David Sedaris #6

David Sedaris (The Land and Its People, Happy-Go-Lucky, Calypso) is a bestselling author, humorist, and celebrated storyteller. David joins Armchair Expert to discuss discovering his name in the Epstein files, crossing state lines after midnight to have a tumor removed, and feeding it to a snapping turtle. David and Dax talk about testing and rewriting his essays onstage, giving relatives veto power over his stories, and evolving from writing about life’s biggest moments to writing about almost nothing. David explains why talking to strangers creates real connection, how treating words as violence distorts actual harm, and why comedy should be as tasteless as possible. Take printer ink off your back to school list with HP Smart Tank | https://hp.com/SmartTank Check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds: https://www.allstate.com/ 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. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm here with Monica Padman.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:05Dax Shepard?

  Hi, um, it's not ding ding ding ding ding.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Ding ding ding.

• 0:08Dax Shepard?

  Sixth time.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  It's our most, that's our most, right?

• 0:11Dax Shepard?

  He's our most.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  He's our most.

• 0:14Dax Shepard?

  And he's our most favorite. We love David Sedaris, my parasocial friend.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  That's right. You're parasocial and.

• 0:21Dax Shepard?

  And kinda real friend. Uh, David is an author, comedian, and a humorist. His books are Me Talk Pretty One Day, Santa Land Diaries, Calypso Naked, Happy Go Lucky, and he has a new book that is out now called The Land and Its People. I have read it. I love it. We love David.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  We just love him. He does a reading for us.

• 0:41Dax Shepard?

  He does some reading for us. Please enjoy David Sedaris. We get support from Quince.

• 0:47Speaker 01

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

• 0:56Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:18Speaker 01

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

• 1:36Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:45Speaker 01

  It's a uniform.

• 1:46Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:47Speaker 01

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

• 2:04Dax Shepard?

  Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. This episode is presented by YouTube Premium. YouTube was already great, but Premium supercharges it. If you like YouTube, you'll love Premium. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com/premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. Now let's get into today's episode.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Hello. No, there was downstairs.

• 3:04Dax Shepard?

  How are you?

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 3:05Dax Shepard?

  Good to see you.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Good to see you. So good to see you. Oh yeah, of course there's a downstairs. I was here last time. Do I sit right here?

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's your spot. Oh, we knew you were gonna come in the best outfit.

• 3:17Dax Shepard?

  I tried to do something fun back.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  That's as fun. It's really.

• 3:21Dax Shepard?

  That's as fun as it gets. Are those board shorts?

• 3:25Speaker 02

  What is that?

• 3:26Dax Shepard?

  That's a term for like swimwear that's like for surfers, board shorts?

• 3:29Speaker 02

  No, no, no. They're these Walter von Bierenbong. I have a problem with his last name, but he's this Dutch guy.

• 3:36Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  But I was in San Francisco the other day and he made, it was like a ladies' housecoat for men. With this fabric, but the fabric is linen mixed with polyester. And I wore the jacket thing and I was so sweaty.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It's hot.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  It wouldn't work for my book tour because you're in, you know, a store and then there are a lot of people in there and then it gets hot. So.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Oh, but that's so cute though. But you got the shorts instead.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  But the ladies' housecoat was pretty good. Yeah.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  That is good.

• 4:09Dax Shepard?

  I'm confused though. Did you buy the ladies' housecoat and then have those shorts made?

• 4:12Speaker 02

  No, no, no. They had the shorts too.

• 4:15Dax Shepard?

  I was like, wow, you're really.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  I don't mind being sweaty on the, on the bottom.

• 4:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, sure. Yeah.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  But I don't want to go into the bookstore and then be like wet with sweat.

• 4:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 4:24Dax Shepard?

  Do you pose for photos with people in the signings?

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Never.

• 4:30Dax Shepard?

  With a smile?

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Because otherwise, that's all you do.

• 4:32Dax Shepard?

  For the listener.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Otherwise, it's all you do.

• 4:34Dax Shepard?

  Right, right, right.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  So I could either sign somebody's book and talk to them or have my picture taken. Sometimes I'm in the airport and someone says, can we get a selfie? I say, uh, no. I say, but this person here can take our picture. I say, oh, I ran into my cousin in the airport. Can you take a picture of us? And they're always happy to do it. But the selfie thing, I don't know that there's anything about contemporary life that is more puzzling to me. That when you see somebody, you know, the way you are, let's say in a, in front of a mirror when you're alone.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  To be that way in public. And when I see people and they're, they're doing the angle of their head and all of that in public, I just feel like it'd be like a nightmare about being on a toilet in public.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you just get used to, it's like the way of the world. This, all these people are making money.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  Yes. Sometimes when I'm on the bus in England, I'll look over people's shoulder and they're on Instagram and all their friends look just like them.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  I know. Everyone is starting to look like one thing.

• 5:32Dax Shepard?

  So I was one time on a TV show with Ashton Kutcher. You know who he is? You know what he looks like?

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:38Dax Shepard?

  So at one point we're sitting in a pickup truck. We're about to film a scene and he goes, oh, you know, the fucking network asked us if we could take like a couple of like selfies while we're working. And I was like, oh yeah, okay, great. And he just so cavalier, like holds the camera down at his hips and starts shooting up at us. There's only like a three degree angle where I look good. It's definitely above, but he has the freedom to shoot any angle he wants. And he shows us, I'm like, yeah, you look incredible in all these photos. And I look like a monster.

• 6:09Dax Shepard?

  Can you imagine that kind of freedom though? Yeah, I don't care. Aim the picture anywhere, mount it on my shoes and shoot straight up at my nose. It'll look great.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  I think that's how a stick insect would feel.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Good from any angle.

• 6:21Dax Shepard?

  Something has happened since you were last here. I can't imagine it has gotten to you, but maybe it has because you're on tour currently and there are often armchairs in the audience, right? You tell me.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, which is lovely. Has it gotten back to you, this parasocial thing, my obsession with you?

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Parasocial? What does that mean?

• 6:39Dax Shepard?

  And that is this like faux sense of intimacy you can have because you consume like a podcast all the time. You're with them. It's about their lives and you feel you're very confused because you know so much about them and you're kind of living with them in your car and in private. And it feels genuinely like a relationship. And so over the last year, I think since you've been here, I have become obsessive about, I listen to you every single night. I've listened to some of the books like five times now. Every single night for a half hour before I go to sleep, I'm re-listening to all the things. And I've been growing more and more like entrenched in these fantasies where I'm going to be with you in Normandy or somewhere.

• 7:20Dax Shepard?

  And I, I think, oh my, I would get along so well with you and your friends and all these conversations like, oh yeah, I could fit in perfectly. And I came and I had to admit to Monica, I'm like, oh, I'm having this thing people have described that I, was so abstract to me, but now I really have it. I have a deep ache when I'm listening that I'm not with you on tour or in Europe or something.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  It's tricky because he does know you. He does know you.

• 7:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, this was very confusing, but how does this, that land with you?

• 7:49Speaker 02

  I feel that towards.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  People.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Certain people. Yeah.

• 7:52Dax Shepard?

  Do you?

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Alan Bennett.

• 7:55Dax Shepard?

  Who's that?

• 7:55Speaker 02

  He is a national treasure in England. Most people here, if they know him, it's because he wrote The Madness of King George. But he's written lots of plays. He started off with a group called Beyond the Fringe and then he's written novellas and plays and movies. He releases his diaries and he reads them and it's his voice that I listen to him. He did a series called Talking Heads. I can listen to it anytime.

• 8:20Dax Shepard?

  I'm so happy you know what feeling I'm describing. And doesn't it kind of hurt that you're not involved? Is there a sadness?

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Well, what scares me is there was a antique store around the corner from my house in London and I know the owners and I would go in and they'd say, oh, you just missed Alan.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  He left two minutes ago. So I've always just missed him and now he's in his 90s and he sounds very, very frail. And I know people, he's the kind of fellow, if you write to him, he writes you back.

• 8:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really? So you, have you written to him?

• 8:49Speaker 02

  No, no, no. I'm just afraid. I'm just afraid I'll miss him. I don't want to miss him. I don't want to impose myself on him.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  But he would love to meet you.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  He knows who I am, which was surprising to me, but I'm on BBC and so he probably.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  I mean, there's a million reasons why.

• 9:07Dax Shepard?

  Okay, but what's fun? Funny, and this is what I've been kind of trying to work through on the show when it comes up is like, I have your number, I have your address. It's just this very weird zone where it's like, my desire to reach out to you is nightly. Like, I use here something, and I've heard it 25 times, but this time I like it. And then I'm like, oh yeah, this would be so annoying. And I just am policing myself.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  Really? I've never thought of you as a pest. I mean, you know, I was in England and you were in New York, and I was like, damn it, I'm gonna miss him, because that would have been really nice, you know, to have you over, to go out or do something.

• 9:42Dax Shepard?

  Does that author, writer that you just mentioned, I guess the diaries are what makes it parasocial, right? Like, I'm not gonna have that with Dotsievsky. I know I can't hang out with he and Ralph Skolnikov. Like, it's all imaginary. But because your work is so much about your real life, I think that's why this whole parasocial thing happens. Is it his work that's like about his own life that you can just see yourself joining?

• 10:06Speaker 02

  He's written some personal essays that are about his own life, but it's the diaries mainly. And I listen to them over and over and over, and I can listen any year of his diary, anytime. His latest series of diaries came out, hadn't come out in the United States yet, but I'm going to England in a few weeks, and I can get it there, but I really want the audio.

• 10:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  But he's very frail now, and I'm afraid that it's somebody else reading it. I don't know what I would do. Well, I'll just read it myself. But I've heard him so many times, I can read it in his voice.

• 10:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, right, right, right. Do you have an approach with your diary, or do you even care, or what are you generally writing down?

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Well, today, my schedule is kind of crazy, but normally what I would do is get up in the morning and first thing I do is write in my diary. And I'm on a tour, so I, often I go down to breakfast and I write in my diary on my tour. But today, because I have to worry about getting my steps in, so I got up at six and I walked like four miles. And then Hughes with me, so we had breakfast together. So then, my friend Alyssa, my publicist, brought me here and I said, oh, you know what, can I sit in the backseat? Because I just needed to write in my diary. And it was a lot of just what happened. And then I saw my note about Miss Young.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  And Miss Young, I checked in for my flight yesterday in San Francisco, and I had an agent, you know, who checked me in. This black woman, and she was maybe about 60 years old, and she was missing two teeth, and her name was Miss Young. And that was on her tag. And I said, I gotta say, I said, I love that. I love that I don't know your first name, and that you're Miss Young. And so we talked about that, just about how everyone calls each other by their first name now. And I said, one thing I hate is when I board the plane and the gate agent says, welcome, Mr. Taylor. You know, welcome, Miss Baxter. Welcome, Mr. David.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Because they're afraid to pronounce Sedaris, and so they're just being lazy, and they're making it look like it's a typo. And I know it's not a typo. And nobody cares if you say, can you help me pronounce your name?

• 12:19Speaker 03

  Sure, how do you pronounce it?

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Nobody cares about that, you know? Happy to do it. And it's just laziness on their part. But it's not about me, so I'm not gonna stop the boarding process to say, show me where it says that.

• 12:32Dax Shepard?

  But you've done that when they bring your meal, I know. You've asked to look at the manifest.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  Miss Young was in complete agreement. I just shared such a nice moment with Miss Young. So that's what made yesterday memorable, you know, like more memorable than this book signing I did.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  More memorable than the people I met at the book signing was just because I had a real connection with Miss Young.

• 12:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  If you had heard her first name, do you think it would have ruined it? Do you think it would have ruined the illusion?

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, if her name tag said...

• 13:05Speaker 03

  Danielle.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Danielle, then it wouldn't have been...

• 13:10Speaker 03

  Special.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  Because everyone else just had their first name on their tag.

• 13:14Dax Shepard?

  Oh, so she was doing something unique?

• 13:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:16Dax Shepard?

  I didn't get that part.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  Me either. Oh, interesting.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Because sometimes in a situation like that, it's just a one-way street. They call you Mr. Sedaris, and then their name tag says Deborah, and then it feels wrong.

• 13:29Dax Shepard?

  You're being familiar and they're being unfamiliar.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Well, partly too, because in so many professional situations now, the people who work there are 10 times better dressed than the people who are the customers. You know, you get into a car, and the driver's wearing a suit and tie, you know, and you see people like getting in the backseat, you know, with swim shorts on, you know, and a t-shirt over it.

• 13:51Dax Shepard?

  Board shorts from France.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  And so they're Mr. Duncan.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  And then the driver is Hal, you know, so it just seems uneven to me.

• 14:01Dax Shepard?

  Duncan in a bathing suit. And then Chip in a fucking tux.

• 14:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:07Dax Shepard?

  Okay, another curiosity I had that struck me, spring and fall, you do about 100 cities in your talking tour? Your hair is always really kind of camped, it's really tight and cut, and I thought, you're not traveling with a barber. Are you constantly in a position where you're in a new town trying to find some kind of barber that you could trust? How were you maintaining your short haircut on this tour?

• 14:29Speaker 02

  I will go to anyone to get my haircut. If there was a guy with a blowtorch on the side of the road, I'd go. What I find in New York now is all the barbers are from Azerbaijan.

• 14:38Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 14:39Speaker 02

  And so I wrote an essay about it because I'm in the Epstein files.

• 14:44Dax Shepard?

  You are not.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  I'm in the Epstein files.

• 14:45Dax Shepard?

  You are?

• 14:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I am. For some reason, Jeffrey Epstein emailed somebody an article from the New York Times that was, I don't know, 2004 or something, and it was about a bookstore in Paris where I'd done a reading, and so it mentioned my name.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  And they mentioned Don DeLillo's name and a couple other, Toni Morrison's name, right?

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Oh, shit.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  And so I'm in there. So I went to get a haircut, and I said to the woman, I said, um, you know, I just found out today that I'm in the Epstein files. And she said, what? Like, she spoke like 17 words of English, and I'm like, fuck, you know, like, I needed her to...

• 15:23Speaker 03

  Have a reaction.

• 15:24Dax Shepard?

  Appreciate what?

• 15:24Speaker 02

  To have a reaction.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  So to me, getting a haircut is simply about the conversation. My hair is unimportant.

• 15:32Dax Shepard?

  You never regretted one?

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Hmm, no, no, because again, it would just be funny, and, well, I wrote about this. I went to a barber in Tokyo, and he had shit on his hands.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  No.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  And I could see it, like a little smear of shit on his hands, and every time he raised the scissor, I was like, oh.

• 15:55Speaker 03

  And you were like, I'm not getting up, I'm not leaving?

• 15:58Speaker 02

  And he didn't speak any English, and I used all my Japanese, you know, but I don't have...

• 16:03Dax Shepard?

  There's no way you have shit on your hands. There's no way you practice. Excuse me, sir. I happen to notice you have defecation on your phalanges.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  And he's a lovely guy.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  And I just...

• 16:15Dax Shepard?

  Could you smell it?

• 16:16Speaker 02

  Oh my, every time he raised the scissor.

• 16:18Dax Shepard?

  Oh, fuck, David.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Every time he raised the scissors to my face, I could smell it.

• 16:22Speaker 03

  I'm shocked you didn't just get up and leave.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  I didn't want to embarrass him. I didn't want to...

• 16:28Speaker 03

  That's so...

• 16:28Dax Shepard?

  This is where...

• 16:29Speaker 03

  You're mixed messages.

• 16:30Dax Shepard?

  Yes, I think we're all full of contradictions, but one is like you tell this guy on a bus in England to turn, or a train, to turn his radio off. You'll do that, but you won't say to the man who has shit on his hand.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Getting dangerously close to your eye.

• 16:44Dax Shepard?

  I just realized that I am late for an appointment, or I don't know what you would say.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  But you know, when I go to a barber, they just use a shaver on my head. So I say, I'm the number two, and maybe he thought I said the number two.

• 16:56Dax Shepard?

  And then he goes, oh, that's already done.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  The number two scissor cut is what I got.

• 17:01Speaker 03

  Or he's like, okay, if you really want that.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 17:07Dax Shepard?

  Would you be open to a barber saying like, because I think this happens to women a lot. Like, a woman will go into the beauty salon, and she'll be like, oh, I'm so tired of this look. And then that hairstylist gets to go like, well, would you like to try something new? And then they get to get creative. If someone pitched you that, one of these barber shops, like, have you ever thought about doing something new? Would you let them go wild, just to see what, how it turned out?

• 17:29Speaker 02

  It would depend on the person. Like, I met somebody the other day, and I bought something that, gosh, I would not have otherwise bought. And he didn't give me the hard sell. It wasn't like that. I just liked him. And I walked into a store, and he didn't say, welcome in. He didn't say, how's your day going so far?

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Within a minute, he used the word boyfriend. Within a minute, I knew so much about him.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  And I just liked him so much that I bought this crazy shirt that I wouldn't... It just felt like part of our relationship for me to get this. So a barber could say, let's shave your head.

• 18:11Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  And if it was the right barber, I'd say, yeah, let's.

• 18:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  Do you remember, I'm old enough, so I remember this, when you would go into a barber shop, and the barber would have Penthouse magazine, and sometimes Hustler magazine on the table? It was like a real men's space, you know? And I remember getting haircuts, and I was in Toronto, and the guy said, where do you live? And I said, Paris. And he said, what's that French bussy like?

• 18:41Speaker 03

  No.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  Like, they would talk like that.

• 18:43Dax Shepard?

  Barbers could be filthy.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Filthy.

• 18:47Dax Shepard?

  As if they're anatomically different.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 18:51Dax Shepard?

  Should have made something crazier. They're sideways.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  After a certain age, you feel like you've taken steps back to say like, oh, you know, like, well, you know, that pussy is fine.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  That is so tight and whatever the words are. I don't know.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  And they're just looking at you.

• 19:10Dax Shepard?

  You don't even know what's really preferred, right?

• 19:12Speaker 02

  But then you feel like, really, I've come this far to go back because this jerk. But then if you'd said, I would have no idea. I've never, I can't tell you anything about it. And I actually can't tell you about French dick either, because the only dick that I'm getting right now is my boyfriend's and he's American. Like, I don't know what happens.

• 19:37Dax Shepard?

  I think that would have opened up an incredible conversation.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  It could.

• 19:41Speaker 03

  Depending on the person.

• 19:42Dax Shepard?

  Barber, so you just said that. And then I would go, yeah, I guess I'd imagine French penises are not circumcised, right?

• 19:48Speaker 02

  That would be really good.

• 19:49Dax Shepard?

  Now you're on to something, right?

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 19:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you're on terra firma. We can go somewhere.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  But that's you interested in everything.

• 19:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 19:59Dax Shepard?

  That this is a very open minded barber.

• 20:01Speaker 03

  The guy asking about the French pussy is probably not going to continue. I think he's gonna stop talking at that point.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  But my problem now is everyone's from Azerbaijan and they speak fifteen. You know, when you speak to them, they're like, oh, don't make me. It's like when I go for a pedicure, I've gone for two. My sister Amy took me and then I took my friend Dawn for pedicure and the women were like, oh, don't make me.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  I know.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  And so I felt like it was wasted money because I was just sitting there and I wasn't talking to anybody.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:36Dax Shepard?

  I guess that brings me to another one of my questions. Because your work is mostly about your real life travels. Do you ever panic that you are gonna run out of material? Do you feel that sense of like, I don't know how much longer I'm gonna be bumping into interesting people at a signing? Do you have any anxiety about that?

• 20:54Speaker 02

  One of the essays in my book is I got bitten by a dog, right? Now, if I got bitten by a dog again, I'd be like, fuck, I already wrote about it. I can't use it anymore.

• 21:04Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  So that would be.

• 21:07Dax Shepard?

  A worthless biting.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:09Dax Shepard?

  Cause I think you and I have the same thing. I don't write about it, but I love telling stories and often I'm like mid disaster. Like something's going terribly wrong. And then I just get that little moment where I'm like, oh yeah, this is gonna be a story. And then I can kind of enjoy the rest of it because I know I'll be telling this. And I'm almost just grateful for the situation.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:26Dax Shepard?

  I think it's a neat way to reframe your life if you know you're just out there trying to get amusing stories for everyone.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  To me, what's unfortunate, last week I spent 12 hours in the Nashville airport. And I heard other people talking, well, we boarded the plane at eight o'clock and they said we were supposed to leave at eight thirty. And then at eight thirty, they said, well, it's gonna be a 10 minute delay. And then they said there was a part missing on the plane. And they said they would call mechanics to come and look at it. And then we waited on the plane and they said we're going back to the gate. And we got off the gate and then they said, and it was like, oh my God, it's a boring problem.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  It's a boring problem that nobody wants to hear. And that makes suffering it that much worse.

• 22:08Speaker 03

  True.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Because it's so boring. And there wasn't anything interesting about the day.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's just the one complaint. It's just, I was at the airport for too long, basically.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Well, then I got to Denver and my luggage had gone to St. Louis.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  And I had to talk to the guy at the luggage office. And he said, if we open your suitcase, what are we gonna find in it?

• 22:35Dax Shepard?

  To be cute? Or he really wanted to know?

• 22:37Speaker 02

  How do they know it's my suitcase? I mean, I had a tag on it, but I said, well, if you open it up, I said, you'll find a Burberry dopcat. I said, it's plaid, but not their iconic plaid.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  And I sounded so gay.

• 22:55Dax Shepard?

  It's not gonna leap out as Burberry.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  They're iconic.

• 23:00Dax Shepard?

  Super obvious.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  But that was the only interesting part of the, I mean, that's the only part of the day worth talking about.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  Noting, yeah.

• 23:08Dax Shepard?

  Scribble that down somewhere. That'll get scribbled down.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Read about in my diary, yeah.

• 23:12Dax Shepard?

  Back to the dirty magazines. I haven't had the pleasure of going into a barber shop that had the Hustlers and stuff. But one of my first jobs at 15 is I worked for this race shop and I worked with like all 30 to 45 year old mechanics and I was 15. And it was like a dive into the deep end experience with male culture. Like they were immediately joking about fucking me and stuff. And I was like, oh my God, this is extreme. And then, yeah, in the bathroom at work in the shop, they had a stack of the nastiest. I mean, it made Playboy look like Hallmark. You could really see inside of everyone in these. And I was 15. And so I would go to the bathroom like two, three times a shift because I didn't have access to that kind of material. And I was just constantly in there looking at those things.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  See, now you can go in there and take pictures with your phone and then have them at home.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  Definitely more hygienic. Those magazines are just.

• 24:06Dax Shepard?

  I know what the other men were doing with, yeah, covered in grease. They were in there for a reason.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  But I wonder though, because I don't know this, but does that male culture, is it alive and well?

• 24:19Dax Shepard?

  I'm trying to figure that out too, because I also moved from Detroit to LA. So here when I'm around and I get to be around from friends of ours, 15 to 17 year old boys. I have access to like a group of them where I get to see them interact. And they do seem so much nicer than boys were when I was that age. And they seem way less perverted and insatiable for all that. But again, I don't know if that's because I'm in LA and I'm looking at kids from West LA. Do you have any sense?

• 24:47Speaker 02

  No, I don't. But you know, when I go to the barber in England and when I go to the barber in France, it's not that way. You don't have those magazines.

• 24:54Dax Shepard?

  Have you been watching Half Man?

• 24:56Speaker 02

  I watched the first episode.

• 24:58Dax Shepard?

  I love it. And I was trying to tell Monica, what I love is how accurate they got, how weird us little boys are. Boys are so fucking weird. There's a period I just think we're so strange. Everyone's gotta get their dicks out all the time and boys are sword fighting. They have this thing and they're just not sure. They have a sense that it's supposed to be being used, but they don't know what for. So just all this weirdness comes out.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  I love in the movie Bridesmaids where one of the characters, she has sons and she talks about how disgusting they are.

• 25:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  And their sheet cracked in half.

• 25:35Dax Shepard?

  Did you ever find any naked men magazines when you were a kid?

• 25:40Speaker 02

  No, I found nudist magazines. And it was interesting because nudist magazines, right? It's families being naked together, right? So those are naked children, right? So I thought, like, if you had old nudist magazines in your house, could that be considered child pornography?

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Oh, interesting.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  No one in the nudist magazine meets your gaze, right? So no one's looking at you. They're playing volleyball. Or they're cooking hot dogs or something. But for pornography to work, there has to be an engagement.

• 26:13Dax Shepard?

  And some implication of like sexuality. Yeah. As opposed to like, we gotta get these dogs off the grill and into these kids' mouths. Everyone's starving. The nudity is just secondary.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  But I wondered about that.

• 26:26Speaker 03

  I do wonder, because someone's taking those pictures. If it's a magazine you can purchase, how could it be? How could you ever get in trouble?

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Nudist magazine. I mean, the only ones I've ever seen were old.

• 26:38Dax Shepard?

  Well, think about these photograph magazines your father collected. They had people under 18 nude in them sometimes. He was wanting to take one.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, gosh, like Photography Today or, you know, magazines like that that used to come out in the 1960s and 70s.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's really curious if like you have something that was of the era fine that is now here. I bring this up all the time, not because I want anyone to go in blackface. I don't think anyone should go in blackface. But when these photos emerge of people in blackface in the eighties, I think it's really important to remember, there was a major motion picture that was in 3000 theaters called Soul Man about this lead character pretending to be black to go to college. And he was in full black body. And that was at the Cineplex in 88. So yeah, if someone that same year went to Halloween, clearly the culture at that time, it seemed completely fine. It was like a major motion picture. It's so hard to imagine right now, but that really happened in my lifetime and no one cared.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  When all those pictures of politicians being in blackface came forward, I wrote something that when I was a kid, like you would dress as a Native American, but it wasn't like you felt like you were getting away with anything.

• 27:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 27:53Dax Shepard?

  It was almost like you had no ideas for a costume. That was kind of like, oh, fuck, I guess I'll go as a chief.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  But I think that's hard for people now to conceive of. But we're doing something now that is going to be inconceivable. I mean, in the future, but we can't even guess what it is. We're sitting here in this room. We can't even guess what it is.

• 28:13Dax Shepard?

  We're doing something deplorable right now.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  I know. It's crazy.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  And even trying to imagine like, oh, is it drinking water from a can?

• 28:21Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  Is it uh?

• 28:22Speaker 03

  Books with paper?

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Having a candle on the table?

• 28:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:26Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so I've been on this kind of tirade of, or not even a tirade, people will just ask me what I listen to because everyone knows I listen to something to go to bed. I've been telling everyone, you know, I've been this year of listening to you every single night. And when I'm encouraging people to do this, the way I hook them on you is I tell them the story of the tortoise. Oh, no, it wasn't a tortoise, it was a snapper turtle that you developed this relationship with. And I think it's kind of my favorite story of yours in that I think it encapsulates exactly who you are as a human being. So I just want to walk through that a little bit with people. In short, you bought this wonderful place, the C-section on the island. What's the island?

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Emerald Isle.

• 29:04Dax Shepard?

  Emerald Isle. And you thought this would be a great place for my family to gather and then you started doing that. But once you were there gathering with your family, you're like, I don't want to be in this house with all these people. You take a walk and then what happens? You discover this turtle under a bridge?

• 29:17Speaker 02

  There's canal there and it's just filled with snapping turtles and with water turtles too. But they're massive snapping turtles, like the size of your suitcase, right?

• 29:29Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 29:29Dax Shepard?

  And their face is intense, right? The actual beak on the thing.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was one in particular that had a tumor on its head.

• 29:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And that was the one you really felt affection towards, right?

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, because the other ones, you know, you know, the one with the tumor on it. It's like he's wearing a hat.

• 29:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  A hat.

• 29:46Dax Shepard?

  But are the steps, you started noticing people were feeding them garbage, like Ruffles potato chips. And you were like, they gotta eat something better than this. They can't be designed for that.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Well, I was feeding them raw hot dogs, which I don't know how much better that is than, but they'll eat anything. You know, the snapping turtle is just gonna eat it and then think later, was that a piece of human shit?

• 30:08Speaker 02

  And I don't think anything can be too disgusting for them.

• 30:12Dax Shepard?

  They'll eat whatever. They don't care. But you started feeding it like, I don't know, did you do some chicken livers too, maybe?

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, chicken legs, chicken backs.

• 30:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I know you were on tour and then you discovered you had this lipoma tumor. Tell people what a lipoma is.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  I was in Paris one day and I noticed it seemed to pop up overnight. It was like half a deviled egg under my skin, right above my hip. And I went to a doctor and he said, oh, it's a lipoma. And I said, is it gonna get any bigger? And he said, probably not. And I said, why? And he said, I don't know. Why don't trees touch the sky? Which I thought was such a good answer.

• 30:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  And he said, there's no need to get it removed. He made me feel vain for wanting to get it removed.

• 30:58Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  And then I went to a doctor in North Carolina and I said, can we cut this out? And he said, yeah, definitely. And I said, because I want to feed it to a snapping turtle.

• 31:06Dax Shepard?

  There we go. But just, do you remember where that idea came from or it just felt very natural?

• 31:10Speaker 02

  I just finished this essay about why some people want to feed wildlife and why it's not important to other people at all. I know people who never occurs to them, right?

• 31:24Speaker 03

  It's me. I don't, I never think about it.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  I never go to Central Park without food and I feed squirrels. And then I started feeding birds and then not long ago I started feeding crows. It's fascinating to have a new creature to feed, right? And they love hard boiled eggs.

• 31:44Dax Shepard?

  The crows do?

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:45Dax Shepard?

  Okay. We're feeding crows too.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  Oh, you do? What do you feed yours?

• 31:49Dax Shepard?

  We've tried every single thing. I was putting out like really nice lunch meats for them and stuff. Kristen was trying different berries and stuff. They love dog treats. That's a big one. I think they're real smelly, those dog treats.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, they love peanuts in their shell.

• 32:01Dax Shepard?

  That's what I heard, but I honestly don't care about that.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  Raw chicken breast. Love it.

• 32:04Dax Shepard?

  Raw chicken breast. Okay.

• 32:08Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 32:13Dax Shepard?

  We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking what the warning light means before pulling out of your driveway. You absolutely convinced yourself it was probably just a sensor thing right up until you were standing on the side of the road waiting for a tow. Yeah, checking first is the right move. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds and for fast, reliable help when you need it, add an Allstate roadside plan today. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary. Insurance and roadside assistance plans are subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Insurance provided by Allstate North American Insurance Company, Northbrook, Illinois. Roadside assistance plans provided by Allstate Motor Club, Incorporated and Allstate affiliate.

• 32:58Dax Shepard?

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

• 33:23Speaker 03

  Cooking shows for me.

• 33:25Dax Shepard?

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

• 34:10Dax Shepard?

  So I can start a video on my TV while brushing my teeth and pick it right back up on my phone on my morning walk. So yeah, YouTube was already great, but Premium supercharges it. If you like YouTube, you'll love Premium. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com/premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. We get support from Superhuman. I'm someone who wants to do big, meaningful work, but the small stuff eats up my day before I even get to it. The endless emails, docs, scheduling, follow-ups that pile up. By the time all that's cleared, there's no energy left for the ambitious stuff. Most AI tools promise to fix that, but they require opening a new tab, re-explaining everything from scratch every single time.

• 34:54Dax Shepard?

  A week later, it's just another thing collecting dust in the browser. Superhuman, from the makers of Grammarly, is different. It's already embedded inside the tools people are using, email, docs, browser. It's not waiting to be found. It's already there, working alongside, clearing what's in the way, so the focus stays on what's actually worth doing. A thought partner that's already up to speed, no catching it up. It knows the style, the workflows, and it backs people up without getting in the way. At your service, not after your job. That's the difference. Give it a try for yourself. Start streamlining your workflows with Superhuman. Try today at superhuman.com. We get support from Instagram teen accounts.

• 35:37Dax Shepard?

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

• 35:49Speaker 03

  Which is a fair question.

• 35:51Dax Shepard?

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

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Sleep mode is genius.

• 36:18Dax Shepard?

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

• 36:33Speaker 03

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

• 36:37Dax Shepard?

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

• 36:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so what's great about the two camps is there's people who want to feed animals. And it's not just that the people who don't want to feed animals don't want to feed animals. They feel vehemently that you should not feed animals.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:01Dax Shepard?

  To not want to is to put you immediately in the camp of like, you shouldn't feed animals, right? It's very vitriolic.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  But it's also like, it's easy for you to say, you're not doing anything. Know what I mean? Like you don't have the hard boiled eggs. You don't have to get them. You don't have to.

• 37:15Speaker 03

  It's lazy.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  Fill a Ziploc bag with damp paper towels to wash your hands. When you go to Hyde Park, it's just a few blocks from my house in London, and crows recognize 100 human faces.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  And the second day you go, they're there and you look like a warlock. You know, all of a sudden you got 30 crows dancing in front of you on the street.

• 37:34Dax Shepard?

  What power.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  And it's just fun.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  And it opens a whole new world, but another world just got open because we have a pasture behind our house. And this shepherd was keeping his rams there.

• 37:50Dax Shepard?

  This is in England, right?

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, and rams are just assholes. Anyway, he's not having sheep anymore, so our pasture was empty. Someone in the village looking for a place to keep their donkeys. We have donkeys now in our pasture.

• 38:02Speaker 03

  Oh, that's cute.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  So it's a whole new, whole new things to feed and get to know.

• 38:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  I'm really excited about that.

• 38:10Dax Shepard?

  And he was a don't feed the animals person, right?

• 38:13Speaker 02

  I went to the park with him. He didn't feed a single squirrel and I thought, oh, he's embarrassed. If I go through a trash can because I'm looking for something shiny or just something I can use for one reason or another, he'll walk ahead. And if I'm picking up trash, he'll walk ahead. So I was surprised. I thought, oh, he cares what people think more than I do. But I had this lipoma and then I thought, you know, people who get their legs amputated, right? Alligators would love to eat a leg.

• 38:44Dax Shepard?

  It's wasted. Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. And instead, and this doctor said, I cannot give you anything I cut out of your body.

• 38:50Dax Shepard?

  Do you know why? I don't know why.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  I don't quite understand it either.

• 38:55Dax Shepard?

  I know, like, I think they're under the guise of it would be a liability issue, but what's the liability?

• 39:00Speaker 02

  But a lot of dentists won't even give you teeth anymore.

• 39:02Dax Shepard?

  That's mine.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Right. Someone told me it had to do with flesh eating bacteria.

• 39:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, bacteria. I could see that.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  But I bitched about it one night on stage and this woman came up afterwards in El Paso, Texas and said, I'll cut that out of you. And I'll give it to you to keep.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 39:19Dax Shepard?

  One stop.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  She's like, meet me in the bathroom?

• 39:21Speaker 02

  She was a doctor, not a surgeon. And she said, I'll cut you open if it's above my, I don't usually like this word, pay grade.

• 39:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  I'll stitch you back up and send you on your way, but it shouldn't be a problem. And so after my show, it was like two o'clock in the morning or one o'clock in the morning after the book signing. She drove me across state lines into New Mexico.

• 39:41Dax Shepard?

  It's a great place.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  To a clinic and there were a couple of other people that came with us. And it was really simple and she cut it out of me. And then I went to her house, hung out later. I didn't sleep at all and went back to my hotel. She shipped it on ice to one of my sisters and she brought it to the beach.

• 40:00Dax Shepard?

  But months have gone by, right? You're kind of anticipating this for months. You know, you have this delicious lipoma sitting on ice. And you're so excited to get home and feed it to this.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  And it didn't amount to much.

• 40:12Dax Shepard?

  And you were gonna feed it to this snapper. Hopefully that had his own tumor, right?

• 40:17Speaker 02

  Right. And then I was told that that one died.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Cause my brother and my niece are down there a lot. And they said Godzilla. Turned out lots of people had different names for this snapping turtle. So I fed it to a different one.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  But it appreciated it.

• 40:32Dax Shepard?

  I hate to give away, my family and I, cause I told you, I also listened to it with my daughters a lot. We often lay down, and that's part of our routine is to listen to one of your stories. But the story ends with you saying, you know, that's the great thing about turtles is they'll eat it and barely think that. Whereas a dog, if you feed it a human turtle, it'll eat it. But then it'll give you a look that says, fuck, is that a tumor? I mean, what a fucking.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  But a turtle doesn't even give it a second thought. But to me.

• 41:05Dax Shepard?

  Fuck.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  It was just about waste.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  So many of our waste related rules are just lawsuit stuff.

• 41:15Dax Shepard?

  Trying to avoid lawsuits.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  You can't give somebody, if all these hamburgers are left at the end of the night, you can't give it away to people because they might, blah, blah, blah. But you can give it to an alligator.

• 41:26Dax Shepard?

  They're not litigious alligators.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  Or there's all kinds of creatures. You give it to dogs or cats or, I don't understand why. And it's just dumb rules in place.

• 41:38Dax Shepard?

  Do we agree though, there are a couple of good policies against feeding animals when it comes to like extremely dangerous animals, right? Like you wouldn't encourage anyone to feed a polar bear and get them more comfortable in your backyard, right?

• 41:48Speaker 02

  No, or bears.

• 41:50Dax Shepard?

  Lions.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Coyotes.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  Coyotes, I was about to say. There was a scenario down the street where a woman was feeding these coyotes. And then, yeah, more and more and more came. The one got run over and it's like a whole to do.

• 42:03Dax Shepard?

  That's also my sister's theory, right? Is that her, yeah, her investigative work?

• 42:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:08Dax Shepard?

  I don't have total confirmation on what she was feeding them, but my sister has figured this all out.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  I gotta say, I'm afraid to say.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  Say it.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  If I lived in a place and there were coyotes.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  You'd feed them.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  I'd probably think, hmm, I wonder what they want to eat.

• 42:21Dax Shepard?

  You feed the foxes.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:22Dax Shepard?

  Which everyone does in England, right? In your area?

• 42:25Speaker 02

  No, not necessarily. There are a lot of people who, right. I know people who throw scraps in their yard and then maybe they'll be gone. But there was this fox, she was eating out of my hand.

• 42:35Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  Eating out of my hand.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  And you're not worried about that?

• 42:40Speaker 02

  No one had seen anything like it. Nobody, people were shocked at this fox, right? And then our neighbors, they have chickens, they paid someone to shoot her while Hugh and I were in the United States, right?

• 42:54Speaker 03

  The fox?

• 42:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then I thought naively, well, maybe there'll be another one. No. But Hugh just saw a fox in our pasture that has babies. So I'm thinking maybe, cause if you can get those babies, if you can get them.

• 43:09Dax Shepard?

  Domesticate those maybe. Yeah.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Oh gosh.

• 43:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  Whenever you see like people who have foxes for pets, they're gleeful almost and they're affectionate and they lay on their backs and they seem to be smiling. But at the same time, they're like, I gotta get out of here. You know, like all wild animals.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're animals.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  I gotta get out of here. A woman came last night to get a book signed. She has a squirrel. And I said, does it get in your linen? Is it hide nuts in your food and your linen comes? She says, yeah. But now it has the second floor of their house and, but it comes down every morning and jumps in their bed at six o'clock to wake them up.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  And they let it out.

• 43:47Speaker 03

  And it comes back.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  It'll just go out for like two hours and then like.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  Like a cat.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  Ready to come back.

• 43:52Dax Shepard?

  Wow. They're real smart, we found out. We've constantly do these lists of the smartest animals and they're always on there, shockingly.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  They can live to be 20, squirrel.

• 44:02Dax Shepard?

  Really?

• 44:02Speaker 03

  Did you grow up with pets? I forget this.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  Dogs and cats, hamsters.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  Regular variety.

• 44:08Dax Shepard?

  We've had you on enough times and now I've read every single thing you've written. Do you think about how you've changed as a writer? Cause I kind of was going backwards. So I got really conscious of how much the earlier stuff is different than the modern stuff. I'm wondering if you're like, even think about that or you've noticed how your writing's changed.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  I'm very aware of it.

• 44:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So how would you explain that, the evolution, how it's changed?

• 44:30Speaker 02

  To me, a difference would be like, my second book was called Naked. And I was under a deadline to write it. It was before I started going on tour.

• 44:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  So none of those essays was read before a live audience until the book came out. And everything in it is twice as long as it should be. Everything in it is, you see somebody straining for a laugh and like elbowing you in the ribs. Get it? Get it? And it's awful. It's just awful. And when people can't see the difference between that. And then the last book, I'm like, what am I here for? If you can't see the difference. Also, it's a difference, that second book, if you were meeting somebody for the first time and they didn't know anything about you, you would say, these were big moments in your life. So I wrote about big moments in my life, but now I write really about nothing.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, small moments.

• 45:27Dax Shepard?

  I think you're one of the only weird hybrids we have that you're somewhere between a stand-up and a writer. I think, and I wonder if you agree with that, which is stand-ups write a thing in the morning or even they have a kernel of an idea. They go out, they try it a little bit on stage. They take the feedback from that. They work it a little more, right? There's this really back and forth process of having the audience help guide them, which is unique to stand-up. But because you have been doing these lecture tours for years and years and years, wouldn't you say you're working in a kind of a similar format? There's a couple of your live readings, like on Calypso, that I said, if you put it into AI and you had it AI analyze, are there more laughs per second in this than there is this Chappelle's stand-up piece?

• 46:13Dax Shepard?

  You are blowing some stand-ups off the stage, just laughs per second. You're really this weird hybrid. And do you think about that part at all?

• 46:22Speaker 02

  Reading things out loud and then going back to the room and rewriting them. That piece that I wrote about feeding animals, my biggest laugh in it came from during Q and A. No one asked about that piece, but sometimes before the questions come, I've just run in my mouth. And I was talking about the relationship between blue jays and squirrels. Whenever you see a squirrel, you're likely to see a blue jay.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 46:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  And blue jays get up in the tree and they watch squirrels bury their food and then they go steal it.

• 46:51Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  And blue jays eat baby squirrels.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  And squirrels eat blue jay eggs and baby blue jays.

• 47:00Dax Shepard?

  They're a two-person circle of life.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  And so I found myself saying on stage that I love that, given how now we'll cancel somebody over an Instagram post. It's nice to know that amongst certain animals, eating each other's babies is not a deal breaker. Like we'll still hang out with each other.

• 47:17Dax Shepard?

  Still symbiotic relationship.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  And so I wouldn't have thought that at my desk, but I said it on stage and people laughed really hard and then I put it in the piece. So that happens. And another thing that happens is that I read something out loud and then people come up and they said, oh, I had a similar experience. Or, oh, this thing happened to me. And so I can stitch it. I don't then say it happened to me, you know, or give them credit. But that can help it grow as well.

• 47:46Dax Shepard?

  Okay. The other arc I noticed is, and this is not unique to you. I think this is the arc of most people, which is like, you're kind of nicer now. You're beautifully agitated a lot, which is a source of a lot of your funniest stories. But you have a different disposition. Would you agree? And which makes sense, cause you were kind of a late starter and you didn't know if this was gonna work out for so long. So you had accumulated a lot of living at the bottom of the barrel issues you would have, but you're less angry. Is that a fair? And I don't even know that angry is the right word.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:19Dax Shepard?

  Can you feel that you've gotten lighter as a person over the last 30 years?

• 48:25Speaker 02

  I don't have anything really to complain about. Nobody is telling me that I can't write. Nobody's telling me I can't put a book out. I mean, you know, sometimes you'll submit something to an editor and they'll be like, no. Not because it's poorly written, but because you've said something that they think is insensitive. But they're not saying you can never write again. They can say, change it. And I say, fuck all y'all. Because I read that on stage and I know it gets a huge laugh and you're just coward.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes.

• 48:59Speaker 02

  But I don't really have that much to complain about, but I'm angry about a lot of things. Like I'm angry about, don't you just hate it when? And again, I know how petty this sounds. So you go to the hotel, cause I'm going to a hotel. I started this tour April 1st.

• 49:14Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 49:15Speaker 02

  And you go to a hotel and then they run up to open the trunk of the car so they can get your luggage out. And if someone touches your luggage, you gotta tip them. That's a rule.

• 49:24Speaker 03

  I know, I know.

• 49:26Speaker 02

  So fine. Here's $10 for taking my suitcase out of the back of the car. And then they say, we'll send it right up to the room. And I say, no, I'll bring it up to the room myself because I don't want to have to wait for it. No, it's already on the way up. And then it's like, okay, that's 20 more dollars. And that feels like, again, if I were going out of town one weekend per year.

• 49:48Dax Shepard?

  You're checking into a hotel every day.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm not that person who says, yeah, sorry, I don't have any cash on me. Cause I go and I find the ATM that will let me have $5 bills and then $10 and I pick them. And I constantly have my money ready and have it down. And you just buck me over for tomorrow.

• 50:10Dax Shepard?

  I think a lot of this is just like how frequently you travel. If you only hear, how was your flight? How was your trip? Welcome in. You only hear that twice a year. It's not even going to register, but it's the repetition that starts driving you mad, I think. And so my issue with the bag thing, when we pull up to a hotel, I'm fine with tipping. In fact, it's like a thing I get off on. I just, I don't need that. I can handle this bag. I don't want to be separated from it. It has my journal in it. This is all these reasons why I don't want a bunch of different people getting it to the room. And it seems insane because I can manage it. So I have a couple of built in ones that work so perfectly. If I'm with my children, I go, no, no, they gotta learn to handle their own business. Thank you. Right? So they go, oh, cool. He's trying to teach his kids not be brats.

• 50:52Dax Shepard?

  And the other thing you can say, and this one works so well, David, is they go to grab my thing and I go, oh, I'll take it. My mother would be so disappointed if I didn't carry my own stuff. And then they go, oh, okay. Yeah. He's just trying to like, live up to what his mom expects of him. So it takes all of us out of the equation. Like if you've got beef with somebody, it's my mom. Or if you've got beef with something, it's my kids. It's not me.

• 51:14Speaker 02

  Okay, you're going to your room and you don't have that much time. You can't take a shower on a trip like this. Yesterday I got in from the airport and I had 15 minutes before I had to leave for the bookstore.

• 51:25Dax Shepard?

  Stressful.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  And so I had to take a shower. I can't be waiting for you to bring me my luggage. I don't have that amount of time. And then I get off on tipping people too. But then it's like, I told you, you know what I mean? I tipped that guy for opening the trunk of the car, basically.

• 51:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  So again, and I know people have to make a living. And when you complain about that, people are like, you're a dick, you know? But if it's your life and if you're traveling constantly, that's the thing too. I'm in Vancouver the other day. This car meets me at the airport and he says, how was your flight? I said, you're better than that.

• 52:03Speaker 02

  I said, you know, that's a nothing question. And I said, I

• 52:10Speaker 02

  And I had the best conversation with this guy.

• 52:14Dax Shepard?

  Did you?

• 52:14Speaker 02

  Oh my goodness.

• 52:15Speaker 03

  He said, you're right.

• 52:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. Because I said, you're not opening a door with that question. And I say, my flight's fine. And you say, perfect or whatever. And then

• 52:25Dax Shepard?

  We're done. It's a cold sack.

• 52:27Speaker 02

  And even when I was in the airport 12 hours, how was your flight? I'm not going to, because I say, I was in the, oh, poor you.

• 52:34Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah. Travel these days, these airliners.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  I was in a car last month and the guy said, I think we met once before. I was in Cleveland and I took you to such and such. I had my computer and I said, oh, right. You've got three sisters and you, like I've written down, if I were him, I would have been a little bit afraid.

• 52:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:56Dax Shepard?

  You have a dossier on him.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  And all the stuff that I had written in my diary about him, but he was completely interesting guy.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  I had this driver a while ago. He was divorced and he said, we're driving and it's like a four hour car ride. And we're somewhere in the Midwest. And he said, do you want to go to lunch? You know, which just wouldn't happen. He said, I know this drive in. And he said, it's clown themed. A clown drive in, a diner. It's clown themed diner.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  Perfect for you.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  Anyway, so we went, cause it was just so unheard of for a driver to say like, do you want to have lunch?

• 53:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  My schedule that day, I couldn't think of anything better than to go to a clown themed diner.

• 53:35Dax Shepard?

  With a stranger.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  With this guy who wants to do stand up. And I didn't have to fake laugh or anything like that.

• 53:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 53:43Speaker 03

  Do you ever feel stuck in those situations? Like you're at this diner with this person. You're not worried like, I'm going to want to go and how will I get out of this? Or how will I tell him it's time for us to go? I would get really in my head about that.

• 53:56Speaker 02

  Oh, I didn't worry about that.

• 53:58Dax Shepard?

  Again, I think because, and this is my hunch is like, you're kind of always on the hunt for a story. Right? Like this is your business. You write about stuff. So any situations potentially fodder for work. You can always frame it that way.

• 54:11Speaker 02

  This guy who I travel with sometimes, lovely guy, but he wouldn't ever think to talk to the guy driving the car to the airport. Would never think to do it. We were in the Midwest and the weather was just horrible. And there were no flights. All the flights from the airport were canceled. So he said, we gotta get a private plane. We got a private plane and it sat like 10 people. And I said, let's bring eight people with us.

• 54:36Speaker 03

  That's nice.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  Because no one's leaving here, but if you said to people, you know, I can get you to Louisville, Kentucky. I bet some people, and he said, no, they might talk too much. And I'm forever angry at myself for not saying, it doesn't matter if they talk too much. Cause it would be such a nice story for those people.

• 54:54Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  Then these guys came up and next thing we knew, we were on a private plane. Cause most people don't get to ride in a private.

• 55:00Speaker 03

  No, never.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  And it was going to cost the same amount regardless.

• 55:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 55:04Speaker 02

  So why not?

• 55:05Speaker 03

  You would have given them a story for their entire life.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Bring people with you. But anyway, it comes down to waste again.

• 55:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  Why are you going to waste that tumor?

• 55:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. When there's, it would make this Godzilla's day.

• 55:16Speaker 02

  There's hungry turtles out there.

• 55:17Dax Shepard?

  I joined Kristen, she had a press junket down in Cancun one time. This is years and years ago, probably 15 years ago. And we went down there and so I have nothing to do all day, but they've given her a driver. And then I have a friend who was just in Cancun. He's like, oh, you gotta go to this one restaurant. It's this old, old restaurant. It's legendary. It's super nice. So I asked the driver in the morning, like, hey, do you think you could take me to this restaurant? He said, oh, you're going to love that restaurant. It's the most famous restaurant in town. I go, okay, great. So I'm going to meet him at noon. And then the whole ride to the restaurant, the guy's like, I take a lot of people to this restaurant. He's kind of telling me about the restaurant. And then as we pull up, I said, you've eaten here, yeah? And he goes, oh, no, no, I've never eaten here. And I go, oh, well, come on in, let's eat here. And he's like, no, no, no. And I went, absolutely. Come on, dude. If you've never eaten here and you've come here a bunch of times, let's go.

• 56:03Dax Shepard?

  So I have lunch with this guy and it's super fun. And then when we get out, he very much wants to like reciprocate. So he's like, anything I can do for you that you want? That was just so nice. And I go, yeah, I want to see where everyone that works at these hotels lives. Like I see the presentation, but I want to see like, where do y'all live and what's going on? He's like, oh, great. Yeah, I'll take you to where I live. And so we're driving around in this little neighborhood. And then he goes, oh yeah, my girlfriend lives right up here. And I go, oh, cool. And he goes, can we say hi to her? I go, yeah, absolutely. So then we pull into this, you know, it's a little cinder block house about the size of this studio. And we kind of just walk in because it's his girlfriend and she's like in a sports bra and like, whatever.

• 56:47Dax Shepard?

  She's not dressed for company, let's just say. So they start speaking in Spanish and you can tell she's so confused. Like, why is this tall white dude in my house? And then he goes, oh, she, she really would like a photo with you. Can she have a photo? And I go, yeah, absolutely. So I don't know how this happened, David, but somehow the photo was I sat in the chair by the computer. And I thought she was going to stand next to me. And then she just kind of sat on my knee. And so now I'm in this photo with a Mexican girl in a sports bra in a small house. And I came back to the hotel, I said to Kristen, I go, hun, potentially a photo may emerge that looks very, very guilty. I don't know how I ended up in this photo, but I did take a photo of a woman in a sports bra.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  I never learned to drive a car. And so I've never been in a car by myself.

• 57:34Dax Shepard?

  Do you have nightmares that you'll have to drive?

• 57:36Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. But it's like with you being in a car, I mean, I can see how somebody listening would be like, fuck all y'all. You know, like, oh, I wish I had a driver, but it's like when you go on tour. So a car is going to meet you at the airport and take you to the hotel.

• 57:50Dax Shepard?

  You can't do the job without it.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  No, it's not a stretch limo.

• 57:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, right.

• 57:54Speaker 02

  But it's a car service. But if you were renting a car and you're just driving it, you're guaranteed, you know, unless you get a flat tire or something, there's not going to be anything to talk about. But there's a potential there to have.

• 58:08Speaker 02

  A really nice conversation with a stranger and to learn something, to me, that's what it's all about is to

• 58:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're just so curious.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  Touch somebody.

• 58:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  To get evidence that they're a person.

• 58:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:23Speaker 02

  And then they get evidence of that, of you as well.

• 58:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. I love it. Tell me about the evolution of everyone in your stories as real life people in your life. And I think, of course, your heart is on yourself. You expose all of your own warts the most, but also you just tell it like it is between you and Hugh. You'll tell it like it is with your sisters and your brothers and your dad and your mom. How has that evolved at the beginning? Would people get mad at you? What's the unspoken rules about how you write about people?

• 58:52Speaker 02

  Well, my brother, like for instance, we had an argument about something in 2016. And then he said he didn't want me to write anything about him. Anyway, it took a long time to get beyond our argument. Like, it wasn't worth estrangement.

• 59:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, right.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  I wouldn't say we were ever estranged, but I would say maybe it was strained for a few years.

• 59:15Dax Shepard?

  He's a lot younger than you?

• 59:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:16Dax Shepard?

  How much younger?

• 59:17Speaker 02

  11 years. And then I had a show in Raleigh and everything I read featured him.

• 59:24Dax Shepard?

  And he came?

• 59:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. And he was so happy. But again, the laughs that he got were his laughs. People weren't laughing at him. They laughed at the things he said that he knows are funny, but he's not going to get up on stage and do it.

• 59:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  He's not a writer.

• 59:42Dax Shepard?

  So he's learned to enjoy that, probably through getting to experience the live show?

• 59:47Speaker 02

  I think when he said, I don't want you writing, I knew what he meant. He was afraid I was going to write certain things about him.

• 59:53Dax Shepard?

  To make him look stupid or something?

• 59:55Speaker 02

  No, no, just identify him in a way that, you know, if you have a business, people are just so quick to then

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  Write you off.

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Dax Shepard?

  But he's such a wonderful character in your life because he's 11 years younger than you. And he is the prototypical Raleigh dude, right? He did perfect in that situation. He and your father were best friends. Like, he said, that's my best friend when he was dying.

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  Paul can speak to men in a way that I can't.

• 1:00:22Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  You know, he can just speak their language.

• 1:00:25Dax Shepard?

  He's very colorful in the way, unless you're putting words in his mouth. He also has a very unique way of communicating. He's got tons of brilliant little sayings and colloquial things, right?

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  He had a floor sanding business, so he was hanging out with people from the country. You know, there's grass on the field up like, you know, people who say stuff like that. He's got an ear and he's always known what's funny.

• 1:00:46Dax Shepard?

  Has there ever been tension, though, where people really didn't like it and they confronted you about it? Or has everyone made peace with it?

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  I give it to them first and say, is there anything you want me to change or get rid of?

• 1:00:57Dax Shepard?

  And how often do they flag something?

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  Hmm, I'm trying to think.

• 1:01:03Dax Shepard?

  I bet it's the same ratio of our show. We let people cut out anything they want to cut out. And I bet it's one in 10

• 1:01:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:09Dax Shepard?

  interviews where someone does have something they want cut out.

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  Most of the people who have said to me, I don't want you writing anything about, I wouldn't have written it anyway.

• 1:01:18Dax Shepard?

  They're flattering themselves.

• 1:01:19Speaker 02

  It's just not interesting. It's the same way that quite often if someone comes to get a book signed and they say, I've got a funny story to tell you. It's not funny. But if you're just having a conversation, sometimes they'll say things that are just amazing. Like, you just hit the right

• 1:01:38Speaker 03

  Because they're just being themselves. They're not trying.

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:41Speaker 03

  So did you date a lot before Hugh? Because I feel like dates must have been hard.

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  No, I had a boyfriend before I met Hugh that I was with for six years. And then, oh, I had like a little awkward rebound after that. But it was before I had published anything. And then I met Hugh.

• 1:02:00Speaker 03

  Okay. Because I was like, people must just constantly, I can just imagine these dates where they're trying to prove to you that they're so funny. And that would be miserable.

• 1:02:12Speaker 02

  Well, I think it would be hard to date somebody.

• 1:02:18Speaker 03

  Period.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  It'd be hard to date somebody, period. But like, if you all of a sudden went on the dating.

• 1:02:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:26Speaker 02

  You know, if people knew who you were.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:02:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:29Speaker 03

  It's hard.

• 1:02:29Dax Shepard?

  No, you know that everything that happens in bed, they might tell a tabloid at some point. So you're like, wow, I gotta keep that in the back of my mind. So you really feel like you could trust the person's ever going to do that?

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  And I've never written anything about, you know, even my ex-boyfriend. I've never written anything about our sex life. I've never written anything about Hugh, our sex life.

• 1:02:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know the line you don't want to cross.

• 1:02:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I think the most info you've ever given us about you and Hugh's sex life is Tiffany called you one time and said, there's a man that wants to fuck her up the ass with a strap on. And you know if Ambusol reduces anal pain. And you said, you're asking the wrong person. And then she said, well, put Hugh on. He said, it's still the wrong house. Call someone else.

• 1:03:19Speaker 02

  That's one thing. You never want to know that about someone, your sister. You never want to know about your sister's sex life.

• 1:03:27Dax Shepard?

  You said in the fact that it was for money shouldn't matter, but it did.

• 1:03:33Dax Shepard?

  I got curious about your sleep schedule now that I've read so much of your stuff. Because so many of your stories, like, will involve a walk that starts at 1 a.m. in New York, or you're working on something at the house in England at 3:00 in the morning. Do you have a normal thing? Does it evolve a lot?

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it changes a lot. Like in England, quite often I'll go out at midnight and I'll walk to the train station and pick up trash. It's like, I don't know, two hour walk, maybe. And then I come home and I'm up for a while. So, you know, I'll go to bed at 3:00 and wake up at 10:00.

• 1:04:10Dax Shepard?

  And do you have any guilt? Do you care about what your sleep schedule is? Do you just follow whatever your desire is? Like, I want to go for a walk right now and I'll wake up when I wake up?

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just became free a couple of days ago because the past almost four years, then, let's say I wake up at 10:00, my Duolingo XP Boost would expire at noon. So that would only give me like, just under two hours. And then I have to cash in that XP Boost. And because I needed to be in the top three in the Diamond League, that takes me an hour.

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:04:46Dax Shepard?

  Right?

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  And then I said to somebody 10 days ago at a bookstore, I said, does anybody know how to turn off the leaderboard for Duolingo? And this woman said, I can do that for you.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  And turned it off. And now I have no idea what league I'm in. I have no idea my ranking. I was competing against people who maybe don't even exist.

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:07Speaker 02

  And it was ruling my life.

• 1:05:09Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  And so now, Duolingo says, I want you to do this, this, and this today. And it might take 15 minutes. It might take 20 minutes. And I say, you've got it. And I'm free. I mean, it was ruling my life.

• 1:05:23Dax Shepard?

  This is one of my questions is Duolingo. So people that have read your previous books or have even listened to episodes that we've all done together, you were deeply addicted to your Fitbit, which then turned into your Apple Watch and this commitment to get 10 miles a day, which is how many steps? Like 20,000 or something?

• 1:05:40Speaker 03

  Uh, more than that, probably.

• 1:05:42Speaker 02

  Let's see.

• 1:05:42Dax Shepard?

  30,000? What's 10 miles?

• 1:05:45Speaker 02

  10 miles? Well, let's see. I've walked four, almost five miles today. Stepwise, I'm at 10,000. So like 20,000.

• 1:05:54Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah, nice. Okay.

• 1:05:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So that was your obsession and that was taking up a huge chunk of your day. And then came Duolingo. And that has its same weird addictive properties. Why is it that that thing has ensnared you in the same way as the Fitbit?

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  Well, I had to be in the top three, right? A normal person might, and it's complicated, but a normal person might have 300 extra points at the end of the week. I would have 27,000.

• 1:06:21Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:06:22Speaker 02

  And what it meant too, is that I'd go back to it in the evening. And so after a while, you weren't even learning anymore. But the problem was that I would do it. I'd go to the airport and I'd do it at the airport, you know, if I was on tour. And then I'd do it walking home from the fitness center when I was in New York or walking. And then I was that person on the street with the device in his hand, looking down. And I was so ashamed of myself, being that person. And that's what I'm free of.

• 1:06:51Dax Shepard?

  You had become what we call an addiction cross-addicted. You're now using your Duolingo and your fucking steps obsession all at the same time.

• 1:07:02Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 1:07:08Dax 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

• 1:07:50Dax Shepard?

  moving. Let yourself run. Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at onepeloton.com. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. We've talked before about Rob building our website on Squarespace and I bring it up again because it's a perfect example of what they do well. Rob had all the pieces, the content, the vision, the ideas, but he needed something to actually take all that and make it public facing and Squarespace was that bridge. Maybe you're in the same spot. You've been developing something, a business, a skillset, a body of work, and it's been private. It's been yours, but at some point you're ready to put it out there and that transition from private to public can feel like a huge leap. Squarespace makes it feel like a

• 1:08:32Dax Shepard?

  step. Beautiful templates, built-in SEO, email campaigns, scheduling, analytics, everything you need to go from "I've been working on this" to "Here it is, come find me." All in one place, no code, no stitching together a bunch of different tools. So if you've been sitting on something and waiting for the right moment, this might be it. Head to Squarespace.com/dax for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. 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 Glee. Foundo is a

• 1:09:14Dax Shepard?

  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 to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

• 1:09:28Speaker 05

  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

• 1:10:10Speaker 05

  only in 0.8 milligram, 2.5 milligram, 5.5 milligram, 9 milligram, 14.5 milligram, and 17.2 milligram tablets. Learn more at foundo.lilly.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX. Now is perfect to talk to your doctor about Foundo.

• 1:10:26Dax Shepard?

  This episode is supported by Helix.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Dax, is there anything better than crawling into a perfect bed on a cold fall night? Candlelit, hoodie on, maybe even some rain outside. The dream.

• 1:10:40Dax Shepard?

  That's the dream. You just described one of my ideal fall nights.

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  I know. And thanks to Helix, my bed actually lives up to the vibe. All I had to do was take the Helix Sleep Quiz and within two minutes, they matched me to a mattress built for exactly how I sleep. I have a midnight mattress. It also has cooling technology, which I really...

• 1:11:00Dax Shepard?

  Increasingly so.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  I need it. I have to have it. And I heard that you're supposed to sleep at a cold temp for optimal sleep. It's very, very helpful.

• 1:11:11Dax Shepard?

  She is not wrong. I have one too, and it's been such a game changer for sleep. And I love that they make it so easy. Free shipping right to your door. And with their happy with Helix guarantee, you'll get a full 365 nights to try it. A whole year to live in that cozy. They've got over 20 mattress models, so no matter how you sleep, they've got one for you.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  And it's not just us saying it. Helix has been named the most awarded mattress brand by Forbes, Wired, and more. You gotta try it for yourself.

• 1:11:38Dax Shepard?

  Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off sitewide. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off sitewide. helixsleep.com/armchair.

• 1:11:57Dax Shepard?

  Do you care or do you explore what's going on, why you're susceptible to that? Well, let's start with, do you admit and acknowledge this is peculiar behavior?

• 1:12:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:12:07Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 1:12:07Speaker 02

  Because I know so many people who do Duolingo and they do it like my friend Dave, like, oh, I did what they asked me to and now I'm...

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  I don't care about being in the top whatever.

• 1:12:18Speaker 02

  But again, if I was spending an hour and a half a day and if my German was like, oh my God, your German's perfect. It might be different, but the way to get points is to have a conversation. You can have the same conversation over and over and over and over. Right. And then you're getting 180 points a pop and that's what I was doing.

• 1:12:41Dax Shepard?

  That's where the money's at. So you would, you would admit the goal of being fluent in a language is kind of secondary to this weird point structure you've been roped into. And do we just think it's the addictive brain or do you have a different explanation?

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  No, it's addictive brain.

• 1:12:56Dax Shepard?

  That's all we're trying to do is plug something in that won't kill us.

• 1:13:00Speaker 02

  But what's interesting to me is that there's something coming. Something's coming my way and I can't begin to guess what it is. But it's like before someone gave me a Fitbit, it never occurred to me that I would have to walk like that. And before someone turned me on to Duolingo, I had no idea. So it's not over.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It'll just move to something else.

• 1:13:21Speaker 02

  But I cannot right now tell you, I haven't been introduced to it yet, but it's gonna be awful.

• 1:13:28Dax Shepard?

  Do you think it's amusing or annoying for our partners? Because Kristen seems to roll it out in dinner party conversations is it's kind of amusing, which is she has seen me be addicted to the weirdest stuff. I had a phase where it was toothpicks, right? It was tea tree oil toothpicks, but I wanted the strongest tea tree oil. So I was getting them from Australia where they have like probably an illegal level of tea tree oil that would be permitted here. And I chewed them so much that I started to get scabs around the corner of my mouth. It was like deteriorating my skin. And then I switched to Halls mentholipids. I got addicted to those for a while and I was eating a family pack a day. I'd have to go to CVS once a day and get my family pack. And you know, she just gets to sit on the sidelines and watch this madness and it'll just be like four months of this. And then I finally get my arms around that and then a new one just pops up.

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  Hugh hated Duolingo. But no, I'll do the same. Like my brother gave me these little ointages and stuff. Then I have to have 15 packs of them.

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  Were they minty?

• 1:14:24Speaker 02

  No, they were very medical tasting.

• 1:14:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I like that. Yeah.

• 1:14:28Speaker 02

  And then it's all about that and then it goes away and then something else takes its place.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  I wonder what it's gonna be.

• 1:14:36Dax Shepard?

  We're both ex-smokers. Have you ever considered getting re-addicted to nicotine? Because there's so many safe delivery systems now.

• 1:14:44Speaker 02

  No, I feel free.

• 1:14:45Dax Shepard?

  You do.

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  It feels so free not to be dependent on cigarettes and not to be dependent on alcohol. And I feel that free, like I'm released from Duolingo. And again, I'm still, I'm learning more now.

• 1:15:03Dax Shepard?

  Turning off the leaderboard.

• 1:15:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, the point system got taken away. But that's so funny to me because all it did was take that. All she had to do was remove that and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I'm good now. Instead of ruminating, oh, do I want to get back on the leaderboard? Like, that's addiction. I feel like, like, oh, I kind of want to go back to it. I want to see if I can... That's crazy to me that she's just like, yeah, I removed it and now you're good.

• 1:15:27Speaker 02

  Well, I asked her to remove it and then I don't know if it's because I'm on a book tour and so I don't need to be number one on Duolingo to feel good about myself.

• 1:15:37Speaker 01

  Sure, self-esteem.

• 1:15:38Speaker 02

  You know, that I'm getting rewarded for my book.

• 1:15:43Dax Shepard?

  Have they approached you about being an ambassador to the product or a paid spokesperson? Cause you now write about it so much. I feel like they should employ you.

• 1:15:52Speaker 02

  I think not because I write about it in a cautionary way.

• 1:15:58Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Another thing, and I know this is all annoying to be armchair psychologized from afar, but I wondered if the C-section in the art collection are subtle fuck yous to your dad. Meaning your dad always promised the family, you guys would get a vacation house on Emerald Isle. And he has never delivered on that. And you got to deliver on that while he was alive. And then he also loved paintings and collected a bunch of artwork. And then you got to do that, but you got to collect kind of real artwork.

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  And when it comes to the artwork, like I remember I was in Greece with my dad and we were in this tourist town. And then my dad's like, this guy, I might buy one of his paintings. It'll really escalate in value. And I said, dad, there's that guy in every town this size in the world. Like his work is never going to escalate in value. Well, my father would never give me that. He would never give me that. Like the artwork that he bought in Raleigh, there was that in every town, the size of Raleigh. Do you know what I mean? Like it doesn't mean that it's not.

• 1:17:04Dax Shepard?

  There's nothing special or unique about it.

• 1:17:06Speaker 02

  But because he didn't get out and he didn't go to museums and he didn't read things and look at things. He didn't know that. And also he didn't want to spend the money.

• 1:17:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  Right? And there are people who will, gosh, there's this salmon tour. I bought a salmon tour painting, who's this fellow from Pakistan. And gee, you can't even touch his stuff now. And I just got some early on. And two museums have borrowed it so far, but I don't do that too often. But I don't buy things as an investment, but my father, I would say, you know, like I went to art school. Like this has been an interest of mine since I was 14. I think I know more.

• 1:17:45Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  Than you do. But just someone not giving you that is so frustrating.

• 1:17:50Speaker 03

  It is frustrating.

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  And at the beach house, he would go to the beach and he'd say, what do you say? We get a house on the beach and we were so excited and we get a real estate agent and go look at places. And there was always a reason that we didn't get it. Instead, it was going to put a bar in the basement and we fell for it again and again and again. As adults, we all went to the beach. We hadn't been together at the beach in a long time. And then the third day I was there, Hugh made an appointment with the real estate agent and we bid on a house. And by the fourth day, we had a house and my father was like, you can't do that. You know, what about the roof? I said, if the roof needs replacing, I'll replace the roof. I'm not going to let it stop me.

• 1:18:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. You're just like closing the loop on the things he left open.

• 1:18:33Speaker 02

  Ask about the air, how old's the air conditioner? I said, don't care.

• 1:18:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:18:40Dax Shepard?

  You had a reader, a guest that wrote you a letter and said, I want to come to a live show, but I have Tourette's. A woman?

• 1:18:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:47Dax Shepard?

  And you said, of course, come to the show. And then she was sitting in the front row. What ended up happening? I saw you talking about a talk show, but I knew there you had to stop short of what was probably happening.

• 1:18:57Speaker 02

  She said, I have Tourette's and I want to come to your show, but I don't want to be the show. And I was a little bit insulted because I know when there's someone with Tourette's in the audience, you know, you figure it out pretty quickly.

• 1:19:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  Right? At first you're like thrown and then you think, oh no, it's somebody with Tourette's. So she came and she was in wheelchair and she's out in the front row. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you know, the guy at the BAFTA awards.

• 1:19:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:22Speaker 02

  And I was stunned by the ignorance that came out of that. People, well, he should have said, why didn't he say strawberry? Because he has Tourette's.

• 1:19:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:33Speaker 02

  And he's got to say the most offensive thing possible, right?

• 1:19:37Dax Shepard?

  That's what the condition is.

• 1:19:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so when she called me and I wasn't offended in the least bit because

• 1:19:43Speaker 03

  You knew the situation.

• 1:19:44Speaker 02

  She's gonna, that's what she has to call me.

• 1:19:47Dax Shepard?

  So this is fascinating because I had a different take, which is simply there are some things that you have that preclude you from going places. And that's just how life is.

• 1:19:56Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:19:56Dax Shepard?

  And it's like when men become trans women, they accept out of the gates, I'm going to be a woman, but I'll never give birth. That's just off the table.

• 1:20:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:20:04Dax Shepard?

  So my issue is like, I'm so sorry. The one thing you can't do when you have Tourette's is attend a televised fucking performance where there's going to be black folks on stage. Guess what? You have to recuse yourself from that situation.

• 1:20:16Speaker 02

  But his movie was nominated.

• 1:20:18Speaker 03

  I know. That was the tricky thing.

• 1:20:20Speaker 02

  His big night.

• 1:20:21Dax Shepard?

  Then they should have had him backstage so he could experience the night. But we got the exact outcome. We were always going to get. So why did we do that?

• 1:20:30Speaker 02

  I don't know. I guess I was more inclined like this is somebody's special night. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:20:35Dax Shepard?

  Well, a lot of people, but we elevated one person's special night among 10. I don't think we can prioritize one person over 20.

• 1:20:43Speaker 02

  Okay. How about this?

• 1:20:44Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Here we go.

• 1:20:45Speaker 02

  You can come. We're going to put a sock in your mouth, like five times.

• 1:20:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:51Speaker 02

  Okay. We're going to put a sock in your mouth.

• 1:20:53Dax Shepard?

  Anytime marginalized people on stage, you gotta put a ball gag on.

• 1:20:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. Maybe that's what I do.

• 1:20:58Dax Shepard?

  That could be a happy.

• 1:21:01Dax Shepard?

  Do you imagine they cut to the audience, two people, and you start putting together the pieces like, wow, every time there's a marginalized person on stage, those persons have their ball gag on.

• 1:21:09Speaker 02

  Cause I guess I was thinking of it too. Like, let's say that it was somebody who was a quadriplegic. Like, well, now we'd have to put a ramp on, you know, so better you not come. But instead now we would build the ramp, you know, we would never think, well, you have to stay home.

• 1:21:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:25Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:21:25Speaker 03

  I see both because I agree that like, should Michael B. Jordan, does he have to stand up there and pretend like

• 1:21:34Dax Shepard?

  He's not hearing the N word.

• 1:21:35Speaker 03

  When the N word is being shouted at him.

• 1:21:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. It's just like his right against him.

• 1:21:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:21:39Dax Shepard?

  It's just to me, at some point you look at it in a utilitarian way, like how many people were made uncomfortable versus how many got to live out their dream?

• 1:21:46Speaker 02

  I was given an award by the BBC, like a month after that. And then the guy got up there, the host, and he said, a BBC award show, what could go wrong?

• 1:21:59Dax Shepard?

  You have agreed. I've shamelessly asked you to read something from the new book, a very short one that I love. But before we do that, I just want to kind of publicly fellate you over. I think the story that I am most in love with, that I've listened to the most time, and I think I told you my kids like the most too. Which scared me the first time I heard it with my kids in bed is Lady Marmalade. You say Marmalade. I've heard you pronounce it Marmalade.

• 1:22:22Speaker 02

  I was taking it from the

• 1:22:24Speaker 03

  Song.

• 1:22:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. From the LaBelle song.

• 1:22:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. But for people who haven't read it and it's in Happy Go Lucky, it's the most incredible story in my opinion, because it has every single thing. It's an exploration of how kind of bizarre your father was and at many times kind of creepy and perverted. In particular, there was a time where you had a stomach ache and he suggested perhaps you have hemorrhoids. He was suspicious. You had hemorrhoids. God knows why. I don't think those are comorbidities. But he implores you to bend over the sink and he starts studying your anus. And you say, he's studying in the way that could only be described as someone might look at a gem. So, you know, this is a weird activity.

• 1:23:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:06Dax Shepard?

  But he's also not a predator and he's not an abuser. He's just this weird middle ground of like, we don't know what we file this person under. Right? And that is how people are. They're weird. They're, it's not binary. They're not like totally bad or not. It's like, it's even harder. It's like, is dad weird or not? But then of course Tiffany, who has her own struggles, she ends up accusing your father of having molested her and she's uncovered repressed memories, but she's not sure what they are. And what you do so beautifully, and I think the reason you can explore all of it in a way that's not terribly offensive. And even you say, I recognize that in an era of me too, what I'm about to say is hard.

• 1:23:46Dax Shepard?

  But we didn't believe her. And I just, I don't know why that makes me so happy to hear you be honest about how families are. Families are so unique, you know, they're not your relation with the rest of the world. There's things that are fine within a family and there's this weird magical relationship between siblings where it's like, we are the meanest to each other. Your sister walks down with a zit and you're like, whoa, you have a fucking zit, you know, like you're just so cruel. And then you also kill for them and defend them. And it's just a very specific and unique experience being in a family. And the honesty that you bring to that, I just left that thing going, man, you tackled everything that was hard.

• 1:24:29Dax Shepard?

  And we come out of it, me going like, yeah, he knows what it's like to be in a family. That's what it's like to be in a family. That's the experience right there. And I just love it so much.

• 1:24:38Speaker 02

  I've gotten so many letters from people who have a Tiffany in their family and they understand how hard it can be. Cause there were certain people who were like, you're disgusting person, you know, you turned your back on your sister. But they don't quite understand, you know, Tiffany called my dad at one point and enlisted a friend to tape the conversation and said, do you think I'm sexy?

• 1:25:02Dax Shepard?

  Entrapping him?

• 1:25:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. Trying to entrap him.

• 1:25:05Speaker 03

  Oh no.

• 1:25:06Speaker 02

  And then when Tiffany died, he never seemed terribly upset about it. I never saw him cry. He said she had a rotten life and that was it. A lot of people always assume that if someone in your family kills themselves, that you're overcome with guilt. Like someone just asked me that last night. You feel guilty? And I said, for what? For so many people who were mentally ill, who wind up killing themselves, I don't know. You'd have to think pretty highly of yourself that you could stop it.

• 1:25:32Dax Shepard?

  I also think you and I as a gift have the model of addiction, which is we know what it's like to be in a state of mind where nobody can really interfere. You're on your mission and either you will get sick and tired of being sick and tired or you won't. But no one else is going to interfere with that. And I think once you understand that, it's easier for you to apply it to people and have a little healthier distance from it and not the illusion that you can fix it.

• 1:25:57Speaker 02

  Sometimes be like, I can't be around it, you know?

• 1:26:02Speaker 03

  That's the reality of mental illness. That yeah, if you don't have anyone in your life who's experienced it, you wouldn't know. Like, yeah, sometimes you have to walk away from that person, which does sound really mean, but or you will die. It's a survival mechanism sometimes to walk away.

• 1:26:18Speaker 02

  And I'm sure my father, you know, from Tiffany calling and accusing him of, you know, again, like my dad was a creep. Just because you're a creep, doesn't mean you're a pedophile. It doesn't help your case any.

• 1:26:30Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 1:26:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:26:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. There's some inconvenient history here. Okay. So if you're open to it, I would love for you to read Punching Down.

• 1:26:44Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:26:46Speaker 02

  Let's see, here we go. Gosh, I haven't read this. Well, I read it on stage when I recorded the audiobook, and I think that was the last time. I haven't read it out loud on the book tour. "When I first moved to New York in 1990, I knew a total of five people. They all had lives of their own. I couldn't just plop myself down and demand their attention. So I signed up for a once-a-week class taught at the West Side YMCA, hoping I could make a friend or two there. Writing funny, the course was called, and it was taught by a British woman named Frida Garmes. It was maybe in her mid-60s at the time and had published several books. "What are the rules of comedy writing?" she asked at the start of our first session.

• 1:27:30Speaker 02

  I put my hand up. "You should never make fun of anyone who has less power than you." Frida looked at me with a combination of disgust and pity. "Where on earth did you get that idea?" she asked. I groped for an answer. "The Village Voice, maybe?" "No, no, no," she said. "The only rule in comedy is that you should always be as tasteless as possible." I think about that moment a lot, especially now when the phrase punching down has become ubiquitous. "It's a worst crime a comic or humor writer can commit, at least according to the people

• 1:28:10Speaker 02

  who now decide such things, meaning people on X who determine based, I suppose, on your photo and a wild guess at your net worth, who you can and cannot make jokes about. Words, we are now regularly reminded, are violence. Silences as well. I read not long ago that capitalism is violence, as is misgendering someone. Ignoring someone is violence, but so too is paying attention to them. A friend recently called on one of her assistants to deliver a statistic during a business meeting and was later charged with casual violence. Apparently, Deborah needed to give advance warning that she was going to ask a question,

• 1:28:54Speaker 02

  one that might possibly put her employee, someone who was well-paid to know stuff and be able to spew it forth, on the spot. "Who are these hot house flowers, all so easily and consistently wounded? People whose parents never hit them. That's it. People who don't know what real pain is, but still want to throw the word around. When I was a child, a slap across the face was too minor to qualify as casual violence. It was simply what you got for talking back or holding everyone up. It never hurt all that much. What stung was the swiftness of it, the surprise.

• 1:29:33Speaker 02

  Who knew my mother could move so fast, like someone belted in the martial arts? I don't feel like it traumatized me to be knocked around a little. Blood was rarely drawn, no limbs were broken. Could my parents have made their point without resorting to violence? Probably. But it would have taken more time. And with six kids to dress and get out the door, that was a precious commodity. I see parents now who worry they're being abusive if they don't spend at least an hour putting their child to bed, an hour. I said to my sister Amy, 'Do you remember ever once being tucked in? Can you imagine Mom and Dad reading to us or singing?

• 1:30:18Speaker 02

  Can you imagine them kissing us? Oh,' she said, 'stop. And look at us, we're fine. We can handle stuff. We never get offended by anything.' Part of this is that there were so many of us. A child needs brothers and sisters. The more, the better. Good siblings will press your favorite doll's face onto a red-hot barbecue, then steal the money the tooth fairy left under your pillow. They'll deposit things inside of you when you're four, then sleep with your boyfriend 12 years later. We'll, in short, prepare you to live in the real world.

• 1:30:57Speaker 02

  Better still, they'll dilute the eye of Sauron-like attention given to an only child. My mother couldn't remember our names half the time, much less care whether we felt anxious or depressed. One of the worst things that's happened to us as a country is that people are having fewer kids than they did in the past. Sure, it's good for the environment. Fewer people means less demand for resources. The problem is that single children receive a freakish amount of love and attention. Most graduate at least 12 times before leaving high school. Their every move is recorded and celebrated, and it gives them an outside sense of their own importance.

• 1:31:40Speaker 02

  Our parents thought we were okay at best, and I think that really helped us in the long run. Ask someone now if they have kids, and they're pretty much guaranteed to use the word amazing, as in, 'I have an amazing six-year-old daughter.' Amazing because she just discovered a cure for MS? Or because she speaks three words of Spanish? I always want to ask. I mean, just how low have you set that bar? The solution isn't for every couple to start having five kids, but maybe for one chosen couple to have five, and the other four couples to go without. Either have a full litter you can't dote on or nothing at all.

• 1:32:24Speaker 02

  If our schools are a mess, it's in large part due to these parents who think their kids are special, who get mad if you contradict their brilliance, if you give them a bad grade, or, God forbid, try to take their phones away. Had one of my teachers told my mother that I was acting up in class, she'd have said, 'Thank you so much for letting me know.' Then she'd have come to wherever I was, in front of the TV or at the side of the TV, making my way to the front of it, and slapped my sister Gretchen so hard her eyes would have crossed. 'What was that for?' Gretchen would have asked. 'Oops, wrong kid,' my mother would have said. Then she'd have slapped me twice as hard to make up for my mistake.

• 1:33:09Speaker 02

  I was in Los Angeles not long ago, staying at a hotel in Bel-Air. Houses in that neighborhood start at $20 million, so of course, there are no sidewalks. You wouldn't want the wrong people wandering it. So I was on the far edge of a winding street, Porsches and BMWs racing by, when I saw a van-sized private school bus pull up in front of a gated mansion. A mother ushered her child, age seven or so, through the door as I passed. I walked on for another five minutes before turning back, surprised to see that the school bus hadn't moved and the time had been gone. Rather, it was where I had left it, the engine idling, the mother still at the door, mewing

• 1:33:54Speaker 02

  over the sound of her crying child. 'Well, Atticus, honey, where do you want to sit?' So the bus driver and all these kids had to wait until this one woman's son was happy with his seat. I think that if you don't want to spank or slap your child, that is fine, your decision, but that other people should be completely allowed to. Not piggly-piggly, but in this situation, the driver had every right to yank Atticus into whichever seat was empty, saying, 'Shut the fuck up, we're leaving.' Children now are like animals who have no natural predators left.

• 1:34:38Speaker 02

  Had I arrived at my elementary school with a bleeding head wound, explaining that my father had just thrown me out of his moving car because I was teasing my sister, the teacher would have handed me a Band-Aid, saying, 'Well, I hope you learned a lesson from me.' Now even a scratch on the back of your hand could get your parents locked up for abuse, and children know this. In a London park one afternoon, I saw a woman glaring into the distance to where three kids, age seven to nine, were breaking branches off a tree. 'Hey, you boys,' she shouted. 'Stop doing that. You can't talk to us,' the ringleader shouted back. And he was right.

• 1:35:21Speaker 02

  At least legally, according to the law, the woman was bullying them. I was in a crowded restaurant one night and saw this four-year-old running back and forth across the candlelit dining room. Her parents charmed. This as servers were carrying heavy trays of hot food. I kept waiting for the manager to say something, but they're all afraid now of being condemned on social media. She didn't seem innately horrible, this girl, but I think we'd all have been better off had someone said, 'You sit down right now.' In this case, though, it was really the parents who needed to be hit. Ditto the couple I saw the next morning at breakfast. They came with two kids, age maybe four and six, and each of them was watching a different

• 1:36:06Speaker 02

  program on an iPad. Neither had headphones on, and the high-pitched voices of the cartoon characters, 'Let's go see what the letter M is up to,' was super disturbing. If this was a sports bar of the sort with billboard-sized TVs and loud music playing at the same time, it might have been different. But it was the restaurant of a nice hotel, one that offered room service. Do the parents know that this is not their house? I wondered, thinking finally of a couple I saw on the subway in Yokohama once. Their 18-month-old son was with them, and when the boy wanted to look out the window,

• 1:36:49Speaker 02

  his mother removed his shoes, took a towel out of her bag, and spread it upon the seat so that he could stand on it. Just before we reached their station, the woman pulled out a small spray bottle along with a paper napkin and cleaned the kid's handprints off the glass. So actually, maybe that's a solution. You have a child or two, and then send them off to be raised in Japan. Until they're 18 or so and have learned proper manners. When they return and you tell them how absolutely awesome and special they are, they will look at you in blink, not understanding and thus not believing a word of it.

• 1:37:31Speaker 03

  Oh, so good. So good and so true.

• 1:37:36Dax Shepard?

  Okay, you gotta go. I adore you. It's so fun when you come. I just wanted to update you on something. Another one of my very favorite stories of yours is talking about what we call when we do the prompt, foreign objects and bodies, which is what nurses and doctors call anyone who sticks something up their ass. And you have the funniest story about the explanation is always I slip and fell. And that your theory is you could be holding, what are you holding at the top of the Empire State Building stairs?

• 1:38:05Speaker 02

  Oh gosh, I could be holding, and it's not a rolling pin, is it? Is it? It's a...

• 1:38:11Dax Shepard?

  Like a candelabra or something?

• 1:38:12Speaker 02

  I could be holding two candles?

• 1:38:15Dax Shepard?

  We could get dealt in here. She has this whole thing memorized as well. But the point is you're holding a ton of stuff and you're pretty certain that if you fell down all 96 flights of the stairs, when you stood up, you would not have a candle stuck in your rectum. But I just wanted you to know that we do a prompt now. So about once every three months, people submit stories of foreign objects and body. And we've now just had our third one comes out next Friday. And you would be fast. I do encourage you to listen to these. It's all nurses and doctors telling the stories. And we've heard some that would make your head spin.

• 1:38:46Speaker 03

  There are some.

• 1:38:47Dax Shepard?

  Next week, in fact, the one that's coming out is the one was calling about one story and then just as a side note, because I always ask them like, how many have you seen? They've all seen 40 or 50 of these. It's always men. There's almost never been a woman.

• 1:39:00Speaker 02

  No, women don't do that.

• 1:39:01Dax Shepard?

  That's why it was a sidebar. She goes, well, we did have one woman once and she was a furry. She identified as a furry who was a cat. And when she came in, she had to admit she had wanted to experience what it's like to have a litter of kittens.

• 1:39:17Speaker 03

  To birth kittens.

• 1:39:18Dax Shepard?

  And she had put three kittens in her vagina and they scratched her up.

• 1:39:25Speaker 03

  We don't know what happened in there.

• 1:39:27Dax Shepard?

  We don't.

• 1:39:27Speaker 03

  But she did die.

• 1:39:28Dax Shepard?

  She passed from it.

• 1:39:30Speaker 02

  Before she could hear the pussy jump.

• 1:39:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:39:33Dax Shepard?

  There's a lot of pussy that we have. It's like, where do we want? We know we're using pussy. Are we gonna use it for the cats with the vagina?

• 1:39:41Speaker 03

  There's just so much right there.

• 1:39:43Dax Shepard?

  And then one that'll make your husband too, is another one told us.

• 1:39:45Speaker 03

  Another woman.

• 1:39:46Dax Shepard?

  Came in, she had put three razor blades in her vagina and then super glued her labia shut.

• 1:39:54Speaker 02

  Huh.

• 1:39:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So she arrives, she announces this, they send her up to surgery. In the meantime, the nurse reads her chart and discovers she has Moonchowsens. And when you have Moonchowsens, there's a very specific protocol for the doctors because they don't want to give you the payoff you're looking for. So you have to be kind of disinterested, not a lot of follow up questions. Don't offer more services. If they'll try to get you to like feed them and do all this stuff and you have to resist. So the woman comes out of surgery. So they don't want her to stay because they know she wants to be there forever. So they're gonna discharge her in an hour. She calls the family, come get them in an hour. So she got basically an hour in there. The woman who had been admitted said, can I work on my homework while I'm waiting to get picked up?

• 1:40:35Dax Shepard?

  And the nurse thought, well, how bad could this be? She goes to her book bag that was in a closet. She gets out the one folder she needs. She said she shook it upside down. She got a pan that she felt safe about. Gave it to her. She left, got back to her nurse station and in five minutes, the bell rang. She went in there and she said, what's going on? She said, I swallowed a razor blade. And she goes, where did you get the razor blade? And she held up her binder and she had put a hole at the top of it and hid razor blades in the binder.

• 1:41:05Speaker 03

  Isn't that crazy?

• 1:41:06Speaker 02

  Wow. I was signing books. I met a woman, a dentist, a couple of weeks ago. I said, do you see a lot of thrush? It's a bacterial disease that turns your tongue white. And she said, occasionally. She said, but what I notice more often is bruising in the backs of women's throats, particularly on February 15th.

• 1:41:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:41:31Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:41:31Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:41:32Speaker 02

  And I said, I didn't know that the back of the throat could bruise. She said, oh, quite clearly. And there are like spots on the back of the throat when it bruises. And she said, other times I'll notice it and I'll say, what'd you do last night? And the woman will say, celebrated my husband's birthday or my boyfriend's birthday. But why don't we know this?

• 1:41:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:53Speaker 02

  Because if you were going to go to the dentist tomorrow, wouldn't you be like, eh, not today?

• 1:41:59Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna make sure I don't have any dick bruises in the back.

• 1:42:02Speaker 03

  Exactly. Oh my gosh.

• 1:42:05Speaker 02

  Can you imagine like somebody doing that? I mean, there must be people who have done that before.

• 1:42:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh, they've talked to these nurses and doctors pretty regularly now. They're seeing every single imaginable thing. Like if you can think about it, they've seen it.

• 1:42:18Speaker 03

  People like to shock. I mean, that's also a big majority of us just really like shock value.

• 1:42:24Speaker 02

  But I feel like so many of the things people put up their ass and they do it again and again. I feel like if you're a doctor, you could say, you know what? I got people who were in car accidents. You're just gonna have to wait until what time, if it's today, if it's not today, because you put a horseshoe up your ass. Like something that isn't even conducive.

• 1:42:44Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:42:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh, David, we've now heard people put like whole propane tanks up their ass where now they can't operate on it because there's a hazardous explosive, like they gotta get the bomb unit in there. But the thing that makes me sympathetic, the reason I'm so compassionate is more than half of the stories start with what, Monica?

• 1:43:03Speaker 03

  The wife was out of town.

• 1:43:04Dax Shepard?

  More than half are the wife was out of town is the first bit of information you get. And you think these poor men have been waiting. They're almost always older men too.

• 1:43:12Speaker 02

  I spent 10 days at the medical examiner's office in Phoenix and they take a picture of everyone who comes in. And the wife's out of town.

• 1:43:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:43:20Speaker 02

  The husband dresses in her clothes, auto erotic asphyxiation, accidentally dies. So the wife has no idea, comes back, husband's dead in the closet, hung himself, dressed, like not dressed, like not fooling anybody.

• 1:43:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:37Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:43:37Speaker 02

  With pantyhose on and a bra and a wig and then hanging dead in the closet, but to find...

• 1:43:44Speaker 03

  It's horrible.

• 1:43:45Speaker 02

  But nobody, I wrote about that in a radio story once and they cut it out. Nobody talks about, it's an epidemic. Like it never occurred to me. I had to read about it because it never occurred to me. Oh, I know. I'll hang myself. Right.

• 1:44:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:00Speaker 02

  While masturbating. That should be fun. And it wouldn't occur to me.

• 1:44:03Dax Shepard?

  It's not obvious to me.

• 1:44:04Speaker 02

  And maybe they don't talk about it because they don't want people doing it.

• 1:44:07Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:44:08Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:44:08Speaker 02

  So many people do it and they just do it a little bit too long. So when I'm reading the newspaper and it's an obituary for like a 17, 18, 19, 20, or even an older, and there's no cause of death.

• 1:44:20Dax Shepard?

  That's where your mind goes to.

• 1:44:21Speaker 03

  Pretty much auto asphyxiation.

• 1:44:23Dax Shepard?

  They were in pantyhose of Brazil.

• 1:44:25Speaker 03

  But it's because they have kinks that they feel embarrassed. They can't tell their partner or do.

• 1:44:30Dax Shepard?

  It makes me sad all the time.

• 1:44:32Speaker 03

  So then they wait till they're out of town and then they die.

• 1:44:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:36Speaker 02

  Not the moral is a wife should never go out of town.

• 1:44:38Speaker 03

  Literally, that's what we're like, oh God, it's the women's fault.

• 1:44:42Dax Shepard?

  If you're over 50, you cannot leave your over 50 year old husband at home. God knows what you'll come home to. David, I adore you. I just want to join your life. I want to retire and then just go on the road with you and be Dawn and just help with the book signings or something. So just that offer is on the table if you ever, if she wants to sit out sometime and you just need a right hand man for free.

• 1:45:02Speaker 02

  Well, you know what? I'm coming back. I have a show in Pasadena in the fall.

• 1:45:05Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you do? Okay. I would love to be your assistant.

• 1:45:07Speaker 02

  I'm gonna need somebody to go down that line.

• 1:45:10Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I would love that.

• 1:45:11Speaker 03

  That'd be fun.

• 1:45:12Dax Shepard?

  Yes, I would love that. Okay. I adore you.

• 1:45:15Speaker 03

  I know, you're just the best.

• 1:45:16Dax Shepard?

  Relationship and real life relationship. It's confusing and exhilarating. So I can't wait for you to come back.

• 1:45:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, everybody get the land and its people. It's fucking brilliant, as are all of them. 15 in a row that are brilliant is incredible. The land and its people, it's out now. Get it.

• 1:45:35Speaker 06

  He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's gonna let him have the facts.

• 1:45:44Dax Shepard?

  Hello, Monica Padman.

• 1:45:48Speaker 03

  Hello, Dax Shepard. We're back, baby.

• 1:45:53Dax Shepard?

  We're back. Did you have any anxiety?

• 1:45:55Speaker 03

  About coming back?

• 1:45:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:57Speaker 03

  I wouldn't say I had anxiety, like I didn't have nerves.

• 1:46:01Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:46:01Speaker 03

  But I did have, I did have, you know, an existential crisis.

• 1:46:09Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. This is great. Let's get, we're starting right away with a crisis. What was it?

• 1:46:14Speaker 03

  Well, I just, we didn't do fact checks, obviously.

• 1:46:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:18Speaker 03

  Um, this summer. It's been two months. I haven't seen you in two months.

• 1:46:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, darns nears.

• 1:46:23Speaker 03

  Almost exactly two months.

• 1:46:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:26Speaker 03

  And that's, we don't normally do that. We do fact, yeah.

• 1:46:31Dax Shepard?

  We haven't had two months quote off in eight, over eight years.

• 1:46:35Speaker 03

  No, and even when we do summers, we still do fact checks remote.

• 1:46:40Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:46:40Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:46:41Dax Shepard?

  Already rookie mistake, out of practice. I left my spray inside. Can I quickly grab that? Yeah, I won't make it. I won't make it. I'll be right back.

• 1:46:50Speaker 03

  That's okay. We're gonna have some stutter, we're gonna have some stutter starts.

• 1:46:56Dax Shepard?

  Clumsy moments.

• 1:46:58Speaker 03

  I hope the audience is okay with that. I will say for people who, I ran into so many armchairs this summer. It was so lovely.

• 1:47:07Dax Shepard?

  All over the world.

• 1:47:08Speaker 03

  Literally all over the world.

• 1:47:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:10Speaker 03

  And often they would say, we're really, we want the fact checks back.

• 1:47:15Dax Shepard?

  Well, that's nice.

• 1:47:16Speaker 03

  And it was very nice. And so I, I thank you. Anywho, um, okay, my existential crisis.

• 1:47:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, please.

• 1:47:23Speaker 03

  I have still been editing, which maybe this is why. I'm, I've still been connected. I'm still seeing us. I'm still doing some things.

• 1:47:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:32Speaker 03

  But normally I'm antsy. I'm ready to be back. I am like feeling nervous that maybe you don't want to be back. And you know, all of that.

• 1:47:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:44Speaker 03

  I gotta tell you.

• 1:47:46Dax Shepard?

  It flipped on you?

• 1:47:49Speaker 03

  I don't know what happened this summer, but I really enjoyed the time.

• 1:47:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh lovely.

• 1:47:56Speaker 03

  Really too much.

• 1:47:58Dax Shepard?

  Okay, well, this is really fun and unexpected because I think we had reverse, reverse experiences.

• 1:48:06Speaker 03

  Okay. Yeah, we need to talk about it. I mean, not that, of course, I'm happy to be back and I love this job. It's so lucky. I honestly, I thought that throughout the whole summer, I just kept thinking, man, I love this life. Like what is going on that I have this job that's allowing me to have months off and enjoy that time?

• 1:48:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:27Speaker 03

  And like, I, yeah, I was just filled with gratitude. Um, but I, you know, when you wake up and you're like, oh, just five more minutes.

• 1:48:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So you had a five more minutes feeling?

• 1:48:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So first and foremost, I had an awesome summer. There's no two ways about it. I had an awesome summer. So many wonderful memories. Got to see so many different people.

• 1:48:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:48Dax Shepard?

  Truly great. Also, yeah, we didn't, and I didn't even add it, right?

• 1:48:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:54Dax Shepard?

  So I literally could pretend I don't have a job.

• 1:48:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. And we didn't talk really, like, we didn't have much face to face interaction at all.

• 1:49:03Dax Shepard?

  We just text.

• 1:49:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it was peculiar for me. It really was. Cause I have this whole fantasy about being retired and unemployed.

• 1:49:15Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:49:16Dax Shepard?

  And I will say after about four or five weeks, and the first thing I thought is like, something would happen. And I would be like, oh, I want to talk about it on the fat chat.

• 1:49:28Speaker 03

  I know.

• 1:49:29Dax Shepard?

  So that's lovely. That's a great feeling to have. Like, oh, I very much miss getting to hash stuff out with Monica.

• 1:49:36Speaker 03

  Yes, I agree.

• 1:49:37Dax Shepard?

  And then there was more existential stuff happening, which was like, oh wow. So, okay. So this is what it really looks like. And I guess my best comparison, and by the way, I know I'll change my mind 40 more times.

• 1:49:51Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:49:51Dax Shepard?

  But just currently today, what I felt like is I have quit caffeine in the past. And I think maybe the longest would be like three months. And for sure, I felt the benefits of it in that I was just way calmer. I was not in a rush to get everywhere. I have far less dust ups with other motorists.

• 1:50:11Speaker 03

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:50:12Dax Shepard?

  And I was like, oh wow, this is what it's like to be, you know, content moving through the world. But after about three months of it, I was like, I don't enjoy being on planet earth as much. Being content. Yeah, I'm a little.

• 1:50:25Speaker 03

  I know.

• 1:50:26Dax Shepard?

  Like, I just need a ton of stimulation.

• 1:50:28Speaker 03

  I know.

• 1:50:29Dax Shepard?

  And so, I don't know, I have no conclusion. Just, I knew I was like, huh.

• 1:50:37Dax Shepard?

  Could I sit at this house indefinitely just because it's pretty and there's nature? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Which then that makes me really scared.

• 1:50:48Speaker 03

  Well, why? It's okay.

• 1:50:49Dax Shepard?

  Because it's such a promising finish line and it's so aspirational. And in my mind, it like is one thing.

• 1:50:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:58Dax Shepard?

  And then to relearn the lesson you learn in life all the time, which is just like, no, no, inactivity is not the road.

• 1:51:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:05Dax Shepard?

  And, and stagnation is not the route to happiness.

• 1:51:09Speaker 03

  Expectations are not good.

• 1:51:12Dax Shepard?

  Sure. Right, right, right, right.

• 1:51:14Speaker 03

  They are, you just, they're all, you're always going to fall short of an expectation.

• 1:51:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. It was just a little bit like, huh. Now there was a lot of compounding factors that also added into that.

• 1:51:24Speaker 03

  Do you feel okay to talk about it?

• 1:51:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I will just say in a nutshell, last year was of course, so exciting to be in Nashville. No one had ever spent a summer on the lake. I had.

• 1:51:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:35Dax Shepard?

  Um, so everyone was just like at a 10 last year, but now kids are older. They're, um, I'm a teenager.

• 1:51:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:43Dax Shepard?

  And, um, everyone had a good time, but people wanted to come home, you know, like, in fact, Kristen and, and, um, Lincoln came home for a few days.

• 1:51:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:53Dax Shepard?

  Which then of course, I mean, that's so complicated for me because I have this big fantasy that everyone's going to love this place. And I want everyone to love it as much as me. And I'm like, well, hold on, why are people going back to hell?

• 1:52:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. That's hard. That's very hard.

• 1:52:07Dax Shepard?

  And then reckoning with like, okay, wow. So just forget retirement and let's forget eight years from now, just next summer.

• 1:52:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:52:15Dax Shepard?

  I don't think next summer will have the shape that this summer had, which is fine. And, uh, yeah, I probably won't be posted up there for that long interrupted. Period. For some foreseeable time.

• 1:52:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that's okay. But also it's a year away. We don't know what it's going to look like.

• 1:52:33Dax Shepard?

  We don't. Cause last year, of course, I'm like, yeah, we're gonna.

• 1:52:36Speaker 03

  Live there forever.

• 1:52:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we're gonna sit there in that Eden.

• 1:52:39Speaker 03

  We're moving there.

• 1:52:40Dax Shepard?

  And just be so delighted.

• 1:52:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. Which might come around again. Who knows? Maybe next summer, everyone will be like, we really want to, who knows? You know?

• 1:52:49Dax Shepard?

  And only one of us in the group is 51 years old. So it's like, one of us is also at a different life stage.

• 1:52:54Speaker 03

  That's right. But even you're saying, even for you.

• 1:52:57Dax Shepard?

  Well, again, I can't, I can't really parse out which part is which.

• 1:53:01Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:53:01Dax Shepard?

  I just know that I have more questions.

• 1:53:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:05Dax Shepard?

  Than I had last year at the end of summer, which I'm kind of fine with. And then, so then I got back Monday night.

• 1:53:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:53:13Dax Shepard?

  At like 11 o'clock at night. And I didn't want to leave, you know, I didn't want, in fact, they all came back six days before me.

• 1:53:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:53:21Dax Shepard?

  We'd always been planning on staying to the date. I stayed, but then the girls were like, I don't want to get back and start school the next day, which is totally fair.

• 1:53:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:29Dax Shepard?

  And, um, and I had scheduled two different friendship hangs during that time, really insanely special. Uh, both of them were, were so fucking wonderful. Um, but I wasn't dying to get back. And then

• 1:53:45Dax Shepard?

  I, um, I woke up here yesterday and I was like, hmm.

• 1:53:49Speaker 03

  Pretty good.

• 1:53:50Dax Shepard?

  Can't beat the weather here, man.

• 1:53:51Speaker 03

  I know.

• 1:53:52Dax Shepard?

  I mean, the weather in summer for it to be 82 and it's like, there's no humidity and I was just.

• 1:53:56Speaker 03

  I have a grievance. Everyone in LA, I'm seeing, you know, they're posting and they're like, it's so hot. Like everyone's paying. I'm like, guys, you do not understand.

• 1:54:05Dax Shepard?

  You don't know shit.

• 1:54:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:54:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Cause I was in the heat bubble of Europe. You were in some of it too, right?

• 1:54:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. I was in Paris when everyone was dying.

• 1:54:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was, I was in Hungary. Yeah. And it was insane. It was a hundred degrees every day and very high humidity. So it was like, it felt, um, uh, life threatening.

• 1:54:22Speaker 03

  And in the South, it's just a different kind of heat. It just is. I was just there and I was like, ah, like, and I love the heat and it was oppressive.

• 1:54:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:31Speaker 03

  And I, and not even close to the same like temperature as it is here. It is technically cooler there, but it is not. And it, you are swimming through the air. So LA, you guys, we need to relax. Like we have, it's so good here. It's crazy.

• 1:54:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And it pretty much never gets, uh, it gets ugly at the, in September.

• 1:54:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:54:52Dax Shepard?

  But that's about.

• 1:54:53Speaker 03

  And even then.

• 1:54:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:54:54Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 1:54:55Dax Shepard?

  So yeah, and then I went hiking this morning and, uh, I was like, yeah, this place is, it's, well, it's beautiful.

• 1:55:02Speaker 03

  It is.

• 1:55:03Dax Shepard?

  I'm just immune to it because I've been here for 30 years.

• 1:55:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:06Dax Shepard?

  But if you're gone for two months, I'm like, yeah, it's objectively beautiful here.

• 1:55:09Speaker 03

  I know.

• 1:55:10Dax Shepard?

  The weather's objectively really nice. And my little corner of this city is incredible.

• 1:55:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:17Dax Shepard?

  And, um, I had my hard shell tacos last night. I was like, oh, that's right. I love it here. I love it.

• 1:55:24Dax Shepard?

  This is really funny that we had a reversal kind of.

• 1:55:27Speaker 03

  Well, it is funny. Sometimes you have to get away to have the gratitude for what, um, you know.

• 1:55:35Dax Shepard?

  Sometimes you gotta lose it to know what you have.

• 1:55:37Speaker 03

  What do they say? Distance makes the heart grow fatter.

• 1:55:41Dax Shepard?

  It does. It does.

• 1:55:42Speaker 03

  Um, and it does. I mean, even like being in Europe, which was so fun. Oh my God. I such, I had such a good time. Paris and London. But then, you know, you do, you, you realize things that you take for granted at home. Home being the United States. Like.

• 1:56:00Dax Shepard?

  Starting there, yeah.

• 1:56:01Speaker 03

  You do realize like, oh yeah, like, man, they have no urgency. Like I, I'm like, gonna miss my flight. I, that's never happened. And it has nothing to do with me. It's because they're just standing there.

• 1:56:15Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:56:16Speaker 03

  Um, so you know, you, you go, yes, with a lot of fantasy about leaving your life and like this beautiful other, um, experience and, um.

• 1:56:27Dax Shepard?

  And you can ride it for a long time. You know, like the saying, no matter where you're at, there you are.

• 1:56:32Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:56:32Dax Shepard?

  But that is actually, I think, true, but delayed.

• 1:56:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:56:36Dax Shepard?

  You get reprieves from it.

• 1:56:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:56:39Dax Shepard?

  Like there are full weeks, if you get, if you're lucky enough to go to Europe where you're like, oh yeah, man, I'm European. I'm like, I drink cappuccino all day. Like you really can.

• 1:56:47Speaker 03

  So fun.

• 1:56:47Dax Shepard?

  You can snap into thinking yourself in different, but then ultimately it, it creeps, creeps back in.

• 1:56:53Speaker 03

  Well, it's really funny because, so Elizabeth and Andy are in Bordeaux. I think I told you, they moved there. Yes, they moved there for a year.

• 1:57:01Dax Shepard?

  Who knows?

• 1:57:02Speaker 03

  And maybe more. Yeah. Um, and I mean, I would definitely urge people to listen to their podcasts because it's like funny to hear. They're of course having a great time and it's beautiful and they love it, but moving somewhere is so different from having a vacation.

• 1:57:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:22Speaker 03

  And.

• 1:57:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:23Speaker 03

  Hearing the kind of struggles is, is interesting and does make you feel grateful for like home. Home is meaningful to me. I've always said that. And I think sometimes I get like prickly when other people want to leave you.

• 1:57:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:57:39Speaker 03

  And, and, um, yeah, but man, it was a good summer.

• 1:57:46Dax Shepard?

  It was a good summer.

• 1:57:47Speaker 03

  I went a lot of places, but I also had a lot of good time at home.

• 1:57:50Dax Shepard?

  Well, let's attempt to go chronologically, I think.

• 1:57:53Speaker 03

  Okay. Oh, wait, can I say one really, really, the most important thing that happened this summer?

• 1:57:58Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:57:59Speaker 03

  My brother had a baby.

• 1:58:00Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:58:02Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 1:58:03Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Just weeks ago.

• 1:58:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:05Speaker 03

  His name is Memphis.

• 1:58:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, it is. I only heard the nickname, which is so cute. Why is his nickname fizzy? It's so cute.

• 1:58:14Speaker 03

  Because it, it was Memphis to Fizz from Memphis.

• 1:58:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay, Fizz.

• 1:58:21Speaker 03

  And then Fizz turned to fizzy.

• 1:58:23Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:58:23Speaker 03

  And.

• 1:58:24Dax Shepard?

  And your dad's only calling him fizzy already, right?

• 1:58:26Speaker 03

  Fizzy. He wants to start a podcast called fizzy and me.

• 1:58:33Speaker 03

  Or he just walks around and talks. And I was like, okay, well, just seems like.

• 1:58:36Dax Shepard?

  I'm in, I'm in.

• 1:58:39Speaker 03

  I said, he said, it's a 50 50 split. I said, that's a pretty good deal considering he's not going to do anything.

• 1:58:44Dax Shepard?

  Not gonna contribute anything.

• 1:58:45Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:58:46Dax Shepard?

  Other than a visual.

• 1:58:47Speaker 03

  My dad made a good point, though. He said, well, they're there to see him. And I was like, that actually is true.

• 1:58:52Dax Shepard?

  That's solid.

• 1:58:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, but he's so, so sweet. I got to meet him last week and he's so small.

• 1:59:00Dax Shepard?

  How much did he weigh when he was born?

• 1:59:01Speaker 03

  Seven, something.

• 1:59:03Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so good size.

• 1:59:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then he's back up in weight. He's doing great. He has great padmen hair. Also Emily, his wife, also has great hair. Memphis has a lot of good stuff going on.

• 1:59:16Dax Shepard?

  I'm jealous. He already has much more hair than I do.

• 1:59:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:59:19Dax Shepard?

  From the photo I saw.

• 1:59:20Speaker 03

  He has a lot of hair.

• 1:59:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:22Speaker 03

  He's really nice. Anyway, that was, that's like, that's a big deal for the family. Everyone's very happy and healthy and good.

• 1:59:29Dax Shepard?

  Is it so fun to watch your parents be grandparents?

• 1:59:33Speaker 03

  It's so, it's so heartwarming. It's like very sweet.

• 1:59:38Dax Shepard?

  I love that there's a butt coming. I can feel it.

• 1:59:43Dax Shepard?

  They're gonna get no break.

• 1:59:46Speaker 03

  Okay, I don't even want to say it because I feel bad saying it.

• 1:59:50Dax Shepard?

  It's so cute and endearing.

• 1:59:52Speaker 03

  It is.

• 1:59:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, of course, of course.

• 1:59:53Speaker 03

  It is. I feel bad saying this. Like, I feel like I probably shouldn't say it.

• 1:59:57Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:59:58Speaker 03

  My, my mom's so sensitive.

• 2:00:00Dax Shepard?

  You get annoyed sometimes? It was it?

• 2:00:02Speaker 03

  No, no, actually, it's just, uh, the baby voice is hard for me.

• 2:00:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, sure. Okay, great. Yeah, yeah.

• 2:00:09Speaker 03

  That's all I want to say.

• 2:00:10Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great. And that's, that's a standard, that's a well-worn grievance for people.

• 2:00:16Speaker 03

  Like, we all have baby, we all do little voice around little babies, but, ooh, like, and maybe it's also just, I didn't know that was coming.

• 2:00:24Dax Shepard?

  And it doesn't feel familiar, like in some deep recess of your brain, it's not how she spoke to you.

• 2:00:29Speaker 03

  Well, that's what I said. Yeah, I said, I don't remember this.

• 2:00:34Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so you brought it up a little bit gently.

• 2:00:37Speaker 03

  I don't know if it was gentle. Um, but when I first heard it, I like snapped my head over at Neil and I was like, oh my God.

• 2:00:46Speaker 03

  And he was like.

• 2:00:46Dax Shepard?

  Did he roll his eye? Like, did you guys share a knowing look?

• 2:00:49Speaker 03

  Well, my mom, because she is the, already the best grandma, she lived with them for the first two and a half weeks to help. And she bonded so quickly with Memphis and, yeah, fizzy. And he, um, yeah, when my mom holds me, just immediately, like, is calm and seems, yeah, it's.

• 2:01:07Dax Shepard?

  Nothing better than being held by grandma.

• 2:01:09Speaker 03

  I know. He loves his grandma. It's really cute. And so, I'm so happy for her.

• 2:01:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:16Speaker 03

  And my dad and all of us. But like, their voice is just wild and.

• 2:01:21Dax Shepard?

  Do you, can you, do you think you can do it?

• 2:01:23Speaker 03

  Yes, I can do it, but I won't do it.

• 2:01:25Dax Shepard?

  You're not gonna do it. Will you do it for me, obviously? Oh, you won't do it for me off of the air?

• 2:01:29Speaker 03

  I won't because I actually feel guilty. Like, I know.

• 2:01:35Dax Shepard?

  She feels sweet and connected when she's there.

• 2:01:37Speaker 03

  And so it feels like so mean that I care about that. I actually don't care about it, but I, I do bristle every time.

• 2:01:45Dax Shepard?

  Well, she's calling attention to herself.

• 2:01:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, and she should be able to.

• 2:01:48Dax Shepard?

  Of course, but your, your kind of primary wound is, is the calling attention to yourself.

• 2:01:53Speaker 03

  And she doesn't call attention to herself in life, so.

• 2:01:56Dax Shepard?

  No, I would say that would be one of my criticisms of her. I'd like to see her shiner.

• 2:02:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. So maybe that's part of it. It's like, oh my God, she's uninhibited because this little sweet baby.

• 2:02:07Dax Shepard?

  She's filled with the confidence of love.

• 2:02:09Speaker 03

  I know. It's so nice. But I just really don't remember it.

• 2:02:15Dax Shepard?

  And she's like, okay, all right.

• 2:02:17Speaker 03

  It's not that. It's not that. Um, it's, it is specific.

• 2:02:21Dax Shepard?

  Could you ask Neil to do a little sly recording, just so I can hear it?

• 2:02:25Speaker 03

  No, I have a recording of it. I'm not gonna play it.

• 2:02:27Dax Shepard?

  For me, though, you will. After the show.

• 2:02:29Speaker 03

  I just feel like it's public. I feel like it's humiliating.

• 2:02:32Dax Shepard?

  Well, I'm not asking you to do it on here.

• 2:02:34Speaker 03

  No, I mean.

• 2:02:34Dax Shepard?

  Between you and I, I want to know what this, I mean, now I'm dying to hear what the voice is.

• 2:02:37Speaker 03

  I know, I know, I know. I know, it's so bad.

• 2:02:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:02:41Speaker 03

  But it's so nice. And like, I feel conflicted and, and bad about it. And she's a great grandma. But I don't even remember it with my brother. I was there.

• 2:02:54Dax Shepard?

  You're right, yeah.

• 2:02:55Speaker 03

  So I, that's why it's like, oh, this feels brand new and I don't get it.

• 2:03:00Dax Shepard?

  Well, maybe it's reflective of a, a time of her life now.

• 2:03:04Speaker 03

  Maybe, but she said she did that with us.

• 2:03:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, she did?

• 2:03:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:03:08Dax Shepard?

  But you're calling.

• 2:03:09Speaker 03

  I, I just don't, my body does not recognize it.

• 2:03:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:13Speaker 03

  And it's rejecting it.

• 2:03:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay, understood.

• 2:03:16Speaker 03

  Anyway.

• 2:03:16Dax Shepard?

  The immune system's deployed.

• 2:03:18Speaker 03

  And hey, everyone's very happy.

• 2:03:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great, great, great, great, great.

• 2:03:23Speaker 03

  Okay, back to, so.

• 2:03:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:03:24Speaker 03

  Beginning of summer. Let's time travel.

• 2:03:27Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so I think the first, well, first of all, Idaho was so spectacular.

• 2:03:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, you went with the Kimmels?

• 2:03:32Dax Shepard?

  Went with the Kimmels. Ike was a new guest this year, Baron Holtz.

• 2:03:36Speaker 03

  We love Ike.

• 2:03:37Dax Shepard?

  Who was so much fun. He's, and what a perfect fit for that scene. So.

• 2:03:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:03:42Dax Shepard?

  Tons of fun with Ike, just a really perfect time there. Um, flew to Budapest and I think my first morning at the hotel. So the Richardson's were there a day before us at the hotel. And I come down for breakfast the first morning we're there. We had gotten in really late the night before. My family's not up yet. I go downstairs. Well, Molly's already there with one of the girls. I can't remember which. And, um, soon as I sit down, she goes, your friend's here. And I go, what? She goes, your friend is at the hotel, um, Schwarzenegger. And so I look out the window of the, uh, restaurant in the hotel and there's a little sliver of sidewalk where there's tables.

• 2:04:24Dax Shepard?

  And sure enough, Schwarzenegger's out there playing chess.

• 2:04:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:28Dax Shepard?

  With what appears to be some kind of security.

• 2:04:31Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:04:32Dax Shepard?

  A person I've never seen. And just to refresh people's memory, um.

• 2:04:37Speaker 03

  You love him.

• 2:04:38Dax Shepard?

  Twenty years ago, I got invited on a motorcycle ride with him. We got along really well. I started going and bringing him out on stage as he was fundraising. This escalated to me literally watching a movie with him at his home, next to him while he was in a bathrobe.

• 2:04:55Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:04:56Dax Shepard?

  Like, that's the level of knowing him. I, I knew, you know.

• 2:05:00Speaker 03

  You spent some time with him.

• 2:05:01Dax Shepard?

  Twenty years ago. Okay, so I see him and I'm so excited. I haven't seen him in, I don't know, 15, 20 years. And so I go out to the little sidewalk where he's sitting. And I noticed pretty quickly, as I'm approaching the back of him, there is a dude pushing himself through the little FICA plants because he's seen him from the sidewalk.

• 2:05:20Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:05:21Dax Shepard?

  And he's actively trying to get his attention and he's about two feet away with his head through bushes.

• 2:05:26Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:05:27Dax Shepard?

  This bogey.

• 2:05:27Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 2:05:28Dax Shepard?

  So he's already kind of ignoring that energy.

• 2:05:31Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah.

• 2:05:32Dax Shepard?

  And now I come up on the left side of him from behind and I go, um, Arnold, how's it going? And he doesn't look up at me at all. He just keeps staring at the chessboard and like the bodyguard kind of looks at me. And now I go like, oh yeah, he's kind of in protection mode. He's like blocking out that guy, me, whatever.

• 2:05:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:05:53Dax Shepard?

  I put my hand on his shoulder.

• 2:05:55Speaker 03

  A real big swing.

• 2:05:57Dax Shepard?

  But it's not because I know him.

• 2:05:58Speaker 03

  Did you say it's Dax?

• 2:06:00Dax Shepard?

  So I put my hand on my shoulder, on his shoulder. I go, I go, Arnold, it's Dax. And I keep thinking he's going to go like.

• 2:06:05Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 2:06:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, oh my God, didn't know that it was you. Uh, how are you doing? What are you doing in Budapest? You know, like, I, that's coming.

• 2:06:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:06:15Dax Shepard?

  Now I have my hand on his shoulder and I'm saying, it's Dax. He still does not move his eyes from the chessboard at all. And now the bodyguard is starting to wonder.

• 2:06:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:06:26Dax Shepard?

  Is this a problem?

• 2:06:27Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:06:28Dax Shepard?

  Arnold clearly doesn't know this guy.

• 2:06:30Speaker 03

  Arnold doesn't want.

• 2:06:31Dax Shepard?

  He's big. I'm a big gentleman.

• 2:06:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:06:34Dax Shepard?

  And I'm manhandling now Schwarzenegger. And he gives me this kind of crazy look. And now I kind of assess, uh, now we're getting into some tricky situation. Like, the bodyguard's getting nervous. He will not look at me. And then I just go, all right, take care. And I, I walk inside. And I, um, I sit down and I, I think Molly watched the whole thing. And I go, yes, dude, he, he either is in, in such a protective mode that he literally blocked me out, or he doesn't have, he doesn't remember me at all.

• 2:07:01Speaker 03

  Or, option three.

• 2:07:03Dax Shepard?

  Hit me.

• 2:07:04Speaker 03

  He's really into the chess game. And that takes so much concentration.

• 2:07:08Dax Shepard?

  I mean, I grabbed his shoulder. I, I don't think that one was likely. It's gotta be one of the first two.

• 2:07:14Speaker 03

  Well, I'm not ruling it out.

• 2:07:15Dax Shepard?

  Okay, now, so I'm having a huge laugh at this, like, kind of how embarrassing. So I eat breakfast, whatever. I think it's kind of funny. Then slowly my family starts trickling and now Eric's here. Now the whole gang is at breakfast.

• 2:07:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:07:28Dax Shepard?

  And an hour goes by or something. And now he's, now he's walking, he's entered the restaurant and he's now walking through. And he walks right by our table. And now I think, okay, now he's not playing chess. The other guy's not there. He's looking forward. And I'm with Kristen.

• 2:07:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:07:45Dax Shepard?

  Maybe he has forgotten me, but I bet he knows who Kristen Bell is. That's my assumption. And so as he's walking by the table, I give it another.

• 2:07:54Speaker 03

  No!

• 2:07:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I give it another shot. Cause it's a little, Monica, it's a little nuts to me that he doesn't remember me.

• 2:08:00Speaker 03

  Did you put your hands?

• 2:08:01Dax Shepard?

  I come and I was seated, I was seated and he was walking by.

• 2:08:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:08:05Dax Shepard?

  Now, as he's walking by, I go, I go, Arnold.

• 2:08:12Speaker 03

  I'm so scared.

• 2:08:13Dax Shepard?

  I go, Arnold, it's Dax and Kristen. I throw Kristen's name in the mix, you know?

• 2:08:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:08:19Dax Shepard?

  And now he just goes, oh, oh, yeah, how you doing? And then he just cruises out.

• 2:08:24Speaker 03

  Okay, so he at least.

• 2:08:26Dax Shepard?

  But he didn't. There was nothing. I think he was like, now we're inside this hotel. So now I think he's being a little more civil to the riffraff that's trying to get his attention. And so he just, again, he just cruises out. I see him like two or three more times in the week that we were there. And I don't even fucking try, right?

• 2:08:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you said your name.

• 2:08:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I don't, Monica, I don't know. I don't know what was going on.

• 2:08:49Speaker 03

  How's your ego?

• 2:08:51Dax Shepard?

  Is totally fine.

• 2:08:52Speaker 03

  That's good.

• 2:08:53Dax Shepard?

  If anything, it helps answer the question why he's not come on the show when we've invited him and he's gone to other places. I'm like, what's? I don't think he remembers that he knows me, which is fine because I still have all my memories of knowing him.

• 2:09:07Speaker 03

  Can, maybe you should send him an email and be like, hey.

• 2:09:10Dax Shepard?

  Here's what's going on.

• 2:09:11Speaker 03

  This is what's going on. It kind of hurts my feelings a little. Um, and you could make it up to me by coming on. My podcast.

• 2:09:20Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 2:09:20Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. You know, set some, makes, do some guilt trips.

• 2:09:24Dax Shepard?

  I mean, the man has had a life of being famous.

• 2:09:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:09:28Dax Shepard?

  And Schwarzenegger, I mean, he's so Schwarzenegger.

• 2:09:30Speaker 03

  Who are we just?

• 2:09:31Dax Shepard?

  He's like the biggest star ever, you know?

• 2:09:33Speaker 03

  Talking, who do we just have on that was in a movie with him and was talking about this?

• 2:09:38Dax Shepard?

  Oh, oh, oh.

• 2:09:39Speaker 03

  Was it Scott?

• 2:09:40Dax Shepard?

  No, it was, um, it was Alan Richson. They have, they have a Christmas movie coming out.

• 2:09:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:09:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:46Speaker 03

  He said that, like, it's just another level of fame and he's pretty.

• 2:09:50Dax Shepard?

  He's great at it.

• 2:09:51Speaker 03

  courteous.

• 2:09:51Dax Shepard?

  And his description of how he was was not the description I was met with, but who cares? I have no, like, no, I have zero.

• 2:09:59Speaker 03

  No, I know.

• 2:10:00Dax Shepard?

  Frustration with him or judgment or any of this stuff. I'm like, yeah, dude, dude, this dude's life, it's like, he's fucking trying to play chess and a guy's crawling through bushes. And it's been that way for the last 50 years of his life or whatever.

• 2:10:10Speaker 03

  More than just being famous, he was also a politician. I mean, it's just literally everyone knows him.

• 2:10:15Dax Shepard?

  Yes. I don't know. It's just interesting that you're like, again, back to me evaluating how long I want to do any one thing. I'm like, man, he's been doing this for a long time. There's a lot, a lot of his life has been at hotels in other countries, trying to stay busy until he goes to work.

• 2:10:28Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:10:29Dax Shepard?

  Probably not wanting to be at work, but then getting home and be like, I don't want to be here either. You know, I don't know. It's just an interesting life that I got to observe. So that was one funny thing that happened right out of the gate.

• 2:10:38Speaker 03

  That is funny.

• 2:10:41Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 2:10:48Dax Shepard?

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

• 2:11:30Speaker 03

  They never are.

• 2:11:31Dax Shepard?

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

• 2:11:43Speaker 03

  There's a ding ding ding.

• 2:11:44Dax Shepard?

  What is it?

• 2:11:45Speaker 03

  Okay. Cause this is for Sedaris.

• 2:11:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wonderful.

• 2:11:48Speaker 03

  Our friend. And there's a fact that is a ding ding ding.

• 2:11:52Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 2:11:53Speaker 03

  Which is, can you get a stomach ache from hemorrhoids?

• 2:11:56Dax Shepard?

  Right. Because the father thought the source of his stomach ache might be hemorrhoids, even though the boy didn't express.

• 2:12:04Speaker 03

  That.

• 2:12:04Dax Shepard?

  There was any hemorrhoids.

• 2:12:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. And the answer is no. A stomach ache is not a direct symptom of hemorrhoids. Hemorrhoids are swollen veins localized strictly in the lower rectum and anus. However, they often share a common root cause, such as severe constipation or straining that can trigger both anal discomfort and abdominal cramping at the same time.

• 2:12:24Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 2:12:25Speaker 03

  Now, this is a ding ding ding. So why don't you share why this is a ding ding ding?

• 2:12:30Dax Shepard?

  Okay. So I did not have constipation. I had a harness the first few days I was, uh, traveling after Idaho. And yeah, I had my first hemorrhoid. And let me tell you, I did not enjoy it whatsoever. I see, I think I have a pretty good sense of humor about the things that go on with my body, be it my dead toenails or whatever. This, I was like, no, thank you.

• 2:12:54Speaker 03

  And is that because you got worried it had to do with age?

• 2:12:58Dax Shepard?

  Well, sure. I'm like, oh my God, is this my future?

• 2:13:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:13:01Dax Shepard?

  Have we reached the age where this, like, I'm gonna battle this? Yeah. In rapid succession, it's that, then it's like, I really gotta curb my toilet use. I cannot sit there and watch.

• 2:13:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:13:11Dax Shepard?

  Instagram videos for 45 minutes.

• 2:13:14Speaker 03

  They warn about this.

• 2:13:15Dax Shepard?

  I know. And I had just been like, yeah, that's not happening to me. But I'm like, okay, I gotta, I need all new hygiene around this.

• 2:13:22Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:13:23Dax Shepard?

  And then just the feeling is, I hate it. I hate it.

• 2:13:27Speaker 03

  What did it feel?

• 2:13:28Dax Shepard?

  When I touch it, I didn't even like touching it.

• 2:13:30Speaker 03

  Really?

• 2:13:30Dax Shepard?

  No. And you know, I like to touch everything.

• 2:13:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. Did it feel like a bubble? What did it feel like?

• 2:13:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like a bubble.

• 2:13:36Speaker 03

  But like soft or?

• 2:13:38Dax Shepard?

  Well, and the initial, I don't know, man, it just, I don't really want to go.

• 2:13:43Speaker 03

  Up is it?

• 2:13:44Dax Shepard?

  It's, it's around the edge of, it's a, yeah, it's a swollen vein that is now coming out.

• 2:13:50Speaker 03

  It's coming.

• 2:13:50Dax Shepard?

  And you can't tell if it's part of your, you can't tell if it's part of your, or if it's coming from inside.

• 2:13:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:13:57Dax Shepard?

  But it was different and I was like, oh Lord, this vacation is all about walking.

• 2:14:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:14:05Dax Shepard?

  For 10 hours a day.

• 2:14:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:14:07Dax Shepard?

  And walking doesn't feel great.

• 2:14:09Speaker 03

  I have a question. So did, so let's say you're just on the toilet, right?

• 2:14:13Dax Shepard?

  Let's just say this, I took a picture of it when it first happened. I'm like, oh my God, what is going on down there? I gotta take a picture. Do you want me to put on the TV?

• 2:14:22Speaker 03

  Oh my God. Throw it up there.

• 2:14:25Dax Shepard?

  And I looked at it and it made me immediately depressed.

• 2:14:31Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 2:14:32Dax Shepard?

  I hated how it looked and I was like, oh my God, I want to take a flamethrower to my whole butt cheek area. I'm like, I'm disgusting and I, and, and I'm disgusting. And I looked at the picture and then I erased it.

• 2:14:44Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:14:44Dax Shepard?

  I don't even want to, I don't want to see that ever again.

• 2:14:47Speaker 03

  Okay. Now, when, when did you notice you had it? You were on the toilet and you were like, ow.

• 2:14:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I wiped.

• 2:14:54Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:14:54Dax Shepard?

  And it was, and it was sensitive and I felt something.

• 2:14:57Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 2:14:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So, and then ultimately, as you know, then, then Kristen went into a local pharmacy and bought hemorrhoid cream for me. Preparation H in a different language, but you can't mistake the labeling and the packaging, thank God.

• 2:15:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:15:13Dax Shepard?

  You know, you can see what Preparation H looks like in your head, right?

• 2:15:16Speaker 03

  I think it has a plus on it.

• 2:15:18Dax Shepard?

  And it's like yellow with blue square in the middle. It's very memorable.

• 2:15:22Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:15:23Dax Shepard?

  It's seeing grandma and grandpa's medicine cabinet, you know?

• 2:15:26Speaker 03

  I didn't.

• 2:15:27Dax Shepard?

  Eating it.

• 2:15:28Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:15:28Dax Shepard?

  The padmen's have never had any hemorrhoid action.

• 2:15:31Speaker 03

  I've never.

• 2:15:32Dax Shepard?

  Look at that, right? Isn't that classic? We're looking at the picture of the Preparation H. Yeah. Big yellow box with a nice blue rectangle and ointment in, in yellow as well. So she got that for me and I was like, God bless you. I would be, I would be so embarrassed buying that.

• 2:15:50Speaker 03

  Really?

• 2:15:50Dax Shepard?

  In public, because everyone looking at me would know I have a hemorrhoid.

• 2:15:54Speaker 03

  Right. Right.

• 2:15:56Dax Shepard?

  And so I was like, you know, hon, there's gonna be a story now that you have hemorrhoids.

• 2:16:02Speaker 03

  Right. But there wasn't.

• 2:16:04Dax Shepard?

  There wasn't, but then I made one.

• 2:16:05Speaker 03

  Then you, yeah, there is gonna be a story because you made this.

• 2:16:09Dax Shepard?

  I made one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I made a tabloidy article on AI.

• 2:16:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:16:15Dax Shepard?

  And it did such a good job. Like, I don't know if you spent any time looking at that post.

• 2:16:21Speaker 03

  I did, because at first I thought, I was like, what, what?

• 2:16:23Dax Shepard?

  The things it did in the corner, like it did it just like those tabloids where it's like a little box. It's like Kristen's five tips for whatever, you know, like.

• 2:16:30Speaker 03

  That is pretty, yeah, this is the one they made. It's up here.

• 2:16:33Dax Shepard?

  You can't tell the difference between that and the, and in fact, oh, it's on the lower bottom. What's in Kristen's basket?

• 2:16:40Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:16:40Dax Shepard?

  See on the very bottom next to the picture of the bridge, it says, what's in Kristen's basket?

• 2:16:45Speaker 03

  Oh, I see. Yeah.

• 2:16:46Dax Shepard?

  Cause that's what they do in those things. Like, what's in Kristen's basket?

• 2:16:49Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 2:16:50Dax Shepard?

  Anyways, I thought it was so funny. I made it just for us.

• 2:16:54Speaker 03

  I know. Well, yeah.

• 2:16:55Dax Shepard?

  And then I saw how funny it was and then I was like, no, I'm gonna definitely post this.

• 2:16:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:16:59Dax Shepard?

  Cause we got such a laugh out of it.

• 2:17:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, how, did it work, the ointment?

• 2:17:05Dax Shepard?

  Um, insofar as it reduced the symptoms of it, it didn't make it go away right away. It eventually, by the way, it's gone.

• 2:17:15Speaker 03

  Okay, cool.

• 2:17:16Dax Shepard?

  It's very gone. There was a, there was a, a longer period, maybe the last few weeks where there was like, I'm gonna say like a marble feeling on my, somewhere between a marble and a BB.

• 2:17:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:17:28Dax Shepard?

  And now that's completely gone and I'm so delighted. And I, and I spent too long on the toilet again today. I was like, here we go. Soon as, soon as it's gone.

• 2:17:36Speaker 03

  I know.

• 2:17:37Dax Shepard?

  I spent, you know, back in LA reading, reading Instagram.

• 2:17:40Speaker 03

  I think you should reduce your time on the toilet.

• 2:17:42Dax Shepard?

  I have to, I have to. Yep. That's a must.

• 2:17:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:17:45Dax Shepard?

  Um, so that was my first one and I don't recommend them.

• 2:17:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:17:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Don't recommend it.

• 2:17:50Speaker 03

  Um, but that was a crazy ding ding ding.

• 2:17:52Dax Shepard?

  Yes, it was for Sedaris.

• 2:17:54Speaker 03

  So that is cool. That was Sim. One thing that was nice is that David did give me some recs, some Paris and London recs.

• 2:18:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:18:07Speaker 03

  He emailed me. So he had a little bit of an email exchange about recommendations.

• 2:18:12Dax Shepard?

  You and who?

• 2:18:12Speaker 03

  David Sedaris.

• 2:18:13Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:18:15Speaker 03

  And, um, it was nice. He has great recommendations.

• 2:18:19Dax Shepard?

  For shopping mostly?

• 2:18:20Speaker 03

  For shopping. He, he gave me some restaurant recommendations too. So his favorite store is Egg in London.

• 2:18:27Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh. Is this where he's getting taxidermy and stuff?

• 2:18:29Speaker 03

  No, it's a clothing store.

• 2:18:30Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:18:31Speaker 03

  So when I was in London, I kept thinking, I gotta go to Egg. I gotta go to Egg. This is a store that is a must from David. And then I kept pushing him, pushing him, pushing him. And so the last day, the day we're leaving, I was like, I'm going to Egg. So I wake up, I walk over there. It's, it's not close. Um, and it's closed.

• 2:18:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh no.

• 2:18:55Speaker 03

  It was closed that day.

• 2:18:57Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 2:18:57Speaker 03

  So I peeked inside.

• 2:18:59Dax Shepard?

  That day.

• 2:18:59Speaker 03

  It was clothes that day. I peeked inside and, um, it did have cute looking things.

• 2:19:05Dax Shepard?

  It did.

• 2:19:06Speaker 03

  And.

• 2:19:06Dax Shepard?

  Your style? I mean, he is really out there, you'd acknowledge. He's one deviation beyond you with the daringness of his.

• 2:19:13Speaker 03

  He has a lot of daring clothes.

• 2:19:14Dax Shepard?

  Um, priest robes and shit, you know, and dresses and.

• 2:19:18Speaker 03

  Yes, he does. It just looked like flowy, pretty clothes.

• 2:19:22Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:19:22Speaker 03

  Um, so I have to go back. Um, I was on the cutest little street and I, that was a sad part of the trip. Um, that I didn't get to go to Egg, but speaking of his fashion.

• 2:19:35Dax Shepard?

  Yes, David's.

• 2:19:36Speaker 03

  Yes. One of the facts is who made his shorts that he's wearing in the episode.

• 2:19:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, uh huh.

• 2:19:42Speaker 03

  And it's Walter Von Beirendonk.

• 2:19:48Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 2:19:48Speaker 03

  Very hard last name.

• 2:19:50Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:19:50Speaker 03

  B E I R E N D O N C K.

• 2:19:56Dax Shepard?

  No, I wouldn't even try it. Yeah. I'd say pass on that name.

• 2:20:00Speaker 03

  Um, I just was touching my hair and it reminded me of something very important I gotta talk about.

• 2:20:05Dax Shepard?

  Okay, right, right.

• 2:20:07Speaker 03

  So we had Taran Egger.

• 2:20:08Dax Shepard?

  Incredible episode.

• 2:20:09Speaker 03

  Such a good episode. And he is obviously extremely attractive.

• 2:20:17Dax Shepard?

  Exquisite.

• 2:20:18Speaker 03

  Truly exquisite.

• 2:20:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:20Speaker 03

  When he left, all of us, the three of us were like, oh boy.

• 2:20:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:25Speaker 03

  Oh, boy.

• 2:20:25Dax Shepard?

  Powerful.

• 2:20:26Speaker 03

  And you know?

• 2:20:29Dax Shepard?

  No wonder he is always booked auditions. Like in person, he's so magnetic and yeah, you fall in love with him.

• 2:20:35Speaker 03

  Casting couch. If I were, if I were a casting director, I would.

• 2:20:42Speaker 03

  And you know, we did this interview a while ago and it was so good and memorable and we've been talking about it. And I go to edit it and my hair.

• 2:20:53Dax Shepard?

  So you, you said this.

• 2:20:56Speaker 03

  So bad.

• 2:20:59Dax Shepard?

  Through your eyes.

• 2:21:00Speaker 03

  No, no. It is horrible.

• 2:21:04Dax Shepard?

  What's going on? Because you told me this.

• 2:21:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I text you, I said.

• 2:21:08Dax Shepard?

  And, and when I was flying back two nights ago, I was like, I gotta get back into the headspace of the show. I'm gonna watch. So I downloaded from YouTube that episode and I watched it on the plane ride back. And it was midway through the episode before I remembered, you said there was something wrong with your hair. Because I didn't see anything wrong with your hair. And then even after you said it looks so terrible, I'm looking at it, I'm like, what, what part is she talking about? Walk me through exactly what was.

• 2:21:38Speaker 03

  I think mid interview though, I think I did redo it.

• 2:21:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:21:43Speaker 03

  So it looks a little better in the second half than it does the beginning. But it, I just, I guess I just threw it up.

• 2:21:51Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:21:52Speaker 03

  And in the mirror, it must've looked.

• 2:21:55Dax Shepard?

  See, your hair looks so cute. What are you talking about?

• 2:21:58Speaker 07

  Let me find first, because that looks.

• 2:22:00Dax Shepard?

  Look at that. I guess maybe that's when it occurred to me. You said it was wrong and I'm like, I don't, I don't.

• 2:22:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:22:04Dax Shepard?

  I don't see what she's saying. It's volumous.

• 2:22:06Speaker 07

  Twenty four minutes, twenty four minutes in only.

• 2:22:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I want like, let's look at like six minutes in.

• 2:22:12Dax Shepard?

  Six.

• 2:22:13Speaker 03

  Now, first of all, this still isn't great.

• 2:22:15Dax Shepard?

  I think it looks great.

• 2:22:18Speaker 03

  Look at my stupid face. Okay.

• 2:22:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you know, you look so cute. What's going on?

• 2:22:22Speaker 03

  Okay, I just am so embarrassed.

• 2:22:24Dax Shepard?

  Wouldn't it be really fun to be able to like astro travel into other people's eyes? I am dying to see what you're seeing. Are you at all curious to see what I'm seeing?

• 2:22:34Speaker 03

  Um, yeah.

• 2:22:35Dax Shepard?

  Cause I'm assured that there are dramatically different things we're seeing.

• 2:22:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. Jess, oh my God, I'm sorry. Can you do like six minutes in?

• 2:22:44Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm trying to find.

• 2:22:45Speaker 03

  Okay. I guess I felt very disappointed when I turned this on and, and I see this very handsome man. And charming man. By the way, very nice per, like he was looking at me a lot.

• 2:23:02Dax Shepard?

  A ton. It made me like him so much.

• 2:23:04Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 2:23:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:05Speaker 03

  He was very engaged with looking at me. And then, so then I'm like, ew, like this is what he's seeing. And he's seeing gross, bad hair.

• 2:23:19Dax Shepard?

  So really quick, um, Rob.

• 2:23:21Speaker 07

  Okay, I, I found it. It is a little messy.

• 2:23:23Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:23:24Dax Shepard?

  This photo before we move on.

• 2:23:25Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:23:27Dax Shepard?

  Do you, do you think Monica looks less good there?

• 2:23:32Speaker 07

  No, I think her hair looks great there. I don't think.

• 2:23:34Dax Shepard?

  And, and you think she looks cute?

• 2:23:36Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:23:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:37Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:23:38Speaker 03

  Ew, okay, thank you.

• 2:23:39Dax Shepard?

  Well, now, well, hold on. Now, now he is.

• 2:23:42Speaker 03

  This is correct. And look at my face.

• 2:23:44Dax Shepard?

  He, well, he paused it in a.

• 2:23:46Speaker 07

  I, that was the best.

• 2:23:47Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 2:23:49Dax Shepard?

  That was the, that was the.

• 2:23:50Speaker 07

  Of that section that I can find.

• 2:23:52Speaker 03

  Okay, so this is the issue.

• 2:23:54Dax Shepard?

  You look.

• 2:23:55Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:23:55Speaker 07

  No, no.

• 2:23:56Dax Shepard?

  Yes, the best, the clearest image of a close up of you.

• 2:23:58Speaker 03

  The best I look.

• 2:23:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Monica, I'm not, I don't.

• 2:24:02Speaker 03

  It's crazy looking. That, it's, it's not up. It like, something.

• 2:24:06Dax Shepard?

  The ponytail fell a bit in back?

• 2:24:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:24:08Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Now, real quick question.

• 2:24:10Speaker 03

  Take that down. This is like looking at the hemorrhoid.

• 2:24:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay, yeah, I just fucking couldn't erase that fast enough.

• 2:24:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:24:17Dax Shepard?

  Um, now, I would, I would suggest that this is a very healthy side of you. It didn't cross your mind like, oh, we're interviewing, um, this guy today. He's a babe. I wanna look great.

• 2:24:29Speaker 03

  Well, this is all wrapped into what I wanna talk about.

• 2:24:32Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 2:24:33Speaker 03

  One is, I'm sure I looked in the mirror, like.

• 2:24:36Dax Shepard?

  It's hard to get ready with our doing that.

• 2:24:38Speaker 03

  I must've looked in the mirror and thought like, oh, like, fine.

• 2:24:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:40Speaker 03

  Maybe on the walk over, my hair fell down a little or something.

• 2:24:43Dax Shepard?

  It's downhill, maybe like boom, boom, boom, boom.

• 2:24:47Speaker 03

  But I also, I did know we were interviewing. Okay, not good either. Take these down. What are we doing? Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

• 2:24:59Dax Shepard?

  Turned on Rob. Rob's just back there trying to find a good image.

• 2:25:02Speaker 03

  I've been happy the last two months. I haven't had to deal with this.

• 2:25:06Dax Shepard?

  Look at yourself, yeah.

• 2:25:07Speaker 03

  Well, I, yeah. So, so I, I did know we were interviewing him, obviously, and I do know he's attractive.

• 2:25:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:17Speaker 03

  Um, and so I, when I was editing this and he's there and he's looking at me and he's being so charming. And all I could think is what is, what is wrong with me? Like exactly what you just said, what is wrong with me that I didn't like get? Dual extra.

• 2:25:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I think that might be what's right with you.

• 2:25:36Speaker 03

  It isn't because.

• 2:25:37Dax Shepard?

  Well, because you didn't like the result.

• 2:25:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:25:40Dax Shepard?

  But I think, like, let's say you never saw yourself.

• 2:25:43Speaker 03

  Great life for me.

• 2:25:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but then that would be ideal. You didn't like overthink it. You weren't stressed about how you looked. You came and did your job and then that was over. Had you not seen it.

• 2:25:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:25:55Dax Shepard?

  That would be a very healthy way to go through life.

• 2:25:57Speaker 03

  That is generally how I go. That is how I go through it.

• 2:26:00Dax Shepard?

  That's the, that's the dream.

• 2:26:02Speaker 03

  But it's not because like, okay, it wouldn't have hurt for me to have just like, the problem is.

• 2:26:09Dax Shepard?

  Let me get macro for one second.

• 2:26:10Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:26:11Dax Shepard?

  Do you ever have this thought? I, I have this thought often, which is like, you think you look so different day to day. You don't. You look like yourself and everyone knows what you look like. And all this huge chasm between how you looked on Monday and Friday is in your head. You can't look that different.

• 2:26:30Speaker 03

  Well, no.

• 2:26:30Dax Shepard?

  But I experience that all the time. I'm like, good Christ. Also see comments like, woo, he's a, you know. It was like, sometimes I'm like, oh, it looks like I got hit by a truck. I don't know what happened between Monday and Tuesday, but clearly I couldn't look that different and you can't really look that different.

• 2:26:45Speaker 03

  Well, you don't look different to me because I see you every day. This is the first time he's ever seen me.

• 2:26:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:51Speaker 03

  So he thinks that's what I look like. And you're saying that is what.

• 2:26:55Dax Shepard?

  Well, I'm saying that you see some big difference in how you look on that day and I do not. As I'm assuming, you probably don't see a big difference in how I look day to day.

• 2:27:04Speaker 03

  But I.

• 2:27:05Dax Shepard?

  But I do.

• 2:27:06Speaker 03

  If I'm try, okay.

• 2:27:08Dax Shepard?

  All right.

• 2:27:09Speaker 03

  I'm a single person out in the universe and I don't actually think he's a single person. I don't know. But if he is.

• 2:27:19Dax Shepard?

  That's interesting. Hold on. You think he's not single?

• 2:27:21Speaker 03

  I do think he's not single.

• 2:27:23Dax Shepard?

  Cause of research you've done independently, post meeting him?

• 2:27:26Speaker 03

  I did look something up and then it was hard to tell. Okay.

• 2:27:30Dax Shepard?

  You did a little digging.

• 2:27:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, but all for not, because how could he possibly have any interest?

• 2:27:36Dax Shepard?

  You have no idea what he likes. Let's start there. You don't even know what his aesthetic is.

• 2:27:41Speaker 03

  Well, I know humans' eyes and if they're looking at that girl's hair. Okay, you're like, she doesn't give a fuck. Well, and then maybe that's cool. That's the only, okay, that's the only hope.

• 2:27:58Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:27:59Speaker 03

  Is that.

• 2:28:00Dax Shepard?

  This girl's chill as fuck.

• 2:28:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:28:02Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm. That's a good look.

• 2:28:03Speaker 03

  The problem is.

• 2:28:04Dax Shepard?

  Look at Orna.

• 2:28:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:28:05Dax Shepard?

  Now, her hair looks rad, but she, it's not because she fashioned it that way. She's just tossing it here and there and it keeps landing in very sexy shapes. And I go, yeah, look at this wild. She's like a wild animal.

• 2:28:18Speaker 03

  She's confident.

• 2:28:19Dax Shepard?

  She's like, she's in the forest.

• 2:28:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And I was also in the forest, but not in an Orna way.

• 2:28:28Dax Shepard?

  I love that you did some research. I wanna let him know a little bit more about this. Yeah, come on.

• 2:28:32Speaker 03

  No, I just looked him up.

• 2:28:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, where do you go? What do you?

• 2:28:36Speaker 03

  Google?

• 2:28:36Dax Shepard?

  You went to Google and you just typed in his name? Or do you write is single?

• 2:28:40Speaker 03

  No, I didn't write as single.

• 2:28:41Dax Shepard?

  You just write his name?

• 2:28:43Speaker 03

  Okay, so I had a, a friend in town and I said, oh, we just interviewed Taryn Egerton. And I said, he is shockingly attractive.

• 2:28:54Dax Shepard?

  Blow your groin apart, yeah.

• 2:28:56Speaker 03

  And I was like, it's wild. Like, you need to listen to this one or watch it.

• 2:29:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:01Speaker 03

  And she was like, oh, yeah.

• 2:29:03Speaker 01

  Isn't he dating Alex Cooper? And I was like, wait.

• 2:29:07Dax Shepard?

  Perfect.

• 2:29:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:29:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, she's married and is having a baby.

• 2:29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, no, she's married. And he was like, oh, yeah, no. Alex, and I said, Earl, he can't be dating her either because she's dating Tom Brady.

• 2:29:20Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow, really?

• 2:29:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:29:22Dax Shepard?

  Oh, exciting.

• 2:29:23Speaker 01

  And then she was like, oh, wait, no, it's this person. I'm not gonna say who it is.

• 2:29:27Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:29:28Speaker 01

  And I was, then I looked that person up. And I was like, oh.

• 2:29:32Dax Shepard?

  Is she Indian?

• 2:29:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:29:34Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:29:35Speaker 01

  Not even close.

• 2:29:36Dax Shepard?

  She's a honky.

• 2:29:38Speaker 01

  I wouldn't say that.

• 2:29:39Dax Shepard?

  A cracker?

• 2:29:41Speaker 01

  She's not Lebanese.

• 2:29:43Dax Shepard?

  Okay, all right, I can feel you.

• 2:29:45Speaker 01

  So, um, anyhow.

• 2:29:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:29:48Speaker 01

  So I was like, whoa, okay, yeah, so he's understandably in a relationship. And that made me feel better. Because I was like, well, then I wasn't available anyway. Like, I mean, he wasn't available anyway, so not putting my best foot forward is actually fine.

• 2:30:09Dax Shepard?

  He was very respectful of his new relationship.

• 2:30:12Speaker 01

  But I did think, like, why am I so opposed to, like, getting ready? And even today, I was like, okay, we're back, like, I should, like, do my hair. Then I thought, ugh, this is just too much. Like, it's too much effort.

• 2:30:30Dax Shepard?

  Well, look, it could be one of two things. One is you have a very healthy relationship with it all. Which is like, I look how I look, let's go. That would be great.

• 2:30:38Speaker 01

  That's, yeah.

• 2:30:39Dax Shepard?

  But if it's, if it's, if it's vestigial shit from you not putting yourself out there.

• 2:30:43Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:30:44Dax Shepard?

  It would be some kind of declaration that you're trying.

• 2:30:47Speaker 01

  Right, like.

• 2:30:48Dax Shepard?

  And then that's the old stuff that's like.

• 2:30:50Speaker 01

  Is it a self-protective mechanism? I don't know.

• 2:30:54Dax Shepard?

  I wonder.

• 2:30:55Speaker 01

  I wondered too.

• 2:30:55Dax Shepard?

  Let's wonder.

• 2:30:56Speaker 01

  This is the first time I've wondered. You know what's so funny? I'm definitely more likely to get, like, ready for a female guest that I think is fashionable.

• 2:31:05Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 2:31:05Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 2:31:06Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:31:07Speaker 01

  So.

• 2:31:08Dax Shepard?

  It goes to kind of.

• 2:31:10Speaker 01

  Which one does it prove?

• 2:31:11Dax Shepard?

  Point, I'm always making that, like, we're all doing it for our gender, you know?

• 2:31:15Speaker 01

  I also, I have to, I mean, I knew that, um, he was hot, but I did not know the level.

• 2:31:21Dax Shepard?

  You can't know.

• 2:31:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:31:23Dax Shepard?

  You gotta be in person.

• 2:31:23Speaker 01

  Did not know until in person and seeing his, like, twinkly eyes.

• 2:31:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, even just the way he moves and thinks about things, the way he repositions.

• 2:31:32Speaker 01

  So smart.

• 2:31:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, very, very smart.

• 2:31:35Speaker 01

  And, and thoughtful.

• 2:31:36Dax Shepard?

  We're in love.

• 2:31:37Speaker 01

  Talking about his child, I mean, talking about his vulnerability, I mean, come on.

• 2:31:43Dax Shepard?

  I know.

• 2:31:43Speaker 01

  It was so.

• 2:31:44Dax Shepard?

  And he's not very masculine. You must have been fucking flooding the basements on that one.

• 2:31:49Speaker 01

  I don't like that that's something you're putting out there. He is masculine, he is masculine.

• 2:31:54Dax Shepard?

  No, but the fact that he was saying, and, and I'm quoting, he said, when it gets into the tropey masculine things, I just don't have them. And for you, that would be like, ooh, schwing.

• 2:32:03Speaker 01

  To me, that is masculine. That's very confident. Anyway, obviously, I ruined that.

• 2:32:09Dax Shepard?

  Well, life's long, hold on.

• 2:32:11Speaker 01

  I don't know, but.

• 2:32:12Dax Shepard?

  He'll be back. I text him this morning.

• 2:32:14Speaker 01

  You did?

• 2:32:15Dax Shepard?

  I did. And I said, I do. Cause I watched the episode on the plane.

• 2:32:19Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 2:32:20Dax Shepard?

  As I said, and I just said, hey, man, I'm really grateful that you rescheduled. I think it's such a great episode.

• 2:32:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Also, by the way, that was something that was incredibly kind. He had, he was sick.

• 2:32:31Dax Shepard?

  It was like long out.

• 2:32:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that was just to like, let me make good on this.

• 2:32:35Speaker 01

  It was.

• 2:32:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he has integrity.

• 2:32:36Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:32:37Dax Shepard?

  I know, he's so hot. Okay.

• 2:32:39Speaker 01

  What are we gonna do about my hair?

• 2:32:41Dax Shepard?

  Let's do some facts.

• 2:32:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:32:44Dax Shepard?

  Because we have so much more.

• 2:32:45Speaker 01

  Okay. Oh, this is a fact.

• 2:32:50Speaker 01

  Cause it's, well, it's a ding ding ding fact. Um, we talk about feeding animals in this episode with Sedaris.

• 2:32:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, cause he loves to feed animals.

• 2:32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:59Dax Shepard?

  I brought it up like 10 times in this two-month vacation. I found myself telling lots of people about it.

• 2:33:04Speaker 01

  Feeds.

• 2:33:05Dax Shepard?

  Well, cause we have so many deer in our yard and other animals. And, um, yeah, I just found myself going, oh, one of my favorite things about Sedaris is he's like, yeah, I feed animals. I know everyone says you're not supposed to, but I don't care. I wanna feed them. And I love that about him.

• 2:33:17Speaker 01

  He needs to be careful, cause guess what?

• 2:33:19Dax Shepard?

  What?

• 2:33:19Speaker 01

  There's a coyote in Atwater. His name's Wiley.

• 2:33:23Dax Shepard?

  Perfect.

• 2:33:23Speaker 01

  Yep. And he chases everyone. He's chasing people and kids, and it's because someone's feeding him. So don't do that.

• 2:33:34Dax Shepard?

  Okay. All right. Keep doing it, David.

• 2:33:37Speaker 01

  No, and it's also a ding ding ding for you guys acting like these coyotes aren't scared of little girls like me.

• 2:33:44Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 2:33:45Speaker 01

  Okay, Wiley is not scared.

• 2:33:47Dax Shepard?

  No, but he might be months away from moving into someone's house and fully domesticated. Get that rabies vax on him.

• 2:33:55Speaker 01

  Um, okay, what are board shorts? Board shorts are long, quick-drying swim shorts built for surfing and board sports. They feature a flat, nonelastic, fixed waistband with a lace-up tie, no inner mesh lining, and a strong four-way stretch fabric to prevent rash and stay secure in heavy waves.

• 2:34:13Dax Shepard?

  No mesh.

• 2:34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, no mesh is interesting. Well, I guess they're differentiating that from the swim trunk?

• 2:34:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I grew up on board shorts. And when I switched to a shorter swim short with a mesh, a liner. I've grown to love that. And I really can't imagine now going back to a board short with no liner.

• 2:34:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Why do they do that?

• 2:34:38Dax Shepard?

  I don't know.

• 2:34:38Speaker 01

  Okay. You know, sometimes these answers just lead to more questions.

• 2:34:42Dax Shepard?

  That's right.

• 2:34:42Speaker 01

  Okay, the turtle, snapper turtle story is in Calypso. Oh, the doctor said to him that he couldn't give the patients anything they've cut out of the body.

• 2:34:54Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm, yeah.

• 2:34:55Speaker 01

  Okay, now.

• 2:34:57Dax Shepard?

  Is that a law or that was just his personal?

• 2:34:59Speaker 01

  So I looked that up. A doctor or hospital often refuses to give a patient or remove body part due to, due to a standard biohazard disposal policy. They need for pathology testing and liability concerns. Though patients legally own their tissue in many places and can sometimes request it back. So it says, in most regions, such as the US, no federal law bans keeping your own surgically removed body parts, though a few states have specific restrictions.

• 2:35:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:35:30Speaker 01

  So it says, patients routinely sign consent ceding tissue rights to the hospital for research or disposal. Okay, you can refuse to sign those specific release waivers and formally request the tissue, though you may need to jump through administrative hurdles or sign liability releases.

• 2:35:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I mean, I wish, I guess, I don't know why, I guess I wish I had my wisdom teeth.

• 2:35:56Dax Shepard?

  I had a, um, dude had pulled out of my lip, as you recall, Ryan had the same one. He did let me take a picture of him holding it with tweezers, which is great, cause it looked identical to a marachino cherry.

• 2:36:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:36:09Dax Shepard?

  So did Ryan's.

• 2:36:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:36:11Dax Shepard?

  And that's, that's as close as I've gotten.

• 2:36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you wouldn't want your hemorrhoid.

• 2:36:16Dax Shepard?

  I don't ever wanna see anything associated with that again. Yeah, yeah.

• 2:36:21Speaker 01

  Um, I actually don't understand.

• 2:36:24Dax Shepard?

  I did a lot of research on hemorrhoids while I had one. And, um, it did talk about, and, and again, I don't know if this is medically sound, this is just something I came across about certain times that put a rubber band around it, the way they castrate cows and dogs. And then it just falls off.

• 2:36:41Speaker 01

  No, did you try it?

• 2:36:42Dax Shepard?

  No, but it crossed my mind. Like, I gotta get some braces, rubber bands.

• 2:36:46Speaker 01

  Oh, those teeny ones? Oh, ow, oh my god.

• 2:36:51Dax Shepard?

  Imagine doing that yourself there, laying on your back in bed, trying to fucking do a ponytail holder on your hemorrhoid.

• 2:36:56Speaker 01

  Imagine, I mean, it doesn't even make sense. It just wasn't, I mean, it falls off.

• 2:37:00Dax Shepard?

  If it went on long enough, I probably would have tried it, yeah.

• 2:37:03Speaker 01

  It can't fall off, then you just have a huge open wound.

• 2:37:06Dax Shepard?

  Well, no, cause when you put the rubber band around it, like when they, um, castrate cows and stuff, it just, from where the circulation stopped, it just seals itself off and closes it. For real, that part's real.

• 2:37:19Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 2:37:20Dax Shepard?

  I'm not recommending that anyone do it, but that is what happens. Okay.

• 2:37:24Speaker 01

  Okay, um, you said squirrels are always on smartest animal lists.

• 2:37:29Dax Shepard?

  Which was an exaggeration. It was on two of our lists that we read back in the day.

• 2:37:33Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 2:37:34Dax Shepard?

  With dolphin sentient org or whatever.

• 2:37:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I'm back on sentientmedia.org.

• 2:37:39Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:37:39Speaker 01

  Um, 30 most intelligent animals in the world might surprise you. Okay, now we got, I'm going fast, okay?

• 2:37:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:48Speaker 01

  Um.

• 2:37:48Dax Shepard?

  In first to 30 or 30?

• 2:37:50Speaker 01

  First, okay. Humans.

• 2:37:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:52Speaker 01

  Interesting. Dolphins, ravens, pigs, chimpanzees, elephants.

• 2:37:59Dax Shepard?

  Again, all right, I mean, I'm reminded how much I disagree with the pig and chimpanzee.

• 2:38:04Speaker 01

  Pigs are.

• 2:38:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, fucking chimps can do, I mean, gorillas can do sign language. What are we talking about, a pig? No. All right, anyways, go.

• 2:38:10Speaker 01

  Okay, African gray parrots, octopuses, bonobos, rats, pigeons, crows.

• 2:38:17Dax Shepard?

  Pigeons.

• 2:38:18Speaker 01

  Listen, now you're making me read. Frequently regarded as the rats of the sky, pigeons are often thought of as a nuisance. The reality, however, is that pigeons are extremely intelligent. In an experiment, pigeons were trained to differentiate between Picasso and Monet paintings, something they had no problem learning. That is wild. They were then able to apply what they learned to distinguish between works they had not previously been shown, telling the, the difference between the expressionist and cubist artists. That's wild.

• 2:38:48Dax Shepard?

  That's cool.

• 2:38:49Speaker 01

  Dogs, number 13, cats, horses, squirrels, number 16.

• 2:38:56Dax Shepard?

  Ding ding ding.

• 2:38:57Speaker 01

  Says they display their intelligence through deception. When they think they're being watched, they'll pretend to bury nuts and seeds while hiding the actual food under their arms.

• 2:39:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, cool.

• 2:39:06Speaker 01

  Oh, playful.

• 2:39:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:09Speaker 01

  Bees, ants, orcas, wolves, deer, llamas, koalas, orangutans, gorillas, hyenas.

• 2:39:18Dax Shepard?

  I fucked you up for life on orangutan. Cause you're like, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna do that? Yeah.

• 2:39:22Speaker 01

  You did, you did mess me up. 27, raccoons, honey badgers, giraffes, porsha spiders.

• 2:39:29Dax Shepard?

  Whoa, I didn't know there were any smart insects.

• 2:39:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. It says they have to do serious problem solving. They need to plan ahead and recall information based on the best escape and trap routes. Okay, well, anyhow, squirrels was on there, so you're right. What is Sedaris holding at the top of the Empire State Building in that story? He says, I'm pretty sure I could tumble down all the stairs in the Empire State Building naked with a greased-up rolling pin or pepper grinder in each hand and a box of candles around my neck and still end up in the lobby with an empty rectum.

• 2:40:04Dax Shepard?

  With an empty rectum.

• 2:40:06Speaker 01

  So good.

• 2:40:07Dax Shepard?

  Listen to him last night.

• 2:40:09Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 2:40:10Dax Shepard?

  That's that?

• 2:40:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:11Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I love him. I love him so much.

• 2:40:13Speaker 01

  Great episode. We're so lucky. We are so lucky that we get to have him come through this attic.

• 2:40:19Dax Shepard?

  Almost every time he's in LA.

• 2:40:21Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 2:40:22Dax Shepard?

  And I can't wait for him to come back in September. Remember, I committed to being his helper.

• 2:40:25Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:40:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I can't wait.

• 2:40:27Speaker 01

  Great.

• 2:40:27Dax Shepard?

  So, get tickets to that show if you want me to show you to your seat.

• 2:40:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:40:33Dax Shepard?

  All right, love you.