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Wondry subscribers can listen to armchair expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined by Lily Padman, and we have one of our very favorite comedians of all time on today, Sam Richardson.

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So fun, so funny.

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Oh, Detroit comedy cedar point. Oh, I know.

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This is.

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Yes, this will be the beginning of.

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These are all the things that Dax liked about Sam.

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Oh, Sam Richardson. You know him. He is the best part of anything you've ever seen him in. You know, of course, he had the great show with Tim Robinson, Detroiters, and the after party veep, where we fell.

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In love with him. Oh, my God. So good.

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I think you should leave. And then Ted Lasso, for which he won an Emmy. And he has a new series out now on prime Video called Sausage, Foodtopia. So this is a series based on the hysterical cartoon of the same name, Sausage party. So please check out on prime Video sausage party foodtopia. Please enjoy. The prince from Detroit, Sam Richardson.

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What's up, guys? It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good. And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest. Okay? Every episode, I bring on a friend. I mean, the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox. The list goes on. So follow, watch, and listen to baby. This is Kiki Palmer on the wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

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He's an archer expert. He's an object.

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Oh, my God. I'm so happy you're here. Two trying very long.

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It's true.

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It's really.

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Thank you very much. It's afternoon swim by Louis Vuitton.

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Oh, my God, you're fancy. We saw your car.

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Oh, yeah. Don't blow them up.

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It's also not a Detroit vehicle.

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I know.

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Well, we like it.

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Okay.

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I have some foreign vehicles too.

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Do you need anything before we begin to drink?

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A hot coffee or think about all the things we have. Some Rx bars, a little protein. We have water, of course. And we have coffee and tea, sparkling water by cheese.

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Oh, my God, the water.

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Yeah, all the nice. Used to run one in. No, no, no, no.

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We should have some.

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Just fucking watch this.

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I should stop asking people if they want anything because we don't have anything.

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I know, it's embarrassing.

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Yeah.

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Also, you know, it's like the opposite of the creative box, where it's, like, helpful to have parameters. You go like, do you want anything? You start going like, huh? Maybe a fruit smoothie would go, do.

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You have a kai juice acai?

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You guys have a chutney? Oh, yeah.

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Chutney would be, like, really good right now.

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It's like a bowl of chutney.

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Carl, would you be so kind as to run up some perrier for Mister Richardson? Thank you. That's my kid's sister.

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Oh, yeah?

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She's an adult native. She's old.

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No, she's old. She's gonna be my kid sister.

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That's forever. Just the timeline.

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Yeah. She also went to. You went to a nice school.

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Yeah, I went to u of d Jesuit. I know.

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This is gonna be probably. Unfortunately for the Listener, the most Michigan centric.

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Can't wait. Yes, cannot wait.

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Even. I was watching some interviews with you, and it's like you couldn't get through an interview without dropping Cedar point. Do you know how often I talk about Cedar point? No one gives a fucked. I haven't been there in 20 years, but I can't get it out of my head.

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When was the last time I was at America's roller coast Mecca? Mecca?

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Nirvana for the coaster enthusiasts entirely. This is Carly, my sister Carly. Thank you. Do you love Sam, Carly? I'm obsessed. I just. Delta just said, I'll run him up and I go, I got this. I got this. Love you. Thank you.

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Thank you.

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How cute is my sister?

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Very super.

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She's got a great boyfriend, but would you like to marry?

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We had a great girlfriend.

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Also, everyone's all tied up, selfishly.

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If you were at Christmas, it'd be really great.

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It'd be fun. Yeah, until it turns.

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Do you think it would turn?

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No, I don't think so. I don't think so.

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You can always fall back on Michigan.

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Yeah. We start talking about Cedar point. Yeah, exactly. There's a nine year age gap between you and I, so I'm hoping all the overlap's still there.

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I think so.

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Cause when I watched Detroiters, I was like, this is great. These guys are almost older than they should be. Cause, you know all the old commercials. Yeah, but maybe they just ran forever.

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That's part of it. Some of these commercials were made once, and then they just use those bad boys nonstop.

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Don't you wish our business was like that? Where, like, you made a movie once and it came out every summer for the rest of your life?

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That would be fantastic.

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Yes. If I had to go with a. Without a paddle premiere next week. I'd be so happy.

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Yeah. I would show up to a mike and Dave need wedding dates premiere annually.

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So in my memory, I only remember meeting you one time. I was seated behind you.

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Behind me at the Game of Thrones premiere.

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Oh, yes. And I was dressed to the nines. I had, like, a tank top on that said stark in the streets, wildling in the sheets.

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Tattoos.

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Yeah, a bunch of iron on tattoos. You weren't as eventized as I was. But in spirit, definitely.

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You know, I didn't want to announce my banners and my allegiance. Smart, knowing how the Game of Thrones.

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Oh, it is circuitous.

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Yeah. Wasn't everyone, like, dressed up?

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Yeah, most people were at a premiere, you know, like, what you would expect, suits and such, to bore you with one studio. Well, fuck it. I'm sure I told you in the seat, because I kept turning around to talk to you, and I was like, is he being friendly or am I turning around too much?

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No way. Automatic any Detroit, Michigan connection? We're good. Good.

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It's kind of like being an aa.

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Exactly.

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That's the closest thing I think we have. Although I did have one. Bad Michigan.

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Oh, yeah.

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Yeah. Monica will cut this out, but I bet you could even guess. Well, I want to ensnare you in it.

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Let's do a clue. Making connections.

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Oh, interesting.

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Do you play?

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Oh, I sure do. I don't think I played. I did play today.

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Oh. Before you.

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Perfect.

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Perfect.

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Four lines. Perfect.

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Nice. Do you ever try for reverse back? We invented that.

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No. What is reverse back?

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You got to go purple, blue, green, yellow.

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Okay, so here's my question on that. What is exactly purple? How do you know what purple is?

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It's part of the game, okay? It's the hardest one.

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It's generally the one that's gonna share a common word.

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Wordplay.

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Okay.

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What's really frustrating is you pursue the reverse back is. I know you will now.

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I really will.

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The challenge isn't even necessarily getting them all or getting purple first. It's like green and blue. I don't know, man. We are often in great objection. Like, there's no way that was fucking easier than that.

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I would add so many steaks.

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But what bums me out sometimes is, like, you're talking about hardware pieces, and I saw a screw on there, and you said, screw's not. That's hardware.

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She does misnomers, red herrings.

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Well, we've decided Winna. Is her name spelled W Y N A. We thought it was Yna. It's Winna.

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That is whyna.

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But sure. I mean, between the three of us, it's Wyna.

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We all know it's Yna.

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It's Waina.

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Is there two n's? Maybe between ya and the n, it's Winna.

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So, like the Wynn. Like the hotel.

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Oh, Steve Wynn.

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Like Steve Wynn, the man named after the hotel, I think.

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But she's grumpy like us. You're an improv master, a genius.

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I appreciate that.

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And sometimes when you're in a grumpy mood on the way in, you're still improving, but there's a little edge to.

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Little pepper in the sauce.

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That's right. Little Carolina Reaper sneaks in.

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It's on the Scoville scale.

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It gets high up on the Scoville in the millions. So, you know, when is gonna have a shit day? One day. And let's even say it could even have been an interaction with someone in a certain sector of the economy. And now I'm really going out of the way.

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Oh, sure.

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But, like, if she had a bad hospitality experience, she might purposely fuck with a category that has to do with a hotel, right? That's a real stretch.

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Oh, wow. That is a stretch.

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But she's just a human is all I'm saying. She's not AI. And I imagine her puzzles are gonna reflect the mood she's in.

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Yeah, sometimes there's clues in those about current events. I'm like, ooh, I know who this is for.

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Oh, wonderful. We think that's happening, too.

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Yeah. Yeah, I'm certain of it. Not even in the answers, but in the presentation of the puzzle itself, I'm like, oh, this is a message, right?

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She's just read all fours.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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Yeah. Do you know about this book, all four?

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I don't, but I said yep so quickly.

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How long have you been with your lover?

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Eight years.

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Eight years. That's a great stretch. You're not married, though.

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We're not married.

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Are you against the institution of marriage?

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A little bit.

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Yeah, I was, too.

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I get that.

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Is she?

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Not entirely, yeah.

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Will you please hit me with your philosophy? Because I had mine really fine tuned when Krista and I were dating.

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I just.

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Would you feel safer if I went first?

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Yeah.

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Okay. I was like, I'm not religious. I question the institution's origins. I think it had a lot to do with weird capitalism.

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Ownership.

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Ownership and building of empires. The notion I would have to ask my state or local government for permission to separate seems insane to me.

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Agreed.

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There's no logging. Having a baby with someone you love. I'm just not seeing any of the upside. And it all seems steeped in a bunch of traditions I don't even agree with.

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I agree entirely. And religious tradition, business partnership, sure. But those partnerships shouldn't need to be binary by two. It doesn't need to be a binary.

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So I think we're on the same page also. I was like, I'll be with you for the rest of your life that I'm in, and let's have children, and let's do the whole thing. I just don't want to go to the state of California and declare, hey, guys, sign off on us. And then if something goes sideways, you become a meth addict. I want to get the fuck out. I got hire some attorneys.

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People change. And I'm not saying this about my girlfriend at all.

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No. Cause she's not gonna change that.

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She's not gonna change. She's rock solid.

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She's the rock.

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Exactly. But just the notion of it, I don't agree. Also, every time somebody pushes me to it, it makes me revert even further back. I don't have to. I don't want to.

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Yes, yes, yes. I think there might be some more layers for you too. There are, understandably. But you know, what happened is I was like, okay, you've made your court case. You won. She's accepted it. It's not your thing. Congrats. And then I was like, oh. But also, I could give somebody something that's really important to them, despite the fact that it's not to me. And then very much talking out of school. But I don't think she would mind. She would say this. She almost died when I presented a ring because she was accepted. That wasn't for me. Do that. Some issues were resolved in 6 seconds, permanently.

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Interesting.

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For her, that did mean true security and some jealousy that she used to have. I'm friends with all my ex girlfriends. I believe that's also positive. That was always kind of an issue, and in a snap of the fingers, that was all gone. That's never been like that again. And so it was a weird leap of faith for me. And then the results were completely unexpected, and I was like, oh, wow. That actually made things much, much better. Yeah, that's my testimonial, but I'm with you on the logic of it. It's kind of out there.

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Just, it's kind of out there.

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And then take my name, then, you.

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Know, you don't have to take my name and take my, oh, hyphenate my name. Hyphenate.

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My name.

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And I'm like, oh, why is mine? I'm not gonna try and blast out my folks. But there's some stuff there that I'm like, I don't. This, that and the other.

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Sure, sure, sure.

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Yeah. Being married doesn't make a relationship innately better or worse.

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Well. And in fact, I'll even argue. So I was interviewing Goldie Hawn, and I said to her, do you think you and Kurt, had you gotten married, you might have gotten divorced? And she said, oh, several times. Like, the fact that they never got married is why they've been together for 30 years.

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Right.

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Cause there's a freedom there.

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Yeah. I think a lot of people think of it as, like, this commitment, and it is a pain in the ass to get out of it financially in all other ways. That'll be an incentive to work through your problems. But I would argue the opposite thing can happen as well, which is I don't think we can work through these. This is for the rest of my life. You're constantly going, this problem I'm in right now is for the rest of my life. And it takes on a weight, and.

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You probably wouldn't bring up things. You're like, well, this is going to shatter my life. If I bring up this thing and it becomes a fight, I will then become. Financially. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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You might keep some stuff quiet and.

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Just deal to that point of Goldie and Kurt. I think most people assumed that they were married.

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Yeah.

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So most people assume that anybody in a relationship for so long is married. Why do they have to be, right?

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Well, and also, you go around the world, and increasingly, a lot of countries I go to, people don't really do it. In New Zealand. Everyone has partners. Almost no one's getting married.

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Yeah.

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Okay. Well, we might have destroyed the institution or.

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I think I fixed it. I think I fixed it all.

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Fixed. Well, you just said one thing. Oh, yeah.

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So you were gonna tell a story about someone in Michigan that you didn't like.

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Yes.

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Okay. But before that, my last thought on the names. And I don't want to hurt any guy's feelings because I think it's super well intentioned guys will take their wives names or they're hyphenated or whatever, and I'm like, guys, that's not progress.

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Right.

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The first thing was fucked up. The answer isn't to rebel. Map that out for three generations. So your kid inherits his hyphenated name in three generations. There's seven last names. It just starts duplicating because you got to take her two hyphenated names, your two hyphenated names, and then your kids.

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Two hyphenated names with their partners.

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Power attendants. More atoms in the universe.

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Yeah.

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So just think this through.

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What about for the pens? And like, the ink of the world, just to be writing down so many names.

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Data entry, folks.

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How much space on your birth certificate or on your driver's license?

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How long will a passport be in five generations?

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You know, it'd be pages or super.

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Wide in some other countries. They do have really long names. Like Ana has a really long name.

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Five or six names.

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I have a long name. So my full name is Samuel Nanaya Wyafi Kwajani. William Oscar Richardson.

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Fucking nuts. That's a paragraph. Well, I love how you say it.

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I love it.

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You're kind of like the newscaster when you say it. Oh, yeah, because you say Sam in a very american english accent.

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Samuel na yaoi. I think I got him. William Oscar Richardson. Exactly. Each one has to have its own.

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Okay, so the Michigander. I mean, so we know the famous Michiganders. We know em by heart.

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Yeah, we do.

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We got Bob Seger.

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Yeah. Bob Seager.

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King of all kings. Ted Nugent.

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Yep.

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We got two and two, the host of love connection. Oh, I actually saw him at Oconee island wearing a camel hair, full length. He looked gorgeous.

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Chuck Woolry.

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Chuck Woolry.

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Yeah, there it is.

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I knew it was. We're gonna skip all the Motown people. Cause we don't have the time. Jeff Daniels.

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Jeff Daniels.

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We love our Jeff.

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Yes, we sure do.

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Eminem.

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Eminem.

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Kid rock.

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Kid rock.

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Mm hmm. All right, so this group of people. Who do you think? I might have had a rough interaction.

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I mean, I know who I'm thinking of, by the way.

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This is before anyone was even outspokenly political.

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Yeah, before the bud lights of it all.

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Yeah, way before.

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There's a birthday party 15 years ago swinging around.

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Okay, so you got it. You got it.

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We don't have that flag there.

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We left up the jewel of Detroit, Jack White.

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Oh, yeah. I introduced him at the train station. Oh, the reopening ceremony.

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Oh my gosh.

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You were at that.

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I was at that. First time I came out, I introduced, like, a person. They were part of the history of Detroit. And then they had me come back out to introduce Jack White, and they sent me out. Oh, no, first I came up to introduce. No, that's right. Sorry. I'm just remembering it. End time.

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This is becoming. I think you should leave.

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No, no, and then, no, but then, oh, yeah, no, yes. Because.

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Definitive. Every time you think you got it. Oh, no, no, this is exactly.

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But the producer says, all right, and go now. And I go out there and I'm standing there and Jack White's still going. And he's like, rah. And I'm like, I'm just like standing out there in the middle of things. Like, what do you do that's cool in that situation to like rock your head? Devil horns. I'm like, I'm part of this too.

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Take your shirt off.

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Exactly. Just start doing push ups.

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Oh, yeah. So you were more out there maybe to go and give it up for Jack White. Exactly. Okay. It's not an introduction.

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Whatever we want. I was supposed to do both. So I'm like, ladies and gentlemen, Jack White. In fact, that's what it was. The guy and I come out and we introduced Jack White. And then I come back out again and I get to this video thing.

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Bookending Jack.

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Bookending Jack White.

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Okay.

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And, man.

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Yeah, you can feel nice and awkward, huh, boy. Similarly, I brought out Nate dog and.

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Warren G. Oh, yeah.

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In Anaheim at a concert. And I felt that similar. How do I play all this? What is my exact. And I swung for the fences sometimes you gather. Okay. Detroit, 1984. What's it called? The something. Edison district.

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Boston Edison.

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So I know this area well. Cause it's bordered by Woodward. Yes.

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Yep.

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And so I constantly would be driving down Woodward to go downtown. There's all these really cool old neighborhoods just to the west of Woodward.

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So many. Boston Hudson is where I grew up. So it's like the old historic homes.

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And they were built by these people in the early 19 hundreds that had come to what was then Silicon Valley. And they were hugely successful. You had like Fisher body family and all these suppliers and they built these really cool grandiose homes. But in 84, it's like four would be completely empty, three would be working and great. It was a very unique scene. No.

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Even by like 84, Boston Edison was pretty full, very well manicured and maintained. I think by 2000 something houses start becoming a little bit more empty there because the houses are empty. They keep on getting broken into, people stealing copper out of the houses and all the plumbing.

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That's demoralizing when the copper's the most.

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Valuable thing, the easiest valuable thing that you can get in and get out. But like now, recently, it's unreal.

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And I'll be the first to admit I was not optimistic. So I lived down at Griswold, right by Lafayette. Coney island in 94. If that was not the nadir of it, it has to be approaching it. It was wild. When I left and moved to California in 95, I was like, thoughts and prayers. I don't know how this turns around.

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Yeah.

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And then I was back, like, three years ago, and I just drove by the old place. It's fucking gorgeous. There's a farmer's market. I'm like, wow, I didn't see this coming.

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The idea of trying to just casually buy property in downtown Detroit, forget about it. It's so popular, and they're spending so much on it. It looks so great. It's so, like, walkable. What are the dog whistle terms? So walkable, so safe. You know.

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They spell it with three w. Exactly. It's spelled walkable. W h a l k. Walkable, if.

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You know what I mean.

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That's what I observed. I saw more white people at this farmer's market when I was there three years ago than I had seen the entire time I lived in Detroit.

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I'm like, is there a festival?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, the Greeks are down here.

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The Greeks are down here. It used to be that this would happen during a Dave Matthews band concert when they would come to Comerica park.

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And then please, maybe stop at Lafayette. Tear that place up.

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Yeah, tear that place up. Really show up and show their asses and get out of there.

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Show their asses.

[00:20:03]

Second city was downtown at the hockey town cafe right next to Fox, right across from America. We would be there all the time, so we'd be downtown all the time. Really? You would see people come in to come to the fox or to Tigers game, Joe Louis for a hockey game, and then party. And then, like, as soon as those shows were done, traffic to get out of there. But now there's so much, dude. Plus, all the games are there just right on top of each other.

[00:20:29]

Yep.

[00:20:29]

And so it's just bustling wild.

[00:20:31]

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:32]

Okay.

[00:20:32]

You have had to talk about this so much, and I'm gonna try to spare you repeating all this stuff, but certainly I need to know what it's like going to Ghana a lot when you're a kid. Your grandpa, he's a chief. He had some leverage and some. Yeah. I'm sorry, can I back up?

[00:20:46]

Yeah, for sure.

[00:20:46]

When'd your mom get to Detroit?

[00:20:48]

77 is when she would have gotten to Detroit. Okay.

[00:20:51]

And what age was she when she came?

[00:20:52]

She'd have been 32. No, that's not right. 1949.

[00:20:59]

28.

[00:20:59]

28. Okay.

[00:21:00]

Is that right? I. Yeah, 49. 77.

[00:21:03]

Make sure it's 49. My mom just said her 70.

[00:21:08]

Oh, no. Then she was born 54.

[00:21:11]

54. 45. Now my dad is 45. Wow.

[00:21:16]

You know what? I came out in the middle of Jack White. Now that I think about it, I came out in the middle.

[00:21:20]

I was like, middle of Jack White. And then like, oh, no, wait. The Jack White was seven minutes. I came out three minutes and 29 seconds. So that's not exactly the middle, but it's pretty close. As close as you could be, but including footsteps.

[00:21:33]

I was only on there during the middle.

[00:21:36]

Okay, so G came, let's say her early thirties. I'm just gonna say 31.

[00:21:40]

And what was her goal?

[00:21:42]

My dad met my mom in Ghana.

[00:21:43]

Oh, he did?

[00:21:44]

And brought her.

[00:21:44]

What was he doing down there? Is he from Detroit?

[00:21:46]

He's from Detroit.

[00:21:47]

How many generations?

[00:21:48]

1920, I think is when the Richardsons came from Alabama.

[00:21:52]

Okay, so he's been there for three generations. What is he doing in Ghana?

[00:21:55]

My dad worked for the Burger King corporation. He helped open the first bank, Burger King, in Harlem in, like, the early seventies. Retired from Burger King and then moved back to Detroit. Bought a house. One day his phone rings. This is 1976, and he answers it. Ladies on the phone's like, hey, is Barbara there? This is the number. I have Barbara supposed to pick me up from the airport. My dad's like, where from? Africa. Africa. And my dad starts talking to this woman on the phone for, like, a half hour. And then finally he's like, you know what? I'm gonna come pick you up. So he drives to the airport, picks this woman up from the airport, and on the way back, she's like, you gotta go to Africa. You gotta go to Ghana. I'm just coming from there. It's great. When you go to Ghana, look for this man. His name is Mister Ryafi. He loves Americans.

[00:22:41]

This is your grandpa.

[00:22:41]

Check it out. Mm hmm.

[00:22:43]

Oh, my God.

[00:22:44]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[00:22:45]

And really quick. I gotta contextualize all that. So he's retired. So he's feeling maybe adventurous or what's happening in the second stage of his life.

[00:22:52]

So it's very impulsive. Present him with a good adventure. And he's like, yeah, yes, I will do this.

[00:22:57]

Okay, great.

[00:22:57]

So then, you know, he goes, travels all over West Africa, then finishes his trip in Ghana. Looks for this guy, mister. Everybody's like, Mano. So he finds this office building, talks secretary. Oh, here, see Mister Riafi. My name's Lamar Richardson. She's like, oh, okay. Calls him up. Oh, okay. He's excited to see you. He's been expecting to see you, but he's in the middle of a meeting. Why don't you, like, hang out and talk here with me for a little bit? Goes up to see Miss Riyafi. Oh, wow. I'm so excited to see you. I love Americans. It's great. But I'm very busy. Why don't you come to my house for dinner? So he's like, yeah, sure, great. On his way out, he talks to the secretary in his way. And he's like, I'm only in town for, like, another week or so, but maybe we can grab dinner sometime. And she's like, okay.

[00:23:34]

Oh, this is the ghost.

[00:23:36]

This is huge. You know, it's very wild. Wow.

[00:23:40]

And look who comes down for supper.

[00:23:42]

Exactly. The table. That's his daughter. He didn't know. And so they spent the rest of their time in Ghana together.

[00:23:49]

This is so storybook.

[00:23:51]

It really is.

[00:23:52]

And you're against marriage after all that?

[00:23:55]

How good. How dare you?

[00:23:56]

Isn't that. Well, they'll never match it.

[00:23:59]

Wow. So he goes to dinner at the house, and then your mom's there, and they fall in love. Grandpa, is he signed off on this, or is he a little bit like, hey, slow down, fast westerner.

[00:24:09]

Slow down, fast westerner, for sure. So then he goes back down to Detroit. Then they would rendezvous in London. You know, she'd have to do stuff in London. Very important, and hang out.

[00:24:18]

Hold on a second. I do have to say, this is a very dangerous way to fall in love.

[00:24:21]

Yes, it is.

[00:24:22]

Very heightened.

[00:24:23]

Very heightened.

[00:24:23]

Very heightened. You're only meeting on vacation in a foreign city you both love.

[00:24:27]

Yep.

[00:24:28]

You met on a vacation, and all your dating was on other.

[00:24:32]

Every vacation is on a honeymoon.

[00:24:33]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[00:24:35]

So then he proposes, and they go back to Detroit. And then my grandfather finds out. Everybody in my family in Detroit's like, okay, this rappy's coming. So everybody on my dad's side of the family gather at the house. You know, everybody's, like, dressed in their finest clothes.

[00:24:48]

I have to point out the parallel.

[00:24:50]

You must hate it. The movie.

[00:24:53]

I remember when they had the apartment. Coming to America.

[00:24:55]

Coming to America. Yes, yes.

[00:24:57]

I'm sorry. It's very similar.

[00:24:59]

But I'll tell you, it's even more similar.

[00:25:01]

He opens a McDowell's.

[00:25:02]

I wish there was Burger Kingdom.

[00:25:07]

Okay, okay. I don't wanna get out of myself.

[00:25:09]

So everybody's there, everybody's ready to really impress this man. He flies in. It's a stormy day.

[00:25:14]

Police escort where are they living at the time?

[00:25:17]

They're living in Boston Edison. This is at the Boston essay. Okay, great. He comes in, meets everybody. Here's, like a little story. Talks to everybody. And then they prepared him, like, a place day. He was like, all right, I must be off. I have business. So then he leaves.

[00:25:29]

He was there for a couple hours.

[00:25:31]

Because he couldn't stay there, you know? Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:33]

He had business at the Renaissance center.

[00:25:35]

Exactly. Had to go watch a movie.

[00:25:38]

Gotta stay somewhere.

[00:25:39]

Star wars just came out. I gotta see that.

[00:25:43]

Did they woo him?

[00:25:44]

They wooed him. And my grandfather also loved Americans, so he was, like, excited anyway.

[00:25:49]

Sure, sure. He had an american son.

[00:25:51]

He used to always call my dad a bushman. He always teased my dad. He loved american culture. He liked blue jeans. Your father's a bushman? He said always. I'm like, cool. I know what it means.

[00:26:03]

Now, your mom, I'm presuming she left a pretty comfortable lifestyle.

[00:26:08]

Yes.

[00:26:09]

And she didn't move to Manhattan. Yeah, she just described it. Painful detail. Right.

[00:26:16]

Very stark difference from the ghanaian lifestyle that she was living and used to. Cause it's also Ghana and London. Cause, like, she went to boarding school in London. My grandfather was, like, a member of parliament.

[00:26:27]

Your dad must be very charismatic.

[00:26:29]

Well, yeah. I mean, apple in the tree, and.

[00:26:33]

This is not too far.

[00:26:34]

Okay, not too far. But, yes. He's one of the most charismatic men in the world.

[00:26:38]

So, wait, did Grandpa then helped dad buy a Burger king? Is that where you were going with that story?

[00:26:44]

No, he had already done the Burger king.

[00:26:45]

Probably retired from Burger King, but just the parallels.

[00:26:48]

And then they opened a restaurant together.

[00:26:50]

My mom and dad opened a restaurant together, right in downtown Detroit. It's called Jinyami House restaurant on gratiot.

[00:26:56]

And you guys lived above it?

[00:26:57]

Yeah, we had an apartment directly above it. I would have been three years old, but I just remember that restaurant so well. And I can remember watching old Superman videos, the Fleischer brothers, Superman. And I would just. I don't know where we're going.

[00:27:09]

Debate, jumping out the second story window, kind of. Yeah, of course. Void.

[00:27:13]

All the void.

[00:27:15]

And this is very nosy, but where does dad get the money to open up an outback?

[00:27:20]

So, the outback money comes from a few places, but mostly my mom and I think we kind of put everything that we had into that outback.

[00:27:29]

What location was it?

[00:27:30]

So we tried to open it in downtown for the longest time. Red tape. Couldn't do it. Found a site in Southfield, open in, like, a few months.

[00:27:37]

Yes, of course. Southfield loves business.

[00:27:39]

Southfield loves business. Nine mile in Greenfield.

[00:27:41]

That's where my father was at, slinging those fours virtually right there.

[00:27:46]

Yeah.

[00:27:46]

Okay. And then you went to U of D, and that's a jesuit school.

[00:27:51]

Yep.

[00:27:51]

I didn't know that till today. I know U of D. They always have a good football team and good sports teams. But I didn't realize it was a jesuit school. And we've interviewed a few people that went to jesuit schools, and they really loved it.

[00:28:02]

I really did. The approach to education was very real.

[00:28:07]

Am I right? To summarize that, their approach is, you are encouraged to challenge things.

[00:28:13]

Yes. If I didn't understand how something worked, I could talk about it, but I was also a bad student. Cause I think I'm pretty smart.

[00:28:19]

I would agree so far.

[00:28:20]

And lazy as well.

[00:28:22]

Okay.

[00:28:22]

So if I can figure something out, I'll just figure it out. And I can just kind of do that without paying attention. But you can't do that for math unless you're a super genius, right? And I am not. So I wouldn't do my math homework. Oh, what is this symbol?

[00:28:35]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:28:36]

I'm like, uh.

[00:28:36]

Oh, well, I was super into math until you had to get that certain calculator, like the trig calculator. And I looked at all the buttons. I was like, get out of here. This is ridiculous. I can't learn hieroglyphics to continue on with this education. I got overwhelmed.

[00:28:48]

Graphic calculator.

[00:28:51]

I got it. It was like when they upgraded Nintendo and there was too many buttons on it, and I was out.

[00:28:56]

Yep. Cause that's the thing. If you don't steadily move along with video games, especially with Nintendo, and then, like, how the third dimension was introduced to it and the joystick, all of a sudden, you can control your view. And that was, like, something so new to video games to control an axis of observation.

[00:29:11]

Yeah, yeah.

[00:29:11]

But now kids do that innately. Cause that's how you learn video games. But there was a curvy, like, okay, Nintendo 64.

[00:29:17]

Ooh.

[00:29:18]

What? Mario can turn his head around, or you can make link move his head around and jump and see the sky. And I still game. So now I just do it because I can just know. And all the controls are the same. Before, where it was, you know, up, down, left, right. Abba.

[00:29:31]

Right. Yeah, Contra.

[00:29:32]

Contra.

[00:29:34]

No, that was before my time.

[00:29:36]

Left, right, left, right, up, down, up, down.

[00:29:38]

Abba.

[00:29:39]

Something gave you unlimited lives on Contra. It's a very famous code. It makes its way into movies. A lot.

[00:29:45]

Yes, it does. I don't have children, but when everybody's like, I'll get that screen away from. They're on the iPad again, I'm like, yes. Cause that's how they're gonna be able to know how to fly the flying cars. Cause they can just do it.

[00:29:57]

You're right. It is weird.

[00:29:58]

It is the future. It's like, why would you take it? Although, I mean, there's a lot of stats that it's bad for their.

[00:30:03]

It's definitely bad for them. But also, you're preparing them to live, what, in the eighties?

[00:30:06]

Exactly.

[00:30:07]

Also, give them a time machine.

[00:30:09]

Everything is touchscreen. Chairs have touchscreens on them.

[00:30:13]

Yeah. When you go get a job, presumably it's gonna be doing that. Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[00:30:26]

What's up, guys? It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season. And let me tell you, it's too good. And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest. Okay? Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation. And I don't mean just friends. I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Foxenhe. The list goes on. So follow, watch, and listen to baby. This is Kiki Palmer on the wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[00:31:00]

Okay, so you like Ud? What kind of kid are you? At school, it's all boys, which was.

[00:31:05]

Great because nobody was posturing or flexing. Yeah, we were all just, like, stinky boys hanging out. At least not in my experience. I was popular. That was funny. What are you gonna do? I was kind of, like, in a bunch of different groups. I would hang out with skaters, with the theater kids. Bass was the black achievement society of education. I wasn't a member of bass. Cause I didn't go to the meetings, but, you know, all the things bail around with them. A bit lazy.

[00:31:32]

You were in blace. You had to add the l for lazy.

[00:31:35]

The l for lazy, exactly. But I think mostly theater was your sister's school.

[00:31:40]

Mercy.

[00:31:41]

Mercy, yeah.

[00:31:41]

Oh, yeah, I did.

[00:31:42]

Yeah. In Farmington Hills.

[00:31:43]

Yeah, I went to their prom.

[00:31:44]

Me too.

[00:31:45]

Was it at the gross Point Yacht club?

[00:31:47]

Yeah.

[00:31:47]

Yeah, same.

[00:31:48]

So I went to Mercy's prom. I went to Marion's prom. And I went to my prom. Right?

[00:31:55]

Did I go to another three proms?

[00:31:57]

How are you meeting girls if it's.

[00:31:59]

An all through theater? And that's why I did theater, was because I didn't know it was in a boys school. When I first joined cousin, my parents were moving to Ghana. I was supposed to move to London to go to boarding school.

[00:32:08]

Oh, my lord.

[00:32:08]

And then last second, very impulsive parents. They were like, actually, we're not. And I took the entrance exam to U of D. I went to friends school, which is a small Quaker school that was in Detroit. My graduating class was, like, 15 kids.

[00:32:20]

This is a very kaleidoscopic childhood. You're in gone in the summers, you're at a Quaker school for primary. You go to a jesuit school. Very unique, but it doesn't seem like you suffer at all from. It's almost tangible. When people feel perpetually lost in their identity or having never been an actual member of the group they were constantly in. You don't present that or do you have any of that? Like, when you were in Ghana, were you the american?

[00:32:46]

There was some of that, especially with my family. To my cousins in America, I was the ghanaian kid. To my ghanaian cousins, I was the American.

[00:32:54]

Axel Foley.

[00:32:55]

Exactly. And I would laugh just like him.

[00:33:00]

Now, look, there's two different baseline of confidence that can either make you feel very alienated, or it can make you feel exotic and interesting.

[00:33:08]

And I think that's what it was. I have siblings, but half siblings. I'm my mom's only child, so I'm the only one who has this experience. I always kind of wish that I had grown up with, like, a twin so that I could be like, are you experiencing this as well? Yes.

[00:33:21]

A control cannon.

[00:33:22]

Can we remember this? And then kind of check on each other when we say this? No. Cause you don't exist. I wish I journaled just for facts and just for objectivity.

[00:33:32]

Yes. What was more fun, though?

[00:33:34]

I didn't appreciate Ghana when I was a kid. Cause I was like, ugh, where's the Ninja Turtles? The new episodes of Saturday morning cartoons. But we were also living a very charmed life there. International school in Ghana. So I went to a school with, like, a bunch of Americans and British.

[00:33:49]

And French who had probably had really interesting parents.

[00:33:51]

They were doing wild and amazing things. My best friend parshant, his parents were from India, and they were there for the banks. And my friend Alex was from Canada. My friend Gert.

[00:34:01]

Gert?

[00:34:01]

Gert Jan Meyer. Wow.

[00:34:03]

He's from Germany or something?

[00:34:04]

That would be my guess.

[00:34:05]

He was Dutch.

[00:34:06]

Dutch.

[00:34:06]

Okay. It was truly a rainbow coalition.

[00:34:09]

Yeah. And would you live at grandpa's while you were there?

[00:34:12]

There was a few houses, and so I would stay at my grandpa's house sometimes, however, when I lived there to go to school for first and second grade as my grandfather was dying.

[00:34:20]

Oh, no.

[00:34:20]

I would go back and forth between first and second grade. We lived there. Cause he was passing and then he passed, and so we were like, there.

[00:34:25]

Forgive my ignorance. Are they speaking English there?

[00:34:27]

English is the national language in Ghana. There was one year, all my cousins, we just spoke English. One year I went back and all of a sudden everybody speaks. Tui tuy is like our family language.

[00:34:37]

Original.

[00:34:37]

I don't speak it. And I'm like, wait. Oh, no.

[00:34:40]

Oh, boy.

[00:34:41]

I'm the story of the American now.

[00:34:43]

You know, I just switched it on.

[00:34:46]

You just like, one day, like, how'd you like. Just guys download it just overnight. I didn't pay for the upgrade. Just like a little outside and at the same time missing those summers in Detroit, a little outside. They got, like, inside jokes that I don't have.

[00:34:59]

Everyone went to cedar point and having.

[00:35:00]

A little bit of a accent. I don't sound exactly like my cousins.

[00:35:05]

Do, either side, I guess you get to decide that's rad about me, or I feel other all the time.

[00:35:11]

Yeah. I just always had, like, a confidence. I took that as not like a. Oh, no. But it was like, oh, well, I'm.

[00:35:17]

Interesting to you, you know?

[00:35:18]

Exactly. Being an only child, I make friends really quick and easy. Cause I am interested and I'm curious. And also I could bring my curiosities to new things and people. I wanna connect.

[00:35:30]

Yeah. You're dying for a sibling.

[00:35:31]

Exactly.

[00:35:32]

Did you get to do any of the fun Michigan outdoorsy stuff?

[00:35:36]

Oh, yes.

[00:35:36]

You've gone to the lakes.

[00:35:37]

We had a child.

[00:35:38]

Mackinac.

[00:35:39]

I never went to Mackinac island.

[00:35:40]

Right now, it's just been hitting me. We're at the dog days of summer, and I have not been on a lake in Michigan this summer. And I gotta get there. I feel amoral if I don't.

[00:35:49]

If we have a cottage up north from Michigan, you know, up north just means north of Detroit. And everybody goes up north. Anything north of Flint is like, up north. I haven't been in so long. I used to love it. We used to fish, we used to hunt, and we used to just do country shit.

[00:36:04]

That's where you feel the tetanoogian come out.

[00:36:06]

Exactly. He's like a leopard out there. He kind of just floats around. And if you catch him, you get.

[00:36:10]

Money, you know, he lived in the town next to mine and occasionally there'd be spottings of Ted Nugent. Cause he had a bronco that was completely zebra striped. He'd drive through our town sometimes, and people were like, Ted Nugent driving a zebra bronco through town.

[00:36:23]

A zebra native to northern Michigan.

[00:36:27]

Okay, so you ended up going to Wayne State. Did you stay?

[00:36:31]

I did not graduate from Wayne State. Okay.

[00:36:33]

Because when you get out, you know immediately you're gonna do comedy. They opened that second city up. I don't know what year that. Probably right when I was in high school, yeah.

[00:36:40]

Being in theater, my friend Pete Jacobs, who was a senior when I was a freshman, was taking classes at second city. And so I went to see his class show when I was 14. But I knew second city. Cause I had, like, always been a fan of comedy. SNL, SCTV, of course. So I knew everything about comedy. I was like, wait, Second City? Second city is in Detroit?

[00:36:57]

Yes.

[00:36:57]

So I went to see that show, and I'm like, and so I started taking classes when I was, like, 15 at Second City, Detroit.

[00:37:03]

So by the time you graduate high.

[00:37:05]

School, are you already on stage there by 20? I'm charming.

[00:37:09]

Oh, wow.

[00:37:09]

For people who don't know improv, that's very rare. Most of the time you're starting at.

[00:37:14]

That age or later, some of these records, I forget what age Eddie Murphy was on SNL.

[00:37:19]

I think he was, like, 19. I'm, like, getting reps. I'm not in the second city cast, but I'm performing shows there. I'm performing shows at Planet Ant theater and amtramic while I'm trying to get my theater degree. But then it just became so hard. I was being punished for doing both. And finally, I was doing a commedia show at the planet Ant theater that we'd written and we were rehearsing, and then we finally performed it, and I was late because I was getting lectured by my professor about doing more things. But I told my dean that I was doing more things. I was like, is it okay? There was, like, great opportunities, but this professor was, like, not having it. Every time he wanted to humiliate me in front of the class, he'd stop me and kind of just lecture me. I'm like, look, I'm working. I came here to try and do both, but finally she's like, I don't think you need it.

[00:37:59]

Having never met the person. I hate to guess this, but maybe probably threatened that you were talented, maybe going somewhere?

[00:38:05]

I think so.

[00:38:06]

We just had Kirby on, formerly Kirby how batiste, but now just Kirby. But she went to acting school in London. She had a very similar experience. And I said, was the subtext. You should be so grateful to be here very much.

[00:38:19]

Finally, I was like, you know what? I'm not coming back. And then I just kept floating through. Second city in Detroit.

[00:38:24]

When do you meet Tim Robinson?

[00:38:25]

So I met Tim Robinson early on into this, and I got in his class when I was 18.

[00:38:32]

Oh, no kidding. You started as student teacher?

[00:38:35]

Started as student teacher. I was 18. He was 21.

[00:38:38]

Okay, so he was incredibly young as well.

[00:38:40]

Going through this fast friends, thick as thieves. He would sneak me into bars, you know, not hard.

[00:38:45]

In Detroit.

[00:38:46]

Method was easy. Grab a beer, come out and talk to the bouncer a lot. You know, I'm with a beer in my hand. So you're like, yeah. So now you identify me. I was regular at this bar called seven brothers. You should have known that I was 18 years old. Cause I would always be like, hey, can I have a white Russian, please?

[00:39:02]

Oh, nice.

[00:39:03]

I'm exclusively drinking white Russians. Like I'm the dude. It's because it's like an ice cream. So I'm just like, can you please give me the sweetest, nicest thing? This dive bar in ham tramming. And they would have to go get cream so that I could have my thing because it was there so much that they were like, well, we gotta have our cream so Sam can have his white Russian. This teen, the owner, whose name was George Swetnowski, he just died recently. He was like my surrogate grandfather, essentially, because I was like, there's so much. We would always hang out. He was a macedonian man who also had a thousand lives, but he owned this bar. So then I had my 21st birthday at seven brothers, and George is like, happy birthday, Sam. How old are you? I'm like, I'm 21. George, he didn't talk to me for like, six months. He was so mad.

[00:39:50]

Disappointed in his grandfather.

[00:39:51]

Ruined his dream.

[00:39:52]

Exactly.

[00:39:53]

You end up going to Chicago though as well, right?

[00:39:55]

Yes. I got hired to work on a second city cruise ship.

[00:39:57]

And is that a blast?

[00:39:58]

It was a blast. Cause I was like, 22. I think I turned 23 on this ship.

[00:40:03]

What route were you on?

[00:40:04]

The Caribbean. So we were going to Barbados, Samana, Cozumel, St. Lucia.

[00:40:11]

How are you not showing back up on the boat? Hammered for the show, or are you?

[00:40:14]

We only had show once. Seven day cruise. We had our show on like, Wednesday, a 07:00 and a 09:00 show of best of second city. And then we do two shows on Sunday, an 08:00 improv show, and then like a 10:00 adults improv show.

[00:40:29]

Oh, my God.

[00:40:29]

So I'm working hard, 5 hours at the most, including, like, a workshop. And then I'm on vacation. I'm living on vacation.

[00:40:36]

You could probably get trapped in that.

[00:40:37]

Oh, my goodness. I felt myself atrophying also. I'm 22, mind you. Oh, boy.

[00:40:42]

The buffets.

[00:40:43]

The buffets. If you want to get nasty, you'd spend $20, and then you go to Steakhouse is all you could eat.

[00:40:49]

Oh, baby.

[00:40:50]

$15 for the sushi bar, $25 for the french restaurant.

[00:40:55]

This is not an exaggeration. I went one time with my ex girlfriend Brie on a family trip, and I weighed myself at the hotel in Orlando, and I was 185. And then when I got off the boat, I weighed myself, and I was 190, 813 pounds in a week.

[00:41:08]

That's a small dog. Yeah.

[00:41:09]

If I had stayed on that boat for another few months, I would have come off on a wheelchair.

[00:41:15]

My first cask. I did two tours. I did two tours, dude. Exactly. Both. Five months with a month in between.

[00:41:20]

Five months of vacation.

[00:41:22]

Five months of vacation. I had a nickname. They called me colossal Sam, because I could just sit down. I could eat. I'd be like, oh, I'll make you pay for $20 for the steakhouse, you fool. I'll make you rue the day.

[00:41:33]

The chef will be crying.

[00:41:34]

He'll be like, please stop. This was the food for the week.

[00:41:37]

I had the same commitment every time I went. This is like unlimited chicken wings. We'll see.

[00:41:41]

We'll see how much oil you have back there.

[00:41:45]

What's the policy on banging the gas? The other passengers.

[00:41:49]

So you weren't supposed to, of course, but we were passengers who had crew status.

[00:41:54]

Once again, you're in another world of identity. No, you're not a passenger.

[00:41:58]

Then I'm like, so young would be college time. Supposed to be at a kegger, but my kegger is at sea. Just free time. All of us so young and had young bodies and young excitement. There's dancers on the crews who you become friends with.

[00:42:11]

The bar staff.

[00:42:12]

The bar staff, exactly.

[00:42:14]

The guy.

[00:42:14]

The D drive cruise staff. Exactly. All this. And they call it ship life, as in, like, what happens on the ship stays on the ship. Some shady stuff happening. Also, people who were like, you're behaving like you don't have a home life.

[00:42:25]

Ooh, that's hard. Cause when you're at sea, you're not on earth.

[00:42:29]

What a wild experience.

[00:42:30]

It really was. So I did a five month contract, and while I was on that first contract, second city Detroit closed. I closed. And I didn't save any money. Cause I was living like I was on vacation.

[00:42:40]

Yeah.

[00:42:40]

I was making the most money I'd ever made. Like, $1,000 a week. And I was like, I'm rich.

[00:42:43]

Yes.

[00:42:44]

I'm spending money in Barbados. I'm spending money in, you know.

[00:42:47]

Are you gambling at all?

[00:42:48]

We're not allowed to gamble, which I'm lying. Cause I would gamble when we go to, like, NASA.

[00:42:52]

That's what I'm thinking. When you get to shore, go into the Atlantis and let it rip.

[00:42:56]

Specifically the Atlantis. One time I was playing three card poker at the Atlanta, and the worst thing ever happened to me. I was sitting one seat from the left. So I was like, the second seat, I am playing three card poker. The guy to my right stands up, and the guy sits down to my left, left. The next hand, the guy gets a royal flush. And I'm like, that was my hand. That was my hand.

[00:43:22]

Oh, man, that'll destroy you.

[00:43:26]

I think about it every day.

[00:43:27]

I have a very similar situation. I'm more culpable in that fault. It was like, punkta. Just come out. I'm starting to get these weird offers to go do things. So one is like, do you want to come announce something for Nokia at the Sugar bowl in New Orleans on your birthday? You can bring. It's my birthday. Going to this casino, and I'm playing video poker, and it deals me a royal flush. And I just stare at it and stare at it and stare at it. And then I say to Aaron, who's there with me? I'm like, look at this. And we don't know what to do. We don't know why it's not paying out, right? And we stare at it for so long, and eventually he's like, I don't know if I say. Or he's having, like, am I supposed to just hit the cash out or whatever? What I was supposed to do is save each one.

[00:44:06]

Yep.

[00:44:06]

Because that's what you do in video poker.

[00:44:08]

Oh, no.

[00:44:10]

Can you believe that?

[00:44:11]

Oh, no.

[00:44:12]

So I hit a button, and it just went away.

[00:44:15]

How about three of clubs in this? Five of diamonds.

[00:44:19]

Oh, my God.

[00:44:21]

I think about that very regularly. I would have won $1200.

[00:44:25]

You didn't feel like asking someone?

[00:44:27]

Well, we stared at it for so long, and we're like, why isn't it just like, why aren't bells and whistles going on?

[00:44:31]

You're like, oh, it must be something simple. Let me just push this button. And then it just. Oh, Mandy. That hurts.

[00:44:37]

See, so mine's worse. Cause I have some definite personal responsibility. You got fucked.

[00:44:41]

It happened to me. I was doing everything right. And then just at the table, had to shut down. Gonna get a pit boss in there and I'm like, show that on the camera. Show him getting up and show him sitting down. This is my hand. I'd been sitting at that table for 45 minutes. I think it was like $10,000.

[00:44:56]

This guy won.

[00:44:57]

I'm so mad. Still. I would have spent all that on booze in Barbados.

[00:45:01]

Yeah, you would have lost nine grand of it.

[00:45:04]

I would have. For real. I can't lose.

[00:45:08]

Got a hot hand.

[00:45:09]

Got a hot hand, folks.

[00:45:10]

What's the lowest odds thing in this casino? I'm going hard at it.

[00:45:14]

Exactly.

[00:45:15]

So I would have gotten this moment. You gotta get out of here, and you gotta fucking get going.

[00:45:20]

Yes. Cause I felt myself atrophying. I enjoyed it a whole lot. But the whole time I was like, I gotta move to LA. Even the improv, it became kind of repetitive. Everybody learns the tricks, and I was trying really hard to not do the tricks, but then everybody wanted to do the tricks. It's like, it's easy, and, you know.

[00:45:32]

The show will be great. They're not a comedy crowd. They're checking out this thing for the first time.

[00:45:36]

It would drive me nuts. Cause it was sketchy. And then they had windows of improv. But then in those improvised, if there was a suggestion that was similar, I would improvise something at 07:00. At 09:00 they would try and, like, bring it back. I'm like, no, no, we did that already. Yeah. So I was really excited to get up. But then they hired me to the touring company, to Second City. So then after that second ship, I moved to Chicago. After two years of that, got hired to the main stage. Wrote two shows on the main stage. Tim and I got hired the same day. So we got to, like, write these shows and perform these shows together.

[00:46:01]

Awesome.

[00:46:01]

Every day, eight shows a week. Six days a week. We'd go out and drink every night. Six nights a week. And then on Mondays was our off days. So then we'd just hang out at a different bar and start earlier. Start earlier, exactly.

[00:46:12]

Oh, I love it.

[00:46:13]

Wild.

[00:46:14]

Oh, what a time. So what age do you get to LA? And are you afraid to leave there? Cause life's good.

[00:46:19]

I was ready to go. We ran those shows for a year. You're doing the exact same show six days a week, eight times a week. It's the point where you're on autopilot, just kind of thinking about my day while I'm, like, saying comedy lines. It got to a point where if you thought about what you're saying, you'd mess up, you know, if not that, then we're trying to fuck with each other. And then Timothy left, and I was like, I'm also. Because I auditioned for SNL twice, I did two screen tests. I got the point where I was like, I was super nervous. The first time, I didn't know what to expect. Second time, I was like, oh, okay. But I was going to write a third show only because I was trying to audition again. I was like, oh, well, I don't want to do that to my experience at Second City or to my cast just to be here to write audition material. I'm going to leave. My time is done.

[00:46:58]

Had Tim gone to SNL?

[00:46:59]

Tim hadn't gone to SNL. He'd just left. He was still in Chicago. He just left the main stage. So then I moved to LA. February of 2012. I'm 28.

[00:47:08]

How quick, basically, from when you get here, do you have an agent and you get these six episodes of the office?

[00:47:16]

I went there with an agent and managers because of SNL.

[00:47:19]

Oh, okay.

[00:47:20]

Allison Jones had come to see my show in Chicago, and she's a casting director.

[00:47:24]

She's a casting director, one of the biggest ones.

[00:47:26]

She cast the office. She casts so much. So I went in to meet her and she was like, I will get you working. Just come out here. So I'm like, oh, okay. Wow. And I've been so close on things as well, where I would send in tapes from Chicago. I'd get callback and call back and call back where I partially improvising. And I'd see the sides, and these sides had my improv in them, and then they would go with local hire. So then my people were just like, all right, it's time to move. And so I moved. And then Allison Jones gets me on the office. And then Allison Jones also casts arrest development. Arrest development. But then she also cast veep.

[00:47:59]

She really is the greatest.

[00:48:00]

She's the greatest.

[00:48:01]

Cause you're naming the very best comedic cast ever assembled. When you walk into the office and it's a the last season, they know each other like their siblings. Are you intimidated? Are you comfy there?

[00:48:14]

I'm learning there. I'm intimidated a little bit, but I'm like, also just very excited. I'm taking pictures of myself in the makeup chair.

[00:48:21]

Yes.

[00:48:21]

The part was supposed to be a little bit bigger than it was. I was supposed to come in as Jim's college roommate. We start a sports management company together in Philadelphia. Also, like, it's the last season. You're gonna introduce a new character.

[00:48:34]

Right? Lay a lot on track.

[00:48:36]

The whole time. I'm learning so much about how takes work, where to sit for a camera.

[00:48:41]

The thing you just said about the auditions, I auditioned for commercials for eight years, and I never got them. But I, on several occasions, saw the commercial on tv, and it had an improv I had done in the thing that was really specific, right. And you go like, oh, man, you didn't hire me, but you, I'm like, huh? You took that thing.

[00:48:55]

I wish I checked for writing then or something. I'm freaking starving.

[00:48:59]

And you don't have what you want, so you're very bitter about it.

[00:49:02]

Yeah.

[00:49:02]

The greatest advice that was ever given to me at the groundlings is I had done a sketch, and then it was very, very identically done shortly thereafter on Saturday Night Live. And it was a very unique thing, and I was really wound up about it. Maybe it was in my mind, but this person said to me, if you think that's your last great idea, you should get a lawyer and sue and go all the way to the mat. But if you think you have infinite great ideas, keep rolling.

[00:49:24]

100%.

[00:49:25]

That's great advice.

[00:49:26]

You're like, I gotta get a lawyer.

[00:49:27]

Okay, great. I'll take option a.

[00:49:29]

Do you have a suggestion?

[00:49:31]

No. Great. Council.

[00:49:33]

My character's name is Anchorman.

[00:49:37]

Wait two minutes on Allison Jones. I just have to do this.

[00:49:40]

Yes.

[00:49:40]

Before I moved out here, I like to learn absolutely everything about everything. She was a celebrity to me, knowing what she cast, all the Apatow movies, all these shows that I was obsessed with. When I got to audition for her, I was like, I made it. I don't even have to book it.

[00:49:56]

She's like a king and queen maker in comedy.

[00:49:58]

And she's so nice.

[00:50:01]

So nice.

[00:50:01]

Which is so strange. She has the right to be mean or scary catty and.

[00:50:07]

Exactly. There was a, may I talk ill of someone? But I can't. I can't remember the name specifically. I auditioned for the CB's showcase about the beginning, and then the lady who was running it was so rude. And I was like, I'm not coming back. And I didn't. I'm excited to make it, and I have these opportunities, but I don't want to sacrifice who you are. Who I am. I'm so frustrated. I'm not immediately gonna, like, start casting aside the things I think make me.

[00:50:30]

Yes. You had some conviction. Well, that's the advantage of having established yourself very young comedically, and you had a point of view when you arrived here. It almost sounds like you had some wherewithal to say, I want this to be a certain experience, regardless of the outcome.

[00:50:46]

I really did, and I still do this. I have, like, a vision of what I want out of the world or out of my career, and I try to do things that make. I try and avoid things that don't. Sometimes I can't help but play. Monday morning quarterback. Doesn't even work anymore. Cause they have Monday night Football, Tuesday morning quarterback, Tuesday morning quarterback. And I'm like, I should have done that movie. I didn't do it if I felt it was gonna be the exact same thing I've done before or if I thought that it was gonna paint a picture of me in an audience's mind that I couldn't recover from. Typecast me. When I'm at home, I'm like, oh, I've got three weeks off. I'm like, I shouldn't have three weeks off. I wanna be on a movie right now. I have to fight that. I also just always want to be doing it what I love. So I have to kind of fight the regrets of my convictions.

[00:51:29]

What's the biggest one you have recently?

[00:51:31]

It was a movie. I don't want to say specifically.

[00:51:33]

Wolverine.

[00:51:34]

I didn't want to say it. Yeah.

[00:51:35]

$200 million opening.

[00:51:37]

Two hundo mil.

[00:51:39]

Offered me three points.

[00:51:40]

I said, I need four and a.

[00:51:41]

Half for non negotiable, you know, this Matt Damons.

[00:51:44]

I was just about to say, you.

[00:51:46]

Know, the Matt Damon's.

[00:51:47]

No.

[00:51:47]

He turned down avatar, and he was offered, I think, 5% of it was something huge.

[00:51:51]

Oh, my go.

[00:51:53]

Hundreds of millions of the French.

[00:51:55]

Yes.

[00:51:56]

Disney doesn't have 5% of the franchise.

[00:51:59]

Like, all the movies that were to come. Yeah.

[00:52:02]

Oh, my God.

[00:52:03]

Yeah. Incredible, right? Luckily, he made his own hundreds of millions, but still. Wow. What a thing.

[00:52:08]

Because it wasn't really a script or anything at first, and so he was.

[00:52:11]

Like, he had something else.

[00:52:15]

Exactly.

[00:52:15]

Also was gonna happen. But, yes, that was a biggie.

[00:52:17]

Oh, my lord.

[00:52:18]

Okay, so veep, for me is when I discover you personally. Back to your compliment of Allison. It's probably the best cast of a.

[00:52:27]

Tv show ever, outside of myself. I agree.

[00:52:30]

Every person that pops up is comedy. Ten.

[00:52:33]

And everybody plays in tandem so well. It was such a lightning in a bottle, perfectly steered ship. I learned so much on the set of Veep, also about how to behave on set. You know, you kind of, like, watch how Julia moves and you watched how Tony moves, and everybody respects each other and everybody, like, really loves each other, and then when it comes to comedy, everybody's flowing. So when I got cast, it was supposed to be for one episode. And I remember I get to the table read and I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna really have to steal myself for when I do these lines. And, like, everybody just kind of pushes through it. I remember I read my first line and I got a laugh and they laughed, like, legitimately. And I was like, whoa. So giving. I was invigorated. And then to find out that after that, the process was that they put the scripts and then you go and you re improvise them in, like, the next room with the writers writing.

[00:53:20]

Oh, really?

[00:53:21]

And I'm like, oh, well, this is second city. This is my skillset. And so I was able to do that. And then on the day you get the script and the bits of the improvs in there, and I'm like, I'm valued. And it was so much fun.

[00:53:32]

That's as good as it gets as an actor. You guys shot that in DC?

[00:53:34]

Shot that in Baltimore.

[00:53:35]

Oh, in Baltimore.

[00:53:36]

I joined season three. So seasons one through four were in Baltimore, and then it moved to LA for a five through seven.

[00:53:43]

Were you sad when it was over popped and you really had some opportunities coming off of that. So were you anxious to get to those opportunities?

[00:53:51]

I would have done veep for the.

[00:53:52]

Rest of your life.

[00:53:53]

I love that show so much. I thought we were going to do eight. The world made it kind of hard to make a show that lampoons in politics is, like, stranger than fiction.

[00:54:03]

Anything you could write, there would be.

[00:54:04]

Things in an episode. We had a film six months ago, and then it happens.

[00:54:08]

Real life.

[00:54:09]

Real life, a month before the show comes out, and then they're like, oh, did you write this because of this? It's like, no.

[00:54:14]

Also, it became a little more stressful to watch the show because it was like, this is real now. It's not as funny because it's happening.

[00:54:23]

And idiocracy had almost the opposite trajectory, which is like, it was too fucking absurd for people to even wrap their head around. Then more and more it was like, oh, wow, this isn't that absurd. Okay, so after that, you get to do or during that, really? That's very cool that they allowed you to be a cast member full time and do Detroiters very well.

[00:54:43]

Because our writers room for Detroiters was on the paramount lot, and that's where we shot Vee. So I was able to, in between scenes, go sit in a room. So it kind of worked out perfectly.

[00:54:54]

Okay. I think I was turned on to Detroiters because of the Dietrich furze commercial.

[00:55:01]

Yeah.

[00:55:02]

And I'm gonna try not to make this too esoteric, Monica. I'm gonna try. And I don't know if this is unique to Detroit. It can't be. You can answer me. For Atlanta, we had so many local commercials, and they're such a part of Detroit. I was at a blackjack table in Laughlin, Nevada, 20 years ago, and a guy sitting next to me says, he's from Detroit. And I said, me and dog are going down to telegraph road right now.

[00:55:29]

Get a good deal.

[00:55:30]

And he immediately started singing here, though. Come on.

[00:55:34]

Come on, dog.

[00:55:36]

Come on, dog. And then Mel for superstar for far, far better deal.

[00:55:44]

Fantastic.

[00:55:45]

I feel like it was a golden era of local tv spot.

[00:55:48]

It really was.

[00:55:49]

And we already talked about it, but they ran for my entire childhood. Always the Dietrich fur commercial. Monica was a woman riding a horse.

[00:55:57]

In a fur coat.

[00:55:58]

And probably nothing else.

[00:56:00]

Probably nothing else. Oh, but they left that up for the imagination.

[00:56:03]

Yeah, but she didn't have, like, pants.

[00:56:04]

On, and she's, like, riding, and it's like a kind of slow motion. And it's like this person singing. Ooh, d trick first.

[00:56:11]

Oh, wow. Very sweet.

[00:56:13]

Yeah. What's the end of that song?

[00:56:14]

Ooh. D trick furs from the Dietrich family.

[00:56:20]

Yes. And then you guys really lean in. It was like, ooh, devil rose Devereaux wig Devereux. Which again, too, if you. We were in Detroit in the nineties. Four out of every five storefronts was a wig shop.

[00:56:37]

Yes.

[00:56:38]

More wigs per capita probably, than any place on the planet.

[00:56:41]

That commercial, the grain of that thing, it was from, like, 1972.

[00:56:45]

Yeah. It was wearing out real time. Like when I saw it when I was six versus 14. The film was degrading. It got harder and harder to see on tv.

[00:56:53]

Businesses are lasting many, many years.

[00:56:55]

D street furs was, like 1930, deach frizzweek. Been around for a long time, like.

[00:57:01]

A beaver trading company from the turn of the century. And in an era where the fur was really going out of style.

[00:57:08]

Yeah.

[00:57:09]

Becoming less double down on it. That woman used to be very aspirational on the horse. And then. Oh, my God, just one last one. I wanted to know if you had seen as a kid, a bunch.

[00:57:19]

We build them big.

[00:57:20]

We build them small. We're father and son.

[00:57:24]

No job too big, no job too small. No job too big, no job too small. We're father and son, we'll do it all and that father and son will get it done for any problem you need done. No job too big, no job too small. We're bothering son. Give us a call.

[00:57:43]

Boom.

[00:57:44]

Wow.

[00:57:44]

And that one was a cartoon. And it had, like, two lumberjack builders.

[00:57:48]

Yep.

[00:57:49]

Put pieces of a house together.

[00:57:50]

They built it.

[00:57:52]

God, it makes me feel so safe.

[00:57:55]

I loved it.

[00:57:56]

So you passed the test. You remembered the words really good.

[00:57:59]

Oh, yeah.

[00:58:01]

You ever meet someone from Detroit, you just yelled, hey, dog, and you're gonna get the rest.

[00:58:04]

Come on, dog. Me. And right now, get a good deal.

[00:58:14]

So Detroiters was just you guys doing that, doing local ads? So good.

[00:58:18]

Yep.

[00:58:18]

Actually in order. So Isaiah and Veep loved that. And then I started watching, of course. I think you should leave. It's just the very best. It's the very, very best. I also love Tim and Eric so much, but somewhere on the spectrum between Tim and Eric and Sirenlive, Tim and.

[00:58:30]

Eric are big influences on us. We were so into. Tim and Eriche are so into timineric, that DNA, you can see it.

[00:58:39]

They were somehow part.

[00:58:40]

Heidecker is in. I think you should leave.

[00:58:42]

And then there's a lot of nods. There's an Odenkirk scene where he's telling the kid about his cars.

[00:58:46]

Get whose cars?

[00:58:51]

Yeah, there's a lot of nods to all the institutions that came before. You can tell there's a lot of respect for comedy in it.

[00:58:57]

Yeah.

[00:58:57]

But, yeah, you hosting the little buff boys competition, I think it's about as good as it possibly gets. Gotta come up.

[00:59:03]

Gotta come up when the boss comes up.

[00:59:05]

Come on. Look at these little boys.

[00:59:10]

So many of those sketches, especially my sketches, are, like, 13 minutes long. Three minutes.

[00:59:20]

Yeah. I'm really, really envious of you and Tim, because to me, it feels like me and my best friend, Aaron Winkley, but he didn't go into show business. But, like, if we're together within 45 seconds, we have some joke that's annoying everybody in the room, and it's so weirdly esoteric. We have such a specific sense of humor, and it's maddening to everyone else. And I'm like, oh, yeah, you got to do that professionally.

[00:59:41]

Professionally, exactly. We have to do that on the stage of Second City. We have to do that every night.

[00:59:47]

Yeah, man, that's hitting the lottery right there. So Ted Lasso comes along also. I got to throw in the after party. I say this about you all the time, and this is nothing away from anyone else. You're always the best thing in anything I see. You're always the best thing in anything we watch that you're in. We come in, we agree. And in impossible situations, you're always surrounded.

[01:00:05]

By incredible people, too.

[01:00:07]

Yeah. Tiffany Haddish and Ike Baron Holtz in the afterparty. Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare. So, Ted Lasso, how did that come about? And that ends up getting you nominated twice for emmys and then winning one.

[01:00:34]

So Joe Kelly co created Detroiters with me and Tim and Zach Cannon. And Jason Sudeikis was an executive producer of Detroiters.

[01:00:42]

Oh, he was?

[01:00:43]

Yeah.

[01:00:43]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[01:00:44]

Yeah. In fact, Jason was like, you and Tim need to do a show.

[01:00:47]

And had Tim met him at SNL.

[01:00:48]

So we met him because he would come through Second City. He's a second city alumni, so he would come and like, I play the sets and those, we would improvise with him. So then when Tim went to SNL, that's how Tim met Joe. And I had met Joe when I came out to LA, Joe and Jason worked together at Second City Las Vegas. The camp was made that way. So when we made Detroiters, it was Tim and Zach who they became writing partners at SNL, and Joe, who was also at SNL at that time, and me. So it's gotta be a show about the two of them. And we were like, it's gotta be about Detroit. So you make the show. So years later, Joe co creates Ted Lasso with Jason and Bill and Brendan Hunt. I didn't know Bill at that time well, actually.

[01:01:32]

And we're saying Bill Lawrence.

[01:01:33]

Bill Lawrence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bill was a fan of veep, kind of a little bit of follow and follow.

[01:01:38]

Yeah, he's good at dming people and dming.

[01:01:40]

For me, I'm like, oh, my goodness, that's wild. Scrubs is like one of my all times. I remember watching Ted Lasso the first season. Cause it was mid pandemic and I was like, I gotta see my homies show. And I'm watching it and I'm like, this is so wonderful. And then I'm like, welcome to character. Sam Obesanya text Joe. I'm like, is Sam me? And he's like, of course, buddy. Oh, yeah.

[01:02:01]

So they planted the scene before they.

[01:02:03]

Hired you or, and Jason was always like, oh, wouldn't you do something ghanaian? I'm like, yeah, I'll find the thing they sent the character, and it was, like, written for me, which is also something that was different than anything I'd done before, accent excluded. He was able to be charming and then, like, mean.

[01:02:19]

And you have all the status and.

[01:02:20]

Highest status of handshakes. And I was like, oh, but it's all in charm. But playing with that status the whole time, very aware of it, but then, like, trying to act like it's not a thing. I love it.

[01:02:31]

And the accent. You must have grown up imitating mom.

[01:02:34]

Yeah, exactly. All my ghanaian family and what I was trying to do with that accent, even people I know in Ghana who are, like, very wealthy and England educated, to have that sort of english accent on the ghanaian accent, just also trying to be somebody. So that was like a fun layer to get to put on top.

[01:02:50]

By the way, when you were younger and you were in Ghana, would you affect that accent a bit more while you were there?

[01:02:56]

It's how you hear everything, or even just, like, words that aren't the same. So instead of saying soft drink or pop or whatever you say, mineral. Can I have mineral? Sound like a mineral water? Which means soft drink.

[01:03:07]

Was it fun winning an Emmy?

[01:03:08]

I didn't expect to win it.

[01:03:09]

So when you won, you had written something, but you're like, I'm gonna write this, but I'm not gonna.

[01:03:13]

In my pocket. Even for superstition. But I was even going through superstition. Is writing it what makes me not win it?

[01:03:19]

Of course, it's hard to know what the gods want.

[01:03:21]

Exactly.

[01:03:22]

It's like, you gotta be humble enough to win it.

[01:03:24]

Exactly.

[01:03:25]

Which means if you're super humble, you wouldn't write it.

[01:03:26]

Exactly.

[01:03:27]

But then you gotta write it.

[01:03:28]

You gotta write it so that you're not up there being like, huh? I didn't write it. You don't wanna be in any way who's out there. Tim won Emmy the year before for. I think he should leave. We see at different tables, I see a piece of paper on the floor, and I'm like, I'm just gonna grab that. And it's Tim's speech.

[01:03:43]

What?

[01:03:44]

And I'm like, Tim, is this yours?

[01:03:47]

Yes.

[01:03:47]

He would have been in so much trouble, but I'm the one who finds that speech.

[01:03:54]

His handwriting.

[01:03:55]

It was very wild. No.

[01:03:57]

And you're both there.

[01:03:58]

And we're both there. And so then this time, Tim also wins his Emmy. So we have to win our emmys the same day as well. But I think should leave pretty wild.

[01:04:06]

This is. I think you guys should get married.

[01:04:08]

You know, I want the option.

[01:04:12]

Okay, sausage party. I have to say, I didn't see the movie, but I've watched the tv show. At first it starts. I'm always looking. Our kids are nine and eleven, and they're starting to really come online. They just completely binged Brooklyn. The entire thing. They love. Curb your enthusiasm. So it starts, and I'm like, yeah, this is gonna be a fun cartoon for us.

[01:04:33]

Oh, no.

[01:04:34]

And then all the food starts fucking each other. Fuck each other forever.

[01:04:40]

Forever. Forever.

[01:04:41]

I can't believe how much of the animation budget is probably funneled just into the fucking. Cause it's the most complicated animation they have is all this groin rubbing.

[01:04:53]

Groin rubbing. So much specific motions.

[01:04:55]

Yeah. There's no, like, set assets. They don't just replicate the fucking. Each one is individual and creative. Had you seen the movie?

[01:05:04]

I had. I saw the movie in the theaters when it came out. This was eight years ago and I loved it.

[01:05:09]

And you play an orange?

[01:05:10]

Yeah, I play a megalomaniac orange named Julius. The reason why he's an orange isn't to parallel a real life dictator, but it's because oranges have anuses. Oh, orange looks like a big old butthole.

[01:05:26]

It does like a prolapse.

[01:05:27]

Prolapse anus.

[01:05:28]

And when we meet you, you're getting your salad tossed.

[01:05:30]

Exactly.

[01:05:31]

Oh, wow.

[01:05:32]

Yeah. This right off the bat.

[01:05:33]

Good intro.

[01:05:34]

Yeah. Your first line is while getting your.

[01:05:36]

This is getting fully rimmed.

[01:05:38]

Oh, my God. What's it on?

[01:05:39]

Amazon prime.

[01:05:40]

Okay. Wow. Good for Amazon.

[01:05:43]

Yeah. You're carving out a really great voiceover career.

[01:05:46]

I just really love animation and I love voiceover.

[01:05:50]

Yeah. It's kind of as close as you can get to doing sketch without seeming so broad and terrible as an actor. It's like where you can let that loose.

[01:05:58]

Maybe you just do the biggest thing. It's countered by just the imagination of whatever the look of the animation is. I truly love it. So any opportunity I get, I want to do it. I want to do it.

[01:06:08]

Well, it must be fun. I'm envious of this. There's debate on whether I want to say jealous or envious. I want you to have all this. Okay, so I don't want you to not have it.

[01:06:16]

Yes.

[01:06:17]

But you are a comedian's comedian. You're someone all comedians like. So I imagine you keep getting invited into these camps. So it's like, now you're invited into cess camp and is that radical?

[01:06:27]

All the stuff that he does. Like, I did the movie good boys. It's a cool camp to be in, because funny people who make funny things and are cool, genuine people, that's who you want to hang out with and who you want to collaborate with.

[01:06:39]

Yeah. I think the comedy is almost even second. As impressive as the work ethic and output of him, there's been only a handful of people who had all the different assets.

[01:06:50]

Yep. The output is phenomenal.

[01:06:52]

It's staggering.

[01:06:53]

Staggering.

[01:06:54]

And then he's a full time Potter as well.

[01:06:56]

Potter. And it's a full time pottery business.

[01:06:59]

Yeah. Boy. Really counters the stereotype of a stoner. Yeah.

[01:07:02]

Affable, funny stoner who works so hard and has his hands in so many different pots. Pond.

[01:07:11]

Literally.

[01:07:12]

Yeah.

[01:07:13]

Three ways. Pottery, marijuana pot.

[01:07:17]

Yep. And business pot.

[01:07:20]

It's rare you get a triple punk.

[01:07:22]

Very rare. I'm very proud of it.

[01:07:24]

I'm very, very proud of it.

[01:07:25]

They didn't bring a plaque for me.

[01:07:27]

Next. You're in the new Star Trek.

[01:07:29]

The new Star Trek. So section 31. It says Star Trek movie. I had a really great time. I'm a Star Trek fan my whole life, so I know every iteration of it. The motion pictures and the shatner movies, the card movies.

[01:07:41]

I didn't watch the tv show, but I gotta say, I loved the Chris Pine version. Love the JJ Abrams.

[01:07:46]

The JJ Abrams 2009, as we call it.

[01:07:50]

You know, in a weird way, too, it's also a little bit of a financial safety net because you do one of these, in worst case scenario, you can go to these conventions the rest of your life.

[01:07:57]

Exactly.

[01:07:58]

Very smart. They already wrapped it. Can I get in there? Might sign in a couple headshots down the road. Who do you play in that?

[01:08:07]

So I play a physicist shapeshifter, what's called a cameloid. This is the second time there's ever been a cameloid in Star Trek. And the first time was Iman in Star Trek six.

[01:08:17]

Oh, wow.

[01:08:19]

Cool.

[01:08:20]

Supermodels.

[01:08:21]

That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's actually very funny. With Iman, it's like, this is a shapeshifter. You want to, like, look good. Yeah, I'll make myself Iman. For me, it's like, I want to look good. I'm gonna make myself Sam Richardson. I might accept it.

[01:08:35]

You point out, you take that in.

[01:08:37]

Well, Sam, it's so delightful. I thought it would be just like this favorite ride at Cedar Point.

[01:08:42]

Not the demon drop. I'd be lying. It's the magnum.

[01:08:44]

Magnum XJ 220.

[01:08:45]

Yes, sir. I did the demon drop one time in my life. Never do it again.

[01:08:48]

Did you put a quarter on your knee?

[01:08:50]

I didn't.

[01:08:50]

You didn't describe them both.

[01:08:52]

The demon drop is literally just like a free fall drop.

[01:08:55]

They bring you up a few hundred feet in the air, and then it just falls.

[01:08:58]

Yeah.

[01:08:58]

And if you put a quarter in your kneecap, it'll come up in the air and spin. And I think that was in the commercial.

[01:09:03]

I think so.

[01:09:04]

I think they're everywhere. Yeah. But we'll pretend it only exists because of the age gap. For me, it'll always be the Gemini.

[01:09:09]

Well, the Gemini. I love Gemini. Best wood wooden roller coaster. But just a little too many sounds. The thing makes too much noise.

[01:09:17]

The best thing about the Gemini is you're in line for a while. It's a hit ride, and you're staring at it, and it's an enormous wood roller coaster. You're hearing all this creaking, and you're staring at the wood, and you're like, those are pretty thin pieces of wood.

[01:09:27]

Yeah.

[01:09:28]

It's doing a lot of the work of the ride for you. Getting you scared of the structural integrity before you get on, but only to be way suppressed with this silver millennium trees, which is truly dangerous. You could fly right out. They never updated the restraint system. You get air like you go over a hill and your feet.

[01:09:46]

Or your butt is like, yeah, way off.

[01:09:47]

And it's not even a great roller coaster. But you're not in there. You sitting on a bleacher is Magnum.

[01:09:54]

Does it go upside down? Are you guys upside down? Roller coasters?

[01:09:57]

Yes, but that wasn't its primary selling point. Yeah, the primary selling point was, at the time it was built, it was the tallest free fall, and it went the fastest. And they had held that record for a few.

[01:10:08]

And they beat it with the millennium force. Then that one. People were, like, passing out. Cause it's, like, so fast as it should be.

[01:10:15]

You know, there should always be a couple rides there that can hurt you.

[01:10:18]

Yeah, exactly. You gotta respect the world.

[01:10:21]

Did you ever go on matching outfits with a girlfriend?

[01:10:24]

I didn't. I went and matching t shirts with groups, like, with family members. I wish I had.

[01:10:29]

I know I always saw those couples, and I was pretty jealous. I didn't put it together, but I was there on the prowl.

[01:10:35]

Yeah.

[01:10:37]

Place, cedar points. You're in that line forever, and you're, like, peeping babes, and then you're gonna cross. You're in love with that babe for, like, 15 minutes, and then you see another babe, and then you're in love with her for twelve minutes. Yeah, I picked out my babe too soon.

[01:10:50]

Ooh, sorry, babe. I can't be. I gotta move on.

[01:10:54]

This other babe in my mind that I'll never say hi to the whole world with, what?

[01:11:00]

A ton of instant.

[01:11:01]

Okay, well, I'm gonna land this plane, but I just hope we're somehow in Michigan together at some point.

[01:11:05]

Yeah, I hope so.

[01:11:06]

That could be so fun. I really want to go to Cedar point. I want to take my kids.

[01:11:09]

I want to also. I haven't been in forever, and I just need to go.

[01:11:13]

Well, listen, if we plan a trip, because my other thing was we didn't have any money. So you would drive there in the morning, then you'd drive home at night. That drive home was perilous. My grandpa was rubbing spit in his eyes to stay awake. He's guzzling coffee and hitting the shoulder occasionally. It was a long day for the grandparents.

[01:11:28]

Yeah. Oh, I bet.

[01:11:29]

And I always want to stay at one of those hotels.

[01:11:31]

Yeah, me, too.

[01:11:32]

And I want to go, Sam. And I'll get the biggest room in Sandusky. Don't you want to go big time?

[01:11:40]

Exactly. Just. Really, just fucking play all the games. Show them Rockefeller style. Yeah. Give me the pass.

[01:11:47]

Or wear matching outfits.

[01:11:48]

I'm truly all for it.

[01:11:50]

Me, too. You and your girl Kristen and I, all four of us. Four matching outfits. Fuck. All right, I'm putting this on the, like, sincere need to make it happen in my lifetime.

[01:11:58]

Absolutely. I'm in.

[01:11:59]

All right, well, Sam, this has been great. Everyone watch. Sausage party food. Topia.

[01:12:02]

I feel like them.

[01:12:03]

It's faking. Yay.

[01:12:04]

Yeah. I felt shaking.

[01:12:07]

Yeah, right.

[01:12:07]

It was, right?

[01:12:08]

Yeah.

[01:12:08]

It could be any number of things. It could be an earthquake. It could be the construction that's happening. It could be. We're on a fault line.

[01:12:15]

I know.

[01:12:16]

California.

[01:12:16]

So sorry. Sausage party food. Topia on Amazon prime. Now, Sam, come back. You're gonna mean a thousand more funny things that you'll be the best thing in. And we'll want to talk to you again.

[01:12:25]

I'll come back anytime.

[01:12:26]

All right, be well.

[01:12:27]

Thank you.

[01:12:30]

Stay tuned for the fact check show so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. Oh, pajamas. Look at Grandpa. Grandpa jammies. Grandpa jammies.

[01:12:47]

Grammys. But then, that's confusing.

[01:12:50]

Yeah. Grajamas, gropiamas. Yeah. Cause you don't like pajamas, right? Cause it reminds you spanish. What?

[01:12:59]

It's Spanish.

[01:13:01]

Well, I thought maybe it specifically reminded you of the nighttime. The sleep nurse. Yeah. She said pianos.

[01:13:13]

Ew. I hate her.

[01:13:15]

Do you think that was it, though? Is that what was.

[01:13:17]

No, I didn't know that she said that.

[01:13:19]

Speaking of spanish speaking, I'm reading a beautiful book right now.

[01:13:23]

Uh huh.

[01:13:24]

I think you might really like it.

[01:13:26]

Oh, what is it?

[01:13:27]

It's called the world I see by doctor, I think, Fifi Lee. F e I. F e I li. She's a professor. She had to testify in front of congress about AI. She's, like, a genius professor, but also came here from China in 11th grade. So the book is, like, her personal story, paired with, like, what she learned about computer science. So beautifully written. And the people that come here and cannot speak and get dropped into high school, none of us have ever come. Like, I'm whining about dyslexia. Like, holy shit, if you can survive that.

[01:14:08]

Yeah, I know.

[01:14:09]

Yeah. And she saw some really rough stuff.

[01:14:11]

Like, people are mean to her.

[01:14:13]

Well, there's, like, an ESL class she's in, and, like, some boy just brushes some other boy's backpack. Like, barely nothing. The guy explodes and, like, beats him up really bad in front of everybody, and there's blood everywhere. And she's like, the beating was one thing, but how his spirit was broken after that, it's just soul crushing.

[01:14:34]

So mean to other people.

[01:14:36]

I know. Well, it's like, chimp crazy.

[01:14:39]

You watched it?

[01:14:40]

Have you started it?

[01:14:42]

No.

[01:14:43]

Oh, my lord.

[01:14:44]

We had a guest on who suggested this, and you freaked out.

[01:14:47]

Yeah. Easter egg, upcoming guests. Are you watching chimp crazy? And it's insane. I wasn't. Well, I just didn't know. But anything labeled chimp, I'm gonna watch.

[01:14:57]

Yeah, you're in.

[01:14:58]

But for anyone who's unaware of it, it is by the filmmaker who made Tiger king. And it's the same shit. It's the same. These people who want wild animals. There's a type. But. So then, of course, this guest who suggested it, I text her saying, like, holy smokes, are you right? That's so good. And then she sent me an article in the New York magazine about a completely different story of this woman who got a young chimp. They had him for five years. He was great. Everyone in town loved him. The cops loved him. He was a sweetheart. And then he became sexually mature.

[01:15:33]

Oh, no.

[01:15:34]

And you know what it says in this article? How many times do you think male chimps have sex in a day in the wild? You know? Real guess. And I'll tell you what. My. My guess was 14. I would have guessed five to ten.

[01:15:46]

Okay.

[01:15:46]

They're only awake for 12 hours?

[01:15:48]

Sure.

[01:15:49]

A male chimp has sex 50 times a day. Monica, this is an animal that's designed to have sex 50 times a day, and it's living in a household with humans. And then the New York magazine article is fascinating. Let me see if I can give you the title of it. Travis the Menace. He was the most famous ape in America. But to really understand a chimp, you have to know his mother.

[01:16:16]

What did the mother do?

[01:16:18]

Really fascinating story. This woman, I think, born in the thirties in Connecticut, has one husband. They get divorced, meets another guy. They build these businesses together. They become pretty wealthy. They buy a big compound. They're into horses. She starts riding horses. She has a daughter. She loves her daughter. They're out, and they go to some rodeo show in another part of the country to do their barrel racing. And they see a chimp riding a horse, and they really like the chimp. And then she kind of bonds with the chimp and then the chimps in the middle of his horse routine, and he jumps off his horse and then runs and jumps on her in the audience and gives her a hug and then runs back.

[01:16:53]

Oh.

[01:16:53]

Cause she gave him a gummy bear.

[01:16:55]

Oh, yeah.

[01:16:57]

So then she contacted ding ding ding. The same woman this doc is about. This is in this. I don't know. I don't know what year this is. Maybe eighties or something. And she gets Travis, this chimp, and she has this very, very close relationship with her daughter, too. And then the daughter, oh, she gets the chimpanzee. When her daughter leaves, she meets a man and moves away and kind of heart. It's heartbreaking to her.

[01:17:19]

Yeah.

[01:17:20]

And then I don't want to ruin the story because it's a twisty and turning, incredible story, but it is both about chimps. But also what you can take from this article is like, life is weirdly long. It's short, but it's long. It's like you can be on top of the mountain and they have the business, and then your daughter leaves. And then this person in your life dies and this person gets cancer. Then you can just be, like, you can be at the lowest point after achieving, quote, safety, right?

[01:17:46]

Yeah.

[01:17:46]

And you can be at your darkest hour, and then you can get desperate, and you can make weird decisions, and then there can be another upswing, you know? And then there's this creature that are dealing with this creature. It's just wild. And life. Life is precarious.

[01:17:59]

It is. It is.

[01:18:01]

There are car accidents and there are these, you know, there are cancers and there's all this stuff.

[01:18:07]

Yeah.

[01:18:08]

Yeah. It's just very precarious. And I guess when I was reading it, I was like, man, when the sun's out, you just gotta really fucking embrace it and enjoy it.

[01:18:16]

I agree. I was listening to. Nobody's listening. Right. My favorite podcast. Elizabeth and Andy. And they were kind of just talking about this, too. Elizabeth saw a picture. It's a picture. It's, like, from the. Maybe nineties, I guess. It's a courtroom, and it's husband and wife, and they're sort of out Beanie babies.

[01:18:38]

Oh, my God. They're getting divorced and dividing up their collection babies.

[01:18:42]

Yes. And. But it's clear at that time, like, they thought this was a fortune, and so they're like, you know, so intense and struggling and spending all this time and energy and effort.

[01:18:58]

Lawyers.

[01:18:59]

Exactly. To figure out how to separate these beanie babies, and there were nothing.

[01:19:05]

Yeah. Now they're nothing.

[01:19:07]

They're nothing. And it's. It is such a good metaphor for everything. It's like, it's nothing.

[01:19:13]

Yeah. The value you place on everything.

[01:19:15]

And you buy only a few things that are really worth something, and those are relationships. But other than that, like, it's all crap. Like, it doesn't. It all amounts to nothing when you're dead.

[01:19:26]

We're really Easter egging this future. Guess because she brought up the chimps. And then we also got into this a lot. It's just. It's really a profound moment when you look at someone's collection of things and they're no longer there to provide the value that they had. Without them, they're just objects that'll get moved to a dome.

[01:19:46]

Well, that's, like, on the positive end of it. That's like the line in air.

[01:19:51]

Okay.

[01:19:52]

When they say a shoe is just a shoe until someone steps in it.

[01:19:57]

Oh, okay. Ie, Michael Jordan.

[01:20:00]

That's what the movie's about, so I cannot wait.

[01:20:05]

You know? It's good. And. Well, let me ask you this. Do you like when you can get everything at once or when they do a week to week? Oh, I think there's pros and cons to both.

[01:20:15]

Well, ding, ding, ding. To our last fact check about delayed gratification.

[01:20:18]

Yes.

[01:20:19]

I like it all.

[01:20:21]

Yeah.

[01:20:21]

But then I. It is nice to have to wait.

[01:20:24]

I know. Cause, like, now I'm really excited for Sunday.

[01:20:27]

Yeah.

[01:20:28]

Because the new chimp episode comes. I think the sweet spot is to jump in halfway through a season.

[01:20:35]

Yeah.

[01:20:35]

So you can binge the first few and then wait sees.

[01:20:38]

Yeah.

[01:20:38]

Yeah.

[01:20:39]

That's smart way.

[01:20:40]

Do you.

[01:20:40]

Wait.

[01:20:41]

But then it's like. Remember when we were watching ding ding ding the last dance? Oh, cedars is calling me pin.

[01:20:50]

Same.

[01:20:51]

Okay.

[01:20:53]

You took them last night.

[01:20:54]

Oh, you talked to him last night?

[01:20:55]

Yeah, for like an hour.

[01:20:56]

Okay, that's my pin. So we'll circle back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because on the last dance and we were watching, we thought there were more, remember? And then it turned into week to week.

[01:21:08]

Right.

[01:21:08]

That was horrible.

[01:21:10]

But gray.

[01:21:12]

No.

[01:21:12]

Oh, okay.

[01:21:13]

That's in tantrum.

[01:21:14]

Okay.

[01:21:15]

Okay. So, yeah, so doctor Richard Isaacson, who we have had on.

[01:21:20]

Yeah.

[01:21:21]

The show. Go back and listen. That's when we got our blood drawn. We did a whole thing. He's lovely.

[01:21:26]

Yeah.

[01:21:27]

We said he was very playful, which he is.

[01:21:29]

He is. Yeah.

[01:21:31]

He's a preventative neurologist. And so he, you know, he did all these tests. They sent him all out. And then he's been in touch about our results.

[01:21:40]

Mm hmm.

[01:21:41]

And what we need to look into further and. Yeah. So he called me a couple days ago and told me my heart's gonna explode at any moment.

[01:21:50]

I doubt those were his examples. Words.

[01:21:53]

He did not say that. He did not say that. But there's some unnerving cholesterol stuff, which.

[01:21:59]

By the way, isn't terribly new. We were talking about your cholesterol three years ago.

[01:22:02]

Yeah, but he's shocked at the lack of. Based on what he's seeing, intervention. Yeah.

[01:22:08]

Have you were advised to go on a stanton, though? You had to have been. No. No, you weren't.

[01:22:14]

They're just like, you know, keep an eye on it and that. Yeah. He's surprised by that. That. And he's hooking me up quickly with a preventative cardiologist to go and, like, look into all this much further.

[01:22:30]

Yeah. Cause you're. I mean, you're 36 today, but really, at the time of this errand, you're 37. Happy birthday again.

[01:22:35]

Thank you.

[01:22:36]

Great time to look into it. Plenty of time. Yeah. Well, I'd rather be getting this news if I were you now than at 49.

[01:22:44]

Well, yeah, it seems like I'll be dead if I don't. Based on the urgency, I mean. I'm kidding. Sort of. You know, he's done all this research. It's so nice. I can't believe.

[01:22:57]

I can't either.

[01:22:59]

He's generous. So generous. He's such a busy man. And he, like, he's spending a lot of time.

[01:23:06]

Yeah.

[01:23:06]

On all of us, it sounds like. But he doesn't know a preventative cardiologist he was just like, let's find one, basically. So then he was just googling cold calling. Yeah. And then he emailed this person and, like, gave the rundown, and then they said they would see me. And then he was like, it is. But then he was like, maybe you should look at some backups. But in case it takes a long time for them to see you. And I'm like, how bad is this? I didn't ask that. Which I probably should. He said. He. He said not to worry about this, not to freak out. But there is also some, like, pre predevelop, pre diabetes things he's seeing.

[01:23:46]

Well, that makes sense. Cause of the family history. Yeah.

[01:23:50]

Connected. It's all fine, but, you know.

[01:23:52]

You know what a thought I had.

[01:23:54]

What?

[01:23:54]

I'm like, what if he's never taken an indian's blood? And, like, what if these markers are just standard for the indian population?

[01:24:02]

My mom doesn't have it.

[01:24:04]

She doesn't have any of these.

[01:24:05]

Mm mm mm. She doesn't have high cholesterol. Only my dad looks like I got a lot of his junior jeans.

[01:24:11]

Well, I'll say. I knew that. I knew that before.

[01:24:16]

Yeah. So, anywho, I'll keep everyone updated on that. On my heart.

[01:24:20]

Okay.

[01:24:21]

If it explodes, I. I've had a great life. I really have. I've had such a good life.

[01:24:27]

Yeah.

[01:24:28]

And, you know, 37.

[01:24:31]

It's pretty good.

[01:24:32]

Not too bad.

[01:24:34]

You're born in the 13 hundreds. Pretty average.

[01:24:38]

Okay. So you're speaking to him today?

[01:24:40]

Yeah, yeah, he wants to talk to me about some findings.

[01:24:42]

Oh, I wonder what he found.

[01:24:44]

Yeah, I'll find out it too, I guess.

[01:24:45]

Tell me what he says.

[01:24:46]

I will. I will.

[01:24:47]

What did he say about you?

[01:24:49]

He said I was pretty boring in my results, but my omega three s were the worst, almost out of anyone that took the study.

[01:25:00]

You just take a pill?

[01:25:01]

A pill and fish once a week.

[01:25:03]

Oh, do you go fishing once a week?

[01:25:06]

I don't eat a lot of fish. Only at, like, a restaurant.

[01:25:09]

I'll eat.

[01:25:09]

He said take a pill and fish once a week.

[01:25:12]

Well, that's good exercise. Actually, it's probably not good exercise.

[01:25:15]

It's not great exercise, man.

[01:25:16]

And he wants me to change my exercise routine.

[01:25:18]

Zone two.

[01:25:19]

I mostly only do high intensity.

[01:25:22]

Yeah.

[01:25:22]

And he wants me to do.

[01:25:23]

Hold on a second. This is a news break for me. Breaking news. Exercise.

[01:25:29]

Yeah.

[01:25:29]

I did peloton, like, an hour a day. You do five to six days a week?

[01:25:34]

No. When did this start?

[01:25:37]

Two years ago.

[01:25:38]

You are so secretive. Monica and I would have been blabbing about that.

[01:25:42]

A peloton.

[01:25:43]

If we were doing the peloton five days a week for an hour a day, we would be, we'd be so proud of ourselves. We'd be blabbing.

[01:25:49]

I mean, only if drama happens. Like people are, won't get out of your way. Yeah, peloton. And you're like, oh, fuck, I don't know what to do.

[01:25:57]

He wants me do less of that and do too low intensity and two strength training days.

[01:26:02]

Yeah.

[01:26:02]

He's so into strength training. He said the same to me. He said I'm under muscle.

[01:26:06]

Yeah.

[01:26:06]

Which obviously I don't do any strength training. Right. But I made an appointment with the trainer.

[01:26:13]

You did?

[01:26:14]

Yes. I'm gonna start doing it when we get back from New York.

[01:26:18]

Oh, good.

[01:26:18]

Days a week.

[01:26:19]

You're gonna like it.

[01:26:20]

No, I'm really pissed, but it's fine. I guess I gotta do it.

[01:26:25]

Trust me. I have been under muscled and over muscled and it physically feels really good. I like how it feels for your, your skeletal system. Like there's something about having that muscle that keeps your, oh, let's just say this. My posture was way worse when I had less muscle.

[01:26:45]

Yeah.

[01:26:45]

I had more pains when I had less muscle. Like, I just have noticed that physically makes me feel a lot better when I have more muscle mass.

[01:26:53]

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, there's no getting around it. We've had a million people say, especially for women, that it's really important to do.

[01:27:00]

Yeah, it's pretty unrefuted at this point.

[01:27:03]

Year seven, we're gonna do it, you and me.

[01:27:06]

Yeah, I know what I wanted to say. I read this yesterday that Alex Cooper. Did you read this? Got a $125 million deal with Sirius. And I want to say publicly, fucking go get it, girl. I'm so happy for her. What a fucking awesome. Just make your shit.

[01:27:26]

Yeah.

[01:27:27]

Build your thing.

[01:27:28]

She did it.

[01:27:28]

It's fucking awesome. I couldn't be happier for her. That's so cool. Blew the boys away. I love it.

[01:27:33]

Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, good for her. We like to hear that.

[01:27:37]

Mm hmm.

[01:27:38]

All right, well, let's get into it. You got a lunch and I got a Santa Monica. That's much later, but still, what time?

[01:27:48]

But that was intentional, right? Cause you like to spend the evening there.

[01:27:51]

Yeah. It was on purpose.

[01:27:52]

Now you regret it.

[01:27:53]

I regret it a little bit. Oh, that's okay.

[01:27:56]

I'll figure out. Do you have a rough night's sleep?

[01:27:59]

No. Okay. Don't stop. Don't act like I'm crazy for that response. Anyone who says, did you have a rough night's sleep? I know what you're saying.

[01:28:11]

That you are grumpy.

[01:28:14]

Yeah. You're saying that, and then you act shocked that I have this reaction that feels gaslighty.

[01:28:20]

Really?

[01:28:20]

I think it feels generous. Cause I don't think you're a grumpy person. And so my guess is something happened, and you're grumpy and don't want to go to Santa Monica for anymore. So my hunch is, well, you made the appointment. At the time you made it, you were excited, and that seemed like the right move, and then now you don't want to do that. So I'm like, she might have had a bad night's sleep.

[01:28:42]

No, because I was generous. Okay, well, that's not how I took it. Okay. Also, the reason I was excited to. Or I was happy to do it at fours. Cause normally Molly and I hang out.

[01:28:53]

Yeah.

[01:28:54]

But she's coming back from Hawaii and won't be back until late. So now I'm just gonna be stuck there for 4 hours. And that's now why I regret it.

[01:29:04]

Gotcha.

[01:29:05]

There's reasoning behind it.

[01:29:07]

Okay.

[01:29:08]

And I don't really have any other friends in San Monica.

[01:29:10]

Well, you can't exactly. It's like having a friend in Nevada. Although I saw my friend from Santa Monica yesterday. But he made the effort. De Castro drove out after he dropped his baby off at school and we did a hike. Yeah. I'm a little mad at him.

[01:29:25]

Oh, why?

[01:29:26]

Cause when he arrived, he said, oh, my God. I haven't worked out. And I think he said a year.

[01:29:31]

Wow.

[01:29:33]

For people who don't remember, Steve de Castro is a stuntman. Extraordinary. One of my great friends. And he also stunt coordinated two of the movies I did. He also did some second unit directing on chips. He's lovely, dude. Jiu jitsu, black belt. Yeah. And he said he hasn't worked out. He goes, and I haven't done cardio in, like, a year.

[01:29:50]

Wow.

[01:29:50]

So I'm almost thinking, like, this is gonna be a rough hike. Like, I'm gonna have to be going so slow. So I go on, I'm gonna throw on my rucksack. And he goes, yeah, get. Do something. Weight yourself down. Cause I don't want you to kill me. And then we hiked, and he chatted the whole time. You know, it's very hard to chat when you're hiking.

[01:30:05]

Yeah.

[01:30:06]

He was completely fine.

[01:30:08]

And I was like, you're panting for.

[01:30:10]

I wasn't panting, but there wasn't much of a guy gap between our mind you. I haven't hiked either since we went away this summer. It's been so hot. Regardless. I was like this. He's a physical phenom. I guess he always has been. Like, he just. He hasn't worked out in a year. And then he fucking hiked up and he was chatting the whole time. And we were going at a pretty good pace. And he was completely fine. I don't even think he was sweating.

[01:30:28]

Wow.

[01:30:29]

Yeah. So fuck you. Congratulations, Alex Cooper. And fuck you, Steve DeCastro. Wow.

[01:30:34]

Wow.

[01:30:34]

Wow. I wonder how his cholesterol is.

[01:30:37]

He's probably smart enough to have never checked. What you don't know can't hurt you.

[01:30:41]

I think this is what they say. Okay, so this is for Sam Richardson.

[01:30:48]

Mmm.

[01:30:49]

Funny man.

[01:30:51]

The jewel of Detroit. Well, Chuck Woolery and then him.

[01:30:54]

Okay. And some other people.

[01:30:56]

Yeah. Jeff Daniels. Bob Seger.

[01:30:59]

Yeah. We talked about all these people.

[01:31:00]

Yeah, we talked about Cedar Point.

[01:31:04]

My God.

[01:31:05]

Are you in a really quick.

[01:31:06]

Yeah.

[01:31:08]

Are you a little bit curious to go? Just because you have to admit of any topic that comes out, the people that have gone there, they can't shut up about it. Right. It's like the funniest thing. Like, I know it's annoying to you, but it's also pretty comedic. It's the same reaction every time and people go through the same list of roller coasters.

[01:31:24]

It is.

[01:31:25]

It would be like if every time a certain restaurant came up in New York, everyone went on about it for 15 minutes, I'd be like, I've got to try that restaurant. And I guess I'm curious. Does it not elicit that?

[01:31:35]

It doesn't, because this is really what it does.

[01:31:38]

Okay.

[01:31:39]

I feel like that. That you're gonna be so mad, but I. I feel that our six flags over Georgia was that.

[01:31:50]

Uh huh.

[01:31:51]

And so, like, that is what happens if you talk to people who. Who went there?

[01:31:56]

Well, counterpoint, we've had a lot of people from Georgia on the show, and you guys have talked about Atlanta and Georgia. It's never come.

[01:32:04]

But I don't bring it up. I don't say.

[01:32:07]

Right.

[01:32:07]

And they don't.

[01:32:08]

Six flags. Normally, let's be honest and truthful, normally you say, have you been to Cedar Point? And that's what kicks off the love of conversations.

[01:32:22]

Perhaps.

[01:32:22]

I've never done that.

[01:32:24]

I have. I'm not gonna go back and listen. And there's a hundred at this point conversations about Cedar point again. I got it. I'm. Congratulations, Alex Cooper. Fuck you, de Castro. And fuck you, Cedar Point.

[01:32:36]

Oh, my God.

[01:32:37]

The amount that I publicize Cedar point and they have not reached out to give me free passes for my family because I'm struggling.

[01:32:46]

Yeah.

[01:32:46]

Because I'm.

[01:32:47]

You don't deserve free passes. Every time you go on now, you say you want to go and you want to take a private jet. There.

[01:32:55]

That's my new thing.

[01:32:55]

Which, by the way, your feet are not on the ground anymore.

[01:32:59]

I'm not gonna ever do that. It's just a funny fantasy. In fact, it's more fun to have that fantasy than it would be to do that, obviously, cuz I'd be on the plane. Like, this is a waste of money.

[01:33:10]

I mean, this is so stupid.

[01:33:12]

Oh, it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:33:13]

But if it was real.

[01:33:14]

If it was real. But. But the fantasy of it is fantastic. Like maybe even wear a suit on the way there.

[01:33:22]

Yeah. I mean, sure.

[01:33:24]

David Letterman would be so mad if you did that.

[01:33:26]

Because I wore a suit for that and dinner party. Oh, right.

[01:33:32]

So it's so rude. Anyway, I'm not gonna do it, but.

[01:33:38]

I might do it.

[01:33:39]

Okay.

[01:33:40]

I have to say I might do it so that the fantasy works.

[01:33:42]

I get it. I get it.

[01:33:43]

You can't say like if I win the lottery. But you don't buy a lottery to. You still gotta buy the lottery.

[01:33:46]

That's right. But making it clear, I don't think you should get a free tickets. I think they should save the free tickets for fins or a child in need.

[01:33:59]

Let's get the orphans.

[01:34:00]

Yeah, they might.

[01:34:01]

They might already do that.

[01:34:02]

Yeah, I hope they probably don't. Well, but they might.

[01:34:06]

Orphans aren't well organized as a, like, voting block. I know.

[01:34:10]

They need foster care that you said you were gonna take on as your. Cause.

[01:34:14]

I know.

[01:34:15]

How far are you really throwing daggers?

[01:34:20]

Just got very cruel.

[01:34:23]

Okay, but let me tell you something. Six flags was so fun.

[01:34:27]

Yeah, tell me about it. What was the best ride?

[01:34:30]

Well, Batman was my favorite.

[01:34:31]

Okay, well, you know, I am saying. Okay. Cause they have that at this Six Flags. They have Superman and Batman.

[01:34:40]

Yes, they have both is so different.

[01:34:44]

I guarantee.

[01:34:45]

Do they have. What's it called?

[01:34:50]

Raging Bull.

[01:34:51]

No. Riddler's revenge.

[01:34:53]

No. Do they have the viper?

[01:34:56]

Yeah.

[01:34:56]

No, they don't.

[01:34:57]

Yes, they do.

[01:34:58]

They have the viper that goes one way and then circles back to the.

[01:35:01]

I'm going to read you the list of roller coasters at the.

[01:35:04]

I think Chicago had that one.

[01:35:05]

Do they have the Georgia coaster.

[01:35:07]

Six flags is McDonald's. Cedar points is Emmy Burger.

[01:35:10]

Oh, gross.

[01:35:12]

So you know what would be funny is I don't get free tickets from Cedar Point, but I get a Caesar.

[01:35:15]

I love McDonald's.

[01:35:16]

And desist. I do, too. I love it so much. I love it.

[01:35:20]

Send. This is from who?

[01:35:21]

From Six Flags. So what would be funny is I don't get any free passes from Cedar point, but I do get sued by for deformation for Six Flags.

[01:35:27]

They don't need to because I'm here to stick up for six flags.

[01:35:31]

Everyone should go to Six Flags. But I do want to get the list of co six flags.

[01:35:36]

What's it even called, this one?

[01:35:38]

American eagle.

[01:35:39]

That's Magic Mountain.

[01:35:41]

Not the same as Six Flags over Georgia.

[01:35:43]

No, I know. Did you have the american eagle at the Georgia one? That was the big, like, Chicago ride.

[01:35:49]

No, we didn't have.

[01:35:49]

That one's cool. That's the one that's in vacation. That's the white wooden one.

[01:35:53]

Yeah. Yeah.

[01:35:54]

That's like the Gemini at Cedar Point. Best amusement park in the world.

[01:35:58]

Oh, I'm so annoyed we're still talking about this. Okay, let me look at Six Flags over Georgia. All rides. Oh, first one, that.

[01:36:04]

Okay, here's. You want to hear what they have there?

[01:36:07]

Yeah.

[01:36:08]

They have the riddle killer's revenge Tatsu, Wonder Woman, twisted Colossus. Six flags. That's the great american, I think. I think they call it Colossus at Magic Mountain.

[01:36:20]

Yeah, I think so.

[01:36:21]

New revolution superman, viper, apocalypse, Batman, Magic flyer, gold rusher, full throttle, Roadrunner Express. Gold rusher. I already read that one. But they separated it. One was a compound word, and this one separated Goliath. Scream x two, canyon blaster, Cyclone Ninja, Green Lantern, Goliath flashback, canyon Blaster.

[01:36:54]

Okay, what was the Riddler one?

[01:36:56]

Riddler's revenge.

[01:36:57]

Okay, so these are all different because we have Batman, the ride. We have acrophobia. Huge ride.

[01:37:10]

So apocalypse.

[01:37:12]

Apocalypse.

[01:37:13]

Well, they got one here called apocalypse.

[01:37:14]

No, we don't have that.

[01:37:15]

Just, like, drop one.

[01:37:17]

Oh, like the demon drop.

[01:37:19]

Exactly. That's my whole point.

[01:37:20]

That they're all the same.

[01:37:21]

Yes, that what's at Cedar point is at Six Flags.

[01:37:26]

How dare you?

[01:37:27]

Okay, and you've also said it about rob six flags. Yeah, that's like this at Cedar Point. It's all the same.

[01:37:34]

Well, I mean, the joke's on me because Six Flags bought Cedar Point. You know that, right?

[01:37:40]

I didn't.

[01:37:40]

That just happened.

[01:37:41]

You've been keeping that silent.

[01:37:43]

It's very new.

[01:37:44]

Wow.

[01:37:45]

You know, and certainly now they're not gonna send me free tickets.

[01:37:49]

Okay, you know what? Um. You know what? Six Flags magic Mountain or whatever it doesn't have Georgia Scorcher.

[01:37:57]

Yeah.

[01:37:58]

Doesn't have that.

[01:37:59]

That'd be crazy.

[01:37:59]

That was.

[01:38:00]

That was the one.

[01:38:01]

A great ride.

[01:38:02]

What happens there? Is it metal? Is it steel?

[01:38:04]

You put your feet to the fire. It's upside down. Some. They're all. So many are upside down.

[01:38:14]

Care about upside down, if I'm being honest.

[01:38:17]

Yeah, I used to. I mean, I probably don't.

[01:38:20]

Oh, it would fuck you up.

[01:38:21]

Yeah, probably.

[01:38:22]

You know, my. You remember my story with Carly?

[01:38:25]

Yeah. Yeah.

[01:38:26]

Oh, interesting. It was just the anniversary of that terrible day because her birthday was two days ago. Oh.

[01:38:30]

Yeah.

[01:38:31]

You know, we rode out there on the Harley. We were gonna have the best day of our lives. Took one ride. And we had to sit on the grass for, like, an hour and a half because we were so sick. And then finally we got back on the motorcycle and drove home defeated. It was. What a disaster.

[01:38:45]

That is a disaster.

[01:38:47]

It's embarrassing. Really embarrassed.

[01:38:51]

Also, we had the scream machine. That was huge. That was probably like your great american scream machine was.

[01:38:58]

It looks just like the american eagle.

[01:39:00]

Okay. And then, like, the one you had at Cedar Point.

[01:39:03]

No.

[01:39:03]

Yeah. You already told him that it was the Gemini.

[01:39:08]

Greatest roller coaster in the history of roller coaster.

[01:39:10]

So anyway, I think it's. It's a little like. I hate to say it. It's a little like little brother energy.

[01:39:18]

What is Cedar Point? Little brother Energy?

[01:39:22]

What are you talking about? We gotta talk about Cedar Point all the time.

[01:39:25]

Oh, wow. Also, is little brother energy a thing, or did you just invent.

[01:39:30]

I invented flightless bird Rhode island episode, because I think Rhode island has little brother energy, and I'm really grossed out by little brother Energy.

[01:39:41]

You are?

[01:39:42]

I am.

[01:39:42]

You must be grossed out by me because I'm a little brother.

[01:39:45]

No, it's not.

[01:39:46]

I'm a baby. Little brother. I'm a baby bluva.

[01:39:49]

It doesn't.

[01:39:50]

It's your baby. Dax. Hi, David. Can we go to Cedar Point?

[01:39:55]

Oh, my God.

[01:39:55]

Baby buffer.

[01:39:57]

Oh, that's cute. Listen, it's.

[01:40:00]

It's not 49 now. Still your baby buffer.

[01:40:07]

It doesn't actually equate to if you're a baby brother or a little brother. It's an energy.

[01:40:12]

Beta energy is what you're talking about.

[01:40:14]

I think it's not. It's approving yourself energy, and it is uncomp. Like, my brother's a little brother, but he has zero little brother energy. He could give a fuck. He does not want to. He has no lbe. Yep. Anyway, well, so. Okay, so the Scoville scale, we talked about that for a second. People know this, probably, but it's. It's a measurement of pungency, spiciness, or heat. Heat of chili peppers and other substances.

[01:40:50]

This isn't gonna shock you, but I don't fully embrace the Scoville system.

[01:40:54]

Why?

[01:40:55]

Because I've done hot ones.

[01:40:57]

Right.

[01:40:58]

I've also gotten, like, Carolina Reaper. I've gotten the chips that are this.

[01:41:02]

Yeah.

[01:41:03]

And so often I'm like, well, that's interesting. The one that was half on the skull system was hotter. And everyone agrees. This is really weird. Everyone agrees. Oh, that second to last one's the hottest on hot ones. Yeah. It's like, you know, a 500,000 less on the Scoville. And I'm like, so I guess in my experience, it's not.

[01:41:22]

Well, he says, the host of hot ones, he's so cool.

[01:41:26]

He is the greatest. We should. We should have him on Shawn Evans. Sean Evans.

[01:41:31]

Sean. The host of hot Ones says it's actually because it hits in different parts of the mouth and throat and stuff. So sometimes, even if it's lessen the place it hits, your body reacts more intensely.

[01:41:44]

Exactly. Like, I do believe there is some chemical they mix with this thing that reproduces a metric, and I do believe that is all correct. But I don't know that that chemical compound they use to evaluate it is perfectly paralleling the human experience with it.

[01:42:02]

Yeah, I get that. Okay, I'm gonna read a little bit.

[01:42:04]

Okay.

[01:42:04]

The scale is named after its creator, America. Oh. Also recorded in Scoville heat units. Shu. That seems like that would be on trivia.

[01:42:13]

Shu. Shu.

[01:42:14]

People can remember that it's based on the concentration of capsaicinoids. Capsaicinoids. Capsaicinoids.

[01:42:24]

When you do that sometimes, you know what it reminds me of, little brother, in a way. Spelling bee contestants. Shouldn't they say the same? They're like haberdashery. Habadashery. They'll, like, say it. Yeah, kind of Tourette Lee while they're working out habitat origin.

[01:42:45]

B.

[01:42:46]

And then they'll ask a question, like iteration. You know, whatever the fuck you say.

[01:42:49]

Definition. Maybe they get.

[01:42:51]

They get a definition. They can also find out the history, origin. But that has a name.

[01:42:55]

Well, place of origin is important because of the way you speak. Spell things.

[01:43:00]

Sure. Tire in England. Tire.

[01:43:03]

Tire.

[01:43:04]

You know, these fucking brick.

[01:43:05]

Why re. That was on. That's crazy. That was on. A crossword I did the other day, like, two days ago, and I don't do crosswords that often.

[01:43:13]

I think they spell leader wrong, too. I think it might be l I T R E, probably.

[01:43:18]

Yeah.

[01:43:20]

Okay.

[01:43:20]

Scoville. Okay, you.

[01:43:22]

Capsaicinoids, among which capsaicin. I'm probably saying wrong. Capsaicin is the predominant component. So that's what they're measuring.

[01:43:29]

Yeah. Concentration of capsaicin.

[01:43:33]

Capsaicin, it's really hard. If you saw this. C a p s a I c I n. You.

[01:43:41]

You lost me so long ago, I can't even visualize what that was. Yeah.

[01:43:44]

Oh.

[01:43:45]

An alternative method, high performance liquid chromatography. HPLC, can be used to analytically quantify the capsaicinoid content as an indicator of pungency. Okay, so that's a competitor, like Six Flags and.

[01:43:59]

Yeah.

[01:44:00]

What's it called? Cedar point.

[01:44:01]

How dare you? You're a piece of. You. A piece of shit. Energy, if I can say it. You have pose.

[01:44:11]

Oh, that sounds like PCos, which I do think I have. I don't, but I. PCOS, it's a polycystic ovarian syndrome.

[01:44:18]

Oh, well, that came right off the tongue for you.

[01:44:23]

Yeah, it did. I know a lot about it. Sweet bell pepper. Zero on the scale.

[01:44:27]

Okay.

[01:44:28]

And then pure capsaicin is 16 million.

[01:44:33]

Oh, okay. I want to try that.

[01:44:35]

So a habanero is 300,000. Carolina reaper, 2.1 million.

[01:44:40]

2.1 mil.

[01:44:42]

Okay. Pepper spray is 5 million.

[01:44:44]

Oh, yeah.

[01:44:46]

I am. I feel very fortunate. I have two things I feel very fortunate about today. One is I've never been sprayed with pepper spray. I hope to make it through my whole life without bad experience. Number two, I'm applying for global entry.

[01:45:00]

Aha.

[01:45:02]

And the fact that I haven't been arrested is almost impossible.

[01:45:08]

It is.

[01:45:09]

I can't even believe, because I even my own mind, I had to really, like. I know it sounds crazy. I had to really think about. I've certainly had a ton of interaction with police. I've been in the back of police cars.

[01:45:19]

Right.

[01:45:20]

I've been questioned by the police. They came to mind high school once to talk to me. They came to my front yard to talk to me, and I didn't ever get arrested.

[01:45:29]

Wow.

[01:45:29]

And it's. I can't believe I got out of all that addiction without being arrested. This is so lucky.

[01:45:35]

So lucky. And fights and stuff.

[01:45:37]

Oh, my God. So many fights. Yeah. It's crazy. Crazy.

[01:45:42]

Hello?

[01:45:43]

David, it's for Will Barbara. I'm 50 years old today. Still your will buffer.

[01:45:51]

He sounds kind of like.

[01:45:52]

Oh, God on my tombstone it's gonna say, here, wise widow buffer.

[01:45:56]

Oh, that's sad. There's been too much death talk lately.

[01:46:02]

Okay, let's talk about some births.

[01:46:04]

Okay.

[01:46:05]

Hello.

[01:46:05]

It's Bob.

[01:46:06]

Is that what you were thinking? It was similar to hello, it's Bob.

[01:46:11]

No.

[01:46:11]

Do we have any money?

[01:46:12]

No. It sounded like our friend.

[01:46:15]

Oh, Hermione Permanente.

[01:46:17]

Yes. Sounded a little permanent.

[01:46:18]

Permian talks like this.

[01:46:20]

Oh, yeah.

[01:46:20]

He's not a little brother. He's the only child. He sings.

[01:46:25]

Yeah.

[01:46:26]

I never met any of my family members, Miss Monica. That's why you're my mom, Becca. You're such a good mom. Happy birthday to you. Aw.

[01:46:38]

Thank you.

[01:46:39]

Heard you turned 37 years old.

[01:46:40]

She really doesn't let anyone else talk, does he?

[01:46:43]

He has social awkwardness and developmental things. Oh, and you're shining a big old light on it now. He wants to retreat into his apartment. Might not come up for a couple weeks. That's okay. I got television and streaming services. There's an incredible documentary about chimpanzees. I'm thinking about getting one myself. Jesus.

[01:47:05]

Oh, my God.

[01:47:06]

Okay, Miss Monica, you ever been a theater point?

[01:47:22]

You do have little brother energy. I love Hermione. We haven't seen him in a while.

[01:47:30]

Yeah.

[01:47:31]

Has he been all right?

[01:47:32]

It's hard for me to come out in the summertime. It's awfully hot outside. I like to stay inside. The AC condition. I think it's the greatest invention of all time. That ice cold air blowing at you. Look out the window. People are sweating. Not you. You're inside watching your chimp documentary thinking about getting one yourself.

[01:47:51]

I just want to say, just. Just as his mother, that he needs to be a little careful saying that there's an invention that's better than what the robot has invented. Okay. Cuz he might get upset.

[01:48:04]

Oh, my robot friend.

[01:48:05]

Yeah.

[01:48:05]

What did he invent?

[01:48:06]

He claims stuff. I don't know if it's real.

[01:48:10]

Okay.

[01:48:11]

But he's confronted.

[01:48:13]

Tell me more.

[01:48:14]

Well, has any to us?

[01:48:16]

I love to learn. Miss Monica. Don't worry. I'm not like that other man. Frito. I'm not gonna say anything weird.

[01:48:25]

That's fair. Thank you. Oh, no. I see him coming. I see see him.

[01:48:29]

Knock, knock is Miss Monica.

[01:48:33]

Ew.

[01:48:34]

I need a mommy too. For all my feelings. I'm hungry.

[01:48:42]

Should we stop?

[01:48:45]

What if I got into some weird.

[01:48:46]

Do you ever worry you couldn't stop?

[01:48:49]

But what yet? Do you ever worry that like maybe I'll go into some crazy schizophrenic loop where all the characters will be talking. And then you'll have to run outside and you'll, like, get my family to come in and try. Everyone will be screaming at me, but I can't get out of the loop. Does that ever cross your mind?

[01:49:07]

Yeah.

[01:49:07]

Okay, you know who hasn't been here in so long? But now we're doing it, so let's get them all out of the closet. Monica, I heard you're about to put on some muscle mass. Get some quadriceps and some triceps and some latissimus.

[01:49:23]

Oh, my God.

[01:49:24]

Are you gonna get the pump? You know, when I get the pump, it feels like coming.

[01:49:29]

Ew.

[01:49:29]

That's a direct quote, Monica. It's from the documentary.

[01:49:35]

You crossed the line.

[01:49:37]

That is his words. I didn't. That's not me. I'm just reporting the news as it comes in.

[01:49:43]

Can I do some facts on.

[01:49:45]

Yeah.

[01:49:45]

Okay. You said other countries. In other countries, people aren't getting married. So I wanted to do some marriage rates by country.

[01:49:53]

That's a fun exercise.

[01:49:54]

What do you think's the lowest? Well, this is interesting.

[01:49:57]

I think my guess is either gonna be New Zealand or, like, some of these scandinavian countries.

[01:50:04]

It's Qatar. I'm surprised.

[01:50:07]

Well, and I might get in trouble suggesting this one guy's snatching up, like, all the wives and a ton of the men are going unmarried. Okay, so that could be skewing the data.

[01:50:19]

Okay. Venezuela is 96.

[01:50:24]

96 what?

[01:50:26]

Percent on 99. Like I'm on. There's. This is the list. Okay. This is number of marriages per 1000 population per year by country. This is from the Economist.

[01:50:38]

I gotta add one thing.

[01:50:39]

Okay.

[01:50:40]

When we're looking at data, clearly this data could be reflective, too, of how young a population is, right? Like, if you like, Japan has a very old population, and obviously older people are married at a higher rate than younger people. This is like, could be confusing, but go ahead.

[01:50:54]

Yeah. The United States is 44th on the list. It's 5.1 marriage rate per.

[01:51:03]

What was it?

[01:51:04]

Per thousand?

[01:51:05]

Only five people per. A thousand are married per year.

[01:51:08]

Per year.

[01:51:08]

Oh, that's not gonna count. Your previously married.

[01:51:11]

Okay, so it's just the current rate I got you.

[01:51:15]

Five people get married per year out of every thousand. Okay. It seems low, doesn't it?

[01:51:20]

It does seem low. Palestine is number one at ten. So it's not like, crazy. Nothing is crazy.

[01:51:27]

So that's got the highest rate of marriage.

[01:51:29]

Yes.

[01:51:29]

Palestine.

[01:51:30]

Yeah.

[01:51:30]

Okay.

[01:51:31]

Okay.

[01:51:32]

And what was the last place.

[01:51:33]

Last place is Qatar. 1.4.

[01:51:36]

Okay.

[01:51:37]

Yeah. Interesting.

[01:51:39]

Where's Kiwi Ville? In there.

[01:51:41]

Okay. New Zealand is United Kingdom. Lower than the US.

[01:51:47]

I believe that.

[01:51:49]

Germany. Germany.

[01:51:50]

I hate to say this.

[01:51:51]

Japan, 4.1. Lower.

[01:51:54]

But again, because this is rape.

[01:51:56]

Oh, yeah.

[01:51:57]

So that totally makes sense.

[01:51:59]

New Zealand's or six.

[01:52:02]

What number on the list?

[01:52:03]

70.

[01:52:04]

70, okay. Do you see any of those scandinavian countries?

[01:52:08]

Norway, 71.

[01:52:10]

Okay.

[01:52:11]

Sweden, 68.

[01:52:13]

Okay, who's 69?

[01:52:15]

And that's 3.869. South Korea.

[01:52:17]

Congrats. South Korea.

[01:52:18]

Congrats. Alex Cooper.

[01:52:20]

Congrats. Fuck you, Steve de Castro. Fuck you. Cedar pine. You can't even say it.

[01:52:27]

See?

[01:52:27]

See?

[01:52:28]

Okay. Anyway, and you're right there. A lot of the european ones are less than America, but America's still halfway.

[01:52:36]

Like, I hate to say this, people are gonna be very mad that I say this. Say this is a married person. I do think it'll evolve away from it.

[01:52:44]

I think we're evolving away from it.

[01:52:46]

Yeah. So I think, like, when you look at these countries that are more progressive, you're seeing.

[01:52:50]

But you like marriage?

[01:52:51]

I love it. Yeah.

[01:52:52]

You say you're for it, but again.

[01:52:54]

This gets into Christmas and all these different things, which is, do I like marriage? I don't know. Do I like partnerships and kids? Do I like families? Yeah. Do they need to go to the courthouse and make it official? I don't have. No, I don't care about that. What's there? Design. I don't care about that. What is that?

[01:53:11]

I don't know.

[01:53:12]

It.

[01:53:12]

I don't think.

[01:53:13]

What was the teen witch thing? It was, um.

[01:53:16]

Sabrina.

[01:53:17]

No, there was a earlier thing that you would know because you're closer to Carly. Although Carly is older than you. You're gonna miss.

[01:53:24]

Top that.

[01:53:25]

Yes, top that. Top that. I don't give up about that.

[01:53:30]

I don't know that.

[01:53:31]

It was like a song they sang.

[01:53:32]

Teen witch, 1920 1989 movie.

[01:53:34]

Teen witch, 1989. Top that. Top that. I don't give up about that.

[01:53:39]

And they blanked it, bleeped it like that.

[01:53:42]

Teenage witches. It wasn't adult witches. Adult witches are nasty.

[01:53:46]

Hey, hey.

[01:53:49]

Ding, ding, ding.

[01:53:50]

That same guy.

[01:53:52]

We should just air it after this.

[01:53:54]

No, they have to hang tight. Okay.

[01:53:57]

I was pretty quick on the fire.

[01:53:58]

Bobby just Google got lucky.

[01:54:01]

No, you was only two years old when that came out. Just a little bubba.

[01:54:08]

Oh, oh, okay, the code you were talking about. Abba.

[01:54:12]

Left, right, left, right, up, down, up, down, left. Wait, left, right, left, right, up, down, up, down. Abba.

[01:54:20]

Okay, so there's a few codes. Konami code Konami code is commonly referred to as the contra code and sometimes the 30 lives code is a cheat code that appears in many Konami video games as well as some non Konami games. The code has also found a place in popular culture as a reference to the third generation of video game consoles and is present as an Easter egg on a number of websites. In the original code, the player has to press the following sequence of buttons on the game controller to enable a cheat or other effect. This is up, up down down, left right, left right. BA sometimes start and select is added to the sequence.

[01:55:02]

Oh wow. My contra code was definitely Abba, but maybe just the ab is what triggered it. And the BA was auxiliary and not necessary. And then I would hit select. What a. The first time you do that, it's unreal. You've been playing this game. You can't get through it. You have three lives. Hit that code and you're like, oh, I can breathe.

[01:55:25]

Eddie Murphy was on SNL 19.

[01:55:28]

That's crazy.

[01:55:29]

That is crazy also. Yeah. So Matt Damon was doing Bourne during the avatar ask.

[01:55:38]

Okay.

[01:55:39]

So he would have had to leave them.

[01:55:41]

Okay.

[01:55:42]

He just has too much integrity. My God. Okay. Dietrich furs.

[01:55:48]

D trick furs.

[01:55:50]

Yeah, it's still working.

[01:55:52]

It's still up and running.

[01:55:53]

Up and running the website. Michigan's only. It's since 1893.

[01:55:59]

That's pretty awesome.

[01:56:00]

Yeah. Legendary warmth.

[01:56:03]

They're gonna be having their 150th anniversary here in a sec. They're older than Ford.

[01:56:08]

It's pretty cool.

[01:56:10]

So as, so far as furs are cool, I mean, it's cool to have.

[01:56:14]

A business that lasts that long.

[01:56:16]

Absolutely.

[01:56:17]

Also, real quick, we talked about Veep and we shot baby director on the veep set. Oh yeah, we went to the veep.

[01:56:25]

Set because Morgan was working on it.

[01:56:27]

Yeah.

[01:56:27]

Yeah.

[01:56:28]

Which is really funny.

[01:56:29]

Yeah. Like the president's room, the Oval Office.

[01:56:33]

She was the president for a second. I'd love to dust that off. See that little baby? Well, he talked about auditioning for the CB's showcase.

[01:56:47]

Mm hmm.

[01:56:47]

I also did that.

[01:56:49]

Yeah, I did it too.

[01:56:50]

And it was when you come back, like, come back and you have to do an indian character. Oh, and an accent.

[01:57:01]

What year was that?

[01:57:02]

You. Fuck you, girl. Fuck you, Steve de Castro. Fuck you, Cedar princess. It would have been God, I guess it would have been 2011 or twelve ish, probably.

[01:57:16]

Okay. Mine might have been the ABC showcase. I'm not sure. It was one of the network showcases I got to just do because they came to the groundlings. And saw me and then invited me to do it. So I got to just do a sketch that Josh and I had that had been running for a long time.

[01:57:31]

Oh, that's fun.

[01:57:32]

Yeah, it was very fun because I was the only one in there that did something that I had written.

[01:57:37]

Yeah.

[01:57:37]

Took great pride in that. I didn't get anything out of it, but it was fun to be invited. It was called let's Dance and ding Ding. It's two guys, like, at a club, and somehow they're, like, overly macho, and then they're kind of getting into it, and then somehow it turns out they both would love to dance with one another.

[01:58:02]

Thank God.

[01:58:05]

It was great one we ever wrote.

[01:58:08]

Um, all right, well, that's it for Sam. What a nice boy.

[01:58:13]

Love him.

[01:58:14]

Great time.

[01:58:14]

Yeah. He's so fucking funny.

[01:58:16]

He really is. I can't wait to keep watching him.

[01:58:19]

All right, love you.

[01:58:20]

Love you.

[01:58:33]

Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry. Survey.