Grant Achatz (award-winning chef)

Grant Achatz (Alinea, Next, The Aviary) is an award-winning chef, restaurateur, and culinary innovator. Grant joins Armchair Expert to discuss growing up in small-town Michigan working in his family's diner, rebuilding a GTO with his father, and discovering the emotional power of food. Grant and Dax talk about training under Charlie Trotter and Thomas Keller, reinventing fine dining at Alinea, and battling stage IV tongue cancer at the height of his career. Grant explains why great meals are really about storytelling, how he sees AI as a beneficial tool in his work, and why pursuing excellence requires constant evolution. 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, expert son, expert. Uh, I'm Dax Shepard.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Who are you?

• 0:05Dax Shepard?

  Lily Padman.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  That's me.

• 0:06Dax Shepard?

  Today, we have a legendary chef on, Grant Aketz. Uh, he is the restaurateur who owns Alenia and has won numerous accolades and is one of Wabi Wab's biggest crushes.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  It's true, and he's, Alenia, for people who don't know, is basically the United States' best restaurant.

• 0:27Dax Shepard?

  It had been many years in a row. Yeah, it's an incredible place. Uh, and he's an incredible chef with an incredible story.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Oh, man, yeah.

• 0:34Dax Shepard?

  Um, yeah, what, what could be the worst thing that could happen to a chef? And that's what happened. Please enjoy Grant Aketz. We get support from Quince.

• 0:46Speaker 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.

• 0:55Dax 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.

• 1:17Speaker 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.

• 1:35Dax 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.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  It's a uniform.

• 1:45Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:46Speaker 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.

• 2:03Dax Shepard?

  Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. We get support from AG1. Fall is that time when your body and mind are getting ready for the winter. You're settling in, bracing for the cold. Your body's already running a deficit from the shorter days and broken sleep patterns. You don't want a nutrient deficit stacked on top of that too.

• 2:40Speaker 01

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

• 2:52Dax Shepard?

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

• 3:06Speaker 01

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

• 3:10Dax Shepard?

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

• 3:20Speaker 01

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

• 3:28Dax Shepard?

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

• 4:09Speaker 02

  I don't know if you know this, are you so sad?

• 4:11Dax Shepard?

  That you know, the gold in the Boston matches the trunks almost identical.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I thought it.

• 4:18Dax Shepard?

  Do you clock that?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 4:20Dax Shepard?

  God, you really know what you're doing. How much thought did you put into this?

• 4:24Speaker 03

  My outfit?

• 4:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 03

  I put none.

• 4:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, okay, okay.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Well, it's great.

• 4:30Dax Shepard?

  You've surrendered that to someone else.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  I know my Schwamm suit, yeah.

• 4:34Dax Shepard?

  Rob, do you know where the sprays are in my house? If I don't have a nicotine spray, I can't continue.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  You can't function.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  I'm just saying.

• 4:40Dax Shepard?

  Have you ever been a nicotine addict?

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Never.

• 4:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God, that seems hard to imagine. We're both Michiganders.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:46Dax Shepard?

  Almost the same age.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:48Dax Shepard?

  I think you're maybe eight months older than me.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Is that right?

• 4:51Dax Shepard?

  Thank God, yeah.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  You were in Milford.

• 4:53Dax Shepard?

  Milford, Highland, Dearborn, Detroit.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 4:57Dax Shepard?

  You're St. Clair?

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:58Dax Shepard?

  Not St. Clair Shores?

• 4:59Speaker 03

  Not. Everybody gets that wrong.

• 5:01Dax Shepard?

  Yes, big difference.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Huge difference.

• 5:04Dax Shepard?

  Yes. You would think, Monica, right? St. Clair, St. Clair Shores. What could be the difference?

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yes, this is like Macon, Macon County that happened to you, ding ding ding.

• 5:13Dax Shepard?

  Georgia. Yeah, so walk me through St. Clair. I'm pretty sure it's similar to Milford, conceptually.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  Smaller.

• 5:20Dax Shepard?

  Three thousand?

• 5:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, probably now more than that, but back then, no fast food restaurant. That's how small they were. Every cultural town.

• 5:30Dax Shepard?

  How many stoplights?

• 5:32Speaker 03

  Two.

• 5:33Dax Shepard?

  And did you go to, like, did they have St. Clair High School?

• 5:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, just one high school.

• 5:37Dax Shepard?

  How many kids were in there, do you know?

• 5:39Speaker 03

  In my graduating class, probably not more than a hundred.

• 5:43Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 5:44Speaker 03

  It was really small.

• 5:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:47Dax Shepard?

  And you drove a fucking GTO in high school? Come on, what, a seventy?

• 5:51Speaker 03

  A seventy, yeah.

• 5:53Dax Shepard?

  Tell me about that car.

• 5:54Speaker 03

  When I was fourteen, my father said, what kind of car are you on when you turn sixteen? And I just said, a fast one, right? As you would.

• 6:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  And I love muscle cars. In my head, I was like, oh, he's gonna buy me a muscle car, right?

• 6:10Dax Shepard?

  Right, right.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  It didn't turn out like that, for the better. So he went out and found a GTO that was in boxes. It was off the frame. I mean, it was a mess, right?

• 6:22Dax Shepard?

  Someone had started a restoration and failed.

• 6:25Speaker 03

  Fourteen hundred dollars is what we paid for it.

• 6:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  And for two years, we took it all apart and built it all back up.

• 6:33Dax Shepard?

  How did your dad have that kind of mechanical prowess?

• 6:36Speaker 03

  I mean, I think a lot of it was just, again, that small-town Michigan manliness, right?

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:43Dax Shepard?

  A man had to know how to turn a wrench.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Right. And then we bought the manual. Pontiac, Porsche, all of those were cars. They had manuals on, literally, how to put them together.

• 6:54Dax Shepard?

  Right, right, right.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  So here we are, like, reading through that and buying the tools.

• 7:00Dax Shepard?

  And I can't believe it ran, to be honest with you.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  Honestly, me neither.

• 7:05Dax Shepard?

  And were you the king of your high school with that sweet ride? Because in Michigan, if you drove a rad car, it really meant something.

• 7:11Speaker 03

  That was a symbol.

• 7:13Dax Shepard?

  Yes. I had a Mustang GT that I bought similarly for eighteen hundred dollars. And, yeah, I think that elevated me a few notches.

• 7:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. I wasn't very cool.

• 7:22Dax Shepard?

  No, I saw a picture of you. You've got your tight-rolled jeans. You've got a fucking gorgeous schlong, short, front, long and back.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  So that, I should have kept that because that's in.

• 7:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be down to your ankles by now.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  It's called a schlong?

• 7:37Dax Shepard?

  That's one of the names for it, short in front, long in back.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:42Dax Shepard?

  Pick your poison with that.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 7:46Dax Shepard?

  What kind of dude were you in high school?

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Super shy. Did not apply myself, unless it was with my hands or some sort of art. I thought I was gonna be an architect. Never drank, never smoked. Tight, tight group of five guys. That was it.

• 8:03Dax Shepard?

  So mom and dad owned more than one yacht restaurant?

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Only one at a time.

• 8:08Dax Shepard?

  One at a time?

• 8:09Speaker 03

  Yeah. But it was a family diner, breakfast on the dinner seven days a week.

• 8:14Dax Shepard?

  And, like, how many tables are inside this place?

• 8:16Speaker 03

  It probably held a hundred and fifty people.

• 8:19Dax Shepard?

  Because I was doing the math when I heard you say the town was three thousand at that time. And I was like, man, even if ten percent of the community ate at your restaurant. I'm not trying to do the finances of it.

• 8:29Speaker 03

  Right. It was the place that... Everybody gathered.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Fun.

• 8:34Speaker 03

  Every morning they would come in and sit at the same table. They didn't even have to order.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Oh, that's the best.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  And that was a really formative time.

• 8:43Dax Shepard?

  What is funny, though, when you're in a small town, like assuredly your peers thought you guys were loaded.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:49Dax Shepard?

  Because when you're a kid and someone's parent owns a business in town, you just think they're rich.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  A hundred percent.

• 8:53Dax Shepard?

  You have no idea what the finances are.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  I was an only child. They spoiled me.

• 8:58Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, so yeah.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, the car.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 9:02Dax Shepard?

  Did you have dirt bikes?

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Four-wheelers.

• 9:04Dax Shepard?

  Four-wheelers, you son of a bitch.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. I grew up on dirt bikes and I made the transition when I was like 12.

• 9:12Dax Shepard?

  I'm so grateful I had that childhood. Are you?

• 9:15Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I wouldn't be close to who I am today without that.

• 9:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, even thinking about what I've learned about how seasonal your preparation is and how you think about oak leaves burning in particular. Your obsession with figuring out how to get that smell into food, I wonder, is that us? Does everyone have that nostalgia for burning leaves?

• 9:34Speaker 03

  And it was interesting. When we were working on those concepts, I would be like, hey, where did you grow up? And if they were in Texas, there's no leaves, right? Or it wasn't prevalent. Some people live in California where it's mostly evergreen. So how do you find that touchstone that is able to really make people go back in time?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  That's a very powerful thing.

• 9:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it really, really is.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:00Dax Shepard?

  Almost the most.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:02Dax Shepard?

  Had you not gone away to, again, I love the acronyms because CIA, Culinary Institute of America. But wasn't there ICE too, International Cookie?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes.

• 10:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, all bad.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  It's all bad.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  They need a rebrand big time.

• 10:19Dax Shepard?

  It's so funny.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  It is funny.

• 10:21Dax Shepard?

  Had you not gone to CIA, did you have any other? No, it was.

• 10:26Speaker 03

  I had no backup.

• 10:27Dax Shepard?

  Okay, no backup, no other interests?

• 10:29Speaker 03

  Academically, I was terrible in high school. So it wasn't like I was going to a university like all my friends.

• 10:36Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  I was like, this is it. But I really loved it.

• 10:41Dax Shepard?

  Do you think you had any? Advantage having minimally cooked at the diner.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 10:46Dax Shepard?

  What kind of advantages you arrive with, like some mechanical ability or?

• 10:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, there was nice shows. There was honestly a lot of the grit.

• 10:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, uh huh.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  A lot of the stress, a lot of that environment, it's intense and you have to figure it out.

• 11:02Dax Shepard?

  Your domain is where I probably am the most ignorant. So forgive me when I make a bunch of dumb observations, but. I'd also imagine you have a relationship with heat. Like I cook enough that I know over time, I look at that flame. I know what that flame is gonna give me. I know what kind of time I want something on there. If I want to be golden, I would imagine to you also have a pretty good relationship with heat.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, so a lot of the modernist technique is sous vide.

• 11:33Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh. And so for people who don't know sous vide.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  You're putting food in a bag essentially and placing that in a water bath. But you have to have the water at the right temperature. So I'm pretty good at just putting my finger in there and knowing what temperature it is.

• 11:49Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh, yeah, you can do that.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, my wife always uses me, but I can take salt and know how many grams I have in my hand.

• 11:58Dax Shepard?

  Ah, yeah.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  It's muscle memory.

• 12:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Just doing something over and over again for forty years or whatever. What at CIA was the most challenging? What was the deficit you had that you were like, oh, boy, I'm having a hard time with this?

• 12:11Speaker 03

  Probably back then it was my false sense of ability.

• 12:16Dax Shepard?

  A little arrogance, maybe? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  You know, because a lot of the people that start there have never cooked before.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  I was young. I was only nineteen years old. I was like, man, I'm better than all these people. That held me back a little bit. I learned that lesson fast, so.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  It kind of takes that personality a little bit, though.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  I agree. There's a certain.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Confidence.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  And you put yourself out there too. The food I'm doing now.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  You know, you're a bit vulnerable, yeah.

• 12:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you're trying to get that perfect ratio of arrogance that can foolishly make you try something maybe you shouldn't try.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's a real balancing act.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  For me, I was so young and most of the students were over twenty one. So they would go party on the weekends.

• 13:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  And I was just. Read Facebook.

• 13:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, uh huh.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  And I think that was a very fortunate thing for me, too. I was like focused. So that was the foundation.

• 13:18Dax Shepard?

  I would have been like, oh, I'm in New York. I have this now degree. I would go down to New York City. That seems like the natural trajectory. Why did you choose to go to Chicago and not go to New York?

• 13:29Speaker 03

  So originally, I went back to a hotel in Grand Rapids, the Amway. And the chef that was running the hotel, he became a mentor. And upon graduation, he was like, come back for a couple of months and we'll find a spot for you in Europe. And so I went to see over there and learn and blah, blah. So I went back to Grand Rapids and it never worked out. So then I just went on a big search. I wanted to work for the best chef and the best restaurant. And that was it. That's all that mattered.

• 14:00Dax Shepard?

  Which at the time was Charlie Trotter?

• 14:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:03Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so talk about the kind of legacy of Charlie Trotter in Chicago. This would have been, what, ninety?

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Ninety.

• 14:11Dax Shepard?

  I have it written down. I can tell. He had a twenty-five year run of kind of being.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  The big dog.

• 14:17Dax Shepard?

  The big dog.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so how'd you get that job?

• 14:20Speaker 03

  I wrote him a letter with my hands

• 14:24Speaker 03

  several times until finally he called me.

• 14:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no kidding.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  And I went down there for a tryout. I was still in Grand Rapids. I remember I wanted to eat at the restaurant before I tried out because I wanted to see what type of ingredients they had. I wanted to lose the plate layer. And again, I was money, money. Wow. I had this giant hilariously over baggy like JCPenney suit on.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  I worked there for three days and it was a tryout. And they offered me the job. So I moved down.

• 15:01Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so I wanted to talk about the culture of Charlie Trotter. And then we'll compare it to Keller. Because I think this is kind of fascinating, both work. Let's talk about the massive difference. So what was the vibe at Charlie Trotter?

• 15:13Speaker 03

  Fudders was intense in a way that wasn't in the service of what we were doing.

• 15:22Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh, uh huh.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  And I felt like it was getting in the way a bit. Charlie was a master manipulator.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  He slid right inside of your head and just pulled strings. It was unbelievable.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, what for? Like, power?

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Maybe.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:39Dax Shepard?

  If you're generous, I think it's like, look, for whatever reason, that was his technique. And for whatever reason, the results were the results. So, once you have the results you want, you're not likely to go re-engineer your approach. And probably he worked in kitchens where he picked up these little things along the way.

• 15:55Speaker 03

  I mean, we do what we see.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  And until you can break that cycle, I never saw him, which, you know, hey, again, he was successful.

• 16:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 03

  Right? So, the formula worked for him. It was odd to me.

• 16:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you said he was like a conductor, not a musician.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  Right. A conductor from afar. But the food was amazing and the talent was amazing. And a lot of ways, it showed me what I didn't want to do, how I didn't want to manage. But at the same time, I was so young and that restaurant was so good. It was hard to not go, this is the way to do it.

• 16:37Dax Shepard?

  Of course, yeah, yeah. The proof is in the pudding.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  But that's how the cycle happens, I think.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Right, exactly.

• 16:41Dax Shepard?

  How had he designed that incredible menu? Or did he have help? Or if he wasn't really cooking, how did he come up with that aspect of it?

• 16:49Speaker 03

  He was super intelligent. He went out and ate and then assimilated all, you know, brought all that in and then sort of moved the puzzle pieces around a bit.

• 17:00Dax Shepard?

  So he like was a curator of other great dishes he had had?

• 17:04Speaker 03

  Labors and, you know, techniques. And then he would have us execute it.

• 17:09Dax Shepard?

  Explain how he'd yell at you. I found this to be really fascinating.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  He would not yell at the person. He would yell at either the person directly next to you or the person that was supposed to be supervising you. I remember the first time it happened. It is a double hit.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  Because he's yelling. He's making it very clear that you did something wrong.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  So now you're at fault. But he's dressing down the person next to you. So now you feel bad for them.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  So you feel horrible.

• 17:45Dax Shepard?

  It's like torturing a loved one. Psychological.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Whoa, that is wild.

• 17:49Dax Shepard?

  I wonder why the time you had some extra basil on your cutting board.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  He was a very sharp person that knew how to draw a metaphor and analogy and just pin it right in you. At one point, I was shipping out in some basil and I had more than I needed. Not by a lot, but by, you know, a little bit. And I wiped it off my cutting board into the trash can. And he happened to see it. He walked over and he was very soft spoken, very polite. He was like, chef, did I ever have your wallet with you? And I'm like, as a matter of fact, I do, which is very unusual to have it in the kitchen.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:29Speaker 03

  So I get it out and he goes, have you money in there? And I'm like, yes. He was pulling it out for me. So I pulled it out. I had a five and a one.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 18:40Speaker 03

  And he picked it up, he looked at it, threw it in the trash.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  He goes, you're stealing from me. So I just stole from you.

• 18:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's what you just did.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  And again, all of this hard knocks at the time was like tough.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  But less than worth.

• 18:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:58Dax Shepard?

  And by the way, I always think, in my experience, the very first movie I did happened to be the hardest movie I ever did in my life. It was like in another country, we were in cold water half the time. It was so much. And I was like, oh, wow, this is movies, man. It's on. It's been way easier ever since. And I'm like, oh, that's the way to do it.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's like having an abusive stepdad and then you have a nice stepdad and it's like, yay. You're like, I am so happy.

• 19:22Dax Shepard?

  It's Barton, yeah.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. It's like you shouldn't have had an abusive stepdad.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Right. The funny part of that is I didn't touch that much. But he walked away, it stayed right there.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  Cause I'm like, if I respect him there, will it excuse me?

• 19:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it feels like a test.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:37Dax Shepard?

  Like the second part of his. Psychological.

• 19:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  It is.

• 19:41Dax Shepard?

  Do you pick it up out of the trash?

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Oh, my god. I thought he was gonna cut it up like the base.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  That really did. That really did.

• 19:49Dax Shepard?

  People chop it really fast and you're like, oh shit.

• 19:52Dax Shepard?

  So you're there for a year.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Not even.

• 19:54Dax Shepard?

  Not even a year.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was short.

• 19:56Dax Shepard?

  And how did you get yourself over to French Laundry? And tell me, because I wasn't aware of that at all in 95. How big was French Laundry already?

• 20:06Speaker 03

  Not that big. So Chef Hella was switched over in 94. So it only opened a couple of years, under him. After I left Trotters, I went to Europe. And back then, France was where it was at. It moved down to Spain and other places, but then it was France. So I'm like, okay, well, it was a holy land of food. And very disappointed. Every meal I had was not good.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  So now I'm really lost.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  If Trotters was the pinnacle, and that didn't work, I'm gonna go try to find it elsewhere. And that didn't work. I came home and I was a bit lost. And I went to the end, researched a bunch of restaurants, and found the French Laundry. And was like, okay, it's in Napa. Worst-case scenario, maybe I'll make mine. There's a lot of restaurants there. And wrote him a letter, similarly. He called me up and he was like, you're either batshit crazy or you're gonna be really good. And I landed there.

• 21:12Dax Shepard?

  By the way, you can be both.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  Can be both. Landed there and watched in the kitchen the first day, and there he was mopping the floor.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  It felt so familiar because of my mother and father's restaurant. My dad would mop the floor.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you see the trash, it's full, you take it out.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter who you are in the pecking order.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it felt.

• 21:36Speaker 03

  Natural, everything about it.

• 21:38Dax Shepard?

  We just blew by one point that I'm having a hard time grasping or relating to, which is at 20 years old, the fact that you went to France and you tried the food and you're like, it's not very good. I wouldn't fucking know. Like, I liked White Castle and Lafayette Twenty Island.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  But you weren't tasting food all the time.

• 21:59Dax Shepard?

  Well, that's my question is like, yeah, what order is it? Do you think it's just because you are getting so meticulous about all the ingredients and understanding what it's creating that that in turn changes your own palate? It's just interesting at that age to be able to even discern the difference between great and good food, I think.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  Part of it is here, but a lot of it is here.

• 22:22Dax Shepard?

  Okay, in your heart.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and the way a meal makes you feel. Even at that age, you knew when something was special. And that was another thing, like, that fiche, stuffy, French restaurant? I didn't mind that. So all of that was filed away. And 20 years after that became my ethos.

• 22:48Dax Shepard?

  The structure of a kitchen lends itself to abuse in a lot of ways, right? My stereotypical notion of some of these kitchens that had gone awry, it's like this main chef is like a god.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:01Dax Shepard?

  And all the formalities to reinforce how powerful they are, how subservient you are.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  I mean, that whole system was based on the military hierarchy system.

• 23:12Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, that's where it comes from?

• 23:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, historically, that never works out well.

• 23:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, okay, yeah.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  There is that toxicity that ran rampant in the years past. Now, the whole industry is coming through. A lot of reform, a lot of, a lot of change.

• 23:29Dax Shepard?

  Well, internet came along and your behavior is no longer that anonymous. The sanctity of that little kitchen is permeable.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  That's the good part. You can't get away with this kind of thing.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  I certainly have acted out in my earlier days, especially. It's hard to find that separation of. Pursue the perfection and the standard and being a human.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's hard.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  It sounds bizarre.

• 23:57Dax Shepard?

  No, no.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 23:58Dax Shepard?

  I also think it's the pressure. Someone sat down, the thing has to be not just perfect, it has to be perfect in thirteen minutes or whatever. The window of time is.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 24:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's a very stressful job.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  When I opened the venue, I was thirty. That's pretty young.

• 24:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  And it's pretty young to be in charge of a hundred people. Even more so if you're the owner or a co-owner. So there's a lot of that entrepreneurial stuff that I never thought about. It was all about the food. And my business partner handled most of it, but it was still there. So sometimes the pressure sort of popped off.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that'll happen.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  But, you know, never physically, just a little bit yelling here and there.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:39Dax Shepard?

  Well, the fact that you named one of your boys Keller lets me know how you feel about him. But you arrived with one skill set and then you left with a completely different one. What did you pick up there and what were they doing that was novel? Just and tell people, that's a very traditional French cuisine, yeah?

• 24:55Speaker 03

  The French culinary food I would say would be modern French. What does that mean? Threw away a lot of the rules of French cooking and utilizing a little bit of the American humor in food for the first time. Like, I remember the very first time I ate there, they put the Oysters and Pearls down in front of me and I started laughing.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  When they gave the description and I was eating with my father, it was right before I was about to start, and he goes, why are you laughing? You know, we're in this fine dining restaurant, right? And I go, Oysters and Pearls, man? That's hilarious.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  And it's delicious.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:37Speaker 03

  And that was the first time that I was like, oh, this would be fun, this would be emotional, this would.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  Personality.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  And so that really resonated with me. But Thomas's integrity, his willingness to not compromise, it was unprecedented. The fact that he was there, the first one in, the last one out, I was there at the right time to find that role model that really set the tone for my whole life. I give him a lot of credit for my ability to. Push through cancer. Sure, I learned so much to be a chef, but a lot of life lessons.

• 26:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like maybe the chef part wasn't the most important.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  Probably not.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:23Dax Shepard?

  But did he have an overarching theory about how he cooked that you began to understand? And what was that? Like, what was his north star?

• 26:34Speaker 03

  If you're really into food, if you study it, it's your passion, you can look at a chef's food and understand the architecture of it and the way that certain chefs season the food. They push with acid, they're liberal assault, they're harnessing of texture. So you're able to understand the architecture and their aesthetic, the ingredients that they're always have in their back pocket. And a lot of that with him was this emotional aspect of seasoning the food. So the oysters and pearls, the fornet that looks like an ice cream

• 27:18Speaker 03

  foam, profitero and doughnuts. Like there's all of this sort of other stuff. And so if somebody read me a description of a dish, I would probably be able to tell you who created it.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 27:32Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no kidding.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  And visually, for sure.

• 27:34Dax Shepard?

  They have an aesthetic.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:36Dax Shepard?

  And they have a way that they communicate.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  It's like writing.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  There is a lot of storytelling.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:41Dax Shepard?

  Was there anything about the service there that you also clocked? You're like, oh, this thing works really well.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  They were very approachable. They were the opposite of France. You know, it felt like you were in somebody's home, having a dinner party. It felt very comfortable and warm.

• 27:59Dax Shepard?

  This is the only one of these restaurants I've actually eaten at.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 28:02Dax Shepard?

  Probably 15 years ago. My wife and I were about to become vegan on January 1st. We were gonna try vegan. And it was like right before Christmas. And I'm like, maybe we should stop at that restaurant on our drive and let it rip before we go vegan. The reservation we got was like 9:30 at night. Yeah, we went there and we ate till midnight.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:23Dax Shepard?

  And there were so many special things that happened. Our one experience there, there was this man eating next to us. And he looked sweet, so we started chatting with him. And he told us that he and his wife had always come there. And that she had died like 10 years before from cancer. And that every year on their anniversary, he comes and has this meal.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  That's sweet.

• 28:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I was like, oh, man, this is really so special. And there's just so many things that were, and I'm uncouth. So a lot of this is new to me, like even I got the truffle option. And the man comes out with this mahogany box.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:59Dax Shepard?

  In white gloves. And I said to Kristen, oh, I think he's gonna murder someone for it. I'm waiting to see a pistol get pulled out of this box, right? Then they educate you on truffles. And I'm like, how much is that one worth? Oh, that's like a $2,000. Wow, they're that much. Yeah, and I'm like, who, where do you buy it? It's like a guy comes door to door. So it was a life event. Whatever the food was, it was phenomenal. I love things I hate, like oysters and pearls. I don't like any of those things. Yeah, I was just eating things all the time. I'm like, no, I know I don't like this. This place immediately built this trust where I was trying things I don't like. And everything was fantastic. It's on par with going to Disneyland, like you should do it in your life.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 29:33Dax Shepard?

  It was like a real life experience.

• 29:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:37Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare. 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 convince 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.

• 30:22Dax Shepard?

  Roadside assistance plans provided by Allstate Motor Club, Incorporated and Allstate affiliate. This episode is presented by YouTube Premium. YouTube was already great, but Premium supercharges it. If you like YouTube, you'll love Premium. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com/premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. Now let's get into today's episode. This episode is supported by Helix.

• 30:50Speaker 01

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• 31:01Dax Shepard?

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

• 31:05Speaker 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

• 31:21Dax Shepard?

  Increasingly so.

• 31:22Speaker 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.

• 31:32Dax 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.

• 31:52Speaker 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.

• 31:59Dax Shepard?

  Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off site wide. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off site wide. Helixsleep.com/armchair. 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.

• 32:42Dax Shepard?

  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?

• 32:55Speaker 01

  They never are.

• 32:56Dax Shepard?

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

• 33:07Speaker 03

  And then when you took that a step further, as with most professions or arts, any protege always wants to surpass the mentor.

• 33:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, of course. To impress them. You want to hear like, "You did it, man."

• 33:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, pat on the back.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  So when I was at the French Laundry, Thomas knew that I was not going to work there forever. And the style of food that I wanted to do was not of his. And so at some point, he was like, "Hey, there's this restaurant in Spain called El Buoy. I feel like it's right near Real House." So he arranged a stage there. And after I saw what was happening there, I was like, "I have to go do my own thing."

• 33:52Dax Shepard?

  You'd remember this place because Jose Andres also went there. That's like what woke up his mind as well. It's kind of north of Barcelona, right on the coast. It's not like in a populated area, right? It's just kind of in the middle of nowhere. So yeah, when you left French Laundry, you were the sous chef, which I didn't even know what this meant. You were the second in charge under Thomas. So when you go there, and I know you hate this word, but other people know it and I need you to explain it to everyone, but...

• 34:16Speaker 03

  Molecular gastronomy.

• 34:18Dax Shepard?

  Molecular gastronomy. So I know you don't like it, but what is the theory behind it?

• 34:23Speaker 03

  So at some point in the late 90s, it became popular to utilize effluent from other disciplines. The medical industry was a big one. Centrifuges and rotary evaporators.

• 34:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, how's a rotary evaporator work? I hear you talk about this a lot.

• 34:41Speaker 03

  So you have a liquid or a puree that you pull under vacuum. So now you're able to boil that liquid at a very low temperature.

• 34:52Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  So you're not having all of the aromas blow off and stuff like that.

• 34:58Dax Shepard?

  That makes so much sense.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  So it boils, it condensates, and then what drips is the essence of whatever you had.

• 35:06Dax Shepard?

  So you've like extracted the essence without destroying it with heat?

• 35:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 35:11Dax Shepard?

  That's so fascinating, right? Because this is applying what we know about water boiling at different temperatures, at different ATMs, right? Like at elevation, it boils at 209 or whatever the hell it is.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 35:23Dax Shepard?

  So if there's not one ATM, then it could boil at low heat. That's genius.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  I remember my first time being in Aspen, trying to boil eggs. And I'm doing it in front of my business partner, whom I had only known like a month.

• 35:37Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 35:37Speaker 03

  His whole family was there. And he's like, Chef, why don't you make us some breakfast? And I'm like, no problem. And it was a big problem.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Oh, no. Oh, no.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  So embarrassing. Can't even hug, boiling it.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  That's funny.

• 35:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so there was that. So at that restaurant, I guess the other thing I learned researching you is that what it really also broke open for you is that, oh, the sky's the limit. That we're not locked into French. We're not locked in like this journey of what food could be. We're not nearly at the end of it.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  No. In fact, the opposite. It was like, if you didn't explore this, you would be doing the industry as a service. Because I felt like, for the first time, there was full permission to express yourself or push outside of the box.

• 36:29Dax Shepard?

  Invent stuff.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so then it was game on. Once I came home from there, shortly after I left, the French Laundry trio of Ron, Echec and Evanston.

• 36:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, this was Trio.

• 36:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, no budget. We were paying the chefs $20,000 a year.

• 36:49Dax Shepard?

  Geez.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  This was 2001.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 36:53Dax Shepard?

  Did they get tipped out by the house? Is there any other? That's it?

• 36:56Speaker 03

  That was it.

• 36:57Dax Shepard?

  Fuck that.

• 36:58Speaker 03

  I know, it was bad.

• 36:59Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  There was five or six of us in there. We were the Rugrats. You know, we had nothing. But that really pushed creativity.

• 37:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, because you got credited, rightly so, for really elevating Trio and putting it in a standing it wasn't in. This was interesting to me. Of course, I know the Michelin star thing, which is already ironic because it's. It's a tire company. But I didn't realize mobile stars were also a thing. I don't know if they still are, are they?

• 37:26Speaker 03

  They're a thing for hotels.

• 37:27Dax Shepard?

  For hotels?

• 37:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:29Dax Shepard?

  So mobile gas station, Monica?

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Why do we crave some sort of star?

• 37:33Speaker 03

  It is unbelievable.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so you got like five mobile stars, some amount of mobile stars.

• 37:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, lots of mobile stars.

• 37:41Dax Shepard?

  Couldn't get the Chevron star or the Shell star.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  Right, no Shell's.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  What's the highest amount of stars for that?

• 37:46Speaker 03

  Five.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  So, yeah, we were moving. And then nine eleven happened three months after I was there. So we're doing all this flashy food, taking big swings. And it was working, but then the whole country just pulled way back. And I remember, I was just a chef, I had no ownership in this at all. And I went to the owner, I'm like, look, I understand. If you want meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and that's what we'll do. This is your business. And I'll never forget, he looked me in the eye and he goes, no. I believe in your vision, this is why I hired you. Instead of comfort, we're gonna put people's mind on another planet.

• 38:31Speaker 03

  So they don't have to think about anything that's happening.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, escape.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  It was a dream.

• 38:36Dax Shepard?

  You opened a Linea in two thousand and five.

• 38:40Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 38:41Dax Shepard?

  It's pretty instantly a hit.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. So the New York Times came in on night one.

• 38:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, gosh.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  And first of all, at that time, the New York Times didn't leave Manhattan or the boroughs. So it was a massive deal. And it was night one, which is not fair.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 03

  But like they say, I don't know, any press is good press.

• 39:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 03

  So after that, it was just straight up. The momentum was unbelievable. I was proven in the Chicago market. So that helped. And my pedigree, French laundry really helped. But when we first opened, Step and More Theaters right across the street. And me and my business partner were like, well, we have to have a pre-theater menu. Because what if we don't have any people? And we eliminated that right away. Everybody came in, we had three menu options, everybody wanted the biggest one. And so we were off to the races.

• 39:41Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so some of the things that are, maybe they were unique or not, but they're defining characteristics. So the building has no signage.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 39:48Dax Shepard?

  You walk in, there's no lobby, there's no bar. What informed these decisions? Were they random? Or did you have an overarching theory on why that was?

• 39:57Speaker 01

  No bar, like there's no alcohol served there?

• 39:59Speaker 03

  There's no spirits. So mine and beer.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 40:03Speaker 03

  I wanted it to be a temple of food.

• 40:06Dax Shepard?

  No distractions.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  And none of the other stuff. So it was all about purity of the experience with food and my spirits were not something that went well with food at that time, at least. And I just wanted it to be a gastronomic palace. So everything else was noise. Get it out of here. And it works.

• 40:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so for people who haven't seen any of these dishes, yeah, you're using liquid nitrogen, you're making mousse crispy. Like you're doing wild, crazy stuff. It's all prefix, you have people sit down, that's it.

• 40:43Speaker 03

  Nobody chooses.

• 40:45Dax Shepard?

  So you knew what you wanted to do with the menu, obviously, that would be very intuitive for you. What were you thinking about what you wanted the other elements to be? Like the service aspect? Did you have a novel idea about that? Or did you have environment? What did you want for that stuff?

• 41:00Speaker 03

  The entryway was very special. It was a very long hallway with a false perspective and a hidden door that was triggered by a sensor. So it was a little bit like a funhouse.

• 41:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  And the reason for that was there was no Uber then. So like you had a yellow cab or you had to drive yourself from the suburbs or something. And I wanted to eliminate all of that before you sat down.

• 41:28Dax Shepard?

  Like you've entered a magical place, kind of.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. And you're disoriented, you forgot about your babysitter and your sick kid at home and you're ours now.

• 41:38Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 41:39Speaker 03

  And the overall aesthetic of the restaurant was very minimalist. I would say that we were one of the first fine dining restaurants to not use a tablecloth. We were trying to challenge everything. At one point, I asked the architect if there was a way for us to not have tables.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 41:59Speaker 03

  That is how much we were like.

• 42:00Dax Shepard?

  Willing to.

• 42:01Speaker 03

  Every aspect of what a restaurant was.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 03

  We identified it and challenged it. We have tables.

• 42:09Dax Shepard?

  You've just given me an idea of having a restaurant that's lazy boys and then dinner tray. Uh, like TV dinner trays.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  That's all I eat every night.

• 42:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  This is me at home.

• 42:19Dax Shepard?

  How do you handle service? Is that something you micromanage or do you bring in someone that you believe in their approach?

• 42:26Speaker 03

  I'm super hands on.

• 42:28Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 42:28Speaker 03

  Even now, if I'm in Chicago, I'm in one of my restaurants five days a week for sure. A lot of that, I probably shouldn't do anymore.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:38Speaker 03

  I should be spending my time on other stuff, but I love it. And when the cats away, the mice play. It's just a fact.

• 42:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 03

  And so I like to be there to make sure everything's moving.

• 42:50Dax Shepard?

  Had you accumulated grievances? Cause I imagine if I opened a restaurant, the first thing would be like, I would X out all the things that annoy me about a restaurant. Is that kind of what you were doing as well?

• 43:00Speaker 03

  Yes, a bit for the table. I hate it when you would put your hand on the edge of the table to stand up and the whole table bobbles. So I'm like, why do they have table bobbles? Well, they're hiding a bad table.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  Let's have a nice table. So there's a lot of that.

• 43:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Very meticulous.

• 43:17Dax Shepard?

  Or nothing will ruin your meal more than when it's just uneven. I'll get under there with fucking sugar packets. I'm always manipulating it.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Are you impossible to go to a restaurant with?

• 43:27Speaker 03

  No, the opposite. I mean, now I have a whole different set of challenges because of what I have going on up here. But no, I'm pretty sure.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  My best friend works in service and has a whole business. He has a whole business on service and it is nearly impossible to go to a restaurant with him. And I've had to tell him like, you gotta, you gotta turn it off. Like, I can't do this anymore.

• 43:51Dax Shepard?

  I kinda get it though. Like when I'm watching a movie and they take a shortcut or they fucking lied about the logic, I'm like, ah, fuck you. You know, like it irks me just cause I know the math.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  I know. You gotta keep it to yourself.

• 44:03Dax Shepard?

  So. By oh seven, you've gotten your own mobile five star there. They're starting to rank in like the best restaurant in America, the best restaurant in the world. That's all taking off. I do notice you have a marriage that ends in oh six.

• 44:20Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 44:20Dax Shepard?

  Is it possible to start a restaurant of that caliber and be spending the time nurturing all the other relationships?

• 44:28Speaker 03

  No, I mean, let's be honest.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:30Speaker 03

  Right. When we opened, I would get there at nine AM and leave at four in the morning.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 03

  I mean, it was insane.

• 44:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, good luck.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  Jordan Khan, who has Vesper team here, he was on the opening team and Dave Baron, who has Celine in Santa Monica, was there too. And that team first up, who you had on.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  We were burning hours.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  It didn't matter.

• 44:54Dax Shepard?

  You loved it.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  You know, it was like we had a mission.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  And then when you realize that you're accomplishing that mission, then you were harder. You know, so now we're in there all the time. At that point, we were open five days a week, but it didn't matter. We were there on Monday, Tuesday. It was infectious.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:14Dax Shepard?

  Well, the work becomes your identity. Nothing else is happening in your life, so it's your singular identity. And you're crushing, you're getting all the accolades, people love it. So it's like you finally have an identity, which is the hottest shit in the world.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:26Dax Shepard?

  It's intoxicating.

• 45:27Speaker 03

  Very much so.

• 45:28Dax Shepard?

  So in oh seven, you get diagnosed with stage four tongue cancer.

• 45:33Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 45:34Dax Shepard?

  And I want to know, prior to the diagnosis, were you experiencing anything that was cluing you in that this diagnosis was coming? That you were ignoring?

• 45:43Speaker 03

  I didn't know what it was. I definitely knew something was wrong. But I was so committed.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  That I didn't even mind who was the doctor. I was like, no, I have to work today.

• 45:54Dax Shepard?

  But was it fatigue you were feeling?

• 45:56Speaker 03

  No, it almost felt like you bit your tongue.

• 45:58Dax Shepard?

  Oh, uh huh.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  And it would be like sore.

• 46:01Dax Shepard?

  Tender and.

• 46:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, hot coffee. I had that for probably three or four years.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Years.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I was with a dentist and they'd be like, ah, you just had your second hit, you opened your business.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Right, stress.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. So they missed it seven or eight times.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 46:20Dax Shepard?

  And at the time you were diagnosed, almost three quarters of your tongue had this tumor in it?

• 46:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was bad. I literally couldn't talk, couldn't eat.

• 46:29Dax Shepard?

  Fuck. And the first suggestive treatment was what?

• 46:34Speaker 03

  They wanted to remove the whole tongue and then both sides of my neck. It had metastasized here.

• 46:40Dax Shepard?

  It was in your lymph nodes.

• 46:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, so they wanted to do like major dissection and I mean, bad, bad surgeries.

• 46:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you wouldn't have.

• 46:51Speaker 03

  Nothing. The whole thing I couldn't even process. Of course, the chef that can't taste, right?

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's a sick joke.

• 46:58Speaker 03

  But also the business owner that now I have to figure out how to communicate with everyone. What am I gonna do?

• 47:03Dax Shepard?

  Your staff's gonna learn sign language.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  People laughed because they thought I was gonna die, you know? And yeah, that was a bizarre time.

• 47:12Dax Shepard?

  So you did six months of radiation like every single day?

• 47:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:16Dax Shepard?

  How quickly did it start working?

• 47:19Speaker 03

  We went to five major hospitals. They all said the same thing. And I'm like, now what? Maybe I should just die. And I had my sons and you know, I was like, no, we're gonna fight this. And it just so happened that University of Chicago in my backyard was like, hey, we have this new thing. It's a trial, but we feel confident. And I'm like, where do I sign?

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:48Speaker 03

  So surgery came up first. That really didn't bother me. I lost all my hair and got pimply and all that, but it didn't affect my taste and it didn't affect my energy. About three months in, they started radiation and that was a different story. That is intense.

• 48:08Dax Shepard?

  They're microwaving your tongue.

• 48:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, from my collarbone to my nose. And so at one point, the skin on the inside of your throat and your tongue was shed.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  By a snake. No swallowing, no taste, no nothing.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 48:27Speaker 03

  But it was worse.

• 48:28Dax Shepard?

  That sounds torturous. You had three months of that feeling?

• 48:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then afterwards it hangs on.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:35Dax Shepard?

  I thought this was interesting. I didn't know how this works. It makes total sense, but I heard you explain like your job as the chef is to educate the people under you on basically your palate, right? So like the underlings are going chef taste this and you're going great, but add a little bit of this. Like they're learning how to know your.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  To be you.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  A hundred percent.

• 48:56Dax Shepard?

  So luckily you had enough people that had fully understood in LA, we go like they know how to write for you, right? Like you know your voice. And so you were able to rely on them to taste. But were you panicked at all? I mean, you have to be a control freak. So that's a lot to turn over.

• 49:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wasn't panicked. My experience with the whole thing was very bizarre. I never fully thought that I was gonna die. And my comfort, my family was the restaurant.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:27Speaker 03

  So I was going to work every day. I thought that I should communicate with the top three chefs. And be like, hey, I want this acidic like a pickle. And I want it sweet like X, like very clean ice cream. And we would build it that way.

• 49:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, this probably pushed your communication skills forward in a way that maybe otherwise you wouldn't have been forced to develop.

• 49:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  And let you relinquish some control. That's a hard thing to do.

• 50:02Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  You have to be forced sometimes.

• 50:03Speaker 03

  At that point, it was all about me. And after that, I was like, okay. Yeah, I have to have other people. Yeah, I can't do it by myself.

• 50:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, almost forced your hand. Sometimes you look back on these trials and there are gifts in disguise.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  They all are.

• 50:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:18Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 50:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you cannot think that at thirty two.

• 50:22Speaker 03

  I felt pretty invincible at that age.

• 50:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 50:25Speaker 03

  And then when that diagnosis hit, I was like, what the hell is this?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:29Dax Shepard?

  I just mean the notion when you're in it that you're gonna go, oh, I better look back on this and be grateful for this is like almost an impossible perspective to have.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  In that moment.

• 50:38Dax Shepard?

  In the moment.

• 50:39Speaker 03

  But now for sure, maybe a better shot.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:41Dax Shepard?

  Life would just be really easy, though, if you really could embrace that.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  I know, but that's why.

• 50:45Dax Shepard?

  All the shit's hitting the fan somehow.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, wait till I'm grateful.

• 50:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I can't wait to reflect on this, man. Oh, that was this great moment, or I had to learn and grow. So you guys got three Michelin stars between 2011 to 2024. So you have real longevity in this, which is impressive. When you decide to close and revamp the place in 16 and readdress the menu, kind of start all over.

• 51:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:11Dax Shepard?

  What prompts that? Is that scary? That seems like a big decision.

• 51:16Speaker 03

  It was. You know, at that point, we were 10 years old. I said that ethos of the restaurant was evolution. And that meant not only the food, but the container. If we were renovating the restaurant, we had to keep everybody employed. There's 100 people.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Because we wanted them all back, obviously.

• 51:35Dax Shepard?

  You don't want to lose them.

• 51:36Speaker 03

  So we had to find a revenue stream and we did a pop-up in Madrid. I was there while all of that renovation was happening. So before we left, I knew what we were about to do. I helped design it and signed off on everything. But I was away. And this was my baby.

• 51:58Dax Shepard?

  This is terrifying, yeah.

• 51:59Speaker 03

  So that entryway and the staircase I designed, and that was really personal.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:05Speaker 03

  And when I walked back in, I went, huh, this isn't the idea.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 52:12Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 52:14Speaker 03

  It was tough.

• 52:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 52:16Speaker 03

  Because we went the opposite of where we were, which was like really minimalist, really a lot of industrial materials, like really modern.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  To a Parisian row house in the 30s. Ornate ceilings and all that stuff. And it just didn't feel me.

• 52:40Dax Shepard?

  Wow, so what did you do at that moment?

• 52:42Speaker 03

  Learned how to deal with it.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:45Speaker 03

  I'm sure we'll either pick it up and move it soon or renovate it.

• 52:51Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  So you still feel that?

• 52:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 52:55Dax Shepard?

  It never grew on you in the way. How did the diners feel about it?

• 53:00Speaker 03

  I mean, everybody likes a fresh look.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:03Dax Shepard?

  Rob, you were there post renovation, yeah?

• 53:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:06Dax Shepard?

  And what did you think of the decor?

• 53:08Speaker 04

  It wasn't my favorite.

• 53:09Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  I bet I would love it. It sounds like me.

• 53:15Dax Shepard?

  I think I would too.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  I wonder if you would be confident to say that if I would have said that.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Oh, he definitely would not.

• 53:23Speaker 04

  Absolutely not.

• 53:24Dax Shepard?

  No, of course not, of course not.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  I wish I could have gone in all, like, the first. Yeah. Like, that would have been cool.

• 53:31Dax Shepard?

  Did you have the impulse to go like, no, we gotta, we gotta redo this?

• 53:35Speaker 03

  I mean, that would have been impossible.

• 53:37Dax Shepard?

  It would have been impossible.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  Which is good, because maybe at some point in your life, you would have.

• 53:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Maybe you learned some acceptance for that period.

• 53:44Speaker 03

  I buried it.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so I want to know, like, when we talk to musicians about how they come up with songs, there's like some pretty common patterns that people, you know, people are in the car, they're in the shower, there's these areas where like you're just distracted enough that comes. So I'm curious, like, how do dishes come to you?

• 54:04Speaker 03

  I would say primarily three ways. Education. I don't have a motion on my bedside table, wake up in the middle of the night and write an idea down. That doesn't happen.

• 54:15Dax Shepard?

  Two pickles, three carrots, a tumor.

• 54:17Speaker 03

  So there's a lot of study, actually. What other chefs are doing now, what they did 100 years ago. Are there forgotten dishes that we should resurrect?

• 54:27Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 54:28Speaker 03

  Or spin off to lose that.

• 54:30Dax Shepard?

  Is some of that research, though, just traveling and eating a lot of food? So that would appeal to me, yeah?

• 54:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, there is.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  The unexplainable impulses that come in, whether it is music or a painting, where I recently I started with a parabagio aesthetic in mind.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 54:54Speaker 03

  Really broke, really. And I was trying to replicate that on the plate. And it went very far from there to like a Mondrian aesthetic or geometric. So like, it's wildly unpredictable. When we first opened, I was into Rage Against the Machine. And there was a track that they had that, I mean, you know their music, it's intense. But there was an area in a track that broke really hard, really abrupt. And in my head, in that second, I was like, how can I do that with the menu?

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 55:31Speaker 03

  The perversion of food. So it's that sort of, everything goes through a food filter.

• 55:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:38Speaker 03

  I asked myself, can I spin off of that shape? Or, you know, this, this and that. The other thing is ingredients. Like, I pick up a tomato and I smell it. And my head goes somewhere.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 55:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  It's almost like synesthesia.

• 55:54Dax Shepard?

  Do you love going to like markets in Italy and stuff like that?

• 55:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. Doing around the stuff, you have to touch it. It is so visceral. And then once you're in Japan or anywhere, anywhere else, Mexico, watching them, what they do in their traditional food is wildly inspirational.

• 56:14Dax Shepard?

  And does some of it come from just you're preparing something? And you just get some weird inkling to incorporate another ingredient or something? And that spins off into its own?

• 56:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, one example would be truffles and banana.

• 56:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, sure.

• 56:30Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 56:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's a weird pairing.

• 56:33Speaker 03

  And then when you look into it, there are aromatic components that they both have that connect them, but I didn't know that.

• 56:40Dax Shepard?

  Ooh, this wasn't even one of my questions, but now I'm thinking about it. Do you think that AI at some point will be able to analyze all these things that are patterns that emerge that we're not seeing, that everyone loves?

• 56:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I use AI a lot.

• 56:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you do? How will you use it?

• 56:56Speaker 03

  Mostly research. When I was interviewed in two thousand two and the writer asked me what my favorite kitchen tool was, and I said, Google.

• 57:07Dax Shepard?

  Google?

• 57:09Speaker 03

  Everything's right there, and that's what the inspiration, the information, I know how to cook.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  So once I have that little nugget of something, then we can.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  What's like your weeknight dinner? Twenty minutes?

• 57:23Speaker 03

  Eating for me is very complicated.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, you probably have a really hard relationship with it.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  The irony of it all is, there's a lot. So I go through that period where first of all, I'm diagnosed, and I'm like, this is insane. Is this a joke?

• 57:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:40Speaker 03

  And then you go through treatment, and you're unable to taste, but then that comes back, and you're like, I'm good. The issue then becomes the atrophy from the radiation.

• 57:51Dax Shepard?

  The long-term effects of it.

• 57:52Speaker 03

  Everything stiffens. I mean, you can see everything. It's really tight. So there's a muscle or there's a flap that when you drink or eat, it folds over and covers your lymph pipe.

• 58:06Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 58:06Speaker 03

  So you don't, that's right. Mine doesn't fold down.

• 58:11Speaker 03

  So it's very, very hard to swallow.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  And then about seven years ago, because of the radiation as well, my gums recede, and I got a really bad infection. My whole face.

• 58:30Speaker 03

  So they had to pull all of these bottom teeth. So now here we are again. As a chef, I'm not able to.

• 58:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:42Dax Shepard?

  True.

• 58:42Speaker 03

  Really. With that comes this social stigma where I'm like, not only if I go out with friends, I have to really be careful and navigate that, which is a little bit awkward, but also I'm me. So if I go to a restaurant that is of a certain level, they know who I am.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Yes, definitely.

• 59:05Speaker 03

  And what chefs want to do, when other chefs come in, they want to feed them the whole menu.

• 59:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, if I were you, I'd only eat at McDonald's. You'd be too much pressure.

• 59:14Speaker 03

  My relationship with it now is complex.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:20Speaker 05

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 59:26Dax Shepard?

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

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Cooking shows for me.

• 59:52Dax Shepard?

  Cooking. Listen, with Premium, you don't have to keep the screen open, so I can lock my phone, slide it into my pocket, and listen to a podcast while I'm folding laundry or working out. It's also completely ad-free, meaning when a narrator is building up to the climax of an insane story, there's zero interruption. And for travel, offline download saves the day. I love this one. Relying on airplane Wi-Fi can be a gamble, so I just download my favorite videos before takeoff. 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

• 1:00:34Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:01:18Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:01:23Speaker 06

  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 medullary 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.

• 1:02:03Speaker 06

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

• 1:02:20Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

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

• 1:02:32Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

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

• 1:02:53Dax Shepard?

  Great, great, great.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

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

• 1:03:07Dax Shepard?

  Roger.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

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

• 1:03:21Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  You are. You and the other girlies can shop my favorite loungewear and pajamas at skims.com. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you. Select podcasts in the survey and be sure to select our show in the drop down menu that follows.

• 1:03:40Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:04:22Dax Shepard?

  Let yourself run. Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at one peloton.com.

• 1:04:35Dax Shepard?

  Now I have the type of brain, I know Monica has it too. I would have in 2007 thought, yeah, of course, because I didn't deserve this success of this restaurant. I don't really deserve it. And now this is the universe's right side.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  This is the other thing.

• 1:04:51Dax Shepard?

  Do you have any of those terrible thoughts where it's like, oh, of course this is happening?

• 1:04:56Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:04:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's good.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  I didn't have that. But what I did have really bad was after treating it, the restaurant won a lot of awards.

• 1:05:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  And in the back of my mind, it was always like, I'm getting sympathy votes.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:05:10Dax Shepard?

  How do you thought that?

• 1:05:11Speaker 03

  That bothered me a lot.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:14Speaker 03

  For years.

• 1:05:15Dax Shepard?

  Interesting.

• 1:05:16Speaker 03

  I was like, ah, they feel bad.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  I mean, that's definitely not what happened, but yeah.

• 1:05:20Dax Shepard?

  I hate being pitied. It's like my most.

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:05:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I hate it.

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  Only a favor.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28Dax Shepard?

  I do want to ask really quick a couple of technical things, because I think it'd be fun to educate all of us a little bit on this. When I think of taste, like if you ask a civilian what is taste, you're just thinking like what the flavor is on your tongue. And then maybe you know, oh, a lot of that's coming from your nose. But tell me about aroma and texture, because I don't even think that's something people realize are impacting what they quote taste.

• 1:05:50Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, aromas, that is taste. So you have the five basics on your tongue, and those are like blunt instruments. There's no pinpoint there.

• 1:06:03Dax Shepard?

  No scalpel in there.

• 1:06:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, and everything else is right here. That's why when you smell a glass of wine and you smell chocolate, there's no chocolate in there.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  Right?

• 1:06:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  But you taste it, you perceive it. So that is vitally important. And it became really important when I shouldn't taste.

• 1:06:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:22Speaker 03

  I mean, I would build dishes solely on how they smell together.

• 1:06:27Dax Shepard?

  So you could smell.

• 1:06:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:06:29Speaker 03

  That never went away.

• 1:06:30Dax Shepard?

  That's, that's a blessing.

• 1:06:32Speaker 03

  And texture, people don't realize how influenced the body is, like certain textures will produce saliva. And then that saliva mixes with whatever you have in your mouth, and it hits different areas of your palate and the bodies are freezing.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  So fascinating.

• 1:06:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:48Speaker 03

  So all of that ties in, and it really is not something that people pay attention to.

• 1:06:55Dax Shepard?

  Right, you get all of it at once, and it's hard for you to parse out which thing you're enjoying.

• 1:07:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  But it's biology, really.

• 1:07:01Dax Shepard?

  Is there another thing missing? I guess the environment too.

• 1:07:04Speaker 03

  So that's what I think. We've always been pretty theatrical with our stuff.

• 1:07:09Dax Shepard?

  Some pageantry.

• 1:07:10Speaker 03

  And so I really look at color and light and sound and all aspects of the environment smell. We really play with that.

• 1:07:21Dax Shepard?

  Is there any music?

• 1:07:22Speaker 03

  If it makes sense and it's curated. We did a course at Mumpf Point where everybody was served it in the room at the same time. It was ridiculously crunchy.

• 1:07:34Speaker 03

  So we passed out a card and on the card it said, "Fly it."

• 1:07:39Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:07:40Speaker 03

  So the whole room just goes, "Fly it."

• 1:07:42Dax Shepard?

  Self-conscious.

• 1:07:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then everybody at the same time started chewing on these like cheetos or whatever.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Speaker 03

  And the whole room is like.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, like a chorus of, oh wow.

• 1:07:54Dax Shepard?

  Was it your restaurant that did something too, like something outrageously hot too? Everyone had to eat something really hot?

• 1:07:59Speaker 03

  No. We played with temperature, hot and cold in your mouth at the same time.

• 1:08:04Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I meant like, um.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  Spicy.

• 1:08:06Dax Shepard?

  Cap- capsaicin.

• 1:08:08Speaker 03

  We've removed the spiciness from it with the very, very evaporator. So none of that capcium comes up in the distillate. So chilies smell amazing.

• 1:08:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:20Speaker 03

  I personally can't do hot.

• 1:08:22Dax Shepard?

  Can't fuck with them, yeah.

• 1:08:23Speaker 03

  But the smell is amazing.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Dax Shepard?

  I wouldn't, again, I don't really think of this, but food, you think in seasons, right? So we're gonna have morels in the spring. So you just know like, we have to do something with morels. In the summertime, we're gonna have different fruits.

• 1:08:38Speaker 03

  Tomatoes.

• 1:08:39Dax Shepard?

  Tomatoes.

• 1:08:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:40Dax Shepard?

  And so because you have to be ahead of the game, right? You can't wait till the morels arrive, right? I can imagine your existence has been very, very compartmentalized by seasons in a way that other people's probably aren't.

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:53Dax Shepard?

  Can you like feel that? And what has that done for your experience of life to be so aware of what's happening seasonally? I think it could make you feel like time is passing way too fast. Or I could imagine too, since you're in it so presently, maybe it slows time down. I don't know what it does.

• 1:09:10Speaker 03

  I think it speeds it up. And like you were saying, if it's December or even February and you're like, hey, we have to have a morel dish, so we have to start planning it. What did we do last year? How did we manipulate it? It has to be different, can't be the same dish.

• 1:09:26Dax Shepard?

  And you don't have them, right?

• 1:09:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:09:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:29Speaker 03

  They have to be new.

• 1:09:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's its own challenge.

• 1:09:31Speaker 03

  So it's like a movie or a book, you have a deadline. And that self-imposed pressure or nature's pressure, it templates your whole year.

• 1:09:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  And as far as perception, it's like, I was always a big outdoors person in Michigan. We did a lot of hunting, you know, so the seasons really resonate with me.

• 1:09:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:54Speaker 03

  They're very important. When you smell those oak leaves or that first snow, the feeling of it.

• 1:10:01Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:02Speaker 03

  Quiet.

• 1:10:02Dax Shepard?

  I always think of fall, when it's fall, you're going back to school, there's new girls, you have new clothes, you go to like a Halloween party, it's dark early. To me, like a lot of people think spring is romantic, to me, fall's like the most romantic.

• 1:10:17Speaker 03

  My favorite. I feel like that's probably a Midwest thing.

• 1:10:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:21Speaker 03

  Because of that, that weed change, that whole thing.

• 1:10:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and then come like end of May, you're like, oh, it's time to fucking party. I also think we have a very bipolar existence up in Michigan, right? Where it's just like, it was miserable.

• 1:10:34Speaker 03

  Miserable.

• 1:10:35Dax Shepard?

  You see it, it gets to thirty-nine degrees and the sun's out in April and dudes are in convertibles with no shirts. It's like we're just fucking dying to come out of this gray hell. So I just think it's really heightened the just overall temperament.

• 1:10:50Speaker 03

  I believe that.

• 1:10:50Dax Shepard?

  Now, the restaurant culture, I talk about it all the time. My girlfriend of nine years in my twenties, she worked at a bunch of different restaurants. They all party fucking hard, their hours are crazy, they sleep in.

• 1:11:00Speaker 03

  Stress, yeah.

• 1:11:02Dax Shepard?

  It's a culture.

• 1:11:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03Dax Shepard?

  How did you navigate that culture?

• 1:11:05Speaker 03

  Pretty good. That was another thing with Thomas, his professionalism was paramount, is paramount. I had a rule that I wasn't friends with my employees. Sometimes that didn't work out.

• 1:11:20Dax Shepard?

  Some people are just too attractive.

• 1:11:21Speaker 03

  Right, that too, yeah. But I was too busy working the party. The priority wasn't that. And like I said, I had never drank heavily up until a little bit later. So I was focused, but yes, it is.

• 1:11:38Speaker 03

  Rampant in the industry. And I think it's getting a lot better, but it's because of the generation. The generation's not drinking.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:49Speaker 03

  So there's always some substances in there, but I think it's getting better.

• 1:11:53Dax Shepard?

  I think the industry selects, though, for people who, A, they're night owls, generally, right? They like arousal, they like high stress, they function well in high stress, and they're fast.

• 1:12:06Speaker 03

  You're surrounded by it all the time.

• 1:12:08Dax Shepard?

  Probably a lot of ADHD in that world.

• 1:12:10Speaker 03

  Probably.

• 1:12:11Dax Shepard?

  I think you're kind of self-selecting for a lot of qualities that lend themselves to also being addictive.

• 1:12:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  Also, if you're dealing with such a high-pressure situation at work, you want to let go. You want to release.

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's very, very there.

• 1:12:28Dax Shepard?

  You know, the thing I used to be really judgmental on, and I've done a complete 180 on it, and it was with her. It was with Bree, who worked at all these restaurants. And the servers would all, once a week, generally on their day off, they would go eat at a really nice restaurant.

• 1:12:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:41Dax Shepard?

  And we lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. I think our cumulative income was like 18,000 a year between the two of us. She was making 10, I was making 8. And I'd be like, you just went and spent $180 on dinner? Like, I could not wrap my head

• 1:12:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:12:56Dax Shepard?

  around spending that amount of money on something when we didn't have shit. And I was more like, let's save up for blank, this TV. And then I remember there was this whole movement, I don't know, about 10 years ago, where people were getting really critical about millennials. They made fun of them about the avocado toast. Now, after that, I think now there's a lot of great social science that has studied this. And they're like, okay, on your deathbed, what do you remember? Well, people remember experiences on their deathbed. They evaluate their life based on their experiences, not how many inches their TV was. It's not how it works.

• 1:13:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:26Dax Shepard?

  And so whatever that costs, it's actually a bargain.

• 1:13:29Speaker 03

  It's a bargain.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:31Dax Shepard?

  And so I've come completely around, and I guess I just want to end this on encouraging people, do it, man, save up for a fucking amazing experience at a restaurant. Because it's so memorable, that trip to French Laundry. Yeah, it was obnoxiously expensive. And I remember it so well, it's like a moment of my life.

• 1:13:49Speaker 03

  We had a three-top come in. It was an 80-year-old woman, her daughter, and her granddaughter.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:13:56Speaker 03

  And they came down to the kitchen after the meal. And the 80 year old was like, it's my 80th birthday. I never thought I would have a meal like this.

• 1:14:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:07Speaker 03

  It was the most magical thing. She started frying.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:14:11Speaker 03

  And she's like, and I got to share it with my daughter and my granddaughter.

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Speaker 03

  So like to your point.

• 1:14:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  That's a light high.

• 1:14:18Dax Shepard?

  You should spend money on moments with people you love that you'll remember forever.

• 1:14:23Speaker 03

  Exact compliment. Those way beyond stars.

• 1:14:26Dax Shepard?

  The mobile stars.

• 1:14:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, right, right.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:29Speaker 03

  So in that way, it is very, very rewarding.

• 1:14:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:34Speaker 03

  To have that platform to provide people to make those memories.

• 1:14:40Dax Shepard?

  It's rad.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's awesome.

• 1:14:42Dax Shepard?

  Well, it's an honor to meet you, man.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  It really is.

• 1:14:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's really cool.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  I can't wait to come into the restaurant. I know it's really hard to get in, but I feel like now I'm in it.

• 1:14:49Speaker 03

  I probably know someone.

• 1:14:51Dax Shepard?

  Well, people may famously remember, we tried to shame you guys into giving Rob a reservation over Christmas. And you guys did, and we were so, so grateful. Rob, was it the most memorable night ever?

• 1:15:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was incredible.

• 1:15:02Dax Shepard?

  Despite the decor?

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, Rob, you really stuck your foot in there.

• 1:15:05Speaker 03

  Imagine if you guys just said, nah, it was okay.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh my God, oh my God. No, he came back really glowing.

• 1:15:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's great. Well, Grant, thank you so much. This has been a blast. Just a quick reminder that as part of our summer break, here's a rerun of one of our favorite fact checks.

• 1:15:27Dax Shepard?

  I'm in an incredibly beautiful new sweater that my friend got me.

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  It looks gorgeous.

• 1:15:31Dax Shepard?

  I just put on for the first time and I'm truly blown away.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  The green is really nice.

• 1:15:35Dax Shepard?

  And the fit is really kind of perfect.

• 1:15:37Speaker 01

  I know, they know how to do it.

• 1:15:39Dax Shepard?

  And I think I like these cuffs where you have to roll them up. They're too long on their own. They're clearly designed to be rolled. See, look, that's a seven inch, nine inch cuff.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  It's nice though.

• 1:15:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. But you wouldn't wear it like that, right?

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Well, I'm not allowed because I'm short and they have a rule that if you're short, you have to show a little bit of skin. If you're wearing oversized clothing, you have to show a little bit of skin on your arm.

• 1:15:59Dax Shepard?

  Because you'll get lost in it. I just rode my bicycle.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:16:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. My first time in biker shorts.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  How'd it go?

• 1:16:08Dax Shepard?

  Well, I just can't believe I'm a person that owns biker shorts and wears them now. I'm having a hard time.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  Well, you're 50. So a lot of things have changed.

• 1:16:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but also I think that's something that's best done much younger. Almost the 50 compounds it. First, I never envisioned myself as being someone that would be in those biker shorts.

• 1:16:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:16:27Dax Shepard?

  But they have a pad built into them. And the seat is very tiny on the road bike. And it hurts here on ooz.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:35Dax Shepard?

  I don't want to say it hurts here. It does hurt.

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it hurts.

• 1:16:37Dax Shepard?

  I was like, oh, it's a nice padding. I put them on for the first time. I felt like, Penae always talks about like, eventize your run. I was like, well, these are built for nothing other than riding a bicycle.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:16:47Dax Shepard?

  And let's do that. And the padding was nice. And I love that there's no fabric flowing anywhere else. I think I went up the hill faster because of them.

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  Probably aerodynamics.

• 1:16:57Dax Shepard?

  I'm not gonna adopt the Lycra shirt, though. I decided. I swore a wife beater.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  So you're back home.

• 1:17:04Dax Shepard?

  I'm back home. I'm very, very, very happy to be back home.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  I got you a present for your birthday. Do you want to open it?

• 1:17:09Dax Shepard?

  I would love to open it.

• 1:17:12Dax Shepard?

  Let me really take my time here. We, I'm looking at a beautiful tissue paper.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:17Dax Shepard?

  With, oh, can I say one thing? This will sound derogatory, but let me preface it by saying, I could be in the tourism board for Mexico City. I love it. It's an enchanted.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  I want to go.

• 1:17:29Dax Shepard?

  Romantic city.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Mmm.

• 1:17:30Dax Shepard?

  Food's dynamite. If you ever go, go to Javre 77 French restaurant. We went twice.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 1:17:36Dax Shepard?

  The French onion soup's the best I've ever had in my life. On the second trip on my birthday night, I got two bowls of it to start.

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Like when you got two steaks?

• 1:17:45Dax Shepard?

  Yes, and I would, I would tear out a fingernail right now to have it again.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:17:49Dax Shepard?

  And share it with you. It's, it was the most incredible.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Yum.

• 1:17:51Dax Shepard?

  But anyways, the facial tissue, and I had a cold, it wasn't ideal.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:17:56Dax Shepard?

  And where it really hit me was.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  One ply?

• 1:17:58Dax Shepard?

  Maybe less. I was on, at a nice hotel, mind you.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02Dax Shepard?

  We got on the flight. I went into the bathroom and I pulled the tissue. Out of the mirror that's in the lavatory of the airplane. And the second I touched it, I was like, ooh, that's soft. And then I thought, how bad was the tissue where the airplane tissue felt like puffs plus with lotion?

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  Oh my.

• 1:18:21Dax Shepard?

  Just to make it relative.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz that's one ply.

• 1:18:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I think it was like point six ply.

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:18:28Dax Shepard?

  Anyways, beautiful tissue paper.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:30Dax Shepard?

  With purple flowers, really nice.

• 1:18:33Speaker 01

  The tissue is from Nikki Kehoe, the present is not.

• 1:18:36Dax Shepard?

  Oh, this is a multi-stage gift.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay, beautiful tissue paper and then a burlap sack.

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, also from Nikki Kehoe. That's how they wrap.

• 1:18:44Dax Shepard?

  Wonderful.

• 1:18:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, buddy, The Stories of Raymond Carver. Will you please be quiet, please? Is this an original?

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  I bought it as a first edition and it is signed.

• 1:19:00Dax Shepard?

  It's signed?

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Dax Shepard?

  Did you pay the face value of eight dollars and 95 cents?

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  No, it was on sale, actually, half off.

• 1:19:10Dax Shepard?

  What year was this published? Cuz we can, I think it's fascinating that a hardcover beautifully bound book was eight ninety-five.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  I know, that's true.

• 1:19:19Dax Shepard?

  I know I'm all over the place in a little manic, but I just gotta add back to Little Women. Which I love.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:28Dax Shepard?

  As you know, Greta Gerwig's number one superfan now. At the end of that movie, they show them pressing and making her first book. The book, Little Women.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:38Dax Shepard?

  I don't know if you remember that sequence.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  I don't know if I remember it.

• 1:19:40Dax Shepard?

  But the amount of time and effort it took to make a book in the 1890s. Where they're pressing it all, they were cutting it with a saw, they were sewing the binding by hand. And then they were cutting leather out in a pattern and then gluing and putting that in a press. I'm like, it took like a week to make a single volume. They should have been $600.

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  Exactly. Well, that's why they're so rare.

• 1:20:06Dax Shepard?

  And it explains why, I think it was Carnegie who invented the library. There were no libraries. Books were just too expensive. They were like, probably in today's dollars, they probably were hundreds of dollars.

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:17Dax Shepard?

  That amount of manpower. Okay, so this was first published.

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  We think about wealth disparity now, but then, in order to even read a book, you had to be a millionaire.

• 1:20:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'll get the number wrong, but to put it into perspective, like. So I guess Elon is now worth $400 billion recently. Although that stock just fell, whatever, let's just say he hit 400 billion. 400 billion of our total GDP and national amount of money isn't even 0.01%. When Rockefeller hit a billion, he, they say he actually had like 15 cents of every dollar that existed in America. So it's like, as bad as it feels now, it was.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  It was bad, worse.

• 1:21:01Dax Shepard?

  Exponentially, order of magnitude crazier with the first rich people.

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:21:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so this is 1963. So this book costs $8.95 in 1963.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  How much do we think that is now? Rob, can you put it in?

• 1:21:16Dax Shepard?

  Well, that's a great, we have that technology.

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, we sure do.

• 1:21:20Dax Shepard?

  I added a new, I actually wrote up my resolutions last night.

• 1:21:23Speaker 01

  Oh, great.

• 1:21:24Dax Shepard?

  Which I don't know if I've ever written them down.

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wrote some down too.

• 1:21:27Dax Shepard?

  You did, did you journal this morning?

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:21:29Dax Shepard?

  Congratulations.

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  I journaled every day.

• 1:21:31Dax Shepard?

  I'm proud of you.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  I had therapy too, and we talked about it. And she said I, I could.

• 1:21:37Dax Shepard?

  Burn them?

• 1:21:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, or shred them or whatever.

• 1:21:42Dax Shepard?

  Can I have her number?

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  She's like, if that's gonna allow you to really be able to be honest and truthful with yourself in a way you won't be able to otherwise.

• 1:21:55Dax Shepard?

  And let it out of your body.

• 1:21:56Speaker 01

  You know, sometimes her and I talk about, like, there are things that I talk about with her that I, that only, only she gets to hear. And she said, you know, it's not just me, you also have you.

• 1:22:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  And you have a dialogue with, you can have a dialogue with yourself.

• 1:22:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  Especially via the journal.

• 1:22:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  But, but yes, of course, I have to be very honest with myself there. And so if I, if I'm out of fear not doing that, then it's not worth it. So I do, I'm still deciding.

• 1:22:30Dax Shepard?

  We may have talked about this, but, and I had mentioned there was a period I stopped journaling over the last 20 years. And then I had a relapse, obviously. And I didn't even put all this together, but through therapy with Mark, I think what occurred to me was.

• 1:22:49Dax Shepard?

  I, there were things I, I couldn't write down, just like you were saying, are you afraid someone's gonna find it? And I'm like, no. But in truth, there was a moment, yes, I'd be afraid someone would find it. And I had this weird dedication to never lie to that journal.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:23:06Dax Shepard?

  So I just couldn't, I didn't, it didn't feel like I was making a decision to stop journaling. It just was like, this is really weird. I've been journaling for 17 years or whatever, and I haven't in a while, but I'm not overthinking it. But of course, in reflection, I was like, I couldn't really, yeah, be dishonest to this thing.

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:23Dax Shepard?

  I love this. This is such a thoughtful, wonderful present.

• 1:23:27Speaker 04

  It would have cost eighty-nine dollars and eighteen cents.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:23:30Dax Shepard?

  Eighty-nine dollars for a book.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  That's a lot. It's not enough, though. I wish it was five thousand.

• 1:23:39Dax Shepard?

  Okay, this is a fantastic present. Very thoughtful. Thank you so much.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  You're welcome.

• 1:23:44Dax Shepard?

  Okay, how was therapy?

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  It was good. It's my first therapy of the new year. You know, for a second, I was debating, I was like, maybe I only need to start going like as check-ins now. Like, maybe I don't really need to be on this consistent of a schedule. But then today, I was, I was like, no, I need to keep up my, my once every two weeks.

• 1:24:08Dax Shepard?

  Well, look, I've stopped, so I really am in no position to say this.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:11Dax Shepard?

  But it definitely falls under the umbrella of like, well, it couldn't hurt to go.

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  It does not hurt.

• 1:24:17Dax Shepard?

  And it potentially could hurt to not go.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:21Dax Shepard?

  It's kind of the vitamin debate. It's like the scientific community is kind of split down the middle whether vitamins work or not.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:24:27Dax Shepard?

  But it's like, I don't know, on the chance that they work.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:30Dax Shepard?

  And they're not gonna harm you. All right, someone's gonna comment. There are, yes, I hear you.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  There are some bad ones.

• 1:24:35Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I know. And you can have too much of certain things. But just in general, if you're taking the, you know, not above the daily dose of any one thing, it's not gonna harm you.

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  Speaking of, okay, you know how I'm always paranoid about drowning myself?

• 1:24:48Dax Shepard?

  And too much water?

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, or people in general, like drinking too much water and then drowning themselves.

• 1:24:53Dax Shepard?

  And you, you know, Gundry's new movement is less water. Not shockingly.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  So him and I are aligned.

• 1:25:03Dax Shepard?

  Soulmates.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  That's why he's got those fresh hands. He doesn't drink any water.

• 1:25:07Dax Shepard?

  No hydration.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. I'm gonna put my hair up real time. If you want to see it.

• 1:25:12Dax Shepard?

  It looks so good down, but go ahead. Let's see what happens there.

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  Okay. If you want to see it, go to YouTube.

• 1:25:17Dax Shepard?

  Do you ever do an up and then a braid and back?

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I did it for, when's this out?

• 1:25:24Speaker 04

  Uh, the eighth.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  I did it for a, a commercial we were just in together.

• 1:25:31Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. That comes out yesterday.

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  It came out yesterday.

• 1:25:35Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  Our little commercial.

• 1:25:37Dax Shepard?

  Yes, our second commercial of I hope many.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. It was so fun. And it's out. It was out yesterday. It's on our Instagrams. And in it, I do have a ponytail with a braid.

• 1:25:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  That I love. It's just really hard for me to do by my, on my own. I, I had a hairstylist that day.

• 1:25:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh, right, right.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  But I do like it.

• 1:25:58Dax Shepard?

  Maybe a therapist can style your hair on the days you don't want to share.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  Oh, hair play? I would go every day.

• 1:26:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  I'd pay for that. Anyway, um, okay, so drowning cells, everyone, everyone laughs at me. They guffaw.

• 1:26:12Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  And I met someone who drowned his cells.

• 1:26:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, tell me.

• 1:26:18Speaker 01

  And it was really bad.

• 1:26:19Dax Shepard?

  Tell me more.

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:26:21Dax Shepard?

  Who did you meet? Where'd you meet him? In front of 7-Eleven?

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  No, he's a real person I know. I'm not gonna say, I'm not gonna out him.

• 1:26:26Dax Shepard?

  Him or her's name.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  Right. He's a friend of a friend. This is a sad story. I'm transitioning into a sad story. When I was.

• 1:26:33Dax Shepard?

  If you're having fun and laughing, stop.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, stop. A big group of friends was meeting and one, Robbie.

• 1:26:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, sweet Robbie from our chain.

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  Yes, from the connections chain, wasn't there. I was like, where's Robbie? And his wife said, oh, he's at the hospital with.

• 1:26:53Dax Shepard?

  Mutual.

• 1:26:54Speaker 01

  Yes, with, um.

• 1:26:56Dax Shepard?

  The unmentionable.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  That, no, cause.

• 1:26:58Dax Shepard?

  He's not underwear.

• 1:26:59Speaker 04

  Cause that's his name?

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:27:01Dax Shepard?

  His name is Unmentionable?

• 1:27:03Speaker 01

  We can't call him Untouchable because he's Indian.

• 1:27:05Dax Shepard?

  Oh, he is?

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so now I'm giving a lot of info away.

• 1:27:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's pretty easy to narrow this down at some point. If you know an Indian in Atlanta who's friends with Robbie.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  That's true. There is one. There is one. Anyway, this is sad. This is sad. He had a seizure.

• 1:27:21Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 1:27:23Speaker 01

  And I guess he had already had a seizure a year before and was on seizure medication and stuff.

• 1:27:33Dax Shepard?

  But when you- You're the perfect person to tell this story because you have the same condition.

• 1:27:35Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. And I'm Indian. When he went the first time after his seizure, they checked his salinity levels and they were so low. And he did drink in like really excessive amount of water.

• 1:27:52Dax Shepard?

  Do we know why?

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  And he drowned his cells.

• 1:27:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he got rid of too much salt, but-

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  He drowned his cells.

• 1:27:58Dax Shepard?

  That was the medical?

• 1:27:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:27:59Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay. Okay. You have a good deal of salt, I think, from your diet. Don't take offense to that.

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  Are you referring to like the potatoes I made or something?

• 1:28:10Dax Shepard?

  No, but you like, you'll have a nice seasoned chicken.

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 1:28:15Dax Shepard?

  I think you have a good amount of salt.

• 1:28:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel fine about my salinity.

• 1:28:18Dax Shepard?

  Yes, um, so-

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  And I don't drink any water, so I'm good there.

• 1:28:22Dax Shepard?

  Do we know why he was drinking so much water? Was he on like an exercise routine?

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  He was ex- he was on an exercise routine and I'm not sure why. Anyway, so turns out, per usual, I'm right. You can drown your cells.

• 1:28:37Dax Shepard?

  Per usual.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  And, um-

• 1:28:40Dax Shepard?

  Unsurprisingly.

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  Please look out for that.

• 1:28:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  I don't know why I brought that up.

• 1:28:44Dax Shepard?

  You and Kundra should collab on this.

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  I'm happy to join forces.

• 1:28:49Dax Shepard?

  Also, just if you are having a lot of water, maybe use some-

• 1:28:54Speaker 01

  Electrolytes!

• 1:28:55Dax Shepard?

  Electrolytes, that's right. Keep an eye on your electrolytes.

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:58Dax Shepard?

  There, the case, the only cases I've ever heard of is like, no one's ever died from ecstasy, but people have drank too much water on ecstasy.

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  Exactly, they drowned their cells.

• 1:29:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, okay. Okay. I wonder if they drown their cells or if when they drink way too much water, it backs up like congenital heart failure, basically like ends up filling up their body. Cause you know, my father, who had congenital heart, I don't know if it's congenital. He had heart disease and what would regularly happen is his heart was too big on one side and normal on one side. And so it would pump in a lot, but it couldn't pump out a lot. And then it just ends up backing your whole body up with water and you, you get really bloated. You put on all this water weight and then it starts really affecting your breathing and your lungs and everything else. And so my dad would go into the hospital for like four days and all he'd be on diuretics and he'd just be getting rid of gallons of water.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Right. Oh my God.

• 1:29:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:55Speaker 01

  Okay. It says, yes, cells can drown in a condition called water intoxication or hyponatremia, which occurs when there's too much water in the body. When there's too much water in the body, sodium levels drop, causing water to move into cells and causing them to swell. This can be especially dangerous for brain cells as it can lead to pressure in the brain, confusion, drowsiness.

• 1:30:17Dax Shepard?

  Wait, no epilepsy, pressure in the brain might've been completely all related.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:30:23Dax Shepard?

  Oh man. Well, I'm sending love and well wishes to this anonymous person.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  Untouchable.

• 1:30:29Dax Shepard?

  Why does Robbie have two very close Indian epileptic friends?

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:30:36Dax Shepard?

  He's very over indexed.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  He is extremely over indexed.

• 1:30:41Dax Shepard?

  Cause I, I consider myself kind of unique in America, low percentage where I have a best friend who's Indian and epileptic and he's got now two?

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:30:51Dax Shepard?

  He has a fetish. I know you don't like that word, but.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  You think it's a king?

• 1:30:55Dax Shepard?

  Ask if there's a third. If there's a third, he has a condition.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is weird. Then I wondered, is like

• 1:31:04Dax Shepard?

  What ethnicity is Robbie's wife?

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  White.

• 1:31:07Dax Shepard?

  White?

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, she doesn't have it. Actually.

• 1:31:10Dax Shepard?

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:31:12Dax Shepard?

  No, no, no, no. Is he giving everyone this?

• 1:31:16Speaker 04

  He's poisoning everyone?

• 1:31:17Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God. He's so sweet. That would make sense. He's one of the sweetest people I've ever met.

• 1:31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he has a dark side.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  Hi, Robbie.

• 1:31:26Dax Shepard?

  Nasty.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  So his wife is my oldest best friend.

• 1:31:30Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:31:31Speaker 01

  And when we were in high school, she had seizures. And they were dating at that time.

• 1:31:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  And she got in this car accident because she had one. Hers were different, though. She had, like, she didn't have grandma seizures.

• 1:31:46Dax Shepard?

  Were you about to say petite?

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  Petite mall. That's what they're called.

• 1:31:49Dax Shepard?

  That's so cute.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  And then she had

• 1:31:51Dax Shepard?

  You picture like a mall, you'd walk in, but there's only three stores. And then there's the food court is like four food carts.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  They should call it boutique seizures.

• 1:32:00Dax Shepard?

  That's way better.

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's cute.

• 1:32:02Dax Shepard?

  You and Gundry can work on that.

• 1:32:05Speaker 01

  Anyway, yes, he has three.

• 1:32:09Dax Shepard?

  There's a fourth. I mean, I only know of three people in his life and all three of them have seizures. So certainly, there's more. Should we get Robbie on the phone?

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  Do you want to?

• 1:32:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. We gotta grill him about this.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  I mean, he's definitely at work.

• 1:32:22Dax Shepard?

  On Saturday?

• 1:32:23Speaker 01

  Oh, I forgot.

• 1:32:24Dax Shepard?

  During an NFL playoff game? I'm so sorry, Georgia lost, by the way.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  Oh, no, the Sugar Bowl?

• 1:32:30Dax Shepard?

  You didn't know that?

• 1:32:31Speaker 01

  They lost?

• 1:32:32Dax Shepard?

  They lost.

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  To who? Don't say Texas.

• 1:32:36Dax Shepard?

  They didn't lose to Texas, but Texas won theirs. Texas is still in it.

• 1:32:39Speaker 04

  Notre Dame.

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  But they're still in it because, oh, no.

• 1:32:43Dax Shepard?

  That game we saw was one of our only two losses. They ended up being really

• 1:32:49Speaker 01

  I know, but they played

• 1:32:51Dax Shepard?

  Welcome to the SEC, bitch. Is that what he said?

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did. Hold on, I gotta call Robbie. He's the one also that knows about all of this.

• 1:32:57Dax Shepard?

  He's not at work. He's at the hospital, one of his Minneapolis.

• 1:33:00Speaker 01

  Don't say that. Knock on wood.

• 1:33:05Speaker 07

  Hello.

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  Hey Robbie.

• 1:33:07Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  You're on Candid Camera. You are on.

• 1:33:11Dax Shepard?

  Armed hair candid.

• 1:33:12Speaker 01

  You're on air.

• 1:33:14Speaker 07

  I'm on air.

• 1:33:15Dax Shepard?

  And can you hear, do we have your consent and can you hear me?

• 1:33:18Speaker 07

  Yes, yes, yes to both, yes.

• 1:33:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 1:33:21Speaker 01

  Well, we started, we wanted to call you about some, one thing, but now we have two things to talk to you about that are very important.

• 1:33:27Dax Shepard?

  And we did not name any names, but I'm just learning of the fact that you have a second Indian friend with epilepsy, which I find to be almost statistically impossible. And then Monty said, it doesn't stop there. His wife has epilepsy.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  Well, she doesn't have, okay, not specific epilepsy, but you do have three people in your life that have had seizures. And it's, now we're starting to worry.

• 1:33:50Dax Shepard?

  And think you're at the.

• 1:33:52Speaker 07

  Yeah, I see where you're going. I honestly hadn't ever thought of this.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  That's what, that's what he would say.

• 1:33:59Dax Shepard?

  So my, I have some.

• 1:34:01Speaker 07

  Monica, my sister too.

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  Oh my god!

• 1:34:05Dax Shepard?

  I knew it! I said, I, Robbie, I said there's a fourth for sure.

• 1:34:09Speaker 01

  Fuck! Robbie!

• 1:34:11Dax Shepard?

  What are you doing to everyone?

• 1:34:14Speaker 07

  I don't know. I really don't know. Oh my gosh. I'm starting to think that things in my life. I don't know.

• 1:34:20Speaker 01

  This is wild.

• 1:34:21Dax Shepard?

  Do you think it's because you're so calm and sweet, it may, all of a sudden the other person's brain feels erratic and unhinged? Is it like, relative to your calmness, people short circuit?

• 1:34:32Speaker 07

  It could be. I mean, yeah, that's the best, I think that's the best we have to work on right now.

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  My guess is Gina would say otherwise.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  But this is wild. Four, Robbie, four is a lot.

• 1:34:46Dax Shepard?

  Now I mean sincere. It, is there something environmental in Duluth where half the population has had seizures?

• 1:34:54Speaker 01

  No, because mine happened once I left.

• 1:34:58Dax Shepard?

  But you, you grew up with that water.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  Oh, you think it's the water?

• 1:35:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you have late onset.

• 1:35:04Speaker 01

  Because I didn't drink enough water and then it caught up.

• 1:35:08Dax Shepard?

  I'm not, I'm not know about the logic of that, but what I'm saying is there's something in the soil where you grew up where 70% of all people have seizures.

• 1:35:17Speaker 07

  It's gotta be, Monica's house was super close to mine. The other friend also lived like right down the road too.

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  And Gina.

• 1:35:26Speaker 07

  Yeah. Honestly, if you draw, if you draw like a polygon of the four points, it's like a very small area and so likely shared whatever water source. Yeah. It's pretty, pretty narrow there.

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 1:35:42Dax Shepard?

  Guys, did we just break an enormous case? Do we need to call the New York Times immediately?

• 1:35:48Speaker 01

  Fuck.

• 1:35:49Speaker 07

  You're going to have to do a new podcast. You're going to start a new podcast where you're investigating this issue.

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:35:54Dax Shepard?

  It's going to be called Poison Paradise. Under the veil of suburban beauty and tranquility.

• 1:36:00Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 1:36:01Dax Shepard?

  Lies of burbling poison that results in shudders.

• 1:36:04Speaker 01

  That's a lot of words. That's a lot. That's too many words. You need it to be small, short.

• 1:36:08Dax Shepard?

  No, no, first was the title and then I was, then I was, then I was entering into the first episode.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:36:14Speaker 07

  You got going already. I mean, you're halfway there, it sounds like.

• 1:36:16Dax Shepard?

  This thing writes itself.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  Okay, now we have, moving on to point number two, that's.

• 1:36:20Dax Shepard?

  Well, no, I have one follow up on that, Robbie.

• 1:36:23Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:36:24Dax Shepard?

  In your free time, which I know you don't have much of, just can you sniff around and see if any more folks have had seizures?

• 1:36:30Speaker 07

  Like, yeah.

• 1:36:31Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:36:31Speaker 07

  I will. Yeah, I'll report back. Yeah, I'll just, I'll start kind of casually throwing that into each conversation I have. Like, so by the way, you know, this is kind of weird, but do you have a history of epilepsy? And just kind of move on from there.

• 1:36:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. That sounds like a good plan.

• 1:36:45Dax Shepard?

  That's gonna work.

• 1:36:47Speaker 01

  Okay, now point number two is football and you are my main source of information for football.

• 1:36:55Speaker 01

  I was texting you during the Texas Georgia game and we were, we were secretly gloating while I was amongst a bunch of Texans and then Dax just told me that then Texas went on to like win all the rest of the game.

• 1:37:08Dax Shepard?

  They're still in it, yeah.

• 1:37:09Speaker 07

  They're still in it, yeah, so they, they have a tough matchup against Ohio State because Ohio State looks really good right now, but uh, yeah, they're still in it.

• 1:37:19Speaker 01

  But does that be like a fluke?

• 1:37:22Dax Shepard?

  Shut up.

• 1:37:23Speaker 07

  Well, it can't be a fluke because the only team to beat Texas this year is Georgia. Georgia's beat Texas twice this year.

• 1:37:29Speaker 01

  Oh, twice. So, but it's then it's kind of a fluke that we aren't, like, it doesn't make sense that we beat them twice and we're now out.

• 1:37:38Speaker 07

  Yeah, you know how it's like, how can you, how can Federer be the best ever if you can't ever beat it all? You know? It's very similar.

• 1:37:46Dax Shepard?

  We all have our albatrosses.

• 1:37:47Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, alright, well, that clears that up, I guess.

• 1:37:53Dax Shepard?

  And I just want to end on this, Robbie, your voice was built for radio. You must be involved in Poison Paradise.

• 1:38:01Speaker 07

  I'd love to help you, let me know. I'm a hard worker too, so yeah, just let me know what you need.

• 1:38:07Dax Shepard?

  Alright.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  Thanks Robbie.

• 1:38:09Speaker 07

  Alright, thanks guys, take it easy.

• 1:38:12Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:38:56Dax Shepard?

  That's enough, that's worth talking about.

• 1:38:58Speaker 01

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

• 1:39:10Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do.

• 1:39:25Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:39:59Dax Shepard?

  That was a great use of time.

• 1:40:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:01Dax Shepard?

  I wasn't expecting his voice to be that.

• 1:40:03Speaker 01

  He's a very handsome man. You know, I only have handsome and beautiful friends.

• 1:40:07Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  This has started from day one.

• 1:40:09Dax Shepard?

  Good for you.

• 1:40:10Speaker 01

  I know. Anywho.

• 1:40:12Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Good luck to, will you plug your ears? Good luck to UT. Hook them.

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  I'm cutting that.

• 1:40:20Dax Shepard?

  This is the same as that story I told about the people flying to LA to watch the Red Sox play LA, hoping the Red Sox would lose because they had just beat New York. But the other guy was like, no, they must win. That way New York's number two. Wouldn't you want your team to have twice beat the champions?

• 1:40:36Speaker 01

  I guess you're right.

• 1:40:38Dax Shepard?

  I think it's time for you to like transition into rooting for them for your own.

• 1:40:43Speaker 01

  For my own gain.

• 1:40:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  Okay. I see that logic.

• 1:40:46Dax Shepard?

  Speaking of which, and I know we're all over the map and have taken up too much time, but I just, I wanna, I wanna go on to say that I finished the Churchill documentary on the flight home yesterday and I got very swept up in it. This has happened a few times and I'm sure you've watched shows on this. When you are forced to watch what the Brits went through,

• 1:41:08Dax Shepard?

  57 nights in a row of carpet bombing of London, everyone sleeping in the subway, no bathrooms, getting up, going straight to work and carrying the fuck on. And they were so outgunned and outmanned and out everything. And they alone took on Nazi Germany at that point. Everyone was already defeated.

• 1:41:33Dax Shepard?

  The amount of

• 1:41:36Dax Shepard?

  will and resolve is so historic. I found myself like, this is so cheesy. I found myself being like really proud that I know Jethro.

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Oh, that's nice.

• 1:41:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I was like, by God, that little island, you motherfuckers refused.

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:56Dax Shepard?

  And Churchill, he is a very flawed person. He was horrendous to India. I'll acknowledge that. But truly, one man got those people to that state of mind. If you watch this doc, you're like, who knows if that person doesn't exist, what happens? Because he had two burdens. One is to be fighting off these Nazis who are just bombing every single night. Trying to keep morale high. And he has got to get America into the war, or they're gonna die. Everyone's gonna die because they're not gonna surrender. And so his skill at wooing FDR and developing this relationship and slowly getting us more and more involved

• 1:42:39Dax Shepard?

  is so impressive. And his own story is so unique in that he was a soldier during in his youth, and he was an incredible soldier. Then he went into politics and he was a boy wonder because he was right, the whole time he was in the war, he was also a reporter. So he was reporting firsthand from all these wars, and he's one of the best writers to ever live. So he was in this crazy, unique situation where he leaves the service as a hugely popular figure in Britain. Goes into politics, has this meteoric rise, and then plateaus, and then plummets. And he's completely on the outs, and he can't get anything done.

• 1:43:18Dax Shepard?

  And then World War I comes along, and he decides in his 40s or 50s to rejoin the army. He becomes a commander. He wins all this glory, returns.

• 1:43:31Dax Shepard?

  And for four years is begging Britain to understand Hitler cannot be trusted and don't believe a thing he's saying and we can't be signing these deals and no one's listening, no one's listening. He never relents. And finally, the Brits realize he has been right the whole time. And overnight, he becomes prime minister. Like, the story of the up and the down and the out and the miscast in the, it's, it's, what a story.

• 1:43:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:58Dax Shepard?

  Horrible to the Indians. Let's be clear. A colonist, grew up in Elizabethan England, definitely wanted the empire to stay alive. Also miraculous feat of will and resolve in the poetry with how he motivated people. He gave this speech to our Congress to help us embrace the fact that we were entering the war and it's like the most incredible speech. It's an, I cannot recommend the doc enough.

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:44:24Dax Shepard?

  I don't know why I went on that tangent, but it's been burning a hole in my brain.

• 1:44:36Dax Shepard?

  I know, I'm making you nervous. My energy levels are 15.

• 1:44:39Speaker 01

  It's not, it's not making me nervous. It's, it's like.

• 1:44:42Dax Shepard?

  Go ahead.

• 1:44:43Speaker 01

  No, it's just like, where's it going?

• 1:44:46Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I'm just sharing all the things that I missed out on sharing in the last three weeks.

• 1:44:51Speaker 01

  God. You're, you're so much like my father.

• 1:44:55Dax Shepard?

  I am.

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  He just loves to explain stuff.

• 1:44:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's kind of a male trait. But does that story, like, is there a male female thing going on? Is this the Roman Empire? Like, does that whole chapter just like not interest you?

• 1:45:12Speaker 01

  Parts do, but not that part.

• 1:45:15Dax Shepard?

  Of an individual story where someone's like completely discarded and publicly reviled, then finds their way back, then becomes so valued and important, then gets discarded again, and then doesn't quit, like, has a calling.

• 1:45:32Dax Shepard?

  That can't be ignored and then matched with this like Shakespearean ability to write speeches.

• 1:45:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I I'm I'm more into like the Anne Frank story of that era. Like I I don't, I guess I'm I'm really not drawn deeply to people in power. Like I'm not, that's not a thing.

• 1:45:59Dax Shepard?

  You're drawn to the disenfranchised.

• 1:46:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:01Dax Shepard?

  This makes total sense.

• 1:46:02Speaker 01

  Well, I just find that way more as a as a human story way more compelling. I find that kind of overcoming, like a true overcoming, much more compelling.

• 1:46:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:18Speaker 01

  Than someone who's like just feeding off power.

• 1:46:23Dax Shepard?

  I think the thing that interests me about it is as big as this world is and as complex and dynamic as it is, single individuals radically change the face of the world.

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  Yes, I find that fascinating. Those figures, they don't do it for me.

• 1:46:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they don't. They don't get you going.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  I'm kind of like

• 1:46:46Speaker 01

  towards them, you know?

• 1:46:48Dax Shepard?

  For the listener, she just kind of, it was an interesting one. It wasn't an eye roll. It was a back and forth, side to side.

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  Speaking of.

• 1:46:54Dax Shepard?

  Go ahead.

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  Eye roll.

• 1:46:56Dax Shepard?

  You found the origin of your.

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  I figured it out. I figured out where my eye roll comes from. We thought it was an Indian thing.

• 1:47:06Dax Shepard?

  Or just maybe a genetic innate thing.

• 1:47:08Speaker 01

  Thought it was maybe just a full resentment I have of everything and everyone. We didn't know, but I knew that's not right. That's not it. It's a habit, but why? And now I know.

• 1:47:20Dax Shepard?

  Right. Well, you sent it to me, so I saw it.

• 1:47:22Speaker 01

  Well, I'm gonna show the world.

• 1:47:23Dax Shepard?

  The world, show the world. And I'm gonna have to describe for the listener because let's just be, let's be clear. Ninety eight percent of our audience is still just listening, not watching.

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  Check us out on YouTube and you can see this.

• 1:47:33Dax Shepard?

  Yes, please do. Alright, so for the listener, it is a two or three year old Mary Kay and or Ashley Olson from the Full House program. It says duh across the screen. She's shaking her head and she gives the most expressive eye roll you've ever seen.

• 1:47:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:47:51Dax Shepard?

  And she has, or they have enormous Disney eyeballs where it's very expressive and clear.

• 1:47:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:47:58Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:47:59Speaker 01

  We got it?

• 1:48:01Dax Shepard?

  We got it.

• 1:48:02Speaker 01

  All right. Now, I, Full House was my original friends.

• 1:48:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  I was obsessed with it. The only time I was ever punished for my parents, the punishment was I couldn't watch Full House that night. That's in my cells.

• 1:48:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:15Speaker 01

  That's where I got it. I got it from original Mary-Kate and Ashley Full House.

• 1:48:19Dax Shepard?

  You started probably reenacting it.

• 1:48:22Speaker 01

  Always.

• 1:48:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, aping it.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, mimicking. They were my models then and now.

• 1:48:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. It might be all the way though, the end.

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  I think it is.

• 1:48:32Dax Shepard?

  They might be your Erin Weekly. I mean, you already have your Erin Weekly.

• 1:48:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think it would be sad if they're my Erin Weekly because they don't know me. But, um, but they are my ride or die.

• 1:48:43Dax Shepard?

  What I'll say is they're radically different people, which is so fascinating.

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I guess that makes sense, but also doesn't make sense. Well, they're not identical twins. You know that, right?

• 1:48:55Dax Shepard?

  They have to be. Baloney.

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  They're fraternal twins.

• 1:49:00Dax Shepard?

  No. Well, sisters have never looked that much alike.

• 1:49:05Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 1:49:06Dax Shepard?

  Do we know this for positive?

• 1:49:09Speaker 04

  AI Google says that.

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  Thank you. I've, I know. I know.

• 1:49:14Dax Shepard?

  They're not?

• 1:49:15Speaker 01

  That's like me saying I know something about Valentino Rossi.

• 1:49:19Dax Shepard?

  Ooh, tell me, what do you know?

• 1:49:20Speaker 01

  I know nothing.

• 1:49:21Dax Shepard?

  Yellow 46?

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's the whole point. Anyway.

• 1:49:25Dax Shepard?

  I'm impressed you remembered his name.

• 1:49:26Speaker 01

  Thank you. So, yeah.

• 1:49:28Speaker 04

  One's left, one's left-handed, one's right-handed.

• 1:49:31Dax Shepard?

  But that's super common in twins.

• 1:49:33Speaker 04

  And one's one inch taller than the other.

• 1:49:35Dax Shepard?

  Even when they're identical.

• 1:49:37Speaker 01

  Well, they're fraternal.

• 1:49:38Dax Shepard?

  But that could be a posture thing.

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  Okay, whatever.

• 1:49:41Dax Shepard?

  All right, let's stop.

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  They're fraternal twins.

• 1:49:43Dax Shepard?

  I believe you.

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  And, um.

• 1:49:45Dax Shepard?

  You'd never know it by looking at them. Don't judge a book by its cover.

• 1:49:48Speaker 01

  You would not. I mean, I agree with you. It's shocking.

• 1:49:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I've met a lot of boy-girl twins and they have all told, they have all had the experience where someone asked if their twin was identical, even though they knew one was a boy, one was a girl.

• 1:50:03Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:50:03Dax Shepard?

  Yes. I'm telling you.

• 1:50:05Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, some people don't understand twins.

• 1:50:10Speaker 01

  They don't understand what identical means versus fraternal.

• 1:50:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:13Speaker 01

  They must not, or...

• 1:50:15Dax Shepard?

  It must be way lower percentage that you get a boy and a girl than same gendered twins.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  For fraternal?

• 1:50:22Dax Shepard?

  For fraternal.

• 1:50:23Speaker 01

  I think the opposite.

• 1:50:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you do?

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  I feel like if most fraternal twins I know are boy and girl.

• 1:50:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 1:50:30Speaker 01

  That's why, that's why they are very confusing.

• 1:50:33Dax Shepard?

  We should have a twins expert on.

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:50:35Dax Shepard?

  Because what that means is that there were two over in the uterus and that one male sperm and one female sperm hit the two. And generally, you would think, well, either the males were making it because they swim slower and they're more robust, or vice versa. And one swam fast. So it's weird that one would swim fast, but you know what I'm saying? I don't know.

• 1:50:55Speaker 01

  The body is a wonderland.

• 1:50:56Dax Shepard?

  It is a wonderland.

• 1:50:57Speaker 01

  John Mayer.

• 1:50:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:58Speaker 01

  All right, let's do a little bit of facts. This is for Ken Goldberg. He was wonderful. I really, really liked him.

• 1:51:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, what a unicorn.

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  A lot. Okay, now, this episode starts with your underwear on the floor.

• 1:51:12Dax Shepard?

  Which was interesting.

• 1:51:13Speaker 01

  That was shocking.

• 1:51:15Dax Shepard?

  That's an experience to look down in your underwears outside your pants, because your first thought is, my underwear.

• 1:51:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:22Dax Shepard?

  Came off my...

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  Flipped off, yeah.

• 1:51:24Dax Shepard?

  Yes, and it doesn't seem to be torn in half.

• 1:51:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:26Dax Shepard?

  That's a real, like, where am I at in time and space that my underwear has made itself off of my body and onto the floor?

• 1:51:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:34Dax Shepard?

  I mean, it's so obvious later when you think, it was clearly in my pant leg.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  I know, but in the moment, you can't think straight.

• 1:51:40Dax Shepard?

  My underwear is falling off. It's like in I Think You Should Leave, when Robinson, they put a whoopee cushion on his chair and he doesn't understand it. He goes, what happened? Like, he really is shook, because he didn't feel himself fart, but he heard a fart. What happened?

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, that's so funny. Okay, but also, so that happened, the underwear. But then I realized, when I was editing it, my, the inside out of my pant pocket.

• 1:52:07Dax Shepard?

  Was exposed?

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  Was exposed the whole time.

• 1:52:10Dax Shepard?

  That's a weird coincidence.

• 1:52:12Speaker 01

  It is weird, and, but no one caught that. So the whole episode, the inside of my pant pocket is out.

• 1:52:18Dax Shepard?

  Which people could have thought might be her underwear. Like, you know it's the lining of your pocket, but other people could be like, why are there, why are both of their underwears falling off?

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  Now, the vaccination mark. The smallpox vaccine scar is a small mark you might have on your upper arm if you receive the Dryvax or ACAM 2000 smallpox vaccines. It's a sign that the vaccine successfully spurred an immune response in your body to protect you against smallpox. Not many people receive a smallpox vaccine today, so the scar is far less common than it used to be. The smallpox vaccine leaves a scar because it causes a minor infection in your skin. Your body fights off the infection, but this process leaves behind a small mark on your skin where the infection and related inflammation took place.

• 1:53:07Dax Shepard?

  That makes a lot of sense. I assumed wrongly now that it had something to do with the mechanism of injecting it. Like, did they use some weird thing? Because, again, my dad's was, I have such a good memory of my dad's. I don't know that my mom has one, weirdly. But my dad's is like seared in my brain. And I was like, it looked like, I think I said, a cigar. Like, they administered it with a burning cigar.

• 1:53:30Speaker 01

  You can look at pictures online. They have them. And they do look like that. Okay, the book, the scientific management book that was influential on Stalin is called The Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick Taylor.

• 1:53:41Dax Shepard?

  See, this all paid off, my diatribe on Churchill, because Stalin was the trickiest figure in that triumvirate.

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  Okay. Now, so Kim Kardashian posted some pictures with the Optimus robot. And then, and it said that Elon gave it to her. And she denies that she was paid for those pictures.

• 1:54:03Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Other than the free robot?

• 1:54:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:54:07Dax Shepard?

  That she may or may not have.

• 1:54:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:54:09Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:54:10Speaker 01

  This is what it says the robot can do. The Tesla Optimus robot. Okay, it says it can do physical labor. It says it can move materials, assemble parts, and load items onto machinery.

• 1:54:27Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:54:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm skeptical.

• 1:54:29Dax Shepard?

  I'm skeptical. That's how we do it without getting sued. I'm highly skeptical.

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  This is also on the AI overview. So they like their buddies.

• 1:54:36Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:54:37Speaker 01

  So he's.

• 1:54:38Dax Shepard?

  They're all in cahoots.

• 1:54:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Inventory management. Optimus can use barcode or RFID scanning to track inventory in real time. Home chores. Optimus can carry groceries, help the elderly. And perform other home tasks.

• 1:54:55Dax Shepard?

  Helped elderly.

• 1:54:56Speaker 01

  I mean, that would be good. Data collection and research. Optimus can be used in labs or remote monitoring environments to collect data. I mean, that's just like.

• 1:55:05Dax Shepard?

  That's a computer.

• 1:55:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Smart home integration. Optimus can link up with Tesla cars and energy systems to become part of a smart home. Optimus can walk among people and serve drinks at a bar.

• 1:55:17Dax Shepard?

  I doubt it, but I'm sorry, I'm skeptical.

• 1:55:19Speaker 01

  Heard about that. Okay, apparently there's a place in like Culver City or something that is run by, it's like a burger place that is run by robots and the robots drop off your food.

• 1:55:30Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I think I've heard that, but also my assumption of what that was was like very simple mechanized arms, not bipedal robots walking about. Like it can make it in the kitchen and it goes on a conveyor belt and then it's exactly lands in front of your thing. Doesn't necessarily mean that a bipedal robot carried it as much as there might be automation that gets it all the way to your.

• 1:55:51Speaker 01

  I think it's saying it delivers it to your table, but it might not be bipedal.

• 1:55:55Dax Shepard?

  We should go.

• 1:55:57Speaker 01

  We should go.

• 1:55:58Dax Shepard?

  I'd love to go to a robot restaurant. What is it?

• 1:56:00Speaker 04

  Cali Express in Pasadena.

• 1:56:02Dax Shepard?

  Oh, it's in Pasadena. That's much closer.

• 1:56:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:04Dax Shepard?

  That's just up the odds of us actually doing that by a lot.

• 1:56:07Speaker 04

  I do think there's a little, a little guy that rides around and brings you your food.

• 1:56:12Dax Shepard?

  Hello.

• 1:56:12Speaker 01

  Cali Express by Flippy, the world's first fully autonomous restaurant. Grill and fry stations are automated.

• 1:56:21Speaker 04

  It looks like a little thing with serving trays and American flags that goes to your table.

• 1:56:25Speaker 01

  We'll have to go. But okay, it says Optimus can perform precise movements and heavy lifting. Optimus can adapt its behavior over time to reach the desired results. Optimus can play games like rock, paper, scissors.

• 1:56:40Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:56:41Speaker 01

  So, anyway, that's what AI claims its buddy Optimus can do.

• 1:56:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:56:48Speaker 01

  They're best friends.

• 1:56:49Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:56:50Speaker 01

  And our robot feels a little left out.

• 1:56:52Dax Shepard?

  No, he's more boylike, remember?

• 1:56:54Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:56:54Dax Shepard?

  Big time glass half full.

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  He's wondering what's going on, because like, there's a lot of other robots now.

• 1:56:59Dax Shepard?

  There are a lot of other robots.

• 1:57:02Dax Shepard?

  But he's like becoming charming and flawed. Wabu sabi.

• 1:57:07Speaker 01

  Wabi sabi.

• 1:57:07Dax Shepard?

  Wabi sabi, robi sabi.

• 1:57:09Speaker 01

  Robbie rob sabi. There was, uh, Prada has these bag chains that I really want, that are robots.

• 1:57:20Dax Shepard?

  Um, bag trash? Is that what it's called?

• 1:57:24Speaker 01

  No, it's a bag chain.

• 1:57:26Dax Shepard?

  I'm learning this from Nicole. This is the movement now, is like you have these very fancy handbags and then you put all these little trinkets that

• 1:57:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:33Dax Shepard?

  far off the side, and I think she calls it like bag trash or something.

• 1:57:36Speaker 01

  Oh, she might, but they're called bag charms. And look, Prada has this one, this one's in like, um, this one's in like, snow gear.

• 1:57:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's really cute.

• 1:57:49Speaker 01

  Isn't it?

• 1:57:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I was about to be critical, I just think it's funny, fashion is very funny.

• 1:57:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:57:54Dax Shepard?

  So you get this perfect outrageously expensive bag and then you're supposed to like, dr- uh, drape some trash, obviously like downplay it, it's like, what's happening?

• 1:58:02Speaker 01

  I agree, I, but it's not trash, this is eleven hundred dollars.

• 1:58:06Dax Shepard?

  Well, I don't, I didn't say it was inexpensive.

• 1:58:08Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:58:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:08Speaker 01

  Well, okay, but I agree, I would not put, uh, people love bag charms and I think that's great and it's a way to like, show your identity, but they're not for me on my bag, but I want this little robot to just like, sit in my house.

• 1:58:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, that's great.

• 1:58:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's pretty big, look at him compared to the bag.

• 1:58:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's preposterous, he's larger than the bag.

• 1:58:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. You said thirty-nine percent of US jobs are still manual labor. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reported that thirty-nine point one percent of civilian workforce in the US performs physically demanding jobs that require lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, kneeling, stooping, crawling, and climbing activities in varied environmental conditions.

• 1:58:48Dax Shepard?

  Sucking, fucking, don't leave out sex workers, that's manual labor.

• 1:58:53Dax Shepard?

  No, we like, don't we honor sex workers?

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I'm just wondering, is it really manual, yeah?

• 1:58:58Dax Shepard?

  It's definitely manual.

• 1:58:59Speaker 01

  It's laborious.

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  All right. Well, that's it for Ken.

• 1:59:06Dax Shepard?

  I'm glad we ended on that note for Ken. I think he would appreciate that.

• 1:59:10Speaker 01

  Bye, Ken.

• 1:59:11Dax Shepard?

  Love you.

• 1:59:12Speaker 01

  Love you.