Jerrod Carmichael Returns

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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.

I'm Dak Shepard, joined by Monica Padman.

Hi.

Hello.

We have a returning guest today, Gerard Carmichael.

One of our favorite first-time appearances.

Yes.

And

this one delivers as well.

Since then, he popped up in Poor Things, which was so fun.

Yes.

On the count of three, Gerard Carmichael Rothaniel.

We were talking about that with him last time.

And Gerard and Gerard Carmichael Reality Show.

And of course, the Carmichael Show.

He has a new comedy special out now on Max called Don't Be Gay.

We love Gerard.

We love Gerard.

He's so easy to talk to.

He goes deep.

He's a special MFer.

Yeah.

Please enjoy Gerard Carmichael.

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Can I do some coffee?

Is that an insane request?

I haven't had coffee in a couple days and I was afraid it was going to make me like so jittery.

But I'd like something warm.

How could you have not had coffee in a couple days because that tells me you do drink it but also you might not drink it for two days that's a very weird relationship yeah yeah yeah I kind of had a relationship with a lot of stuff like I stopped smoking weed two years ago just on a whim

out of nowhere yeah I was in Paris and I was like I don't want this anymore I just stopped

wow

but your coffee every day oh several and we just had a doctor on who told us thank God yeah he said it's great for us it's one of the great things you can do for yourself everything else was bad everything else you consume to an a certain extent was a negative marker but this was a positive one so we always drink one in between record like we'll have one after sure we try to do several i have a tea in the my but monica's new to it and you guys are the same age so this is interesting you just turned 38 i just turned 38 april april yeah yeah you're 38.

i'm about to turn 38.

how old are you i'm 50.

oh sweet i'm 50.

you're like hollywood vitamin drip in the gym you're like the new 50 50 not the 50 of old days.

Yes, yes.

My father at 50 and I are much different scenarios.

But what is a real weakness in my routine is the face, which you just mentioned.

I don't ever get facials.

I probably got to get on that because the face is starting to wear a little bit like a catcher's glove.

You don't want to go crazy on things, especially if you want to continue to act and stuff like that.

Yeah, don't want to look insane.

It's unfortunate because acting is about expression and people's faces are not moving.

Yeah.

A lot of folks' face are on hiatus during the performance.

Yeah, yeah.

It's really bad.

Yeah.

It's not supposed to happen.

Well, when I went to get Botox, my guy said, I'm going to give you the, I forget, maybe it was like the actor's dose.

Oh, it has a name.

He had a name for it so that, can you see?

Yeah, what if he's like, do you want Emmy, BAFTA, or Academy Award?

That's the dose.

Egot.

I got to go no dose for Egot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, you look great.

Thanks.

But what inspired, I missed that episode.

What inspired

me getting you?

You've missed a lot of episodes if you missed that.

Yeah, sure.

Because I probably talk about it a lot.

So, actually, I didn't go in there to get Botox.

I went in there to get chin filler.

Congratulations, which turned out lovely.

She feels really good.

Okay.

I've now had two rounds of chin filler.

Okay.

What does that do?

Forgive me.

No, no, it's.

You're acting like you don't know.

You know all this stuff.

No, what I really know about is like what Michael Jackson did.

Because Michael Jackson was the extreme case.

Nuclear option.

Michael Jackson had a tattoo of a hairline.

Like it was a black tattoo.

He had pink tattooed lips.

He got the cleft in his chin.

Yeah, adorable.

He got like the nose.

And am I wrong?

The nose ultimately came off entirely.

If you read the autopsy.

Which I have.

Yeah, of course.

Of course.

Yeah, they said that he was at the edge of the bed.

His wig had fallen off and it was only sparse pieces of hair and that his nose was not there.

Really pushed to an extreme.

Yeah, but he pushed everything to an extreme.

Yeah, yeah.

Part of his whole being.

I do love that man so much.

Yeah.

I want you to land that plane and then I want to ask about Mike Joe.

This is so silly.

But okay, so I hate my neck.

So I went to a place.

You might think it's about the chin.

It's not about the chin.

Exactly.

I hate my neck.

And so I was like, I want to get this thing called kybella, which basically freezes the fat around your neck.

So I went to go do that.

And they were like, oh, you actually don't have any.

It looks like that because your chin is so small.

They didn't use the word weak.

I feel like a man, they would have said weak.

And really, got chin is weak.

Yeah, like, oh, fuck, I look weak.

I'm going to say something that's going to overstep.

Say, yeah.

I would like for you not to change.

Well, I think that's very sweet.

Only because the first time I was here, you were my big takeaway.

I went back being like, oh, I love Monica.

She's great.

You're great too, but like, I really have a memory of you and your face and your smile, and all of of it comes with it.

Is it different?

No, no, no.

And this will update the memory.

Oh, no.

No, no, but I'm saying I selfishly don't want you to change because I think you're beautiful and great.

And not in the cliche, but just that you're your own thing.

I really needed to hear that.

Did you today?

I mean that because like really I left being like Monica's great.

I like really fall in love with well the feeling's mutual me especially.

I've been like, that's my favorite, one of my favorites.

Okay, and Dax as well.

No, in all transparency, I got my teeth fixed.

That was my first major purchase.

Veneers?

No, they redid the whole thing.

Page one rewrite.

Yeah, for the front row.

And I did it in between seasons.

Really quick, for the front row, implying you might have other rows.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The front row.

The front row, the visible seat.

The back shark teeth are still fucked up.

I did it between season one and season two.

I had a sitcom on NBC and I changed it.

And then I checked Twitter.

Just like, oh, no, I see though.

Like, people just calling it out.

Yeah, that's brave to go mid-series.

Yeah, yeah, mid-series.

Yeah, I almost wish you did a mid-episode.

I know.

I needed the money from season one to do it for season two.

We all have a thing, so that is cool.

I'm just saying, specifically for you.

You're so memorable and great.

Can I suggest something though that feels transparent to me, which is that's not a shocker to me that you were attracted to her.

Yeah.

Because I think you see in her immediately someone who is also hiding.

Really?

Tell me more about this.

Well, hiding,

hiding from her.

Hiding in plain sight.

Yeah, hiding in plain sight because I grew up in Georgia and I hated being brown so much.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I was constantly trying to assimilate into white girls.

She outwited the white girls.

She's purely normal.

She's white.

Actually, I mean, not to like jump so far ahead, but here we are.

You're special.

We'll get to it.

But when I watched it, this new one, I was like, I really understand

what he's.

doing

because I'm the same.

Now, I'm like, I'm not going to assimilate.

I'm not going to do just what you want me to do because you're the hegemonic group.

I'm now swung so far on the other side that I feel like no one's going to put me in that box again.

And I feel like you have that as well.

Yeah, trying to compete.

You know, the hard thing for me, I'm sure you felt this way.

It's the burden of self-awareness, being aware of how you sound versus how someone else sounds, how you move, what you like, what your interests are versus someone else being black, you're tall.

This isn't your world.

You have to be aware of yourself and you're kind of representing a lot of other people in all of your actions.

So that's a lot to put on a person, you know, on a child and a lot to carry, like a lack of freedom.

Yes.

I found myself recently being jealous.

Certain people are very free and I get a little jealous of that.

I want to be free.

Yeah, but you never had the luxury of doing so.

Yeah.

I want to make a prediction guess, which is, okay, so when Bendit like Beckham came out for Monica, you would imagine from the outside, an outsider like me would go like, Oh, she must have loved that.

There's an Indian girl in a movie that's popular, and this will help people accept me.

And she was like, Get that fucking movie out of the theater.

I don't want anyone to be talking about Indian stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I'm wondering when you were in your hiding phase and broke back comes up.

You might think, oh, I was nowhere near broke back.

Right, where you're like, get that movie the fuck out of the conversation.

Well, because I was also doing what the other boys were doing.

I was mocking gay guys.

Exactly.

As you say, throwing grenades in other directions.

Yeah, look over there.

Like, I'm with y'all.

I wouldn't have had like a close gay friend out of fear of association.

100%.

She didn't want to be with any of the other animals.

Yeah, like, I'm not that.

Yeah.

There's just so much.

I'm not that.

I'm you.

I'm you.

I'm you.

I'm you.

And then at some point, you get really good at it.

I mean, now I think it's good, but over the past 10 years, there's been a real reconciliation for me about who am I for real?

Because

I spent so long doing that that that's kind of real, right?

Like I am very white in a lot of ways.

I say that about my own accent.

In eighth grade, I changed my accent because I heard Meryl Streep say an actor shouldn't have a distinct accent.

And so I tried to get rid of my accent.

And I still sound southern, I think, in certain words, but my speech has changed completely.

I look at old home videos and I sound nothing like how I sounded as a child.

Is this put on?

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, freaky.

Where is the line and you do the thing and then it changes you and you like some of the stuff, but then you you have some weird shame about liking stuff.

Who did you model yourself after?

Nicholas Cage.

What I was so attracted to is the thing we're all talking about, which is this is seemingly a guy who's got zero fear about being as weird as he wants to be.

And he somehow brought everyone along with him.

He's a star of these movies, but he's fucking out there.

Every performance is like, this guy's doing stuff that no one's doing.

So I was just like, I feel like a weirdo.

I feel like an outsider.

He felt very punk rock and not one of the dudes in the lockers in high school.

I was like, okay, that's my dude.

That's interesting.

Who are you?

Who are you trying to?

That's the problem.

I wanted to be Natalie Portman.

Or Jennifer Aniston.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When really I should have been wanting to be like Lisa Kudra, not look-wise, but that's more me actually, like funny and playful and that type of thing.

But I didn't want that.

I wanted to be the ingenue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so how does that affect?

Was that in appearance?

Was it in voice?

Because I'll tell you.

So Jay-Z's my idol.

Yeah, we love

this.

And my accent is from emulating Jay-Z.

I have an older brother who has been listening to Jay-Z since.

And he's seven years older than you, right?

Yeah, seven, eight.

Seven to ten years old.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He was born in 78.

I was born in 87.

And Love Jay-Z was an early adopter of Jay-Z in North Carolina back when Reasonable Doubt was on priority records.

And I learned all Jay-Z lyrics.

I'm so thankful to have a Jay-Z as a role model.

And I would adapt my clothing, my look.

And I was a teenager during the age of good costume because people had clothing lines and rocker wear and sean john i could put that on which i liked i wanted to be cool but i could sound like jay-z and i have a big brother so i have someone to mimic in the house so i could wear his cologne and literally wear his clothes sound like him and adopt his interests he was test running for you like oh that's cool so i'll just went to the same school so even some teachers remember my brother where was he at on the social hierarchy what niche was he in my brother was pretty cool my brother was an athlete all the kids in the neighborhood loved him.

People came to our house.

My brother is pretty cool.

My father is really cool, too.

That was kind of a burden.

My family's like really cool, very well-liked people.

Yeah, men.

It was almost like being black hood Barrymores or something.

I would say it's a double whammy because you have this secret that's going to make you not a man.

And then on top of it, the measuring stick is quite high in the house.

You got to be kind of an elder.

You got to be like a leader.

You got to be cool, whatever that means.

Yeah, if you had like kind of a geeky accountant, dad, you would have been like, yeah, I'm not going to live up to this.

Or I could like,

I might blow by him in the cool.

My dad's cool.

And reminded us he was cool.

Told stories of fights he got in,

all the girls he got.

Oh, I'd love to have a coffee with him.

Yeah, no, he's great.

And I actually just had a recent thing because I was going back when I made a reality show and I was looking at all these old photos and videos and stuff.

my parents and I'm like, oh, my parents were hot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My mom's gorgeous.

She was always so religious or did it increase over time?

I saw a change to like more and more.

Also, now I'm at this place where I understand the need for.

I think she's like really pushed in the arms of God, the man, from other men in her life, from like her father, my dad, needing just a man that she could

trust and rely on.

And so I have more understanding for my mother now.

pushed her into that, but gorgeous.

And didn't think she was gorgeous because she was dark skinned, wanted lighter skin because that was a part of what she would would say, like the look, and didn't appreciate how truly beautiful she was and is.

Love, my parents were hot.

Very hot.

Okay, now, so back to Michael.

Yeah, Michael Jackson.

When I'm watching your stand-up specials, Rothaniel and then now don't be gay.

I deeply see people that are holding a big secret.

I know the agony of it.

And I have a lot of compassion for people, even if I have total judgment of what they did.

I look at Michael Jackson and as someone who was molested and I look at the age of these kids, I'm like, it is fucking as dark as it possibly can get.

And also, what a miserable experience on planet Earth to be living with that predilection.

I can also see the suffering, and I have compassion for the suffering.

Michael is kind of a lesson, especially for now,

where...

Like Michael Jackson is absolutely a pedophile.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, I'm not one of those like apologists.

He was a kid, but he wasn't, though.

No, no, because it's important to hold complexity is lost now.

You don't have to say he was not in order to say, Don't stop till you get another greatest musician of all time.

Yeah, yeah, both can be true.

And it's complex, and life is full of these complexities sometimes.

Like, somebody should write a children's book about Michael Jackson, yeah, about duality, yeah, yeah, like the king who was a monster.

Because I see that a lot, and even in my own life, I'm not even trying to just be accusatory, but it's easy to separate things into good and evil and go, okay, well, this person's good, and this person's evil.

And Michael Jackson was the best performer, an incredible musician.

You watch that dock, the most important night in history or whatever that dock was.

Oh, I didn't see that.

You have to.

I got to watch it.

I just hate We Are the World.

Yes, I do.

I hate that song.

Hated it.

I hate that song.

It's too many voices.

I hated it and I was like, this is too sacrum and soft and it's not for me.

When I was a kid, I hated it.

But what you will love about it.

Yeah, I like to see him work.

You have to.

Because you're seeing incredible people.

Daryl Hall's first attempt at this hard thing.

One take, and Quincy's like, yeah, perfect.

Moving on.

You have perfect pitch.

Great.

And then Lionel Ritchie at his height of his powers and Stevie Wonder and to see what Stevie Wonder can do with Bob Dylan's voice.

It's

wild.

And then Michael Jackson steps up and starts singing.

And you go, oh my God, even in this room.

No, he's just,

yeah.

Quincy Jones is so cool because Quincy...

pulled people together.

There's this Donna Summer song called State of Independence.

In the background of the song, there's just a chorus of people going, Shababadi, Shababada.

There's a making of video on YouTube where Quincy Jones brings in Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder,

Michael McDonald.

All these people are just singing backing vocals.

It's incredible.

I think uncredited backing vocals, but Quincy Jones is so brilliant.

He's so good.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But no, Michael Jackson is just an example of a lot of things.

I'm of that mindset because, like, Martin Luther King has taken on the kind of Christ-like role of morality for the black community.

Yeah, he's a DND now.

Yeah, and there is an effort by people to either suppress.

I mean, he's one of the greatest, most powerful, courageous men in history.

Yeah.

And yet he also was a man.

He was in orgies.

Obviously, I have a thing for revealing secrets.

So who am I to reveal his secrets?

But at the same time, what I think is important to learn is that he was a man.

who made mistakes.

Yeah.

Or maybe not even mistakes, followed impulses, made choices.

You You might not like those choices.

Yeah, you might not like those choices, but he still is a great person and reached the potential that was excellent, not despite, but also in some ways because of his imperfections, if you want to call them that.

I think it's important to celebrate both in a person.

Yes, I will be the first to say there seems to be a total lack of

acceptance.

There's a naivete, like a chosen naivete, to think you're going to get exactly what you want, and it's going to be in the package you want it.

The Picasso is going to look how you want it to look, and he's going to have acted the way you want it.

And I always bring this up, but like, we don't do that in science.

If you come up with a theory of relativity, we don't give a fuck what you did.

We're going to use that because it benefits us.

But we don't seem to think the benefit of the art that we need to make that distinction.

And also,

I am someone who's done tons of shady things.

List all of them right now.

No,

it would be three, four hours.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm incentivized for you to have that worldview.

I want you to accept people as flawed because I'm really flawed.

I would benefit from that.

Like when you self-evaluate, do you bring that in?

It's like, yeah, and I'm also a creative motherfucker who can manipulate a lot of stuff.

And am I just paving the way for me to be exactly who I want to be?

A lot of artists were these people who had a strong image of themselves and really created their own lives.

Now, I think what's difficult is that the line between artist and audience is so blurred that everyone feels a part of the process and of the making and of the human being.

And so it's easy to forget that some of the best artists, the reason they are artists, is because they are so different from everybody else.

They are so different than everyone in their environment that you want to actually place them on the stage and observe them.

And like their art is their own observations about themselves and their lives.

That's part of the separation.

It's like, yeah, you wouldn't have done the bad things Michael Jackson did.

You also wouldn't have done the good things.

Right.

Exactly.

He was himself.

That's what we were interested in is how unique and novel the whole thing was.

Yeah.

I know what you're saying.

Like, are we incentivized for the world to accept flaws because we're very flawed?

But everyone is flawed.

No one doesn't have a secret.

I don't think, I really don't think.

Well, that's what I wonder.

My belief is that everyone is in the closet about something.

Yeah.

And that there is something that you may hold about yourself that you are ashamed of, that you would rather not tell the world, rather not show the world, and it's locked away inside.

And you try and keep that away.

Something that's influenced by your environment, your parents, your religion, your family, your wife, your children, your husband, whoever, that you feel is not right, some fraudulent, but really an unlovable part of ourselves that we lock away.

And that's what distances you from other people.

And it's also what can cause you to condemn other people.

I believe that most of what we're saying is always about ourselves.

The condemnation is a self-condemnation.

I always hate the people that are like me the very most.

Yeah, of course.

I'm always trying to understand what motivates me, what motivates certain behavior.

I recently made a reality show about it.

Like a lot of my stand-up is about these complicated areas because I find it interesting.

And really, My recent work is in response to the first, let's say even 30 years of my life where it was really really about secrecy and hiding certain things about myself and throwing grenades and those types of things and now i'm i want to be as introspective as i was guarded and with introspection you know it's complicated so the thing that i was relating to but could be totally projecting tell me is

i am quick to out myself i think in general because shame is such a huge motivator for me but i have a stubbornness that's almost more of a motivator right so I refuse to let you be in a position to shame me I will tell you everything and I will take that away from you and that's like weirdly my stubbornness right or my unwillingness to be controlled and so that line is sometimes blurry does that make sense where you feel like you're

being honest versus getting ahead of it yeah that in itself becomes a wall like that becomes your

mechanism

to not be seen like if i do anything that i think is worthy of being seen, A, I want to be acknowledged for it.

And then B, I tell myself it could be helpful and all these different things.

And that is all true.

And also there's some other motivation going on with me at all.

Yeah, that's why I'm just being in tune with like whatever the intention is, right?

Because there is a version of being a victim and lying prostrate.

And then that becomes your identity.

Nobody wants a puddle.

Yeah, right, right, right, right.

The introspection can hit a point.

You put on this identity that I hate to be taken advantage of, right?

Like that's one of Dax's identities.

So then, if you're like, oh, I figured it out, it's because I don't want to be taken advantage of because of my past.

Then you start seeing the world through that very specific lens.

And then that can be dangerous in itself because then it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yeah.

You want to be able to use it to calm yourself down, like, oh, this is that old thing.

Yeah.

And then you'd want to put it down to not define who you're going to be going forward.

Yeah.

And that's kind of tricky.

It's hard.

It is tricky.

I've been trying to let go.

I've been listening to this audiobook called Letting Go by David R.

Hawkins, and I really, really love it because it is such a complicated jumble of thoughts up here.

And I've been trying to like think less.

I want to apply thought to work, but I'd like to just in life take a fucking break.

Yeah, and be less judgmental about all the thoughts and just be and kind of operate with love.

I've been trying to do that more and more.

Peace really is the goal because you don't have to say anything.

You don't have to put anything out there.

I just want to exist with my friends and my family.

Yeah, so do you have a fear that it's anathetical to work and being productive?

I have that feeling sometimes where you see certain people later in their career, like their kumbaya years aren't as interesting.

Like, I want like Eminem on pills mad at his mom, sure,

recently cheated on, yeah, yeah.

You do want that, I think you just kind of offer something else.

My boyfriend loves aging artists, he loves writers like Philip Roth, who does his best work in his 50s, 60s, even into his 70s.

He loves Scott Walker.

He loves Bjork.

He loves Bjork.

And we just watched Cornucopia the film, and I took him to Italy to see her live.

I mean, he's seen her live five or six times.

She's offering what she's offering.

Going back to even Jay-Z as that example, because Jay-Z is one of the few rappers who has made aging graceful and interesting.

Because as a Jay-Z fan, the man who made Big Pimpin also made 444.

And that's very, very interesting because it's like okay you show me what you were dealing with and afraid of and angry about in your 20s and you showed me like the celebration in your 30s and 40s and now he's showing reconciliation with family in his 50s and that's so interesting there is something to offer because hopefully your audience will age yeah yeah exactly part of that is We are inclined to make art for teenagers because they are the loudest voice.

Yeah, you feel like if they're not on to you, then you're dead.

That's what makes me cool.

And that angst goes away.

It should, but it's replaced by something else that is interesting.

And I'd like to hear a wise person's take on how to be a good member of their family, how to exist in the world, political ideas.

There's a wealth of knowledge to be shared that isn't just breaking windows and throwing chairs and the angst.

Because if you're still that, that's why Jay-Z was cool.

Because there were rappers in their 40s still talking about about selling drugs and being in the club.

Don't you live in Calabasas?

Yeah, exactly.

You know what I mean?

It becomes inauthentic.

Yeah, well, but it's just not offering the best of themselves.

The best of yourself is something that you have been thinking about and can offer wisdom or an explanation of or an exploration of in your life.

That's your role as an artist.

It's lower stakes.

That's what I think of.

In a way, what I want for myself is contentment, acceptance.

To me, that's the highest stakes.

Those are the highest stakes.

Here's the thing: it's lower drama.

Teenage and early 20 drama is so sexy.

Because really, the threat is they're going to kill themselves.

They're going to kill someone else.

Yeah.

Kind of this threat of violence.

But I don't know, man.

I've had to like reveal something to my boyfriend and then eat dinner with him.

And that is

high drama.

That's insane.

Having conversations with my aging parents.

That's high stakes drama, too.

It just looks different.

You're right.

It's just earlier times is tumultuous breakups and getting fired and all these things.

And when you're young, love feels like it's insane.

And it's this rush and it's like this passion.

And you can go through a breakup every three months with the same person.

Yeah.

You're throwing stuff against the wall.

But then there is, I was actually just talking about the scene in Network.

where the producer fell in love with a younger producer and his wife found out about it.

And there's this beautiful scene.

The actress actually might have won the Oscar for she's on screen for like four minutes.

Am I supposed to play the part of the doting wife while you pursue your winter passion?

High drama for like these people that have spent 40 years together.

I look at my parents, the stakes of my parents' marriage secrets and things like that that we held on to my father for 40 years.

Glorify that.

That's insane.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's the parts that I think people are afraid.

to hear about or see.

But three-month breakup, everyone can sort of relate and like, oh, that's cute.

You barely cared about this person.

Exactly.

They didn't even meet your mom.

The stakes are actually low.

That's why we can watch it and not feel scared.

When you watch that, and you're like, Oh my god, a 40-year relationship that could end in a second, or pull one thread, and the whole thing's gone.

That's so scary.

And Richer, my parents are still together because they have such a history, and like she's invested so much time in this person.

And now, my father is Parkinson's, and she's like his caretaker.

Heavy, yeah, yeah, heavy.

Don't be gay is phenomenal.

I gotta say, of the people that are

seemingly being very honest about themselves, this is like a very much a high water market.

To be able to out yourself for all this stuff that people are going to judge, it's so impressive.

Yeah, because it's not shocking and that you're calling out.

You're not talking about other people.

You're talking about yourself.

Yeah, there's like pseudo self-deprecating and then there's like real self-deprecating.

And this was real.

The journey we're on, and this takes us to the last time we interviewed you, which is Rothaniel had just come out.

Hadn't won an Emmy yet, but it came out.

You're about to host SNL.

You end up in Poor Things, which I loved, by the way.

That was my favorite movie of the year.

It was so fun to see you in that.

Emma is incredible.

Yeah, she's a gangster.

Yeah.

And Chris Abbott was great in that too.

So the reality show hadn't aired yet when we talked to you.

Was I making it?

I'm trying to remember exactly the timing of it all.

It was almost three years ago to the day.

It was like May of 2020.

Wow.

Oh, so I wasn't making it yet.

I started making it around the time of the Emmys.

Okay, so you made that show, and in the special, you talk about having gone online immediately after.

Yeah.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert

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So, let me just hear what your hopes were for it, if any, and then how did that sync up with what the results were?

I was going through a lot of things in my life and also felt like documenting it was important because I just hadn't seen it and I wanted to do it for myself and put it out into the world.

It's funny because I opened up the special just talking about the response, reading things online, which is incredibly addictive.

It's difficult not to do that.

I haven't been doing it with this special.

Actually, for myself, I have to not do it to be able to

offer a better version of myself to the audience.

Yes.

Because good or bad, that's the thing that I've learned, just even like searching really nice comments and like really good things, which is hard because you get frozen into people's idea of yourself.

This is what they like about me.

Yeah.

It's like when you tell a good story, you go, oh, I got a good story.

I'll tell you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's how you get stuck.

I think it's really, really important for an artist, especially actors and comedians, any artist, not to do it because even the praise is not healthy.

It's bad too.

But also what didn't feel great, criticism, is devastating.

Yeah.

So you said on a talk show, I think it's both.

More true than it's not.

And also I thought, no, no, you go, every one of these actors, it's like, I never read anything about myself.

You're like, they're bullshit.

So I think that's both true.

Way more people read about themselves than they say they do.

How can you not?

Yes.

The world is talking about you and it's in your pocket.

I think a lot of us have learned not to.

So I also think a lot of people.

None of us don't.

No, no, here's the thing.

Everyone does.

You can get so burnt by it that you stop

that you have to.

Yeah, that you have to stop.

I stop because my feelings are hurt and I can't do it.

I don't want to make excuses for it.

I do believe what I said about even the praise because you can see it happening with children.

Like you tell a kid, you're a good boy, you're a good boy, and then they like do something bad and then all of a sudden that's how like shame builds because they're like oh I'm not living up to what I told I was there's that but don't get me wrong in moments where I've read and it's just been all glowing you know I'm like oh I think you can lie to yourself as someone in the public eyes putting out art you can say like well I should read it because maybe they have some constructive criticism for this show it's like oh maybe they'll say something that we should start implementing or we're doing wrong

it depends on what you're making making because that's for like McDonald's.

That's for like the corporate kind of thing.

If you are making an album that's about your life at this point, then the comments pushing you in either direction are relevant.

It's about you.

The thing that people will connect with is a deeply personal piece of work that you put out into the world.

It shouldn't be dictated.

It shouldn't be crowdsourced.

And I've seen this pattern play out a lot.

I remember seeing it with American Idol.

If people make you, they won't respect you.

Yeah.

If they built it, then it's like,

because they're like, I made it so I can take it away.

Yeah, you got an album because I voted.

Just as a viewer, as a listener, what I'm attracted to are confident pieces of art, things that are put out by people who it seems like it was inevitable.

They were going to do this regardless.

You can see the difference in the movie stars of old and the current movie stars.

It's people.

burdened with self-awareness.

You can't keep the crowd in your head and make something singular.

Yeah.

I've read beautiful messages of coming out and what it's meant, and people sharing things with their children.

That's what I'm saying, even that about being frozen.

It's like, okay, my next piece of work may not fit with this compliment.

It may actually contradict this compliment.

I may be in a different place in my life tomorrow, but I need to show that too.

And I may come back to this.

I don't know, but that's what I'm saying.

Just like inundating yourself with it.

Again, is that vestigial?

Are you permanently PTSD muscle memory, fearful that you're ultimately going to let people down?

Because you've been living for so long with this notion of, well, when you find out the real me,

you're going to walk.

I'm sure there's parts of that that is there, a fear of God's punishment, a fear of letting someone down, a fear of not being enough.

I think I'm trying to make things about that fear and about.

overcoming that fear.

That's definitely still there.

My boyfriend is from the suburbs and he definitely deals with somebody who's like from the hood that has hood paranoias.

Hypervigilance.

Yeah, paranoids of like not having money.

I'm terrified.

If you leave a plate out, I think that the place is going to be infested with roaches tomorrow.

I'm just like, I'm terrified.

It is traumatic.

Do you try to work on those things or are you like, that's me?

That's part of the letting go.

A friend of mine, I don't know if it's his quote or if he read it somewhere, but he says, What got you here won't get you there.

I like that.

And I really love that.

And Brene Brown obviously talks about like the walls that you build no longer serve you, especially once you hit your mid-30s.

It's like you start learning, oh, I don't need this armor anymore.

I need to get rid of it.

And so that's part of the letting go, trying to go, like, well, I'm here now and I'm

safe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The safety thing is everything, I think.

It's like, yeah, I'm constantly having to remind myself, as preposterous as this is, like, you're not 10.

There's no stepdad in the mix.

You don't need to be afraid of anyone.

I understand religious practice.

Now, I understand the need to wake up in the morning and reaffirm certain beliefs to remind yourself of something to like have some ground.

Yeah, some ground to stand up.

Wow, that was cool.

Yeah, yeah.

And what I really, really deeply relate to is you are having a professional peak while simultaneously having like a personal low.

And the anxiety you get when things are good.

I so relate.

I am at my worst if everything's great.

That was the big revelation that that I had recently.

Like, what if everything's okay?

Yeah.

That's such a scary thought.

What if any problems that arise, you're equipped to deal with them?

What if the person who says that they love me means it?

Yeah.

So what's next?

So for me, I think, oh, wow, what's on the other side probably of acknowledging all these things are good and everything's fine.

I might have to rewrite my story.

And that's probably the scariest part for me is like,

time to let all that go.

That story is over.

Do you think you're doing some of that with your stand-up?

This is me.

Here's everything.

And now it's gone.

And we can be on to the next thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, that was a thing going back to Jay-Z for the millionth time.

I'll never tire of it.

He would say, this is just what I'm feeling at the time.

But we live in a world that isn't conducive to that.

People are like, this is what you said in 2012.

This is what you said in this interview.

Now you're a hypocrite.

And there's no room for people to evolve.

At some point for ourselves,

we got to let that go too.

And especially not even to make this political left or right thing, but if we can learn something from Trump is that, wow, like a lot of things that would have torn a lot of people down, he just kept moving.

Yeah.

And it's like, man, whoever I agree with politically, I hope that they have that tenacity to just go.

They can get shot in the ear and keep moving.

Yeah, well, just go through the fire of criticism because I want that for someone that I believe in to like go through the fire of criticism and come out still stand firm in their beliefs and not be torn down it's very easy to do that and a lot of times that call comes from inside the house like you tear someone down before they can be great and what i don't want people to lose is curiosity and curiosity in other people you don't have to agree with someone to be curious about how they got to this place and why they're making the decisions that they're making well yeah we can't fix anything if we're not curious about how it happened in the first place so much of this is upriver stuff, and we need to know backstories.

We need to know what happened in order to fix it.

I think about even early days of Oprah.

Oprah was interesting and got a lot of shit during the time, even retroactively, it gets a lot of shit.

But like, Oprah was going to towns in the south and interviewing the Klan, having deep conversations with people that she disagreed with, people that hated her.

Yeah.

And that is missing.

And now everything's so insular.

So the bros talk to the bros and the intellects talk to the intellects.

It it is important to have conversations with people because now the criticism you get is like why are you platforming i know this person but it's like no but everybody's platforming we all platform trump we paid him attention oh yeah definitely sweet love or hate it is platforming the left was the only people more obsessed with them than the right yeah yeah yeah i mean weirdly i would want an intellect to sit down and have a con anyway oh i want to get political well i think it's interesting that you have that opinion because i do too and i always say i actually think think it's a very privileged person who says, well, you shouldn't be platforming or you shouldn't be talking to them because they're bad.

And it's like, well, I grew up having to talk to people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I would have zero people in my life if I hadn't done that.

So that's a privilege you had.

I feel that perspective too, where I feel like an outsider everywhere.

From North Carolina, I moved to LA and I'm just in environments that are completely different.

And in North Carolina, my high school really felt like an experiment.

I went to Robert B.

Glenn High School in Kernisville, North Carolina, that had people busting from the hood and from the projects and the suburbs and from rural areas.

I remember my classmate Don having a Confederate flag on a notebook.

These people that you're sitting next to in class, that you're talking to every day, I have actual like faces and voices to people that I may disagree with politically, but Don taught me a Kenny Chesney song.

I was like singing the good stuff that hasn't changed how I voted, you know, but it put a voice to it.

I think I have a sensitivity to the language of shutting people out.

It's because I fear being shut out.

I fear not being heard.

And so I have a sensitivity to that, even if you disagree.

Yeah, me too.

So there's a moment in the special where you're talking about how hard it is to say to your boyfriend, I'm sad, my feelings are hurt, to be vulnerable.

Your explanation is like, I can't say that because it's gay.

I talk about this a lot on here.

I'd be shocked shocked if a woman could understand

what the all-day pressure was all day long on a playground it was singularly about not being called gay or if yeah yeah that was it part of why i named the special that because like the number one rule that you're kind of taught is being a man because like being gay is being a woman exactly and it's so deep it is our deepest fear in that first 12 years of survival.

Yeah.

And the playground is where boys learn to create competition just to prove how much they're not their sisters sisters and their mother.

Yeah, yeah.

There's homophobia as a blanket term.

And it's like, you don't like gay people.

That's one thing.

And then I think there is this internal homophobia that you could not have not picked up.

By growing up in the 80s.

You don't like the vulnerability of what that means.

And I didn't like the vulnerability of that.

That was why it was my biggest fear.

Yeah.

There's a new season of couples therapy, which is incredible.

I don't know if you watch that show.

I love couples.

So Eli, Josh, and Elise, who created that show, they did reality show.

Oh, wow.

Who I love.

Edgeline, some of my best work.

I had seen the Weiner documentary directed by Joshua.

Oh my God,

and Eli edited it.

And I loved it.

And I'd always wanted to work with them.

And then they made Couples Therapy in the meantime.

Incredible.

I've gone to the set and watched it.

It's incredible.

Oh, my God.

We're obsessed.

They do excellent work.

Couples therapy is so great.

But there's a couple, I won't give anything away, really, but there's a couple in this season.

And there's a guy who is carrying this insane secret.

She keeps trying to pull it out and he won't really say it.

And he talks about going on this ayahuasca trip.

He had to get these demons pulled out, but they wouldn't come out.

Ultimately, we find out what the secret is and I won't reveal what it is, but it was something that I was like,

what?

This is the thing that you're so truly burdened by?

I was like, oh, I'll never understand it.

That's a thing that is inflicted on men.

And it is around being gay.

He's not gay, but it's around that.

And it made me so sad.

I was like, I'll never understand that.

That's broken this person, this event.

No, it's hard.

It's the fastest track to excommunication, which is any social primate's biggest fear in the world.

And it is as quickly as you can get ejected.

Do we think it's still happening in the same

way?

I...

Would have liked to believe in recent years that, man, what are you talking about?

We've changed so much, but then Rope versus wade getting overturned things that you just think are like written in stone yep you take for granted yeah not even just the law but the beliefs behind them it appears self-evident yeah yeah we're at this point now but no i mean when i came out google alerts for myself i was on like lists of like gay celebrities there's certain countries that i'm like whoa it's still

kind of scary out there.

Still reasons not to come out.

It's still the perception and things that I would have assumed have changed haven't as much.

I think it's changed a lot and I think it's still there.

My kids are in a public school or one of them is still.

And the shit that goes down is not nearly as bad as it did on my playground, but it is still all happening.

But bringing up that thing, I think it's so real.

There's something even more illuminating about it, knowing that it's such a deep thing that you would even be experiencing it in an openly gay relationship.

Where like there'd still be a fear of being gay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It just really illuminates how deep that is.

Yeah, no, it really is.

My boyfriend's more comfortable with himself and is more comfortable even embodying a somewhat more like feminine perspective.

Would you agree?

Yours is compounded by being black, no doubt.

Growing up in like a

really

masculine environment, for sure.

Well, let's just say that a group of people that has had their

masculinity systematically stripped for them, they're going to come at it from a different to be a black man.

You're taught that you need to have the strength of 10 men.

Like be able to face what the world's going to give you.

And there is a need for that.

So that doesn't go away.

I carry a lot of that.

Now, the stuff you tell on yourself that's even harder, and I have experienced this in my own life, which is like I had an open relationship for seven years.

I've talked about that a ton on here.

Nine years.

Sorry.

Whoa.

I think I've been able to talk about that here because it's over and it's safe for people to hear how that worked.

If Kristen and I have been vocal about that, that's not our big fear in life.

Even just that scares me.

There's still.

Talking about it, you're saying.

Yes.

I think it's such a primary fear for people that they wouldn't be enough for their partner.

And that's how they would interpret monogamy.

That it's so core to their own.

deepest fear that it remains one of the more still tricky things to talk about.

Almost shockingly so.

I'm lucky to be able to be gay.

I'm lucky to have the boyfriend that I have.

He's smart smart and understanding, but not just understanding, but has these feelings too.

We're free to explore and he knows my work and even in his own work, like we're free to explore what that is and how we feel about it.

And we do sex therapy sessions once a week with Dr.

Johnna and we're sitting and we're like talking it out.

Are they hard?

Yeah, you know, it's funny because I've been doing it for years.

These sessions sometimes can be three hours and you would think that after a couple years of talking about sex, at some point I'd be like, okay, I think we got it.

Yeah.

But no, no.

I think it's still the hardest thing for people to do.

Oh, it's so hard.

And years later, I have a brand new revelation that on Thursday, I'm going to have to like bring up with Dr.

John.

I can't talk it through here just because I have to talk it through our relationship, then it'll find its way into something.

But I'm just saying, wow.

Still.

Yeah.

So I firstly prompted the open relationship by just saying, hey, look at your past.

Look at mine.

We cheat.

And I love you.

I'd really like to figure out how to be with you and have kids with you.

And so if the expectation is neither of us are ever going to cheat, I just don't think we're going to get there.

So it was like a very pragmatic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm very curious about your situation.

We didn't talk about the premise was what I don't know, I don't need to know and I don't care.

And that worked beautifully for us.

For a while.

Well, things would come up where it needed to get talked about.

People would have fallen in love or real complicated stuff would happen.

And we definitely had to go through that when that happened.

But in general, it's not like I knew who she fucked or vice versa.

What I will say now now in retrospect is the one aspect that I was unable to do and I don't think I could ever do is I couldn't have maintained our own sexual relationship when I had options.

My normal one that needed a lot of maintenance couldn't compete with that.

Is that an issue at all?

Oh, for sure.

It's a very difficult thing to figure out to maintain the same level of passion when you have novelty and you have options and you have these things.

Fantasy.

Yeah.

And look, I'm not one of those right or wrong type of people because i wouldn't have thought i'd ever be in when i first told my boyfriend i loved him i asked for monogamy because i was like that's of course the correct way of doing it yes but then i cheated because i'm still having these desires you have to do what you can live with obviously because i have the example even from the home of the illusion of monogamy yes that's dangerous too now i'll just keep what I'm really feeling, what I really want, who I'm thinking about while having sex with you will never come up.

Just a big old secret on that.

Yeah, yeah.

And some people can live that way and would even say that that's the responsibility to your partner.

You grin and beard.

But just deal with that and push that aside.

And some people can do it.

And some people don't cheat.

And some people live with it and maybe are able to release that in other ways or just suppress that.

And some people maybe only desire their partner.

Maybe this is all true.

For me, I want to fuck everybody all the time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that doesn't change by saying, I want to be with you.

The switch doesn't change.

No, no.

And it is difficult to reconcile that honestly and talk about that honestly.

Cause I also just looked at my boyfriend the other night and he was the most beautiful person in the world to me.

Yes.

Like I just like have this image and I'm like, oh, my face against his neck feels like perfect.

The intimacy is on another level.

Yeah, yeah.

But also I want this.

Can I stop wanting it?

Can I train myself not to want it?

I don't know.

I'd be willing to do anything to make my relationship work, but this is the honest approach for me right now.

Yeah, and I have zero judgment of it.

No, people got a lot of judgment.

And even within the gay community, if you look at gay Reddits, they're just like, nope, open relationship.

It's laughable to some people.

Never be able to work.

Someone's going to fall in love.

I totally get it.

But, you know, also more people in the studies about like open relationships.

The openness of the relationship hasn't been the cause of the breakup.

They still break up over like money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We didn't break up over the openness.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, you still break up with like kids and money.

Yeah.

yeah, yeah.

Okay, so I accept it all.

I have no desire for you to be anyway other than how you are.

But

do you have the same curiosity I have, which is like, I too want to fuck everyone.

And ideally, what I really want is I want everyone to approve of me.

And so on one end, you could just trust your horniness.

It's just, this is my horniness.

And this is how I was born and engineered.

And then you could also go, and there's something else going on.

There's a part of me that's a little bit, I didn't come into my own until my 30s.

And so I'm still trying to like validate that.

There's a part of me that's seeking that.

There's a part of me that also likes sex as a moment with people.

I like having moments with people.

Yeah, of course.

Moments where I felt like I got to know someone.

I like for this to feel like a non-sexual, intimate moment.

Yeah, exactly.

No, it's a rad experience.

Yeah, I'd like to leave with something.

I'd like for anybody that experiences me to walk away with a smile.

Yeah, and a connection.

Yeah, and a connection.

Okay, now let's be even more daring.

Please.

You have a lot of options.

Well, the beauty of being gay is that sniffy's in Grinder.

And like, I could just find somebody that is seeking a transaction within nine minutes of leaving here.

On my way home, I could, yeah, I could do that.

But even for a woman, if you are a woman who enjoys casual sex, men are fucking crazy.

Yeah.

And so you can't just have a man come to your house.

It's too dangerous.

Too dangerous.

Well, just come to your house.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fully cloaked.

You could be wearing armor.

Like, you can't just have a guy come to your house.

I know.

Yeah, women are like, if the plumber's coming over, I should probably have a friend.

You need to have a friend for the plumber.

Yeah.

For an electrician.

So, like, not really an option.

More you could have like a stable, but there is a certain security that I know I would require.

And I even feel now even more than like random hookups.

I like more the friend with benefit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The other thing I just love, too, is you're talking about being with straight men, like husbands at a dinner in the special.

Oh, one of the wives asks, What do you think of Sidney Sweeney?

And after like tons of attempts, he's like, Yeah, she's attractive.

But that was just part of the concealing desire thing.

It is hard to say and to speak openly because it'll come up later, let alone the actress, the celebrity, talking about someone that's nearby that's in the neighborhood, that's in the restaurant.

Oh, that person's hot.

Like, oh, was that me?

Yeah, yeah.

It's hard to reveal that.

A lot of my straight guy friends just don't even why invite the hassle yeah yeah but i get it because it's so hard to unhear it once you know yeah like oh they think that person's hot and hotter than me exactly that's a good point so that's what you want especially if they look different oh is that what you actually want you settled for this but you actually want this person that you call gorgeous yeah But in fact, that's not even how it is.

In our pod, five families, husbands and wives.

And then our friend says to one of the guys, if you could fuck any of the other wives, who would it be?

And he goes, any of them.

Oh, my God.

I felt that coming.

Either way, that was going to be crazy.

But in your mind, like your husband said Sidney Sweeney's hot.

And you think it's an obsession, but you might need to go like, oh, he might have said, like, yeah, anybody.

Yeah, yeah, no.

It ain't even that deep.

It's just like, oh, yeah.

Still horrifying.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, anybody?

But even that is like, so anyone but me.

It all comes back to me.

Yes, yes.

It does.

Yeah, I really loved to your runner in this special about moms are crazy.

I related so much.

Yeah, did you?

Oh, good.

I mean, I love my mom so much.

Oh, of course.

But she is on that YouTube.

You said specifically like rabbit holes or obsessions.

And I was like, it is happening.

No, no.

Moms get radicalized.

I get radicalized.

Yeah.

Yeah, Monica's mom was super into the Johnny Depp Amber herd trial, and it was driving her insane.

She was like home visiting.

Her mom was like super driving.

She just had her headphones in the whole time I was there.

I was like, what are you doing?

She's like, I'm still listening to you.

Because especially like you grow up, you move out of the house.

That's why I say they got that mom energy.

You know, my mom worked a full-time job, but I was also part of a full-time job.

Now she's retired.

So lifting both of those things.

Hey, what is she doing all day?

Exactly.

Just to fill the time.

She needs that internet.

Yeah.

And even if your mom's still working, well, she's not coming home so concerned with you for the rest of the day.

Yeah.

How is she filling that block with six hours?

Another plight of the mother.

It's so

fair.

The number one good.

Number one thankless job in the world.

And then it's weird because I too have been on this kick about men's just speaking less and less and less as they get older.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I'm in that position now where I'm a 50-year-old man with two little kids and a wife, and I just talk less and less and less.

I was saying to Monica, like, so much so that I was wondering, like, what was my Papa Bob really like?

My grandpa, who I was

so stoic and quiet.

He even was the bat man, literally.

What did he want?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

When he used to speak a lot.

What was that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just thought he was a kind of a quiet dude.

He wasn't quiet.

He learned.

He just learned his lesson.

It's a fucking great special.

I love kind of the trajectory you're on.

You know, there's comedians where it's like, you're going to see the same thing that you like.

They're predictably funny in a certain way.

And then with yours, it's very much, oh, I'm going to see a different movie altogether with the same lead character, but it's going to be a totally different movie.

And that's very fun.

New idea.

I literally really look forward to it.

Thank you very much.

Wait, before we go, I got to shout out my best friend's mom, Patty.

Patty, let's talk about Patty.

She loves you guys.

Oh, no, maybe she got radicalized by we're her YouTube

Johnny Depp.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maybe, baby.

Just, I know she's listening.

Shout out to her.

Just say hi to Patty.

We love her.

Patty, thank you, Patty.

All right.

Well, I adore you.

Thanks for coming.

I hope you do it several more times.

I'm talking to y'all.

Yeah, you're so lovely.

And I'm really impressed with how open you are.

No, thanks for being a safe space.

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He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time.

Think Maya's here.

She's got to let him have the facts.

Hello.

Hi.

You're in the attic.

I'm in the garage.

You're in the garage, yeah.

Garage attic.

I had to turn my chair.

So this is a new view for people.

Yeah, and I'm not even sure I know where this is the corner of the garage.

Yeah, this, I turned my chair 90 degrees towards

the garage door.

Yep.

And you have really good internet now.

Last time we had a little challenge, and let's be honest, I think you were attributing that to me.

Well, hold on, hold on.

Please hold.

You attributed it to you.

You said, oh, the internet.

I need to call the guy.

And even though I, I should have good internet.

You said that immediately.

So I was like, oh, yeah, it's definitely that.

Yeah.

You were the one in the new environment.

Oh, it made sense.

It was me.

It It was not you.

And I wonder, because I wasn't too frustrated during it.

And maybe because I thought it was my fault, do you think that plays into it?

Yeah, probably.

Yeah.

Which is unfair.

Do you want to address the elephant in the room?

What is it?

Well, you know, we're on video.

So everyone just saw.

Oh, that I just backed a dip?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So desperate times call for desperate measures.

I

am out of, I have a stockpile stockpile of nicotine mints in LA, as you'd expect.

It's my life.

Yep.

I thought I brought enough down here, and then I ordered some, and then it was just going to take longer than it normally does.

And then there was, I was going to be out of mints, which that's very dangerous.

So I had to say to my family, I'm going to have to supplement with dip until the mints arrive because I can't run out of the mints.

How was 4th of July?

Oh, man.

It was so nice.

We

pawed, went to Palm Springs, minus a few important people like you and the Richardsons, but the rest of us went.

And it was so fun.

Last year, it was

so hot, record-breaking heat.

Yeah.

So this year, it wasn't as, it was still very hot, but it wasn't as hot.

So it felt like cool.

Oh, and what is, what was that temperature?

Oh, probably low hundos,

just always triple digis, but low triple digis.

Yeah, I think so.

You don't remember any exact temperatures?

No, it was just like body feel.

Okay, but um, it was so fun, it was such a good mix of um relaxing, but games, but and we went out twice, which is which is unusual.

Where'd you go?

Okay, there's a restaurant called Bar Cecil.

It is,

I guess, an insane hot spot.

Like, you can't get in.

Okay.

Okay.

So the most they take is five people.

They have one five top at the restaurant, and that's it.

And they don't, you can't have more.

Okay.

And were the kids on this trip or no?

Yes, they were.

So, but the first night, um, we, two of the groups weren't there yet.

They came the next day.

So it was just the Hansons, Anna, Jess, and me.

That's five people.

And so the kids stayed home and had a home night.

And we went there.

And we went to the front and we said, hey, we have five people.

We got there right when it opened.

We have five people.

We'd love to get in.

We heard it's amazing.

And they were like, well, we only have one five top and it's reserved for the whole night.

And the bar is reserved for the whole night.

Then we were like, well, we have to.

Now we have to.

Okay.

um

and we didn't oh so okay it was a sad

it was a sad turn of events we could not get in the guy like felt bad for us just tried to grease him some money it didn't work okay right

and then we ended up at another really fun place the parker hotel classic which was lovely classic and um anyway that was great and then we all went out for ryan's birthday ryan's birthday always happens on the trip.

Yeah.

And

this is a crazy ding, ding, ding.

We went dancing.

They had dance music at the Parker?

No, no, no.

The Parker was the first night.

Then we went to for Ryan's birthday.

We went out to a nice restaurant, but then we went to this really fun bar called Quad's, which is a gay bar that specializes in musical theater.

Oh, goodness.

So there's like all these TVs everywhere where they're showing like all this musical theater and people are like singing and dancing.

So that's Erica's favorite bar.

So we went there and then across the street was this like basically legit like club.

Nightclub.

And then I was like, I'm not going.

Like I'm going to go home.

I don't like dancing.

We've already established this and like this looks crazy to me.

But I practiced contrary action.

Nice.

And I went.

And we all danced danced, and it was so fun.

That's the end of story.

Did you do a lot of dancing or a little dancing?

How many minutes or hours?

What was the music?

Okay, lots of different kinds of music.

They played Starship by Nicki Minaj.

I love that song.

Right.

And it was, I could think it was a lot of dancing.

I think we were there for at least 40 minutes.

Oh, okay.

That's not a terrible long time.

Well, we had already had a long dinner, been to one place this was last location okay um and then how much of the 40 minutes were you on the dance floor oh the whole time the whole time and everyone was yeah oh great so people got to see some of my old moves and and what did they think what was the response jess i caught at the very end i saw him look at me dancing and he laughed oh okay and then i had to talk to him about it i said what was that why did you just laugh at me yeah he said no i was just so delighted because i definitely didn't think i'd ever see that like i thought that door was closed for you right and you opened it up and was it fun would you say it was fun it was very fun yeah dancing's quite fun monica it's a very very fun activity but i was ready to be done when it was time because you were tired or you're you had aches and pains or you just that was enough

I didn't have aches and pains.

I'm very strong.

But I, I just could, you know, sometimes you're just like, I'm done now.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm rarely

in dancing.

So I'm just learning that that's an option, that after 40 minutes, you'd be like, well, that's enough.

I think you're that way in other circumstances, though.

Like when you're at like group gatherings or something, I feel like you're like, okay, time to go now.

Oh, sure.

Sure.

Yeah.

I just don't ever get that way on a dance floor generally.

Usually you got to pull me off.

You know how I am with my dance floors.

I got to find a dance floor here in rural Tennessee.

Yeah, you should.

Okay, yeah.

Tell me about your fourth and your

dancing.

No dancing, but boy, our fourth was spectacular.

We took the boat.

You know,

just chat, asked chat in the morning the best place to see fireworks on Old Hickory.

And of course, it tells me right away and they and nailed it.

So Gallatin's like a little town across the river, and uh, it would take about 40 minutes to drive there or seven minutes to boat there.

And so, we went and we were kind of early on the early side of it.

We got there at seven.

It's the fireworks were not till nine, we just hung out in the boat.

It was my brother, and my sister-in-law, and my mom, and Aaron, and Ruthie, and the children, and Kristen.

And

we parked the boat

probably 200 yards from the barges that set off the fireworks.

And

I mean, maybe I've seen a better display.

I don't think so.

I felt like this was like Detroit River budget of fireworks.

It went on forever.

They were spectacular.

We were directly under them.

It was so, so special to be on the water.

We were swimming.

It was incredible.

The echo off of the fireworks onto the forest behind us was maybe the coolest part.

The echo was as loud as the fireworks, it seemed.

So that was July 4th.

And then July 5th,

God bless the, I think it's Cedar Maybe Creek Yacht Club on the lake.

They did their fireworks on the 5th, and that's only like a three-minute boat ride.

It's virtually next door to the house.

Those ones were sneaky.

They started out like one at a time.

And we were all like, okay, well, last night had a much bigger budget.

It was better, but that's fine.

This is still lovely.

Again, there's like hundreds and hundreds of boats anchored.

So it's very Pirates of the Caribbean feeling already.

It's really fun.

But this, this, Monica, this show wouldn't end.

We thought we saw the finale like seven times.

It became a bit.

Well, okay, that's the finale.

No, it wasn't the finale.

So it started slow, but it went hard, harder and harder and harder.

And boy, did it.

It was a real toss-up with the night before.

But

two back-to-back nights of fireworks on the boat floating.

It's as good as it gets.

I couldn't believe how fun.

I love fireworks.

What is your favorite fireworks?

Oh, wow.

I don't know if I have a favorite.

Do you have a favorite?

Yeah, I like the kind.

The huge gold one.

No, it's not gold.

It like

floofs out.

It's a floof.

Okay.

Well, that could describe most most of them, probably.

Okay, let me look up types of fireworks.

I will say when they were blasting a ton off at low altitude and it was just a wall of sparkly, I really liked that quite a bit.

And here's a fun update about Frank because dogs hate fireworks.

That's what they're known for, right?

Sure.

They sit home and shake on July 4th.

Frank was

transfixed by the fireworks.

He was staring right at them on the boat both times, and he really enjoyed the fireworks.

No fear, just excitement.

Yeah.

Well, that's why he's my favorite dog.

Okay,

this is great.

I like glitter.

That's bright twinkling points of color.

Okay.

Okay.

There's also

Willow, a slow-burning effect with a long trailing tail.

There's a strobe, that's self-explanatory.

Peony, a spherical burst of colored stars with a limited trail.

Palm tree.

Now, we all know what palm tree is.

Yeah.

A shell effect that resembles the leaves of a palm tree.

I do like those.

Those are great.

There's none I hate.

Is there any you dislike?

I don't dislike any of them.

Yeah, there's a couple that I'm like, ew, about.

Oh, wow.

You give me the feeling.

Oh.

Wow.

Yeah.

So I was earmarking my reaction to Nashville from last episode where we discussed your GLP one.

And I have to say that it is infinitely better than I was expecting.

I can't believe what a perfect mix of a lot of things it is that I just got pure lucky with.

Like the lake, Monica.

I love a lake, but I will say, like when my dad lived on a small lake, you'd go on a cruise around the lake.

You would take your like

seven-minute lap of the lake, and then you'd maybe post up at the sandbar.

And then that was your activities.

This, the Cumberland River, I can go 60 miles to the right.

It's just like endless exploration and little bays and houses to be nosy about.

I forgot how much I love being nosy about people's backyards.

Because the front yard, you can't really tell what's happening.

But a backyard,

you know what's going on with a family if you look into their backyard.

Oh, yeah.

Anywho, the exploration is outrageous.

There are, and I am always so curious, there's a few houses that are like 30,000 square feet.

I mean, they're like, you can't tell if they're country clubs or they're houses.

And I get so curious how they made all that money.

Yeah.

Ding, ding, ding, Mindy Kaling.

She wants them to write it on their have a poster outside that says how they got it all.

Yes.

And then another

aspect that I love is, and I think this would bum

normal summer goers out, but so much rain and thunderstorms

every day.

And I love it.

It's very Hawaii, Monica.

And you're going to find out here in seconds.

I am.

I'm coming to visit.

I'm going to come on in a couple of days.

I'm really excited.

I love a southern summer.

Listen, that's my, that was, that's my childhood.

So I wonder if it's going to be much different.

I mean, obviously the lake piece will feel very, very different, but I bet the weather, I bet the environment, it's going to feel very at home.

I am also going to go home after that.

My parents will demand that.

Yes.

Since I'll be so close.

Yeah, you're probably like a half hour plane right away.

It only took Aaron an hour and 10 minutes from Michigan to get here.

Nice.

Yeah, it's like a four-hour drive.

Oh, so I just love it.

It's so green.

It's the perfect amount of rural.

There's still restaurants.

What's your favorite restaurant?

Oh, so far there's this.

Well, there's been a few good ones.

Well, first of all, we went last night into Nashville, first trip to go out to eat in Nashville, and we went to Brick Top, which do you know about Bricktop?

No.

If I have this right, don't sue me.

I believe the two founders of Houston's split.

And I believe the other owner started Brick Top when he left Houston's.

And there's several.

And

it's dynamite.

I couldn't believe how good last night's dinner was.

Oh, was it delicious?

Is there a Houston's or a Hillstone in Nashville, too?

No, but this is

compare.

Well, maybe there is.

You should compare and contrast.

Okay, I got to add one other crazy.

This is the simiest sim moment we've had, which is

to my great delight, the girls are in heaven.

They love it here so much, which is great.

They did say their only complaint and what they miss the most about California is no in and out, right?

And I'm like, yeah, that's rough.

That's once a week we ate it in and out.

So then we hung out with Huey one night before they all left and we're talking to him and he said, you see,

they're open the first In-N-Out in Tennessee

in Mount Juliet, where y'all are at.

It's going to be open in a month.

I go, what?

Wow.

In-N-Out, he said, is moving their headquarters to Nashville from California.

But that's happened.

Their headquarters?

Yes.

That's weird.

Yes.

What are the odds that they're opening up an In-N-Out in Mount Julie?

I think this is impossible.

That is wild.

I almost have to see that to believe it.

And it's supposed to be a doozy of an In-N-Out as well.

Huge, Monica.

Huge?

Gigantic.

No, I don't like that.

Part of the charm is waiting in line.

No, no, no.

No, I think the biggest one in the world, I just read an article.

They're opening one in Las Vegas.

That's like four stories.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

That's okay.

I'm starting to get worried.

Now I'm worried.

Now you're worried.

This is what happens.

What happens?

People have to get just so big.

And then the quality goes down.

And then everyone suffers.

Economy is scary.

Yeah.

You know, that's not true.

I'm not going to bring up a very specific restaurant that this happened to.

And it's like, it's dead.

It's dead.

Barbie's?

I said I wasn't going to bring it up.

No.

Umami burger.

Oh, that one went downhill.

Yeah.

Completely downhill.

But not because of the size of the locations, because of the number of locations, I think.

Exactly.

But that's what's happening.

No, this is going to be the best one in the country.

I feel very

close to Sam and hey, hey, hey, what?

Hey.

Serendipitous.

I don't want

it to be a

Nashville versus Los Angeles fight between us.

It's not going to be.

In this life.

Okay.

No.

Well, it shouldn't be.

There's no reason for that.

Because I'll start crying.

But you don't need Nashville to be bad.

No,

it's not bad.

I know it's not bad, but I can't have you gunning for it being better.

Well,

okay.

Different.

It's different.

Different.

It's different.

And the in-and-out might be

bigger.

And it might, the service might be faster.

I don't know.

We'll see.

We'll see in like a month.

It's part of the charm waiting for so long and the drive-through.

Also,

took the girls to Waffle House for the first time for breakfast.

Oh, I do love that.

Now you're back in.

You're in now.

Aaron and I were saying that for sure Waffle House of any franchise has had more fights per location than any restaurant in the world.

And if you work there, I'm so proud of you.

Like you go there knowing there's going to be four or five fights tonight between 2 a.m.

and 5.

And we'll just carry on and serve the food and we will be unflapped.

Always the fights in my high school were at Waffle House.

Yeah.

What Aaron and I were saying when we used to go there when we drank at like 2 a.m.

when you were parking the car, the odds felt like a 20% chance.

Yeah.

That there might be trouble.

Did you guys get hash browns smothered, covered and scattered?

Something else?

Scattered?

Scattered, smothered, and covered is how I like it.

Yeah.

Yummy.

Stay tuned for more armchair expert.

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And the shoes off policies going swimmingly.

It's not a big deal.

Oh, I forgot.

Okay, so that is implemented.

Yes, there are no shoes allowed in the house.

Wow.

Oh, my God.

There's been a couple of infractions, but all in all, it's been good.

And I think the floors are cleaner for it.

With each shoe that doesn't enter the house, you become a little less

poor in your head.

That's what it is.

Yeah, you hated that because of rich people.

You told me that.

Yes, I did tell you that.

That is my fear.

And you're right.

It should still be my fear, but it's not.

Everyone's been fine with it.

I think people are enjoying it themselves.

No, it's not about other people, it's about you.

It's about who you are.

You're rich there.

How does it feel?

How does it feel to finally embrace that you have a means?

I often talk about that it's not the fantasy and it's not, but also there's times where it's really fucking good.

It is so good to be able to host my family and to go out to eat and to do all that stuff and yeah, not worry is incredible.

I feel like in the past couple weeks have felt

really like the point.

And we already know this, but it was just coming to the surface that, like, really the point of having money is to be generous with it.

That's the only

way it actually feels good.

Yeah, I would agree.

To help other people

give other people experiences they might not be able to have.

Host a party, yeah.

Host a good party.

It's the only way to spend money that doesn't feel stressful.

Like to me, it doesn't feel stressful to

be generous.

It feels good.

Yes, totally agree.

And it's been a very special feeling of like, I think having my sister, my mom, and my brother,

it's been a very special feeling

thinking about where we've come from and where we just all spent a week together.

relaxing and

having made it.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it feels extra good.

I ran into some really nice arm cherries in Palm Springs.

I just wanted to shout all of them out.

You did?

Yeah.

Multiple ones, and they were all very nice.

Um, I did feel there was,

there was

one group

that stopped and said hi on their way out of the restaurant for Ryan's birthday.

And I felt so embarrassed that there were arm cherries there because we were so loud in that restaurant and we were being kind of raucous.

Obnoxious.

Yeah, I would, I would bore, I would say borderline obnoxious and

I already felt a little self-conscious about that.

Not really, but kind of.

And then

the fact that there were arm cherries there made us feel, but they seemed, they seemed like they were happy.

We were happy.

Don't you think they want to see you have a really good time?

I would want to.

I do, but we were just, I don't know.

I don't know if people people were like God these people

what was happening was there a loud game being played was there shouting were people hammered what version of obnoxious I mean there were nine of us so it was a big table and

we were

we were drinking I mean no one was like super hammered or anything but but everyone was just very loose and chatty and laughy and jokey and it was Ryan's birthday so you know

sure

he knows how to have a good time on his birthday.

He really, really, really does.

Yeah.

Also, over the course of the trip, he ordered two beef Wellingtons.

Oh my God, they had that at Bricktop.

And my father-in-law ordered that last night.

And I hadn't seen that on a menu since a cruise ship in Alaska.

This is a real ding, ding, ding.

Whoa, this is a ding-ding-ding.

Yes, because also when we got home, he sent us an article that said that a woman poisoned

people with beef wellington for lunch.

That's an expensive poisoning.

If you're going to kill people, just buy a hamburger helper.

She was probably killing a bunch of elite rich people.

It was like a Robin Hood situation.

The kind of like the healthcare situation.

Yeah.

Yes.

Giago.

What's his name?

Gio.

Yeah.

Gilio.

Michelangelo.

No, that's not his name.

We got in a big debate per usual on the trip, which I know me and you have had, but I wonder if your stance has changed or if people maybe haven't heard this, but we got in a big debate whether the phrase best friend refers to one person or multiple people.

Okay.

And what was consent?

Was there consensus or it was very

it was varied.

It was varied.

Because, you know, my stance is it's one person.

Uh-huh.

And, well, which is also, I say that, and I, and I don't really

mean it, I guess.

Cause I.

Why did you just whisper that?

What did I whisper?

I didn't whisper anything.

You whispered, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

But you whispered it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I think, in the truest sense, you'd want to be people's only best friend, but you'd want multiple best friends.

I think that's what my yeah was.

But I also was scared.

So I just said, yeah.

You can't be scared of me when you're in Nashville.

You're not scared of me in Los Angeles.

I'm going to say something that's going to make you angry.

I don't want to do that.

That scares me.

That's our show.

I know.

You better do it.

Yeah, I did it.

I did it.

I just did it in a very mitigating way at first.

And now I'm owning it.

But yeah, I guess I

don't know.

I think I'm

like, Aaron's my best friend.

He's been my best friend since I was 11.

He's my best friend, but I have a lot of best friends as well.

Yeah.

That's how I feel about it.

How do you feel?

Callie's your best friend.

Right.

I mean, that's the thing.

It's stressful because I do have multiple best friends, but there's something about the grammar.

And Charlie and I really, I think you could

anticipate this: that Charlie and I both had an issue, have an issue with the grammar.

Like, best is one.

Best is one.

And then Ryan tried to say, well, no, best movies in the Oscars is a lot of movies, but that's you, one person, one movie wins, and that's the best movie.

Sure.

In that that case, yes, I agree.

But

you can have

a best motorcycle and a best car and a best truck and a best, they're all conveyances.

I think that's how I would define it is like, there's lots of, there's lots of best foods.

There's the best burger and there's best pizza and there's best, those are all food,

but there's multiple best within the overall category of food.

And I guess people are as different as food.

So I think you can have like your best who you go get in trouble with and your best heart to heart and your best.

You know, there's, I think there's a lot of

best facets of individual relationships.

Yeah, that's true.

I think to make it about semantics denies what it's really about, which is about emotions.

You want to have a special bond with somebody and you want some verbiage that reflects that.

Because there are words for other things that are

self-evident, like wife or husband or

child, mom, dad.

Like we know what that relationship is inherently.

And so if I'm talking about someone and I'm trying to say how close we are

and it's and it's at a level that I feel is paramount, then I want to, I want, I want there to be verbiage around that.

That's different than just, oh, oh, they're one of my closest friends.

Like, that doesn't feel right.

Right.

You need something more, something harder hitting.

Yep.

And best friend sort of serves that.

Like, people do know what a best friend is.

Yeah, I guess I just can't.

I have multiple

and I don't feel

guilty about it.

And you have multiple, right?

Do you have multiple?

Who's Charlie's best friend?

Well, that's why

it's weird that he was fighting for that one because he's like me.

Like, we unlike, it's just, it doesn't make, it doesn't make sense.

Oh, do you think that could be only childishness?

Like, any, do you think that might be related to your guys's only child?

Well, I'm not an only child.

You're your parents' only child for eight years

versus I've always been one of two and for most of my life, one of three.

And so interesting.

I think by definition or description, I already was less important, but I found such an important relationship with my mom within that sharing structure that I might be a little less sensitive to it.

Maybe.

I mean, it kind of makes sense.

If you're forced to grow up like in a duo, and share the love of someone.

It's just standard.

But I did have to do that just later, a little bit later.

And I didn't bother me.

That helps because you thought you were superior because he was such a dumb dumb.

He was a little baby.

He was a baby and you could ride a bike.

I just learned.

No, he was superior.

He was so much cuter than me when he was a little baby.

Oh, I know.

And everyone said, cuckoo, go, go.

No, he was.

He was such a cute baby.

He did have a head full of dandruff, which was weird.

Oh, gross.

That's not.

Yeah, it was gross.

Yeah.

It was a reaction to some sort of formula or something.

But even still, he was so cute.

Okay, so maybe he had that too.

I don't know.

It feels like it could be a clue.

It could be.

You're right.

It could be.

But I think it's more like type A, double Virgo,

best is one.

Best is one.

Like, who's the best basketball player of all time?

Michael Jordan.

There's one.

But that's not even true.

We know that's not true.

Of all time?

Of course it's true.

They're incredible players, but there are GOATs.

There are greatest football players.

Bill Russell won eight titles and he was the coach of the team while he was a player.

You could definitely argue Bill Russell's better than him.

I think Kobe is just as good as him.

Didn't win as many championships.

I think they, some of these people now all suffer from, they are in the wake of this, of course, incredible,

one of the best to ever do it.

But I think there's a lot of

branding that goes on.

It's just like he occupies that place.

And even if a basketball player was better than Jordan, he wouldn't get that moniker at this point.

You're right.

Until 20 years goes by, maybe.

And like Valentino Rossi is a god.

He's my number one god.

He's my Michael Jordan.

And I have to admit, I was looking at the number of race wins that Mark Marquez now has.

It's more than Valley by a considerable amount.

What's the other guy's name?

Mark Marquez.

His name is two times Mark.

That's right.

Mark times two.

In spam, they'd say times do.

Wow.

He's really, he's the actual Marquee Mark.

And Alex Marquez, his younger brother, is in number two.

But yeah, I was just looking at that and I was like, well, look, the numbers would suggest that I'm wrong.

Valley's not Michael Jordan, just numbers-wise.

But for me, he is Michael Jordan.

He'll continue because he had to race against Mark Marquez.

Mark Marquez hasn't had to race against Mark Marquez.

I feel like that's not his name now, and I know his name very well.

And now you have me scared.

So I'm just going to chat GG GPT, okay?

Okay.

Who's a better motorcycle rider, Valentino Rossi or Mark Marquez?

This might make it blow up.

This is the type of double Virgo situation where it's going to give you an opinion as fact, and I'm not going to like it.

Here's how it breaks down.

There's no clear better overall, but the answer depends on what you value most.

Valentino Rossi, the legend, world champions chips, nine, seven in premier class, wins 89.

Podiums, 235.

Okay.

Mark has had eight world

championships, six in premiere.

Okay, so he's still got to win one more to catch what he's going to win this year.

Race wins 59.

Oh, Valentino, 89.

What did I see?

Oh, gosh.

Podiums, 140.

Podiums, 235.

Oh, so I'm.

No, I'm still safely very much.

Exactly.

There's a clear best.

Yeah.

And is that his name?

Yeah, it is Mark Marquez.

Yeah.

Thank God.

That would have been humiliating.

Okay.

Well, good.

That was a good day for me.

I found out my hero is statistically better.

And a good day for me because confirming that best is best.

Right.

Best is still best.

Look, I do want to be everyone's best.

That is part of it, but it's also grammar.

And back to Charlie.

He agrees with me, but he then couldn't really say.

See, this is what happens.

When you believe this,

it is then hard to say who your best friend is because in reality, I guess we do all hold multiple.

But then he ended up saying Ace, which was very cute.

Oh, that is good.

Yeah, but it was a cop-out because he just needed to say one.

He said Erica.

Okay.

He said Erica.

Okay.

His wife.

And then he switched it to Ace.

Okay.

Both safe options.

And was Ryan hurt during any of that?

Or did he seem fine?

He was all right.

Okay, great.

Did Ryan say who his best friend was?

No, he's in the category of everyone is

not everyone, but the

no, that's you.

I think, yeah, you do throw it around.

I just know so many special people.

Like, you're going to not call Panay or Nate Tuck best friend?

No way.

Well, here's, okay, so then special people and best friend are not the same thing.

They're not.

You're right.

Because I know a lot of special people that are not my best friends.

Right.

Yeah.

But I know a handful that are Dakota Johnson, who I just never even met her.

I feel like there was some overlap.

Maybe Dakota Johnson was with Lewis Hamilton somewhere.

Is that what I saw?

No, she's married.

No, she was with she was with Kate.

Oh, and

Tom Har Tom TB12.

Tom Brady.

Tom Brady.

Yeah, I saw that on Instagram.

She looked so good.

She had a really cute outfit, bathing suit and skirt.

This is our pop culture podcast now.

We're due pop pop culture.

Yeah, I saw a photo

on Instagram of TB12 and Kate and

Johnson.

Yeah, I saw that too.

And I obviously immediately looked up the skirt.

I almost bought it, but I didn't buy it.

You got to be careful when you say you looked up the skirt because that's a perv

that's a category of photographs on the dark web called up skirts.

And you want to stay clear of any association with that.

Well, I have to double down.

I did look up the skirt.

Oh my God.

What did you see?

How'd it look?

A gorgeous, gorgeous interior.

Even better than the exterior.

No, I didn't buy it.

I wanted to buy it, but I didn't buy it because

Triz, I guess.

Triz?

Trizepatai?

Triz is, yeah, that's what we call it.

Oh, you call it, that's what you call the GLP one, Triz.

Yeah, I love it.

So you can't buy anything because Triz, because Triz might take you out of the size?

No, remember, I'm also doing it to curb shopping.

Oh, right.

Okay, God, there's so many things at play.

That makes sense.

Yeah, there are.

And has it had any effect on your shopping?

You said no.

No,

I've gone shopping so much.

I got this sweater.

On the way to Palm Springs, there's an insane outlet, which is mostly why you want to go to Palm Springs, right?

No.

Okay.

Yes.

I wasn't going to go.

I wasn't going to go.

Okay.

And then I was driving right past it and I turned.

I turned around.

Wow.

You got off in a later exit and then went back track?

I turned around

and then I was stopped at a train

for so long.

Of cars.

The longest train I've ever.

Or an actual train was passing.

A train was passing and I was stopped there for so long that it really was like, oh oh no, like the universe was not smiting you.

Yeah, that's right.

Really, really punished.

But then the train ended and I went straight into the stores and had a great time.

It was great.

I had a great time.

How was the Triz with drinking on the trip?

Because it would normally be a big drinking trip.

It was still a drinking trip.

It was definitely

less

than usual.

I think normally on those types of trips, like

you're drinking early.

Right.

I started drinking later in the day than I definitely used to.

Yeah.

And then I would stop early, but I always kind of stop early.

I'm not someone who drinks into the night.

I like to be done early.

So because the late start and the early end, there's less consumption, definitely.

I also was sweating it all out.

Sure, sweating to the oldies.

That's what they say.

That was the guy

who danced around a lot, who was missing, who was always on Letterman.

Flamboyant man, you know him.

Exercise.

Oh,

Richard Simmons.

Yes, Richard Simmons' DVD collection was called Sweating to the Oldies, and you would dance to these catchy old songs and the pounds would melt away.

Oh, my.

Yeah.

They should have Ozempic, like paired musical tracks where just you take your Ozempic and put the CD on and then you lose a bunch of weight.

Have you looked at any of the comments?

What's the reaction?

I haven't.

I haven't been over to our page because our page is more dangerous than my page.

And anytime we wade into anything controversial, I just avoid our page.

So we talked about Taylor.

And so I just knew better than to look at our page for a while.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I'm not sure.

Okay.

Well, I hope I hope people respect.

I didn't see anything on my page, which means it's not controversial because I will see things on my page if they're enough controversial and nothing.

Yeah.

Not one thing.

Okay.

Yeah.

Everyone's supportive.

I'm going to take that as support.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

We're really taking a leap.

Yeah.

All right.

Should we do some facts?

Yes.

Let's do some facts.

Some facts for Gerard.

Ah,

Gerard.

He's so amazing.

I love him.

Yeah.

I love him.

He's so introspective and insightful and thoughtful.

Like he's just, he's just thinking about the world all the time.

And it's so fun to talk to people like that.

Okay.

Now, the Botox.

So I just said that my Botox

was called something specific because it's like, I can still kind of move.

Yeah.

Because it's like the actors.

Botox or whatever.

And I didn't know if that was,

there was an actual name for it.

Not really.

It just says like micro dose or something.

I get, I think my guy just has a cute name for it.

Yeah.

Shout out Contraposto, Casey Welk.

He's perfect.

Is he a magician when you go so far as to say he's a magician?

Yeah, because I love magicians and I love Casey and he does great work.

And I do think it's subtle.

Oh, yeah.

I would have no idea other than that you look too young to drink wine,

even for a 25-year-old.

Like, by the way, that whole thing with you getting carted, that makes sense if you're 50, because I can no longer tell anything below 35, I'm out to lunch on.

I don't know if someone's in high school or in graduate school.

But when you're 25, you have a good barometer of who's 20.

I know.

And corrective skincare.

I owe a lot to a lot of people.

And my parents.

Some of this is just genes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Did Michael Jackson's nose fall off entirely?

According to the internet, it did not fall off entirely.

And that's a rumor.

Oh, okay.

So

I, you know, I feel obligated to say that the internet says that's not true.

I want to tell us, because it came up last night funny enough at dinner.

And I know we've told it before, but it's worth repeating now that we're talking about Michael Jackson.

Yeah, Ryan's driving the car.

He's got his three girls.

Michael Jackson comes on.

They're listening to it.

And everyone's just like, I love Michael Jackson.

he was the best.

And then Ryan feels compelled to like just add an asterisk, like, well, he's a little complicated.

And then the second he says it, he realizes, I don't want to explain to them why it's complicated.

They're very young.

He said he did, he did some really bad things.

Yes.

And they were like, what?

And he's like, I don't want to talk about it.

Now's not the time.

And we'll talk about it later.

He's like, no, Danny, tell us.

And then the middle child, Millie, goes, oh my God, did he smoke cigarettes?

that was their first guess did he smoke cigarettes because it was really bad and ryan goes no no it was really bad he's like he did some really bad things and no we're not going to talk about it it was really bad like he was like emphasizing how bad it was and then

did he smoke cigarettes right and then the second guess was Did he show his penis to somebody?

And then Ryan's like, okay, well, he has definitely more in that world.

But in order, smoking cigarettes would be worse than showing your penis to somebody.

I know.

This is actually timely because

cigarettes feel like they're sort of back in culture.

I find that to be scary.

Yeah, I just heard that maybe Jen Alpha or whatever, whatever, one of the younger generations is like reinvigorated by smoking cigarettes, which is hysterical.

It's so, it's like, we just all are like fine with dying, I guess.

Like everyone's just like end of of the, I do think that might be part of it.

It's like, well, fuck it.

Everything's bad.

Everything's messed up.

Might as well smoke.

And it's like in movies again, like as a cool thing.

Retro.

And do you know about this?

Diet Cokes are called fridge cigarettes now.

I heard that recently and I loved it.

That's so good.

It's great for you because you love Diet Cokes.

And I love cigarettes so much.

But to me, what it points out is like our overall culture is a pendulum, right?

We've felt it swing, particularly in the last four years, right?

It's just like, there's all these overcorrections.

And then, but it's also happening intergenerationally.

And

the downside is they're like, oh yeah, those the older people are so terrified of smoking.

So then it kind of appeals to them.

But then the encouraging thing for me is like the incessant hating half of the country, that too will be a thing that they're like oh my god they're so stupid so it's like there's positive parts of it it's always just like some reaction to the previous generation i think maybe

well we'll see we just know it

causes cancer we sure do they have been working on i've read about it there is a lung cancer vaccine in trials.

Really?

These younger generations, they have no fucking clue how lucky they are.

No chicken pox.

They'll never get HPV.

And by God, maybe they can bang darts without lung cancer.

Wow.

Yeah.

Gosh, if they

have a lung cancer vaccine, would I start smoking cigarettes?

This

must.

You must.

You'd look so cool.

And then you'd shave your side.

And then there's just be like this whole chapter that everyone would be excited to watch.

As you can imagine, I've thought about it because I loved it so much.

I mean, I really loved smoking.

And I was like, fuck, if they get that vaccine, would I?

And ultimately,

no, because I was such a bad smoker, though.

Like, I, you know, me, I cough all day long without anything in my lungs.

Yeah.

So I.

I've already thought this through and I'm not going to do it even if there's a vaccine.

It also stinks.

Like the other day I was walking by and I was like, oh, like it does, it smells bad.

Oh, it's terrible, but you should know when you're a smoker, you can't smell it.

So, like, when you start smoking, you'll be fine.

Your whole house will smell like an ashtray, but you won't know.

Ew,

that's literally my nightmare.

You know, I'm so scared of smelling and not knowing it.

It might be a nice submersion therapy for you.

Okay.

Who are the background singers on Donna Summer's song State of Independence?

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So Quincy Jones assembled this and Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Deion Warwick, Lionel Ritchie, Brenda Russell, Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins, James Ingram, and Michael McDonald.

Okay.

He talked about the movie Network and he said he thought maybe the actor won the Oscar and she was on screen for just a couple minutes.

The man won the Oscar, but he was dead.

But he died before he could receive the Oscar.

Yeah.

Posthumously.

Wow, that must have been the first year that an Oscar winner was also in the immemorium.

Oh,

wow.

That's sad.

Yeah, but also kind of a full takeoff.

Did it happen to Heath?

He was alive when he won.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because

he did Batman after

Cowboy Movie.

Broke Back.

Yeah.

Let me ask you a question.

Broke Back now sounds

inherently gay, but I can't imagine it did before the movie.

Do you think

there's nothing about that word before the movie?

But when you hear broke back,

you immediately think this gay love story.

Right.

Yeah.

No, I'm sure.

Because what does it mean?

I don't even remember.

Is that the name of the mountain?

I don't remember.

But it sounds like onomanopoeia for gay, something gay sex a little bit.

Broke back mountain.

No.

You don't.

No, it does not.

no

no no no no you're saying because

why it doesn't have to be gay sex that just sounds like sex and you might break your back yeah but it sounds like doggy style and arched back which which heterocouples do constantly they can't get enough of it you're right but yeah so i guess not but it does i agree it does sound it does sound kind of like reverse back

back

yeah but we don't we still don't even know what that means.

Back is a triggering word.

Let's just agree on that.

Yeah, well,

oh, you're okay.

Yeah, because back bottom anal.

Yeah.

Well, broke bottom mountain.

Broke bottom mountain.

That now that's, we could agree.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll give you that.

Okay.

Yes, Heath Ledger was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor posthumously for his role as the Joker in Dark Knight.

So he did win.

Oh,

okay.

You know, I just want to end it.

He said a quote of, I think he said his friend said it.

So this is very telephone, but I really liked it.

I really liked when he said, what got you here won't get you there.

I thought that was- My feelings are a little bit hurt because that's, I say that I have the same same, just worded a little different, but it never made an impact on you.

I know.

Mine is what got you to the party won't keep you at the party.

Won't keep you.

I know.

And I, I, you don't care when I say it.

I get it.

I know.

It's not that I don't care.

I love you, but there, this has a better ring to it.

You like the branding better, the messaging.

I like the play on words.

What got you here won't get you there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's good.

I mean, part mine has party in it, so it sounds a little more fun.

What's there could be marooned on an island?

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

yours is better.

No, it's all right, yeah.

Your true feelings are known, Monica.

There are so many deer out my window, it's insane.

There's two little baby deer that live in my yard, we've named them Bambi and

Bambi, and the boy's name is the best.

Um,

Bambi and

oh man, I gotta get the crow

Brambus, Bambi, and Brom, Brambus.

Oh, I can't remember.

Something like that.

Oh,

Bambi is

fortuitous.

Because?

Doesn't Bambi die or does Bambi's mom die?

We lose Bambi's mom, I believe.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

In the great tradition of all Disney movies, the parents die in the opening frame.

That's right.

Yeah.

It's a good device.

Strong.

All right.

Let's end on on dead parents.

Okay, great.

I'd love to.

Love you.

Love you.

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