"Larry David"

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Speaker 1 Hi, this is Larry David. I've been asked to say say that I'm going to be on the show later, so I'm complying with that request.

Speaker 1 Yeah, welcome to,

Speaker 1 what is this? I don't even know what I'm on here. What is this? Smart.

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 1 Hi, everybody. Jason, I love that you're still here in town.
I didn't know. No, look at you.

Speaker 2 I am working remotely this week. Yes, from Los Angeles,

Speaker 2 where it's got New York weather today. It's nice and rainy.

Speaker 1 I love it. Had some nice rain.
Boring rain.

Speaker 2 Do you guys like weather, or do you, you, you, you love the Southern California 75 and 20 years?

Speaker 1 I'm not single, so I don't know where this is going.

Speaker 2 Hey, guys, what's your favorite season?

Speaker 1 Hey, do you like weather? Come over here real quick. Can I talk to you for a second?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's nice. The weather.

Speaker 2 i prefer it well because it's very chicago-y yeah but you would like 75 and breezy 365 days of the year

Speaker 1 no yeah i don't i don't like the heat so that's an issue i i don't mind it you wouldn't mind some snow and some rain would you not i'm saying i actually enjoyed this before i i live in such a snow i grew up in such a snow uh a snowy place well not really that snowy but but cold to the extent that this morning dropping the kids of the bus and it was raining and stuff and i saw this one that great sean how he just takes them just to the bus stop You can't take him all the way to school like some of us.

Speaker 1 I don't live in the valley.

Speaker 1 So anyway,

Speaker 1 I see a road that's going up off Beverly Glen, like really steep little side road. And I think my first, and I had this in my old house, like, boy, man, that's going to be tough when it gets icy.

Speaker 1 It doesn't get icy. No.

Speaker 2 Oh, so your brain just immediately, huh?

Speaker 1 My old house, when I was going to buy it, I thought like, fuck, how am I going to get up this thing when it ices? And I'm like, oh, it doesn't get icy. Never icy.

Speaker 1 Never ices.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 By the way, sorry, go ahead, Shawnee. You were going to say something, but you go, you go.
Well, I was just going to say, because I realized as I'm talking, I did one of those, another mistake.

Speaker 1 I got one of those emails and it had the thing and had like reviews buried in the email. I opened it up and then it has like a couple about the podcast.

Speaker 1 One of them was one star that said, Does Will only get one hour to speak a week? Because he just wouldn't shut up. And I'm like,

Speaker 1 I wanted to.

Speaker 1 I'm giving this guy satisfaction, but at the same time, I'm thinking, like,

Speaker 1 it's free, right? Yeah, he didn't pay anything for it.

Speaker 1 Could turn it off, yeah.

Speaker 2 But he's implying that he would gladly pay a little bit to shut you up a lot.

Speaker 1 I guess so. And/or it made him so mad this thing he's getting for free that he went online and typed out a message, gave the podcast one star.

Speaker 1 But Willie, don't read

Speaker 1 those. Well, I do it for you guys.
I'm out here. You want me on that wall? You know, you need to be,

Speaker 2 but it's a specific subset of our listeners that actually take the time to write

Speaker 2 something not so nice.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And like, is it a full representation of our audience?

Speaker 2 I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1 It was very, it was very hard to do. We take it under advisement, though.
Yeah, we take it under advisement. So I'm going to shut up.

Speaker 1 Well, don't do that.

Speaker 2 But don't do that. Maybe what he's saying is he he likes you at an eight.
He'd love you at a five.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. He wants me at a zero.

Speaker 1 I love that you're just like, then just don't listen. I get it.

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 was chatting with Will very briefly this morning.

Speaker 2 You guys talk before we talk?

Speaker 1 Not usually. Not usually.

Speaker 2 You guys running over bits?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 Okay, so listen, so you set me up with

Speaker 1 something about Jason. And I texted her.
And Jay, I texted you a lot, a lot last time. I was like, I think I reached my text limit with Jason.
What limit? Last night, last night or two nights ago?

Speaker 1 Wait, let me look here. I don't see any text from you.
Yeah, I was like. I don't see any text from you.
Oh, wait. No, we were texting back and forth.
Oh, about Scotty?

Speaker 1 Yeah, about Scotty. Yeah.
No, that wasn't a lot. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But did you hear about Scotty, Sean? Or Will? Sorry.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. It's not working out.
Scotty's Scotty's out.

Speaker 1 Scotty's out. Almost 18 years.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So Sean is

Speaker 2 trying to figure out what to do with the weekend to take

Speaker 1 about the weather. Jay-Z Tech of L LA.

Speaker 2 He's just ordered a box of glow sticks from Amazon for the weekend.

Speaker 1 No, I wanted to tell you. So I was eating breakfast.
I walked past the bathroom, and

Speaker 1 this is the craziest thing. Scotty loves peanut butter.

Speaker 2 Why is my sound going out?

Speaker 1 Uh-oh, can you hear? Oh, there we go. Okay, go ahead.
Sorry. Hang on a second.

Speaker 1 Sorry, let me remind you where you were. So, Scotty loves peanut butter.
Go ahead. Right.

Speaker 1 Wait, by the way. No, this is really.
Do you think that this would fit into the breaking news category? Absolutely.

Speaker 2 Did you guys find each other on the PB and J

Speaker 2 freak site?

Speaker 2 Well, that's fun because I love jelly.

Speaker 1 Where's your address?

Speaker 1 John's dying left.

Speaker 2 Why is that? It's not that even that good.

Speaker 1 Could you imagine a PB and J.

Speaker 2 Spread a little of you on me?

Speaker 1 Like a food dating site.

Speaker 2 We could make, the two of us together would make a great meal.

Speaker 1 Oh, by the way, it's not supposed to be a dating site. It's supposed to be

Speaker 2 a culinary site.

Speaker 1 Peanut and butter appreciation site turned into a date.

Speaker 1 They got married at the JIF headquarters.

Speaker 1 Here we go. Here we go.

Speaker 1 This is funny. This is funny, actually.
Do you like JIF? Scott?

Speaker 1 I'm in a GIF.

Speaker 1 I do like Jiffy. Scottie loves beautiful.

Speaker 2 I would love to see a taste test between Jif and Skippy.

Speaker 1 Sorry, go ahead. Let's do it.
When his blood sugar is low, okay, because he's got diabetes, he'll go in the pantry and scoop out out a spoonful of peanut butter. And every time any one of us

Speaker 1 goes to get peanut butter, Ricky, the dog, can smell it. And he comes over there and sits there and he drools like crazy.

Speaker 1 And there's like a puddle of his dog spit. So

Speaker 1 it's cute and disgusting all the same time. And it's created a bad habit because we always cave in and give him some peanut butter.

Speaker 1 So now we have to find a way to sneak the peanut butter when the dog is sleeping in another room.

Speaker 1 This morning, I walked by the bathroom near the kitchen and I'm like, are you in there?

Speaker 1 He said, yeah, I'm eating peanut butter. I said, in the bathroom? he said, Yeah, it's the only way to avoid the dog.
Boy,

Speaker 1 I remember when, yeah, I remember what

Speaker 2 I was a kid, that was the only place to get privacy, and I would do different things in the bathroom than sneakers.

Speaker 1 Peanut butter, he has a scoop, he really truly brought the jar of peanut butter. But you know what? Both you and Scotty have the same, you end up with the same result,

Speaker 1 right? You both finish

Speaker 1 odd and funny, guys.

Speaker 2 It was, it's definitely.

Speaker 1 Here's somebody who's funny, but not odd.

Speaker 1 Not great, but go ahead. He's a very talented pal

Speaker 1 of mine. He's had more success than the three of us combined.
Like many comedians, he's got stand-up and Saturday Night Live on his resume.

Speaker 1 But before making his mark on the comedy zeitgeist of the last half century, he got his bachelor's degree in history,

Speaker 1 worked as a private chauffeur with the uniform and everything, and was selling bras at wholesale.

Speaker 1 Things took a major turn for him in 1988 when he started to work in a little pilot called the Seinfeld Chronicles. It's my very hilarious friend, Larry David.
Larry David? Larry!

Speaker 1 Oh, look at him. Oh, look at him.
He's already bored. He's already bored.

Speaker 1 How about for 15 minutes? We apologize.

Speaker 2 It definitely comes out of your time, so that's a good thing. You're only going to be with us for another 45 minutes.

Speaker 1 But here's the thing.

Speaker 1 By the way, the dog thing, I love when the dogs are out of the house so I can have a meal

Speaker 1 and relax. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 You can't eat with them.

Speaker 2 That's your fault, probably, or Ashley's, right?

Speaker 2 You fed them, and now they don't forget that.

Speaker 1 No, she started feeding them from the table. It's all her fault.

Speaker 1 I gave her a dirty look, but she did it. And now...

Speaker 2 Why don't you make her eat outside with the dogs? I'll teach her.

Speaker 1 And she'll never do it again. I'm telling you, I take snacks into my bathroom.
I do.

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 1 Because of the dogs?

Speaker 1 Yeah, because of the dogs. That's what I'm saying.
So, somebody, yeah, you can relate.

Speaker 2 Larry, I'm so glad you're finally here.

Speaker 2 We just finally made your deal.

Speaker 1 It took so long. I know.
What do you mean?

Speaker 2 God, your business affairs was just, I guess,

Speaker 2 was your agent just beating us up?

Speaker 1 What are you involved in business affairs? We're not. We're kidding.
This is all free. You're not kidding.
Oh, you're joking.

Speaker 1 By the way,

Speaker 1 I get that a lot. A lot of surprise.

Speaker 2 Oh, sorry.

Speaker 1 It was humor?

Speaker 1 I really sneak up on folks.

Speaker 1 Check your six.

Speaker 1 What the fuck?

Speaker 1 Can you talk about Sean's appearance on Curb this year? Wow, I was going to get there.

Speaker 1 I haven't seen it yet. Has it been on? I have to.
All right.

Speaker 2 So speaking of making deals, you made a Sean Hayes deal and got him on the show.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he's a long time coming.

Speaker 2 Do you have notes?

Speaker 1 Before you be time in my life. Be honest.

Speaker 1 Be honest.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be as honest as I can.

Speaker 1 He was fantastic. I don't know about it.

Speaker 1 Really? I'll bet he was. Really fine.
Listen, he was, no, fantastic. Thanks.

Speaker 1 He played a lawyer, and

Speaker 1 you believe this guy was a lawyer. And he had to do a scene where he wakes up in the morning.
It was like Gene Hackman from the French Connection. Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 The acting display of him getting up in the morning. Sure.

Speaker 1 You know, the whole deal.

Speaker 1 My mouth dropped. I was off.

Speaker 1 I added wiping my eyes. Just

Speaker 1 real. Wiping your eyes.
Real gene.

Speaker 1 Did you start with a

Speaker 1 little bit?

Speaker 1 A little bit. Weeby, beef.
Which, Sean, Sean has the worst sleep hygiene, I imagine, of the four of us here. So that must have, you had to dig deep.
Did you study people sleeping?

Speaker 1 How did you do it, Sean? Because you have no idea. I watched hours of tape.
Yeah. Okay.
Of just people sleeping with me. People that weren't wearing the mask.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Larry, but that was one of the, I don't know, I curb has been one of my favorite shows forever and ever, and I loved being on it. I was honored to be asked.

Speaker 1 I was honored to do it with you and on the last season, nonetheless.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Will, did you ever get on that show?

Speaker 1 No, I was never asked. Yeah, me neither.

Speaker 1 Not once. Oh, boy.
Larry said to me, Larry, do you remember this? Like about a year ago, I ran into you. And Larry said, hey, you should be on the show.
He said, how come you? He did.

Speaker 1 And he goes, how come you? He goes, how come you were never on Curb? I said,

Speaker 1 first of all, I said, well, because I think I'm too tall. And then I said,

Speaker 1 and then I said, it's your show. You never asked me.
That's why.

Speaker 1 Primary.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Primary.

Speaker 2 You know, it is true. Just about everybody in Hollywood has either been on that show or Law and Order.
And

Speaker 2 not us.

Speaker 2 Although, Willie, you've done a lot of work. I did Law and Order.

Speaker 1 But I would say this.

Speaker 1 Now I take pride in the fact that I wasn't. Now it makes it more.
I'm in a more exclusive club.

Speaker 1 I'm like the Marty Scorsese of never winning the best Oscar for directing

Speaker 2 with regards to Susan Lucci. Sure.

Speaker 2 Well, it does sound like, I will say, it does sound like a really, from what I've heard from my friends that have been on the show, that it's like one of the greatest experiences.

Speaker 2 It's like up there with like Saturday Night Live. Like it's just an incredible group and you're improvising.

Speaker 1 I think it's the improvising. Actors really love to improvise.

Speaker 2 But I'll bet you've had some that have been like, forget it. I will sink in that atmosphere.
Do not, I'm not coming on.

Speaker 1 Yes, not many, but there have been a few

Speaker 1 who really couldn't. Had a tough time.

Speaker 2 What do you do about those who say, oh, yeah, great. No, I love improvising.
And they come on and they're just horrendous. What do you, how do you, who has a conversation with them?

Speaker 1 You or the director?

Speaker 1 You mean somebody who we've asked to do it?

Speaker 2 To do it, and they clearly are way over their skis with improvisation. Do you do a, okay, guys, let's take a quick five-year-old.

Speaker 1 It's only happened a couple of times

Speaker 1 the show

Speaker 1 where

Speaker 1 people were trying to be funny, right? Right, right.

Speaker 1 And that's like the worst thing you could do.

Speaker 2 And that's a hard note to give.

Speaker 2 What does that sound like? Do you do you pull up?

Speaker 1 Here's the note. Yeah.
Don't try to be funny. Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 Wow. Yeah.
Don't do it.

Speaker 2 One of your great cast members, the fantastic, the incredible Vince Vaughan, who I just think the world of, he gave me a great note once when I was trying to improvise during a job with him.

Speaker 2 We've done a couple of movies together.

Speaker 2 He was doing something genius and then I said something and he just stopped. He just looked at me and said, do you think that's helping?

Speaker 2 And I thought it was part of

Speaker 1 the dialogue, right? The improv. It was out of character.

Speaker 2 It was Vince saying to Jason, shut your mouth and let me do my thing.

Speaker 1 And it was a good note. What a gut punch.

Speaker 1 But Larry, thanks for being here today. Hey, Larry.

Speaker 1 Wait a second, Sean, do you have an agenda you're trying to get to? I just want to ask him a question.

Speaker 1 I haven't even gotten to the point yet that I feel so

Speaker 1 bummed out that I, yeah, because

Speaker 1 I would have loved that environment so much.

Speaker 1 Larry, it's not over. It's not over.
Larry, I'm going to fucking.

Speaker 1 I mean, I've run into Gary on the, to Larry on the golf course. I keep calling him Gary.
That's why I run into him on the golf course. Maybe that had something to do with it.

Speaker 1 I run into Larry on the golf course before, and I've never been able to say it, except for the one time when he asked me where I haven't been on. I was like, man, I really wish.

Speaker 1 And it is one of my true regrets. I was like, that's an environment I feel like I would have really

Speaker 1 liked because I like to fuck around. But anyway, so Larry, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 1 Welcome to our show. Yeah.

Speaker 1 How do you feel?

Speaker 1 Scale of one to 10, how do you feel today about being here right now?

Speaker 1 Before I ever do anything, any show ever,

Speaker 1 I always regret that I said yes.

Speaker 1 And I feel that way today.

Speaker 2 We're going to get you to the other side of that by the time we're done

Speaker 1 or not.

Speaker 2 But are you good about saying no or do you, are you terrible? Do you say yes? Cause you don't want to, you don't want to displease people?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 I'm good about saying no. Yeah, good.
That's a great quality. That's good.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 Will, we had a friend who told us once, look, if you don't want to do it tomorrow, right?

Speaker 1 If someone says

Speaker 2 in a few months, you know, and you're like, sure, yeah. No, the better thing, if you don't want to do it tomorrow, say no today.
Yeah. You know, even if it's a couple months in the future.

Speaker 1 Larry, let's can we can we go back, Sean? Can I grab the reins here for a second? Sure, sure, yeah. Just ask you: um, I kind of want to, I know that you were a stand-up back in New York.

Speaker 1 You started sort of as a stand-up, right? And I know this from

Speaker 1 I got kind of a history of you through our mutual friend Jim Valley, the great Jim Valley, who I adore.

Speaker 1 He lived in my building, and he lived in your building in New York. I remember him telling you stories about it.

Speaker 1 And when Tannis' daughter was little, and he, and Jim was kind of a stay-at-home dad in a lot of ways, right? Yeah. And he would talk about you living in the building at Manhattan Plaza, right?

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 What was that like being a stand-up back then? Like, what was what was your kind of

Speaker 1 ambitions when you were doing that back in those days, living in Manhattan Plaza? And being a, did you want to be the world's greatest stand-up?

Speaker 1 I did want to, I wanted to be a great stand-up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I wasn't, but I wanted to be one. Yeah.
And, And I really would have settled if you had told me in

Speaker 1 1987

Speaker 1 and you offered me

Speaker 1 $200 a week

Speaker 1 to do stand-up in New York at the clubs, $200 a week for the rest of your life,

Speaker 1 I would have taken it. Wow.

Speaker 1 Wow. Wow.
We have an offer for you.

Speaker 1 I had no hopes to do anything.

Speaker 2 well but what about but you said uh sean said in the intro that you studied uh history uh it to be a professor no no no just to just to get out of college and that was that that was world history or american history both will loves himself some world history i took history i dropped out of college but i was a history major and i love history i read mainly

Speaker 1 yeah i i had no uh i wasn't i wasn't gonna i wasn't interested in show business right really Yeah.

Speaker 1 But, but, dad, parents, you're by the way, Jewish, by the way, both sides or just your father?

Speaker 1 It's a both, yeah. It's both.
And, and grew up in that. So disappointed.
I know. I, I, you know, if you,

Speaker 1 if you would have split it up, I don't think it would have been the worst thing in the world.

Speaker 1 If you would have given me a half and half, I admire the halves. You know, sometimes somebody will tell me he's a half, and I'll go, oh, that's, that's great.
That's great. So were either one,

Speaker 2 were either one of them particularly funny or funny enough for you to feel like, oh, maybe I'll be a stand-up. I got it kind of in my genes.

Speaker 1 No. No.
No.

Speaker 1 My mother was funny without trying to be funny, without realizing she was being funny.

Speaker 1 She had a kind of a Gracie Allen quality about her. In fact, my friends called my mother Gracie, but it wasn't purposeful.

Speaker 1 She wasn't cracking wise. Right.

Speaker 1 And we will be right back.

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Speaker 2 And now back to the show.

Speaker 1 After college, you were in the Army Reserve? Yeah, because Vietnam was going on. I didn't want to go.
You know, I didn't want to go. And I signed up for the reserves.

Speaker 1 And so.

Speaker 1 And never got drafted. No, I never got drafted.
But I got out of the reserves after two years with a psychiatric discharge. Oh, let's hear more about that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 I told this, I think, on Howard Stern. It's kind of a long story, but should I make a long story short?

Speaker 1 No, you can. We have 45 times.
We've got a completely different audience.

Speaker 1 If you're smart, this is the last answer you'll give.

Speaker 1 So good.

Speaker 1 Work the clock, Larry. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And by the way,

Speaker 1 by the way, just make it up anyway. We're not going to check.

Speaker 1 No, I was in the Army, the reserves. I went to basic training.
It was horrendous. It was the worst experience of my life.

Speaker 1 I was, you know, ducking under live ammunition and

Speaker 1 firing weapons and

Speaker 1 I had bayonets.

Speaker 1 And so I did that for eight weeks. And then I had occupational specialty school.
I was a petroleum storage specialist.

Speaker 1 What? And then we had to,

Speaker 1 yeah, it's well, you have to fill up the tanks with gas. Sure, sure.
Somebody has to do it.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 then after I got out, I had to go to meetings once a month

Speaker 1 at Floyd Bennett Field, a big airplane hangar, and it was freezing. And I had to go home, and I stayed at my apartment, at my parents' apartment in Brooklyn.

Speaker 1 I stayed with them for Saturday, Friday night and Saturday night, and then I'd go home back to New York on Sunday.

Speaker 1 But the meetings were Saturday and Sunday, and then I heard about a psychiatrist who was writing letters to get people out.

Speaker 1 So I borrowed $250. I went to see the psychiatrist.

Speaker 1 I convinced him that I was insane. He wrote me a letter saying I was insane.
You've got to, you want to stop there.

Speaker 2 How do you convince him you're insane?

Speaker 1 What was your flavor? My flavor was I wanted to kill myself. Okay.

Speaker 2 So you went in there and you really tried to convincingly

Speaker 1 yeah,

Speaker 1 I had suicidal suicidal ruminations

Speaker 1 what was it you were trying to get rid of what were you trying to avoid

Speaker 1 life was life was just too hard

Speaker 1 were you able to make yourself cry i was able to act

Speaker 1 i was able to act yeah yeah you can see it on on max right now kirby i think i think i could have i think i could have fooled uh

Speaker 1 i don't know if i fooled him right because because everybody was acting for him but i when i went to the meeting armed with the letter

Speaker 1 now I'm really acting insane. Yeah.
Right. And these people who knew me

Speaker 1 for two years

Speaker 1 because I went off into the corner. I was huddled by, I was by myself.
I was looking around,

Speaker 1 acting crazy. And I said, rocking back and forth a little bit.
Good, good.

Speaker 1 Still rolling.

Speaker 1 Where's the major?

Speaker 1 Where's the major? I need to talk to the major. Where's the major?

Speaker 1 And so somebody,

Speaker 1 and I saw people pointing at me, talking about me. I know they were nuts.
Like, what was going on with me?

Speaker 1 And then I went to see the major and I gave him the letter and he read the letter and I'm sitting across from him acting as nutty as a fruitcake. And

Speaker 2 you should have chewed off a corner of the letter.

Speaker 1 Well, he had the letter. He read the letter.
He asked me a couple of questions after the letter.

Speaker 1 And then he said to me,

Speaker 1 can you drive home?

Speaker 1 Yeah, perfect. You knew you were going to.
I knew I had him.

Speaker 1 I said, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm a good driver. I'm a good driver.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Crazy. Wow.

Speaker 2 Now, you don't, you're not, you're not old enough to go to Vietnam.

Speaker 1 I tell you what, we could have used some of that kind of ingenuity in Vietnam. Now, I'm just saying, we could have used people.

Speaker 1 You could have used you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you could have used it, Larry. I'm sure I could have made a contribution in some way.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but look at the contribution you ended up making here.

Speaker 1 Oh, wonderful, Larry. Wonderful.
But Larry,

Speaker 1 now that you're here on this little smartlist thing, and we didn't get a chance to really go deep on the set when I was working with you on Curb, like, I always wanted to ask you, I wanted to ask you the questions

Speaker 1 those days that we worked together, but I was too embarrassed. Like, I know you're probably sick of talking about it, but Seinfeld.

Speaker 1 How I've always wondered, how did you and Jerry even meet? And how did that happen?

Speaker 1 Because when you make a TV show, it's so rare that the talent and the writers or the showmaners that everything kind of hooks up and everybody has the same sensibility.

Speaker 1 And it seems you and Jerry had the same sensibility. So did you know each other out or was that like a business like set up?

Speaker 1 We were both comedians in New York. So you knew each other? So we knew each other in New York.

Speaker 1 He generally performed at the comic strip. I was at the improv.
But we would see each other a lot.

Speaker 1 We always enjoyed each other's company. We would actually go and write together in the afternoon.
He'd bring his premises. I'd bring my premises, and we'd go over them.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I had written a screenplay that somehow he had read.

Speaker 1 And then when NBC approached him about doing a show,

Speaker 1 he came to me and asked if I'd be interested in working with it.

Speaker 1 Had you written a half-hour script before? No. No.

Speaker 2 That's why it's so damn good.

Speaker 1 It's just so

Speaker 2 different in form.

Speaker 1 But did you, so when you get into sort of writing that half-hour multicam

Speaker 1 format.

Speaker 1 Wait a second. Wait a second.
I did write one half-hour. I did write a half-hour pilot for Gilbert Gottfried.
No kidding.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was filmed and they didn't pick it up. That was for HBO.

Speaker 2 Was it also sort of

Speaker 2 changing

Speaker 2 the format a bit?

Speaker 1 No?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Right. Yeah, they didn't like it.

Speaker 1 But I love it.

Speaker 1 Sorry, Willie. Well, I was just going to say, so I kind of want to get into this half-hour format.

Speaker 1 So you do multicam, but the way that you do Seinfeld, it's not like traditional multicam, because you have...

Speaker 1 Right, you well, at least initially, you kind of would go back and forth to Jerry doing his stand-up, and then you guys kind of fine-tune that as you went, is my recollection, I get it. Right.

Speaker 1 But then the premise of the show, the premise of the show initially

Speaker 1 was

Speaker 1 how does a comedian get his material? Right. So we would go through an episode and you would see whatever happened to him on the show, he would turn into material.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was like the idea.

Speaker 2 And then it went like after the first year,

Speaker 1 you guys tossed that, right?

Speaker 1 Not, I don't think after the first year. I think it was a couple of years.
And then you just kind of moved it to the end.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Right.
But did you, did you, again, sort of, I don't want to get too into the weeds on the format of the future. No, go in the weeds.
You can go in the weeds. But we're already in the weeds.

Speaker 1 Did you enjoy it? Did you, I don't know, was it difficult for you writing in that format? Was it a format that you liked, that you had to get used to or that you rebelled against?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 I was okay with it. I didn't mind it at all.

Speaker 1 At one point, I said to him, I can't believe they're letting us do this.

Speaker 1 I was really surprised. Really?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I felt like,

Speaker 1 how are we getting away with this?

Speaker 2 Did you have a staff

Speaker 2 that you handpicked, or did they try to marry you with a bunch of more traditional writers?

Speaker 1 And how'd that all work out?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 for the first four shows,

Speaker 1 I wasn't the executive producer.

Speaker 1 They brought in someone who had experience

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 who had a show on the air previously, and they brought him in, and he was my boss. Right.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 we handed in the first couple of shows.

Speaker 1 And then we were called into his office

Speaker 1 for notes.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 he just, it was just four episodes.

Speaker 1 That note meeting

Speaker 1 did not go.

Speaker 2 We just generally probably wanted to make it something a bit less

Speaker 1 specific and

Speaker 1 esoteric, probably not less esoteric.

Speaker 1 I don't know. You know, when

Speaker 2 they were probably going for something more traditional, something more familiar, recognizable because you're in a major network and let's

Speaker 2 round the edges a bit. Yes.
And you guys, thankfully, said, well, but

Speaker 2 because you guys you famously did not start high up in the ratings you were probably figuring well what yeah we're not give us a chance to grow and do our own thing i said no to everything he said yeah right i said i'm not i'm not gonna i can't i can't do that and then i then i

Speaker 1 you know i i was uh

Speaker 1 and then i quit and and they said jerry then jerry went to castle rock and said look forget it we're gonna do this or not and and so then that was that guy didn't really participate after that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it was, it was, it was essentially, it was essentially my show after that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Larry, and I, it should be noted, and I had, I was, uh, I was a friend of Jerry's. I saw him when I was like 17.
My buddies got me for my birthday to go see Jerry play in Toronto. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I was a really big fan of his stand-up.
And so when you guys started the show, I watched first season. I just moved to New York.

Speaker 1 It was the fall of 90, right? When you guys came on the air?

Speaker 1 I think that's when it was summer, maybe. The summer.
Summer of 90, yeah.

Speaker 1 The pilot came on in the summer of 89, and then the first four shows came on in June of 90. Yeah.
Wow.

Speaker 1 And so crazy. And it was the Seinfeld Chronicles, as everybody knows, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, the first season. Yeah.
First season.

Speaker 1 Or just the pilot, I think. I think it was just the pilot.
Oh, was it? I don't remember it. Yeah.
And I seem to remember, I think we talked about this maybe when Jerry was on, that

Speaker 1 the budget for the show at NBC came out of late night,

Speaker 1 right? That

Speaker 1 initially it was

Speaker 1 Rick Ludwin who. I think variety.
Oh, variety. Variety.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And, right? Was it

Speaker 1 Rick Ludwin? Yeah. One of the greats.

Speaker 1 He championed the show. Great show.

Speaker 1 The show wouldn't have gotten on the air if not for him. I love that.
Wow. And by the way, while you were on Seinfeld, you had both your daughters or just one daughter?

Speaker 1 No, both. Both.
Wow. And did you bring them around? Were they interested?

Speaker 1 No, they were babies. No, I know.
But when they got older.

Speaker 1 When they got older, it was off the air.

Speaker 1 First of all, don't

Speaker 1 you stupid. Sean, you fucking shit.
I thought they were like a... Sean, Sean, take a time out.
Real quick. Did the show do well with babies?

Speaker 1 Sean,

Speaker 1 the show went off in 98. My daughter, Cassie, was born in

Speaker 1 94. Oh, okay.
And Romi was born in 96. First of

Speaker 1 First of all, calm down.

Speaker 1 Second of all. Larry, Larry, how did you guys do with like toddlers? Did you guys get a lot of toddlers? Yeah.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 So, but Larry, Curb, correct me, has been on longer than Seinfeld was?

Speaker 1 Curb's been on for 24 years. 24 years.
Isn't that amazing?

Speaker 1 Not consecutively. No, not consecutively.
You take like 10 years off. But when we started.
We started. Holy shit.
Wait, I want to go into Curb more because, like, how did you come up with the form?

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 being there, I was like, oh, this is how this works. You get like a little outline for my sister Tracy who doesn't understand.
It's not written like, say, Seinfeld was.

Speaker 1 It's all improvised, like we were talking at the beginning of this episode.

Speaker 1 Story outline. The story outline, yeah.
So you have to hit those points.

Speaker 1 But it's so fun because you spend an hour just improvising one scene and then you cut out the fat in the editing room and you have all great stuff. It's such a great format.
So who thought of that?

Speaker 1 And why did you think of that? I heard once, because when you and I did the three stooges, you said to me, I hate memorizing lines. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well,

Speaker 1 it was Seinfeld had ended and I was thinking about

Speaker 1 what I was going to do next. And Jeff Garland had, I had an office at Castle Rock and Jeff Garland had an office next door.
And he said to me, what are you going to do now?

Speaker 1 I said, I'm thinking about going back to stand-up. And he said, well, you should film it.

Speaker 1 And then I thought about, oh, well, what is that going to be? Filming it, that sounds intrusive. I don't know.
What are they going to do? The camera's going to follow me into a dry cleaner.

Speaker 1 I could understand.

Speaker 1 I could see how it's going to be on stage. That could be somewhat interesting to see the growth of the act

Speaker 1 from beginning to end. But off stage, I didn't like the idea of filming myself.
The cameras following me around. I didn't feel I'm all that interesting to follow.

Speaker 1 And so I thought maybe if I wrote some

Speaker 1 fictitious stories

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 we could do that around the stand-up. The stand-up could be real, but the offstage stuff would be just stuff I made up.

Speaker 1 And so that's what I did. I wrote an outline.

Speaker 1 I made Jeff my manager. Cheryl auditioned.
She was my wife.

Speaker 1 We had kids in the first special, because that's what it was. It was a special.
It wasn't a pilot.

Speaker 1 It was just a one-off special. Right.
We got it. And did you get it? Or do I should I repeat it one more time? I just can't wait to hear what happened to the kids.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I didn't really want to see the kids. I realized after the special.

Speaker 2 How did you off the children?

Speaker 1 I just pretended the first show never existed.

Speaker 1 That's the best way to do it. I love showing.
Never came back. Never.
You never need to fucking explain it. No, no, no.
You never need to explain everything, right? I love that.

Speaker 1 Just fucking changed it.

Speaker 1 I didn't want kids in the show. No, I just thought the show would be so much funnier without kids.
I didn't want to deal with kids. I didn't want to keep having to explain, what about the kids?

Speaker 1 Where are the kids? Are the kids, okay? Who's watching the kids? I didn't want to have to keep justifying everything that was going on and having to explain where the kids were. Right.

Speaker 1 Kids aren't funny. Hey, the other thing is, Larry, do you think,

Speaker 1 God, you did something really genius, which is you were able to play this version of yourself, if you will,

Speaker 1 and you get to sort of be cranky and say whatever you want. And has it, it must have got him so envious.

Speaker 1 It just bled into your real life that you're able to now, because people just buy it and they're like, well, it's just Larry being Larry. He's like from this show.

Speaker 1 And now you can just, you can go to a gas station and give a guy the finger and like people will laugh. See you later.
Or

Speaker 2 scream at the slow group in front of you.

Speaker 1 You can do whatever, of course. You want on this planet? I mean,

Speaker 1 I don't know about the planet, but like the west side of LA and Manhattan, you could do whatever the fuck you want.

Speaker 1 It's made my life. It's made my life so much better.

Speaker 1 Jesus fucking Christ. Now I'm jealous.
I'm really getting heated now when I realize this fucking carte blanche.

Speaker 1 You literally wrote printed yourself a carte blanche to say whatever the fuck you want in the places that we

Speaker 1 and people are disappointed if I'm not that way. I know.

Speaker 1 People are like, fuck, the guy paid his bill and he didn't tell me to go fuck myself. I mean, what am I doing wrong?

Speaker 2 You're making the people happy by you being cranky. It's so great.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Now, but do you, but do you notice that, honestly, that

Speaker 2 you get some stuff out there as this sort of this other version of yourself, and then your real life actually ends up being a little bit more placid and

Speaker 2 less dramatic?

Speaker 1 I haven't noticed that, but it is

Speaker 1 acting and doing that Larry David on the show. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It is

Speaker 1 so fun, first of all, and kind of a little cathartic in a way.

Speaker 1 I know what you mean.

Speaker 1 A little cathartic in a way, way to couch it. I mean, we're talking, obviously, it's the fucking greatest

Speaker 1 horrible all these horrible things. By the way, how about

Speaker 1 I wasn't even going to bring this up, but it just hit me. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Speaker 1 First of all, she said she was watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is already kind of. Oh, we watched the show.
And then she got upset because

Speaker 1 she thought you painted people in her state or in the South as racist or whatever. I'm paraphrasing, so I don't know her words.

Speaker 1 But weren't you kind of blown away that she even watches your show? I was pretty surprised by it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 it was just about a law that exists in that state. Right, exactly.
Where you can't give people water or food or whatever when they're in line voting. I'm not going to be able to vote.

Speaker 1 It's so outrageous.

Speaker 1 So unbelievable.

Speaker 1 Stupid. It's so great.
Yeah, I remember when I heard about that.

Speaker 1 I wrote it down in my notebook. And then

Speaker 1 I knew I was going to, you had to, I had to use that. The whole season is like kind of around that, isn't it? Yeah.
Yeah, it's great.

Speaker 2 So then, Larry, so the show has had this incredible, long, successful run. You've brought it to this beautiful conclusion.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to ask you, you know, what's next, but I would imagine that you're good, right?

Speaker 2 You've worked your nards off for however many years at a really high level, accomplished probably 10 times what you thought you would accomplish.

Speaker 2 You feel satisfied.

Speaker 2 Are there areas in your life that you would love to try to find equal success in

Speaker 2 or other areas of the business or different industries?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 You're good. You're all set.
Any other industries you want to get into?

Speaker 1 I'd love to be an offensive coordinator for an NFL team.

Speaker 1 That would be my dream job. Very offensive coordinator.

Speaker 2 But truly, you do love football, and specifically, do you know about plays and all that stuff?

Speaker 1 No, I don't know anything about it, but

Speaker 1 I feel like I'd be good at it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know nothing.

Speaker 1 But I feel like if I studied it, if somebody took me under their wing, I feel like in a year or two, I could design, I feel I could design great plays.

Speaker 1 It's a creative endeavor, really, when you think about it.

Speaker 2 From what I understand, if you just play Madden, you really learn quite a bit. So maybe try that.
Get yourself a little bit more.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, I've never done that. Could you imagine Larry David on the field just calling shots? Yeah.
Throwing

Speaker 1 with the little headset and screaming into that thing. I honestly feel I could do it.

Speaker 1 You'd just be yelling like, just throw it and then catch it.

Speaker 1 What What team would that be?

Speaker 2 Would that be the Giants or the Jets?

Speaker 1 Well, you know, I'm a Jet fan. I'm also a Giant fan, but I'm more Jets than Giants.
When Joe Namath came in in 1965,

Speaker 1 I really took to him and so I became a Jet fan.

Speaker 1 Larry, you know, when we were working together, I asked you, same kind of thing Jason was asking him like, why are you ending? Why are you stopping the show? And you just said, look at me.

Speaker 1 I'm 76 years old

Speaker 1 look at me yeah

Speaker 1 you're in incredible shape I know the way you take care of yourself you eat great you exercise you're out there every day 76 when's your birthday by the way quick July 2nd do you hate by the way do you hate birthdays you hate you hate holidays well I hate I you know it it becomes a job returning the birthday emails

Speaker 2 it's a bit of a job yeah so yeah I don't I don't like it I really don't like it when people you know what I don't like is when people sing happy birthday to me I don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 It's the worst

Speaker 1 thing is make a face and shake your head. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wait, what about all the other holidays? I get the birthday thing. It becomes a terrible thing.

Speaker 1 I detest all holidays. Detest them.
Not one. Not one.
There's not one holiday that I like. Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I particularly hate. I hate Halloween.
I hate Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 I hate Christmas. New Year's I can stand because I know that the whole thing's going to be over soon after that year.
Yeah, but you got to stay up late.

Speaker 1 Stay up. I haven't stayed up past 12 in 15 years.

Speaker 1 Why Halloween? Because you got to dress up.

Speaker 1 The costumes, the kids, the bothering, you know. You're knocking on the door.
By the way,

Speaker 1 my house is in darkness on Halloween. Of course it is.

Speaker 1 All the lights are out.

Speaker 1 Nobody knocks on the door.

Speaker 1 We put a sign out that says, sorry, no candy every single year.

Speaker 1 Mary, you could probably get away with putting a sign that said, go fuck yourself. And people would fucking adore you for it.
They'd fucking build you a goddamn monument.

Speaker 1 I'm still really grinding on this. Yeah, I remember, I've seen you at Conan's Christmas party a couple times.
I've been doing it. And it's great.
And that's a... Do you like going to parties?

Speaker 1 Well, that's kind of like, it's not a dinner party, but they served great food and stuff. But I imagine you don't like to sit down at dinner parties or do you?

Speaker 1 The thing about the dinner party is you don't know who's going. That's right.
And that's what really bothers me about it, that

Speaker 1 it's such a fucking secret

Speaker 1 as to who you're inviting. And then you show up, oh, you're here.
Oh, oh, oh, hello. You know,

Speaker 1 who needs that? Tell me who's going, and I'll see if I want to go.

Speaker 1 Why can't I know?

Speaker 2 I should have a chance to educate my decision about the way I'm going to spend my night.

Speaker 1 Exactly. And all of a sudden,

Speaker 1 then you're spending two and a half hours

Speaker 1 with a stranger. You've got nothing to say to them.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And like, if you're not going to go to the beach,

Speaker 1 you're going to look at the weather. And if the weather is rainy, you're not going to fucking go for two and a half hours, right?

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 I don't get it. I don't get it.
So a couple of weeks ago,

Speaker 1 I was invited and I asked. I said who's going to be there.

Speaker 1 And offense was taken. Sure.
Okay.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I didn't go. Good.
Smart. Because you found it because they told you? They told you? No, they didn't tell me.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 Do you throw dinner parties?

Speaker 1 Me? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Have I ever said, let's have a dinner party?

Speaker 2 Or

Speaker 2 let's say you have six, seven,

Speaker 2 eight people over.

Speaker 2 Would you then tell the other people who's coming?

Speaker 1 Yes. Yes.
Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, I'm golden ruling it.
Yeah, I'm not trying to trick people over to my hands. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. I'm golden ruling it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm doing unto them as I want them to do unto me. I'm with you on that.
I get kind of offended. These guys know, like, if you invite me to a one-year-old's birthday party, I'm fucking mad.

Speaker 1 I'm like, don't invite me to a one-year-old's birthday party. That's outrageous.
I'll go one step further. Don't invite me to your wedding.
You know?

Speaker 1 Don't invite me to your wedding on a weekend in the summer. Oh,

Speaker 1 the bar mitzvah is even worse than the wedding. I wish those

Speaker 1 adjustments are. No, but my kids go to the bar mitzvahs because that's where all the makeouts makeouts happen.

Speaker 1 Just the service.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you just come to the service, not the party.

Speaker 1 Anything to do with it, they're just intolerable, top and bottom.

Speaker 1 Oh, and you got to bring a check. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Except now, the dastardly desk clerk is saying he can't confirm your connecting rooms. Wait, what?

Speaker 4 That's right, ma'am. You have rooms 201 and 709.

Speaker 6 No, we cannot be five floors away from our kids.

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Speaker 1 Welcome to Hilton.

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Speaker 5 Hilton, for this day.

Speaker 2 All right, back to the show.

Speaker 1 So, I wrote a bunch of like

Speaker 1 I want to do like a speed thing with you because I wrote, what, you hate that? You're going to introduce a new format here? I'm not going to do it. Just one-word answer.

Speaker 1 You think Larry wants to do this? Or are you going to say fuck off? We've never done a speed. Why are you doing it for Larry? What's a terrible idea?

Speaker 1 Terrible.

Speaker 2 Yeah, make Larry the monkey.

Speaker 1 Oh, Sean's upset. Okay, Sean, do one speed thing.
One monkey. No, no, no, go ahead.

Speaker 2 He's worked on it with Scotty all weekend.

Speaker 1 Let's hear it.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, no. This is going to be fun.

Speaker 1 No, it's not going to be horrible now.

Speaker 2 What about a stage story, Larry?

Speaker 1 What about

Speaker 1 when he went to Broadway? Oh, there you go. Let's do that.
How about that show? Larry, I saw your show on Broadway. You didn't see mine.

Speaker 1 I loved it, though. If I had been in New York when it was

Speaker 1 six months?

Speaker 1 I was going to fly to New York?

Speaker 1 Yes. I flew to New York to see yours.
Who asked you to? I didn't tell you to do that.

Speaker 1 I would have dissuaded you. I would have said, are you nuts? I don't want you to come.
That's what I would have told you. And you should have told me the same thing.
You're a good friend. Yep.

Speaker 1 Now tell me, I did see that show, and you were fucking great in it.

Speaker 1 It's so nice of you to say that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Which one was it? Bring it back down. Which show?

Speaker 1 Something with fishes. It's fishes.
I'm on the fish. I'm standing on it.

Speaker 1 It was called Fish in the Dark. Fish in the Dark.

Speaker 2 Fish in the Dark.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But I thought it was great.
And you told me that you didn't love the experience of eight shows a week. No.
Did you not know that that's what you were getting into? I'm so shocked.

Speaker 2 How'd that sneak up on you, Larry?

Speaker 1 I don't know. It was the dumbest decision I've ever made in my life.

Speaker 2 Have you spoken to that agent since?

Speaker 1 It was my fault.

Speaker 1 I'm the one who agreed to it. It was my fault.

Speaker 1 I didn't write it to be in it.

Speaker 1 I got talked into it by the producer. Wow.

Speaker 1 And you hated it. How long was that run?

Speaker 1 It was the first show was February 4th. The last show was June 9th in 2015.

Speaker 1 Wow. Wow.
So 144 performances. How many months is that?

Speaker 1 February, March, April, May. Five months.
You think that?

Speaker 1 February, March, April, May. Four and a half.

Speaker 1 Sean, how many did you do of Goodnight Oscar? Six months. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 I did five months in New York and three months or two or three months in New York. But how many performances? He knows his number.
He knows his number. You don't know.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 How many shows did you do a week? Seven. Oh, yeah.
That's better.

Speaker 1 I got a moment to rest for a second.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
But you had a heavy lift in that. You were driving the whole thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
And you hated it. Never again.

Speaker 1 It was boring. Doing the same stuff over night after night after night.
I found it boring. Do you have any funny stories? Didn't you get hurt once? You lose your voice ever?

Speaker 1 No, I don't have any funny stories.

Speaker 1 Okay, good. Did you?

Speaker 1 I did notice.

Speaker 1 Great question, though, Sean. Thanks.
That

Speaker 1 it becomes so rote and

Speaker 1 there's no creativity at all after you do the first 10. Right.
And you're just doing the same thing over and over again.

Speaker 1 It's kind of fun, though, to find new things that you, to try new things that are so small that

Speaker 1 you've seen better. Okay, I tried something new once.
Yeah. Oh, I guess you do.
And I got so thrown by it,

Speaker 1 the whole system broke down and I forgot the next line. Yeah.
Oh, no.

Speaker 1 I looked a different way. Instead of looking to the right, I looked to the left.
And all of a sudden,

Speaker 1 it all went askew.

Speaker 2 How'd you get back on track? Did somebody whisper something from the wings?

Speaker 1 No, I realized where I was finally, but

Speaker 1 that was the last time I tried anything different. Yeah,

Speaker 1 exactly. I was doing a play and this guy was carrying a briefcase in one hand.
And right before we went out, we went out at the same time.

Speaker 1 He said, God, my hand hurts from carrying the briefcase the same way. I go, you should switch hands.
He goes, oh. I go, but don't do it tonight.
He goes, no, I'll do it. We walked out.

Speaker 1 He forgot every line. Oh my God.
Yeah. That's, that's, that's exactly the story.
Exactly what I'm talking about. I got it.
I understand. That's wild.

Speaker 1 Right. Those, those neural pathways are dug so deep based on what.

Speaker 1 Larry, what do you do when you're not, when you're not, when you're not not doing your show anymore and you're not doing stand-up, what do you, I know you like to play golf, but is there anything else that you like to do that you have any sort of stupid hobbies or anything that you do to occupy your time that people wouldn't know?

Speaker 1 No, not really. No, nothing.

Speaker 1 Nothing. What do you watch TV? What do you got? Cable news on?

Speaker 1 I do what everybody else does.

Speaker 1 I read. I watch TV.

Speaker 1 These guys don't read. These guys don't.

Speaker 2 No, I don't read. Do you read nonfiction or are you like you rereading stuff about world wars and things like that? Or

Speaker 2 you like good romance novels?

Speaker 1 Romance novels? Yeah, you know, they're kind of fun.

Speaker 1 Did you read any spy novels? You get into that shit, anything like that? I read a great book about

Speaker 1 the spies in England.

Speaker 1 I forgot the name of it.

Speaker 1 Sorry. I apologize.
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 We'll be cutting this, right?

Speaker 1 We'll cope that way. I've probably read it.
I probably read it. So I love at the beginning of this interview, you were like, I kind of regret being here.
And then my next question,

Speaker 1 I get it. And my next question was going to be, well, what else would you be doing? And apparently the answer is nothing.

Speaker 1 Reading a magazine.

Speaker 1 Is that true?

Speaker 1 He'd rather be doing nothing than talking to us. I love that.

Speaker 1 Before we let you go, Larry, I have this very quick, funny little thing that happened between me and you.

Speaker 2 I'd love to get you to your speed round, though.

Speaker 1 No, it's too late.

Speaker 1 It was going to be hysterical, but that's too bad. So listen,

Speaker 1 it's the I Love You story outside of HBO. I don't know if you remember this.

Speaker 1 I asked you to do a show a long time ago that I was producing, and you graciously declined because you're not afraid to say no. And then I didn't see you for like a year or something.

Speaker 1 And then I was at the HBO building, and I was waiting for an elevator.

Speaker 1 HBO building in Santa Monica, waiting for the elevator. And when the doors opened, you were there.
And the first thing you said before

Speaker 1 I even said hello or anything,

Speaker 1 the doors open, you just go, I'm sorry. I just don't like those kinds of shows.
I'm so sorry. They're just, they're not for me.
I, I just, they're, I, I, I, I'm so sorry. I, I, you're great.

Speaker 1 I just can't do it. I go, I'm like, don't worry about it.
I don't care. And, but I thought it was fascinating.
You hung on to that for over a year.

Speaker 1 And then when we were done chatting, uh, I said, you know, you don't have to ever worry about anything like that, Larry. You know, it's no big deal.

Speaker 1 And don't worry about it.

Speaker 1 And you said,

Speaker 1 and you said, okay. And I said, I love you.
And then

Speaker 1 you said, yeah, I don't do that. I don't do that.
I'm not going to say that. And then I laughed and you walked away.
And like two minutes later, we say goodbye.

Speaker 1 And way in the distance, you were getting your car and I'm still at the elevator. And you go, I love you, Sean.

Speaker 1 You old soft. I thought that was real sweet.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let's cut that too.

Speaker 1 Okay, sweet Larry.

Speaker 1 Sweet Larry. Larry,

Speaker 1 we don't want that out in the public. No, we're going to let you go.
Real quick. Real quick speed round, Sean.
Real quick. No, I got.
It's too. I was going to ask.
Fucking go.

Speaker 1 Let me see what they are now. I got to find them.
Here we go.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's on a computer?

Speaker 1 Did you try this?

Speaker 1 I wrote them down last night. I was like,

Speaker 1 what is it? This is like a Rorschach thing? No,

Speaker 1 I don't know who that is.

Speaker 1 Would you rather be subjected to someone showing you pictures of their kids for an entire afternoon or lose a foot?

Speaker 1 Do you ever pick up a dinner? No, that's not. Do you ever watch Sean? It's a good question.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 it's a very good question but of course I need the foot so

Speaker 1 I couldn't play golf without my foot

Speaker 1 oh would you rather wear only uncomfortable shoes whenever you go outside or comfortable shoes 24 hours a day and can ever take them off

Speaker 1 you can never take the shoes off you mean even when you're sleeping yeah showering swimming things like that Now listen, what about this one?

Speaker 1 Would you rather live without the internet or live without air conditioning and heating?

Speaker 1 Easily. That's such an easy question.
What do you think?

Speaker 1 I'd rather live without the air conditioning.

Speaker 1 I'd rather live without the internet,

Speaker 1 even without the air conditioning.

Speaker 1 I hate the internet. What's something that you just recently realized that you were embarrassed you didn't realize earlier? What's that? It's bad.

Speaker 1 What would the world be like if it was filled with male and female copies of you? That's the last one. I think it would be a much better place.
Much better. Wow.
There you go.

Speaker 1 That's the only one we're keeping.

Speaker 1 Good answer. Larry David, you're the sweetest.
I had the best time with you on your show. Thank you for being on this show.

Speaker 1 Curb your enthusiasm. The final, is it called the final frontier? What's the name? Is there like a subtitle? No, just I don't think so.

Speaker 2 I think it's called That's Enough.

Speaker 1 That's Enough. That's enough.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I like that. Yeah.
That would be a nice Larry David. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's very good. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm looking for, Sean, I'm really looking forward to people seeing you on Kirb because you're fantastic.

Speaker 1 Well, thank you. Thank you for having me.
I loved it. It was so fun.
Boy, we had some good laughs.

Speaker 2 Will and I are happy to be involved in any of the reshoots.

Speaker 1 Or promotional photography. We'll just do promo for it.

Speaker 2 We'll just do the junket.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Hey, guys,

Speaker 1 this wasn't as awful as I thought it was going to be. Hey, thanks, man.
That's one of the best reviews we've ever had. Did you have more fun here or on Morning Joe?

Speaker 2 I was so excited when I saw you on my favorite show, Morning Joe. Was it great? I was so jealous you were on that set.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I want to go over there and say hi to those guys.
Do you still golf there?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. you do.

Speaker 2 Not today. It's rainy.
Too wet today.

Speaker 1 Do you see these guys there ever? We've played. I do.
I see them out there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We're going to play together one day.

Speaker 2 I'm off until October.

Speaker 1 I'm around. I played over at your club the other day for that for the pro-am they did.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 I don't even get invited to that. Well, is that true?

Speaker 2 Will just went ahead and won it. Come on.
He won it.

Speaker 1 He won the pro-am on Wednesday. What? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 My team did. Yeah, I did have three birds.
Did you play with? I played with Sebastian Maniscalco,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 who else did I play with? And with Jeff Azoff.

Speaker 1 Who was your pro? With Sam Burns.

Speaker 2 Wow, really?

Speaker 1 Yeah. And he was great.
Sam Burns went low that day. And Jeff Azoff is great, as you know.
He plays at your club. He's terrific.
He's a club champ. And then Sebastian,

Speaker 1 forget about it. And then,

Speaker 1 I mean, just to put it in terms that he would understand. That's so funny.
Don't you find it curious that I'm not invited to to play in that pro-am? I find it very curious.

Speaker 2 How are you not invited to play at the pro-am at your own club, and you're a huge star?

Speaker 1 And then I'm there. Fucking ding dog.

Speaker 1 Canadian asshole.

Speaker 1 Canadian moron gets invited.

Speaker 1 How are you not? They're trying to go international.

Speaker 1 Anyway, well, Larry, we'll get out and play someday. That'd be good.
And I'll show you around your own club and where to hit it and stuff.

Speaker 1 What's your index?

Speaker 1 Terrible. I'm a 10.8.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're not terrible. You're much better than I am.
No. No, you're right around there, Larry.

Speaker 1 No, no, I'm not.

Speaker 1 This Bateman character, he's got a bad thing. Hey, you know, he shot a 70 at Bel Air two weeks ago.
Wow. Can you believe that? Scared the shit out of me.
70.

Speaker 2 Wow. That was the last round I played, and I won't play again until October.

Speaker 1 That? Or I'll probably shoot.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'll shoot 105.

Speaker 2 Just working.

Speaker 2 I'm still out here humping, you know, trying to dance as fast as I can.

Speaker 1 He's going to New York to work. He's back here this week.

Speaker 1 What are are you doing in New York?

Speaker 2 I'm doing some crime drama thing. I'm a Bob.
That's why I'm growing out all this crap, beard, hair, all this nonsense. What are you playing?

Speaker 1 A cop or a loser? I'm playing a loser, right? Look, how am I doing? Yeah.

Speaker 1 You didn't need to grow out the hair and the beard for that, dude.

Speaker 2 Larry, I miss you. I'd love to have at least some food with you soon.

Speaker 2 Please say hi to Ashley. You're very nice to be doing this today with us.

Speaker 1 It was very kind of you. Very, very cool.
I don't even know what to say to that.

Speaker 1 We're big fans.

Speaker 1 It should be, and I know you hate it, and not to embarrass you.

Speaker 1 You've done so much great stuff in your career. And for guys like me, and I can speak for these guys, it's a thrill.

Speaker 1 Honestly, you're such a funny guy. You're such a funny writer, such a funny performer, and it's inspiring to be totally honest.
Again, not the pain on the spot.

Speaker 1 You don't have to respond, but it's great. And we look up to people like, you know, to you and what you do.
I think it's awesome. What you do is one of of my faves

Speaker 2 you make it look very easy and people need to know that it is not easy there those

Speaker 1 who's playing himself guess what guys not simple incredibly talented and I know it's not thank you and sometimes it's not cool in comedy to to pay those kinds of compliments or whatever but it is true and you are you are definitely an inspiration so thank you for all the awesome stuff you've done well you're very very nice to say that I wish I could take it in

Speaker 1 no I know you don't have to you'll think about it again right when you're going to bed tonight and it gets a little little grin yeah a little thought bubble yeah all right guys see you thank you all right

Speaker 1 larry love you larry larry larry

Speaker 1 i love you there it is you got it

Speaker 1 he's great i think i really do love that man i just just gotta just i just love being around him yeah his deepest his deepest darkest secret is that he's a sweetheart i know such a sweetheart yeah i didn't i don't i met his wife jay you know his wife actually

Speaker 2 tiny bit yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 I met her once. She's so sweet.
I only met her one time.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 2 they're a lot of fun. I like them a lot.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's so, he's, you know, like Will was saying, it's like, he's one of the, he's one of the greats, you know? And that show's been on for 20, what did he say, four years, 20 some years?

Speaker 2 I really, honestly, genuinely would love to be on a set with him.

Speaker 1 That would be really, really rewarding. So fun.

Speaker 2 Because I missed my chance.

Speaker 1 I got to kill him and something. He'll do something.
He'll do other stuff. He'll do other stuff.
Maybe this was it.

Speaker 2 Maybe this was us working together. This was the beginning of the show.

Speaker 1 He legit did say that. How come you're never on? And I was like, well, it's your show.

Speaker 1 You never asked me.

Speaker 2 Do you ever say that when somebody comes up to you and asks to be on Smartlist and you say, yeah, why haven't we had you on yet? And meanwhile, you're thinking, we're not going to have him on.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
See, it happens. I guess it's tough.
I know. It's tough to hear the truth, I guess.

Speaker 1 But he has his legacy or like his, he's got, he can always say he has one of the greatest greatest shows in the history of American television. Two, two, two of the greatest

Speaker 1 shows.

Speaker 2 And he's only done two.

Speaker 1 And he's only done. Except for

Speaker 2 the Godfrey failed pilot, I guess.

Speaker 1 But we won't talk about that.

Speaker 1 You just brought it up.

Speaker 2 Well, but it's not even, he's not even two for three because it was just a pilot never aired.

Speaker 1 So he's at 60%. Now he's at 66%.

Speaker 1 He was a second ago where he was batting 1,000. And now

Speaker 1 it's pretty amazing.

Speaker 2 He's only been on two television shows, and they're both probably in the top 10 ever in the history of television.

Speaker 1 Oh, three. All three.

Speaker 1 The Gilbert Godfrey thing.

Speaker 1 Anyway, I know he is so incredible. He's so fucking incredible.
And I do mean it. Apart from that, not only did

Speaker 1 he write himself license to do what he wants, right? In terms of his behavior and being as cranky as he wants in a way that is really

Speaker 1 invokes a lot of jealousy in me,

Speaker 1 but also he got, you know, paid really handsomely to do that.

Speaker 2 I don't think so. I think the story is that he, he deferred all, all the money because he just likes, he just did it for the,

Speaker 1 he didn't, he never cashed those checks.

Speaker 2 He did not get a dollar from Seinfeld.

Speaker 1 No, wow.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he just loved it. Just loved

Speaker 1 being

Speaker 2 about that. Yeah, we should call him back.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I just loved it.

Speaker 2 You know, no, seriously, somebody told me that, and they promised me that they are aware of this information and they can prove it because they have an alibi

Speaker 2 smart

Speaker 2 less

Speaker 2 smart

Speaker 2 less

Speaker 1 smartless is 100 organic and artisanally handcrafted by bennett barbico michael grant terry and rob armjarf

Speaker 1 Smart Less.

Speaker 1 Guys, Jason had to scoot very quickly and apologize profusely for not being here for this little thing that we're about to do, which we're really excited about. He's missing the party.

Speaker 1 He's missing the fun. He's missing the party.
He does feel really, really bad. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But we have a couple guests with us today for a super quick plug for a new Smartless Media show

Speaker 1 called Pretty Sure I Can Fly.

Speaker 1 We can't wait for the show. We're super pumped.
One of the hosts is a friend of the podcast, has been on before, an actor-filmmaker, has made us laugh for literally years.

Speaker 1 And his partner in crime is a woman who we haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet. And sorry, and figuratively years.
And figuratively years. You said literally years.

Speaker 1 Literally, and figuratively years. But literally years.
Yeah. At least me.

Speaker 1 And a woman who we haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet, who will be a friend of the show after this little chat and giggle.

Speaker 1 She's a brilliant writer and produced one of the all-time greats of this American life. Love that show.
Willie, let's say hello to Johnny Knoxville and Elna Baker. Okay, I'm going to say hello.
Hello.

Speaker 1 Hello.

Speaker 1 Hi, guys. This is so exciting that you're here.
Tell us about the show. I can't wait.
I mean, I know about it, but tell everybody else about it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's a show about people with more balls than a bowling alley.

Speaker 3 It's people who achieve great things while thumbing their nose at naysayers, established thought, failure, personal safety, and gravity.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I love that. I love the press release.
It says for people who have have done things that have never been done until someone did them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's pretty good writing, huh? Yeah, it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 And I will say,

Speaker 1 Knoxville, you've got some history with this.

Speaker 1 You've obviously spent some time in between, you know, over the years doing shit that other people won't do, stuff that seems really scary and gnarly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I can see it, but Ellen, how much of an appetite do you have for doing shit that you're not, you didn't think people could do?

Speaker 6 I mean, to an extent, I mean, I grew up Mormon, so I wasn't allowed to do anything.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 6 so, like, for me, I guess it wasn't like being brave in terms of like jumping off a cliff, but it was like leaving of religion, giving hand jobs.

Speaker 6 Like, there were, you know, there were the things that I.

Speaker 1 That was the first thing. Wow.

Speaker 1 And that's why I joined.

Speaker 3 Well, that's what led you to leave ultimately one of the things, right? You were 28.

Speaker 6 Yes, I left at 20.

Speaker 6 I touched a penis for the first time at 28.

Speaker 1 Is that true? 28.

Speaker 6 That is true. Yeah, 28.

Speaker 1 And was touching the penis the thing that

Speaker 1 opened the penis? It was. It was the gateway.
Penis was the gateway, drug. The penis was the gateway.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow. When did you have your first Coke? Coca-Cola.
Like Coca-Cola.

Speaker 3 Otherwise, she was going to say 8 a.m.

Speaker 6 I was like a, we were the kind of Mormons who who drank Coca-Cola, but I didn't have my first coffee until I was 28.

Speaker 6 And I remember like being so afraid to order it just because I didn't have to do it.

Speaker 1 So everything happened at 28?

Speaker 6 Everything, because I left at 28. Yeah, once I touched a dick, I was, you know,

Speaker 1 tell me about it. Same.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, tell me about it. Catholicism, same thing.
So wait,

Speaker 1 did you, is your, do you still have family members in the church?

Speaker 6 Oh, everyone, yeah. Everyone is.

Speaker 1 Do you have a good relationship?

Speaker 6 Decent, yeah, great. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Johnny, what about you? You started with decent. I mean,

Speaker 1 I'd love to dig into that a little bit.

Speaker 1 You opened with decent. I'm going to take you worth.

Speaker 6 I realized they might hear this.

Speaker 1 What was the relationship? By the way, if they're listening to this, then they're lapsed, and then they're just as guilty as you are. And now the playing field is level.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but Johnny, do you need to? What denomination did you grow up in? Catholicism? Oh, Southern Baptists. It was

Speaker 1 intense. I knew that.
Yeah. That's right.
Was it hardcore?

Speaker 1 It, well,

Speaker 3 I didn't realize

Speaker 3 how intense it was at the time.

Speaker 1 But,

Speaker 3 you know, it's not like the Pentecostals who handle snakes. But, you know, in Southern Baptists, you're not supposed to dance or, you know, but

Speaker 1 my parents didn't believe in, they weren't that strict.

Speaker 1 But if you, if you hit the Pentecostals, they could maybe be on an episode of Pretty Sure I Can Fly because if they're handling snakes.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm saying. I'm saying being so repressed makes you want to go take these risks later on in life.
Oh, totally.

Speaker 6 I mean, that's one of the things that I love about interviewing the different people we've interviewed is like,

Speaker 6 I remember this sports writer telling me that all the greatest athletes had some primal wound that in that thing that happened in their childhood is what makes them like achieve or even try.

Speaker 1 For sure.

Speaker 6 And so many of these people that we've talked to, like you find out, oh, like, you know, Manny Puig, who, you know, you've seen on

Speaker 6 Jackass and who Johnny knows, like, I had no idea that like his father was killed by a firing squad in Cuba.

Speaker 1 Like, the origins of what made him

Speaker 6 do these insane, brave things came from, like, something really deep and real. Or, like, Garrett McNamara, who's a hundred-foot wave guy.
You learn about his child, it's bonkers.

Speaker 6 Like, he basically, like, at one point, his mother was this hippie, but she put him in this cult.

Speaker 1 They

Speaker 1 a lot of cults.

Speaker 6 A lot of cults, but the sort of the most memorable.

Speaker 1 He was in many cults?

Speaker 6 Many cults, but the one they had to renounce all their possessions,

Speaker 6 he and his brother had to wear sh bed sheets. They just walked around.
They had to beg for everything. They couldn't buy anything.

Speaker 6 And it was just so humiliating to be walking the streets in Berkeley

Speaker 6 in these outfits begging for things.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 6 these backstories are like what get them to do these things.

Speaker 1 It's incredible. Johnny, have any of these stories inspired you to try something?

Speaker 3 Well, I'm a little, you know, I'm a little slow on the uptake. So I'm trying to not do things anymore.
I'm trying to overcome my

Speaker 1 addiction to

Speaker 1 put yourself in dangerous situations.

Speaker 3 It did become an addiction.

Speaker 1 It must. It must.

Speaker 1 Was there a thing, like, was there like a common

Speaker 1 trait that you noticed in a lot of these people that you, other than the childhood, that a lot of them came from difficult childhoods?

Speaker 1 Anything else like that sort of had the gave them that fearlessness i think the yeah it's if there's a through line on people on the show it's bravery and being colorful um

Speaker 3 and these people are extremely determined yeah

Speaker 6 very determined yeah wow and and usually i mean like it's it's complicated though right because like you're talking about like adrenaline junkies right right so some are some are some some like get in and then kind of become addicted and then they're trying to accomplish something great but they're also like putting their I mean you're a perfect example Johnny like you

Speaker 6 put your life on the yeah you kept putting your life on the line and then ultimately like suffered a traumatic brain injury so like there's this level at which like you're on the razor's edge of like admiring and also being like you guys should stop

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 1 Sean wants to know and just ask because I don't want to embarrass he doesn't want to embarrass himself can you get a traumatic brain injury from watching TV every night?

Speaker 1 You can, but it's up.

Speaker 1 But look at me. I'm still here.
Hey, Sean, have you seen 100-foot wave, by the way? No. You have to watch this.

Speaker 1 And it's by that guy, Garrett McNamara. I definitely told you about it.
And

Speaker 1 watching what these big wave surfers do, not just Garrett, but all those guys.

Speaker 1 When I see those guys when they're like, man, there's this storm coming to Portugal, to Nazareth.

Speaker 1 We got to get there. We've got 48 hours.

Speaker 1 We need to get there because there's a fucking crazy storm and I need to get on a surfboard and have a dude tow me in behind a ski-doo so I can get on the storm waves. And I'm thinking like I know.

Speaker 1 I'm looking for the closest restaurant that's got a happy hour. I'm just going to say,

Speaker 1 you know, what kind of, what do they have on drafts? I'm looking for the next Harry Potter movie. Oh, man.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, crazy. But yeah, that's insane.
Wait, so are you guys, is it fun? Have you guys been having a good time? Like, is it like, it's got to be fascinating to learn all these stories.

Speaker 1 They sound incredible. It's so.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, just talking to Ty Stokes, who is the, on the Jamaican, founding member of the Jamaican bobsled team, the real story behind that team is so much more interesting than the movie in Cool Runnings.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Cool Runnings butchered it.

Speaker 1 Like the actual story. Wait, now you're telling me that the Disney movie Cool Runnings that was trying to capitalize on the Jamaican bobsled team, did it?

Speaker 1 was it wasn't trying to take this away from you really

Speaker 1 cool story

Speaker 3 it's an insane story he got put on this team like uh a mere months before the olympics started they didn't have a bob sled they didn't have a bob sled track they'd never been on ice yeah they didn't have a place to train they didn't even get to go down the a bob sled down the the the the uh what do you call it the hill or the track

Speaker 3 like what two or three weeks before the Olympics for the serious?

Speaker 1 Yeah, how do they qualify? Sean, do you know this? They ended up training for money. They trained on daiquiris.

Speaker 1 They wouldn't go.

Speaker 1 So stupid.

Speaker 1 How do they qualify? Anyway, you know what? We're going to listen to the podcast. That's how we're going to find out.
We're going to listen to it. I can't wait.
It's called Pretty Sure I Can Fly.

Speaker 1 It's Johnny Knoxville and Elna Baker together again. You guys make such a great pair.
The show sounds so awesome. I truly can't wait to listen to it.

Speaker 1 It is available right now on whatever podcast platform you're currently listening to. Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Johnny and Elna.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot.
We appreciate it.

Speaker 1 We're about to play a clip from Pretty Sure I Can Fly. Follow Pretty Sure I Can Fly on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 Ladies and gentlemen, Travis Bastrano. Everybody in this house

Speaker 3 is now standing up and cheering on the 199. Go Travis.

Speaker 6 Can you tell me the story of the double backflip? Because that to me was also, I mean, I got chills in that moment in the movie, but I would love to hear you tell me the story.

Speaker 4 There's very few times in your life where something that means so much to you means so much to a group around you. And even more rare, that it means that much to the world.

Speaker 4 I still have, people tell me almost once a week, I get someone that still remembers where they were at that moment.

Speaker 4 You know, my grandma and all her friends watch it. It's live on TV.

Speaker 4 My mom was crying because she had known that, you know, I'm about 75% into the phone pit, but if it comes around short, there's a really good chance of a broken neck or paralyzed.

Speaker 1 It was a really tough decision.

Speaker 6 And even up until you did it, it seemed like, was it really like, I don't know if I'm going to go through with it or not?

Speaker 4 And the reason, like we were just explaining, like, you always say, I'm in or I'm out. The reason this was such a tough decision for me.
And I think the reason that it got built up more

Speaker 4 was because I was on the fence on this. I have an opportunity to go out there and try a trick that I've been working for for three, four years, but I'm sitting third.

Speaker 4 So I'm like, if I don't do a double backflip, I still get a medal. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I still get paid,

Speaker 4 which is going to really help everything else that I've been putting into to rally.

Speaker 4 And is my goal to be a freestyle motocross rider, or is my goal to continue on in action sports and to have a career that's going to expand hopefully longer?

Speaker 1 And it worked out in rally.

Speaker 4 And I said, you know what?

Speaker 1 I'm both.

Speaker 4 Said, I'm going to land this trick and went out there and decided, like, literally last second, played rock, paper, scissors with my redneck friend Hubert.

Speaker 6 Wait, you, you, the, the deciding factor.

Speaker 1 Was the rock, paper, scissors. Oh, my God.

Speaker 6 It came down to that.

Speaker 4 Right before I went up there, Hubert. We went rock, paper, scissors.
I gave thumbs up to basically Sal and the guys.

Speaker 6 And they're like, all right, they raised the ramp and no one has ever done this before

Speaker 4 at that time I had done it to a sandpile um in a controlled environment that was a big step up so if you came up short uh or didn't make it it it sucked but it was you know so right yeah it was a hard surface that day right it was just blue groove it was it was pretty much worst case scenario for me we took the ramp that was already existing and then raised it on two by fours and like it looked like something we built in our backyard for like uh you know when we were five years old.

Speaker 4 And it's like, you know, my dad's out there, like strapping the ramp down and trying to get it so it doesn't move because the ramp falls over.

Speaker 6 Then I'm definitely going to keep so will you, and so you're up there and you're about to go.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was one of the coolest experiences ever. Um,

Speaker 4 got up there, and

Speaker 4 uh, the guy that drops me in, he gave me a thumbs up. He said, It's on you, take your time.
And I looked around, and every single person was on their feet. Yeah, entire sold-out staple center.

Speaker 4 All of my heroes, you had Kevin Robinson, you had Chad Kegge.

Speaker 1 They were holding hands.

Speaker 4 I had Brian Deegan. All the militia was all down there looking.

Speaker 4 You know, it was one of the coolest experiences. And I just, I remember inside my helmet smiling.
And when I dropped in, everything kind of went to slow motion.

Speaker 4 Usually you get a slow motion if anyone's crashed a car or been in a really bad, like where you think everything's going bad.

Speaker 4 I've never had a slow motion where I took off and I can remember the smells. I can remember the sounds.
I can remember everything was so vivid.

Speaker 4 And, you know, I came around on the first pull and I checked the landing. And I remember thinking, you know, as Trevor Jacobs said later, he's like, oh, you can't check.

Speaker 4 And I'm like, oh, no, now I'm short. And I whip my head back and I see the lights.

Speaker 1 So when you practice this trick, you know, in the foam pit, you have, you know, you got the.

Speaker 4 the sky above you and then the ground, but on this day, you've got blinding lights where you can't see anything straight ahead of you. And then below you is kind of dark.

Speaker 4 And I just remember kind of just smiling again. I'm like, well, I'm all in.

Speaker 1 I can't, I can't get out of this now.

Speaker 1 And I came around and like literally hit, couldn't have hit better. And I was just like, what the heck just happened?

Speaker 4 I dropped down and dropped the bike, and I run up. And the first person there was just some drunk guy out of the stands that just overpowered the security and gave me a big hug up top.

Speaker 1 I'm like, I don't even know you. Yes, let's go.

Speaker 1 Oh, my word.

Speaker 1 Are you kidding

Speaker 3 I was at home watching it live and it was like I had tears going down my cheeks like the end of old yeller because it was such a an amazing moment and so memorable

Speaker 1 yeah I was I was blown away is that was you think that's the biggest moment of your career or?

Speaker 4 Moment that the world felt what I felt.

Speaker 1 You can listen to Pretty Sure I Can Fly Early and Ad-Free by joining Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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