Is Dax Shepard Bert's New Best Friend? | 2 Bears, 1 Cave

100%.

Are we rolling?

So wait, let's begin.

So you started your podcast in 2017?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It'll be seven years on Valentine's Day.

Before or after Chips?

After, in the wake of depression.

I'm dying to hear about that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was supremely depressed about the performance.

It's a good fucking movie.

Thank you.

And let me tell you the nuances that no one gets in this goddamn movie.

Please break it down forever.

Your thumbprint of your character is Dak Shepard.

I don't know if everyone catches that, but as a guy who listens to the podcast and watch that movie, you do talk.

He has a dude with too many surgeries and he's addicted to fucking painkill.

And he talks therapy talk.

He's constantly getting too emotional with everyone and everyone's uncomfortable with it.

Yes, it's very mean.

And by the way, Pena is awesome.

Michael Pena is awesome in that.

Oh, he's outrageous.

Yeah.

It's a great, it's a great.

And fucking, how many movies have you done with Vincent D'Onofrio?

A lot at this point.

As I told him, we did this movie, The Judge, together with Robert Downey and Duval, and I just fell in love with him.

And afterwards, he called and said, Hey, we're going to do this movie, a Christmas movie.

And I go, Great.

He goes, I'll send you a script.

I go, no, no, you don't have to send it to me.

I'll just, whatever you do, I'll do.

You want to do a KFC commercial?

I'm there.

You know, because he's Vincent D'Onofrio.

Dude.

What a stud.

He's a fucking, he, I think.

Also, you know,

a lady killer.

Really?

Oh, my God.

I've never seen, well, funny enough, that movie had two of the world's great lady killers, Billy Bob Thornton, which prior to meeting him and working with him, of course I thought he was brilliant and I love Slingblade, but you go like, wow, man, he got Angelina Jolie.

This is really fascinating.

And then

I was around him and again, I'm charmed by him.

But then I went out to eat with him and my wife.

And he just, he just laser beamed my wife in the eyes with his eyes and she just got all fucked up in a second.

I was like, oh my God, I see what's happening.

That's what's going on.

And then lo and behold, Denofrio's got the same powers.

For real?

Oh, yeah.

I don't know.

So the two of them, you don't have that?

You've been married 20 years?

20, yeah.

I talk myself out of pussy.

Well, you should as a married man.

No, no, no.

Even when, like, like, you really had to be committed to fucking me if you wanted to fuck me.

Because why?

I'd give you every excuse not to.

Why?

What was the holdup?

Intimacy issues.

Because you were afraid if you did that, you'd be then responsible for them emotionally?

No.

It's like someone who's really bad at karaoke, not wanting to sing karaoke.

Yeah.

Like, I just didn't.

But it wasn't that you thought you were a terrible lay or anything.

Or that, too.

That was it?

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Wait, are you good at sex?

That's an impossible question to answer.

I would hate any dude that said, I'm fucking good at sex.

Can I tell you?

I would say the majority of America thinks that that is how your relationship...

Like, I just imagine you guys were primal like you guys fucking just I that because because first of all you are

all of us

me yeah right as far like a regular that's why we're fans of yours Okay, we each and first,

it's your show.

You decide the order, but I think it'd be really fun to first go through the fact that you didn't like me and then you kind of like me.

First of all.

No, no, no.

Hold on.

Fuck off.

Fuck off.

I think that'd be a fun starting spot.

So let's start off with...

Let's do a little house.

So you start your podcast in 2017.

Now, you got to remember, me, Tommy, Joe, Ari, Joey Diaz, Duncan Trussell, we're all early podcasts.

Oh, yeah, I'm way late.

And believe me, I was self-conscious about it.

So, and by the way, we did this to the Kelsey Brothers too.

So you're in good company.

Well, better to pick a bite with me than the Kelsey Brothers.

And we get on doing a podcast, and your podcast is blowing the fuck up.

And it's good.

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

And it's good.

And you're getting great guests.

Sure.

Yeah,

you could never get.

Yeah.

You have, you have an inline on like celebrity A-listers are like, oh, I'll talk to him.

And me and Tommy are out on the outside going like, what the fuck?

So we do during the pandemic.

I was like, man, fuck Dak Shepard.

Okay, great.

So it was that out loud.

Because I get a, hold on, I don't want to jump ahead, but I got to hear you talk about receiving a gift from me.

Your team is awesome.

I don't have a team and it wasn't me.

And I want to take that compliment because that would have been the greatest thing to do.

And I wish the smartest thing.

It's the smartest it.

And by the way, it's like casually you talk shit about people on podcasts because you're just filling time.

Yeah.

And you really forget anyone can hear you.

And by the way, I know people have done it to me and I've heard them do it.

And I get it.

I get it.

I mean, I trashed Reese Witherspoon once.

I love Reese Witherspoon.

But it's like when she got the DUI and she was like, get on the fuck out of him.

And by the way, I wasn't even trashing her because everyone could be that person.

Well, also, let's start with she's hammered.

Yeah, this is how

she's fucking Rhys Witherspoon.

Yeah, so it's not like there was a sober version of her going, you know who I am.

It's like, no, there's a plaster person clutching at straws.

They're it, they're fucked.

Yeah, yeah.

So, so we're doing a podcast during the pandemic, and I was like, fuck Dak Shepard.

Okay, I go, he's already got a movie career.

He's already got all the stuff.

Kristen Bell.

He's got Kristen Bell.

Yeah, I know.

You fucking decide to sell a washer and dryer and it goes viral.

I mean, like, anything you touch is gold.

And I go, go, and now he's coming for our shit?

Yeah.

It's like, you're like the, you're the cat.

You were the guy, in my opinion, you were the guy that graduated high school, but came back and took all our chicks.

Okay.

And I was like, I was like, man, and he's got a smart fucking co-host.

And if she's a person of color, I mean, we're two white guys.

So

that was our take.

And I was like, that's very fair.

Now, I have to say this.

If I really didn't like Dak Shepard, you would never have landed on my radar.

Okay.

So that's the number one thing like, is that I was a fan since punked.

I felt like you were one of us.

Uh-huh.

I always felt like you weren't a Hollywood insider.

Right.

I felt like you got into movies that were cult classics.

So then when you got into podcasting, I was like, okay, he's fair game.

He's one of us.

I understand.

And I am a poser.

I was late.

In fact, not a poser.

Well, no, hold on.

I was.

Dude, by the way, fucking Smartless can get it too.

I'll tell you right now, those motherfuckers show up and take, what, like $200 million?

Yeah.

And they're flying on private jets and they're not even getting yeah uh-huh um friends of mine and they launched their show on my show so

now i will i can admit i actually wish them all the success in the world they're three friends but i did a i was like i said to monica i'm like Man, the cumulative connections they have between the three of them, I just can't compete.

I could be on the phone all day long and just there, I mean, like Paul McCartney swinging by and you're seeing these people.

And yeah, I had, I had guest envy for those guys.

I guess I continued to.

They got Letterman to do a live show.

Like, I was just, I'll do whatever just to get him on.

You know, I would have done Zoom, whatever.

The fact that they got him to come and do a live show, I was like,

what would we do?

That's where it's based out of.

It's like you get into podcasts and you do it.

Let's be very real.

You have everyone mock this thing you're doing that is a passion project.

You're not making a ton of money at it.

And then money shows up and you see celebrities flood it.

Yes.

And then overwhelm all these people who, I mean,

like, no, no shit.

There's some cash grabs out there.

I will add, in my own defense, I didn't know you could make money.

You weren't a cash grab.

The irony of this whole thing is I am a greedy little pig who is obsessed with money and has so much fear around money.

And I wanted money so bad from acting and directing and writing.

And then this, I didn't even know you could make money.

I did it for the joy of doing it because I love shooting the shit with people.

And then lo and behold, that was a thing that brought in money, which, you know, totally unforeseeable.

But the name of my podcast originally was the uh was millionth podcast because I was so ashamed of getting in so late

you shouldn't be ashamed and here's the thing is that like and I would say this and I think I have this view now is like

Podcasts are fucking fun.

Oh my god.

Yeah, it's preposterous that this can be a job you should start a podcast if you're interested in it do it.

Yeah, it really tells you a lot about yourself.

Oh boy, yeah.

I mean listening to yourself is very very informative.

Yeah, and the wild shit I say, I mean, I've said some horrific stuff on podcasts.

Like, not even like bad stuff about people, bad stuff about life.

Advice,

thoughts.

I mean, I've...

Well, you're on all the time.

So whatever, you know, ups and downs you're going through in real life, they're going to be obvious in the show.

I don't think you could.

And this is what I love about the medium, and I don't know who you are idolizing, but for me, I remember Howard Stern basically saying at some point, you can't do this job and not be full kimono kimono open.

That's just the nature of the job.

You got to give your whole life to it or it just doesn't work.

And I remember hearing that long before I wanted a show.

And I just knew going into it, like, well, yeah, well,

that's what it's got to be.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, so if it's your entire life, then, yes, sometimes you're an asshole.

And sometimes it lasts for three weeks.

And sometimes you're scared and envious of people.

And I have.

you know, yeah, I make, I get an argument sometimes with Monica and then two months later, I'm like, I'm not sure what my point was on that whole thing.

No, I'll tell you my favorite episode of yours I remember where I was listening to it I was in my pool at my old house it was when you relapsed oh uh-huh

but that was the fucking that's podcasting in my opinion sharing these vulnerable secrets is like fucking secrets man it's secrets and the secrets keep us sick and I that I remember being like god damn it like i remember sitting there i had my phone on the corner on the edge of the pool i'm just i'm sitting in the pool just listening and it was like i I was fucking, but you're, I mean, you honestly, and this is where that came from, you, you stepped into the game and started killing it day one, like you've been doing this the whole time.

But I'll credit, um, I'll credit my wife for that.

Like we have a cumulative,

um, people are interested in us as a, as a, as a combined unit, more, certainly more than me individually, and even a little more than her individually, which is not, maybe not anymore.

But I think the fact that the very first episode was Kristen and I, and you'd only seen us on Samsung commercials being adorable.

And then that episode was terrible.

Like it was a disaster.

She didn't want to be there.

She wanted to be at Michael's getting yarn.

We bickered the whole time.

I listened back to it and I'm like, oh my God, I'm that controlling.

I really had no clue.

I kind of sounded like that.

I'm like, this is embarrassing and humiliating.

And I played it to her.

I'm like, I don't think I can release this.

And she's like, no, I actually think that's the antidote to the Samsung commercials.

Like, if we're saying to people, don't hashtag relationship relationship goals and think you're going to meet your Dax or Kristen.

It's going to be easy.

It's fucking a beatdown.

And we've been in therapy.

And so she's like, I think this thing is kind of like what we owe everyone as the other side of it.

And then I think that I couldn't have expected that.

That had some

appeal.

Like people were very interested in that.

So I think I had this huge advantage from everyone else that I did get to immediately break through all the noise.

Like, I don't know if I just would have started with Kimmel and Ashton.

I think my first three episodes were like Kristen, Kimmel, and Ashton.

And God bless those two for doing my Never Have Done.

You never could have gotten those guys.

And those are your first two.

I know.

It's not fair.

I can acknowledge how unfair.

Fuck fair.

Fuck fair.

That's not, that's not the thing is that is that you fucking you and you had great guests and you're fucking but again, I don't know if those two, if those two come out, I don't know what those are.

Like, I don't know if that's maybe 80,000 people who listened or what.

But I think because the Kristen episode was very viral.

And I think I had two sitting there right away.

And then they listened to those and they were like, oh, those aren't they're not bad either.

They don't have the same crazy fireworks going on as this other one.

But I got very blessed by this union that has continued to give me way more than I deserve.

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It's, I mean, when did you start realizing, oh, fuck, this is going to make me $60 million?

Well, I'll tell you, we had this joke going, Monica and Rob and I, there's only three of us.

Yes.

And we had this joke when we started because we were aware of Ana Ferris's, Anna Ferris's podcast, and we had heard it made $5 million.

And we thought that was hysterical.

And we kept saying, like, well, when we make $5 million this year, we kept saying $5 million.

And it was just a running joke.

And then there came a point like nine months in where I was like, guys, I think we're going to make that.

As insane as that is,

that's going to happen.

And then we were in the very sweet spot of the huge influx of direct response ads, right?

So then year two was even double year one.

And then year three was like, at that point, I was like, someone's going to knock on the door and go, we made a huge mistake.

You shouldn't make this much money to sit and chat with people.

And, you know, constantly living with the fear someone's going to knock and say it's over.

Do you have that?

It's too good to be true.

I'm curious.

I'm past that a little bit now.

Oh, yeah.

You've accepted it.

I just want to just go,

the hammer will drop one day and I'll just, I'll be like, I got away.

Yeah.

It's like heat.

I feel like

the guy going, just be able to drop it and walk away from everything.

I got my go bag.

Yeah, I got my go bag.

I'm going to go to an island and open a bar.

Do you have any valuables that you can travel with?

Like, do you have any gold bullion or anything?

Oh, no.

No, I used to have some.

You should get some.

I would love some.

Yeah, you should.

People should know, too, is I've never pulled up to someone's house in Los Angeles and there was a bus in the front yard other than our own house.

So I felt very bonded with you the second I showed up.

Oh, but you should pack that bus full of some gold bullion and some guns just in case the shit hits the fan.

You got to go south.

The great thing about my kids being in the house is I can have my gun out all the time.

Yeah, that's a really good idea.

Highly advised, I think.

Wait, wait.

I want to go back to the podcast.

So, yes, I think,

do you ever feel like, because here's the thing about you, and I have to say, once I, okay, I did talk shit about you.

Yeah.

And then tell people what happened because this is really adorable.

And then I found this part out.

And then I was like, I don't think I ever want them to know that I didn't do that because I want the credit of that.

And that would have been really smart.

I go, it's during the pandemic.

I know it was during the pandemic because

we were getting P.O.

box stuff and you had to let it sit outside for a fucking week.

Right.

And lice all it.

By the way, the fucking coolest thing you guys ever did is you didn't charge your tenants money.

And then you, during the pandemic, as you remember, I follow you.

I follow you.

Which is interesting because I really thought maybe you just maybe didn't like it.

Dude, I told you I'm a fan.

I know shit about you.

I know that you're like an OG drug dude.

You're not like a fucking drinker who quit drinking.

No.

I know the time you dropped your bike on your leg.

Oh, you do?

Dude, I know a lot about you.

I'm in a two-day black.

But I told you, I'm a fucking fan of you.

First of all, my best friend growing up looks identical to you, Ryan Valerius.

Okay.

So when you showed up on punk.

What version of me?

Oh, skinny you.

Yeah, skinny you.

Yeah, skinny you.

Basketball playing you.

Not the fucking jacked fucking front rows with fucking 80 pound you.

And so when you showed up on punked, I was like, I was like, I kind of...

Like, I recognized you because my buddy looked like you.

Uh-huh.

And you were great.

And I was like, fuck yeah.

And then you started showing up in movies.

I was like, nice.

Cause

I don't know.

That was like I was also at the comedians like anytime a comedian's winning I'm pumped yeah it's good for by the way this is not gonna end we have that fucking rug are you serious

we have that rug this is um this is getting trippy this uh

dude if i get sober we could be friends

but no but so like so like i'm like a legit fan of yours and and and but i always wondered because you do run you have to navigate circles I would never navigate.

Like I will never have to go to a party where like

where I have to change my speech.

And what I love about you, and this is what for real.

So you gotta trouble a couple times.

It's because that's who you are.

I get in trouble.

Yeah, and I love it.

I love it because every time you've ever gotten in trouble, I was like,

I don't know what the problem is here.

Right, right.

Well, we could go deep on that.

You know, I think you might relate to this.

It's like, there comes a point where the thing that brought you to the party isn't the thing that's going to keep you at the party.

And that's a very weird existential kind of battle mentally.

It's like, I got here because I was obnoxious and over the top and was willing to, you know, do punct and get, you know, at risk of getting punched and I didn't mind.

And then I would be on red carpets acting like a fool.

Like, Chris, the first time Kristen met me, we were both at the Teen Choice Awards, and I was in a full karate gi making a mockumentary about going into martial arts films.

So I'm doing high kicks and all that.

I don't know karate.

But at some point, I had to go, you have the obnoxious version of you.

We got to kind of evolve into another version of you.

But yeah, there's still a big side of me.

That's the kid that was a punk rock kid, who didn't like jogs, feels like a misfit, all these stories I have in my head.

And

I at some point got to acknowledge, like, no, no, you're, you've been accepted.

You're not a fucking outcast.

You're a dude.

You're a six foot two blonde white dude that's winning.

And you got to kind of integrate that a little bit.

Yeah, but you do go into those parties where you talk to people who do use, I do it when I do like, I have to bite my tongue a lot.

Not bite my tongue, but just not say the thing I'm thinking.

Right.

Like when I'm on set or something.

Do you mean like politically or do you mean everything?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Why bite my tongue politically only because

I don't think it's fair to alienate anyone about their beliefs.

Yeah, exactly.

The thing I always say, like people will be mad that we don't do politics on our show.

And I'm like, I talk about trauma.

As a kid,

I feel like I'm a dude who rides wheelies on shit, but also it was very emotional.

Like, and if you're a 14-year-old boy, I don't want because your parents are Republican or you were born in this area that we know is going to decide what you are.

Both sides, like I just had this great expert on last week that was like, we all think we have thought through all these issues.

This is about the information.

This is about like politics and identity.

It's like, we all believe that we have thought through these issues and we've come to a well-thought-out conclusion.

And he said, but isn't it interesting that I would be able to tell 90% based on where you're born, your ethnicity, and your socioeconomic, I could predict in 90% accuracy what your opinion is going to be after you thought it through really thoroughly.

Isn't that a little suspicious?

Wow.

And I have to acknowledge that, right?

Like I was born in a spot with a single mother and I am the product of those things.

And to believe that I have rationalized everything better than everyone else in that is just a little arrogant.

Like, no, you'd probably be able to tell before I was born that I was going to think this way.

And same for you and everyone.

You're St.

Petersburg?

Oh, Tampa.

Tampa.

Yeah.

Were you born in St.

Petersburg?

I was born in St.

Petersburg.

Okay.

And then Tampa.

Did you ever go to Sarasota?

Of course.

Okay.

Did you ever go to the Columbia restaurant?

Of course.

Okay, my uncle was the band there for my whole life.

No.

Uncle Sal, yeah.

So I used, my vacations were to Sarasota and then watch Uncle Sal play.

For real.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's your accent.

It's a Michigan accent.

Yeah, right.

I've always tried to fucking place it.

It sounds a teeny bit southern sometimes and then a teeny bit nasally.

You round, I've listened to so much of your podcast, you round out your consonants sometimes.

Okay.

A little bit of laziness, maybe too mixed.

I would say didn't.

Didn't.

You go, didn't.

And what do you do?

Didn't.

You really pronounced it.

I popped my T.

Listen, by the way,

I pop my T's.

I've done it.

I'm legit a fucking fan.

Like, and I know that.

I'm incredibly flattered by that.

I didn't even know.

Here's Here's what happens.

I, in my comments, which I read all the comments,

I will not pretend I don't read all.

Okay, let me ask you.

Let me ask you a therapy question.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I thought this last night.

Let's take a breath.

I was in the hot tub last night having a cocktail, and I do fake interviews to nobody like I'm talking to you.

Yeah, yeah, same.

And you seem like

you seem like you got it figured out.

Not perfect, but you got it better than me.

Okay.

How come

Joy,

you kill it on set, you have a great scene, and you get done, everyone's patting you on the back, you get in your car, you drive home.

How come joy doesn't have the same impact that anxiety and OCD and depression have?

Why can't the high of joy reach at least like the

anxiety and the reading a negative comment so fucking low?

Yeah, but a positive comment just goes, oh, cool, thanks.

I have a scientific answer for you.

I've had enough experts on that answer this for me.

So, if you come across a beautiful, let's go back 300,000 years, we're early humans, and you come across a peach and you bite into it and it's delicious.

You're going to get serotonin, you're going to get some dopamine, you're going to get these good chemicals.

Now, if you eat a berry that's poisonous, you're going to get cortisol and you're going to get a dress, you're going to get all these other chemicals.

Well, we know that the negative chemicals are like 10x as strong as the positive ones because it's much more important you remember what's poisonous than what's delicious.

So So our brain is set up to be, you know, much more impacted by negative things.

So yes, even if you're Tom Hanks and 90% of the stuff you read about yourself is positive, that 10% will outweigh the 90%.

It can't compete.

And you have to enter it knowing like, well, I'm entering into a battle that I will lose chemically, no matter how much I think my way through it.

But the reason I do it is because,

and this is so corny, and I wouldn't believe anyone else who said it, but the arm armchairs are the most radical people I've ever met.

Like, the people who listen to our show are by far the nicest people I've ever met in my life.

I've had idiocracy fans, I have punk fans.

Like, I kind of know parenthood fans are really nice, but arm cherries are so fucking special.

And when they take time to write something about how the episode made them feel, I want to minimally say I saw it and heard it.

And then, if it's really kind of revealing, I want to take a second to respond.

So, it's like I do have an obligation to let them know I'm participating and I see what they're saying.

And I have limited my, I changed my Instagram so only followers can comment now.

For years I was in the cesspool of like everybody.

And that was, I, it was terrible.

But now that, so I'm paying some price and then what engagement, all these other metrics you're supposed to care about.

But now pretty much most of the shit I read is nice.

And so it's not, it's not bad.

And I, and I will do it because I really want those folks to know I saw what they said.

Really?

You don't read any of yours?

Can't.

So I can't allow, I've said this before, and this is how I feel.

I can't allow someone to have control of my day.

Yeah, of course.

So I have like...

And if it's going to control your day, then that's the totally right decision.

I don't even know what it is.

I don't even really know what the fuck's wrong with me.

But I got the thing where

you get a repetitive bad thought and you can't just get it.

Yeah, you're ruminating.

I think some people call it OCD.

I know I have probably versions of whatever OCD is.

I don't even, I don't know.

I'm not going to think of it.

Did you have ticks ticks as a kid?

No.

Oh.

No.

Oh, hold on.

Yeah, we have to do it.

Maybe.

This is one of my favorite conversations.

I have a work face.

I have a work face.

Okay.

Shut up.

Did it involve a lot of blinking?

No, I just got like, I'd be like this.

My dad will be like, hey, what the fuck's wrong?

What are you doing with your face?

And I'd be like, huh?

What are you talking about?

They got me like Stevie Wonderglasses when I was a kid.

To hide them.

Yeah, because I was like.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's good.

Oh, and I got like,

yeah, yeah, yeah, I have jab ticks.

Okay, great.

Yeah.

I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

Yeah, yeah, I had so many.

For real?

Oh my god, I had so many fucking ticks.

And I will say, my, my, um, I was with a girl for nine years, Brie, who I'm still really good friends with, wonderful human being.

And I think the foundation of our early relationship was learning we both had a ton of ticks.

And we would just lay in bed and compare the different ticks we had.

And I don't know why, but I found that the most endearing thing that this beautiful woman had gone through the same plight, Sedaris calls it the plague of ticks.

She,

The greatest.

Did you read that?

Yeah, it's, I think, is the first short story in Naked.

And I read that.

I was like, oh my God, he knows what it's like.

It is the greatest.

It is.

I graduated college.

I moved to New York.

I've never read a book before.

I read The Firm.

No Bukowski or anything?

Naughty stuff?

No, no.

Bukowski is all about drinking, shitting, and fighting.

I watched Sparfly and I was like, eh.

I don't know.

I get depressed when people drink like that.

I can't like...

You're from the outside looking at your shit, which I study as well.

I'm like, wow, I think this guy has the exact version I would want if I could have it.

I don't desire to drink two drinks.

A lot of addicts are like, I wish I could drink two drinks.

I don't want to do that.

I'd like to drink six.

Like, if I could stay at six, still get a little wild, but not then go for two days.

And I feel like that's what you have.

I was thinking about you going to bed last night.

I was listening to your Sam Shepard interview.

Is that the guy's name?

Sam Something.

It's black and white, and you talked about, this is when I was like, I always thought you were a beer drinker and you drank a lot, but I didn't know you were really fucking partied.

And you talked about your many lows, your many bottoms.

Oh, right.

And right before you did Zathora, you were

in Kauai.

Yeah.

Which, weirdly, I was there last weekend for 36 hours and I hadn't been back for 20 years.

Really?

Yeah.

And I was there with Kristen.

And I was like, oh, yeah, that's the guardrail me and the dude smashed into on the way to buy ice oh there's the hotel I went jogging at with the roosters on day three of being away like it was all right there and I thought oh my god what a different fucking life I have today it's but it's crazy I don't think I mean I don't think enough people know maybe they do but know just how deep you were into like into partying going hard yeah yeah going hard like and last night

I'm listening smoking crack yeah doing math I mean like really getting after it pills when you said I'd get a prescription of 30 pills and go through them I was like huh?

Like I oh Bert that you saw punk there was an episode of punk where I'm in a sling because I had just gotten shoulder surgery and it's like some episode where we're breaking I get a locksmith to let us into a place and then I rob it.

But yeah on that episode I had shown up at work with 30 Viking in and before we wrapped I was like oh I'm out because before every setup, I would take a few more.

And yeah.

Yeah, I had a prescription of I still have them of 30 Xanax.

I just don't touch them.

But last night I was going to bed listening to this interview.

I had two drinks in the hot tub.

I wrapped something yesterday.

So Leon and I had a bottle of champagne.

I had two drinks, porosos and sodas and these in the hot tub.

And I went to my bedroom listening to the interview and I start killing water because I'm really obsessed with my sleep score.

And I was like, oh, I bet.

You told a crazy story about waking up like three days later in your hotel, in your bed going, everything in the kitchen was gone.

And I was like, oh, I bet he couldn't do that.

And I was like, that,

that, and if you're dealing with that, you definitely should get drugs and alcohol out of your life.

Yeah, like, um, not being dramatic, but I just, I would have died.

Like, my last week there was, again, I'm with like a local dude.

We get in a crazy car accident.

There's police.

I'm, I'm snorting ice, which is a terrible idea because it's very chunky.

And

yeah, it was just every, because I would get sober for three months to work and then I would go out in between movies.

And just every one of those was getting progressively more dangerous.

But the one you're referencing is the probably the most I ever scared myself where I had like, as you say, I had gone out on a Thursday night and I had just seen the drug dealer.

So I had all these pills and then I got two Aprils and then I got a couple of fists, blah, blah, blah.

And then I woke up and I just didn't know what day it was.

And it was Monday.

And yeah, everything was gone.

And I just went, you can't take that much stuff without dying in your sleep.

That was one of the you know once in a blue moon i would have to call my mom just bawling

at like 28 years old and go and you got everything and you got everything you ever wanted yeah that's the that's a huge gift to be honest and i maybe you've already heard me say that but but the gift was i got everything i wanted i i was i was about to start zathura i was going to make a ton of money people recognized me in hawaii i wanted that and so i had every i wanted that can you talk to me about that for a second because i talk about that And I think sometimes in our industry, at least in my industry with my friends, they find

the need to be recognized or the want to be recognized rather as gross.

And I don't.

I wanted that.

Yeah.

I think two things are true.

Like you can want that and then come to realize you don't want that.

Right.

And yeah, it seems to be uncouth to say I wanted to be.

But

you take it out of like fame and just think like everyone wants to be seen.

You want to know you existed and you were here and other people saw you and they looked at you and they heard you like i think that's a very human desire and then and then i have a bigger dose of that like um let's say maybe i'm a you know a middle child my brother got a lot of attention my little sister got a lot of attention um i was a dumbass all through elementary with dyslexia i was the dumb kid going to learning this disability room for a couple hours a day.

So it was like, if I could get attention that was positive, I just, fucking loved it.

And being funny was like, once I figured that out, that I can get attention being funny.

I was like, okay, I got the keys now.

I understand how this all works.

Yeah.

I don't got to be smart.

I don't got to be this.

I don't be hot.

I can fucking make people laugh and we're good.

And particularly scary adults or scary dudes older than me.

If I could be making them laugh, I'm like, oh, I'm safe.

This is like a, this is somehow a magic power to not get your ass kicked.

Yeah.

In the right situation.

But yeah, so I wanted definitely, I loved being famous at the beginning.

It was so wild.

You were famous when it was cool.

It was fun.

It was very, very fun.

I remember what was wild is Brie, the same gale, she had gone away to learn Spanish in,

doesn't matter, but next to Belize, Guatemala.

So she was gone while punked started airing.

And you wouldn't remember, but Punk came out and it was huge.

And then they replayed it like four times throughout the week and by the end of the week it had like 2x the wwe numbers so i went from total anonymity to like kind of famous in a in a week you was very you were the standard you were the standout star on punk by far so my my girlfriend returns home from guatemala and we're riding bikes on the strand in santa monica and like people are yelling my name and bree's like

What happened while I was gone?

I'm like, I know.

Isn't this fucking crazy?

So yeah, I loved it.

But anyways, back to the, you know, the last week of drinking, it was, I had all the things that I was certain were going to make me happy and even deeper, make me like myself and have self-esteem.

And I was the furthest from it.

And so the gift of that is like, oh, it's not those things.

Something much bigger is broken.

And we're not, there's not going to be any fucking trophy that's going to get you out of this.

Wow.

You're not going to date a hot enough girl that you're going to look in the mirror and go like, yeah, I'm good.

That's wild.

So that's a, and I know if I were me and I still had this list of things I needed to complete me, I wouldn't believe me.

I'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good for you.

But yes, I would be certain money and being recognized would cure all ills.

It's crazy.

Like when you wake up now, like, I'm curious, what's your sober life look like now?

I feel like you're a dude with your hands in something from the second you wake up till the second you go to sleep.

Yeah, I've now become my addict.

I'm still a fucking addict across the board.

Like Kristen would tell you, like, right away, oh, there was a period where I was like, I wanted to get off nicotine mint.

So then I was like, I'll do these toothpicks with tea trill.

And then I was like, I got to find stronger ones.

I found these ones from Australia.

I was shipping in these crazy things.

I had fucking

Kristen was like, babe, you've got fucking scabs in the corner of your mouth.

And I'd just be eating these toothpicks.

And I was like, okay, I got to get over the toothpicks.

And then I thought, oh, hauls might work.

Then I was eating a family-sized bag of hauls a day, just all day hauls, giving me tons of gas.

The binding agent was fucking up my stomach.

And I had like three months on hauls addiction.

So I have learned, yeah, I gotta have, I'm like, I'm such a creature of habit.

So it's like, yeah, I wake up, I meditate, I make my coffee, I come back, I meditate, then I journal, then I'm allowed to have my coffee and my nicotine.

Then I take a shit and I get on YouTube and I read all the comments.

And then I go work out.

And then I come out of there and I go do the addict.

And then I record.

And then, yeah.

And so everything, I just need to be plotting.

Oh, oh and then sauna is a religion so at night it's sauna and then it's the cold plunge and then it's the hot tub and I need all those things in my day or my mind will start wandering to like maybe I need to get a bag of hauls or maybe I need crazy toothpicks from Australia like I need something to do that's interesting that you you journal that you meditate I want to I just so every year on my birthday I do my goals I write like whatever age I am yeah I write those out in goals

this year's goals I have no they all used to be professional goals, and this year they're all internal.

They're all internal.

When's your birthday?

November 3rd.

Oh, so we just had it.

Yeah.

So what happens on New Year's?

Do you make a second?

No.

You don't need New Year's resolutions because you have the birthday one.

Yeah, on my 26th birthday, in short, people have heard this, but my dad called me and just told me I was a piece of shit.

It's funny, I just posted this thing about Winston Churchill's dad doing the same thing to him.

And they said Winston Churchill must have always, no matter what he accomplished, always thought of that one letter his dad sent him.

Yeah.

But are you watching the Ted Turner documentary?

It's the greatest doc.

What is it called?

It's on Macs.

It's multi-part.

And Bert,

he has the letter his father wrote him when he was in college, basically just saying, you're a fucking piece of shit, and I'm not paying for this, and you're a loser.

I mean, rough.

Dude, it was my birthday.

My dad called me.

It was my 26th birthday.

I moved to New York to start to do stand-up, but I wasn't doing anything.

I was just partying.

Yeah, yeah.

And it was like eight in the morning.

I was like, it's a fun city.

It's easy to get distracted there.

I live right above, I live right above the McDougal Alehouse.

Oh, baby.

And I called my dad called.

I thought I'd just answer and go.

He was going to say, happy birthday.

I'll go back to sleep.

I was hungover.

I was like, hello.

And he goes, you are a tremendous piece of shit.

And just.

A tremendous piece of shit.

And I go, I said, it's my birthday because I know what fucking day it is.

What was his laundry list of things he had observed?

He had been in court that day, and the judge asked him how his son was doing.

I I was written up in Rolling Stone Magazine as his

main

machine.

No, no, no.

America's Top Party at America's Top Party School.

So the judge was like, how's your son doing in New York doing stand-up?

And my dad goes, great.

And he perjured himself and he was fucking fucking with him.

So he got in the car and was like, I just perjured myself in court.

I've never perjured myself.

I lied.

He asked, how you doing?

I should have said, he's a fucking loser.

He's a party boy in New York who's got no humility.

And he just broke me off.

And I remember going like, well, and you know, give me all these life lessons of how to, I get it's the reason I am today, where I am today, that one conversation.

I think everyone needs it.

I think everyone, problem is, I've given my daughters like 10 of them.

I keep doing it.

Yeah, yeah, no, you gotta really be sparing.

It's gonna be one.

I've given them like a hundred of them.

They're like, dad, I'm fucking five.

It's um, it's the 1 p.m.

Um

inventory of your whole life.

Let's go through that.

You know what I said when they were little girls?

You want to talk about bad parenting?

I said, No, you don't get to cry.

Use your words.

You think Condoleezza Rice cries?

They were like five and seven.

You enlisted Condoleezza Rice.

But anyway, I put my, I wrote my, that night, I took myself to dinner.

I wrote all my goals, 26 goals for that year, and I've done it every year since.

And one of the goals this year was to learn how to meditate.

Oh, okay.

I want to learn how to meditate.

I can give you a person that can teach you

Transcendental.

I just did Transcendental because Stern did.

You know, I idolize certain people.

It's like whatever they do.

So who do you idolize?

Give me your idols.

Stern,

but definitely before him, Letterman for me was like

everything.

Like, as a young boy, I was like, oh, okay, that's what I feel like my weird sense of humor is.

And then Conan, probably, of course, too.

He was being even weirder afterwards.

But Bill Murray, God, yes.

Bill Murray, Letterman, and Stern are probably my trifecta.

What about in the sports?

Well, I'm from Detroit, and of course, the Pistons won in

88 and 89, I think.

So

Isaiah Thomas was probably, and then I had the Red Wings, so Probert, who was like a tough guy.

I wanted to be like him.

I never was into football, but I didn't have a ton of sports idols.

I more was, I was a skateboarder, a snowboarder, all the punk rock thing.

Do you still snowboard?

I just switched to skiing last year.

So I'm like, I think it's time.

Why?

Well, because I don't want to snap a femur.

You're not going to snap a femur snowboarding?

Fucking skiing is so much more dangerous than snowboarding.

I don't know, bro.

Was the last time you skied?

You can go pretty slowly straight.

Oh, no, I've been skiing forever.

I've been skiing forever.

Yeah, I hadn't skied since I was 12 when I switched to snowboarding.

Yeah.

But my best friend learned to ski last year.

I was like, oh, this is perfect because I haven't skied in 20, 38 years, and he's learning.

So this will be perfect.

So I've switched to skiing.

Are you still friends that you grew up with?

Oh, yeah.

My soulmate in life is Aaron Weakley.

We met when we were 11 in sixth grade.

And

yeah, he's like.

Is he the guy that does the Ted or the Ted Seekers?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I had a show with him that's one of the funniest things we've done, which was it was 10 episodes and it was called Race to 270.

And I have a friend who owns a CrossFit gym, Charlie, who's an Adonis.

And he was 221 when we started and Aaron was 319.

And I said, I'll pay whoever gets to 270 first 10 grand.

And so every week we did a check-in and who was Lizzie Wayne.

And Aaron was getting fucked.

Like Charlie was definitely getting to 270 before Aaron could.

And then Aaron was blessed with COVID.

And this was 2020.

So it was the real COVID where he couldn't eat for, and he just started dropping the pounds.

And they fucking, on the same episode, they both crossed.

Aaron went down to like 268 and Charlie went up to 271.

So I ended up having to pay both of them.

So wait, okay, hold on.

But he is the funniest.

He got on there during that and he told a story.

By the way, he got sober four years ago.

So we were best, best friends.

Then I got sober 20 years ago and we remained best friends, but we had radically different lives.

He was still on the full course.

Like party party?

Oh, Coke all day and at least two-fifths a day.

Bad, bad, bad.

Exactly where I was heading.

Yeah.

And

he had a, he had this, you know, I couldn't get a hold of him for four days, basically.

And I had never said in 16 years, I think you should get sober.

And he finally called me and he calls me dad and he's like, sorry dad i had i had a bad i had a bad flu and i go who the fuck do you think you're talking to i know exactly what's been going on he's like yeah

and i go um

look i've never said this to you but um you're gonna be dead really soon it if you if you're willing there's a great treatment center in antigua do you want to go down to an island go swimming and get sober and he's like yeah i do want to do that and i i i would have given it like a three chance he was going to say yes.

And he did.

And then he got sober.

Now we're fully back in business.

So now we hang out non-stop.

He's constantly coming here or I'm going there.

So now we're back in.

And so, okay, so he's newly sober and he's doing a Zoom meeting, an AA meeting every morning.

He's like a really good boy.

He gets out of treatment.

He's going to the Zoom meeting every morning.

And he's got his Zoom up and the meeting's starting.

And he has his camera off and he believes he's muted.

And he's also a mess, just like me.

So the first five minutes, he's just clearing his throat and trying to like clean it.

He's like, you know, he's coughing,

like really going up in the

trying to get something out.

And as he's doing that, he's like, oh my God, I have diarrhea.

I'm going to ship my pants.

And then he goes and runs into the toilet and he sits down and he's like, I have fucking explosive loud diarrhea to the point where I go, oh God,

he said, oh God, out loud.

And then his dog, which he had just bought, is running in and trying to put his nose between his legs and see what just happened happened to him.

And now he's yelling, get the fuck out of here.

And he's coughing and he's fucking diarrhea.

And now in the midst of all that, he realizes, I haven't heard them talk on this AA meeting for a while.

And he looks and he realizes he's not muted.

So the whole cacophony of coughing and sneezing and diarrhea.

Oh, fucking screaming at the dog.

Everything was out loud on this meeting and just people were laughing and he just hung up the meeting and didn't go back.

But anyways, he told that story on there, and that's that's textbook Aaron Weekly.

God.

Yeah, he has he will tell you any story that happened.

Does he work out with you in the mornings?

Reluctantly.

His thing now is pickleball.

He does that like six days a week.

Pickleball was fun.

And now he's on Major No.

So now he's down to like 225.

He's he's like, he's he's he has lost 15 years of aging in the last four years.

It's I wish we had been making a doc about him.

It's like the biggest turnaround I've ever seen.

Really?

Yeah.

And what does he do for a living?

He's a story consultant on the show.

Oh.

And he has a really beautiful house in Michigan.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That's in my name.

That's crazy.

Have you ever made friends with a celebrity and it stuck?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, lots of them.

Like who?

But I'm going to go back because you were saying like that I'm at parties and stuff.

and I would guess people think Kristen and I are very engaged in the Hollywood scene.

No, okay, here's my point.

But we're not, we don't ever leave our house.

For real?

No, we are parents.

Exactly.

We're like homebodies.

We're fucking in love with our two daughters.

Everything we do is with them.

And we have friends that we've made over the years in movies.

And there's like maybe, you know, we go to this really incredible, Kimmel invites us to his fishing lodge once a year.

That's a big celebrity heavy one.

But we have that.

And And then like Chris will have to go to something.

But in general,

our friends that we hang with aren't famous.

For real?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But like Kutcher, I did punk however many years ago, 20 years.

I don't think,

so I look at like, like, I don't see Joe as a famous guy.

Right.

I know he is, but I don't.

Like, I, I was, I mean, yeah, yeah.

I was having a great conversation with him yesterday on text and we were laughing.

Someone's like, who are you texting?

I was like, I was texting my buddy.

And and then I realized, well, if I told him who I was texting, they'd be like, Shut the fuck up.

Yeah, right.

But talking about the king of all media.

Yeah.

Remember, Stern used to say that?

I think it's I'm so blown away with

you.

I haven't.

He doesn't dislike me, which I like.

But also, I've tried to be on the show, and I haven't been able to be on the show, but who cares?

No, no.

Well, Joe, first of all, his list of people.

I admire him and respect him.

We have different opinions, but dude, what he's built is so fucking impressive.

Yeah.

He loves cars and fighting.

He likes all the shit you like.

Yeah, exactly.

Literally, I was, I did a pre-interview yesterday of all the things I want to talk to you about.

Yeah, I'm obsessed with motorcycles.

I don't have one.

I'm obsessed with fucking motorcycles.

Have you ridden them ever?

Yeah, of course.

Yeah, okay.

I rode a motorcycle from Montana to Sturgis.

Oh, you did to the National Forest in Black Hills?

You know, in Alabama.

Beautiful.

Uh-huh.

And what kind of Harley?

Indian Chief.

Oh, okay.

And then

rode a Harley, what is it, 8883 Iron Horse to the top of the

volcano in Hawaii.

Oh, really?

It's one of the coolest ways to take in scenery.

Oh, God, yeah.

I've said this.

This is the day I fell in love with motorcycles.

We go hunting buffalo with the Crow Nation in Montana, I think.

And then we get...

dropped off in a helicopter up top of mountain with guns or balls guns guns okay and uh we get dropped off on top of a mountain and then we have to take our motorcycles back down to the city down at the bottom of the mountain.

And as I go, I'm dipping in between

shadows because the sun's setting.

So it's getting dark and getting cold, and then you're hitting the sun and you're feeling it.

And you're coming out.

And as I pop up, and the sun hits me, and a pack of wild horses is running next to me with me as I'm listening to Wilco.

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

And I went,

this is fucking insane.

Yeah.

But

I'm buying a chopper.

I'm talking to this lady about buying a chopper.

My wife doesn't know.

She'd be fucking lose her mind.

Right.

She does not like motorcycles.

I assume she doesn't listen to your show.

Like my wife doesn't.

She doesn't listen to yourself.

I could say anything on my show.

My wife will never fuck out.

Yeah, my wife's.

It's so funny.

You are my wife, and I am your wife.

Oh, really?

100%.

Except we have very similar relationships that we have painted ourselves into a corner where regardless of our wants or needs, we can never cheat on our wives because we will lose everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I'm blessed by the fact that

whoever would be willing to fuck me would only be willing to fuck me because they would want to tell their friends about it.

So I'm kind of inoculated by like, I couldn't, my joke is like, I could cheat if I found a gal that was blind, deaf, and lost her tongue.

So she couldn't tell anyone didn't know who she was with.

So until I find that bombshell who's completely mute, I think it's off the table.

Yeah, no, I've had chicks try to have sex with me.

Like, and

I just look at them like, what the fuck?

What's wrong with you?

What the fuck's wrong with you?

Do you realize what a loser you look like right now?

You're trying to fuck me?

You're out of your goddamn mind.

Respect yourself, bro.

Respect yourself.

No.

You're a good person.

You end up convincing them.

You're better than this.

But our relationships are similar in that I am known for my relationship with my wife.

I've talked about it on stage so much.

Yeah.

And are you opposites?

Leanne's you.

Okay.

Like,

you did an interview one time.

I don't forget what it was.

You were like talking about the apocalypse and what you'd be useful for.

And you're like, I could build a pneumatic drill or something.

And I was like, that's my wife.

I'd be like Kristen in the corner.

She'd be singing and I'd be telling jokes.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

Well, you're needed.

That role's needed in the apocalypse.

You got to keep it light.

Oh, yeah, I'd be needed for target practice.

But aren't you delighted to have gotten with an opposite?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Fuck yeah.

Right.

Yeah, I think the

I can't, one of my many, many character defects is I cannot receive instruction.

I feel I just can't do it.

I would be great at a bunch of things if I could just receive instruction.

That's me.

You're like that, too.

I love being coached.

You love it.

I fucking love being coached.

I know.

I'm so envious of people who are like that.

I can't do it.

I don't want to be told what to do, but if I'm watching someone move through the world and seeing the results, I will start imitating them.

So I've been watching my wife move through the world for 17 years.

And I'm like,

yeah, that works.

Like she gave away, she would give away all this money.

I'm like, I can't believe she's fucking giving away all this money.

And I was like, well, I can't believe she's also making all this money.

Where's all this money come from?

She's making it.

She's giving so much away.

I'm like, well, that's interesting.

Every time she gives some away, some magically she makes even more than she gave away.

And I'm like, just watching that for a decade going, huh, there's something to this.

Or a million things.

I give you great, this happened down in

Nashville last year.

We go to my favorite steakhouse there, Sperry's.

They have a salad bar, and I love a salad bar.

And we go with our two friends that live there, Huey and Hayes.

And I go up to the salad bar to make my salad.

And when I come back, my buddy Huey goes, Well, this guy next to us here, he's all fucked up over the fact that you're in a t-shirt.

He was already yelling at the manager, how the fuck are they letting this guy in here?

What's this restaurant become?

And I guess this guy was just having at me because I was in a t-shirt.

And he goes, I don't know what to do.

Like, well, I don't know what y'all's policy is.

Tell this guy to fuck off, or I don't want to fuck with your image.

And like, now I'm planning on on how I'm going to interact with this guy and I'm going to battle this guy.

And Kristen just goes, buy his dinner.

And I go, oh, that's dark.

Yeah.

So our server came over and I go, hey, these are good friends of ours.

Would you mind if I bought their dinner?

So I get my credit card.

I give the guy a great tip.

And then I watch them come over and the dude asks for the thing.

And he's like, and then he has to look over at me.

And I go, I'm so sorry I offended you with my t-shirt.

I'll dress better next time.

And now his wife has also turned around and now the wife knows who Kristen is.

So now I'm like, oh, this is heaven.

This dude's in so much fucking trouble the whole way home.

The wife is going to disturb.

The wife is going to do to him what I could have never done verbally or physically to this guy.

It's going to go into Christmas.

The kids are going to find out about this.

And this guy got up and he went.

The exit was right here.

Our table's here.

He walked around the back of the bar and exited out the side of the restaurant.

He was so upset that I bought his dinner.

And And I'm like, girl, that's some Jedi shit.

There should be an app.

What would Kristen Bell do?

Nah, truly, truly.

She will fuck you up with kindness and generosity.

You will hate yourself over it.

If I would have fought with the guy, he would have been totally confirmed that I was a piece of shit.

I would have continued to think he was a snob.

That's the most gangster thing that ever fucking heard.

How do you fucking, how do you, how do you maintain a relationship with someone that thinks like that?

It's challenging.

I mean, that's like, well, think how often she's just watching me make decisions and going, this is what a waste of time.

You didn't get anything you want out of this.

It's got to be laborious being with me.

Oh,

I think it's tedious being with me.

Yeah.

I can't imagine.

Yeah.

I'm pretty grateful I'm not married to me.

It's a real blessing.

I didn't marry.

I wouldn't even suck my dick.

Like,

I can't imagine sucking my dick.

Like,

I, oh.

You try, though.

I take the phone sometimes.

Did you try?

Of course.

Yeah, me too.

Of course.

Yeah, you got to.

You got to give it a shot.

I have a buddy.

You don't even, really quick.

I tried many, many times, and you never go to the second step of like, well, if you are, if you can achieve this goal,

you're going to feel a dick in your mouth way more than you're going to feel a mouth on your dick.

You don't even think it through.

I have a buddy.

Okay.

He sucked his own dick away.

When he got there.

Oh, good for him.

I asked him what it was like.

He goes, it felt more like sucking a dick than getting your dick sucked.

Oh, wow.

That's the same.

Oh, good.

My hunch was accurate.

It's one of those things like I'm glad I never got.

It's like my dogs always chase squirrels.

Yeah.

And then they got one one time and it wasn't what they thought it was going to be.

They broke it in half and they were like blood everywhere.

And they're like, oh, I thought this would be more fun.

Right.

It seems so fun to chase them.

Yeah, Aaron and I have talked about that on air a few times.

It's like we would, I would randomly, as a kid, get an idea of like, I would just think like, oh, I'm going to put my finger in my ass when I jack off in the shower.

And that's going to feel so good.

I would be so excited to get in the shower.

And then I'd fucking get my finger.

I was like, this is super uncomfortable.

Yeah.

Not enjoyable at all.

I don't like this.

And then eight months would go by and I would reconvince myself.

I'm like, oh, I'm going.

I'm going to fucking put my finger in my ass.

It's going to be so awesome.

And then I would do it.

I'm like, yeah, this is terrible still.

I guess I'm romantic.

I keep buying in that it might be nice.

I've definitely put my finger in my ass.

Yeah, you got to.

Of course.

I wonder.

I'll do any, I'll try any fucking thing.

It's my body.

Yeah.

Why the fuck wouldn't I try all of it?

Yeah.

Clearly, I tried every drive.

Anything I think might be good, I'm going to give it a shot.

Yeah.

I hope I like it.

The only thing I haven't tried, which I'm kind of on the fence about, is autoerotic asphyxiation.

Yeah, that's crossed my mind.

How could it not?

I'm like, is it 3x the orgasm if you think you're dying while it's happening?

It's intriguing, but we've lost enough of

I'm going to tell you what I've done.

Don't advise us.

You wouldn't have to do it.

Don't advise us.

I'm being serious.

Do not do what I've done.

Yeah, yeah.

You ever huff Glade?

Glade?

No.

Is that nice?

It makes fucking whippets feel like kindergarten.

No kidding.

We have to do dust off.

I wonder if that's the same thing.

Same thing, man.

Same thing.

It's aerosol.

You wrap a towel.

I'm not going to tell you how to do it.

But I would huff Glade and Jack Off.

Oh,

wow.

I wonder if that's like poppers.

Is that then like poppers?

Because I'm intrigued by poppers.

I wouldn't mind popping.

Is that amyl nitrate?

No, I don't think it is, but I wouldn't, I've never, I ran into a chick that I knew that was Christian, and she was like from Minnesota, and she goes,

You party, ever done poppers?

And I was like, no.

She's like, the stuff for anal sex.

You ever done them?

And I said, no.

She goes, I'm doing them all the time.

Not even for anal.

And then she got divorced right after that.

Wow.

So she, okay, so she was going hard on the poppers.

Again, I never.

You can't do poppers.

Yeah, I likely can't do poppers.

Unless...

Okay, so I worked out...

Do you know Lane Norton?

Yeah.

I do.

He's the greatest.

Follow him at BioLane on Instagram.

He's the best.

But he takes something as all these powerlifters.

Oh, it's the smelling salts.

Smelling salts.

Yeah.

But that's not Amal.

Is there anyone that can research?

No, no, no, it's definitely not.

I broke smelling salts under my nose one time.

What's that like?

It's ammonia, I think.

It just makes you just wake up.

You're like,

and then you can bench the.

How much do you bench?

I don't try to, I haven't set a personal record.

300.

Anyway,

whatever.

It's not a big deal.

I'm not shocked.

You're very girthy.

I'm on testosterone.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure hysteria.

Me too.

Are you really?

Oh, of course.

For real?

Yes.

No way.

Yes, by the way, I started testosterone three months before I started the podcast.

This is where we started.

Chips came out, didn't perform.

I was so fucking depressed.

I was going to retire.

I'm like, I'm going to retire.

I've been doing this long enough.

I'm done.

I go on testosterone two weeks before Christmas, 2016, 2017.

I launched the podcast in February.

I signed on to do the ranch as a full-time, then I signed on to do a pilot for a full system.

And then I signed on to do Top Gear.

So I commit to three TV shows and I start the podcast within three months of starting testosterone.

So I'm like, Fuck the physical part.

I mean, I love the physical part, but for me, the mental part, I was like, I was hungry again.

Yeah, it was revolutionary for me.

I loved it.

Wait, what?

How long have you been on it?

I think like two years.

Oh, just two years.

Yeah.

Okay.

My testosterone is perfect.

My blood works perfect.

Yeah.

Same.

It's the crazy part: it's like even partying because it's reparative to your liver.

And even partying, my blood works better than it's ever been.

And I just got it.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

It's magic.

I really enjoy it.

I love that you follow Lane Norton.

Oh, I love him.

Do you follow like Huberman and all those guys?

Yeah, and I've had all these guys on the podcast.

And I love Huberman.

Don't get me wrong.

I love him.

He's fucking awesome.

But I have to say, Lane has called him out a couple of times, and Huberman's apologized.

And Huberman has agreed that Lane was right.

Lane almost never fucks up.

Like, if you want to, if you're in a carnivore or intermittent fasting or any of these things, numerous things, okay, you're carnivore.

Just listen to what he has to say.

I mean, you know,

he's a scientist and a world record power lifter, all natural.

He's in a very unique position to be advising on this stuff.

I was thinking about the other day, I just got out of the sauna and I was getting into the cold plunge and I thought to myself, I don't want to.

And I said, I'm also not David Goggins.

I don't have to.

Like, I'm just Bert.

So if I don't want to, I can just take a shower and not be cold all day.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I thought, this is kind of a depressing thought because I'm friends with a guy named Cam Haynes, who's like an ultra marathon, probably I think the world's best bow hunter.

He's

friends with all these dudes that are like high up from Jesse Itzler, who who just ultra merit.

They do the hardest thing every single day.

Optimizing.

They're all about optimizing.

And I thought, how depressing to be one of those guys?

Because

if you don't do the craziest shit your body's ever done every day, you're letting yourself down.

I was like, how nice to be average and go, I can get in the polar punch for a minute.

Yeah.

And I'll, that's better than I thought it was going to do.

But again, that's your disposition.

It's, it's present in the way you drink.

Like somehow you're moderate or moderate plus.

I don't know.

On the spectrum of moderation you're on the high end but you're not i'm on the high end you're not an addict

i don't know you well enough to say that no i'm not an addict i think you would have thrown it in the ditch by now i would have i it would have fucked it would have caught me by now yeah i mean yeah you're pretty are you 52 52 yeah how old are you 48 49 and in a month i turned 50.

oh you gotta change

i'm not gonna really

can i can i pitch you something yeah please so i turned 52 and i said to myself um

i uh

I laid in bed and I was like, how many birthdays do I remember?

Like, really?

Yeah.

And I can only remember 11.

Okay.

Like, really, like, think about it for a second.

It's very specific.

Think about how many birthdays can you remember?

Yeah.

Think about it for a second.

I'm going to do that tonight.

Okay.

Yeah.

Write them down.

I did it.

I sat and I went, I can only remember 11.

I go, that's kind of sad.

On this day that I'm celebrating another year of life that I get to live.

I can only remember 11.

I was like, what the fuck did I do?

The other ones?

And I said, so I may get maybe 25 more.

I said, I'm going to make sure I do something epic.

It doesn't need to be a party, but do something to mark that day.

And so on my 52nd birthday, I benched 300 pounds.

Oh, wonderful.

And I said, I'll never forget this day.

Yeah.

You worked up to that?

Yeah, yeah.

I've been, I was doing 225, like 10 times, 12.

And then I did 285 three times.

And I was like, I think I'm going to get 300.

Yeah.

And so then.

And when you did it, did you think like, I think I could do two?

No, no, no, no.

My legs seized

from benching.

I'm actually never going to do it again.

Wait, we're not talking squatting, benching.

Benching.

My legs seized.

Oh, wow.

I have a video of it, and it is not pretty.

And so I did not post it because I would be mocked.

I have a similar video.

And so I thought, I'm going to do something epic on every one of my birthdays so that I mark that day, whether it's...

run 12 miles or or or or ride my bike to the fucking beach.

Yeah, yeah.

Or just something to mark that day.

Because

i i remember saying to a buddy mine uh what are you doing for your birthday he's like i'm not a fucking child i don't need to do something for my birthday but yeah but be a child let yourself do something fucking epic yeah because it's 50.

yeah that sounds like the voice i have too which is uh i'm not a child which is like

i'm not gonna do something i i'm not gonna be earnest because if you caught me being earnest, I would get made fun of and I'd be really embarrassed.

I have that.

Yeah.

You know, I have an older brother, so anything I did that was mildly not masculine enough, I got blasted.

So for me, like being outwardly earnest and saying, I would like a party where people come, tell me how much they love me.

That would be, I'd be scared to do that.

But my, my anxiety with a party is I just won't enjoy it because I'll be so nervous about A, who's coming, then I'll be nervous no one's coming, and then that they won't have a good time.

And the whole, it won't be fun for me.

Yeah.

I also have the, I would argue that one of the world's worst birthdays in that it's January 2nd.

So A, everyone just had Christmas, then they just went hard on New Year's, and then they woke up the day before and swore off everything that you might want to serve for food.

They're not going to drink.

They've been off way too long.

It's a bad day for a birthday.

January 2nd sucks.

It's a real bummer.

It's like the day back to real life after two weeks.

Not even the good football game.

It's just like,

they're like, oh, wow, Mizzou's.

It's party over.

Everyone just had two weeks of family and fucking eating.

And then January 2nd is like, like, party's over, gang.

Let's all go back to school.

Let's go back to work and let's get our shit together.

And then let's go to Dax's.

We got to go to Dax's and get through that fucking thing.

So, wait, do you still, do you still want to act?

I mean, I know that you, I know that you've done stuff, but your podcast is so big.

You talk to Rogan, he's like, he's like, never acting, never doing this, never doing that.

I'm just doing the podcast.

And I, I admitted this on Schultz, Andrew Schultz's podcast, which is, I remember when he said that, when Rogan said that.

And I said,

that's not true.

I remember saying that's not true.

And I was dead wrong because now I'm in the same position and I don't want to.

I don't have any desire to.

Not even direct?

I do misdirecting, but it's so all-consuming and it's two years and there's just no way I could do it.

But yeah, I missed directing,

but I totally believe Rogan.

I was completely wrong, which is like, in fact, I had this

organizational psychologist, Adam Granton.

He's pretty famous.

He writes New York Times things.

He teaches at Wharton.

And I was interviewing him and I said, you know, I got this whole story.

Well, now I'm doing something completely different in the wake of failure.

Be open, you know, this whole story.

And he goes, this is so different from what you used to do.

And I go, well, yeah, acting and doing this podcast.

Yeah, that's different.

And he said, well,

what was your favorite thing about acting?

And I was like,

Video Village.

So on a set,

you're shooting, you have the set, but then you have Video Village, this little rolling tray of monitors where the director sits, and then all the actors congregate around, and maybe some writers, and there's just this little huddle, and you just shoot the shit.

And you're shooting the shit with a bunch of people who left their small town to go pursue something.

And I'll say, like, of the promises that are real, the money was not as fun as I thought it was going to be.

The fame wasn't as fun.

But the fucking hanging with people who have dedicated their life to being creative, that's the crazy gift.

So I lived for Video Village.

Like, I just post up a video.

Let's shoot the shit.

Do you see 60 Minutes this week?

Yes.

That to me is heaven.

And he goes, I think you just took the thing you liked most about acting and brought it to your house.

I think this show is just Video Village.

And I was like, that's a pretty solid point.

And maybe that is what happened.

There's not one human being alive that wouldn't love Video Village.

Oh, it's the best.

It's the best.

We just rapped yesterday.

And at one point, I'm not even fucking lying.

There were about, and we had two Video Villages.

There was about 30 people crammed into Video Village.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was like

all my agents, my parents, my wife, the fucking brothers and sisters of the actors.

And it was like packed.

And the best thing in the world, and I know this isn't conducive to good projects sometimes, but is to be doing a take and hear laughter out of Video Village.

Oh, yeah.

And then you're like, dude, I'm telling you when I say that

I sometimes think I just want to be a producer.

So you can hang at Video Village the whole time.

Yeah, yeah.

And I want to give a shout out to Will Arnett.

So Will Arnett's very funny on camera, there's no question.

But there's no human being funnier in real life at Video Village than Will Arnett.

Like, I would do any movie with Arnett, not to be in scenes with him, but just to be at Video Village with him.

Really?

Yes.

He is, he's just pound for pound the very funniest.

Does he party?

He's sober too.

Fucking Jesus.

Yeah.

They're all gone.

I'm going to be partying with children one day.

It fucking sucks.

I mean, I guess I'm going to get sober one day, but I don't.

Do you?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, you're going to die.

Although I will say, and I'll ask you because you're 52.

And I will say, I say this a lot on the podcast.

The people I feel baddest for are not people like me who are addicts or people who never have done it.

It's the people that it's moderate.

They don't pay any price.

But there is this inflection point as you age, I think, which is it does start taking more than it's giving.

It's like you get that, you get that 40-minute window of dopamine when the buzz is first coming on.

That's fucking heaven.

The ears are getting tingly, the cheeks are getting warm.

Whispering.

And then that dissipates.

Now you're like, well, now I got to get inebriated or whatever.

I got to do the next thing, which is like just kind of inebriation.

Right.

And then, I don't know, maybe that's, there's 40 minutes of incredible time.

And then, I don't know, two hours of like, okay, you're just kind of inebriated.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

That part's still gravy.

Anyways, and if you wake up and you feel like shit for the first four hours of the day,

just the cost benefit, at some point, it might take more than it gives.

And I don't know how I would, if I didn't have any wreckage, I would ever choose to stop.

I think that would be the hardest.

I'll tell you, maybe the difference in my brain is that

my favorite thing.

isn't necessarily that first drink.

It's the camaraderie that happens when people decide to drink with you.

That energy of like,

all right, fuck it, make me one.

And that is that is inebriating to me.

Yeah.

The drink is great.

The second hits you and it touches your soul and the Lord whispers in your ear, we're going to have the best night of our lives.

That's that's the other great part.

I got to be honest with you, I don't notice the buzz after that moment.

Honestly, I could not drink or drink.

I don't feel it.

I don't, you don't see it in me.

I don't get hammered.

I don't act hammered.

I maybe my inhibitions are lowered a little bit.

And then the even better part is when they all leave and it's just you by yourself and you go,

one more.

And you just take it outside and you act weird.

And you just talk crazy.

And you sit in your hot tub and you have a conversation with Dak Shepard and he's not there.

I love it.

I'm going to run through these.

Sounds fucking great.

It's clearly the best.

It's giving more than it's taking.

Oh, and then the best, the best is waking up this morning.

And I hadn't.

Do you feel fine when you wake up yeah yeah i haven't so you might be blessed no no but i mean i feel like uh i i go like

i don't feel as good as i did yesterday like i hadn't been drinking and so yesterday last night was my first night back drinking and so

there's also the other thing i i this you know this is an antra quote it's my favorite no i feel bad for people who don't drink because when they wake up in the morning that's the best they're gonna feel all day

i'm very punitive so i wake up with if i did drink and i go oh no no no no no no Like, I can talk myself out of working out if I'm sober.

If I'm drinking, I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

We're not going to let you skate by today.

Yeah.

Get the fuck up.

Go pet a dog.

Make some coffee.

Do an Instagram video.

Walk through your backyard.

Let cold grass hit your feet.

Punish yourself just a little bit.

Get into the gym and we're running.

We're going to run and we're going to watch chips again.

See, that's the concept.

Okay, so I.

I watched chips again this morning.

No, you didn't.

Fuck yeah.

You open that movie with Tit.

It's the best decision anyone ever made in the fucking movie.

Is opening what?

With Tit, my dad.

Oh, where your peno rolls over and you see a nipple?

Come on, get the ball.

She was the original, if you remember, she was the original big ass

influencer.

Really?

Yeah, where the ass, you were like, how does someone have that ass?

And

it made a real

indelible mark on me, and I got to cast her at some point.

Now, I'll tell you, I made some mistakes in that.

So what is not in the movie, which is sad,

is she would get out of bed, and I had a tracking shot where we just watched her walk to the kitchen and it was incredible.

And then I thought, that's pretty gnarly.

If you're a woman, you see that, you're probably like, this guy's a pig.

So I thought the way I could comedically justify it is, and then it cut immediately to my ass walking in the barracks.

And I thought, okay, that'll like.

That'll even it.

We're like, everyone's going to show their ass.

It's not just, we're not just, you know,

I like that.

But in testing, people were like, no, thank you.

This movie just started and I'm watching two asses for like 30 seconds.

And I was very heartbroken that that couldn't stay.

But it just, it was very, people didn't love that.

What was the weird question?

What was the bathing suit choice for your wife?

Because she came out.

Oh, that's incredible.

Cause my wife was breastfeeding at the time.

And she

literally said, when are we shooting that scene?

I want to plan to not pump so that my boobs are as big as humanly possible.

I legit swear to God, I saw her come out of the, and I went, I did not know she was like that.

She's not, but boy, she had a, yeah, she had a year.

Well, she had a year, two different times with both kids where she had fucking humongous melons and she loved it.

And she would inflate those suckers when it was time to film.

And I was nervous they were going to pop on that day of chips.

And I said, hon, I think you need to let a little steam off.

Like, I'm getting nervous they're going to pop.

Does she sing to your kids?

Yes.

Well, they all three of them sing, which is insane.

In fact, I had

the most transcendent experience.

Like last week, I was laying in bed, and of course, wicked is everything right now.

Yeah.

And all three of them were singing

unlimited,

and they were in harmony.

And I'm the lucky fucking

dude laying in the middle of these three angels, and they were all in harmony.

And I was like, oh my God, I could float out of this bed and fucking evaporate right now.

It was incredible.

And all three of them can sing and it's the greatest.

My daughters have listened to your wife sing.

It's crazy that your wife's, I've heard your wife sing more than I've probably had sex with my wife.

I might have heard her.

I've heard her sing more than I've had sex with her.

All right, let me see.

I got, by the way, this is my pre-interview.

Oh, okay, great.

So this is all the, I don't even know if I asked.

Hey, Bert, can I say something?

Sure.

I really respect, like, I really do my shit.

And I respect that you do your shit.

Some people don't do their shit.

I just started doing my shit.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

I've had a a few bad ones.

Even if you don't fucking use it, it's like, yeah, I just like that.

I'm flattered that you put in that time.

Testosterone.

Oh, we got that.

Yeah.

I feel like I don't even need to.

These are like.

I want to hear it, though.

I'm curious.

Let me see.

How long?

What are your long, like, what's a long episode for you?

Oh, I mean, I've done, I've done five hours.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

With who?

Who is with Rogan?

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

That's like he, he, when he gets on one, you're like, okay.

Three hours is pretty long.

We try to keep two bears like within just above an hour, around an hour, because

I feel like it also allows people to go, I want to hear more from that guy.

Yep.

And you're someone that you've been so good.

We're confronting that right now.

And it was kind of a light bulb moment.

Have you ever listened to Acquired?

It's an incredible podcast.

It's by these two super nerds, and they'll tell you the whole finances of a company.

So they even did like a Taylor Swift episode.

It was like four hours long, and they'll tell you every single revenue stream and how that whole business works.

And so, like, the one right now on meta is six hours, and I only listened to it in the sauna.

And the other day, I was like, I'm going to have to go in the sauna 18 times to hear this full episode.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, and that gets me so excited, though.

Me too.

Do you remember Dan Carlin?

Oh, my God.

Hardcore history.

Fuck.

Yeah.

Buckle up.

I love hardcore history.

So I started thinking,

yeah, I don't have time to listen to this thing I really want to listen to.

And we have three fucking episodes a week, and they're all two or two and change.

At some point, I got to be realistic.

Like, how the fuck are people going to find time to listen to all this?

And I'm like, I think we got to, we got to chisel it down to like maybe at least 140, maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I try to keep it.

These, Tommy likes to keep it.

Tommy likes to keep it at one hour and five minutes.

I don't understand that.

And you like, we just had McConaughey on.

Oh, you did?

Yeah.

And Tom,

one hour, five minutes, I haven't even asked my good questions yet.

Yeah, and Tom's like, and I, he's such a,

he starts doing this thing where he goes, like, and you take deep breaths.

He does it on Rogan.

When we do Rogan together, he's like, I can only do like an hour 30.

And we're like, I go, Shuck, get the fuck out of here.

What are you talking about?

Then you leave.

We'll do two days if he wants.

Yeah, we're about to take mushrooms.

What the fuck are you talking about?

And,

but, but.

Have you done mushrooms on air with him?

No.

No, I haven't done mushrooms in a while.

Could you do mushrooms?

Here's the thing.

I think in theory, maybe, because I will say mushrooms is the only drug I've ever taken in my life where when I took it, A, when I'm on it, I don't have the thought, I need more.

Every other drug, the second it hits, I'm like, I need more.

Mushrooms,

I was never like, I need more.

Mushrooms is beautiful that way.

They're like, dude, we got you.

We're good here.

In fact, maybe you've done too many.

I mean, that's the general thought is never like, we need to double down.

And it's not like like on hour three, you're like, oh, fuck, I'm going to miss this.

I can't let this go away.

Mushrooms is like anal sex.

You're like, that's enough.

That's enough right there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are you happy?

Did you get what you wanted out of this?

Yeah, so, and then I had never the next day woke up and thought, oh, I want to do mushrooms.

Even when I was a drug addict, I was like, maybe once every couple of months, I'll do mushrooms.

And so

A, I don't do mushrooms, but if ever there were a drug that maybe like with a psychologist supervised, I will say, I don't have a unilateral opinion on what people in a should or shouldn't do like there's people that do this i don't have an opinion i don't really care like you know that people do things i don't i'm not i'm not a nazi about it i don't have a problem i don't have a problem with anyone doing anything they want yeah i literally i go well just have as long as you don't hurt anybody yeah don't i mean if you're suffering from it and you're confused why you're suffering i might be like well it's kind of i think i know why you're suffering but if someone i think there's people in sobriety that go do ayahuasca trips trips that's great if that's cool for them again i can't imagine ayahuasca something you want to do every night i've never done it but i can't imagine you want to go live or do it nightclub because of the shitting yourself no no no just i don't need to go there yeah i don't need to go there i'm terrified death and i don't need to see what that's gonna feel like you don't need to touch it up club why do you like chuck taylor's

um i think

well i can tell you so um all through elementary you know again the learning disabled room i was way too big every photo of me it looks like i flunked a few grades And I think most parents thought I had flunked a few grades.

So it was just this enormous toe head with colics.

I couldn't read.

No girls like me.

I was fucking in love with so many girls.

This is the original drug.

I've just always been so in love with girls.

And when I went to sixth grade, my brother said,

it was a makeover.

He's like, we're going shave side spike bangs.

You're punk rock now in a skateboarder and you're going to wear Chuck Taylor's.

You're rolling your pants and we're going to have you in a hardcore t-shirt.

And I showed up to sixth grade, Highland Junior High, still the greatest moment of my life.

I'm walking down the sixth grade hallway and Sasha Crossett, the hottest eighth grader, walks up to me.

I'm like, why is Sasha in the sixth grade hallway?

She hands me a fucking note.

I'm like panicked.

I go into my science class and I open it up and says, will you go with me?

And I was like,

oh, oh my

God.

Dude, how is this happening?

Dude, how is this happening?

And I fucking said yes.

And I would would go to the basketball game we'd make out and she told me to go up for shirt and it was just the fucking what a what a era every eighth grader hated my guts i think it started this thing where guys certain guys hate my guts and i get it

i want to talk about this i've never talked about in public people hate that i'm with kristen less now but for many years they hated i was with kristen guys in particular hated i was with kristen and they would he doesn't deserve her there'd be all these polls like the most the ugliest guy with the hottest girl.

I won a lot of those.

And I would have thought, aren't I encouraging?

Like, aren't I, like, shouldn't you be so encouraged by the fact that I got Kristen?

I thought that meant.

But it goes the other way.

What?

It goes the other way.

You go like, there's an injustice.

This guy doesn't deserve her.

And I hate this guy.

And I think those eighth graders, they were like, fuck this kid.

He's got a stupid haircut and it's Chuck Taylor's and all this stuff.

And fucking side.

And so, yeah, it's kind of started then where it's like, if you were my age, you liked me.

And if if you're older than me, you fucking hated me.

And I had to deal with it nonstop.

And then I did really well all through junior high.

I fucking is the seventh grade is the best year of my life, period, hands down.

And then I got into ninth grade and I was 6'3, 149, huge nose.

My brother now was in a phase where he had a perm.

So I had a perm.

So I had a perm on top.

Fucking straight water falling back way too long, a huge nose, 149, new school, didn't have cool enough clothes.

It was was a nose dive from junior high.

And I crawled my way back out in 11th grade.

I miss.

I miss.

Did you kill in high school?

Were you

the girls like you?

Yeah.

They did.

Yeah,

I was always cool as shit.

It wasn't until I got...

I had two.

Did you have a low point?

Because I think those are good.

No.

So I had, well, no, but I never, but I was really bad at sex.

And so the first time.

Oh, you came too fast?

Yeah, way too fast.

Yeah, it's hard.

I was really good at like

when heavy petting.

Oh.

I bet there's chicks that still remember it.

I was really good.

And I, that dude, don't fuck him.

It'll be over the second it starts.

But if you can get into some heavy petting, do not miss out on that.

I was good sixth, seventh, eighth.

I mean, I remember getting, I remember getting,

there were girls that I was like, can you imagine being the guy that gets to play with their boobs?

Yeah.

And then I got that girl and I went, so wait, I will get to be that guy.

And then I was good.

And when I got to college, first week, first day.

From the Rolling Stones article, it seems to me like you had about the best college experience anyone's ever had in America.

I had the best college experience anyone's ever had.

And today I get on a plane

and I go down to be the grand marshal of my college

homecoming parade.

Yeah.

Is that the one Burt Reynolds went to?

Yeah, yeah.

Burt Reynolds and me.

Yeah.

I'm thinking about pulling.

I'm a big Burt Reynolds fan.

I'm the number one.

I know.

I have a little baby.

I have one of his neckties.

Oh, you do?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm a fucking huge Burt Reynolds fan.

You know, I got to do a movie.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

Without a paddle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

All I did is go every lunch, go to his trailer, eat with him, just get stories out of him.

So many jealousies.

He was so jealous.

I really am jealous.

That's the thing you should be jealous of.

Without a fucking doubt.

He's fucking, he was, he was, he was the bandit.

He was everything you wanted him to be.

And he was so generous and nice.

And he's just, he was a sweetheart.

Like, I had brought a Gator poster to have him sign, and I had brought a Smoking the Bandit poster to have him sign.

And then while I was there, he found a couple more posters, and he just put them in my trailer for me.

And he also loved my girlfriend, Bree.

So he gave her the picture of him naked on the thing.

And

he wrote, This is when I was young and cute like Dax

to Bree.

We both just stared at that fucking.

That is an absolute gift.

That man

defined everything for us in Florida.

In Florida, because he was from Florida,

played at Florida State.

He owned the Bandits, which were our USFL team in Tampa.

He was a legend.

I mean, he was a fucking legend.

And that's the one I got met Dolly Parton and I said, you know.

She goes, I know a Bert.

And I said, yeah, I know.

I said, you know, I'm obsessed with that.

And she goes, yeah.

She goes, you want to meet him?

I said, I would love to meet him.

And Dolly Parton goes, well, you better hurry up.

He's going going to be dead soon.

And I was like,

okay.

Can we go now?

Can we go now?

I think I'm going to win this.

I'll go.

I'm free.

Is that what you're saying?

No, Burt Reynolds is a fucking goddamn legend.

Oh, yeah.

What a start.

Yeah.

What was I asking you right before that?

Oh, girls.

So it wasn't when I got to college, my first,

I hooked up five times the first five days.

Every night was with a new chick.

And on the sixth day, I met this girl that I ended up dating like for four and a half years, five years.

I have the same problem.

Yeah, and I'm a serious girl.

You fall in love.

Yeah, I fall in love.

Didn't have sex with those girls, hooked up with them, met this girl, had sex with her, dated her for five years.

Can I ask you something, please?

Do you just didn't know of this?

By the way, which I didn't know of this,

but did you ever figure out you could just jerk off a little bit before?

I found that out late.

Yeah, me too.

I found that out really late.

By the way, half the reason I loved drinking.

Half the appeal was like, oh, when I'm hammered, I can actually stay in the saddle for a while.

Oh, well, now I'm having a problem with it, especially with testosterone.

There's times

I've never gotten to a place where I'm like, or where my wife's like, just go to sleep.

And I'm like, no, it'll happen.

It'll happen.

I swear to God.

Like, I, I, uh, but yeah, but I, I identify with what you say about, like, I was such a romantic that, like, I, every girl, I remember just longing for,

longing for chicks.

I used to watch Party of Five and my stomach ached because I was so in love with Nev Campbell.

I'm like, I can't believe I'm not going to be able to marry her and be in love with her.

She's shh.

I mean, dude,

I was on a play next to,

because you say Nev Campbell, the girl that made out with Nev Campbell in Wild Things.

Oh, right, right.

Charlie Sheen's ex-wife, Denise Richards.

Good job, Denise Richards.

Mother.

Fucker.

You are.

When I was a kid, I would look at Vogue magazines and I would feel depression.

that I would never date that girl.

Right.

It was heartbreaking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I agree.

I mean, it would kill me.

Yeah.

And then I remember when you were on, when you were on MTV, the Cribs was really big at the time.

Oh, I loved it.

And I would feel the same depression when I'd see people having a private island and I'd go, I'll never have a private island.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Awfully loser.

Yeah.

I mean, I had no plans of anything.

Punked would be, punked was like, was like the most accessible thing to all of us at that time because it, because I knew people that had done it.

Like, you know, who's on Punked?

Daniel Tosh.

Oh, right.

And that guy, so over the years, a few people have hated me.

He's one of them.

Like, he would, again, I would hear about it.

It's like he would do a whole thing on his show about how much he hated me.

You know why he hated you?

I don't.

Oh, I mean, I mean,

you know, I love you.

You know, I love you, Daniel.

You know, I love you.

Daniel Tosh always wanted to be an actor.

Like, he really wanted to be an actor.

I love you, Daniel.

I love you.

He's had a fantastic career simply as a stand-up comedian and as a television host and is now as a podcaster.

Once again, he got into podcasting extremely late and he's killing it.

Oh, good for him.

Yeah, but he, I'm sure he witnessed, and by the way, his best friend booked punked.

Okay.

His best friend booked punked.

Yeah.

So I'm certain he saw you jump in the movie because, you know, he's.

Yeah, another thing, Artie Lang had auditioned to be Frito in Idiocracy.

And I'm like a huge fan of Artie Lang and I love Stern.

And I'm like listening to Stern and all of a sudden he's just fucking blasting me because I feel like I feel so fucking horrible that I ever said anything.

You shouldn't.

You shouldn't.

I don't.

Because

at all I fucking because for real I honestly was talking out of a place of like he'll never hear this oh and it and it and and like going like I'm talking bullshitting with my friend about ultimately what was happening with podcasting at the time yeah you were the spokesperson of it but like I said you have to know this by now I was a huge fan well not yet I think I've seen all of your fucking

makes me so fucking happy idiocracy is like What's crazy to me is it didn't do well in theaters.

Oh my God, I made $180,000.

I had not not run into somebody that had seen that movie for the full six years after it came out.

I never ran into a single person who'd ever seen it.

I was like, I did a movie like in a vacuum or something.

And then

now that is the movie that I will most get recognized.

By far.

It's crazy.

I've never had an experience like that where it just went like this.

That's insane.

Yeah.

I think I was under the impression the same things would happen for chips.

I've seen it twice.

I did have a moment and I have a whole theory on it, but yeah, it came out.

It made what we spent.

It was not the hit I wanted.

And then like two years ago, whenever Maverick came out, right after Maverick came out, out of nowhere,

one of my best friends who produced it, Panay, he calls me and goes, dude, go on Netflix.

Chips is somehow like the 10th most watched movie.

And then for like three or four weeks, it just climbed and it got to number two.

And it was just there for a long time.

I was like, wow, that's very unexpected.

I had accepted no one was ever going to see that.

But my explanation is like, did you see Maverick?

Of course.

Oh my God.

I saw it.

I went and saw it again two days later and IMAX, I brought my daughter.

She was like, oh my God, I've never seen a movie like this.

I'm like, yeah, this is how movies used to be.

This is incredible.

Fuck yeah.

It reminded everyone like, oh, it's fun to go party in a movie and have a blast.

And chips is just partying.

Just a fun fucking movie.

That's right.

That's it.

Yep.

That's it.

Just a fun fucking movie.

Yeah.

If you're mad that it's a remake, okay, great.

If you're mad, you know, there's a lot of reasons to be mad at it.

But yeah, it's just a fucking party.

We're not taking ourselves terribly seriously.

It's just fun.

And I think Maverick kind of pushed that into happening somehow.

Yeah, I hope.

I mean,

I don't know what's happening with this business right now.

I don't know if we're ever going to get back to making $25 million comedies.

That make $100 million.

Yeah, I don't know if that's going to happen in theaters.

And I think.

Can I admit one thing to you, though?

Because I couldn't relate more.

So my dude was Vince Vaughn.

Like, I he was all our dudes.

Fuck.

I remember seeing him.

He talked like him for a period of time.

Of course.

Tried.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fuck it.

I saw Wedding Crashers at the AMC 7.

I had been an, you know, an unemployed actor for eight years, and I saw him in Crashers, and I go, hmm.

Well, that's exactly what I was hoping I could do.

And I can't do it that good.

And he already did it.

And basically, it's over.

Like, I left that movie going, there's no no spot for me in this because the thing I wanted to do is being done better by this guy, Vince Vaughn.

So I was so obsessed with him.

And all I did was gossip about him for like 10 years.

I would fucking gossip about him.

I talked to people, random people.

I'm like, isn't it weird he's never had a famous girlfriend?

Like, you're Vince Vaughn.

When you have a famous girlfriend, that's a little weird, isn't it?

Think about that.

Who's not going to have a famous girlfriend if they have the opportunity?

I just, because I'm so overwhelmed with like jealousy and I'm certain he's better than me and fear.

And so I just, this guy I loved,

I loved this guy.

I would jump in front of a train to keep his career going.

And I would just trash talk him because I was so intimidated by him.

Vince Vaughn is the reason, is one of the reasons I'm trying to get over getting impressed by celebrity because he came to our vodka launch in Vegas.

And we had a big party.

We did a show with MGM, Green Garden Arena.

Everyone came over.

Vince Vaughan's there.

And I'm like, yo.

I was like, someone introduced me to Vince Vaughan.

And they're like, Bert, this is Vince.

I was like, dude, I got to tell you, I'm such a fan.

It's such an honor to meet you.

And he just leans down and he goes, we've already met, baby.

And I was like, oh, fuck.

Wow.

I was like, wait, so I met you and I forgot.

And then I was like, oh, yeah, I met you with, I know your sister.

Like, I met your sister.

God damn it.

And then I was like, oh, I did a project with you.

I had a fucking movie.

I was like, Fat Astronauts is with you.

Oh, fuck me.

I was like, God damn it.

I'm done.

I was like, I'm fucking done with celebrity.

This sucks.

Oh, that's a bummer.

yeah and he's and he but the worst part is whatever he said i don't know if he said the word baby just i'll put that in there for my own little commitment

up the worst is he leaned down to tell me that because he's 6'7 well that's leaning down to say we've met you're already intimidated by him from what he can do on screen and then for people who've yeah not been around him he is a physical phenotype he's a big motherfucker he was just on the show i don't know a couple months ago to do bad monkey press and we're in a photo together and i i look like a i look i like look i'm like five eight i just look like a little guy he's a fucking man and he's so fucking handsome in real life it's impossible he's got good skin yeah yeah yeah he's a fucking he's the gorgeous and i love funny i used to love uh hearing stories about him getting in fights at like barney's beanery yeah he was that five

you throw drinks at people sorry vince i i don't know vince this is but see this is what this is what i do is i talk wild shit and then one day i have the opportunity to sit down with that person and go, hey, Doc Shepard, I'm so sorry.

I got to tell you, the fighting aspect of his life, because I would read, like, he'd be in details.

I'd read it.

All the interviews were at bars.

I'm like, this dude is doing everything right.

I would go to the bars he went to.

So hopefully that one time I can just see him.

I can jump into him.

Yeah, I never saw him out in the field.

But when I interviewed him, all I wanted to talk about was fighting.

And I knew he's just, that's not what he wants to talk about.

And I just maybe like poked at it for a second.

And I was like, yeah, he doesn't want to go down this road with me and tell fight stories.

He's smart enough to not be out there telling fight stories.

Do you have a movie pitch for you and Vince Vaughan to star in?

You know, I wrote something crazy enough called Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money off the Warren Z Vaughn song.

Yeah.

About my last week of

musical taste.

Thank you.

My last week of drinking, which I just told you about, which was in Kauai, the hysterical part of that trip was I was with a buddy from Detroit, and before we got there, we booked all kinds of stuff.

We had a snorkeling trip, we had a zipline trip, we had an off-roading trip, we had a Zodiac boat tour around the Nepali Coast, but we were getting so annihilated and on so many drugs.

But we kept showing up at these appointments, so we would be on a zip line tour throwing up off the side of the zip line.

My buddy threw up in his mask, snorkeling.

We fucking, this Conopoly Coast Zodiac tour just fucking bouncing and we're so wrung out and so i wrote a whole script about it and um i it got to him and he was like i love this i want to play one of these guys so there was a little moment around chips when i thought like okay this is all i'm going to do i'm going to write and direct that he was going to do it and i was going to get to do it with him um and then that never happened

But yeah, do I have a dream of acting with him?

Yeah.

And when you asked, do I want to act?

I don't.

But I just interviewed Bill Lawrence and he said, I really want you to come season two, Bad Monkey.

And I go, well, if I could be in a scene with Vince Vaughn, I'm there.

And you don't have to pay me.

And yeah, I still would very much love to do that

to get blown off the screen by my idol.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

I just got chill bumps.

Dax,

I want to thank you for doing this.

Oh, yeah.

This is so fun.

You're cool as shit, man.

I think you're wonderful.

I follow you on Instagram, watch all your shit.

I follow you on Instagram.

It's so funny.

We were on set and we're bullshitting yesterday.

And I was like, I was like, yeah, I'm doing a podcast with Dax Shepard.

And someone was was like, fucking deep dove you.

It was my agent.

Are you UTA?

WME.

Okay.

They were like, dude, he's the fucking man.

Halloween.

Halloween is like, he goes fucking ham.

He puts, he's like loading up the kids.

And I was like, and they're like, he's a great fucking dad.

And I was like, and I'm sitting here listening to all these people talk about you.

And I was like, man,

Dak should be lucky enough to just, I almost recorded it and gave it to you to go, like, this is what people say about you behind your back.

It was so positive.

That's really nice.

Are you good at receiving that stuff?

I have this paradox of like, all I want is approval.

All I want is approval.

All I want is approval.

I'm so addicted to it.

And then when I receive it, I'm not good at receiving it.

I go like, oh,

you're a fraud.

You fooled these people.

You're a shitty daddy.

You're a terrible actor and a terrible podcast host.

And somehow you're not.

Are you talking to me?

Me, me, me, me, me.

I heard that.

And I was like, I was like, no,

you're right.

I mean, we don't say that out loud.

No, no, no.

That's my internal fucking monologue.

I'm like, okay, I got the thing I wanted.

But I don't believe it.

So I've fooled somebody.

All right.

We're going to exchange numbers.

I'm going to text you pictures of motorcycles that I'm looking at.

Perfect.

And the fact that we both have buses in our driveway is just.

You can drive yours, though.

I do drive mine.

In fact,

I don't want anyone.

I'll tell you, I bought the bus.

I'm sorry.

You're trying to land the plane.

I'm going to, I'm going to get out of your way.

But.

Hey, someone make me a drink downstairs.

I need one for the car.

I bought this tour bus.

Yes.

And I was like, okay, this is going to be great.

I'm going to rent it to sets,

right?

And then I'll be able to write it off because it's now a business.

I got this whole thing figured out.

I know how this is going to happen.

Keep going.

Yeah.

So Kristen, right after we get the bus, she goes to work on a show.

I can't remember what show.

And she said,

hey, I gave your email to the head of Transpo so they can come pick up the bus.

And I was like, I don't want fucking head of transpo coming and driving my bus.

And then they're going to drive it all over the city.

And I don't know how they're going to park it.

And all of a sudden, I go, I don't want to do this.

I just want to have the bus for me.

Why do I got to try to figure out how to make money on every fucking thing I do?

And no, no, I don't want anyone to drive it.

So, no, no, I've never ended up renting it out to anybody, and I'm not going to.

That was the business move.

And then I brought it in.

I showed it to Gavin Rossdale.

I was like, this is my bus.

And I mean, I wish I knew the code to it.

I was code to it.

I don't know the code to mine either, by the way.

And he was like, dude, this is badass.

Can I rent this out?

And I was like, no.

Right.

All my stuff's here.

That's my bedroom.

My favorite things.

I put my used Zins over here.

Yes.

Yes.

It's your bedroom on weekends.

Dude, it's my home.

Yeah.

If my wife leaves me, that's where I'll go.

Yeah.

That's a good home for a man that's been left by his wife.

Well and Jennings style.

Just fucking keep going.

We'll just go to all the cities she'll never go to.

New Orleans, Key West, fucking all the places.

Key West is a blast.

I went there last year for, yeah.

What a party that place is.

All right.

I'm going to Tallahassee, Dax.

Yes.

Congratulations on all your success.

Congratulations on an amazing podcast.

If everyone hasn't, you should go.

It's Armchair Expert.

It's fucking awesome.

And the thing I love about you is you are a smart dude.

You've been in therapy.

You got a solid wife who's steering the ship, but you're still broken like all of us.

And you still say fucked up shit.

And I want you to know that anytime anyone ever comes out you for anything you say where you sit and go, maybe I shouldn't have say

at least I made Bert happy.

Okay, good, good, good.

Because

on your team,

I fucking love you, man.

Oh, thank you, brother.

This is awesome.

Thank you so much, man.

Bert and Tom, Tom and Bert.

One goes topless while the other wears a shirt.

Tom tells stories, and Bert's the machine.

There's not a chance in hell that they'll keep it clean.

Here's what we call two bears, one cave.