Dax Shepard?

  I only remember this from interviewing Jose, but a lot of that was pioneered in Spain there?

• 40:15Speaker 03

  Well, the liquid nitrogen aspect was certainly pioneered there. The science side of cooking was really implemented there in El Buoy in Spain there, and a lot of the great restaurants in Spain now still practice that modern gastronomy.

• 40:29Dax Shepard?

  So how are you guys becoming adept and educated on it?

• 40:34Speaker 03

  Back in the day, it was just about the internet. Everybody was on the race to post. New and creative and interesting things to be the first one to kind of say, we did it. That was a huge race back then. That was early 2000s. And you know, at that time, Spain was so far ahead. Everybody's eyes were on what they were doing over there and just trying to not really compete, but stay up to speed with everything.

• 40:55Dax Shepard?

  Not be embarrassed by what they're doing, basically.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, because they were so far ahead and they are always forward thinking. Even in their architecture, they're so far ahead.

• 41:02Dax Shepard?

  I'm imagining there was a huge reward for you with Alenia, just having been a part of creating the whole thing. Did you have a sense of pride and ownership over all that?

• 41:11Speaker 03

  A hundred percent. They're celebrating their 20 years right now. Grant's traveling a couple of cities to celebrate the 20 years. I think it's a milestone. It's incredible because restaurants of that nature, they don't stick around that long. Yeah. Yeah, most restaurants don't stick around 20 years. Certainly one that's super progressive and forward thinking like that.

• 41:28Dax Shepard?

  After Alenia, you go four years later to Avenues in the Peninsula Hotel, and there you're head chef. So this is your first time on your own?

• 41:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:37Dax Shepard?

  And was it hard to leave Alenia? Did you feel the loyalty you felt towards Jan? Was it hard for you to break out and finally do your own thing and not be with anyone?

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Well, funny story is if we back up to me leaving Charlie Trotters, I interviewed with Grant at Trio and Grant didn't want to hire me. Cause he's like, you need to do your own damn thing. I'm getting ready to do my own thing. He's like, you need to go find your own kitchen and kind of like have your own voice. I didn't feel like I was ready for it, so I convinced him somehow to hire me. And that's where we made that connection. We started working together. So when it was my time to leave Alenia, for me, it was, you know, you're in the shadows. You're doing other people's food, which is great because it's still a huge learning thing. But at some point, if you know you have that entrepreneurial spirit and you know you want to do your own thing, you have a voice, you can't stand in those shadows. So I left and spent some time just figuring out what I wanted to do. And then Avenues.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  Came available for me to, I don't wanna say audition, but I cooked for certain people in the hotel. And it was a restaurant that was already very successful with the chef that was there. And they needed to carry on what was going on in that restaurant space. So they allowed a chef to come in there and have really their own voice. The restaurant didn't have an identity. So, you know, they would just hire the right chef to run it for as long as they would want to run it.

• 42:57Dax Shepard?

  It just needed to be great food. It didn't need to have a personality.

• 43:00Speaker 03

  Right. It wasn't like, oh, it needs to be a steakhouse. It needs to be an Italian place. They're like, it's a chef-driven restaurant.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  What did you make for your audition? Do you remember?

• 43:08Speaker 03

  I don't remember. That's a great question.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm dying to know.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  Chocolate no bigs for everyone. But I think mostly with my resume and my time in Olinia and just who I was in the city. I'd already started to develop a name a little bit. And it was an easy sell for the hotel.

• 43:24Dax Shepard?

  And so the year after you took that job, you earned two Michelin stars?

• 43:29Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 43:30Dax Shepard?

  All right. So help me understand. I'll see like Michelin star restaurant. And then I noticed you got like three stars. How does this Michelin star thing work?

• 43:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:38Dax Shepard?

  I didn't realize there's multiple. I just thought either you get one or you don't.

• 43:41Speaker 03

  It's an earned accolade every single year. So it is not yours to keep and it's theirs to take away whenever they decide. You're not holding the standard properly. It is not a permanent thing.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Oh, I didn't know that either. So you could be a one Michelin star restaurant for a couple of years and then be a zero Michelin star?

• 43:58Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 43:59Dax Shepard?

  Lose it.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 44:00Dax Shepard?

  Are you allowed to say previous Michelin?

• 44:02Speaker 01

  I know.

• 44:03Dax Shepard?

  I would still.

• 44:04Speaker 03

  There is plenty of restaurants out there that have lost it.

• 44:06Dax Shepard?

  And how's it earned? They just drop in at some point and they eat there?

• 44:09Speaker 03

  So, yeah, they shop you throughout the year, unannounced. They could be buried in a six top. They could be buried in a large party. They could be a single diner at two top. They could be really anywhere, male, female.

• 44:21Dax Shepard?

  I think you and I would be bad.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  Old, young.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  How dare you?

• 44:23Dax Shepard?

  We like things so much. I don't think we'd be discerning enough.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 44:28Dax Shepard?

  I know personally, we would have given out like 50 of them by now. Like, we had a sticky toffee pudding at a pretty medium level hotel.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  This is the best thing ever.

• 44:38Dax Shepard?

  Literally, we gotta plan a trip back there just to get that sticky. We would have given them two or three for that.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  I get eight. Eight Michelin stars for that.

• 44:46Dax Shepard?

  As odd as it work, what's the max you can get?

• 44:48Speaker 03

  Three is the highest.

• 44:49Dax Shepard?

  And that's so rare, yeah?

• 44:51Speaker 03

  Worldwide, there's less than 150. So you can imagine, at the time, when we received the third Michelin star, we were one of 12 in the country.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 45:01Dax Shepard?

  What's the celebration like when that's announced? Because it's gotta be so good for your business.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  It does make the restaurant busier, certainly. It changes clientele immediately from people, not just locally, but now they're flying in from all over the place just to eat at your restaurant. Because there's diehard Michelin fans that just travel the world to eat at restaurants. That's all they do.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  I know, we were maybe gonna do a podcast.

• 45:24Dax Shepard?

  We lightly suggested.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  We suggested where we would go to all the Michelin star restaurants and record while we ate it. But misophonia, people don't like the sounds of eating while people talk.

• 45:35Dax Shepard?

  Kind of casually mentioned it, and then we get a bunch of emails, Rob? Yeah, we got like four or five.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  So like, I think maybe we should maybe pick that back up.

• 45:43Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so why do you only stay there for a few years before opening Grace?

• 45:48Speaker 03

  As a young cook, I didn't get in the business to earn accolades. It was not even a thought to be a chef and to win awards. For me, it was about feeding people, making them happy, creating memories. And this was a way for me to make a living. And I get to be creative and do what I love to do. So that's the reason why I started cooking. Michelin was not in the US until recently. We're less than 20 years since Michelin's been in the US. It's always been in Europe, and they're still expanding in different countries still. You know, I think they saw a huge potential in North America. Started in New York, then the California, Vegas, and then Chicago, I think was the fourth city. So as young cooks, as young chefs, you always look at three Michelin stars as like the pinnacle of some.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Chef's career, that's the highest accolade you can get.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, where do you go from there?

• 46:36Speaker 03

  Where do you go from there? When we received two stars, blown away, like, what could we do? Immediately start thinking like, with what I'm surrounded with and the tools that I have and the people that I have and everything here, I have control of it, but I don't have control of it. It's not mine, it's in hotel and there's guidelines and there's certain things that you gotta play by, the certain rules. What if I didn't have any of that? What does that look like? Now all of a sudden, it's like, I could possibly obtain that third star on my own because I have full control over everything at that point.

• 47:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  So that's where the mind went. That's where I started searching for investors and starting to build what I thought would be my restaurant.

• 47:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so now here's where I get really confused because you start Grace in 2012. 2013, the Rob Reports named you the best restaurant in the world. You earned three Michelin stars four years in a row.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Oh my god, what?

• 47:34Dax Shepard?

  And then closed in 2017. I'm like, I'm reading this and I'm like, whoa, wait, why did you close?

• 47:41Speaker 01

  You can only go down from there.

• 47:44Dax Shepard?

  Imagine anything in the world. What we've now discovered is it's perfect. Let's shut it down. Like, what is that?

• 47:50Speaker 03

  That is called a shitty business deal.

• 47:52Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 47:54Speaker 03

  That's where it came from.

• 47:55Dax Shepard?

  You were in an arrangement that didn't work for you.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, when you're young and hungry and you want your own thing, you just go. And we did, and we signed an agreement that wasn't looked over through a professional lawyer to say, don't sign that, are you fucking crazy? We signed it because we were hungry and we knew this guy was gonna give us money to build this restaurant.

• 48:14Dax Shepard?

  And this guy was so bullheaded that in 2016, if you had gone to him and said, look, you're gonna have either nothing or you're gonna give me my fair share. He said, great, I'll take nothing.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  If you would have been part of that story or behind the scenes, that's exactly what I said.

• 48:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  What happened was, so we had gone into a place where we knew we were gonna leave, but we were trying to buy the restaurant from him. All of a sudden, we find out, we're not really owners, we're just employees of this guy's restaurant. He is not a restaurateur, he's never been. He's a guy who does real estate on the super, super low end, bottom feeder.

• 48:45Dax Shepard?

  Slumlord-y type stuff?

• 48:46Speaker 03

  Slumlord to the max, right? So we start to see all these red flags as we're building it. We should have paid attention to the red flags. We just said, ah, that'll never be us, and we just moved forward.

• 48:56Dax Shepard?

  But if I can defend you for one second. You have a crazy skill. You're a crazy artist.

• 49:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 49:03Dax Shepard?

  You cannot be expected to also be the savviest.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  A businessman.

• 49:06Dax Shepard?

  To expect that out of one person is kind of ludicrous.

• 49:09Speaker 03

  I know. But the idea is you're supposed to surround yourself with great people, right?

• 49:14Speaker 01

  It takes some time to sign them.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  It takes time to build around it. So we build the restaurant and we get to a place where it's paid back. And then some, and then some, and then some. We're a place where we're supposed to be making now money from this restaurant. We had a ton of sweat equity into it.

• 49:30Dax Shepard?

  Fucking three stars, four years in a row.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, yeah.

• 49:33Speaker 03

  We earned everything we set out to do. The restaurant was busier than could ever possibly think of. I mean, we had, you know, wait lists for months and months at a time. It was everything that we wanted it to be. So we get to a place where it's like, look, this is not working out. If I leave, the restaurant closes. This guy was like, no. Okay, then walk. So I walked. But when I walked, I didn't announce it to the public because we were also still negotiating, trying to buy this restaurant from him, which he was never going to sell to us. He was just putting a carrot and a carrot and a carrot to buy more time, make more money. So he was never going to sell it. And the buyback number was so atrocious, you would just fall off your seat. No, we're not buying it for $10 million.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  It took us a million and a half to build it.

• 50:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 50:20Speaker 03

  What are you talking about? I left and I left for like four months, but I was still managing everything from the outside. I wasn't physically there, but I was having Zoom with my chef de cuisine, who was creating dishes for me at home and going, no, put this here, change that, make sure the puree is this, and then taste it, how does it taste? And we were just doing things like that. It was so bizarre. And this was all behind this guy's back because I wanted the restaurant to succeed.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Because I had your name on it.

• 50:47Dax Shepard?

  It's your child.

• 50:48Speaker 03

  It had everything.

• 50:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  And restaurants of that caliber just don't close for no reason. That was the pinnacle and it was running like a damn Olympian. It was an amazing thing. It was just carrot after carrot after carrot. And I'm like, all right, we're done. So my business partner and I, we were in California here riding motorcycles with Keanu Reeves and a few other buddies, just.

• 51:08Dax Shepard?

  The Archer folks.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  Through Joshua Tree and, yeah, with Archer motorcycles, exactly. It was an amazing time and we both looked at each other and said, this is the day. We already drafted the story with New York Times. So Monday morning.

• 51:21Speaker 03

  New York Times drop, Grace announces chef leaving, the restaurant never reopens.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  But this was a conversation I had with this guy. I said, you don't understand. The moment I announce it to the public, it's done. They're not coming here because you.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  They're coming here because of my name and what I do and I'm like the fucking goose laying the golden egg.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:39Speaker 03

  And you're just willing to throw it all away.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  So short sighted.

• 51:42Speaker 03

  He was just ready to burn it down. So he did.

• 51:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he thought he was being a shrewd businessman and he has 100% of nothing.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Pride, exactly.

• 51:48Speaker 03

  Ego.

• 51:49Dax Shepard?

  I'm delighted there was a good explanation because.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  That makes sense.

• 51:53Dax Shepard?

  I would have really been scratching my head.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Also, I'm sad though because I want to go there.

• 51:57Dax Shepard?

  Go to Ever.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  I will.

• 51:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, we have a better restaurant now.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 52:01Speaker 03

  Called Ever.

• 52:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Had any other restaurant gotten three stars four years in a row?

• 52:07Speaker 03

  There's restaurants that have been three stars for 30, 40 years. A lot of great French restaurants.

• 52:12Dax Shepard?

  But here in the US?

• 52:13Speaker 03

  In the US, no, but the ones that had three stars were consecutive. Alenia's three stars since day one, they're 20 years now.

• 52:20Dax Shepard?

  French Laundry?

• 52:21Speaker 03

  Maybe they're 15 years deep, however long Michelin has been in the US. French Laundry, they've all held those accolades since they achieved them.

• 52:29Dax Shepard?

  Boy, I bet it's a blessing and a curse.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  So much stress to maintain, to know you have to keep getting it. That's a lot.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  I think you get to a point where it's like, what did we do to obtain the three stars? What are we doing every day? The mentality has to switch to just be better every day on every little thing. Small details is what pushes the whole operation forward. And that's always been kind of my mentality anyways. It's like, we don't have to be great at everything, but we have to be great at something every single day, even a little bit. And that little bit will push us in that direction. And if we got the three stars doing what we were doing, we don't need to change much. Just continue doing great things.

• 53:05Dax Shepard?

  In ways, it's harder to maintain something that's great than it is to make something that's great.

• 53:11Speaker 03

  The fire burns out. There's more distraction at the top, right? There's a lot greater opportunities coming your way. There's more restaurant deals. Maybe there's TV, maybe there's books, maybe there's other things that pull you out of the kitchen. And that's something I'm experiencing within, you know, the last five years is I don't get to spend as much time in the kitchen as I really, really want to. That's my heart and soul. Always being in the kitchen, but I have all these other things that also need me to help grow the business and to expand. And create other opportunities for my younger cooks that work for me. That's my responsibility now.

• 53:42Dax Shepard?

  This is a topic I can never get tired of, and I think it's very rare that people in life accomplish the exact thing they were set out to. And I just think the mindset of trying to get something versus trying not to lose something. Trying not to lose something is just a very tricky and dangerous headspace mentally.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  And everyone roots for an underdog, but nobody roots for a top dog. So you go from being like, oh, this guy is so great. Have you ever heard of him to like, oh, well, let's see how good it is. It starts shifting and that's.

• 54:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's much more fun to say like, do you hear about this great new chef at X, Y, or Z versus? He's been doing this for 15 years. I hope it's still as good as it was. It's like a whole different animal.

• 54:27Speaker 03

  The expectations are constant, at least in our business at our level.

• 54:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I was like, I'm watching you cook in some of these videos for so many reasons. I'm like, oh yeah, I could never do any of this. Like, first of all, you're so meticulous.

• 54:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:41Dax Shepard?

  And I am not meticulous.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Well, you are with like mechanics.

• 54:45Dax Shepard?

  Kenny, who you know, when we work on stuff together, he's furious. My shit runs, but I didn't label all the hoses the way he did. You know, like, I want to be on the road, whereas he's like very anal meticulous. You know, some people are built that way and some aren't.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  My dad was that way on all of the tarts in the garage. He knew if we screwed with one tool in his toolbox.

• 55:06Dax Shepard?

  Well, he'd position his drumstick, make sure no one played the drums.

• 55:08Speaker 03

  Exactly, right. Yeah. Like, don't even look at it. It's like you can clean it, but he's the guy that says, go clean my motorcycle, but don't fucking touch it.

• 55:18Dax Shepard?

  Thank you. But yeah, you're just very meticulous and it's very tedious.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:22Dax Shepard?

  The kind of food you're making.

• 55:24Speaker 03

  It is.

• 55:24Dax Shepard?

  And does that bleed over into your whole life? Is your wife like, oh my God, it doesn't matter how the beds fucking may, just throw the sheet up?

• 55:32Speaker 03

  No, I mean, my kitchen at home is pretty meticulous.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  It's your church.

• 55:35Dax Shepard?

  You're not that way across the whole spectrum.

• 55:37Speaker 03

  No, I wish I was.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  It does require a level of perfectionism. At that level of, I can't even call it cooking. That level of being a chef is so detailed. Like you said, the shaving of the thing.

• 55:50Dax Shepard?

  That the main instrument I'm seeing is tweezers more than knives. It's crazy.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  It's so awesome.

• 55:55Speaker 03

  A lot of it is the team, too. I'll set a standard, obviously, with how I do things. But their job is to really exceed those standards. So the camaraderie between all of them and the fun playfulness of trying to be better against each other is what also takes it to the next level, which makes my game a little bit better every day, too.

• 56:13Dax Shepard?

  OK, so you win the James Beard in 2016. And then you start Ever in 2020. And you've won two Michelin stars, 2021, 2022, 2023. One thing I really liked about your kitchen and knowing your backstory, I'm not surprised, but your kitchen's dead quiet.

• 56:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 56:33Dax Shepard?

  That's like a big rule for you.

• 56:35Speaker 03

  For me, it is, yeah. I love silence. I love quietness.

• 56:38Dax Shepard?

  Is that novel to have it that quiet?

• 56:40Speaker 03

  Normally, like you said earlier, it's like screaming and yelling and fire and people yelling at each other and over talking each other. For me, it needs to be that way because it demands a certain amount of attention to detail. Not a certain amount, a tremendous amount. So if I can take away all the distractions, such as the noise, the white noise particularly.

• 56:58Dax Shepard?

  Do you guys blend in a, like, room off the kitchen?

• 57:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, blending stops. So like, once the front door's open, there's no more blender use. Actually, there's no prepping at all once the front door's open up. But the sound, for me, is with nonverbal communication, especially during service time. Everybody knows what they're supposed to do. They know the next step. They can look at somebody and know exactly what's gonna happen next.

• 57:18Dax Shepard?

  How are the employees flirting and stuff?

• 57:21Speaker 01

  They're nice.

• 57:21Dax Shepard?

  How are you gonna fuck? You can't talk. You can't flirt with each other.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Sometimes that's fun.

• 57:26Dax Shepard?

  OK, I see where you're going.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  You know, it's not so overt.

• 57:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you really gotta have a good nonverbal game, I guess.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe so.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  We just had a sex expert on teach us about a look.

• 57:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, the triangle look or something.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  A triangle or something.

• 57:41Dax Shepard?

  She hit Monica with it and she was powerful.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  It was intense. Yeah.

• 57:44Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 57:46Speaker 03

  I tried that on my wife.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Is there a dish that you're the most proud of? It could even be at home.

• 57:52Speaker 03

  I've been a guy who's always said, I don't want to be known for something. I don't want to be known for a particular dish. I don't want to be the guy that's serving the same dish 20 years from now.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 58:01Speaker 03

  I force myself not to repeat dishes because I think that's the easy way of cooking is just fall back on something you know is a really solid dish. And then you start to execute it every day and fine tune it, fine tune it, and fine tune it. And there's something great about that, too. There's a lot of chefs out there that do that. And there's something magical about that as well. It's just really trying to perfect that dish. But I think it takes away the creative side and you hit that comfort mode, complacency mode. That's why I fear a lot of times with a tasting style menu with our cooks, it becomes a very mundane moment where it's like, all right, well, tonight Dex, you're gonna do 60 hamachi dishes. And then tomorrow, you're gonna do 60 more. And then fast forward three months, you're still doing 60 a night. You hit a mode where it's like, you're just going through the motions.

• 58:45Dax Shepard?

  The subconscious will take over at some point.

• 58:47Speaker 03

  It's not exciting for them anymore. But you really have to think about it like, that's the first time the guest is gonna see that dish.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 58:55Speaker 03

  So it needs to be the same way tonight as it was four months ago.

• 58:59Dax Shepard?

  Well, that's the part I'd imagine if I were a regular customer of yours, I'd be pissed at you. Like if Emily changes their cheeseburger, fuck you.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're upset.

• 59:09Speaker 03

  There's something about that, too.

• 59:10Dax Shepard?

  Do you have to hear the complaints of people? Like you take away their favorite.

• 59:13Speaker 03

  We have a crab dish, Alaskan King crab dish. It's a very beautiful dish. It was kind of in the moment for a Valentine's Day dinner at Avenue's. So we're dating back 15 plus years. And then I took that dish and just started refining it into a place where it is today. But it is a crab dish. It's Alaskan King crab that has different elements of citrus, cucumber. But the way it sits is in a stemless martini glass.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 59:39Speaker 03

  Without the stem. So it's a V tapered glass.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 59:42Speaker 03

  And we build everything inside along the side so you can see through it. And we create this sugar twill on top of it. So it's a clear glass pane that sits on top. So it separates everything, almost kind of like a lid to it. And then we're able to build very gently on top of that lid. So from the side view, it looks like all these elements on top are floating.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  It's become one of these dishes that people are just like, is the crab dish on the menu?

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:09Speaker 03

  No, because we can't get good crab right now, so we take it off.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  But you might put it back on at some point.

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, every once in a while, we'll make a debut again.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:16Dax Shepard?

  You will call us before that happens?

• 1:00:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's a very fun, interactive dish and people love it. It's simple, it's clean, it's sweet, savory, salty. You add a little bit of spice from togarashi.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  Kind of hits everything on their palate.

• 1:00:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you said your kink is having customers that come in who say, I don't like peas or I don't like this.

• 1:00:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:32Dax Shepard?

  Really? And it's like, okay, well, let me see if you're gonna like these.

• 1:00:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, because you don't have a choice. You're forced to eat what we serve and sorry, you don't like peas, but ironically, you love peas.

• 1:00:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  Turns out you do like peas.

• 1:00:44Dax Shepard?

  I love that experience. I've only been to a few of these restaurants. French Laundry being the most famous of those. And their most famous dish is Diamonds and Pearls or something.

• 1:00:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, oysters and pearls.

• 1:00:54Dax Shepard?

  Oysters and pearls. I'm like, I hate all those things. I hate everything that's on there. And it came and I was immediately furious that was the only one I was gonna get to have.

• 1:01:03Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 1:01:04Dax Shepard?

  That's incredible. I hate these things and like, I would eat six of those.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  I went to San Sebastian with some friends a couple of years ago and my friend's a big food guy. So we went to all these Michelin restaurants there because they have so many. And by the end of that trip, I was like, I can't eat food again. Like, I'm done eating food for two or three months. It was so intense and rich because they're experiences.

• 1:01:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  You're not there to just eat food. You're there to take in the environment and they're putting on a show.

• 1:01:34Dax Shepard?

  How many days could you go to Disneyland in a row? Or how many days could you see Taylor Swift in a row?

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  Yes, or every amusement park, but it was such a cool experience.

• 1:01:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, San Sebastian's got the highest population of Michelin star restaurants. We've been there many times and phenomenal restaurants there.

• 1:01:48Dax Shepard?

  Do you find that you generally get on with other chefs?

• 1:01:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, our level, absolutely. You know, I just had a great meal last night at Vespertine here in Culver City. Jordan used to be a chef with us at Alenia. So it's so nice to see these young guys that work beside or underneath you go on to do amazing things. His restaurant, Vespertine, he also has Destroyer, which is right across the street. Great experience.

• 1:02:11Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  Truly forward-thinking food and looks at food and art a different way.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  How do you think your sous chefs and the people under you, how would they? Describe you.

• 1:02:22Speaker 03

  Intense, very demanding, bear, psychotic.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  A little bit.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  That's fair.

• 1:02:29Speaker 03

  I think it's fair. I think you have to be a little crazy to want something great. And it only comes from a place that I want greatness for them too. I want them to leave any of my establishments that they're working for me and know that they got the best knowledge from me or from anybody else that was working there. I want them to go on and do great things. That's all I want. That's where I'm at in my career is, you know, it's not so much about me anymore. It's about creating either restaurants with the guys that work for me or creating opportunities for them because I think that's more satisfying for me right now.

• 1:03:00Dax Shepard?

  I cannot help but see the parallel between fine dining and art to some degree.

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:03:05Dax Shepard?

  A good deal of art's driven by the story of the artist. It's definitely part of the appeal. Are you sometimes seeing a very popular chef and then you eat at the restaurant? And you're like, yeah, this is bullshit. He's just an interesting dude. Or she's an interesting.

• 1:03:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:20Dax Shepard?

  Does that exist in this new world of tons of famous chefs?

• 1:03:24Speaker 03

  Absolutely. There's plenty of chefs out there that are more interesting than the food that they're serving or the restaurants that they operate.

• 1:03:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. How does The Bear, the show, tie into all this?

• 1:03:35Speaker 03

  A lot of people will say that The Bear was storied after my life.

• 1:03:39Dax Shepard?

  Inspired by.

• 1:03:40Speaker 03

  It is not. I'm there to say it for the 12,000th time. At least they never said that to me, so I can't own it. I think there's a lot of similarities. The irony that the guy's name is Bear and he's a chef. Maybe that's how a lot of people make that connection with my father and me. And so the storyline, the Chicago, yeah. There's a lot of pieces, if you really wanted to go down that road of connecting the dots. Sure, there's some dots that you can connect.

• 1:04:05Dax Shepard?

  Were you consulted when they were formulating the show?

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  I consulted with them a lot. I did a lot of their food for some of the seasons. The Forks season, shot in the restaurant. They spent a couple of weeks with us in the restaurant, both restaurants. It's been an incredible experience. I mean, everybody working there has been top notch. From the actors all the way to cameramen and people setting up. They're all incredible people. In the very beginning, I spent a lot of time just teaching people how to cannel.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Oh, I've tried to do it. I can't do it.

• 1:04:34Speaker 03

  There's a certain touch to certain things that if it's not done right, it comes off like bullshit.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:04:40Dax Shepard?

  Him excluded, what's the best cooking by an actor you've seen?

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  There's also not that many.

• 1:04:46Dax Shepard?

  There's a good amount. Cooper in that movie.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, that's actually a good one.

• 1:04:50Dax Shepard?

  I love that movie. Fabro and Chef.

• 1:04:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, Bradley Cooper.

• 1:04:53Dax Shepard?

  But he cooks. He's like really into cooking. Well, let's hear from the pro.

• 1:04:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think Bradley Cooper was a great one. Was it Burn, right?

• 1:05:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Burn. Yeah, I love that movie. Well, and Kitchen Confidential. Did you read that book?

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  I did.

• 1:05:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I did too. I loved it, but I'm an addict, so I like any addict memoir.

• 1:05:12Speaker 03

  But he was the first guy who didn't sugarcoat anything, and I love that. He was very blunt. And that time for me was like, yeah, that is exactly what is happening in our world right now. That's what I've been surrounded by, the drugs and the alcohol and the promiscuous shit that goes on behind the scenes when all the lights are off.

• 1:05:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, very appealing for her. Your favorite. My god. Yeah, yeah. I guess my last question is, what motivated you to write the book? I love it. By the way, it's very Kitchen Confidential. Like, it reads as like you're gonna read a book about the Hells Angels. Like, it's not a lofty French cooking. It's my kind of book immediately. What prompted you to write it?

• 1:05:48Speaker 03

  2016, we released a documentary called For Grace. It was a documentary about building the restaurant, building grace for grace. And that's kind of where I let my guard down for the first time in my world with my parents. Not a lot of people, even close people around me, didn't really know the story of my parents. I was super embarrassed by it. I was embarrassed that my father did that to the family. And I think at that time, I was also looking at it like he was a coward. I didn't really process a lot of it at that point. They caught me in a very vulnerable time filming that documentary. They spent hours and hours with me every single day for months on end. And it was at the end of a workday. We got back to the house and the cameras were still going.

• 1:06:30Speaker 03

  And we just started talking about my parents somehow got on the subject. I told them the whole story of what happened, and they got all that on camera.

• 1:06:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:39Speaker 03

  And then they left. And then I realized the next day, they had drove to Ohio to get actual footage from the TV studio. Because they're like, we have a story now.

• 1:06:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:49Speaker 03

  So that was released in 2016 on Netflix. Spent a few years on there.

• 1:06:53Dax Shepard?

  Did you feel a... Lightning of your spirit, having that finally out and realizing people didn't look at you as a piece of shit, but rather a strong survivor. Did any of that happen?

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  You know, it reached people that I never thought it would reach before. We saw an influx in the restaurant of just teachers coming through because of Ruth Snyder and how much she was a huge part of my life and how she helped me navigate through a lot of things. And teacher side of it was just huge. And any teacher would come through the restaurant, we'd give a free meal to and just take care of them because it was so special. It was pretty amazing to watch that moment. But that documentary, it just skimmed the surface of who I was and where I really come from. I decided one day that I just wanted to let it all out. I needed to just get it the hell off my chest, everything that I could remember and get it on paper. And, you know, I asked my good friend Jeremy if he would be interested in writing the book for me because he had already written

• 1:07:52Speaker 03

  a few other books that were published. And I know he's an incredible writer. And he said, absolutely. And I said, okay, I got one thing for you. And he's like, I got one thing for you. And I said, okay, what? And he says, it has to be brutally honest. I'm like, dude, that's exactly what I said. That's exactly what I want. I said, it has to be brutally honest. It can't be sugarcoated. I don't want a fluff piece. I need it to be real. I need a platform that I can emotionally let out my stories so I can be done with it. So it was very, very, very therapeutic for me to get these demons off my chest and onto the paper.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  Did you feel reluctant to have children, knowing sometimes these things are past, you said like your dad had a bad dad? And I feel like that would scare me.

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  You're right. It does. It did. I was worried about having that continuization of that type of behavior. I was scared to have kids in the beginning, but I couldn't even imagine doing what was done to me, to anyone around me, any person, especially my two daughters or my two stepchildren. I couldn't even imagine like laying a finger. I mean, I get emotional yelling at them when I have to yell at them. And that's maybe once a year.

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  I'm like the biggest sissy.

• 1:09:02Speaker 01

  Well, that's kind of nice then, then you.

• 1:09:04Speaker 03

  Broke that cycle.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's very important that I was able to do that.

• 1:09:08Dax Shepard?

  Well, the book is aptly named Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef. I think it's great, man. You guys knocked it out of the park. It's so interesting.

• 1:09:17Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:09:17Dax Shepard?

  It's a page turner. Curtis, this has been a delight.

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  Thanks for coming. I'm dying to.

• 1:09:22Dax Shepard?

  We're gonna exploit this relationship.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, we are.

• 1:09:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'd love to have you guys come to the restaurant when you get there next.

• 1:09:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:29Speaker 03

  Love to have you.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  Wonderful.

• 1:09:31Dax Shepard?

  Hey, after watching those videos, I'm like, oh, I gotta trial. There's just fucking smoke pouring out of things, steam.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:09:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, it'll be fun.

• 1:09:38Dax Shepard?

  It's incredible. Well, congrats on a great book.

• 1:09:41Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:09:42Dax Shepard?

  And the many awards, and I'm glad that you found your way through it all in such an amazing way.

• 1:09:46Speaker 03

  It's been great.

• 1:09:47Dax Shepard?

  All right, take care.

• 1:09:50Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 1:10:00Dax Shepard?

  Hi there, this is Hermium Permium. If you like that, you're gonna love the fact check with Miss Monica.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  You have, um, let me turn.

• 1:10:10Dax Shepard?

  Powder?

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, powder. Rub it in a little bit right here. Just rub it in.

• 1:10:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, when I hit my face with a brush, it exploded. I had put too much on.

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  Sure, that'll.

• 1:10:18Dax Shepard?

  You keep it.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  That'll happen.

• 1:10:23Dax Shepard?

  We've heard these stories of David Crusoe. I've heard these incredible stories for people, but people have worked on set with him. Do you know what I'm talking about?

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  Not really.

• 1:10:32Dax Shepard?

  He was on one of these CSIs or one of these procedurals, you know, and he famously wore sunglasses.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  Yes, I mean, I know of him. I know the lore.

• 1:10:40Dax Shepard?

  You know the lore and like, we all know the fun stuff, but um, I definitely worry with some reputable people that have either been actors who come from the show or, or, or also crew members. And the one I found to be, I Just hope it's true, which is so incredible is that. Well, I heard he would rewrite his side of the scene, but not the other side.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 1:11:03Dax Shepard?

  So like the actor, the day player rarely, the stuff didn't even make sense anymore.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  That's tough.

• 1:11:09Dax Shepard?

  And then he would self-edit and I guess he had the glasses on and he would like, let's say his line was like, no, the, no, the results just came back in and they're the negative. He would not like one part of it and then he'd go, results in negative and he'd go boom and he'd look down one of the cameras and go, boom.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:11:32Dax Shepard?

  It's telling them that's the take.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:11:34Dax Shepard?

  So he was kind of self-directing and editing and he would just hit chunks.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:11:38Dax Shepard?

  This is what I heard.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  Look, he knew his biz. He knew his show.

• 1:11:43Dax Shepard?

  I'm so sad I didn't ever get to just be on set and watch it all.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that sounds fun.

• 1:11:49Dax Shepard?

  You can't argue with the results. It was a huge hit and everyone loved it.

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  It's too bad he missed Meta AI glasses because he could have been like, he could have done a lot.

• 1:11:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he could just touch one side and that would mean something and then the other side would mean something.

• 1:12:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he could probably edit real time. You'd just be cutting right now.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would. I'd just be holding it and like, just like you didn't even notice, right? I just did it again.

• 1:12:12Dax Shepard?

  No, I would know. You must admit, I know exactly when you're editing in your head. It's like, I'm gonna catch you every time.

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  You catch me every other time.

• 1:12:19Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Well, because I'm also paying attention to the guest pretty hard. But if I were to only watch you, I would know exactly when you were editing.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  In this case, if it's just us two, let's practice, we'll practice. Okay? So throughout this.

• 1:12:31Dax Shepard?

  I watched this great doc about the turning point of the, it's happening.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  No, it's not. No, it's not. I knew you were trying to trick me and so I didn't do it. I didn't edit it.

• 1:12:42Dax Shepard?

  You use your ear as the clicker to edit.

• 1:12:47Dax Shepard?

  You had a story you were gonna tell me that you didn't tell me on the last.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  Yes. This is a. Gross fact check, okay? Because we have two gross things to talk about. You sent me a article that Topo Chico, a brand we love.

• 1:13:04Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I sent that to you?

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, you did.

• 1:13:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great, because today I was like, I gotta bring that up to you.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, trusted brand.

• 1:13:09Dax Shepard?

  We love Topo Chico. Yeah, still do. I don't care what they say.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  Same. I do too. But there, I guess, was a recall. And we've been drinking it, and I had a tummy bug.

• 1:13:20Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you went to there?

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course I did. Like, oh, I probably, and guess who else I'm worried had some?

• 1:13:29Dax Shepard?

  Who?

• 1:13:32Dax Shepard?

  I should ask him if he's had an ass.

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  We maybe gave him a tummy bug. It's kind of cute. It's kind of cool.

• 1:13:38Dax Shepard?

  By the way, that would be a plant for you and your sickness, where you got, you made him sick.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:13:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. This is where we find out your moon child's in it. You're poisoning us.

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  I haven't done, I haven't crossed the line.

• 1:13:50Dax Shepard?

  But that was a, you would call that a happy accident?

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Dax Shepard?

  If he had harness?

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  Like, he can't really make it home, so I have to help him home.

• 1:14:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:14:02Dax Shepard?

  How would you help him home?

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  Well, I get him in my car.

• 1:14:05Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  With the baggie, with the bag.

• 1:14:08Dax Shepard?

  His harness is so bad he can't drive?

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Ideally, it's coming out both ends.

• 1:14:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  Anyway, I still have, I have harness, so.

• 1:14:18Dax Shepard?

  You still have it?

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was gone for a day, but it's back.

• 1:14:21Dax Shepard?

  It's interesting. I saw that recall. I sent it to you, and I have since drank Topo Chico. Rob, did we get ours from Costco? Because I want to say Costco was in that article.

• 1:14:30Speaker 04

  No, Lazy Acres. I've been drinking like two or three a day the last two months.

• 1:14:36Dax Shepard?

  And no harness?

• 1:14:37Speaker 04

  No, I've been fine.

• 1:14:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay, we should just be checking in with Rob, I guess.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  No, because it could be, like, some are rancid. I doubt every single one is.

• 1:14:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're drinking from the same package.

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it could be each bottle.

• 1:14:51Dax Shepard?

  I'm still gonna drink it. Isn't that wild?

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:14:53Speaker 04

  I am too.

• 1:14:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  I guess you guys want me to take you home. That's what it seems like.

• 1:15:00Dax Shepard?

  Drive us home. I can't imagine turning over the wheel like.

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:15:05Dax Shepard?

  That's more crazy to me than, although we've driven in the car where you drive and I like it.

• 1:15:10Speaker 01

  You've let me drive.

• 1:15:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, I like it. But I like it because I decide I like it. You know what I'm saying? It's unnatural for me. And I decide to enjoy the notion that we might get in an accident.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:15:21Dax Shepard?

  Well, that's what I do. I just go, well, that'll be fun. We'll survive in these accidents around.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  Do you think I'm a bad driver?

• 1:15:28Dax Shepard?

  No, not at all.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:15:29Dax Shepard?

  I'm just such a control freak. I hate not having control of the car.

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:32Dax Shepard?

  I mean, look, let's just say this. I think my story is I avoid several accidents a month that I tell myself, your average person wouldn't have found their way out of that.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:45Dax Shepard?

  So I mean, they don't even have to be a bad driver. I just go like, will they be able to get out of this weird situation where there's an oncoming car? But you have to quickly go, it's okay to drive on the grass at this point because that's less bad than a head on.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  It's so funny because you, the reason you are avoiding accidents is because of the way you drive.

• 1:16:02Dax Shepard?

  That's part of it.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  You drive wildly, so then there's almost accidents and then you get out of it. I knock on wood.

• 1:16:08Dax Shepard?

  Because be careful what you're saying because I got a really cryptic email. I shouldn't even say this, but it is. It's been, it's been in my head since he sent it.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  What happened?

• 1:16:21Dax Shepard?

  Someone on our business manager team sent a random email to me and saying like, hey, we're renewing all your insurance on your cars. They will go through your social media.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:16:35Dax Shepard?

  And I'm like, oh, he's telling me, I have like one video of Aaron and I, not even going that fast. We're on Los Feliz Boulevard. We go first through third gear in the, in the Z-Wagon.

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  Are they gonna go through the podcast? Can they do that?

• 1:16:48Dax Shepard?

  I don't know, but I was like, oh my God, wait, I've only, like, I've had one accident in 30 years of living in LA. I feel like I'm a pretty good bet.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:57Dax Shepard?

  I got zero tickets for the last, I have no speeding ticket. Like, my record is nice. And he sent me this and I was like, well, like, he's telling me the truth.

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's good.

• 1:17:07Dax Shepard?

  All blessings to him, but it really made me mad.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  At him or just the world?

• 1:17:11Dax Shepard?

  I was in trouble.

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  He's telling you so you can clean up some stuff on there.

• 1:17:16Dax Shepard?

  I know, but I don't know why. It's funny. I keep thinking about reading the email and it makes me angry. And then I'm like, why? What is, why am I angry about this?

• 1:17:26Speaker 01

  I know why, because you know you're-

• 1:17:28Dax Shepard?

  It feels like a teacher called me.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:17:30Dax Shepard?

  Like, don't have-

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  No, you got caught. You feel like you got caught and you don't like it and no one likes getting caught.

• 1:17:38Dax Shepard?

  I want to have all things be true. You think I'm, oh, well, I am a very safe driver. Yeah. Very good record. And I want you to ignore my fun I'm having on Top Gear and on my Instagram.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  But it's not his fault.

• 1:17:50Dax Shepard?

  No, I know. He, no, he's a blessing.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:53Dax Shepard?

  But I'm mad at him.

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  Oh, no!

• 1:17:55Dax Shepard?

  I felt like he was shaming me about my Instagram.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, this is wild.

• 1:18:00Dax Shepard?

  None of it makes sense, but I'm just being honest with you that I keep thinking about. And then I go, why are you thinking about this over and over again? Like, what's actually been triggered? And I still haven't figured that out. But something deep has been activated.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  Well, I do think, I think you feel you got caught, you feel judged.

• 1:18:18Dax Shepard?

  And my shame of having had the accident. I think I'm still dealing with the shame of having that accident.

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  That was a long time ago.

• 1:18:24Dax Shepard?

  I know. It was like four years ago, but he brought it up in the email.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  Oh, we did?

• 1:18:28Dax Shepard?

  And I was kind of like, that was three years ago.

• 1:18:31Speaker 01

  Okay. Maybe he's trying to help you get over, he's trying to help you get over your identity marker of being a good driver.

• 1:18:39Dax Shepard?

  He's trying to help me have good rates, which is what he's there to do. And I'm very appreciative of it and I'm mad at him and I don't know why, because I know he doesn't deserve it. I love him. And we even have cars in common. Like, when I get a new car, he's the only one there that's excited. He's like, oh, that's a cool year.

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 1:18:55Dax Shepard?

  And then he sent me this email and shamed me.

• 1:18:57Speaker 01

  He's gonna come off your team now.

• 1:18:59Dax Shepard?

  No, no, no, no, no. He's looking out for me, but it's funny how much it's bothered me. You know, like, when you read a comment and it sticks around way too long in your head?

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is wild.

• 1:19:10Dax Shepard?

  It is.

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  Although, that's funny, because I also have a comment that is in my head that I can't get out.

• 1:19:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  That also doesn't make much sense of why it's like bothering me so much.

• 1:19:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Or- I just think people are like really, there's certain areas where we're so fragile.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  We're sensitive. We are, we're really sensitive. And I do think the common thread, maybe in both, is judgment. Like, I feel judged by this comment.

• 1:19:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  And I think you feel judged by yours.

• 1:19:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, then I'm like reckless and irresponsible.

• 1:19:45Speaker 01

  Even though Jacob is only trying to protect you.

• 1:19:48Dax Shepard?

  I couldn't be clearer about that. We're dead clear on his intentions and the goodwill he wishes for me. And he's doing the right thing.

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:58Dax Shepard?

  And still, I didn't, I felt like I got slapped on the wrist.

• 1:20:01Speaker 01

  In fact, sometimes it's, we all do make mistakes. But you don't think it's a mistake.

• 1:20:07Dax Shepard?

  No, me getting in an accident was a mistake.

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  Okay, no, an accident, that's not, he's telling you, don't talk about doing illegal stuff. That's what he's saying. And literally, we just did it on the fact check, like tomorrow's fact check. You and Aaron talked about doing some illegal stuff.

• 1:20:25Dax Shepard?

  Well, we wanted to.

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  No, but then you raced that guy.

• 1:20:29Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that was all in the speed limit. I was thinking about Jacob when that was happening. And I was really mad that that was in my mind.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  Well, it needs to be.

• 1:20:40Dax Shepard?

  I've been having fun in cars since I was 16. That's the name of the game.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  Well, why don't you do this then? Just come to terms with the fact that your insurance is gonna be astronomical.

• 1:20:48Dax Shepard?

  You're right, that's the solution. And I've been working towards that, but it's hard.

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  Wow. All right, I wanna talk about pinworms.

• 1:20:57Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great. It's your favorite topic. Would you wanna nurse a boy back to health who is suffering from pinworms?

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  Okay, I think I'll draw the line there.

• 1:21:05Dax Shepard?

  That's where it ends.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  People don't know about pinworms. They're tiny bugs in your butthole.

• 1:21:11Dax Shepard?

  They'd be better, they'd be more accurately called shitworms. We were just discussing them in the house a couple of days ago.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  They're in your butt.

• 1:21:17Dax Shepard?

  They're in your poop.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  They come out your butt into your poo.

• 1:21:20Dax Shepard?

  Itchy.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, they make it, they make your butt itch a lot and then.

• 1:21:25Dax Shepard?

  And when you doody, there are.

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:21:27Dax Shepard?

  Insects in the.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  I find it so horrific. And when the kids were little, your kids, they got it a couple of times. So we all had to take.

• 1:21:37Dax Shepard?

  The preschool.

• 1:21:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:39Dax Shepard?

  I think it's a preschool thing. It's like every few months, there's a pinworm outbreak.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:21:44Dax Shepard?

  All these kids are eating their butts and their fingers and.

• 1:21:47Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, it's so horrible. But you just drink this like chalky powder, basically, and it's kind of done. Um, so we'd done that a few times in the past and I thought those days were over.

• 1:22:01Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  You haven't heard this?

• 1:22:03Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  They're back in, in our rotation. Someone in our circle has pinworm. She said I could say who, she said I could talk about it.

• 1:22:13Dax Shepard?

  Oh, who?

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  But I feel unethical.

• 1:22:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Anna.

• 1:22:18Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay. Where has she been?

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:22:22Dax Shepard?

  Preschool? For me, it would be like the Tapachico. I know she's infected. I'll still hang with her.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what it is. But also every 10 minutes or so, I think about them.

• 1:22:32Dax Shepard?

  Hmm. They don't bother me like they bother you.

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  I know. I wonder.

• 1:22:36Dax Shepard?

  I don't think I've ever had them, even though my family's had them and I've drank that liquid.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:40Dax Shepard?

  I don't have any memory of a scratchy, well, well, Erin and I were laughing about it because when we were talking about pinworms, we were like, if the symptom's scratchy anus, how on earth would either of us think there's something new going on?

• 1:22:52Speaker 01

  What if you?

• 1:22:53Dax Shepard?

  And also if that's the, the outcome, like, yeah, that's standard. You're, you have a scratchy anus.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  Never. What if you guys?

• 1:23:00Dax Shepard?

  This is never itchy?

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  I, I mean, no.

• 1:23:03Dax Shepard?

  What a gift.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  What does it mean? Mine is like moist.

• 1:23:07Dax Shepard?

  No, I think clean, I would imagine.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  Oh, you're itching because it's dirty?

• 1:23:11Dax Shepard?

  No, because I'm cleaning like crazy. In fact, Eric and I just had a sidebar about, we don't think people are being honest to have bidet toilets.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't have one.

• 1:23:21Dax Shepard?

  Right. And we're not saying people are not honest about owning one or not owning one, but when they own one and they can spray the water on their butthole, do they not use their finger to clean their butthole?

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:23:29Dax Shepard?

  Which is a polarizing topic.

• 1:23:31Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:23:31Dax Shepard?

  And Eric and I are like, you clean, you use your finger to clean your butthole in the shower?

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 1:23:36Dax Shepard?

  How are you cleaning your butthole? Well, I'm so nervous about your butthole. If you're not cleaning in a bidet, or you're not cleaning in the shower?

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  Of course I'm cleaning it, but I'm not sticking my finger up my butt.

• 1:23:45Dax Shepard?

  No, no one's asking you to put your finger in your butt.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  What are you asking?

• 1:23:49Dax Shepard?

  Your anus.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Oh, the outside. Yes, of course.

• 1:23:52Dax Shepard?

  With your fingers.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  With soap and fingers, but often I-

• 1:23:56Dax Shepard?

  When people go like, no, I use soap, as if that's a great thing. Oh, great. So now your soap has your asshole on it, and then you're rubbing your soap on your face?

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  Soap is self-cleaning, and you don't use your butt soap for your face.

• 1:24:05Dax Shepard?

  It's not more sanitary. When people think they're saying that is like a virtue, that they use their bar of soap, I'm like, great, then you have shit on your bar of soap.

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  No, you don't. Ew, why does it give so much shit everywhere? The water cleans the shit off for the most-

• 1:24:18Dax Shepard?

  If you wipe with your fingers, you need friction.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  Why is your butthole like so high up or something? Like, I feel like the water's mostly cleaning it, and then you use the bar-

• 1:24:30Dax Shepard?

  The water that trickles-

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Listen!

• 1:24:31Dax Shepard?

  Rolls past your anus is cleaning it?

• 1:24:33Speaker 01

  You like-

• 1:24:34Dax Shepard?

  You already said it. You use a bar of soap and your fingers.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  Right, but mainly the bar of soap is the, the main, um-

• 1:24:42Dax Shepard?

  Instrument?

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  Instrument, and then, then once it's clean, then I put it on my fing- I use soap on my hands and just do like a little extra.

• 1:24:50Dax Shepard?

  On your, yeah, your hands on your butthole, in the shower. Yes, everyone, and everyone should.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  But I thought you meant up your butt, and the bidet is up your butt, right?

• 1:25:00Dax Shepard?

  No, it's clean the outside of your anus.

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:25:03Dax Shepard?

  Unless you're somehow dilating your butthole and letting it all spray up there, which it would be the dream. That would be the dream.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:12Dax Shepard?

  And I have some success in that realm, but at any rate. It's really funny. People are like, oh, gross. You use your finger with the bidet and say, I don't get it. You use your finger in the shower and then you wash your hand after. What are we talking about? This is pageantry.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  I have a question about the bidet. So are you wiping first with your tissue? You're not, so.

• 1:25:33Dax Shepard?

  Of course not.

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:25:34Dax Shepard?

  Because why would you want to take dry paper and smear in dry poop and just rub it into your skin? And then add water. No, you spray the water. The debris is freed. Then you go with the finger and really clean, then more rinsing, then toilet paper for drying. And there's not, there's nothing, I'm telling you this. There's nothing on the toilet paper. When I wipe my fanny.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, same.

• 1:25:59Dax Shepard?

  There, no.

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:00Dax Shepard?

  If you're not using water, are you saying there's not poop on your toilet paper?

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  No, no, sorry. By the time I'm done.

• 1:26:07Dax Shepard?

  With what?

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  Wiping. By the time I'm done wiping, there's no poop. Oh, my god.

• 1:26:12Dax Shepard?

  Of course, of course. But with the bidet, if you do the rinse first and a cleanse with your finger, when you wipe, it's spotless.

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  Okay, that's fine.

• 1:26:21Dax Shepard?

  And then you're just looking at like virgin clean toilet paper.

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  Okay, but you're, you are making a da, a harness. Like, so you have like poop particles on your butt after you've pooped.

• 1:26:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  And then you're putting water on that poop immediately.

• 1:26:38Dax Shepard?

  Spraying it and then it falls down into the toilet.

• 1:26:40Speaker 01

  Drips.

• 1:26:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  And then it's still gonna be on there a little bit.

• 1:26:46Dax Shepard?

  No, it's not. You get in there, you clean with your finger.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  So you're getting poop on your hands for sure, right?

• 1:26:51Dax Shepard?

  No, cuz I've sprayed the debris. Now I'm cleansing with my finger, my anus, and then I'm grabbing tissue and drying all off. And then I wash my hands and I'm spotless. And I've not wiped my butt 300 times till it's bleeding, as I do when I'm not on a bidet.

• 1:27:08Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 1:27:10Dax Shepard?

  Anyways.

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  Okay, my butt doesn't itch.

• 1:27:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:27:14Speaker 01

  And yours does.

• 1:27:15Dax Shepard?

  Occasionally, and Erin's more.

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  What if you guys are the ones that have had pinworms this whole time and just?

• 1:27:22Dax Shepard?

  You would like that, wouldn't you?

• 1:27:23Speaker 01

  No, I don't. I don't. I draw the line at pinworms. I don't like bugs.

• 1:27:29Dax Shepard?

  No, I'm saying you would like if we were guilty of spreading that.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Well, it just makes the most. Sense, really.

• 1:27:35Dax Shepard?

  I couldn't even have pinworms. They drown because I'm flushing that area with water.

• 1:27:39Speaker 01

  That's not how they work. Apparently they're, they don't like light and that's it. And that chalky substance.

• 1:27:48Dax Shepard?

  Well, I wonder if you could put a LED light.

• 1:27:52Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:27:53Dax Shepard?

  Ball in your butt.

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  But they go up. So Kristen knows a lot about pinworms.

• 1:27:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, she's spoken in the press a lot about, I applaud her willingness because she'll talk about her own pinworms a lot freely.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was educating Anna about the pinworms and she said the way to find them is you, you have your kid bend over, spread their butt out and then in the dark. And then all of a sudden you turn on the light super quickly and then you have to like get it, get it.

• 1:28:24Dax Shepard?

  Get it.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, use some sort of thing to get up. She keeps calling it the mother.

• 1:28:33Dax Shepard?

  That sounds like the scoby or whatever.

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  I know. It sounds like from apple cider vinegar because it does have a mother.

• 1:28:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, or kombucha.

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:42Dax Shepard?

  I don't know about the retrieval and everything. We've, I don't know if she's embellishing, but we generally give them the drink and then it's over.

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  No, she uses like some sort of thing to get the mother out, according to her.

• 1:28:52Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 1:28:53Speaker 01

  I told you this.

• 1:28:56Dax Shepard?

  That's the mother.

• 1:29:00Dax Shepard?

  That's just Dune.

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  That's from Dune.

• 1:29:03Dax Shepard?

  That is a pinworm though.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  That is disgusting. Anyway, I just really, there's so many gross things in the world. Topo Chico.

• 1:29:15Dax Shepard?

  No, don't say it's, please don't say it's gross.

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  Pinworm.

• 1:29:18Dax Shepard?

  No, no, no, don't exclude Topo Chico.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  All right, well, that's, those were my main things. Do you want to make it cute again and talk about Aaron and Delta and you riding your motorcycles?

• 1:29:31Dax Shepard?

  I mean, yeah, just we had a, what a time we had. We, we went out on the electric motorcycles and we really, really explored. We got into Griffith Park. We got onto some closed roads. Just watching my little one negotiate mountain turns with cliffs on the side with total confidence.

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:52Dax Shepard?

  It was, it's just so fun. We had so much fun.

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 1:29:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. We'd make the best husbands, like if we had a little girl.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:30:03Dax Shepard?

  It's a great little team.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  That's cute.

• 1:30:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Now, would you rather have pinworms forever?

• 1:30:13Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  And as you said, you don't actually think you've had them.

• 1:30:17Dax Shepard?

  Or great insurance rates?

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  Neither do I, but apparently it's really like.

• 1:30:22Dax Shepard?

  Itchy?

• 1:30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and really bad.

• 1:30:25Dax Shepard?

  Are you scoping his anus in her butt every five seconds, scratch, scratch, scratch?

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  She said it, she thought she had cancer.

• 1:30:31Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God. Wow. Extreme.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  That's why this happened. She, she was looking really upset.

• 1:30:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:39Speaker 01

  And then she said, I have to talk to someone about this. I'm really worried.

• 1:30:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  My butt is so itchy.

• 1:30:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  And then Carly said, oh, you have pinworms.

• 1:30:50Dax Shepard?

  I guess I don't, I don't think I've had it then, because.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  Exactly. The way she was saying it, it felt extreme.

• 1:30:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  And Carly said, oh, you have pinworms. And she was like, are you, are you sure? Like, I'm worried it's something serious. And she was like, I think, I really, I feel like, I woke up today and I was like, I definitely have cancer. I need to talk to an adult about this. And then she took the medicine and it's been fine ever since. Okay, would you rather have pinworms? Or penis worms?

• 1:31:21Dax Shepard?

  How do penis worms work?

• 1:31:22Speaker 01

  I guess let's just say they work the same.

• 1:31:24Dax Shepard?

  They're worms coming out of my penis?

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  Those aren't real, are they?

• 1:31:26Dax Shepard?

  Then definitely my butt.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good answer. Well, like, or like crabs.

• 1:31:32Dax Shepard?

  Crabs?

• 1:31:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, isn't that, isn't that the same thing?

• 1:31:35Dax Shepard?

  That's a venereal disease.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's itchy, but it's your.

• 1:31:38Dax Shepard?

  I've never had it, shockingly.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:42Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna be honest, it's shocking how little diseases I got. I deserved a lot more.

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:48Dax Shepard?

  I have a very close friend who got them when we were in our twenties and it was, it was insane. He showed me his mom's pubis, there's just like, it was like a castralian mosquito bites.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Oh!

• 1:31:59Dax Shepard?

  It looked insane. It looked, it looked terrible.

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  You weren't afraid of get, getting close and getting?

• 1:32:06Dax Shepard?

  Well, he'd already shaved his pubic hair and applied the cream and everything. But it was, it was, it was major.

• 1:32:12Speaker 01

  Are crabs scabies or no? They're separate?

• 1:32:16Dax Shepard?

  I think they're separate, but scabies is also a thing. And that's got the worst name ever.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  I have a scabies story, but I don't know, I don't think I'm allowed to share it. It's not me, so I don't think I can.

• 1:32:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but you know someone that had scabies?

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  Yes, and.

• 1:32:31Dax Shepard?

  My father's girlfriend had scabies. Maybe he gave them to her. I don't know. He's passed. Maybe we should put that on him.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:32:39Dax Shepard?

  But I know there was a scabies outbreak in my father's bedroom when I lived with him. And I remember being nervous that I knew scabies were in the house.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  Yes. See? It is nerve wracking.

• 1:32:51Dax Shepard?

  I knew scabies were in the house.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  You could have, for real, gotten it. I know. But it's an automotopia. Like, they sound exactly like, I think, what they are. Anyway, would you rather have scabies slash crabs or pinworms?

• 1:33:04Dax Shepard?

  Pinworm, for sure.

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, with no, there's no medicine?

• 1:33:08Dax Shepard?

  The thing with pinworm is you drink this thing, they all live inside your body, and you shit out a bunch of dead pinworms, and it's over. Scabies and, uh, crabbies and dingies and chomp chomps.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Stop!

• 1:33:20Dax Shepard?

  They all, I think, can live on your sheets and in your carpet.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  So do the pinworms, though. They're in your carpet. That's why you have to bleach it all and stuff.

• 1:33:27Dax Shepard?

  I don't even have carpet, but continue.

• 1:33:29Speaker 01

  Anyway, wait. The, the would you rather is there's no medicine. So these are permanent conditions.

• 1:33:33Dax Shepard?

  Oh, it's pinworms. For sure.

• 1:33:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I know. I, I know. Same.

• 1:33:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Okay. I hope we get a scabies medication sponsor, because obviously we are against scabies.

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  And pinworms.

• 1:33:46Dax Shepard?

  And pinworms.

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  Pinworm medication.

• 1:33:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and I think we're bringing awareness to pinworms, which is good. If you have, uh, suspiciously itchy anus.

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  Well, that's what Anna said. She said, I do, people need to be talking about it.

• 1:33:59Dax Shepard?

  They call it SIA in the medical world.

• 1:34:00Speaker 01

  Spreading information awareness.

• 1:34:02Dax Shepard?

  Suspiciously itchy anus. The patient is, has SIA.

• 1:34:09Speaker 01

  That's like, maybe on season two of The Pit, they'll do a whole, whole thing. Um, all right. Well, that was disgusting.

• 1:34:18Dax Shepard?

  That was. It was unnecessary.

• 1:34:20Speaker 01

  Can you, without saying which ones?

• 1:34:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  Say the number of STIs you've had for awareness?

• 1:34:28Dax Shepard?

  I think one.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. That's not a lot at all.

• 1:34:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  Was it eight?

• 1:34:34Dax Shepard?

  You go without saying which one, and then you're like, which one? Uh.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  Was it gonorrhea? Was it

• 1:34:44Dax Shepard?

  I'll tell you that if I was your age, it wouldn't have been an issue because there's a vaccine.

• 1:34:48Speaker 01

  HPV?

• 1:34:49Dax Shepard?

  HPV, human pap.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  HPV is scary.

• 1:34:54Dax Shepard?

  I had it. It's too messy of a story, but I got a call from a girlfriend. She had it and then I.

• 1:35:01Speaker 01

  Did you, what'd you do?

• 1:35:02Dax Shepard?

  I don't remember.

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  Did you get checked?

• 1:35:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, I got checked.

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  A ton of people have HPV. It's very common.

• 1:35:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, they say like 80% of the sexually active

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:35:10Dax Shepard?

  public has it. And then, and then it even went further, which is they started having cases where there was no sexual activity. So like, oh, this, this is being spread without sexual activity. Yeah, HPV is like

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  It's rampant.

• 1:35:23Dax Shepard?

  But there's a vaccine.

• 1:35:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:35:24Dax Shepard?

  You had it, right?

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  I had the vaccine.

• 1:35:25Dax Shepard?

  And Kristen had it. Did you have it, Rob?

• 1:35:28Speaker 04

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:35:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  Kristen had it?

• 1:35:30Dax Shepard?

  Had the vaccine.

• 1:35:31Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:35:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. That's the five-year gap. Like that, that came out when, you know, that was the crucial gap.

• 1:35:39Speaker 01

  I got the vaccine early. It was really early, almost in a sense of like, is it too early?

• 1:35:47Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:35:47Speaker 01

  Is it tested enough that I got it?

• 1:35:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I wonder if these people that are anti-vaccines still get the HPV vaccine. Because there's a lot of times where the rubber meets the, we all are contradictions. Let's, I don't think this is unique to vaxers, but certainly there's ones that they must make exceptions for, like, yeah, I don't want fucking HPV, I'll get that.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  But they're like not getting measles. Oh, I guess because they think, they think it's not an issue.

• 1:36:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's such a lower percentage.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:36:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  Well, I, I think if you can get that vaccine, let's do it, y'all.

• 1:36:18Dax Shepard?

  I want everyone. I don't want shingles. I don't want, I don't want, I don't want anything.

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  I don't either. Um, another onomatopoeia, shingles.

• 1:36:25Dax Shepard?

  Shingles, yeah.

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  Okay, let's do some facts.

• 1:36:28Dax Shepard?

  Let's do some facts.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  Facts for Curtis.

• 1:36:45Dax Shepard?

  Facts for Curtis.

• 1:36:47Speaker 01

  What a life story.

• 1:36:49Dax Shepard?

  Yes. To bring you up to speed, Aaron, his father killed his mother and then killed himself. Holy shit. Yeah. That seems very when we were growing up. Yes, yeah. And he's our age. Okay, there you have it. I can't wait to get to that Michelin star in Chicago. This so bitch got three stars, three years in a row or something crazy? No, he's like the most, one of the most decorated American chefs. And they say bears a little bit based on the bear. Okay.

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  But he says no, but it seems like maybe.

• 1:37:28Dax Shepard?

  I don't believe him.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't either. I don't believe him.

• 1:37:31Dax Shepard?

  First fact, we don't believe him.

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  I'm gonna inform you guys a little bit, okay? So, one of my facts is current restaurants with three Michelin stars, okay?

• 1:37:42Dax Shepard?

  In the US.

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  I'm gonna do in the US.

• 1:37:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:46Speaker 01

  Okay?

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  Atelier Cren, that's in San Francisco.

• 1:37:52Dax Shepard?

  Triggering.

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  That, you can't be triggered.

• 1:37:55Dax Shepard?

  I am. We can't use that word, but go ahead. Atelier, what was it called?

• 1:37:58Speaker 01

  You can use it for a three Michelin star restaurant. Atelier Cren, San Francisco, known for its contemporary American cuisine and innovative tasting menus. Now, French Laundry.

• 1:38:10Dax Shepard?

  Lovely.

• 1:38:12Speaker 01

  Yountville, California. Haven't been.

• 1:38:15Dax Shepard?

  I've been. It is a worthwhile experience. Is that wine country? It's in wine country. It's so good. And you eat for like three hours. And you're so full, but you keep going.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how most of these restaurants are. It's like tasting menus, you go, you don't pick what you're eating. And you're there for hours and hours and hours. Okay, 11 Madison Park, New York City. That's a big one. There's like a book on, I think the chef or somebody wrote a book about that restaurant. Masa, also in New York, that's Japanese. La Berna Dene, New York, very, very.

• 1:38:56Dax Shepard?

  Trusted brand?

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  Very trusted brand, yes. In at Little Washington, that's in Washington, Virginia. Historic Inn. American cuisine.

• 1:39:07Dax Shepard?

  That sounds like our alley, up our alley. Get a nice porridge. I immediately was like.

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  I don't think you're gonna be getting porridge.

• 1:39:15Dax Shepard?

  I think there's a really robust and hearty stew. Right. And a real nice, thick piece of bread. Yeah. Yeah. Hardy.

• 1:39:24Speaker 01

  You guys go and you report back what was on the menu.

• 1:39:27Dax Shepard?

  Warm mug of hot cocoa.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  Okay, um, Smith, that's S M Y T H, Chicago.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  Alenia, ding ding ding, Chicago. Ooh, I I'm gonna say Youngsick, that's a Korean restaurant in New York City. Or it might be Jungsick.

• 1:39:50Dax Shepard?

  Probably Young.

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. And then we have Single Thread, Healdsburg, California. What's your favorite restaurant, Aaron? Of all time?

• 1:40:03Dax Shepard?

  That's hard. Like, are we talking real good food? Like, I don't know. It's just your favorite. Just my favorite.

• 1:40:10Speaker 01

  Doesn't have to be best food.

• 1:40:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I mean, I think Lafayette Coney Island is my favorite.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  That's a great answer.

• 1:40:19Dax Shepard?

  I was almost gonna guess that for you. That might be mine, too.

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  I understand.

• 1:40:25Dax Shepard?

  I was a little disappointed they shut down for a second time recently. They have so many rats. These rats are just. They like, it's their favorite restaurant. Yeah, they love that restaurant. And the poor restaurant next door has to make pleas that the rats aren't there. They're like, you can still come here. And everyone's like, I'm not going anywhere near that. Some of these videos, some of these videos of the rats are kind of insane. The rats are like, looks like they're mixing the Coney sauce. Like, they're in the action.

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  Like a ratatouille.

• 1:41:01Dax Shepard?

  And they're not shy. Like, one jumped, like, on a table, right on someone's table. And then they went into the trash can. There's videos of that. They're like coming in and out of the trash. Yeah.

• 1:41:14Dax Shepard?

  What are they gonna do? I mean, so they're open now? I, I. By the way, I don't care. I don't either. It doesn't faze me. I mean, I hate, the, the, why I said I hate it is because. They were closed last time I was like attempting to go in.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:32Dax Shepard?

  And I was like, fuck. You know what'd be great is if they just had like a liability waiver you signed. Yeah. And it's like, I don't give a fuck that there's rats and like, stop even trying to kill them. Let's just deal with the rats. He's gotta wear like leather boots when you go. You know, it's, it's always been going on. It's just the city is getting a little too toady toady for their own good. Now it's like, you can't have a bunch of rats running around. Oh, now there's people down here. Right.

• 1:42:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. The only thing is the droppings kind of look like.

• 1:42:09Dax Shepard?

  Conny sauce?

• 1:42:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you wouldn't be able to tell.

• 1:42:13Dax Shepard?

  And they do spread a lot of diseases.

• 1:42:15Speaker 01

  They do. They do.

• 1:42:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they're cute. It'd be great if you went to grab, cause you get a little tray and you've ordered a few. It'd be great if you like went to grab your conny and the rat had it and you're in like a tug war with the rat. Or you ate it like Lady and the Tramp with the rat. You became great friends with the rats.

• 1:42:35Speaker 01

  All right. Well, that's three Michelin stars for the United States currently.

• 1:42:40Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so that's not a long list.

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:42:42Dax Shepard?

  I think, you know, I don't think Michigan at all has a Michelin restaurant. No. Yeah, maybe they have a one star, one Michelin. Not even. Not even. We'll save that for the next. Well, while we have to clean up that infestation, they might get up. Sure.

• 1:42:56Speaker 01

  Now it's good you're here. Really good you're here because J2C comes up because Curtis is a J2C.

• 1:43:04Dax Shepard?

  No doubt.

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:43:05Dax Shepard?

  July 2nd.

• 1:43:06Speaker 01

  He's July 2nd.

• 1:43:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Shit.

• 1:43:09Speaker 01

  He shares with Aaron.

• 1:43:11Dax Shepard?

  And he had an internal sweetness that was very J2C.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  Wait, Aaron, you're July. You're July. Yeah.

• 1:43:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. He's gonna be 50 in five seconds.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:43:22Dax Shepard?

  50.

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  How do you feel?

• 1:43:24Dax Shepard?

  You're not kicking a stretch. He is old.

• 1:43:29Speaker 01

  Wait, you're gonna be 50 in next month?

• 1:43:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:32Speaker 01

  Wait, so you, then you are exactly Curtis's age. You guys were born on the exact same day.

• 1:43:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Oh, how about that? So we're both exactly six.

• 1:43:41Speaker 03

  Six months younger than Dad here.

• 1:43:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:44Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:43:45Speaker 03

  He could be Curtis's dad, too.

• 1:43:49Dax Shepard?

  I wanted to be.

• 1:43:51Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. How do you feel? What are you gonna do?

• 1:43:54Speaker 03

  Well, I'm, um, gonna take a little ride down to Nashville, Tennessee. And celebrate with my fellow J2C.

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  Nice, nice.

• 1:44:05Dax Shepard?

  Maybe I'll make you a steak in the woods.

• 1:44:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I, you sure didn't get one from me.

• 1:44:12Dax Shepard?

  That's my fault. I was down in Mexico throwing up violently.

• 1:44:17Speaker 03

  That's rights itself.

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 1:44:21Dax Shepard?

  Maybe some donuts in the Corvette, some boat rides.

• 1:44:24Speaker 03

  I mean, come on.

• 1:44:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:26Speaker 03

  You only turned fifty-one.

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  That's right. If you're lucky. You could turn a hundred and fifty once we have those drugs.

• 1:44:36Speaker 03

  Well, that's coming soon. My, I'm most excited about the, um, the dog drugs that are coming. I know you two probably aren't as into it.

• 1:44:46Speaker 01

  What is it?

• 1:44:47Speaker 03

  They're gonna keep dogs alive now.

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:44:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, for a long time.

• 1:44:53Dax Shepard?

  That's my nightmare.

• 1:44:54Speaker 03

  That is your nightmare.

• 1:44:56Dax Shepard?

  Just thinking this morning, like, what's gonna happen when they go away to school? And I'm trying to be in Nashville and Kristen's in New York City.

• 1:45:08Speaker 03

  Those dogs are probably.

• 1:45:11Dax Shepard?

  And they're still gonna be alive.

• 1:45:13Speaker 01

  Do you think they are in nine years?

• 1:45:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:17Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:45:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, whiskey is unfortunately quite young.

• 1:45:21Speaker 03

  He is, he's like aging in reverse.

• 1:45:24Dax Shepard?

  He's like.

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  Seven, that's, that's an old dog.

• 1:45:27Dax Shepard?

  He's gonna go to eighteen or nineteen because he's so tiny and angry.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, he might.

• 1:45:33Speaker 03

  So, um, yeah, so while I'll be a hundred and fifty, you'll still have Frankenwhiskey.

• 1:45:41Dax Shepard?

  Maybe I won't take the medicine if they're gonna go the distance.

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  Wow. Okay, so there's a drug that's gonna keep them alive for how much longer?

• 1:45:51Speaker 03

  Um, not forever, but, um, it's.

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  Like an adult lifespan?

• 1:45:57Speaker 03

  It's, yeah, it sounds like, it sounds like that they're gonna have it, um, start seeing it on the market.

• 1:46:04Dax Shepard?

  Market next year. That would be just like Americans to have a, a, a pill for our dogs to keep them alive forever. And then we're dying.

• 1:46:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:46:14Dax Shepard?

  Cause I think when you're in the rest of the world and you see, like, we had, I don't want to shame anyone cause actually we met her and she was a lovely woman, but we were delivering food two days ago. There's a dog restaurant. We went to a dog restaurant so the dog could get delivery food. It was called the Pestorant. Oh, wait, wait, not Pestorant. Yeah. Pets-erant. Pets-erant.

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  Pets-erant.

• 1:46:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, when we got it, we were like, could this possibly, it will, it would have to be a restaurant for pets because no one would eat at a restaurant called Pets-erant.

• 1:46:46Speaker 01

  No, not me.

• 1:46:47Dax Shepard?

  And sure enough, it was a huge smorgasbord for this dog. It was a humongous bag of, I thought it was ice cream when I went in and grabbed it. Cause it was like, it was really cold, the bag. And I go, is this, and there was like a dozen containers. Yeah. I go, is this ice cream? For the dog? Do you dog eat blizzards? They're like, no, it's not ice cream, but it's, it is food. And I was like.

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  Weird. Oh, my God.

• 1:47:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but if you're like in a country and you're starving and you hear that dogs in America have food delivery, like whatever they're in the mood for, is pretty wild. And now that our dogs are gonna live longer than us.

• 1:47:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, take that with a, take that with a grain of salt of where I get my pets from. Your, your feed. That might've been a dream.

• 1:47:35Speaker 01

  That's your algorithm.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  Okay, now, because of the birthdays, I wanted to look up most popular birthdays.

• 1:47:44Dax Shepard?

  We do this once in a while.

• 1:47:44Speaker 01

  We do, but I, and I think it's not always the same.

• 1:47:48Dax Shepard?

  It's always end of August, right?

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  September 9th.

• 1:47:51Dax Shepard?

  September 9th.

• 1:47:51Speaker 01

  September 9th is the most common birthday, according to AI.

• 1:47:57Dax Shepard?

  Makes so much sense. When the coitus takes.

• 1:47:59Speaker 03

  Place.

• 1:48:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you're at Christmas.

• 1:48:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:02Dax Shepard?

  And you're like, we want a family next Christmas.

• 1:48:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does make sense.

• 1:48:07Dax Shepard?

  Daifu.

• 1:48:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, we got September ninth, September nineteenth, September twelfth, September seventeenth, September tenth, July seventh.

• 1:48:17Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  September twentieth, September fifteenth, basically all of September.

• 1:48:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my.

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  To your point.

• 1:48:28Dax Shepard?

  I know the most August. I'm shocked.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  Well, that's okay. Now it says, what is the most common birth month? Despite the fact that September is so heavily represented in the top ten most common birthdays, there are actually more births reported in August.

• 1:48:40Dax Shepard?

  Oh, thank God.

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  All but one August birthday made the list of a hundred most common birthdays. The exception being August third, which lands a hundred and sixteen. If you do the math, the conception time for August babies lines up with the approach of cooler weather and the holidays, maybe making cuddling up extra appealing.

• 1:48:59Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:49:00Speaker 01

  This is from happiestbaby.com. Oh, February twenty ninth.

• 1:49:04Speaker 03

  My daughter has that.

• 1:49:05Speaker 01

  Your daughter has the least common birthday. Not surprisingly, but that's fun.

• 1:49:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:13Speaker 01

  Um, leapers or leplings?

• 1:49:17Speaker 03

  That took some special planning to get her.

• 1:49:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, when you get horny.

• 1:49:22Speaker 03

  Well, I'm horny from my.

• 1:49:23Dax Shepard?

  The blast snowstorm of March.

• 1:49:26Speaker 03

  May, I was.

• 1:49:28Dax Shepard?

  Well, that makes sense. Spring weather, spring fever.

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  Spring fling.

• 1:49:32Dax Shepard?

  I always get very, I get romantic, I get the most romantic around fall.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, fall's cozy. Beginning of school is romantic. It's a new class, new people. New opportunities.

• 1:49:44Dax Shepard?

  You're feeling kind of good in one of your outfits.

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:49:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:48Speaker 01

  Um, least popular birthdays, February twenty ninth, December twenty fifth, January first, December twenty fourth, July fourth, January second.

• 1:50:00Dax Shepard?

  Oh, thank God. I really felt like mine was the top ten.

• 1:50:03Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  You mean bottom, well, top ten least.

• 1:50:06Dax Shepard?

  Least.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:50:08Dax Shepard?

  Number one.

• 1:50:08Speaker 03

  Bottom ten.

• 1:50:10Dax Shepard?

  Number one, none.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  Now, no baked cookies. He told an interesting story that he used to eat no baked cookies and then in his kitchen, he would give a recipe to his staff and see if they could follow directions and make it and they never could.

• 1:50:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:50:26Speaker 01

  Um, but according.

• 1:50:27Dax Shepard?

  Laura would have passed.

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  Exactly. According to this, this is not his recipe.

• 1:50:32Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  He's probably.

• 1:50:33Dax Shepard?

  I think this was made famous on the oatmeal. What's the most trusted brand in oatmeal? I use.

• 1:50:39Speaker 01

  Quaker.

• 1:50:40Dax Shepard?

  Quaker oats. Quaker oats. Try some Chocno Bakes this year for Christmas time.

• 1:50:47Speaker 01

  It's on the box?

• 1:50:48Dax Shepard?

  Be be conservative about your treats. Mostly protein and baked potatoes and pray a lot. When in that rare occasion you deserve a treat, make it a Chocno Bake with Quaker Oats.

• 1:51:01Speaker 01

  God, I can taste those.

• 1:51:04Dax Shepard?

  One bite will do.

• 1:51:07Dax Shepard?

  Pass it around. Two bites will get the devil knocking at your back door. It's too much sweets. Too indulgent.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  Okay. Oh, my God. Again. Okay. Okay. I'm gonna read the recipe. Two cups white sugar, a half cup butter, a margarine, a half cup milk, three tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, one pinch salt, three cups quick cooking oats, a half cup peanut butter, one teaspoon vanilla extract. And then you do have to like do some stuff. You have to bring stuff to a boil.

• 1:51:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's a mud and then you my mom would spread it out on a McDonald's tray that she stole from McDonald's. And then it would harden in the fridge.

• 1:51:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:49Dax Shepard?

  Uh, in the McDonald's tray.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  Smart. That's very savvy. Instead of getting a baking sheet.

• 1:51:55Dax Shepard?

  Just steal it from McDonald's. Yeah. You're a single mom. You're allowed to do a lot of things.

• 1:51:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, good for her.

• 1:52:00Dax Shepard?

  Did you guys have McDonald's trays at home?

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  I think. But it's hard to get out of there holding that.

• 1:52:05Dax Shepard?

  Not if you run.

• 1:52:09Dax Shepard?

  If you got the car running. Send your kids out to the car to get it running. Put it in drive, pull the e-brake.

• 1:52:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:52:16Dax Shepard?

  And come flying out with three trays. We used to steal salt and pepper shakers as well.

• 1:52:22Speaker 01

  That makes more sense to me. That can just go right in a purse.

• 1:52:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:25Speaker 01

  I used to steal cups a lot.

• 1:52:27Dax Shepard?

  Cups.

• 1:52:27Speaker 01

  Glasses, like from bars and stuff.

• 1:52:30Dax Shepard?

  You've always had that.

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  As like a souvenir. Sure. It was more about. Nothing wrong with that. There was a brewery in Athens called Terrapin and it was a thing to like steal those. We had so many. And they were like nice.

• 1:52:46Dax Shepard?

  Pine glasses?

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:52:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Probably put them on a business. They probably use plastic.

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  The whole, the whole college, put them and kept them.

• 1:52:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:55Speaker 01

  Put them out, kept them in. Um, okay, now, we also refer to you, both of you, eating the food off of big boys' plates, which we've discussed.

• 1:53:04Dax Shepard?

  I was explaining to Curtis the progression of how it starts with, oh, there's a full half of a Slim Jim there untouched. Sure. Yeah, I'll eat that. Of course.

• 1:53:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:53:14Dax Shepard?

  And then by the end, I'm just biting directly into whole bite marks.

• 1:53:18Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 1:53:20Dax Shepard?

  At all. You just stopped caring.

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  So then, you know, you guys answered the, then that's the answer to the question, spit. Spit is the one that you don't care about.

• 1:53:30Dax Shepard?

  I care about it.

• 1:53:32Speaker 01

  Obviously not.

• 1:53:33Dax Shepard?

  But not as much as I cared about having some good food. Well. It was a cost benefit. Dry spit. Yeah.

• 1:53:40Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I'm sorry, but I think that's evidence to the question, hair, spit. What's the other one?

• 1:53:48Dax Shepard?

  Skin.

• 1:53:49Speaker 01

  Skin.

• 1:53:49Dax Shepard?

  Nails.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  And then we added nails, we added nails. I want to remove nails because everyone just gets so hung up on the nails.

• 1:53:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. But I just like it as a model of human nature, which is like, everyone always moves the line. It's like, if you're, no affair starts with sex. It starts with like a hug or some hand holding and then you, that's it.

• 1:54:14Speaker 01

  Not according to my sexy show.

• 1:54:17Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:54:17Speaker 01

  They're just jumping right in.

• 1:54:19Dax Shepard?

  Or your drug use, you know, it starts one and you got a rule and then you go just 5% beyond it and you just inch yourself closer until you're eating directly, like half eaten french fries.

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:29Dax Shepard?

  Sure. Licking the plate. Last sip of a Diet Coke.

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  It is true, the, ew, ew, ew, that was disgusting. Last sip, yeah. Would you rather last sip or?

• 1:54:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, last sip of a Diet Coke's rough because it's already melted ice.

• 1:54:49Speaker 01

  It's backwash.

• 1:54:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's terrible.

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  You didn't drink that.

• 1:54:52Dax Shepard?

  You're hungry. I didn't need to, I, you think you could, you could manage free soda.

• 1:54:57Speaker 01

  Thank God.

• 1:54:58Dax Shepard?

  You could sneak them at least. Yeah.

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  You would definitely have AIDS by now.

• 1:55:02Dax Shepard?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:55:03Speaker 01

  Definitely, according to ER. Um, that's it for Curtis.

• 1:55:09Dax Shepard?

  Okay, well, I loved him. I thought he was a very sweet human being.

• 1:55:12Speaker 01

  He was, he was, and he has really overcome so much. I was very, um, moved by his story.

• 1:55:19Dax Shepard?

  Me too. All right, love you.

• 1:55:20Speaker 01

  Love you. Love you.