Tyler Perry

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Speaker 1 Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined by the Duchess of Duluth.

Speaker 2 Hi there.

Speaker 1 Great sweater. You got a new sweater with two different colors: blue, very light on the sleeve.
Thank you. Starry Night in the middle.

Speaker 2 Oh, do you think this is blue?

Speaker 1 Yeah, what do you think of this blue?

Speaker 2 Oh, no,

Speaker 2 it's purple for sure.

Speaker 1 To be fair,

Speaker 1 it looks blue on the TV back here.

Speaker 1 What do you think? I can see you.

Speaker 2 What color is my face to you?

Speaker 1 Pure white. Wow.
Like the driven snow.

Speaker 1 Our guest today is Tyler Perry.

Speaker 1 And I just got to say right out of the gates, this is a very mind-blowing experience. I don't know what I thought about Tyler Perry.

Speaker 1 I mean, as a person, other than I had seen this incredible 60-minute segment on him one time, and I knew he had had a really incredible story that he overcame.

Speaker 1 So I knew that he was very honest and stuff. But just as a, as a human, he was just a very powerful and special presence.
My God, did we like this so much?

Speaker 2 Really, very, very special. I had an inkling before it would have that extra sparkle on it, and it did.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Well, listen, Tyler Perry is a filmmaker, a playwright, an actor, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Sisters, House of Pain, Medea's Family Reunion, Alex Cross, and his new movie, Out Now, which is doing really great.

Speaker 1 I've noticed it's always in the top couple there on Netflix, The Six Triple Eight with one of our favorites, Carrie Washington. This is a very, very special episode.
Please enjoy Tyler Perry.

Speaker 2 And Happy New Year.

Speaker 1 And Happy New Year.

Speaker 1 And to all the good night,

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Speaker 1 Would you like a coffee or a Diet Coke? No, that coffee is for you. Oh, that's a cream top.
It's very famous coffee. Cream top? No, I'm not a coffee person.
You're not a coffee person. Good for you.

Speaker 1 I don't like some of the things I'm learning about you right away. Tell me.
You're early. Yeah.
And you don't like coffee. I love your chair though, man.
This is my size chair. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's a biggie.

Speaker 1 You really should consider ordering one of these online because I didn't realize I was ordering like a big and tall version because I'm a big guy and you can get some meetings beside you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, my feet barely touch the ground if they do. Where did this come from? Online, lazyboy.com.
Lazyboy.com. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You got to get someone online.

Speaker 1 Do you own any lazy boys? I don't. You don't.
Because your style aesthetic won't permit you to or you're afraid of comfort.

Speaker 1 I've got a little bit of both. A little bit of both.
A little bit of both. Don't want to be too comfortable.
You can't get too comfortable. Did you like miniature things when you were a kid?

Speaker 1 This is a weird first question, but I can elaborate. Yeah, please.
Like you would go to,

Speaker 1 where would I see miniature stuff?

Speaker 2 A dollhouse store.

Speaker 1 No, I would never be in there. I like the idea of feeling like a giant.
Okay.

Speaker 2 I would imagine you don't want to be a giant because you're already tall. It's surprising you still have it because you're tall.

Speaker 1 Well, not to jump directly into trauma, but I feel like both of us probably desired to be 80 feet tall as kids. For me, it was the opposite.
I wanted to be smaller.

Speaker 1 I would always slouch and didn't want to be seen. You want to be invisible.
Yeah. But the notion of being like the Hulk and you can defend yourself and no one can hurt you, that didn't enter the fray.

Speaker 1 No, because the strong men for me in my life weren't good men. So I wanted to be the opposite.
And being tall and being big, I was always at the end of the line and always don't hit him back.

Speaker 1 And this is my cousin who was smaller than me and he would bully me. And his mother with my obviously, you can't hit him back.
You're too big to hit him back. Just don't hit him back.

Speaker 1 Just, you're too big. You just got to take it.
Yeah, just got to take it. And then one day I lost it and hung him on the clothesline in the backyard.
Oh my. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And ran home and told my mother, I was like, I couldn't take it anymore. She said, what'd you do? So she goes and gets the kid down and she's laughing all the way.
But yeah, I want it to be smaller.

Speaker 1 They were kind of right to tell you to not hit back because look what happened when you did. Yeah, exactly right.
But that's my thing.

Speaker 1 I am the most gentle guy in the world until I'm pushed way too far. Then that's a whole nother side.
Push to your limit. Yeah.
It takes a lot to get me there. So I was enormous for my size as a kid.

Speaker 1 And in all the class photos, it looks like I flunked a few grades. Because you're so big.
Yeah, it looks like he's in the wrong class. Did you stand out like that? Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 I was the tallest and the biggest and the smartest. And it was a lot.
And this is in New Orleans. Yeah, New Orleans.
Yeah. So what were the virtues that were prized at that time?

Speaker 1 Obviously, not those things. No.
Growing up, my mother was a woman who completely gave a lot. So it was all about giving and helping each other all the time.

Speaker 1 And because we didn't have much, but we had more more than others in the neighborhood, we were always the place to come if you were in need. And my mother was really, really great at that.

Speaker 1 I would wake up in the morning sometime, Saturday morning, step out of the bed, and I would step on somebody on the floor, like, who is this person?

Speaker 1 And my mom would be like, they needed a place to stay. Be quiet.
Don't embarrass them. Oh, really? Yeah, it was a lot of that for sure.
And was she finding these people at church or all over?

Speaker 1 We lived in New Orleans, which was the big city. And most of her family and the man that raised me's family were from the small country towns outside.

Speaker 1 And when the two of them got married and moved to New Orleans, it was family members that took them in. So it's always your door had to be open for somebody else.
Right. And siblings?

Speaker 1 A brother and two sisters. Older or younger? Younger brother by 10 years and two sisters by five and six years.
So did you feel included at all? Or do you have little brother complex?

Speaker 1 My brother's 10 years younger than me. So we never were close.
But with the sisters. With the sisters, no, there was always something that was off for me and the family.

Speaker 1 Like I didn't feel like I belonged. So I was never able to be extremely close to any of them.
It's really, really strange.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I got to tell you, I saw the 60 Minutes profile you did however many years ago it had to be over 10 years ago probably and it was insanely moving i appreciate that thank you particularly when you're visiting that house and i think we come upon the crawl space yeah it's not planned clearly and you're just having a moment where you go like oh yeah i hid and i spent so much time in this crawl space yeah

Speaker 1 that was heartbreaking chantel you told me this was light and happy where are we going okay all right all right

Speaker 1 okay monica okay all right i'm with you you told them light and happy they said it was light and happy but they no no no let's i'm light and happy while talking well

Speaker 1 we're gonna need the weed

Speaker 1 yeah to walk down the side of the house and see that crawl space little cubby house where i would hide from the abuse and it was painted robin egg blue i remember the blue paint that i found somewhere in a rusted can and painted it was such a beautiful light blue i now realize that what that blue was for is that people would paint their ceilings or their porches blue so that wasps and other things wouldn't build nests because they thought it was the sky.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? Yes. Southern thing.
Oh, wow. Now realizing that robin egg blue was to represent the sky, it was a pretty painful and rough time.
It was hard.

Speaker 2 It's a real metaphor also, like keep the wasps away.

Speaker 1 Yeah, or keep looking to the sky. Keep looking up all around you.
All right, well, look, we can keep it light and friendly. No, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 I think you want to go where you want to go. Let's go.
Let's go. Let's go.
Well, because I think you and I are among very few men that will say out loud, I got molested. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think that's important. I'm sick of talking about it, but I think it's important.
Let me tell you why I think it's important.

Speaker 1 The far-reaching effects, I don't know about what happened with you, but for me, having my abuser be a female, I just found out at 54, was rape.

Speaker 1 To be able to associate that with rape was weird because it was a female. Right.
And also the man at church.

Speaker 1 So the far-reaching effects of the trauma of sexual abuse and the sexual confusion that children walked through and tried to figure that out, that I had to walk through, was really, really profound.

Speaker 1 I worked so hard at trying to understand it. That was the most difficult part of my life, just trying to understand what had happened.

Speaker 1 Why it had happened or why the people that perpetrated it could have done that? Why it happened to me and why I couldn't shake what they did. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And as children, we'd have this ability to hold on to the pain of what it was and make it about our fault. Well, what was it in me that made that man do that or that woman do that?

Speaker 1 And growing up and coming into adulthood and trying to excise that, to get it out, to understand it was really, really challenging.

Speaker 1 I had a very bizarre breakthrough with it that thus far as I share this, I've not heard a lot of people relate to, but the confusion from my perspective was like, yeah, it was man on man.

Speaker 1 So this opens up this whole, and especially where I grew up in Detroit. I guess now I'm gay.
So there was like, this bad thing happened to me.

Speaker 1 And then I think this makes me gay, which is its own crisis at that time. And so then the notion I would ever tell anyone wasn't on the table because that would have been telling everyone I was gay.

Speaker 1 Again, in the 80s in Detroit, where that's not going to work. That's death.
It is. Then hearing, once I did say it, oh, it's not your fault.
You know, you were a kid.

Speaker 1 And that just didn't really alleviate any of the. And so for me, the work was I had to first acknowledge and own my part.
This is what people don't like.

Speaker 1 But for me to get over it, it was my spidey senses were going off. I was in a place I knew I shouldn't be and I didn't leave.
And I have that pit in my stomach. I can remember how that feels.

Speaker 1 And I didn't listen to my instincts. I first had to go, yeah, that part happened.
And I actually got to forgive myself for that. And once I was like, that all happened, you knew better.

Speaker 1 You should have gotten out. You felt those feelings.
It's not like it came out of complete blue for me.

Speaker 1 And that's okay because you were like eight years old and eight-year-olds choose poorly than I did. For me, it was allowing myself to forgive the eight-year-old who didn't listen to his spidey senses.

Speaker 1 It's powerful, but it's unfair. Let me tell you why.
That's what people say. I didn't really fully understand it until I had a child.

Speaker 1 And I could see my son at the age of the traumas that I was experiencing and going, look how innocent and beautiful and pure. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And this innocent and beautiful, pure child does not have the ability to make those kinds of decisions.

Speaker 1 So for me, it wasn't feeling the sense of, oh, what's happening? What's happening? Is this wrong? This wrong. It was somebody sees me and appreciates me and is telling me I'm special.

Speaker 1 Someone was kind. And their agenda was about grooming rather than it being about kindness.

Speaker 1 And I tell anyone, any man, any woman who's been sexually abused as a child, if you don't have a child, If you don't have relatives, if you see a kid on the playground, watch, not creepily, but watch the innocence of that child and then try and judge yourself through the innocence of that child.

Speaker 1 That's unfair. It is.
And that's what I came to, but I first had to grapple with this guilt feeling I had. Just to hear that it wasn't my fault was not sufficient to make it go away.

Speaker 1 I needed to kind of confront what was the darkness. The darkness was I felt like I should have known better and done something differently.
And I just needed to explore that.

Speaker 1 That's the man judging the child. Because the man or the teenager or the young man would clearly be like, what are you doing? This is crazy.
Why are you here?

Speaker 1 But if you take away the innocence and the lens of the way the child saw it, then you're robbing yourself of it.

Speaker 1 Here's the most freeing part of it for me that I found at 54 in therapy for the first time in my life.

Speaker 1 There's something called an arousal template that I had no idea about that from the age of three to seven, I could be wrong on the ages, but the therapist will tell you this, three to seven, your arousal template is set as a kid, even though you're not sexual.

Speaker 1 So if someone comes along and interjects something into your arousal template, be it culturally, be it rape and molestation,

Speaker 1 all all of those things being put into your young child brain becomes a part of your arousal template, especially for men.

Speaker 1 And for me, being a little boy, the thing gave me the most shame was when the molester would say, you liked it. Look, you're erect.
Yay. That's the struggle.

Speaker 1 How can I be a heterosexual boy, know I like girls, and have the same sex thought and desire? That was hard to understand. But understanding that the arousal template in your brain sets that.

Speaker 1 And has been hijacked. And also, this is the thing that blew my mind.
Once it's set, it can't be taken away. And for me, wrapping my mind and soul around all of that was very freeing.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 How did you handle it before you went to therapy? Like, what were you telling yourself?

Speaker 1 A lot of people would say, oh my God, you're so profound. Look how hard you work.
Look how much you've done. A lot of the success that I've experienced in life was because I wasn't dealing.

Speaker 1 I was just working. I would work my way through it.
And relationships wouldn't really work out because I would just work and work and work and work.

Speaker 1 And no matter how much work that I did, when the work would stop, I'd be faced with these things happen to you. What do you feel about it? Who are you? What are you?

Speaker 1 And I just got to a place in my life where it's like, I'm not going to live this way anymore. And at 55, I'm the freest and clearest version of myself that I've ever been.
Oh, that's wonderful.

Speaker 1 All of it's a sword, right? So I would argue that part of your arousal template being set in the way it was does predispose you to be able to handle what comes your way and results in the success.

Speaker 1 So my thing is, I thrive when shit's hitting the fan and spent a lot of my life seeking those out. We set this thing at a 50 instead of a 10.

Speaker 1 So it's like, I'm asleep unless I really got to be aware of how to get out of this situation. I'm sorry, man.
Yeah, same for you.

Speaker 1 What I did know, because recently I've been doing all these tests, when I went to this session, they were like, okay, let's test for you for autism because there are certain things that you are doing that are on the spectrum.

Speaker 1 So we went through all of these tests. And what we found is that a child like me, having to live in that kind of chaos and trauma constantly, I became hyper vigilant in everything.

Speaker 1 I trained my brain to see, to watch, to protect myself in every way, which is where I work today.

Speaker 1 So for you to say that you were in a moment of chaos is where you've thrived, it's what happened to the little boy and what he needed to be okay or to feel like he was loved.

Speaker 1 And I've run into people like that.

Speaker 1 And it's one of the saddest things that I've seen because the more I try and say, hey, this is what peace feels like, there's all of this resistance to it because it's scary. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was set on this trajectory. There's some parts of me I'm going to have to accept.
I'm not going to erase the hard drive from the arousal format.

Speaker 1 Which is very important to understand because you can make yourself insane trying to figure out what has happened. Why is it affecting me in this way?

Speaker 1 I've had very few sexual partners at 55 and people go, oh my God, you're this huge guy, really success. Sure, you're all over the world.
No, not me.

Speaker 1 I do believe that all things work together for your good, even though if they're awful and horrible, I have to believe that.

Speaker 1 Which put me in a wonderful position in running the studio because when you have people coming to you with their dreams in their hands and they need a job or want to be on a show, if I had been another person, then maybe I would have been doing things that were horrible.

Speaker 1 But because of what I went through and because of how much I understand the pain of that, I would never inflict that on anybody.

Speaker 1 So it put me in this great position to help as many people as I could safely hit this next level in their lives, right? Yes. So all of that is incredibly important to me.

Speaker 1 What's interesting is I think you and I went almost in opposite directions based on similar things, which is kind of fascinating. Yeah, and that happens.

Speaker 1 I had a friend who had been sexually abused and he

Speaker 1 had hundreds. of partners.
Yeah. Well, at the same time, he was abandoned by his mother.
So you could give him 10,000 females and it wouldn't fulfill what he was looking for. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he and I finally sat down, have some real deep conversations about what's going on. I even hired a private detective to try to find the mother that abandoned him so that he could talk to her.

Speaker 1 I was thinking that hopefully that will help him. Yeah, closure.
Yeah. There are people who go to these incredible extremes.
You can go that way where everything is sex.

Speaker 1 And then you go the other way where for me, I didn't want to be thought of as sexy. Being tall was a problem because when people would see me, they'd think, oh, this.

Speaker 1 tall black guy, the stereotype, or whatever that is. Well, you embody masculinity in our simplest definition or stereotype.
Yes.

Speaker 1 So carrying all of that and trying to walk through and work all of that out was a journey for sure.

Speaker 2 When you would have sexual partners, did you feel like,

Speaker 2 sorry, this is so personal, but what did you feel after the fact? Were you like, I didn't like that. I don't like sex anymore or I'm ruined or I'm fraudulent.
What were the feelings?

Speaker 1 There was one woman who I was completely in love with. I was in my early 30s at the time.
Because I wasn't very experienced, I felt less than inadequate. Yeah, inadequate.

Speaker 1 And that was something that made me shy further away and back into myself of going, okay, I don't want to be judged based on my lack of experience because of what I've been through.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a weird cycle. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So at 54, this past summer, I've been thinking about it for a while. It's like, okay, Tyler, you've worked this hard.
You've got this beautiful kid. You've had this amazing life.

Speaker 1 What happens when you're not working? Why aren't you happy when you're not working? Because the work became the drug and the adrenaline.

Speaker 1 So to take that moment and stop the work and say, okay, let's go and look inside and see what's happening and see the full effect. This program I did was so fantastic.

Speaker 1 Before you go in, there are thousands of questions that you answer. So they have a clinical profile of who you are mentally walking in the door.

Speaker 1 For me to walk in and be confirmed in who I thought I was was so freeing.

Speaker 1 To have all of these therapists, I think it was nine that I saw in total, because it's a very intensive thing for seven days, 10 hours a day.

Speaker 1 And then you sit in the room and all the therapists talk about you and you listen. Oh, wow.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 And to hear them talking and affirming the good person that I know that I am and the issues and the way to work through them was very freeing for me.

Speaker 1 This one woman I love, she would say to me every day I walk in, because when you go through these profiles, it's like, do you drink? I was like, I have drink on occasion. Have you ever done any drugs?

Speaker 1 And like, no, I tried this pot when I was 40, didn't really like it. I have a gummy every now and then, but if I get too weird, I don't like feeling out of control.

Speaker 1 But they were fascinated because I'm not an addict. That's shocking to me.
You had like an 80% chance of being an addict. And that's exactly what they were saying to me.

Speaker 1 And there were these group sessions. I'm going, I'm not going to be in these group sessions, man.
I'm tired of Perry. I don't know about this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And she said to me, there have been people who've come here who are famous who did not do the sessions and came back to do the group sessions.

Speaker 1 So I was in the group with these wonderful people who had shit that they were dealing with to sit in and hear their stories and made me find the commonality. There was a through line for all of us.

Speaker 1 And I think that for all of humanity, man. As much as I'm excited to be here talking to you, my hope is that by sharing this, somebody hears something that goes, maybe that's what I'm dealing with.

Speaker 1 A thousand percent, Tyler, because owning a studio is not very relatable.

Speaker 1 But the other stuff is you read the body keeps a score on any of these books. It's like 30%.
I mean, it's huge numbers of us who have gone through this stuff.

Speaker 1 And you would think you're the only one, at least when we grew up. And we grew up in a time where you could not talk about it.
No. Because if you said anything, you're gay.

Speaker 1 And being gay at that time was a horrible taboo thing. I'm so glad we're at a place now where people can just be themselves.
Yes. There was a kid recently.

Speaker 1 I don't know a lot of younger singers and performers, but he was singing on stage and I saw him talking about his sexuality, trying to figure it out.

Speaker 1 And my heart went out to him because he's so young. And what I wanted to scream was, look into the arousal template.
Figure out what happened.

Speaker 1 Walk it through so that you're clear in a sense of this is what happened. And also, there's so much shame.
You have to chase the shame down of what that feels like.

Speaker 1 And that's the thing that freed me, just to to look at it like I am ashamed of the why.

Speaker 1 And also understanding that was not my fault. I did not deserve that.
They gave that to me and it wasn't mine to carry. Here's the thing that I've been trying to work through the most.

Speaker 1 As long as I have been dealing with what they both gave me to carry, it has denied me the ability to love freely, openly.

Speaker 1 and be in a relationship that is healthy and whole for a very long period of time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I have another friend on a guy's trip in Jackson.

Speaker 1 We're sitting around talking and he's talking about how when he was six, his older brothers were making him have sex with these women and he's laughing and he's joking about it.

Speaker 1 He's laughing at everybody around the table. They're all making jokes.
And I'm quiet and I'm just like, guys, I'm sorry. I got to challenge you on this.
He's like, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 So when we got to a moment where we could talk in private, he broke. Yeah.
Because I had him look at his child. I was like,

Speaker 1 is that okay for your six-year-old?

Speaker 1 And then it's like, whoa, because you realize you've been judging the child that you are through the lens of your adult life. It's so misleading.
For sure.

Speaker 1 Can I ask really quick, how do you feel about men in general? I'm kind of relieved to hear you were on a dudes trip in Jackson. I'm not expecting you to be excited to become friends with men.
Really?

Speaker 1 Why? Well, given the dad and that seems very scary and that perhaps men in general. No, no, I've got great guy friends, great female friends.
For me, most of that carnage was driven by dudes.

Speaker 1 my mother was the balance for everything for me and she wouldn't let me see things one way she worked at a jewish community center for most of my childhood she would educate me about what jewish people went through my mother just would not let me see things one way so i wouldn't lean toward one group or one sex of a group i always base people on are you a good person and i have a really good sense of people which came from that childhood of being hyper vigilant.

Speaker 1 When I walk in, I'm like,

Speaker 2 yeah, are you skeptical when you walk in? Are you like...

Speaker 1 I'm I'm not skeptical. I'm immediate on what I feel.
I don't talk myself out of what I feel. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I think that's the gift that I've come to realize I'm grateful for, which is someone sits down in here and I know within 30 seconds if they've had our childhood. Exactly right.

Speaker 1 I see how they look at the doors in the room. I see how they look over at Rob and I just go, oh, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep.
We're on the same team here. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And also the understanding of what we had to survive and how our brains taught us. It's like a deer drinking water.
They're always looking up. They can't just drink the water and relax.

Speaker 1 I drove into my property the other day and there was one laying down. I had never seen a deer lay down.
And the deer was laying there and looked at me as I just rode by on my bike and never got up.

Speaker 1 And I thought, what a great place to get to in life where you can just lay down in a green pasture and just be okay. And not be fearful.
Do you have a hard time sleeping? No, I sleep well.

Speaker 1 And you always have? Or is that post-trip to this great place? I don't know if I always have, but what I know I do is work myself to exhaustion. So the sleep is good.

Speaker 1 But I also do know how to stop and check in, see if I'm okay, go away, get quiet. I like to be alone.
I'm a loner by nature. I could spend days and weeks and months in the mountains by myself.

Speaker 1 You have to police yourself, I imagine, with isolation. Of course, especially having a 10-year-old now.
It's like, hey, hey, dad, hello. Soccer practice over here.
Real life's happening over here.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, so he's 10. Yeah.
I have 10 and 11. It's so fucking fun.
Yeah. He's so good.

Speaker 1 Okay, so at a certain point, again, it'd be shocking to people, I think, to learn that someone as smart as you, you didn't graduate high school.

Speaker 1 I got put out of high school and had to go to PM high school to get my diploma. It was a high school that was at night after school for adults and people who got kicked out of school.
Right.

Speaker 1 Dudes who were smoking cigarettes in the parking lot. Yeah, who wanted to go to school.
And then in your early 20s, you're watching Oprah. Yeah.
Picture that, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 You're watching Oprah.

Speaker 1 You learn about journaling as a way to process your thoughts and you really decide to take that up yeah i was looking through some things recently and i ran across one of my journals from that era early 2000s and i opened it up and i started reading and i just sat there i was reading for hours i called oprah up i was like listen go pull out your journals and read some of the stuff you were going through 20 30 years ago It was so spiritual.

Speaker 1 I was in tears. It's like you had written your own Bible of the things that you had come through.
And to go back and look at them and see how far you've come was so beautiful to me.

Speaker 1 So I would tell anybody, journal, write, and then go back years later and see. When you were reading the one from 20 years ago, what were you wrestling with that you now realize your past?

Speaker 1 Does it also give you a sense of humor about all the stuff you obsess about? Yeah, I was just like, oh, I hope the show works. I don't know how I'm going to pay this light bills $3,000.

Speaker 1 I go back and look at those things and go on, look at where you were. I'd come through being homeless.
So I was writing it from the point of view of where I was and not where I was going.

Speaker 1 Understanding where you're going is so much more important. I've learned to build for where I'm going rather than where I am.

Speaker 1 And looking back on all of that stuff and reading all of those moments and those memories, it really was powerful for me.

Speaker 1 Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert,

Speaker 1 if you dare.

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Speaker 1 Okay, so you started at what age do you think? 18 or 19. I was watching the show and I started journaling.

Speaker 1 And I didn't use my name because at that time, we wouldn't talk about the things that you and I just talked about. Right, right.

Speaker 1 I would use these different characters, and a friend of mine found them and goes, Man, this is a really good play. And I thought, hmm, maybe it is a play.

Speaker 1 What I write about is this character went through this. I was talking about adult survivors of child abuse and rape and molestation.
So I moved to Atlanta.

Speaker 1 Prior to that, did you ever fancy being a writer? I didn't. What was your rationale? You're clearly very bright.
It's not working in school. It's not working at home.

Speaker 1 What were you thinking you were destined to do? Were you so confused? I definitely wanted to be an architect. The man that raised me was a builder and I wanted to build houses.

Speaker 1 But when I wrote this, I always loved entertainment, but I never thought you can auditioning. Yeah, you're trying to be invisible, not center stage.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So having my friend encourage me and doing that first play and seeing people, the 1,200 that I thought would show up and only 30 did. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Having the 30 people's reaction to the show speak to me in my soul, I was like, whoa. So that sparked something for me.
And you went in this incredible journey. So you moved to Atlanta in 1990?

Speaker 1 Yeah, early 90s. And I think we got to do one second on, it seems obvious to me, but why Atlanta from New Orleans? Hurricane Katrina literally blew the roof off the poverty that was in New Orleans.

Speaker 1 Mardi Gras is amazing and the tourists are on Bourbon Street and St. Charles Avenue and it's beautiful and it's amazing.

Speaker 1 But two blocks behind those mansions is where we were in the ghetto with drive-by shootings and police brutality and murders. And it was just insane.

Speaker 1 So, some friends of mine invited me to Freaknik, which is the Black Spring Break. Black kids went to Atlanta, white kids went to the beach for spring break.

Speaker 1 I don't know what that's about, but I got there, and while everybody's partying and dancing and drinking, and I'm realizing that I see black people doing well,

Speaker 1 I'm from Detroit. So, I would go down to Atlanta, and I'd be like, this is a completely different version than I've ever seen.
There's black folks in escalades and they have nice houses.

Speaker 1 They're at the nice restaurant. This was unimaginable in Detroit in the 90s.
Yeah. And I think I'm probably six years older than you.
Five, yeah. So you get it.

Speaker 1 And being a black person and never seeing a black person be successful unless it was a pimp or a preacher to come to Atlanta and see their doctors, their lawyers, they're in suits.

Speaker 1 A full middle class. I'm home.
So I loaded up my Hyundai and moved right to Atlanta. You put up a play.
And as you say, only 35 folks. Yeah, 30.
Okay. Don't give me the other five.

Speaker 1 I'm going to give you five. $12 a ticket out there.
I don't know if you were in and out of the bathroom. You didn't count.
I would count that. Yeah.
That's right. That's right.

Speaker 1 You undertake from that moment something that is, I think, very rare in our business, which is you then take the next six years, I guess, to refine, to rewrite, to rework, to restage. No.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Well, no wonder it was impossible.

Speaker 1 You're doing your research. That's good.
That's good. But no, it was the same show.
And every year I would try to do it. It would fail.
But there was somebody in the audience out of every show.

Speaker 1 This is what I call a Ram in the Bush who wanted to invest in it. Every time.
The most I saw was probably 1,400 people in New Orleans in a theater that sat 3,000.

Speaker 1 But out of that, somebody said, well, let's keep this going.

Speaker 1 Because during this time, there were a lot of plays, these black shows that were traveling the country and making lots of money for black people.

Speaker 1 It was on something that's affectionately called the Chitlin Circuit. The rename's weird.
Urban. There's a rename? Yeah, they rebranded it.
Well,

Speaker 1 kind of like Aunt Jamama, you have to rebrand it.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to call this shit what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Chitlin Circuit is when black performers could not perform in white establishments.

Speaker 1 They would travel all over the South into all of these different places and become famous among their own people.

Speaker 1 So here I am doing this play in the early 90s and getting some of these spots where black people were allowed to go everywhere.

Speaker 1 But the spirit of the Chitlin Circuit was still there, where black people supported each other. And for my play to not work all of those years, then in 1998, take off off one night.

Speaker 1 So the play itself didn't change all that. It didn't change.
You know what changed? The play was about adult survivors of child abuse who had forgiven their abuser because it was a happy ending.

Speaker 1 They all forgave the abuser, the woman who did all this stuff to him. And I hadn't forgiven my father.

Speaker 1 So it was hypocritical that I'm in this seat and I'm talking about forgiveness and it hadn't happened for me. So in 98, he and I got into a really heated argument, the man who raised me.

Speaker 1 And I forgave him. And that is when the show changed.
Oh, wow. Wow.
It was spiritual for me. I went from nobody being in the audience to having eight sold-out shows after I forgave him.

Speaker 1 And the forgiveness was such a scary thing for me because I didn't realize how powerful it was for me. It was my anchor.
You're with me. What are you thinking? You got something on your mind to say.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm dead with you. A, I'm thinking resentment is drinking poison, hoping the other person dies.
My own father, my resentments.

Speaker 1 I'm thinking of you being Christian, how it's probably compounded that you weren't able to achieve forgiveness in the context you were in. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But also anger is helpful. If you take away anger, you have to make room for compassion.
And that is very hard to do. It's much more gray.

Speaker 1 The ripping away of my anger toward him was like a car that kind of runs on gasoline. Then all of a sudden you fill it with diesel and say, go, be motivated.

Speaker 1 Because everything I was doing, every time I was trying to work, it was like, I'm going to make some money. I'm going to take care of my mother.

Speaker 1 I'm going to prove to you that I am something because you said I wasn't shit. Once that was gone and I forgave forgave him, it didn't matter anymore.

Speaker 1 I had no motivation to keep going, even though the purest sense of where I started was about making enough money to take care of my mother so she didn't have to be with him.

Speaker 1 So forgiving him ripped that from me. I had to figure out, okay, how do you operate now? I also found this out in therapy.

Speaker 1 I shifted from the anger to caregiving and I did not know that my caregiving was a problem. Is the caregiving still an attempt to be safe? The caregiving is an attempt to save everybody else.

Speaker 1 But I hear what you're saying. Yeah, I'm trying to find this crossover because I don't trust people.
What's someone going to do? And then I have tactics.

Speaker 1 So if you're a woman and you're in love with me, I feel safe because you're probably not going to hurt me if you love me.

Speaker 1 If you're a man and I think I can dominate you, you're going to know not to try to hurt me.

Speaker 1 If I can make everyone in this room laugh, I'm totally safe because people aren't swinging when they're laughing. So I have these techniques.

Speaker 1 And I guess I would have just imagined that if you're the caretaker and you're benevolent, you would expect the reciprocity would be kindness. That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 I would expect that if I'm kind to you, you'll be kind to me or you'll be kind to somebody else. However, it doesn't work that way.
However, yes. I let all that go years ago.

Speaker 1 I gave up expectations, which was a problem. You're not an AA, but you'd be great in AA.
Is that right?

Speaker 1 Expectations are resentments under construction. That's the saying.
Wow.

Speaker 1 I gave up expectations because I thought if I'm good to this person, if I'm kind to this person, if I'm doing this, and they give me their ass to kiss or just become horrible, then I'm going to feel bad.

Speaker 1 because they did that rather than going, I'm just going to be good to you, whether you do whatever you want to do or not. You do what works for you.
I'm just going to be good to you. Right.
For me.

Speaker 1 For me. Because my entire life was based on the anger and now I've shifted.
So I've got to do this for me.

Speaker 1 But where it became a problem, and I could not wrap my brain around this when I first started talking to these folks, they were saying, Tyler, caregiving is a problem. I'm like, how is that a problem?

Speaker 1 It's such a good thing.

Speaker 1 It's a problem if you're using it to cover. what you're dealing with.
So I was caring for everybody else. So I wasn't dealing with what I was dealing with or going through.

Speaker 2 You weren't caring for yourself. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's kind of like that classic codependent paradigm, too, right? And I imagine you probably collected folks that needed a lot of help. Not intentionally.

Speaker 1 I absolutely didn't think it was intentional. But as I look at my life now, it's a suspicious amount.
This is beyond suspicious.

Speaker 1 I have a tremendous amount of people who need a lot of help. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, you've come up multiple times on this show from people you've helped. We had Prince Harry on.
You opened your doors to him.

Speaker 2 You are someone who extends yourself and you said your mom did it too so i assume there's also a deep knowing because she did that as well yeah but you're known to be very generous that's incredibly kind thank you monica i appreciate it it's good when people will acknowledge it and say it's really great thank you it's frustrating and confusing when it actually

Speaker 1 leads to their resentment. And understandably, once you unplug from the whole system, yeah, they feel shittier.

Speaker 1 And they weirdly resent you because you're helping and you're sort of a reminder that they need help. And that's a very tricky dynamic to navigate.
I set limits on how far I'm going to go.

Speaker 1 I'm going to help you to this point. And you've got to get up and be on your own because I'm not going to let you be dependent on me for everything.
And then they get angry because of where you stop.

Speaker 1 Right. I've seen that, of course.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But listen, it's okay. It's not okay, but it's life.
You keep moving. You deal with their anger, whatever way it comes.
But I always know my intention. My intention is pure.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Monica, cut this out because I say it too often. But my mother said the best thing to me ever.
Why do you want to cut it out? Because I say it too much. It just sounds redundant.

Speaker 1 But we can leave it in if you want. Yeah, because if you say it a lot, then somebody may hear it for the first time.
Okay. You can be the judge of it.

Speaker 1 So I got my mom on complaining about someone else asking me for money. And she's very generous and lets me go on and on, comforts me.

Speaker 1 And then she says, you know, Dax, in life, you can either be the person calling for help or you can be the person that gets called for help. Who do you want to be? And I was like.

Speaker 1 Oh, definitely the person that gets called for help.

Speaker 2 I know, but that's come to bite you a little bit. Oh, so.
Because you don't like calling anyone for help and everyone needs to call someone for help every now and then.

Speaker 1 That's true. That's true.
That's true. But just given those options, it was very helpful for me to reframe my frustration with it, which is like, well, I could be in the other side of this equation.

Speaker 1 There's another option there because I found this out because I was helping so many people and they just kept coming back, kept coming back. Oh, I need this.
I need that. I was praying about it.

Speaker 1 And I clearly hear this voice, which I believe inside of me to be the voice of God. It's like, stop.
You are blocking a midnight. And I thought about that.

Speaker 1 I went back and looked at what midnight represented in the Bible. Sometimes God designs midnights for people to go through.
And if you run and rescue them all the time, you're not making them better.

Speaker 1 You rob them of the thing that would make them better. That might change them.
Or be that thing that gets them up and gets them on their feet and gets them going. The catalyst.
Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 So you forgive your father. That's fascinating.
People should know, not to make you go through it again, but you were born a junior. And at 16, you changed your name.

Speaker 1 So just to accentuate the stakes that were on this relationship, it was very strained. From childhood, I knew this man was not my father.
And it turned out to not be your father, which is crazy.

Speaker 2 Wow, you just knew it.

Speaker 1 Did you talk to Carrie about this?

Speaker 2 Yeah, Carrie Washington. She had a sign.

Speaker 1 She was on about her book and that estrangement from the family and not being able to put your finger on it and that fucking huge looming. What is going on? Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I was a kid asking my mother all of my life, remember asking, is he my father? Her answer would always be the same. I hate to tell you this, baby, but he's your father.

Speaker 1 I asked her on her deathbed, Is he my father? Same answer. I hate to tell you this, but he's your father.
It's 15 years ago, this week, that I'm dealing with this.

Speaker 1 So I'm a little emotional as I'm thinking about it. Yeah.
When she died, it didn't sit well with me. So I did a DNA test with my brother and I.
DNA tests come back. We don't have the same father.

Speaker 1 So I'm like, okay, well. One of us isn't dad's.
Yeah, but I knew he was his. He is his spitting image, everything, his attitude, his voice.

Speaker 1 So then I do another test with the man himself, and I'm not his child. And if I could wake my mother up for five minutes, I'd be like, like, hey, can you just tell me?

Speaker 1 Because what I want her to know is that I wouldn't judge her. She was 24 years old.
This man was beating the shit out of her. She was in misery.
And if there was a man that loved her, hooray for her.

Speaker 1 That makes me smile and happy to know that somebody loved her because of the way he was treating her. Yeah, any moment of comfort you would want for her.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But on the other hand, my mother was deathly afraid to be in the house by herself. There's a story of her being home alone with my two sisters.
I wasn't born yet.

Speaker 1 And she was screaming and banging on the wall. It was a double house for the neighbors to come over and help because somebody was trying to break in the house.
That's all I know about the story.

Speaker 1 I don't feel that I'm the product of a rape, but because I have all of these looming questions that are out there, I wish she had just told me if she knew.

Speaker 2 She might have believed this. Whether she knew or didn't know, you can start believing a story.
I think we talked about that with Carrie. In some ways, I think everyone just believed it.
That's right.

Speaker 1 My mother was an extremely kind, giving, and loving woman, but she was also very, very private. So I want to give her the dignity of what she believed, but I knew it from childhood.
Isn't that weird?

Speaker 1 Yeah. And it wasn't because of physical resemblance.
No, it was just, I could not understand how this man could look at me with such hate. So you believe he knew as well.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then there were clues. I think I was probably in my late teens, early 20s.
They were sitting out on the porch, and he said to her, oh, that's where the boy gets those eyes from.

Speaker 1 My eyes are kind of webbed in between.' And she tells me, She's like,'He said,'You have my eyes.' And I thought,'You've been married to this man for 30 years, and he didn't know what your eyes looked like.' Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, those kind of moments that made me go,'Hmm, so you're wondering where my eyes came from.' You finally see her in this. So it was a different time back then.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you find some forgiveness for him. Yeah, are you cool now? Oh, you cold? Yeah, have you cooled off? Yeah, I have.
All right, turn that off. Okay,

Speaker 1 okay,

Speaker 1 turn it off. We didn't have a chance.
What a funny way to say that.

Speaker 1 That could have meant so many things.

Speaker 1 Cool. No, no, no.
So sorry, because it blows right here.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we just had Morgan Freeman on. He did not want it.
He did not like the air idea.

Speaker 1 But then conversely, we had Jeff Ridges on. He hated how hot it was.
So it's like, I don't know, what are you going to fucking pick? You can't trust anyone in that Z. That's right.
That's right.

Speaker 1 So lo and behold, these plays become hugely successful. The amount of them you were doing is staggering.
You're doing 300 a year. Sometimes 360, 370 a year.
And not in one theater.

Speaker 1 So you're traveling. It's all over the country.
Eight to nine shows a week, sometimes 10. It becomes impossibly successful.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 If you look at Maxine's Baby, that's my mother's name on Prime Video, it kind of lays out the whole story. It's pretty fascinating for people to see.
Okay, so there's a doc about

Speaker 1 a documentary about my life that Armani Ortiz and the mother my child did because she was the only one I would trust to give that kind of access to me.

Speaker 1 They followed me for 10 years and it tells the whole story from when I started all the way up until the studio opening. Oh, I'm definitely watching that.
I'm ashamed that I don't know that yet.

Speaker 1 I spent all this time reading about you. It's her fault.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The light and airy fun armchair.

Speaker 1 I don't want to embarrass you, but there's a point where at least minimally Forbes goes, this show has generated $100 million. It's generated $20 million in merch.

Speaker 1 At that age, you must be more successful than you had ever even dreamt of. Yeah, but it wasn't enough.
I was scared. Well, because that's my question.

Speaker 1 So in my mind, all this was going to fix a lot of stuff. I didn't think it would fix a lot of things.
I was worried about it staying. How long is this going to stay?

Speaker 1 And I'll never forget telling my mother she could retire. She had diabetes and she was very ill working with the kids at the center.
And I was saying, you should retire.

Speaker 1 And I hung up the phone, just praying, God, please let these places keep working so I can take care of her. I just worried every day that it was going to end.
Yeah. It's a scary feeling.

Speaker 1 All of a sudden, there's money. There's income.
There's more than enough. My pathology wasn't more than enough.
My pathology was you got money when you ran out of money because that's how it was.

Speaker 1 You had to wait till the next two weeks to get your next check.

Speaker 1 So to go from having nothing and being homeless and living on the street to the first year of making money, making $100 something thousand dollars and getting to the end of the year and not having a dime to pay taxes because I had given it all away.

Speaker 1 And then the next year making a million and the next year, 7 million. It was all of this learning and progress.

Speaker 1 And I had no one to teach me or walk me through or talk to me about how this works or what this means. Nobody in my family had any money.

Speaker 1 Were there not mentors available or you weren't good at availing yourself to mentorship? There weren't any available. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to grant you that.

Speaker 1 Even in Atlanta. Right.
And also I didn't trust because if you told me this was going to work or to do this or to do that or invest in this, I just didn't trust it. Okay.

Speaker 1 So I wouldn't trust it either, but mine would be, you want something if you're just going to be nice to me. There's no way I would trust a mentor.
They must have an ulterior motive.

Speaker 1 That's my hang up with mentorship. Do you still feel that way? No, it's lessened.

Speaker 1 I mean, we're talking about stuff that's like 30 years old and 10 years old and eight years old, but no, it's lessened. And I can ask people now.
Lessened, but it's still there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But yeah, that's how deep that fear is, I guess. Here's this man who's got status and wealth and he likes me for some reason.
And my next thing is to have a dream where he wants to get sexual.

Speaker 1 That's the sad part of where we come from. Our traumas, the things we've been through will automatically make our Atenas go up and think, why are you being so nice to me? What's wrong with you?

Speaker 1 You've got wealth. You're after something.
Yeah. I used to work so hard to try and dispel that for people.

Speaker 1 Like, no, this is just about somebody being kind to you because I know what that's like for somebody to be kind to me.

Speaker 1 I've given away cars and houses and paid for kids to go through college and did so much stuff for people that it got to a point where I was like, I don't want to meet them.

Speaker 1 I don't want to shake their hands. I want to just stand over here and see that they're doing well because I don't want them to have that mentality.
You know, probably they're like, yeah.

Speaker 1 Imagine somebody walking up to you and your car is broken down. They give you a new car.
What do you want?

Speaker 1 What is this going to cost me rather than than just understanding that there are people on the planet who are just kind?

Speaker 1 Well, and let's add now on the other side of it, which this state of mind was truly unimaginable for me growing up poor, which is like, well, the only joy I'm actually getting out of this thing that I thought was going to be so spectacular is giving people shit.

Speaker 1 I don't mean like family members. I mean tipping an obnoxious amount every time I eat a cheap meal.
That's more fun than anything.

Speaker 1 That server doesn't need to worry that I'm a creep that wants to do something. Exactly.
What does that do for that person?

Speaker 1 What does this do for your spirit, you as a person, and how do you pay it forward? That's what I always say. What can I do? Nothing.
Pay it forward.

Speaker 1 Yeah, find someone that's being in a shittier spot than you are. Yeah.
Okay. So then going into movies, there's a point where the show is incredible.
It's generating a ton of money.

Speaker 1 You're working too hard, which is your dream. 24-7, no time to think about anything.
Why get out of that? We went from 2,000 seat theaters to arenas and couldn't meet the demand.

Speaker 1 So I thought, okay, there's a hunger for this kind of storytelling. So let me move into television.
Got it. It was just a bigger arena.

Speaker 1 It was a bigger arena and I didn't have to be everywhere at once. I could be on a screen in 2,000 locations.

Speaker 1 And that's when I really began to understand this lack of representation for black people in storytelling and especially my kind of storytelling for black people, because there were lots of shows that were directed at black people, but they weren't told from the point of view of a black person who had experienced it.

Speaker 1 So that's why I think shows and movies are still going to number one is because I'm telling it from a point of view that we really get no matter what critics say, no matter what anybody says.

Speaker 1 Okay, weirdly, we've already laid the groundwork for this and I was talking about it in the trauma aspect.

Speaker 1 So I wanted to hear from you how you process that huge dissonance between what it's doing commercially and what it's doing critically.

Speaker 1 And so my own pet peeve about this is I think it's people removed from that situation telling the people in the situation how they're supposed to process it and enjoy it and like it.

Speaker 1 There's something something very condescending about that specific type of criticism. I don't like metal music.
Metal is not my thing.

Speaker 1 I can't relate to it, but I don't criticize it and I don't judge it because it's not for me. It's not directed to me.
It's not something that I can say, I like this music. So this music's crap.

Speaker 1 No, that's just not for me. And it's the same way when I think about the work that I do, it is specific in nature and it speaks to a specific audience.

Speaker 1 And to have a critic come along and say, well, you have 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Like, fuck your tomatoes.

Speaker 1 Because when I was first starting out, I had two critics in my show at the Kodak Theater sit on the same row. I watched them make notes throughout the show, too.
They reviewed the exact same show.

Speaker 1 They saw the exact same thing. I read both reviews.
It's the last time I read reviews. And one guy thought it was amazing.
The other guy thought it was the worst thing he'd ever seen.

Speaker 1 So I thought, hmm, this is opinions. This is what people think.
And it doesn't really matter as long as I'm clear about the intention of what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but you know, I think there's something a little deeper going on with your work particularly. So, yes, two people could watch the graduate and they're going to have different opinions.

Speaker 1 But I'm going to argue, and this is something that's very burbling up all around us, and no one really wants to talk about it, which is there is an elitism. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 And it's condescending and it's judgmental, and people feel it, and they go out and vote in response to that. And I think this particular thing reeks of elitism.
It reeks of we know better.

Speaker 1 better, you should be doing this, you should be showing what should be, not what you experience and recognize. There's something about it that feels very removed and judgmental.

Speaker 1 It doesn't feel like it's coming from the inside and being judgmental. I would agree.
This happened to Sandler, too. Critics fucking hated him.
Every movie is an enormous.

Speaker 1 A third of the country loves the movie.

Speaker 1 Now, I have different opinions than other people, and I might not like stuff or like stuff, but I like to think I don't get onto a soapbox of it's lowbrow or it's cheap or it's bad or mine's better or superior.

Speaker 1 It's just, oh, right, that audience likes this, this audience gets that, and audiences get what they want. Without the deep judgment of it all.
Completely true.

Speaker 1 Also, to layer that is the understanding of what it's taken for me to be able to be in this business and to have this many hits and this much success.

Speaker 1 and have to fight tooth and nail to get a budget that's anywhere near a Sandler movie. Despite all the success.
Despite all of it. Still.
To this day. It's wild.
With Paramount.

Speaker 1 I have these shows on BT that do huge numbers for my audience, but the budgets are far lower than any of the other shows that are on some of the other parts of Paramount. Comparable audiences.

Speaker 1 For sure. And then it's like, oh, no, no, we have a formula for you, which is basically you are black.
This is your box.

Speaker 1 Here's where you stay because your audience is going to do this much for us in returns. And that has been since I've been in the business.

Speaker 1 So I have found a way to navigate through that, to take what I've been given, to make sure the actors and actresses are paid well.

Speaker 1 And at the same time, figure out how do I make this work and grow a business. It's been challenging.
Yeah. Because I would like to have one opportunity to have an even playing field for just one.

Speaker 1 Where it said, okay, here's your track record.

Speaker 2 Do it. Who else? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay. Your string of movies that are gigantic hits.
I'm going to add just for fun. Do you know who Joy Bryan is? Yes.
Okay. She and I were married on a TV show together for six years.

Speaker 1 But when we saw each other every day at work, I would say, hello. And she'd go, learn.
Who's talking about learn? Oh, my God. And it was our favorite.
Our salutation for six years was, hello.

Speaker 1 What are you talking about? Learn. Nobody's talking about learn.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Culturally, a world all her own.
Oh, I love it. So once you get into TV, I do have one logistical question.
When you do House of Pain, first season, I'm presuming you just funded 10.

Speaker 1 You went out and made 10 episodes? Yes, I did because I was talking to my agent. I said, want to do a sitcom.
And they're like, oh, well, just do one. I was like, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 I feel like I need to do 10. They're like, Tyler, nobody does 10.
That's not how this works. That's not how this works.
I was like, no, no, no. I want to do 10.
They're like, okay.

Speaker 1 So I went to Atlanta, filmed the first 10. They were awful.
Okay. And I put them in the can, and nobody wanted them in Hollywood.
Then the UPN and WB merged. I think they became the CW.

Speaker 1 And at the time, there were about 10 or 12 black shows on the air. Those shows all went away.
So all the affiliates, this is during the world of syndication, were pissed.

Speaker 1 So they were calling around Hollywood, what do you have? What do you have? It's like, well, I got this guy with Tyler Perry. He's got 10 episodes.

Speaker 1 And they're like, Tyler, you got those 10 of the gale. They want them.
Like, okay, so they put them on and all these different affiliates. The ratings were higher than what was there before.

Speaker 1 Blew their minds. So just explain the affiliate for people.
So you've got in your town, Atlanta, you got your own news station. That's its own affiliate of NBC.

Speaker 1 But there's hours of the day where they don't have programming. Yeah, exactly.
They don't have the programming to put things in or after the primetime hours, they wouldn't have the show to put in.

Speaker 1 So when they put this show in, it got these crazy numbers and they all just went crazy. And they're like, oh, Tyler, this is so great.
We got a call from this network. They want to order 10 more.

Speaker 1 Another one said, oh, we want 20. I was like, no, I want 100.
I want 90 episodes. Everybody's like,

Speaker 1 what are you talking about? Yeah, you keep timing this by 10 and you shouldn't.

Speaker 1 You make one pilot, not 10, and then you get nine episodes with a back order yeah and they told me it's not going to happen nobody's going to do that i was like well i'm not doing it because i knew a hundred mint syndication right so i wanted somebody to commit to 100 episodes and that was turner tbs have you watched that doc by chance no ted turner on max you want to turn that back on don't you

Speaker 1 go ahead so bad but i'll sit go ahead what's your heat level right now i'm with you turn it on okay okay good

Speaker 1 you know what a solution would be is to actually use the thermostat on it and just not make it frigid that seems or just turn it on just freeze yourself Now, watch this. I'm going to go up to 20.

Speaker 1 It's also in Celsius. Okay, then we're all screwed.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Let's travel to Europe right now and enjoy some Celsius. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, because what I'm so confused about is when I go to the Wikipedia page for House of Pain, it says like 336 episodes, which is impossible. Yeah, I think we're at 400 something now.

Speaker 1 Okay, and I go, no, there's no show has 400 episodes. And then I'm looking at the breakdown of seasons.
And yeah, it says season one is 10. And then it says season two, 100.
Yeah. How does that work?

Speaker 1 Were they airing twice a week? I don't know how they were airing. All I know is I was working my ass up.

Speaker 1 It took me nine months to shoot all 100. I would shoot two or three episodes a day.
Oh my God. Oh my lord.
But all of that was because of the situation I was in. Right.
The economics demanded.

Speaker 1 How do I shoot this quickly? Because they're not giving me the money. How do you make this work? Even now when I'm doing movies, I'll shoot a movie in five days, seven days, 18 days.
Oh my God.

Speaker 1 Because when I'm talking to the DP, unless there's specific shots that we want at specific time of day, I'm like, listen, with all the digital stuff that we can do today with lighting, make this beautiful and let's figure out how we do it.

Speaker 1 I've worked with some amazing DPs who have found the way to do it. Jasmine's Blues, which is on Netflix, was the first movie I ever wrote 28 years ago now.

Speaker 1 It is the first time I ever fell in love with filmmaking and I just filmed it in 22. Oh, wow.
Okay, so you go on this impossible run. You have so many TV shows.
You have so many movies.

Speaker 1 You open up the studio. You become friends with the Queen Bee.

Speaker 1 You then have shows. I had one question about, I've met the Queen Bee a few times, and boy, does she deliver.
Yeah, yeah, she's amazing.

Speaker 2 The Queen Bee is tricky because it does sound like you're talking about Beyonce.

Speaker 1 I'm talking about Oprah. Yeah.
The original Queen Bee. Queen Bee.
How is she Queen Bee? Oh, you're talking about Oprah. Okay, got it.
Oh, you thought I was talking at CB Bee. You were right Beyonce.

Speaker 1 CBS Beyonce. Exactly.
That is fucking. Yeah.
I count her as a friend, too.

Speaker 1 But Oprah, I had one. Little question on that.
So you end up, the haves and the have-nots. You do eight seasons on own, and it's huge for them.
It's a great success.

Speaker 1 Is it tricky at all to be friends with the owner of the network when you're making this stuff? Because those are kind of inherently often at odds, those two roles.

Speaker 1 It was tricky, but we were determined to prove that we could work together and make it happen and the friendship wouldn't suffer. You had to keep that as a priority.

Speaker 1 Definitely had to keep it as a priority. And there were times when it got tough.
It's going to get tough. You guys have opposing interests all the time.
Even with Oprah, yeah, it got tough.

Speaker 1 But what we realized and both understood is how important the friendship is to each of us. Okay, let's talk about the Six Triple A.
How does this come your way?

Speaker 1 I got a call from Nicole Avant, who was coming off the tragedy of her mother being murdered.

Speaker 1 Here in L.A., an 80-something-year-old woman is at home in the evening, and some gangbanger breaks into the house in Truesdale.

Speaker 1 In Truesdale, for people who don't know, it's like one of the fanciest neighborhoods in all of L.A. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And her father, Clarence Avant, who was known as the Godfather, he and Quincy Jones were such mentors. Great doc on him.
Yes. That his daughter made who you're talking about.
That Nicole.

Speaker 1 She's like, Tyler, I really feel like you should do this movie, The Six Triple Eight. My mother and I feel like you should do it.
Our mother passed. Like, I feel like my mother wants you to do this.

Speaker 1 And I thought, whoa, I've never heard this story. So she sends me the scissor reel from Carrie Selich and Peter Guber, executive producer on the show.

Speaker 1 And I saw the scissor reel about 855 black women in World War II. I'm like, who knew? Yeah, yeah.
What 855? Wait, 855 black women were in Europe in World War II as a part of the war effort?

Speaker 1 I thought, you're kidding me, right? She's like, no, this is real. And there are four or five surviving members.
I said, where?

Speaker 1 So there were two that were really with it. There was one woman, her name is Elena King.
She died this year. She was 99.
I'm like, I'm getting on a plane.

Speaker 1 I'm going to see her right now because she's 99. I want to sit and talk to her before I start this script.
And I walk into her house. I don't know what to expect.
She's 99.

Speaker 1 I'm thinking she's going to be in a wheelchair. What's her memory going to be like? This woman comes down the stairs, her lipstick done, her hair, makeup.

Speaker 1 She says, Mr. Perry, it's a pleasure to meet you.
She was still driving. She was still going out dancing with her friends.
Oh, man. Her memory was as sharp as ever.
Wow.

Speaker 1 So I sit down and I ask her, I was like, so I know you were part of the Sixth Triple-A. Tell me about it.
What made you go? And emotion, eyes welled up with water. 70-something years.

Speaker 1 She goes back and she tells me about a young Jewish boy named Abram who was her very close friend. The lead of your movie, which I watched last night, is the woman you interviewed.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 The first one? Yeah. Oh, wow.
Tell that story. It's so good.
She's telling me about this young man named Abram who died in war. He wanted to go and do something for the Warfan to fight Hitler.

Speaker 1 She was so emotional because he've only been there a few weeks. And all of that emotion came back to her in that moment.
I saw it in her eyes. I was like, this is the way in to the movie.

Speaker 1 This is the story. She's telling me what happened and how much she loved him.
Yeah. How do you anchor this huge story in this very intimate, personal one? And in the movie, she's from Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 She's kind of in love with this boy. He's in love with her.
It's unrequited till he's about to leave. And then he's dead.
I would say about 80 or 90% of what you see in the movie is factual.

Speaker 1 I had to take some liberties. Of course.
But a lot of it's factual and the things she was sharing with me. And her memory was sharp.

Speaker 1 Like you could look at her face and see that she could almost smell the moments and the memories that she was talking to me. Two weeks later, I had a script.
I sent it to Nicole.

Speaker 1 I was like, listen, here. And they're like, you're kidding me.
We read it, tweaked it, worked on it, and started filming. Wow.

Speaker 1 And there's so much stuff that immediately burbles up without you having to really shine a light on it. Even her story, she's very smart.
She's very capable.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 she doesn't want to go clean and cook for men, but going to school, which would be a very natural next step for her, is

Speaker 1 off the table.

Speaker 1 What options are there left? So that right there is kind of telling. Then there's this other great moment where all these women enlist, and now they're taking a bus ride down to the south.

Speaker 1 The train, yeah. Oh, the train.
They're going to go to boot camp. And two things are happening.
One, some white dudes walk in and go, let's get the white people out here.

Speaker 1 We got to segregate this train. And you're like, oh, wow.
Yeah. 1944.
That's where we were at. But I think even crazier to think about was like, oh, all these women from the north are coming down.

Speaker 1 And they're like, what the fuck is going on? You could time travel still in 1944. You could teleport to a much crazier place.

Speaker 1 But also women of that day were very aware of racism, no matter where they were. Sure.
Well, she was already experiencing it in Philadelphia. Right.

Speaker 1 But just that level could happen on a train ride is also really stark. Time travel across the Mason-Dixon and you're in a whole new world.
Right.

Speaker 1 Okay, so then we meet Carrie Washington and she is the leader of this group of women. She's phenomenal as always.
Your first time working with her? Second. Okay.
What do we think of her?

Speaker 1 I'm in love with her. I think she's so fantastic.
I think that you're spot on. You're in love with her on and off camera.
She's amazing.

Speaker 1 We worked on For Color Girls in 2010 and this was our second time working together because between that time she had done so much. I wanted to find something worthy of her.

Speaker 1 This role, she's playing Charity Adams, who led these women, who was 26 years old at the time. She's 26.
She was 26 years old, leaving 855 women. Carrie and I were rehearsing.

Speaker 1 All of these women, the spirit of them, were with us through the whole thing. When I was finding different sets, I would look at the pictures and look at the historic references.

Speaker 1 Like, this is the exact place. It was like so weird.
But she and I were rehearsing in a dressing room, and there's a knock on the door, and it is the transportation guy.

Speaker 1 He comes up, he says, I want to show you something. I got this trunk I want you to see.
So we come out, and I have this on video.

Speaker 1 The transportation guy was a World War II buff, and he would go to these auctions and buy all these World War II materials. So he brings his trunk in.
He puts it at our feet.

Speaker 1 It is Charity Adams' trunk. No, it's not.

Speaker 1 What? With her uniform in it, her tulip tree, a letter in it. We both got chills.
Oh, my God. All these moments of these women letting us know that they were there and they wanted to stay token.

Speaker 1 It feels impossible.

Speaker 2 It's so special, spiritual.

Speaker 1 And the transpo dude found it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow. But then you see what she's up against.
It's all these half-steps. We had Malcolm Gladwell on talking recently about what do you actually need for representation in something?

Speaker 1 And you you find that like one woman on a board does nothing. She's a token and no one's going to listen to her.
Two is like, she's got a friend. That's not going to do much.

Speaker 1 But nothing really happens. And then it's three.

Speaker 1 There's this like magic number of three where now you get three women on a board of nine and now they can be themselves and they can really enact some change.

Speaker 1 And I was just thinking about Carrie's role. It's like she's the leader of this one black battalion and she's the only one there.

Speaker 1 And when she's meeting with these generals and stuff, they're placating her. They're just getting through it.

Speaker 1 They they got to do this thing and you realize like oh my god to be in that situation and actually get anything done seems nearly impossible yeah and for them to do it and do it well another challenge was the story's about the mail like how do you tell a story about the mail thank you if i'm you i'm like i don't know man where's the big explosion with the mail exactly right and carrie was the same way she's like how do you tell a story about the mail but i think that we discount what the mail meant then because there was no email there were no text messages mail was life and you had all these soldiers fighting, and they hadn't gotten mail in months because of the Battle of the Bulge and them moving around so much.

Speaker 1 So the morale was at an all-time low. And you had hangars full of 17 million pieces of mail that needed to get to the soldiers to boost their morale and take them through the end of the war.

Speaker 1 Well, and also you do a good job at pointing out there's a mom. I'm sure this part might be artistic, but a woman waits at the gates of the White House basically to talk to Eleanor Roosevelt.

Speaker 1 To say, like, I don't know if my son's dead or not. I haven't heard from my son in a year.

Speaker 1 Yes, morale, but I think more about all these people that were cut off, just assuming the worst for months and months and months at a time. And you can't call anyone to get an answer.

Speaker 1 Are they still alive? That must have been the most agonizing for those parents. Of course.
Can you imagine? No, if I wave goodbye to my daughter and I don't know for a year whether she lived or not.

Speaker 1 Yeah, awful. So no one wants to deal with this situation.
The army doesn't. They're like, supplies.
That's all we got to worry about. We can't be worrying about mail.
And so they throw them a bone.

Speaker 1 And they intentionally give them six months to sort all this out. Yeah.
Thinking, well, that's impossible. They're going to fail.

Speaker 1 It's impossible because of the vermin who had eaten through a lot of the package. You couldn't make out the names from the rain and the weather.
The World War II of it all. The World War II of it all.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And this impossible sorting task where they had just thrown all this mail into these hangers.
Yeah, where do you start with 17 million pieces of fucking mail? Exactly.

Speaker 1 And these gals, God bless them, they got the job done in 90 days.

Speaker 1 It's kind of impossible. Pretty amazing.
It's a great story. Thank you.
I'm excited about it. Yeah, yeah.
Everyone's really, really good in it. Let me have you rephrase these gals.
These women?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. These women got it done.
Yeah, yeah. So these women, they got it done in 90 days.
Yes. It's incredible.
Help me out. Is gals offensive? Yeah.

Speaker 1 In the movie, he says, step aside, gal, and the gas from black women in the theater was like, oof. So yeah, gal is offensive.
It's like boy calling a black man a boy. Oh, good, good.
Good heads up.

Speaker 1 I didn't know gals. Everyone's learning.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a lot of, I could sense you were shooting.
Well, I know you have a White House. Yeah.
So I'm like, we're shooting at his White House.

Speaker 1 So to be at your studio, I'm curious of the plays, the writing, the films, the TV show, where does the studio rank in that as far as the amount of pride it gives you when you try to integrate the fact that you own a studio?

Speaker 1 I tell you, the thing that warms my soul the most is understanding that it was once a Confederate Army base where there were soldiers plotting and planning on how to keep 3.9 million Negroes enslaved.

Speaker 1 And now that land being owned by me, how great is this country that that could happen?

Speaker 1 So if that could happen for me, I don't care who you are, where you come from, America is an incredible place to just be and dream and live and grow.

Speaker 1 And as many problems as we have as a country, we are still a great nation that when we galvanize and come together, we can do anything. Well, I still want to be here more than any other place.

Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure. Nowhere else in the world.
But the fact that it's tangible, does that feel special? It does. My father would build houses.

Speaker 1 It was a subcontract and he would get paid his $800 and he would be so happy. Oh, I got my money.
But I watched the guy that he sold the house, usually a white man, sell the house for $80,000.

Speaker 1 And I always wondered, why won't you do that? But looking at it from this point of view, I realize the burden of being the man who owns the house. Yeah.
I don't have any partners.

Speaker 1 I don't have shareholders. So when that $100,000 light bill is due, I've got to pay it.
That $180 plus million dollars in payroll for all the actors and everybody, I've got to pay that every year.

Speaker 1 So I understand the blessing of it. I also understand the burden of it.
And I also understand the exhaustion of it all. But I'm grateful for it.

Speaker 1 I just feel like it's so tangible versus what we do, which is like, I write, then I make it, it gets seen, then it's kind of gone, maybe it gets seen again.

Speaker 1 To have something that tangible, I feel like it would force me to experience what's happened. I feel like this visceral, real.

Speaker 1 tangible 3d space might force me to go no no for real you built this shit this wasn't here then you came along now it's here it's like reading a diary yeah in some ways the journals yeah and i get that and every time i drive through the gates i am reminded of how profound and wonderful this moment is, especially because there's so many people who wanted to do it.

Speaker 1 I can't tell you the last person who developed a studio of this magnitude. You think about Disney and Warner Brothers.
So, to do it at this time and at this level has really, really been profound.

Speaker 1 But every time I drive in the gates, this is God's honest truth. When I'm tired, when I'm exhausted, when I'm just like, okay, how much longer can you carry this?

Speaker 1 I'm reminded of all the people who wanted to do it. For some reason, it fell on me to do.

Speaker 1 And also, watching people come through the gates who had never had a shot in this business makes me go, you can go a little further. Yeah.
Listen, at 55,

Speaker 1 I'm going to be 70 soon. In two seconds.
That's the way I look at it. Right.
55 came so quickly.

Speaker 1 I'm just like, what does the next 15 years look like while I'm still able to run up and down the stairs and enjoy my life? What does that look like?

Speaker 1 And how much of this beautiful gift of this studio is going to be a blessing to that or a hindrance to it? Right. What about Black Panther being shot there? That was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 I feel like that's a real moment where you're like, oh, damn, this scam also worked out. One of the first things with Chadwick.
Oh, really? And would you pop in at all? Are you the studio owner that?

Speaker 1 No, no, I'm not that guy. I respect everybody's privacy and what they're doing.
I'll wait.

Speaker 1 If I get invited by the director, like Ryan invited me on the last day to set, I thought that was really great. Much different owner walking in.
Yeah. Well, it's staggering.

Speaker 1 I guess my only thought is how do you figure out how to enjoy it all? I think that's the last kind of hill to climb, isn't it? How do you really integrate it? How do you enjoy it?

Speaker 1 How do you accept it? How do you believe in it? How do you not fear? I'm finally at a place where I've got the right team in place to run it. So I can step back a lot.

Speaker 1 And as soon as I got there and was like, okay, great, we're good. Here comes AI.

Speaker 1 It's like, you might want to rethink everything you're thinking here. So it's like, here's a whole nother challenge to deal with.
Yeah. Oh, I have one last question about this.

Speaker 1 Could you ever mentally be at a place where you go, I did it. It really happened without feeling like you have to keep pursuing it.
I'm there now. Oh, well, congratulations.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I feel like I've done it.
There's nothing else. If 688 wouldn't have come along, Jazzman was like the pinnacle for me.
27 years to make it. I'm like, okay, now what? So I'm there.
Oh, good.

Speaker 1 Contentment. Yeah.
And you got a little boy, so that really takes care of a lot of it. Yeah.
All right. Well, I hope everyone checks out the Six Triple Eight.

Speaker 1 It's in theaters on December 6th, and it's on Netflix, December 20th. I think this is going to be enormous.
Are you still surprised when you have hits? I'm I'm thankful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm not as surprised as I am thankful every time.

Speaker 2 That's a good answer. I like that.

Speaker 1 But when it's a shitty movie, that hit? Thank you.

Speaker 1 But 688 is amazing. Well, Tyler, this has been so fun.
I don't think I ever thought we would meet. Of course, like everyone else in America is very aware of you.
I watched the 60 Minutes profile.

Speaker 1 I was very charmed and thought you were wonderful. And you're going to watch Maxine's Baby.
And I'm definitely going to watch Maxine's Baby. And your wife, I know it always goes back to your wife.

Speaker 1 Well, as it should. Your wife, I was doing People's Choice Awards, and somebody was supposed to present the humanitarian award, and she stepped up to do it the last minute.

Speaker 1 And the teleprompter went out. Oh, sure.
And she was like, I don't need a teleprompter to talk about him. I'll just wink it.
And it was really great. Oh, great.
I'll never forget that.

Speaker 1 She was grace under fire. Well, wonderful meeting you.
I hope everyone checks out the film and I hope we get to do it again. Or maybe just bump into each other.
Not working. That would be fun, too.

Speaker 1 Yeah, a lot of fun. A lot of fun.
I love it. All right.
Take care. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert.

Speaker 1 if you dare.

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Speaker 1 We are supported by Audible. You know, I spend a lot of time listening.
It's literally my job. But when I'm not recording the show, I'm constantly consuming audio content.

Speaker 1 And honestly, I can get pretty overwhelmed by all the choices out there. That's why I love when Audible drops their best of the year collection.

Speaker 1 Audible's most anticipated collection, the best of 2025, is here. And let me tell you, these editors know what they're doing.

Speaker 1 They've spent countless hours listening, having heated debates, probably way more heated than Monica and I get, although that's hard to imagine. And they have handpicked this year's must listens.

Speaker 1 What I really appreciate is that they don't just go for the obvious picks. They found hidden gems alongside the buzziest new releases.

Speaker 1 Whether you're into true crime like Monica, historical biographies like me, or something completely different, this collection has your back.

Speaker 1 I've already started diving into their selection, and honestly, it's like having a really smart friend curate your entire listening experience. Want to finish the year with a sure thing?

Speaker 1 Check out Audible's best of 2025 and discover why there's more to imagine when you listen. Listen now.
Go to audible.com/slash best of the year.

Speaker 1 I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong.
Hi, Monty.

Speaker 2 Happy birthday.

Speaker 1 Oh, thank you. It's your birthday.
There is a birthday, it's a birthday miracle today.

Speaker 2 Oh, because you've been very, you're okay. First of all, we're not together.
You're in Mexico City.

Speaker 1 I'm in Mexico City, and I just want to start by saying, what a place. Everyone should come.
It's incredible. This is a very, very special place.
I've never been.

Speaker 1 So, yes, we were having the very best trip. And I'll tell you some of the details.
But then

Speaker 1 Lincoln, three or four days ago, she started throwing up, and it was really rough.

Speaker 1 And she got

Speaker 1 really kind of scary sick. I was like, Do we need uh, what you know, you're trying to figure out like, when did you go to the house?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 yeah, so that was really rough. And that was going on.
She had been completely lifeless and zero energy for like 48 hours.

Speaker 1 And then New Year's Eve was fine. And then New Year's morning at around nine in the morning, I was like, oh, I got something sneaky going on.
But I didn't, I wasn't panicked.

Speaker 1 And then I, and I'm going to spare you the details, but then I went to the bathroom. And then I had,

Speaker 1 I mean, really, just the most violent throwing up I've ever had.

Speaker 1 And that went on for eight hours. And I was certain I gave myself a hernia.

Speaker 1 But the throwing up and the other stuff I won't mention, duty stuff, um, was truly nothing compared to the laying in bed, um, shivering like crazy, all of my muscles cramped.

Speaker 1 I really, I mean, kicking opiates, motorcycle acts, none of this was the single worst I've ever felt in my whole life for eight hours.

Speaker 1 I was like, and I would, I had it in my head, like, oh my God, if I, if this is for 48 hours, or Lincoln at that point was on 50, I was like, I, I, I don't think I could make it.

Speaker 1 Like, why isn't my body just stop letting me experience this? Cause it's way too much. Yeah.
And it was, it was just torture.

Speaker 1 And then Kristen brought me a Zofran and a, and in a leave about eight hours into it. I took that.
I was able to sleep. I slept for four hours.

Speaker 1 And then I woke up last night around, I don't know, 8 p.m. And I was like, I was okay.

Speaker 1 It kind of passed.

Speaker 1 And then Linky starting to come out of it too. So everyone else did fun stuff.
And she and I just hung out, went to the hot tub to soak our achy bodies. That was fine.
We did about 10 minutes.

Speaker 1 That was our big adventure.

Speaker 1 And then we laid in bed and watched Little Women, the Greta Gerwig one. That's a great movie.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.
This trip for me has been a total revelation about Greta Gerwig. I knew Barbie, but I hadn't seen Ladybird.
Oh,

Speaker 2 what a movie. It's such a good movie.

Speaker 1 What a movie. Do you know? I didn't see it because I thought it was a period piece.

Speaker 1 Like the cover and the title, I, for some reason, thought it was a period piece, not a high school coming-of-age movie.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but then Little Woman is a period piece.

Speaker 1 But now I just love Greta. I would watch, I don't know, name your worst.
I'd watch a horror film that she made at this point. So now I became obsessed with Greta Gerwig.

Speaker 1 And then last night, I was like, let's watch Little Women. Well, that's an incredible, perfect movie, too.

Speaker 2 It is. She's so good.

Speaker 1 Then I did research on her, Monica, like I was going to interview her. I did like an hour of research on Greta Gerwig just for my own edification and fun.

Speaker 1 I had no idea she was like a hugely successful actor before

Speaker 1 she was

Speaker 1 our best director.

Speaker 1 And I didn't know she was married to Noah Baumbach.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they've done stuff together.

Speaker 1 You know all this stuff. I didn't know any of it.

Speaker 2 I know it all.

Speaker 1 You are a know-it-all.

Speaker 1 So anyways, I'll to to say I woke up this morning and I actually feel really fantastic.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm so happy to hear it. I was very scared for all of you guys.

Speaker 2 And we came up with a plan B in case I figured there is no way.

Speaker 1 There was no way yesterday at 7 p.m. But then I heard you had an idea that I almost felt like I wanted to stay sick.
So you would have to do it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I thought. Oh, we, you know, we were on it.

Speaker 2 Rob and I were on a text and we were trying to figure out, I guess we'll just come on and say happy new year and tell people you're sick and you'll be back but then i thought headed mexico yeah so then i thought maybe i would do 50 facts about dax for your birthday that's a lot for your birthday were you intimidated that's a lot to commit to 50 facts i can do it

Speaker 2 i can do it i know i can do it um but i but so maybe i'll save that for another day that was a very thoughtful idea It's 50. How do you feel?

Speaker 1 Yesterday I was like, oh, wow, I'm not going to make it.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Yesterday I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to not make it. I thought for sure I was going to outlive my dad for so long.
And I was like, oh, no, we're going to come in 13 years before.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 Apart from health, how are you feeling about your second half of a century that I'm entering?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I think I'm mostly thinking about...
The thing that's tripping me out is like, okay, wow, I'm a half of 100 years old. I just watched Little Women.
That was only said 150 years ago. Right.

Speaker 1 That seems like a million years ago.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 In fact, we were watching the movie, and there's these beautiful mansions in the movie. And I said to Lincoln, You realize none of those mansions have toilets inside?

Speaker 1 Like, as fancy as this looks, and as how much you'd want to live there, all these people in their fancy dresses are going across the yard to shit in a wooden box.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And they aren't brushing teeth.

Speaker 1 Nothing is good. It looks pretty.
But so then when I think, well, that's not terribly long ago, two more of my life's ago.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It starts to put time in a weird,

Speaker 1 or it's like all these things that feel so far away, they're not that far away. And then I, then of course I think, well, life's really short.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But mostly I'm happy and I feel good. And I'm very excited to see you because I haven't seen you in a long time.
So I think we should rewind all the way to your Christmas at home.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 I went home for Christmas.

Speaker 1 To Duluth, Georgia.

Speaker 2 You know, that's also a weird thing. This was sort of the first trip.
I didn't refer to it as going home.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 what did you refer to it as?

Speaker 2 Like, I'm going to Georgia to visit my family.

Speaker 1 Oh, I don't know about that.

Speaker 2 I mean, home is where the heart is, but

Speaker 2 also I think,

Speaker 2 like, I just, we've talked about this before, but every time I land here in L.A.,

Speaker 2 I, I'm home here. You're an LA boy.
Yeah, I'm a cookie boy and an L.A. boy.

Speaker 2 And I visit my parents in Georgia.

Speaker 1 Huh, that's interesting because I still, when I go home, when I go to Michigan, I think it's home.

Speaker 2 Well, God, yeah, now I feel sacrilegious. Like, it's not, it's still a huge part of me, but I guess I'm sort of coming up, not coming up, I guess, because let's see what this year.

Speaker 2 This year, I will have been here 15 years.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 And so not half your life yet not half my life but i was in georgia for 22 years

Speaker 2 so i mean i'm about like in a in seven years i'm gonna have reached the same point yes yes i'm at 60 as of today your life

Speaker 1 Yeah, because I moved it when I was 20. And so for 30 years, I've been in California.
Well, exactly.

Speaker 2 I was in Michigan. So you have lived in California longer than you've lived in Michigan.

Speaker 2 Isn't that weird?

Speaker 1 Yeah, by like 50% longer.

Speaker 2 Yes, it's 10 years ago. You love percentages today.

Speaker 1 I love it. Because it's your birthday.
I'm going to still do fast math when I'm 50.

Speaker 1 You went to your parents' house, not home.

Speaker 2 And it was, it was lovely.

Speaker 2 You know, it's, you're, I'm always trying to figure out the right amount of days

Speaker 2 where I am enjoying myself. it's relaxing, I'm getting time in with the family, with friends, but I don't overstay into the point where I become

Speaker 1 cranky, quanky,

Speaker 2 quanky. And

Speaker 2 I did pretty good.

Speaker 1 I think it was like,

Speaker 2 I think it was like a day and a half

Speaker 2 of quankiness.

Speaker 1 Y'all forget toothpaste ROR?

Speaker 1 Our OR?

Speaker 1 So, oh, wait,

Speaker 1 the last day and a half or the first day and a half? No,

Speaker 2 the first days are great. Like, that's the thing.
And then I, and I feel so good, and everyone's so happy.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it feels like, oh, I could like live here again, probably

Speaker 2 in this house. And then five days is, I'm starting to turn.
I'm starting to call at my parents' house.

Speaker 1 You know, things,

Speaker 2 things are changing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because so I, my mom got me this necklace from my gift guide.

Speaker 2 It's a shark. Oh.

Speaker 1 You probably can't. Well, that worked out absolutely perfectly because I bought you the same necklace and it got lost.

Speaker 2 Yes. And so you got me a different one.

Speaker 1 When I reordered, I just, I changed my mind on the reorder. I mean, truly, that's a blessing from above because you would have two shark necklaces.
What you don't need that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I would, I would have to return one. And then that would be a really crisis of conscience.

Speaker 1 Whose you return? Well, you got to return mine.

Speaker 1 And have Nerming deserves to keep you.

Speaker 2 I know, but

Speaker 2 I send her links. So it's not like she came up with, although in some ways, you just got it off the game.

Speaker 1 I did.

Speaker 1 That's right. I mean, you also, in a subversive way, told me what to get you as well.
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 But anyway, I got the shark. I love it.
And I was wearing it. And my mom said, she was like, oh, it looks so nice.
Why'd you pick, why'd you pick a shark? And I said, oh, because I'm a shark.

Speaker 2 I'm a shark

Speaker 2 when it comes down to it.

Speaker 2 And I said, in business. And she said, with your parents too, sometimes.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 And then I just looked at her like this.

Speaker 1 Like a shark. Yeah.
You should have bit her. You should have ran.
You should have lunged at her and snapped your.

Speaker 2 You want to see a shark? Jaws at her.

Speaker 1 You want to see a shark? I'll show you a shark. You know what I think is really gross about sharks is that their upper teeth move to,

Speaker 1 you know, that? No, what? You know, like our top teeth are fixed. They don't go anywhere.
Just the bottom mandible moves up and down. The top teeth aren't coming up and down.
They're just stationary.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Those fucking sharks, the top comes down too.

Speaker 2 It comes down or up. Well, I guess both.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. It does the same thing as the bottom.
Oh, that's good. It's better to mash you with.

Speaker 1 I don't like how it looks when they lunge at a seal or something. You see the top teeth descend.
It just makes it that much more terrifying.

Speaker 2 That's a New Year's resolution for me.

Speaker 1 It's one step away from the whole set of teeth just turning into a vortex and, like, you know,

Speaker 1 eviscerating the prey.

Speaker 2 Ooh, eviscerating the prey. That's me.

Speaker 1 That's me in 2025.

Speaker 2 What are your, do you have any resolutions?

Speaker 1 I do. This year I tried to break it into different categories.
Like professional,

Speaker 1 physical, spiritual.

Speaker 1 I like it. There's another one.
It's probably the most important one. Professionally, I really want to finish my memoir this year.
Physically,

Speaker 1 and this has been a little bit influenced by watching Sprint season two over the break.

Speaker 1 I need to do something. I need to.

Speaker 1 It's been out for a while, Monty. Whoa, no.

Speaker 1 It's so good. And yeah, I didn't know that either, but Molly had already seen it.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So sprinting, I really, I not, biking is my new thing, but I'm going to try to this year do biking and sprinting. So that's a physical goal.

Speaker 1 And then spiritually is finding my way back professionally.

Speaker 1 This is. spiritual professional.
Yeah. To focus on what I love about work and not the outcome, I guess.
I get to really, really

Speaker 1 hunker back down into that.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I like that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 What are your resolutions?

Speaker 2 I also have sort of different buckets,

Speaker 2 but I also have very tangible ones. I think tangible ones are the ones that are best, like they're the highest level of succeeding.

Speaker 2 Like Max's resolution is to learn how to do a split.

Speaker 1 Ooh, I think it's too late for Max. I once read if boys don't do that by the time they're 10, they can't physiologically.

Speaker 2 Really? He was pretty.

Speaker 1 He should do a little research.

Speaker 2 We said that was a great resolution. And he was surprisingly kind, like, sort of flexible.

Speaker 1 Max is my arch nemesis. The notion that his thighs are that much bigger than mine, and he can do the splits, I feel like he has too much muscle to do the splits.

Speaker 2 And he's a little taller than you.

Speaker 1 Well, I don't know.

Speaker 1 Not on your birthday. Today he's not.
Today is not.

Speaker 1 Depends how you quantify it, I guess.

Speaker 1 If you use inches, yeah, sure. He's taller.
Sure, sure. Oh, I forgot to want medically, I want to.
I'm seeing allergists this year. I got to stop blowing my nose all day.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker 1 And then I have a vanity one, too. Uh-huh.
Okay. I want to start getting facials.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's a great one.

Speaker 2 That also feels, it just feels really nice and luxurious.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I'm 50, and sometimes I look at my nose in the mirror. I'm like, it looks like a catcher's mint.
Like, I think I need to pull a couple layers off of the skin or something.

Speaker 1 It's starting to look really leathery.

Speaker 2 It's not, but you could do a peel, a light peel.

Speaker 1 Yeah, a couple times a week, maybe.

Speaker 2 Oh, God, this is the problem.

Speaker 1 That youthful skin underneath. You just have bright red, like muscle.

Speaker 2 Your muscle shows.

Speaker 1 I keep fluctuating. I keep going like half the time, probably even more than a half the time.
About 80% of the time, I go like, yeah, let's get this face all leathery and fucked up.

Speaker 1 There's something charming about that in an older man. And then one day I look at my face and I go, baloney, I can get facials.
I live in a city with a lot of good facialists.

Speaker 1 I I should make my skin look rosy and youthful.

Speaker 2 It's such a good

Speaker 2 encapsulation of you in general. You're like, I'm this masculine Midwestern guy and I'm leathery, but really, you're not.

Speaker 1 You, I'm fane, and I live in Hollywood and I'm an actress. Are we kidding?

Speaker 2 Yeah, just own it.

Speaker 2 I have a skin one too.

Speaker 2 It's to restore the skin barrier on my legs, and that means to lotion every day.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Skin barrier is what it just took.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Because the skin barrier on my legs are a bit rough.

Speaker 1 Listen, this is working perfectly with My New Year's Resolution because we haven't recorded in like eight days, and I'm having as much fun right now as I have on a roller coaster.

Speaker 2 Again, it's just like the first five days, it feels so freeing. It's like, oh, I don't have to think about that.
And then start feeling itchy and you need it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You need it.
And I want to add about your skin, Delta and I, so on New Year's Eve here, before I got sick, which was great, the hotel nearly set itself on fire.

Speaker 1 It was launching all these fireworks from the roof and we're on the top floor. So about.

Speaker 1 14 inches from our window is where the fireworks were being set off from. And And I'm going to send you a video.

Speaker 1 It's the like, I'm talking a lot of fireworks where our whole room filled up with smoke because we have the windows open watching them.

Speaker 1 So, and then they were playing music in the courtyard and everything. So, there's no way we were going to go to bed before 2 a.m.
So, Delta and I were in bed together, and it was about one,

Speaker 1 and the music was really loud, and we couldn't sleep. So, we watched the Christmas special.

Speaker 1 And numerous times during the Christmas special on the close-ups of you, I thought, well, I don't know what more she would want out of skin. It looks absolutely flawless and beautiful.

Speaker 1 And I'm just not sure what Monica's aiming for, if not what she has in the Christmas episode.

Speaker 2 Well, that's very nice.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's been a journey. When I was looking, I looked through all my pictures from 2024 to do a post.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I can say, like, the beginning of the year

Speaker 2 was bad, really bad. Really, really, really bad skin.
Okay, I guess I'll shout this out. I have, so people know about my witch,

Speaker 2 but I have an, I feel, I feel guilty, but I got to be honest. I have a new person and she's not a witch.
She's a real woman.

Speaker 1 Right. And no powers.

Speaker 2 She doesn't have powers. She has skill.

Speaker 1 Right, right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 The place is called Corrective Skin Care.

Speaker 1 But is it all the way on the west side?

Speaker 2 Santa Monica. Exactly.

Speaker 1 See, this is where my, I go to the 80%. Let's just stay leathery.
Cause I know. I'm like, yeah, I want whatever you got going because it's certainly working.

Speaker 2 I know, but you don't have what I, you don't have adult acne. I hate that phrase.

Speaker 1 I do too. I know.

Speaker 2 It's, it's almost an automatopoeia.

Speaker 1 There is something really, there's something about it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, wait, you have, I'm, I would now have geriatric acne is what they'd have to call it. Oh, no.
Oh, no.

Speaker 2 I'm going to have, I'm going to be dealing. I'm going to have that.

Speaker 2 But no. So you don't, you have different issues.
I don't, I think she is really amazing. Corrective skincare is very, very amazing at clearing

Speaker 2 AA.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 then also

Speaker 2 then also making like, she does light peels and stuff. Anyway, she, she has changed.
my face for sure and helped it so much.

Speaker 2 And I have a routine and I use a couple of her products and and I also ice my face morning and night. That's a pro tip.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 Wow, wow. And I think that's helped a lot.

Speaker 1 Okay, let me ask you this. Does she like the east side? Like, are there any favorite restaurants she has? Could we get her like five clients on the east side and then buy her lunch and she'd come out?

Speaker 2 No. No, because you know why? She lives in Orange County.
And now she only is there one day a week, even in Santa Monica. So it's getting, it's like, I should have.

Speaker 2 I hope we put her up at cara once a month we'll pay i would love that i would love that but yeah we get like four or five east side clients put her up at cara now we got something we really got something although i i

Speaker 2 you know a resolution i had once was to be more positive and i think i've done that and i look at going to santa monica as an adventure it's like going on vacation but like a bad like kind of a bad one like the one you're on and well well,

Speaker 1 people should know too. They're probably thinking like in LA,

Speaker 1 how far could this be? And if you look at a map, it'll be very, very deceptive. I mean, it's, it's sincerely, it can be 90 minutes both directions.

Speaker 2 It is. It is 90.
It, if you go.

Speaker 1 It's the same distance to go to Santa Barbara to get a facial.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, but I plan it well where I plan a dinner with our only friend who lives on the west side. Sometimes she can't do it, which is

Speaker 2 rude. Then on my own, I'll go to dinner if that's the case, or I'll go work somewhere.
I will say that when I had my

Speaker 1 tonka,

Speaker 2 that was,

Speaker 2 that was me.

Speaker 2 I don't want to give too much details, but I was in Santa Monica.

Speaker 1 You were trying to get home from Santa Monica.

Speaker 2 Okay, that's, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's another thing. Okay.

Speaker 1 I also have a Tonka adjacent story, but because I already had this poisoning yesterday,

Speaker 1 I don't want to

Speaker 1 overwhelm the audience. I'll wait.
But I,

Speaker 1 on the departure of this trip, had a real emotional and tonka-like experience.

Speaker 1 But I'm going to, I cannot fill the first episode of the year with double whammy on that.

Speaker 1 Okay. So Easter egg.

Speaker 2 Ooh, exciting.

Speaker 2 Okay. So I have to restore the skin barrier on my legs that with lotion.

Speaker 2 I realize I do have a kind of tick, like I pick at my legs a lot.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 And so they're kind of really messed up.

Speaker 2 So I got to restore that.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 2 I want to, I've journaled two days now. Oh, you have?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 That wasn't, it wasn't even a resolution. I didn't write it down, but I found a notebook and I've done it for two days.

Speaker 1 Oh, good.

Speaker 1 The journal is a great place.

Speaker 1 I don't, you don't really have any resolutions of quitting anything, but I think the journal is the best place to put your numbers on the corner because you see them piling up.

Speaker 1 Like I just hit 365 days without dip because last year's resolution was no more chewy tobacco.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Wow.
And you did it. Congratulations.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And so on my journal, you know, I see, oh, wow, 365 days without, and then you get a little encouragement to stick with it that day.

Speaker 1 So if you, I don't know, your icing or whatever thing you want to be consistent about, if you keep a little tally in your journal, you get to see that climb and it's very encouraging.

Speaker 2 Ooh, I like that. I'm impressed that you

Speaker 2 knowing you,

Speaker 1 um,

Speaker 2 that you aren't paranoid about your journals. Like I am so,

Speaker 1 I want to lock on it.

Speaker 2 It doesn't have one because it's like a nice journal, but I'm afraid somebody's going to open it and start reading it. And I live by myself.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So the risk is low, but I am like, I'm kind of consumed by that.

Speaker 2 I've thought, should I rip the, should I write it and then destroy it?

Speaker 1 No. Well, okay.
Let me hit you with, like, I write in it with an even much deeper knowledge that I'm going to die. And I don't presume my kids will ever have the interest of doing this.

Speaker 1 But if my kids choose, there is a daily account of my life for the last 20 years. Should they ever want to read it? And it's all in there.
And that's at one time scary.

Speaker 1 And then at another time, kind of comforting the notion that they're going to struggle in life for sure. It's the ride and they're going to be ashamed of themselves and they're going to make mistakes.

Speaker 1 And I have this, if they're so inclined, I have 20 years of huge mistakes and still

Speaker 1 keep going and keep trying. And so I write in it knowing there's a possibility that my children will read it.

Speaker 2 Do you censor yourself because of that or no?

Speaker 1 I don't.

Speaker 2 I don't. Wow.

Speaker 1 I think the more I've learned of my parents' struggles, it did nothing but comfort me and make me less self-loathing. And

Speaker 2 you're really only comfortable with them doing it after you die, though.

Speaker 1 Right? I don't know. You've been around me.
I tell them pretty much everything already.

Speaker 2 That's true. You don't have any deepest, darkest secrets that you don't want anyone to ever know.

Speaker 1 I do.

Speaker 1 Well, now I want to know them. I'm going to break into your apartment.

Speaker 2 Okay. My new plan is the next morning, I'm going to rip the old page out and light it on fire.

Speaker 1 No, can't you get us safe at least? Don't do that. Well, because you might want to write a memoir one day and our memories are so, are

Speaker 1 complete fabrications. Yeah.
As we know. So like, even right now, this memoir I'm currently writing really is only going to take me to like adulthood, right?

Speaker 1 And then I'll have the gap between moving to LA and being an addict and then

Speaker 1 getting sober and starting to work. That'll probably be a second one.
But it, I mean, this sounds so indulgent, but regardless, in my mind, there's three.

Speaker 1 And what's exciting to me is the third one, there'll be no, I'll be able to read.

Speaker 1 Like anytime I tell an event of my life or the story, I can go read that day and actually know what happened. It'll,

Speaker 1 the third one will probably be the only one that's approaching accurate of reality.

Speaker 2 It'll be the most boring one.

Speaker 1 Probably.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, all the other ones, I'll have been the victim. And the last one, you'll realize I'm the perpetrator.

Speaker 2 Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 That's a twist.

Speaker 1 The twist in the series is kind of cool. But don't burn it, Monty.
Get a surprise.

Speaker 2 Don't start burning it.

Speaker 2 Because I think for me, the purpose of the journal is potentially different than yours. One is just to get back in the habit of writing.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 two,

Speaker 2 it's to release. It's not to document.
It's more emotion. It's more about feelings than what is happening.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I think I'm kind of okay with burning it because it's

Speaker 2 It's just like I'm giving that up to the universe. I'm releasing that.
I don't want to reread reread it.

Speaker 1 Okay. But, and by the way, I don't really ever go back and read my journal.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I have on a couple of occasions.

Speaker 1 And one thing that's very useful about it, as I've already said on here many times, is when you can see a pattern you've been stuck in for a very long time and you see it in writing, there is something very powerful about seeing that and going, like, well, it's up to me.

Speaker 1 I'm going to continue to like, this isn't a new feeling I have. This isn't a new reaction.
This is the same fucking thing I do all the time. And it's in black and white.

Speaker 1 And I have a choice to continue it or to stop it. And that's where I think it's useful.
What if you put it in some second location and you don't have your name on it?

Speaker 1 So if someone found it, they'd have no fucking clue whose secrets they're reading.

Speaker 2 I think it's going to be obvious.

Speaker 1 Oh, you do.

Speaker 1 What I'm like, the one thing I really agree with you on.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I guess if every entry has to do with someone famous you interviewed that day.

Speaker 1 they'll go, well, it's either Rob's, Monica's, or Dax's. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Stay tuned for more armchair experts,

Speaker 1 if you dare.

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Speaker 1 The one thing I do think is incredibly powerful, and I think this is what I use it for more than anything now, is there is, in the documenting part, it's not like I'm documenting it for posterity or I think I've even ever been writing in it thinking I'd consult it for something.

Speaker 1 It's that I wake up and the day often feels insurmountable and I am pessimistic and I think I can barely get out of bed and nothing will happen.

Speaker 1 But the act of having to say everything that happened yesterday, I see, oh no, yesterday you felt that way. And look, all these things you did.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 The more important thing that's happening now is like, I wake up with a rumination and I'm committed to putting down the rumination. And once I get it in writing, the absurdity of it.

Speaker 1 generally cuts it in half or even more sometimes. The whole that realization I had about Bradley's movie, where it's like, I saw it, I hated it.
I got to interview him that day.

Speaker 1 I don't know what I'm going to say. I'm now writing about that.
In the writing of it, I realize, oh, I hate it because this, this movie is about me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or, you know, my, the part of me I hate the most.

Speaker 1 And then what clarity that gives me. And then I end up loving it.
So, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I probably, I'm probably just going to burn it, but I

Speaker 2 think it's good.

Speaker 2 I actually, I think it's more like making the bed, which I don't do, but now I kind of see the value. It's, it's, you've, in the morning, you've accomplished something.

Speaker 2 You did something. You wrote some stuff down.
And like, if that's a goal to write some stuff down every day, then you've already done something positive for yourself.

Speaker 2 And you can like, whatever happens the rest of the day, one thing, you accomplish one thing.

Speaker 1 Manny, erase everything I just said. Yes.
I think that's the number one thing of all of it. Which is like, you just,

Speaker 1 what you've shown is you have a commitment to yourself and, and, and,

Speaker 1 and you did it. And so you feel, yeah, you feel good.
It's like exercising. You're like, all right, I did things I didn't want to do to make myself better.
And that implicitly feels great.

Speaker 1 Yeah, definitely. Do you want to know one of the sickest parts of myself? What?

Speaker 1 I always make my bed.

Speaker 1 I would anyways, but I also, there's a part of me that like, I make my side of the bed

Speaker 1 because often Kristen's still in it. Oh, okay.
Okay.

Speaker 1 But even if she's not in it, I'll just make my side. Okay.
And this is really disgusting part of me.

Speaker 1 But part of me goes, well, there's the evidence. Like, I made my side of the bed.

Speaker 1 I'm

Speaker 1 committed to keeping this room clean. So there could also, once you have live with someone, you might start making your side of the bed just to shame them.
Oh, no.

Speaker 2 I think that should be a rest.

Speaker 2 No, I think that should be a resolution for you that you make her side of the bed too as a generous act.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 I'm overselling that a little bit for comedic value, but it does happen.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I understand. I understand where it comes from.

Speaker 1 Well, here's really why I don't, I'm not making it thinking I'll shame her, but I occasionally I'll see my sides

Speaker 1 made and hers is messy. And I, and I do think, I hope she notices that I've made my side.

Speaker 1 Oh my God.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 2 The only

Speaker 2 time I make my bed is if I am leaving for out of town.

Speaker 2 I make it. And that I only started doing that because Callie once told me, we were in high school.

Speaker 2 We were young. And I think we were going somewhere and she made her bed.

Speaker 2 And she was like, yeah, I like to, if I'm going on vacation, I have to clean my room and make my bed and everything in case I die.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's not where I thought we were going. I thought she wants to return to a clean space.
I know that would have been the normal answer.

Speaker 2 But yeah, in case she dies and then people like, you know, are coming in there. She want, it's like, it's a clean.

Speaker 1 I have the complete opposite. If I thought I was going to die on vacation, I would set my room on fire before I.
Like I wouldn't give a fuck.

Speaker 2 It's more for like what will happen for the people. Like they'll come in her room.
It needs to be in order for them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So she's the type that would have killed herself at the Colonial Motor Inn to not make a mess for anyone.

Speaker 2 What's that?

Speaker 1 So my grandma Midge would have found her.

Speaker 2 Oh, no. Okay.

Speaker 1 That's really bad. Knock on wood.
Okay. Okay.

Speaker 1 Knock on wood. Okay.
Okay. I have one more thing.
Christmas was great. We had a great Christmas.
Yeah. Really, really fun.
TT and Bear came over in the morning, and that's Carly and Yurty.

Speaker 1 And then we left on the 26th to come here. And

Speaker 1 I committed us to a hot air balloon ride. Oh.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And you had to wake up really early, like five in the morning on vacation to go. And I was a tough sell.
And

Speaker 1 our drive there, and that was the

Speaker 1 day before Lincoln got sick. So Lincoln couldn't come

Speaker 1 and mom couldn't come. So it really was like on the fence.
What are we going to do? We're going to still do this thing. And it's so early.
We went anyways. Delta was so afraid the whole ride there.

Speaker 1 Watching them inflate the hot air balloon, getting into the basket was almost impossible.

Speaker 1 She just almost was like, fuck this. I'm not doing it.
Yeah. I coaxed her into the basket.
There's pictures of me holding her before it takes off. And I had said in the car, Delta,

Speaker 1 I would bet all of my money that at the end of this, you're really going to want to do it again. Like, I feel that confident about it.
I would probably bet everything.

Speaker 1 And she goes, well, you are going to lose everything. That's what she said.

Speaker 1 The balloon took off, Monica. I promise you, we weren't even 15 feet in the air.
Delta goes, Daddy, you're going to win that bet. This is my favorite thing I've ever done.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 And it was, it was among the greatest things I've ever done.

Speaker 1 This is, this was so incredible. Um, there were so many hot air balloons.
Oh, maybe I'll post a picture

Speaker 1 on this episode. There was probably 50 or 60 hot air balloons all up, and you hover above the pyramids.
Oh, wow. And you just float around for like an hour going up and down.

Speaker 1 And there's all these beautiful hot air balloons. And it was Molly and Dahlia and Lily and Eric and Delti and I.
And it was about as cool of an experience as we ever had.

Speaker 1 And then the dude set it down.

Speaker 1 We were going, we were touching the tops of the trees as we floated in. He put it on this little, like the size of your yard of your current new house,

Speaker 1 um, over power lines, like a foot over it,

Speaker 1 brings it down and landed it on the fucking trailer of the truck where it gets transported. Wow, it was impossible.
This guy was such a top gun.

Speaker 2 Oh my goodness, that's so it was spectacular. Oh, I love that.
Well, I'm proud of her, but also, I'm proud and

Speaker 2 shocked and impressed and shocked that you are comfortable in that environment. Letting someone, exactly, letting someone steer you above earth, really.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 yeah, so that's good.

Speaker 1 This guy was great. And you should know all I did

Speaker 1 half about half of the time I watched him operate it in preparation if he passed out.

Speaker 2 Okay, so you were aware.

Speaker 1 I started clocking like, okay, wow.

Speaker 1 So when he gives a gas, he had like three different throttles to put heat into the balloon but when he would put that in there was about a 45 second delay before the actual elevation would change or not so i was like okay wow if i know if we're coming at a tree i got to predict 45 seconds from now we need to go so i was really i was monitoring like a hawk thinking i might i might have to land and eric goes after we landed he goes yeah i don't think you could have done that i think you could have flown us around but i don't think you could have made that landing and i'm like i I don't think so either, but I certainly would have given it a shot.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you would have. Wow.
Okay, great. Well, that sounds wonderful.
I'm glad you guys got to do that.

Speaker 1 That was a big time, once-in-a-lifetime

Speaker 1 experience. Yeah, it was really special.

Speaker 1 And my littlest buddy, we just had so much fun in that basket together. I've been having the best time with Delti on this trip.
My God.

Speaker 1 That's so sweet. Just couldn't be more in love with her.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she's pretty perfect. Okay, I have a couple facts.

Speaker 1 Okay, before you get into those those facts, I just want to say about Tyler Perry. I thought about him so much after this interview.
Really, I got to say, tied with anyone else we've ever interviewed.

Speaker 1 I just, all week, I kept thinking about him. And he might be one of the most unique people I've ever met in my life.
He has such a softness and kindness and also this firmness with his.

Speaker 1 boundaries and beliefs. It was like this really unique combo of

Speaker 1 just beautifulness and also self-assuredness and not going to be led anywhere. He doesn't want to go.
Yeah. Something about him I felt was just so magical.
I do too.

Speaker 2 I mean, he's just like the walking representation of

Speaker 2 glass half full. Like he turned, he really turned his

Speaker 2 some very traumatic events into

Speaker 2 something he could, you know, be proud of.

Speaker 1 And it's and his bravery talking about those topics, yeah, um, fully exceeded mine. And I, I just thought that was really, yeah, a real privilege to, yeah.

Speaker 1 I love too that he was like, wait, you told me this was going to be fun to his publicist. I know.
And then I said, well, it could be fun. We can do a fun version.
He's like, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Actually, let's do, let's go. Yeah, let's do that.

Speaker 2 Oh, that was so rad. Yeah, me too.
Me too. Yeah.
He's really special. When I was home, I drove past

Speaker 2 his studios. Well, the exit from his studios.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, my God.
I did it. I said home.

Speaker 1 Wow. Oh, you're back.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Okay. Turns out it's just where I'm not.

Speaker 1 You can have a couple homes. Okay.

Speaker 2 That's nice.

Speaker 2 All right. Okay.
Now he mentioned the arousal template. He said that's set from around three to seven, ages three to seven.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So there's a belief that each of us has a sexual arousal template, a map in the brain of what we find sexually appealing.

Speaker 2 Although researchers do not fully understand how or why the various things to which we're attracted appear in our arousal template, it is clear that by the time we are four to six, our arousal template is largely in place, even though we are not yet sexual.

Speaker 2 It is also clear that as we age, elements can be added to our sexual arousal template, but not eliminated.

Speaker 1 Ah,

Speaker 1 you can just throw in more kinks, I guess. I guess so.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but it makes sense. It's like why one person is interested in one thing and others are not.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I had a little realization on this, or not a realization. I launched a new theory on this trip.
I was listening to Nate Silver's most recent book, and he was

Speaker 1 in a very respectful and

Speaker 1 smart way. He was poking holes in

Speaker 1 effective altruism. Oh.
Our good boy McCaskill, who we had on. We like him.
And utilitarianism. He had a couple of really good pushbacks for all of it.
And they're very solid.

Speaker 1 As I also believe that Peter Singer and McCaskill's points of view are very, very solid. And my conclusion was:

Speaker 1 you know, everything's already been fleshed out. These theories and philosophies in life, they've been explored since Greece and probably before.
They're all here for us.

Speaker 1 And I think

Speaker 1 we are just biologically unique. And I guess our childhoods and our zip code and our socioeconomic.

Speaker 1 And there's just an offering for us that'll feel most correct. I don't think any of them are necessarily superior.

Speaker 1 I just think there's a lot of really good, fleshed-out ones, and you'll just be pulled to one. And the notion that yours is the one or someone else's is the one isn't really it.

Speaker 1 There's just these offerings, and you have some predisposition and some bias, and certain ones will just appeal to you more than others.

Speaker 1 And I think you're just born that way, that you'll be drawn to these certain ones. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it does. I don't know if you're biologically like drawn so much as what you're exposed to kind of becomes your default.
We're all trying to be as safe and happy as we can be.

Speaker 2 So whatever is giving us individually that feeling, we're going to chase. And yeah, that's not the same thing for everyone.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think most of my life I've thought, well, one argument will have the most merit. Like somehow if you can quantify it.
And even that was a part of utilitarianism.

Speaker 1 He said, you know, the reason utilitarian is very tempting as a philosophy is it is our. innate desire to quantify things.
So if we can say, oh, four people died versus 12 people, that's very simple.

Speaker 1 It's 12 versus four. Well, were those 12 Nazi Party members and the other four were Mother Teresa and her pails? Like, no, actually, that's not necessarily true.

Speaker 1 But the appeal of quantifying and being able to compare two numbers is very attractive to a lot of us.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And, and biologically, like we have such different dopamine levels naturally, you know, like there's such a variety of how much dopamine you have or depression you have.

Speaker 1 And I think we're all inclined. It's also kind of what

Speaker 1 Payne was saying, Keith Payne, about, isn't it interesting that although you've thought through the arguments and you're sure the conclusion is correct, isn't it weird I could have predicted what conclusion you would have come to before you were born based on your ethnicity and your zip code?

Speaker 1 Like that kind of

Speaker 1 theory still, I think, is what I'm getting at. It's like, yeah, there's just a lot of really good, well thought out theories and philosophies.

Speaker 1 And those ones will just appeal to us for whatever reason and others won't.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
Okay. Cities where black people are thriving.
Because we were talking about Atlanta, my home.

Speaker 1 My number one home. My only home.

Speaker 2 According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the top 10 are Washington, D.C.,

Speaker 2 Austin, Texas.

Speaker 1 Is this in order?

Speaker 2 Or is it just? Yeah, this is in order. This is ranked.
Number one is D.C.

Speaker 2 Should I go 10 to one?

Speaker 1 Wow, too late now.

Speaker 1 Damn it.

Speaker 1 Those are above Atlanta.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Atlanta's number five.

Speaker 1 Okay, hit me. So DC.

Speaker 2 DC, Austin, number two. Number three, Provo, Utah.
Shocker. Number three is Poughkeepsie, New York.

Speaker 1 Well, that's got to be four, right?

Speaker 2 Hold on. No, sorry.
Three and they're tied.

Speaker 1 They're tied. Okay.

Speaker 2 Provo and Poughkeepsie are tied for three and four.

Speaker 2 Atlanta is five.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 Six is Oxnard, California.

Speaker 1 That's where our boy Anderson Pack's from. Oh, no way.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Oh, cool.

Speaker 2 Seven is San Antonio, Texas.

Speaker 2 Eight is Raleigh, North Carolina. Nine is Baltimore, Maryland.
And 10 is Ogden, Utah.

Speaker 2 Utah has two.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'm good.

Speaker 1 Okay, I got to imagine if

Speaker 1 you Google least amount of black people in any state, Utah's got to be number one, right?

Speaker 2 No, well, Rob will.

Speaker 1 So have they interviewed the 12 people that live in Provo and they're thriving like crazy? I don't know.

Speaker 2 But this, no, this is.

Speaker 1 Is there a threshold like minimum amount of black folks that to count?

Speaker 2 Well, hold on. This is broken down into median household income among black residents,

Speaker 2 percentage of black households that make $100,000 or more a year,

Speaker 2 percent of black residents with a bachelor, with a bachelor's degree or higher, home ownership rate among black residents, unemployment rate among black residents. So that's the factor.

Speaker 2 And yeah, it doesn't give population.

Speaker 1 Those are good metrics. Right.
In 2020, there were 40,000 in Utah. Oh, come on, guys.

Speaker 1 There's that, but there's not the lowest.

Speaker 2 That's not the lowest, though. What's the lowest?

Speaker 1 Oh, well, well, hold on, hold on. I want to read

Speaker 2 it so shaky.

Speaker 1 Oh, sorry. I was kicking the table that my computer was on the side.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go back.

Speaker 1 Maybe North Dakota and

Speaker 1 Montana. Minnesota, probably.

Speaker 1 You got two that are lower. So the lowest is Wyoming.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 And then Montana, Vermont, Idaho, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, North Dakota, Utah. It's 11.
Okay, so I'm kind of wrong on that. But 40,000 in the whole state, that's not.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's not a lot.

Speaker 1 Wyoming is 5,200. Wow.

Speaker 2 well it also this this atlanta journal constitution is really a newspaper because there's also this really cool map um

Speaker 2 i'm i'm i'm impressed and i'm proud of my home okay now

Speaker 2 what's the chitlin circuit rebrand name you were like it's rebranded to something and you're right urban theater circuit sure

Speaker 2 he didn't like that

Speaker 1 good for him he's i'm not allowed to have that opinion but i agree with him yeah Well, sure.

Speaker 2 We'll agree with whatever he wants. We'll do whatever he wants.

Speaker 1 Oh, can I bring up a scary one? Because I actually had to discuss this with

Speaker 1 Delta on this trip. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I accidentally, she was sitting on this

Speaker 1 swinging net chair in a park.

Speaker 1 And she and Dahlia were both trying to get on it at the same time. And it was clear to me that the only way they were going to be able to do that is if they both sat crisscross applesauce.

Speaker 1 And I accidentally said Indian style. Sure.
And then Delti said, what's Indian style? And I go, oh, you know what? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.

Speaker 1 That's what we used to call crisscross applesauce. And then she said, oh, okay, why is it bad?

Speaker 1 And I said, you know, Delta, this is one of the few that I'm not quite sure because obviously people saw Indians meditating sitting that way and they called sitting that way Indian style.

Speaker 1 And it's not derogatory in any way.

Speaker 1 If you invent a way of sitting, I think, why is that negative? So I just want your two cents on that.

Speaker 1 We've talked

Speaker 1 about this with Bobby Lee.

Speaker 2 So go back in the archives and you, Dax, you go back in the archives and listen to that episode.

Speaker 1 Even if it's just for a minute. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Cause I, well, actually, I think I actually cut a lot of the crisscross applesauce talk out,

Speaker 2 which I'll probably have to do again right now. No, I won't.

Speaker 2 I understand the conundrum because I agree with you. There's nothing inherently negative about sitting that way

Speaker 1 yeah and you're not saying it to like marginalize anyone or even yeah i'm just like it's if there's a lot of things different cultures have invented or at least that's the first time people writing about history saw it obviously people probably sat that way from the beginning yeah regardless yeah friend like french let's say this let's say that the french were marginalized in the country and you could no longer say french kissing well it's like well there's nothing really bad about French kissing.

Speaker 1 It just means you use your tongue. And apparently English people, that was the first time they saw that.
Right. I don't know.
But like, yeah, French kissing, that's a fine thing to say.

Speaker 1 They can own kissing for the rest of time. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I guess it's just a way to make a group that already feels different even feel more different.

Speaker 1 You would be proud of me because I said my point and she said, yeah, that doesn't make much sense.

Speaker 1 And I said, but you know what Monica would say is that would be fine if half the country were Indian, but because there's, there were so few Indians and they're already marginalized, it's just another way to make them feel different.

Speaker 1 So I think that's what Monica would say. And that's a good point.
Oh, look at that.

Speaker 1 That all happened. You can ask her to confirm that.
The internet says it's usually because of lack of cultural knowledge that the phrases are offensive.

Speaker 2 But that one specifically or just in general.

Speaker 1 That's under this one, yeah. Oh.

Speaker 2 Well, also because I actually do think if you were really meditating correctly, I'm not sure if that's how you sit. I think you're supposed to sit like

Speaker 2 not crossed like that necessarily. Like your legs are doing something

Speaker 1 crossed, but not applesauce.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 they're crossed, but they're not criss.

Speaker 1 I guess I just am

Speaker 1 gently asking if that might be an overcorrection, just that one.

Speaker 2 Sure. I mean, I think there are over corrections all over the place.
For me, it's just

Speaker 2 why would you

Speaker 2 do anything that might make someone feel a little bit awkward or like they are standing out in a way they don't really want to when there's another option?

Speaker 1 That's really relevant. But yeah, if American Indians feel bad when they hear that, then yeah, of course, forget it.

Speaker 2 And they might not. Like I, I don't, well, look, I don't now, but I bet, I bet when I was like seven and we were in class and the teacher said, everyone's sit down Indian style.

Speaker 2 I'm sure I wasn't like, oh, that's really rude and doesn't, they don't understand that.

Speaker 1 What if they all just looked at you to see how you were sitting and they thought you were everyone's supposed to copy how you were sitting?

Speaker 2 That's the actual thing underneath.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's the feeling: oh, they're talking about my thing that I somehow have to own, but I don't even know what this is either. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, yeah. Now, House of Pain episodes.
So, there were 254, but then they revamped it in 2020. And now there's 362 episodes, which is just wild.

Speaker 1 That's about twice as many as cheers. Absolutely wild.

Speaker 2 And that's it.

Speaker 1 That's everything. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm telling you, this has made me so excited to come home and resume working

Speaker 1 on my favorite job I've ever had.

Speaker 2 I know. We're so lucky and we're so appreciative to all the Armcherries who've stuck with us and are going to continue to stick with us this year.
We hope.

Speaker 2 We're going to bring a lot of fun to the table this year.

Speaker 2 We didn't tell people, which I, you know, I regret, but we did a bingo. We have another day of bingo.
It's tomorrow, but by this time, it'll pass.

Speaker 2 But we did a fun game on Instagram that was a scavenger hunt, bingo. And we're going to do more fun things like that this year and more like community building.
How did it?

Speaker 1 How does it work? The bingo scavenger hunt?

Speaker 2 You have to find the time stamp of

Speaker 2 three, like a bingo card basically like hold on i'll pull one up yeah there's a three by three bingo card and you've got to make a row but it's like for experts which guests did dax appoint himself as part of the guest personal security team so you like have the answer and the time stamp oh so you would go back to bill gates and figure out when that was said exactly Oh, I like it.

Speaker 2 That's a fun game. So fun.

Speaker 1 We have a new member of our our team that put this together, right?

Speaker 2 Yes. She designed it.
Her name is Sophia. She is interning for us and she was recommended to us.

Speaker 1 She's a prodigy.

Speaker 2 She is. She was recommended to us by Adam Grant and she's at Wharton and we don't really deserve her, but we're going to take her.

Speaker 1 That's right. We both read the letter she sent us and we were intimidated by her intelligence and her overqualification.
And we thought, well, there's no way she should be an intern for us.

Speaker 1 We should be an intern for her. But here we are.

Speaker 2 Here we are. And I've put her on some fun tasks.
And I think we're going to have a lot of fun this year.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So welcome to her.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, I love you.
And I'll see you in 36 hours.

Speaker 2 Yay. Yay.
Bye.

Speaker 1 My.

Speaker 1 Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 1 Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondry.com slash survey.

Speaker 3 Mom and dad, uh, mom and mom, dad and dad, whatever, parents, are you about to spend five hours in the car with your beloved kids this holiday season? Driving to old Granny's house.

Speaker 3 I'm setting the scene. I'm picturing screaming, fighting, back-to-back hours of the K-pop Demon Hunter soundtrack on repeat.

Speaker 3 Well, when your ears start to bleed, I have the perfect thing to keep you from rolling out of that moving vehicle. Something for the whole family.
He's filled with laughs.

Speaker 1 He's filled with rage.

Speaker 3 The OG Green Gronk, give it up for me, James Austin Johnson, as the Grinch.

Speaker 3 And like any insufferable influencer these days, I'm bringing my crew of lesser talented friends along for the ride with A-list guests like Gronk, Mark Hamill, and the Jonas Brothers, whoever they are.

Speaker 3 There's a little bit of something for everyone. Listen to Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.