Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Minnie Mouse.

Hi there.

This is a gentleman I've been wanting to have on for quite some time. I find him so funny. Very funny. Sebastian Manescalco. Sebastian Manescalco is a record-breaking stand-up comedian and actor. He's got a hit show. He's got a world-record-setting comedy tour. He's a beast. He's at the top of the pyramid for stand-ups.

So fun.

So fun. And boy, did I get to experience his hysterical... Just the moment in this episode when he goes, What's with the spray? I was like, Oh, I got menoscalcoed. Yeah, you did. His credits include Bookie, If unfrosted, out right now, the Super Mario Brothers movie, Somewhere in Queens. He has a new tour starting in July. You have to go see him live. The tour is called It Ain't Right, and you can get tickets for that at sebastionlive. Com. Now, also before we go, we have Armchair Anonymous prompts.

We got a big batch. This is covering two months time.

So buckle up, get a pen and paper. One of these prompts may apply to you. They are as follows. Tell us your best dad story. Now, we've been collecting dad stories as we get other stories. In fact, we met two gals that had the same dad.

That was so fun.

Both stories crazy. So in It's time for Father's Day, tell us your best dad story. Tell us your best parent-teacher conference story.

Is that from teachers or parents or either?

I think it could go either way. If something insane happened at a parent-teacher conference and you were a parent, that would be fine, too. Great. Yeah, if the teacher you were talking to was smoking a doobie during it or something, who knows what could happen.

Fingers crossed.

Tell us about an embarrassing sex experience. Sorry, guys. Still a pervert. Tell us about a near-death experience. Tell us about a time you pooped yourself. Tell us a crazy beach story, Summer's upon us.

Summer time.

We want to get in the mood with some crazy beach stories. If you have a crazy story for any one of those prompts, please go to armcherexpertpod. Com and submit your story. We would love to talk to you about it. Please enjoy Sebastian. He's an armchair expert. He's an How are you, brother? Good to meet you. Nice to see you, man. How are you? What a sexy machine you brought over here.

Oh, yeah, that's my sexy machine.

What do you think of that?

I've had it for a while. It's been 17. I got two small kids.

Seven years? Yeah. I feel like that's responsible for a man of your means. You and I both know you could have any number of vehicles.

I'm a modest man. Are you? Yeah. I don't like to buy a lot. I like to do experiences. That's good.

Was that learned or that's your natural disposition? I grew up... Next to Rob and Rob.

Hometown, northwest suburbs of Arlington Heights.

Everyone will think you're from Queens. That's got to be a common... Common. Yeah. But that's the Italianness in you, right? That's the immigrant dad.

Yeah, he's staying with me right now for 10 days. Where do you live? I live in Los Angeles.

Oh, okay. I can't believe I've never bumped into you in my life. I know, man.

Well, I...

Go ahead. Are you on the West? You know where there could have been an incredible bump in? Now that I've learned about you? I could have been at a Junket at the Four Seasons. You could have. In your... What would we call that? Your duration there.

My time frame. Yes.

'90s. Because you were there in 2005. Yeah.

You lived at the Four Seasons?

He was a waiter at the Four Seasons.

Oh, great.

I knew you would like that detail.

I do love that.

Seven years I was there.

Seven years. Okay, but besides that, that's a possibility. Because first movie I was ever in came out 2004. So I did do some junkets there.

Was it- Without a Paddle.

Without a Paddle.

When was the Dane Cook movie?

That was '06.

'06. Okay, so around that time.

Yeah. Okay, back to you by experience Did you have to learn that? Did you go buy a bunch of flashy shit and then go, Yeah.

No, no, no. That was just upbringing. Because in my world, I always think it's going away.

Well, my therapy this morning was singularly about When will the amount of money happen where I'm not terrified? Because I've passed the number. I told myself I would not be terrified anymore many times, and then nothing's helping.

Do you have that? Yeah. So are you ever content? Are you ever satisfied with where you are at professionally? Or is it just a game? We just got to get the next podcast out before people don't think we're around anymore? Before they realize.

Even deeper.

They catch us.

Before they realize we eat shit. And I don't deserve their attention. Yeah, it's hard. I bet you and I have some of the same scar tissue as well because you were out here for a fucking minute, as was I. I moved here in '95, and that first movie we're talking about is 2004. When you're 20, and that's a third of your life, you're not getting shit done. It's scarring.

No, it is. Is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? You go through all those different ups and downs as you're building it. But once you get to a certain level and you're like, Okay, I'm here. Now what? What are we doing here? What's the game? I got two small kids. I got a six-year-old. I got a four-year-old. If I keep doing this the way I'm doing, am I going to look back when they're 19 years old going, What was I doing in Montana?

Yeah, why you do 200 dates?

It's a struggle I deal with.

I think it's harder for you. It has to be harder for you because implicit in your job is you're traveling. This is a hack. It's in my backyard. I don't even have to go on a movie set anymore. I have two little kids. I imagine it weighs on you. It does.

Doing this, we're going to get into the Jordans, too, because I have a whole thing on Jordans. Okay, great. I can't wait to hear it. As long as we're there, it just popped in my head. I addressed this about two months ago. How old is too old to be wearing Jordans?

By the way, we had this debate about twelve episodes ago. Oh, you did? When do I look like a fucking dumb ass? Already? Maybe you'll answer this for me, but is that what your inquiry was as well?

I'm 50.

Yeah, I'm 49.

Okay, so what are those? The fours?

Two, three, three, three. Okay.

I grew up in Chicago, so I had a pair of Jordans when I was in sixth grade. Fifty bucks.

Used off a truck.

Oh, this was- They were 100.

We're the same age. When you go to Foot Locker, they were 100. In fact- Were they 100? Yes. In my very first pair were fives, and they were 110. My mother said, I'll only get those for you if you can talk the guy down to $99 at Foot Locker, which they don't even fucking do. But I had to do that, and I did.

I don't know if 50 is hanging in my head for some reason.

That's so low, Sebastian.

For 19 what?

Well, I guess you're comparing '86 or I don't know. Tell me, what year is sixth grade for you?

Jordans came out in 1986.

Well, I'll go with that. Sure. My first pair was 93, so I guess they could have done. But boy, that would be something.

Okay, 50 bucks. I'm sticking with it.

We'll do some fact checking later.

Okay, 50 bucks. I have two pairs of Jordans. One I got as a gift.

Currently, not back in '86. Currently, right now.

I'm looking at myself in these things and I'm going, 50, you're like a grown individual. You have kids. Should you be walking around?

In sixth grade shoes.

In children's shoes. Yeah, children's gym shoes. I'm assuming neither of us play much basketball.

I don't play basketball.

No.

I came across these. These are Jordans.

Okay.

These are cool.

These are Jordans 23.

All Meaning the year 23 or his number?

This is the 23rd Jordan they put out.

That feels important because his number was 23.

You would think. But the guy I got these from Joe over a complex sneakers, or complex, not sneakers, whatever it is.

Some cool place.

Cafeteria. Complex cafeteria.

He's the shoe guy. That's all the interviews with Joe.

Yeah, I've seen it. I saw Ben and Matt were on it. It was cool. Okay, great.

I go, Where does he land in the world of sneaker has. He's like, not too many people have those because they're ugly.

Okay, wow.

I said, let me have them. This is perfect for me. Because I don't want to walk around with what everybody's got. That's my story on my particular pair of Jordans.

Yeah, terminal uniqueness.Ugly.Yeah. It's better to be in something ugly but be the only one in it. That's it.Not.

A bad approach.That's.

My take.

That's my approach to cars, not Not specifically ugly, but I got to be in something different. I can't be in a 911 at a street light looking next to me and there's an agent in front of me with one and the director behind me has got one. I don't like it.

Okay, now, I don't know if I could talk about what I saw when I pulled up in your driveway. Please do. There is a, I don't know what you call it, but it looks like it's an off-road vehicle.

Oh, yeah, there's a four-seater Razor right there.

Now, are you the type that's got to get all the shiny shit?

Yeah. Yes, okay, so Where you and I differ is that I didn't get those fucking Jordans in sixth grade. I got them in 11th grade when I had to haggle down the price. So I covered them. There were four years where I wanted them so bad. So I'm in Detroit doing an interview 12 years ago, and I'm I'm walking to a guy and, God damn it, he's wearing brand new fours. And I'm like, Holy shit, did you keep those that nice? And he goes, No, man, they sell them. I go, They sell the 93? He goes, Yeah. And I'm like, How much are those? He's like, They're 130 bucks. I'm Oh, my God, I've got 130 bucks. I'm like, You bought them on the internet? I bought them in the interview. In the rush of poor kid done good was so euphoric that I was off to the races. Then every month I had to buy a pair because there's so many good ones. Now, two things. I don't want you to file me into a category of spendthrift.

Spendthrift, yeah.

Spendthrift, because I'm not. I'm actually really frugal. I got to make a lot of money to let some go.

But cars are also his thing.

I'm from It's all I give a fuck. The only reason I try to make money is for cars. I don't give a fuck about this house other than I can park my bus out front. You got a bus? Did you see when you pulled in? No. You got hung up on the off-row vehicle. There's a tour bus in the front yard. I didn't see the tour bus. We'll go through it on your way out.

Where does that come from?

I go to the Sand Dunes. You saw the vehicle, always rented motorhomes, got to rent one, got to get a buddy to drive the trailer out. I got to pack the shit all the time. We go four times a year. I need a fucking bus. The one thing you're worried about money. It's true.

That's very astute.

On this side, I'll tell you a percentage of my income I'm actually spending. You might feel better. It's gross to say, but no, I got to have a lot of safety, and then I'll go and splurge. But increasingly, that's why I asked if you came to it, because I have now come to it, which is really all I want is trips with my family. That's all I'm going to remember. That's the only thing that's actually pleasurable. The bus is pleasurable, but the family's in it. We're out two weeks every summer. We're driving around country in the bus. So it works out. Okay, back to where did I want to go back to? Will dad staying here, how often is he out?

Comes maybe two or three times a year. 77 years old. He wants to come, enjoy his grandkids. My sister's out here. She's got three kids, so he's really enjoying his time.

And he moved here when he was 15 from Italy. Yeah. And he's a hairdresser. He's a hairdresser. So that, to me, I've got an image of a '70s, '80s in Chicago hairdresser. Is there some natural flamboyance?

No. Growing up, he was bald with a ponytail.

Oh, that's a love.

That might have been a giveaway. He always dressed like he was going to a funeral. So always in black, but very stylish. I borrowed my dad's clothes growing up. It's not like I had one of these dads who was a square.

But I am wondering because so much of your comedy is about your dad. First of all, I'm a huge fan. I just love your shit. Also, I grew up on Dice, and I missed the Dice energy so much. You certainly have some of that Dice energy I love. But so much of your comedy is about your dad. Weirdly enough, when I did stand up, most of mine was about my dad. I just know that had I gotten huge doing comedy, he would have loved it. He would have wanted to come experience it a little bit. Does your dad like the fact that he's so present in your comedy? He loves the fact that he's a staple in the act.

He also loves the residual effect that's having on his life. Since he's so prevalent on my Instagram and what have you, he gets noticed a lot. He actually gets upset when he feels like somebody recognizes him and they don't come up to him.

Listeners, if you ever see him, please go up.

Yeah, you'd be inconveniencing him by not interrupting his dinner.

He told me he was at the airport on his way over, and he's like, I noticed a couple looking at me, and I was upset that they didn't approach.

I'm proud of you that you give that to your dad generously, and it's not a complex situation. So my dad left when I was three. As I got famous, he was enjoying, too. I called him one time out of nowhere, middle of the day on a Wednesday, he picks up the phone and he goes, Oh, good. Tell this woman who you are. Hands the phone to a stranger. Who's this? No, who's this? I go, Dax. She goes, No way. And I go, Okay, can you give the phone back to my dad? Yeah. Good thing you called. I'm in an argument with this woman at the Walmart checkout. She says, You're not my son. I go, You're in the middle of the afternoon at Walmart having to fight with a woman about whether or not I'm your son. I got the show biz bug from him. He would have loved to have done this. I had a hard time, A, acknowledging I probably got all this from him, and then Be inviting them in more. I regret that. I wish I had done that. But it sounds like you're good at that.

My dad's always been a critic of what I've been doing my entire life. We just actually were talking about this before I came here. I don't know how you are with your kids. You seem like a positive Do you have kids? No, I don't. Okay, so good job.

That type of- Affirming.

Yeah.

Supportive, you mean? Yeah. Why did you grow up really with that environment?

I grew up with, if I scored two goals in soccer, he would point out it was never that compliment than constructive criticism. It was always constructive criticism.

Or just criticism.

It's nice of you to euphemize it on his behalf, but it doesn't sound like it.

But he acknowledged now. He's like, Yeah, I probably could have massage the message a little bit better. But then I always come back with, Yeah, but if you did, would that have made me weaker and not who I am today? Where are you?

Are you still slinging hash at this Four Seasons? Bozo actors on their first movie, Junket.

Hard to know what's right, what's wrong. I guess you got to go on Instinct and, Hey, this is what I know. But now having kids, I'm firm, but there's a lot of I love yous going around in the house. That's good. A lot of hugging, a lot of kissing. Sure. Not that I was, growing up, not given those things.

Well, aren't you Italian supposed to be so affectionate? Was he affectionate?

No, I think he's more emotional now than he ever was. I always feel like he's on the brink of tears at any moment of the day. I don't know.

But that's getting older, dude. I am, too, now.

I was bawling at my- Dilsons? Picking out fruit. I saw a fucking peach.

It made me cry.

I've always been emotional. My wife is the complete opposite. We'll be watching a movie, and I'll be the one crying. I'll look over and like, nothing on this. The guy's dying. But I'm seeing a lot of that in my father now in his 77. I think what happens with parents is they get older, they're reflecting back on their life, and maybe they're analyzing, Maybe I should have went down this road, or maybe I should have done that. It brings up a lot of different turmoil for them.

But you also have these moments I'm sure your dad's having them, where you just go like, Oh, it worked out. Yeah, relief. You just carry so much anxiety. Am I spending the money right? Am I on the road too much? Am I too loving? Am I not? You're just tormenting yourself your whole life. And occasionally, you let yourself go like, It's working out. Look at these little beautiful kids.

I wish I had more of those moments. Did you say four and six? It's going to be seven tomorrow. I think they are smarter at this age than I ever was at their age. Just what they have access to. These kids nowadays are so much more well-rounded than we ever were. That has a lot to do with the exposure to even information. I was on the iPhone looking up stuff. Back in the day, if we didn't know something, you would talk as a family, go, Who might know this? Uncle Joe knows it. He's on vacation. When he comes back, we'll ask him.

If you were to remember. I know you were way more comfortable just not knowing much.

Yes. There's a lot of wondering.

And being comfortable in not knowing, which I think increasingly people are so uncomfortable if they don't know something.

Even if somebody tells me something, I ain't going to remember it anyway. My memory, you're young, but you're 49. I'm doing this TV show right now, Memorizing Lines. Bookie?

Yeah. Season 2?

Some of the actors, they look at it. Okay, let's go. If somebody gives me lines going, We changed the line. Hey, I need it.

Another day.

We need to shut it down. I got to go home again.

I need this. I got to be in my bedroom to learn this. You're on season 2. How many episodes was season Eight.

And this is eight.

I had a hard time in movies memorizing lines. It was a beat down. I had to write it out. I'd write it on yellow paper. I had all these tricks. Get on Parenthood. First season, maybe, I think 18 episodes, maybe 20. Season 2, You could come in and hand me a five-page scene while I'm in the makeup chair and look at it. Okay, you will get good at it.

Yeah, I think it is definitely a muscle that needs to be worked.

Because don't you find by episode seven last year, you're like, Oh, yeah, it's half as long.

We've been in four weeks production right now, and I'm feeling I'm hitting a stride. That being said, I feel like I transpose words and flip them around. When you're on a movie set or a TV set, 150 people are waiting to go home.

That's the hard part of acting. It's not acting. It's the stress of performing and everyone's waiting for you and looking at you.

It can be even harsher. You're going to fail at your job five times in route to getting it right on the sixth time, and 100 people are going to watch, and they want to go to lunch. Yes. Yeah, it's a unique situation.

For a comedian doing this, it's hard not to look at the crew and go, Is this funny? Yeah, I bet. Are they smiling?

You're hearing crickets. By design. Well, on purpose, yeah.

I'll catch in the corner of my eye. Like, a guy's texting. I'm like, He's crazy. You don't even want to watch this.

But if you caught them watching another show, they're on their phone.

Yeah, they're binge watching other shows while they're doing mine.

Watching a different Chuck Lorrey show. Fuck, I wish I was on Young Sheldon. This kid knows his lines. Well, what was mom's vibe?

My mother often asked me, Where the hell am I? You go on these podcasts, you're not talking about me.

Mom, here we are. Yeah.

My mom is not as big of a character as my father. There's not a lot of comedy there with her, although she's extremely funny. She's the one, I don't say test my material, but if I'm talking about a funny story and my mom is dying laughing, I know that's gold. Yeah. My mom has been extremely supportive. Both of them have been supportive, but she's been the quiet one. Not so much coming up to me after a show going, You screwed up a line. Still honest.

Can I test some of my Italian stereotypes on you? Sure. I had a very limited data set where I grew up, but my best friend in sixth grade was Joey Ricardi, and his dad was a bricklayer. He was fucking Luigi. Hardest working motherfucker. Bought a Bertoni, remember? He wanted a Ferrari, but he bought a Bertoni. Bertoni?

Is that a shoe or a car?

I don't even heard it either.

I don't know what that is either. He was one of the designers for Ferrari, and he made more of an inexpensive Italian car. But I heard later he did get the Ferrari. But great family, four sisters, Joey Ricardi, the mom, always cooking. I loved going over there. The way they were allowed to speak to their mother was like something I had never seen in my life. The way the mom doded on Joey was also something I never really observed outside of that microcosm. Did mom dode on you?

She did, but Rob will attest, Northwest suburbors of Chicago. A lot of negativity.

What brand of negativity?

Just like, I did a movie. Yeah, anybody see it?

Oh, like nagging, the friends, everybody.

I'm from a Detroit suburb. It's the same thing. Boston's got it particularly bad. It's the, You think you're better than me chip on their shoulder.

Is that what it is?

Yeah. Oh, you think you're fucking better than me? Oh, you are in a movie, huh? That's cute.

Yeah, it's like taking everyone down a notch.

Yes, it's required.

It's required learning back in the Northwest suburbs. It's taken as a joke and fun. I get it. It's not like I'm sitting there losing sleep over it, but there's not a lot of complimentary, good job, you made it. My mom, she's always proud. I'm talking about just the people that you grew up with. Not that they're not proud, but we always break each other down.

No, they're super proud when you're not there.

Yeah, exactly.

It's just when you're there.

Well, I got to tell you, when I'm there, I think they're proud because no one's paying for it.

They're grateful you're there.

I got my friends now, they don't even bring out a wallet when I go out. I go, not even an offer?

Yeah. Has that changed relationships?

I haven't had anybody ask for money. You haven't? No. Everybody's got their own thing. If I see somebody that might need it, I'll give it to them before they even ask. You offer it out. But I haven't had the money thing. What was that?

Nicotine. You can't just shoot something in your mouth in the middle of the thing and not like... Listen, I'm going to ask him. This is an improvement. I quit dipping on January first. Half the people I interview, half are you, half are professors. They'd be sitting across from me and they'd spend half the interview like, he's spitting into that container. What did he just put in his mouth? I'd run through half a 10 in one of those interviews, and it would be like a chief justice of the Supreme Court trying to figure out what the fuck I'm doing over here. So this is an improvement.

How many squirts a day?

Whatever it takes. Did you ever smoke?

No, never smoked, never dipped, none of that.

Drinking? What's your relationship?I like wine.I like a niceVina. Yeah, me too.

But you listen to these podcasts in Huberman Lab, Instagram, you go on, everybody's got a take on alcohol, poison, you lose sleep. Then you get caught up in all this, which we never even had access to 15, 20 years ago. You just went to sleep, you didn't sleep while you were like, What the fuck?

I just had a bad night's sleep. Yeah.

My back hurts. It's true.

You didn't spend the next whole day thinking, Oh, I had that glass of wine, and that's why I didn't sleep.

Because you didn't optimize yourself.

I had a couple of glasses of wine last night. Apparently, I'm stealing hours now from today. What the fuck? What? I got a sleep ring on because now I got to know how much deep rem sleep I'm getting. I don't even do anything with the information, though. You know what I'm saying? Do you sleepring it or calorie intake?

My wife has done all of it. The best version of myself just doesn't say anything about it, but occasionally it comes out and I go, to exactly what you just said, what do we do on this data? Are we sending it to NASA? We know what to do. Go to sleep, eat well, move your body. Why do we have to introduce all these different devices to reinforce? Every one of us knows what the fuck to do. Nobody's literally scratching their head right now at Derry Queen on their third lizard going, wait a minute, is this not the best choice for me?

We know. Yeah, we know what to do. It's just you feel like you have to quantify your whole existence. Monitor. You have a ring on. Yeah, so this is the Aura sleep ring that I look at in the morning. I get up in the morning, I'm like, Oh, look, I have something.

What score do you average?

I'm in the low 70s.

Okay, we can live with that.

My ideal world, I should be around 82, 85. I don't even know what that means.

What does it mean? Yeah.

What a bizarre gap you just laid out. 82 or 85. What a fucking perverted goal.

I think 85, you get a crown on the thing.

Okay. But I was talking about a friend, and my My friend still does it, and he hates it. Charlie gets a fucking 40 every night. All this thing does is you wake up and you look at it and you go, I'm going to have a shit day. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Well, I don't necessarily look at it like that. My wife does. That's why she doesn't look at it in the morning. She looks at it at night, so she goes, Okay, yeah, I had a great day, but my sleep score was 53, so it doesn't correlate.

This doesn't mean much.

Me, the first thing I do, it's like a game to me. It's like I look at my stocks in the morning. What's going on Do you own a lot of stock? I invest in the stock market, so...

I'm well diversified.

Do you play Wurtl or Connections?

No, I don't play any games.

See, when Monica and I wake up, first thought is Connections. Yeah, it's so fun. What's that? New York Times, it's got a game app, a puzzle app. The crosswords on there, spelling bees on there. One of them is called Connections.

We just got into it.

It is 20 words? No. It is 20. No, yeah. Oh, 20. Yeah, five categories of four words.

Oh, no, you're right. 16, four and four.

Four and four. It's a random group of words, and you got to figure out which four go in each category.

Which group together.

Like Royal, Navy, Baby. Sky. Sky. What do we got?

You play against each other?

No, we're on a chain, and so you do it, and then you send it to the chain.

You send your results to the chain.

Okay. That's really fun. Yeah, I'm super in that.

All right, I want to go back to Illinois. You weren't allowed to yell at your mom, were you? I guess that's what I'm getting at.

Oh, yeah, no, I was yelling. I mean, it wasn't disrespectful, but you know.

Are we sure? It's a loud house. It's loud.

Would the wasps have thought it was disrespectful?

No. My house was the house that everybody came to to hang out. My parents were part of our clique, almost. I wasn't a combative kid. I was very disciplined. I thought my parents were king and queen. I do what they say. I'm not rebellious. I had to raise myself with them. My sister was a little different. Older or younger? Five years younger, a little bit more like, Yeah. My dad one day asked my sister, Go give me a pop in the garage. She's like, Why don't you go get it? One of those. My dad went, What? A lot more competitive on the sister's side. But our house was like the house.

Look, you have children who yell at their parents.

That's true. That is allowed.

I'm not into that, but I I want to get your take because I see this sometimes. I'm at the grocery store, right? Kids getting out of line. No, ma, not doing that. Then kow-towing from the parents like, It's okay, Johnny. In my house, first of all, that doesn't go on. If there was a hint of it, it'd be like, I'll leave the groceries right there. We're leaving, and we get in the car, and we're going to have a discussion about it. You don't talk to your parents that way. It's disrespectful. What's your take out of your kids mountain off?

Well, let's be very clear about what happens. First First of all, I think Monica would also add, my kids are insanely good at going. I'm really sorry. When you said that, I felt smaller and I felt like no one respects what I'm saying, but I realized I overreacted and I shouldn't have yelled, and I'm sorry.

That's correct. They do do that.

So as long as that's where we're getting, all I'm hoping to turn out in the world is two kids that can take responsibility for their actions. I do not expect them to have ideal reactions all the time. But what is absolutely unacceptable in my house is that you don't clean up your side of the street and that you don't take responsibility for fucking up. Got it. So, yeah, I'll be upstairs and I hear cereal bowl drop and I'll hear, You fucking piece of shit. This is a nine-year-old talking to an eleven-year-old, and I think, Man, she can let it rip. Then we talk about it, and then there's apologies. Now, listen, it's not all that frequent, but I'm not panicked. I don't really care their words. It's a way to communicate. The nuns aren't clutching their pearls.

They're also not doing it to teachers.

Their words and sounds, they're kind, they're loving, and yeah, sometimes they blow.

Okay, let me-Go ahead. Clarify. Okay. Is the behavior between the siblings or is a bowl drop and your daughter to your wife goes, You fucking, what are you doing, you shithead?

No.

Okay, this one just went, Yeah, that happens, too.

Her face is betraying her.

You weren't supposed to Say that out loud.

You're not a good side higher, okay?

Yeah.

If you and I now know if you and I ever become friends and we're at a table with someone, someone says something super bozo and I look at you and I raise my eyebrows, you're going to put me on blast immediately. You've just now have absolutely ruled out the fact that we will ever have inside communication. Okay? Okay. Now, just really quick so I can clarify. I think you'll agree with us, Monica. Once every two months, it's always the nine-year-old. The nine-year-old and my wife have a disagreement. It escalates, it escalates. As she's walking away, she lets a few swear words rip.

It's not every day.

It's not habitual. It gets to that threshold. It's the only thing left she can do to really express how outraged she is. He's also my favorite person. By the way, there's no kow-towing. There's no like, Oh, I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry, you're upset. There's none of that. It's go chill, come back in 10 when you got your heart rate under control, and let's chat about what just happened because clearly, we're not talking to each other that way.

Wife and you on the same page in a lot of the upbringing. Yeah. Was this just by design or is this like, Oh, yeah, no, she grew up the same way I grew up?

No, it's been a huge evolution, and it has taken many years. I'm dying to know what you and your wife. Lana? Lana, yeah. What your evolution has been. I did not want to be a dad who rolls in at dinner time and there's a whole system in place and I just stay out of the way. I want ownership of the experience. My wife and I are opposites, and we came from very opposite families. She went to a private Catholic school. I'm a fucking scumbag junkie with a single mom, and it was chaos. I have a thing, she's got a thing. Over time, it has gotten very cohesive, and we're very much on the same page. It was a learning curve. How about you guys?

I'm the disciplinarian. My wife comes from a completely different background. I come from working middle class. She comes from very wealthy. Her upbringing was a lot of whatever you want, whatever you need, semester at sea. Wow. Studying on a boat, going to visit 13 countries, right? Oh, wow. Sleepaway camp. That vibe. Horse riding? Not so much horse riding.

Only because she wasn't interested.

Yeah, it was probably offered part of the package.

One of the amenities.

A lot of racket, a lot of that. It works in a way because she's very nurturing, very, Hey, what's wrong? I'm a little bit more aggressive and firm, so it's a good balance there.

Stay tuned for more Farmshare Expert, if you dare.

But one thing that I did read in preparation for this podcast, and I got to get your take on this because we're on two opposite ends of the spectrum here, and I want to clarify if this is true.

Let's dance.

Santa Claus.

Oh, yeah. I heard you on Kimmel rambling about this. Okay. Go ahead. Lay out your Santa Claus.

Your child asked if Santa Claus was real, and you said-It's different than that. What is the story? So I get it right.

Yeah, the story is like, Okay, Santa's coming. Whatever age that is where you can actually have that conversation. Maybe it's three. Three years old? Yeah. Zero to two, just there's presence under the tree. Yeah. They're not communicating.

Like introducing Santa. Got you.

Here is the lore. So yeah, Santa's coming, I think around three, and she's like, Oh, cool, cool, cool. Next day, it was like, How does Santa go to every house in the world in one night? I'm like, Okay. So he's on a slay. It's magic. Time travels differently. He goes at the speed of light. Whatever the hell I'm saying. I'm looking at her little face, and she's like, None of that makes sense. None of that makes sense, what you just said to me. And I'm like, That felt a little weird. I'm looking directly in her face, and I've just made up five fucking weird lies. But I let that go. I wanted to have the magic of Christmas. Two days later, there's another really good question. So he's We're going to come down the chimney. There's going to be a man in the house. And then what? Does he look at us? Does he do this? Does he walk through the house? What I realized within about a week of explaining Santa Claus was that I had to come up with about 12 other lies to justify this fairy tale. What I saw was the best part of my child, her critical thinking, going this smells, the person she trusts the most is saying, Ignore that and trust me.

And I'm like, I'm out. I told my wife, I'm like, I can't do this. Then it'll be fucking elf on the shelf. Don't touch the elf, he'll die at the North Pole. Why? To test your purity of temptation, the apple in the fucking tree and we're in Eden. And I realized the whole thing is the foundation to buy into the other big one that I don't do, and probably you do. There's this guy. He's his son and his dad. He created the Earth in seven days. The Earth is 4,000 years old. It's all a primer. If you ignore all your critical thinking and all your good, smart senses, you'll get this huge reward on the 25th. I also find it a little repugnant that you would need leverage over your child. He's watching you. Shame, sin, you won't deserve it. You'll be denied this.

Some people get cold.

I mean, the whole thing is madness. I'm going to jump to one last thing. It's my final point on it. They like Christmas exactly as much as I did. You wake up, there's fucking presents The floor, the trees lit up, the house is decorated. It smells good. We're eating good food. We gather around, we were thoughtful. We bought each other's stuff for sharing our family. It's beautiful. Santa was irrelevant. I wouldn't have guessed that. I'm like, I want them to have what I have. It's just as good. But I'm not 36 lies deep into it.

It's a pretty family-I like the argument.Rebuttal. No. I'm not going to break it down. I agree with what you said. You're lying on top of to perpetuate this.

You have little faces trying to compute what you're telling me.

I mean, at three, to be thinking that way is pretty advanced. I got to tell you what we did.

I'll do it. I'll support it no matter what it is. Wait, can I say that to be really clear? People will hear that and think I'm judgmental of them. I don't give a fuck what anyone's doing. I don't think what I'm doing is right. I think what I'm doing is right between me and my two girls.

That's great. This is the problem I got. Okay. My daughter comes up to me and goes, I think you and mommy are putting the shit under the tree. She's like, Shit. I'm like, Shit. I think you're hiding the eggs. Now, I'm like, Why would you think that? Come on. They don't got time to do that. Right?

Yes, he does.

I go, Are you hearing this at school? That's where I jump to. I got to find a rest. She goes, Oh, well. She alluded to the fact that this was going around school. I leave the room crying. I go to my wife and I said, On this mother thread you're on, see who's who's talking shit on Santa. I want to figure out what's going on. Sure enough, one of the women says, I- Kristen Bell.

My husband refuses to go with this. Sorry.

I told my kid that there was no sin. I couldn't lie to them.

Okay, that's what the other parents said. Yeah.

That kid now is coming to school and spoiling it for the rest. Now, if you wanted to do that at your home, that's fine.

Can I tell you something? The immediately The idiot next thing I said is, you are not to tell anyone this. Other people enjoy it. Other people believe in stuff. Other people believe in God. Other people believe in Jesus. That's not our business. In this house, I'm telling you the truth, and it stays in here. So just so you know, I don't want my kids going in a room.

So that's what was happening in my situation.

Yeah, it's no good. They made the decision for you.

That's not cool. Not cool. So, and I got to get your take on this. I go, We got to restore Santa. Santa's got to get back up in this house.

We need a big bit proof right now.

I'm at a party with a Santa Claus talking to the Santa. I tell him, I go, Santa, my kid don't believe anymore.

Wait, I should clarify, do you believe in Santa? Did you think you-My dream for shit. So Santa, here's the fucking head scratcher.

I'm telling to Santa at this party that this is what's going on in school. He goes, I offer a service. I said, What? He goes, I'll come to your house Christmas Eve.

How much?

Well, that's the first question I asked. Of course.

Was this going to me back?

I said, Lana, get this guy's number, and let's call him and see what this is going to cost. $300 this fucking guy costs.

Hold on a second. Okay. I think I'd prefer to spend a grand in this situation. You're not looking for a bargain for a dude coming in your house in the middle of the night. We're dying.

We're looking for a client.

So this Santa starts at 800 bucks. I said, 600 bucks? I can't pay you $400. Fine. Take the $300.

Spray it up. Long story short, 11:30, Christmas Eve.

11:30.

What?

I want to hear it.

11:30, this guy shows up drunk in his suit, the whole thing. Wake up my daughter. Santa's here.

In the chimney under the tree? No, he's in the tree. He's huddling under the tree.

No, he's putting the presents under the tree. I wake up my daughter. Oh, no. He's in the living room. I go to get my son. He could care less.

Do you have your camera? Yeah. Because you got to play it all real. Because if Santa really did roll through, you're going to try to get a pic.

Cut the whole thing on video. Son don't want any part of it. He's tired. He goes back to bed. She sees him. She lit up. Oh, my God. I go, Come on, we got to go back. It's restored. Now, When she finds out, she finds out after this. It's not like I'm going to be hiring Santa every year to come by. But I just didn't like the fact that that kid found out at home, told my kid, and ruined it. We didn't say, Hey, yeah, we're Santa. Yes.

She went back to school, and she confronted that kid.

Said that he was in my house.

No, I saw him. I saw him in my house. Now what?

Now where are we at? Because that girl is like, No, you didn't.

I don't even know what happened at school. This could cripple my kid's upbringing.

Minimally, it'll be brought up in some therapy session at 23, I think. In conclusion, might be my dad loved me so much. He invited a stranger into my house, a guy that only charges $300 to come in your house at 11:30.

He got a deal. My dad loves a deal.

Did you smell any booze on him or anything?

Not any booze, but you haven't lived until you're outside in your slippers peeling off $300 bills to Santa Claus at midnight on a Christmas Listen, I'm going to throw another couple of hundred in here.

You know the Bramsteen's? Yeah, they're Jewish. I want you to fucking go in that house.

There's another thing, though. Go ahead. Growing up, we didn't have a lot of Jewish people in our school. So everybody… Santa. So now you got a lot of Jewish people in the school. They must be going, Santa, don't come to our house. Tell me about it.

It gets confusing. We have a good friend who's from Venezuela, and they have the most hilarious thing, which is they don't get Santa, but they tell their kids it's because it doesn't snow here.

No, they have Baby Jesus. Baby Jesus brings presents and stuff. They have a completely different- But they're aware of Santa.

They know he exists in Nortra Americana, but there's no snow down there, so he can't drive his sleigh down there.

That's a good one.

You'd be very up for that. But, Sebastian, you must consider as the next holiday approaches, she'll be told again. I can't even imagine this poor fight she's going to be in on the playground trying to explain no No, he was absolutely-No, he was there. He was absolutely there.

I have a picture. And then the embarrassment that's going to set in eventually.

Is she armed with the picture?

You know what? My daughter is smart. I think she's pacifying us.

Yeah, she probably knows.

And she knows.

Okay.

She It's seven tomorrow. It's over. If it comes up again, we'll have to tell her, Listen, it ain't true, but make it true for your brother because he's four.

Okay, let me ask you this because the first time we pitched the Santa concept to her and it didn't go well, two seconds later, it's Easter. I'm like, I'm willing to lie over Christmas, but to say there's an Easter Bunny that came through the house. That one's crazy. Now we're talking about a sentient bunny who's full size. It really strikes you at how mad it is. And by the way, it's not like we're honoring some 3,000-year-old tradition. This Easter Bunny thing was probably invented in the '60s or something.

The Easter Bunny, for me, I'm sitting there, even though my four-year-old going, You ain't putting this shit together that there's a bunny A huge bunny. Baskets.

Yeah, what is the bunny? It's not a normal bunny. It's a full-size human, right?

Yeah, and the fact that he's breaking into the house.

Exactly.

Well, and Santa does that. They're all robbers.

To be a heavyset dude entering through the chimney, big combat boots. He's been tracking you all year.

I think a lot of people don't even do that with Easter. They say, We're doing an egg hunt. Mommy and daddy did the egg hunt, and Easter Bunny is just a character. But because it's not as widespread, not everyone's on the same page with the Easter Bunny. So I think it's the first one to go.

Yeah, I mean, in talking to you about this, I see another perspective. Tunnel will go down, and I'm more enlightened than I was when I came in here.

Wow, that's a huge problem.

That's big.

Am I going to go explain that to my kids? Probably not. No. But at least I understand the other side of the coin. Coming in here, it was-Let's be really honest, though.

I want you to be really honest with me. Because I'm not totally unself-aware. I understand when you read a headline, Kristen Bell and Nack Sheppard aren't telling their kids about Santa Claus. I'm in the real world. I'm like, these idiot liberal holly weirdos. Just get with the program, man. I get it. So be dead honest about when you heard that about me, what blanks did you fill in?

I put you with the person at my school that their kid now is going to tell everybody else at school. What I didn't think about that you said to your kid, he stays in the house. Yeah. That's what I missed.

Yeah, I wish that were a part of a headline.

Yeah. I mean, it's not like, Oh, look this fucking asshole.

I might, though. I wouldn't vote you.

I associated that mindset with the people that were doing that at the school. I'm like, Really? If Santa Claus is bad? No. I'm totally with you.

This just happened. I was on Kim a couple of weeks ago. I didn't even know this headline existed. I'm pretty good at not knowing what's out there. He brought up on the thing behind me. He's like, about this article that came out after you interviewed Bradley Cooper? Well, when Bradley and I were talking, we're talking about the fact our daughters come in while we're taking a shit, and they just chat with us in the morning. And the whole time, I'm like, do you not fucking smell what's going on in here? How are you standing here? How does that not affect them? And we were just bonding over. That's so weird. Your kids don't care. Of course, there's multiple headlines like Bradley Cooper and Dax Sheppard let their kids watch them take a dump. And I'm like, let was never part of this conversation. They come in. I don't know what What do you do about that. But again, if I'm in the real world, I'm like, Guys, you guys are fucking weird. They're insisting their children join them while they take a shit. Is that some new liberal thing, too? Got a fucking weird- It's happening over there.

The whole coming in the bathroom thing has happened to me.

Of course, you have kids.

Hey, Daddy, and I'm... Get out of here. I'm like, I'll talk to you when I get out. I can't even talk while I'm doing that. You're focused.

Evacuating. You're not even comfortable saying shitting or pooping. I can already sense your relationship with evacuating is already tenuous. You had a spectator.

I can't have an audience.

Okay. I want to go back to your story, which I really, really love. You are what kid in the social hierarchy? In high school, what kid are you?

Not in a popular group. Played soccer. I wouldn't say a loner, but I went home for lunch and watched Threes Company.

Okay. Ritter.

Ritter. Everybody was throwing a taco bell. I just did my own thing. A lot of my friends went to another school. I just had a hard time fitting in with the school culture. I was never on prom cord or anything like that, never in the theater. Just was an average student, shy.

Dudes fought in your school, I imagine? Was there a realistic threat of violence? No. Okay, so you weren't afraid of getting your ass kicked. You weren't trying to lay low to just be ignored.

Not that school.

Okay, were you not a class clown? No.

You weren't? No, despised it.

There was class clown. This fucking guy needs so much attention. It's amazing you came here. I must trigger every fucking button you have. Don't I? Be honest. No. I was class clown. You look at my earbooks, I was class clown.

Needs a lot of attention.

I don't believe in Christmas.

You believe in Christmas? I do. Don't let that be the headline.

Almost more than anyone. When do you know you're funny? At home.

I'd come home and I'd report the news of what I saw at school. My dad would do that with his salon, too. So make the family laugh. There's a lot of table time growing up.

A lot of family dinners. Yeah.

And we stayed.

This is the thing I'm most envious of the Italian There was a lot of bonding over food.

I shined at book reports or anytime I had to get up in front of the class to do something, that's when I would be funny and I would sit down and people would go, What? This guy didn't say a word all year. Now he came up and blew us out of the water.

Okay, I know that archetype. Okay, that's great. But then what's a little incongruent with that is you go away to Northern.

First of all, the vocabulary you're throwing at me.

You're with it. Don't even pretend. You're like placating your audience right now. Yes, you are. Yeah, fuck you. Communications major. You went to an actual university. Bullshit. You're like, you're afraid you're losing fans. Now, listen, you go up there, and then somewhere you're the fucking president of a fraternity. That feels incongruous with the dude who It was those home to watch Ritter.

Yes, but over time, I became a lot more comfortable within my own skin.

What were your insecurities in high school?

I had bad acne. I got bullied early on in junior high a little bit. I just felt like an outlier. Felt like it didn't fit in.

They were all having some experience that you were just observing.

Still feel like that way, too, at Hollywood. I feel like I'm not into Hollywood, and everybody says this, right? I don't have Hollywood friends. I don't hang out in the parties. I'm not at the Emmies. I'm not there. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

By the way, you didn't have a TV show. Now you got a TV show, you might end up in that.

I'm not saying I want to be.

Right, exactly.

No, I know.

I think you're maybe better off.

I feel like you know a lot of people. You know Bradley Cooper, right? Bradley I just feel like you're in the scene.

Yeah. You know what it is? I started working in 2003 on Punk, then I did a movie, and I literally said to myself, Wow, you know what this is? This is a chance to go through high school all over again and like everyone. And I'm going to take that. I mean, it was a conscious decision. I'm not going to roll through here as the punk rock skateboarder kid who thinks no one wants to be with him and is going to judge everyone. This is second chance. I'm going to high school again, and I'm going to like everyone. I did movies for 20 years in TV shows, and I met all these incredible people. And most of the people I worked with, I really like and I've been friends with. Now, do I hang out with celebrities all the time? No. Monica can tell you what my real life is. What is that? Once a month?

Yeah, we have our group of friends that's not- That is our core group of friends.

I'm still best friends with my childhood best friend since I was 11, Aaron. So it's like, yeah, I do. I have a lot of relationships, people I've worked with and I've adored. But am I immersed? Am I at some Hollywood sex party? I wish, but I haven't been invited to those. But I do think the human condition is to feel like you're not.

I always felt like I was not at the party. I didn't have that feeling coming out here. I just felt like, okay, here I go again. I'm a lone wolf, strange town. I'm going to go and try and do standup. I work alone. Just me. The answer to nobody, just me. If I screw up, I screw up. If I do good, I do good. I think that's the nature of a comedian where I feel like we're on a fringe of life.

If you would maybe ended up at the groundlings, I'm just curious what your relationship with that would all be.

Well, I ended up at Second City in Chicago, and I hated it.

What part?

Working with other people.

I guess that was self-evenant.

No, it was just like, Let's take a suggestion or let's do a scene. Then I'm like, All right. I got my own thoughts and I want to go my own way, and I don't really want to play this game. I don't want to yes-end. My preference was, I got my own funny thoughts. I want to share those funny thoughts, and I don't want to be impeded by anybody else.

You don't want to compromise?

No, I don't want to compromise. I went to stand-up, bro. I've always wanted to be a stand-up, no doubt in my mind since I was in second grade. I just always felt I was always watching other people behave.

But when you're the President of a fraternity at a college, you're in the thick of it.

The way I looked at that, no one wanted to do it. I don't like to see things fail. I'm like, no one wants to do this. I'll take the reins of doing this. Also, I like getting up in front of people. So every chapter meeting on Monday, it was like a comedy show for me. I would get up there and, Hey, we got to do this. We got to do this. We got to do this. What's the sorority? I would be doing monologs up there.

Is Is that where you discovered that moving around was amusement people?

No, where I discovered that was just an evolution of doing standup. Within the first five years, I did this one joke about Ross for Less, where I'm chucking stuff across the store, and I noticed when I did that, I'm like, Oh, wow, people like the physical action and explaining the story with movement.

Your physicality is so fantastic. Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's so fucking amazing.

I try to make that a part of what I do.

Monica and I were watching a clip of you on Kimmel. You were mimicking. No matter what, you're talking, there's this group over here and you're swirling your hand. It's lovely.

I just think that took time to come out, though. That's the way I normally behave. When you're first doing standup, you're afraid. They're like, Oh, can I do that? You're frozen. Yeah. You're just telling the jokes. Then the layers start to peel off and you feel freer and loose and like, I could do anything up there not even thinking about it, which is why I wish I could get there in acting because right now, I'm so worried about doing two things at once, like talking, learning the light, and then drinking a cup of coffee, I'm like, Too much. That's why I like car scenes. Seated with a seat belt.

They ask you to roll the window down, you're out. But it's so long as you don't have to make a turn or roll the window down or shift, I only do scenes with automatics. That's it.

It is a lot to think about all at once.

It is. It took me a long time to get loose on camera. I can't even watch early stuff. I'm like, I am frozen. They told me the mark is there, and I am not leaving that mark, and I am looking in that I'm never looking anywhere else. By the way, in real life, you watch me, I'm never looking in the same direction for more than five seconds. But in a scene, I'm like, ? Yeah. And then what happened? Yes. And I'm locked right in.

Well, you were doing punk. That's definitely all improv. There was no script on that. By the way, were you in any of the auditions in the room with Ashton watching people? I auditioned for that show. I tanked in the audition.

The first season?

I don't even know what season it was. Were you there in the room sometimes?

I auditioned for the first season when it was just a pilot called Harassment, and I auditioned 12 times. Maybe the last four, it started becoming obvious, maybe I was one of the people, and then they were chemistry testing me with other people. So not impossible.

Oh, maybe. But you're saying the casting director, Ashton, you Yeah, I would have never been there sitting watching an audition, but I was brought in to interact with other finalists, I guess.

But you think you have a memory of me staring at you while you audition?

Yeah, I think you were there in some way.

Then second season, I was gone. I never was around for anything.

Who did one season of that show?

Because I got-They can't repeat.recognizable.

After that, like a light switch.

So did you feel that that was a launching pad for you? Yeah.

And then a huge chip on my shoulder about it for 10 years. I would be doing press for Without a Paddle, and they go like, What's it like to act? Because it was a reality show. God, I think I'm not an actor. Everyone thinks I'm not an actor. Everyone thinks I'm a reality show person. And I so distance myself from that show for a decade. And one day I woke up and I was like, I'm fucking proud as hell of that show. That was impossible what I had to do on that show. I love it now, but it was a rough curve for me. But you move here, you're waiting tables at the Four Seasons, and then you're starting to do stand-up, but you're here for a while before you're at the Comedy Store, yeah?

Right away. '99, I got into the Comedy Store, so one year.

Tell me what the different culture is between what determines whether someone's going to be a Laugh Factory person or a Comedy Store person.

I started taking comedy classes at the Comedy Store with Mitzy Shore's daughter, Sandy Shore. It was called the Sandy Shore Sandbox.Hawley Shore's Sister? Sister. My thinking was, Oh, the sister likes me. She'll tell the mother. And I'm into the club. That was my- Sure, of course.

Bingo, Bingo, Bongo.

I find out that the mother and the daughter, they don't get along. First day of class. So $550 going.

Found the dream. Could have got one and a half Santas. I just love the Comedy Store.

I just love being there. There's something about it. Oh, it's got a big vibe. I went to the original room. I felt, Oh, wow. This feels like I'm at home.

The picture's on the wall. It almost feels like going to Saturday Night Live.

I have never done Saturday Night Live, but it feels like there's history there. This is where it all started.

Richard Pryer, was he a Comedy Store guy?

Richard Pryer, Jim Carrey. Laugh Factory, I liked it. It was just bright and young, but no real history there.

It's like an old Italian restaurant.

It's a comedy store.

What's the vibe at the Laugh Factory? I don't even really know. I'm asking, sincerely.

It was just more high energy, younger kids.

Still locals or mostly traveling people?

You get a foreign contingent at the Comedy Store. Sometimes people are visiting from Germany, and they don't know what to do. They end up at the Comedy Store. I feel like the laugh factory was the young, hip, just younger people. You look in a comedy store, it'd be 50-year-old couple, then maybe a group of businessmen. I felt like it was a diverse group of people. That's where I gravitated towards. She gave me spots at midnight, 12:30, 1:00. I go after a lot of big names. Like, Eddie Griffin would go up, and then I would have to go up. She would test you. Can you follow that? What are you going to do? There's a lot of that there.

That is a unique aspect of of stand-up man. Who you're following, who follows you, that whole dynamic is very fascinating.

When you're starting out, that's very nerve-wracking.

Yeah, intimidating. For sure.

Or going up at 1:30 in the morning when there's five people in the audience, and gone.

Yeah, they're out to sea.

She had a way of building the lineup and structuring it to where you were in your career. Other clubs, they're not curated that way. That was just like, Okay, we got a show, and there's a lineup.

You How much of it did I imagine, greatly from that?

I definitely felt like that was my gym.

When did you start feeling... You started in '99, you said? '98. '98. What year would you say you start feeling like, Okay, I'm approaching the thing that's actually going to work?

I felt like '05, '06, I started coming into my own.

That's amazing, dude. That's seven years.

I look at seven year in tapes, and I was still learning, but I just felt like, Okay, I'm getting my feet here. I'm starting to hit the three a little bit more than normal.

Yeah. You're assembling, I'd imagine, a toolkit. You've got some backups and some go-tos. You assemble some tricks, yeah?

When you first start doing stand-up, you don't want to deviate from your material. A bomb could have went off in a room and wouldn't acknowledge Got to get through my seven minutes. It's just like anything else, though. It's like you start bodybuilding and you're 160 pounds, you got no muscle. Then you do some chest and you start to see development. No, here I'm getting biceps. Same way with stand-up. You keep doing it. Oh, there's a heckler. Okay, you dealt with that one night. It went awful. And then the next time it happens, then you're like, Oh, wow, I handled that better. And thinking about it, and I don't know if this is happening now in standup just because the evolution of the internet and social media, but the time that you have to put in to stand up comedy, anything, but stand up in particular. I don't know if the comedians now are putting that amount of time in because I think they're being thrust into being a comedian right away because maybe they have some popularity on social media.

Well, and let's be honest, let's say that in that seven-year learning period, certainly you had shows that were really good. And you're right home, you're like, Fuck, I can't believe that happened. I hope that happens again. Now, that could have been on video. You could have posted that on Instagram. On My assumption is that's what going to see Sebastian is like every time. So it could be a little misleading, too. The consistency could not be there, yet you could pop.

So you could have a three or four minute great set and put that up and like, Oh, my God, this guy's hysterical. You go to a show and it's great. It takes a while to get material. The way I look at a comedy is every joke has to be equal or greater than the previous joke, right? Because it's like you can't have a dip off and come back up, dip off again. People are going to go, What the fuck? That's not funny. It's got to be consistent. That's the hardest thing to do, in my opinion, in stand-up. That's what I pine over. It's funny. Should this even be in the act? Does it match the level of material prior to this, after this? Also, you want to come out. You want to get the attention of the audience. You want to prove to them the next hour and a half is going to be worth listening to. You got to be careful. You don't want to come out of the gate too strong. Then they go, Okay, that guy, the first 10 minutes, where did he go?

Yeah, treating it like a sprint instead of a marathon.

Yeah, but then you want to smack him in the mouth going, Are you ready for a good time? Because if you like this, I got so much more to come that you're going to die.

Yeah, you got to grab their attention.

Especially in this day and age.

Oh, my God.

You got to come out of the gate.

Dick out. Dick out. Seconds away from his brain.

To get anyone to listen to an hour of anything at this point, it's hard.

It is. Then there's like, When do I end? When do you get off stage? The whole adage of leaving with them wanting more. But if it's 50 minutes in and You start to see, Oh, wow.

A lot of people going to the bathroom. A lot of yawns.

Yeah, you want to maintain, Okay, maybe I should put this chunk here. So you got to go out and practice it.

Well, let me jump to, I should have said this at the beginning, but currently you're an American record holder. Your run at Madison Square Gardens was a record-setting event. You're one that you're doing this year, which is you're doing five shows sold out of. You're at the apex of this art form. You don't want to hear that compliment, but let's just move on.

It's It's nice to hear, but go ahead.

You're 30 years into being out here. When did the rocket ship start?

It started in 2014, '15. I just started to feel at the Comedy Clubs, I'd come back and they're like, Do you want to add a show? I'm like, Add a show. I remember two years ago on a Thursday night, we were like, Do you want to cancel the show? Yeah. All right. So, yeah, I started to feel momentum.

I'd imagine, too, what must also change is your publicity commitment. When you were on the road, I would imagine there was a period where you had to go to every radio station in town and try to sell seats, and now you're showing up. It's like you're debating whether to add a second or a third show. Yeah. That's a pretty significant evolution in the experience.

And then even presented with, okay, I think we should go to theaters now. And I'm like, Theaters? I don't know if I got to sell 3,000 seats. Even though I sold 3000 seats at the Comedy Club for the week. Theaters, again, it's a business. Okay, that's more money to rent the theater out. Now we got ushers. Now we got a lighting A sound guy. A sound guy. And then that's starting to factor into everything. You make that jump. Okay, we're doing theater. Now we're adding theater.

If you're doing theaters and you're doing, I don't know however many dates, you're now making a fucking living. Yes.

You're making a living doing comedy clubs.

Sure. But Now you're going to buy a house and stuff. Yeah. It's a big ratchet up. You're making 100 grand a night, potentially, everywhere you go. That's huge.

Yeah, it's big.

It's tempting to stay there, no? Because you know the show works at that size. It's damn good money. The The venues are gorgeous. It's a comfortable life.

Yeah, but then you run this risk. If you're in theaters, right? Let's say you're going to Cleveland, Ohio on Friday, and they said, You sold out 3,000. I think we could do a Saturday. Okay, I'll book a Saturday. Saturday sold out, as soon as we put it on. I think we do a Sunday. We'll put that on sale, too. That sells out, right? The next time you go to Cleveland, they said, You know what? Forget the theater. You do one night in an arena, and then you could go to Detroit the next night in an arena.

You're tripling your time in a sense. Yeah.

It's like, let's consolidate the crowd in one thing, and we can do more. Now, this is where we get into the whole how much is enough? How much are you going to do?

Well, also, I wonder if you're evaluating, because even in our limited experience, for us at a 2,000 to 3,000 seat theater, it's golden. It's a great experience. It's still quite intimate. We go to this place in San Francisco, it's like 5,000. I'm like, We need a monster truck show in here. This place is fucking too big. Even Chicago Theater, that's a big theater. It works. But you also imagine you're evaluating how enjoyable will the show be as I scale up. Absolutely. You have an integrity and commitment to the people that come spend money and get a babysitter. That's in the mix, too, no?

Absolutely. I think about that all the time. Is comedy really supposed to be in a basketball arena?

At this scale, yeah.

But then you go, Okay, what production are we going to bring in here to offset the fact that we're in a 20,000-seat arena? How big are the screens going to be? You go in a theater, I don't know if you guys use screens, but you put two screens on the side of you.

Changes everything.

For For me, it does because half of my act is expressions and movement. They ain't going to get that up there.

Jjj 317.

Then you get people looking at the screen. It's not even you. You get somebody in the second row, and you're right there, and they're looking right at the screen, which could take focus and energy off the center of the performance. You got to factor all these things in as you grow and get into these bigger venues. You say, Breaking Records. Listen, this arena thing now is almost common place. Everybody's, not everybody, but a lot more people are doing arenas now.

Let's be honest, there's probably eight people. This is perfect timing because I had never seen stand up in an arena, and I did on Friday in Austin. I saw Andrew Schultz for the first time. The Moody Center? Yeah. I think McConahe told me maybe that was 14,000 or something like that. How was it? It It's great. Two huge screens, and I'm in a suite with a dude, so we're pretty far away, and I absolutely loved it. I mean, he also, I think, is phenomenal. I do think there's a talent level required to perform in that big of a room. I think you got to be really high energy and really confident and be physical. I think there's some stuff that has to go along with it. I don't know that Cosby could have sat down on his stool and done it in an arena.

Yeah, I think an arena, there's a certain comedian that plays well in there. Just got to fill the room.

Yeah. Stay tuned for more Farmshare Expert, if you dare. Do you remember your very first Arena show?

Yeah, it was in Philadelphia at the Wells Fargo Center. Or it was Toronto? One of the two. It's a blur.

Sorry, Toronto and sorry, Philadelphia.

No, you don't remember. It's the answer. My apologies.

I think we had a I had a chili dog.

Where would have I eaten a chili dog before this show?

I had a kabuki. You know what a kabuki is?

No.

Is that one of those cookies with the ice cream?

No, it's when I think Go ahead. It's a bad sexual term. Oh, it is? No, no, no, no, no.

It's a scrim that comes down over the stage. It was in the round, and it was like a cylinder sheet.

Silk.

Yeah, that covers the whole stage I'm thinking, okay, Michael Jackson is a huge inspiration for me. I want to go see him in concert.

I'm like, this guy. All the molestines. He said, How do you not believe in Christmas? Told his children, I am bubbles. Santa was good. No, I I love Michael Jackson, too.

I'm looking at the performance. Of course. I'm like, I want to put some production into this. I did a thing where up on the scrim, you would see me climbing up this ladder and I would fall off, and you would say, Oh, my God, he's in there. He's in there. Then the kabuki would drop, and then I would be just there on the center of the stage. Just to give this some feeling like we're at a show. It's a show business, right? Of course. I'm sorry. A lot of this shit that's out there right now, it's not like you're putting on a show. Yes. In an arena. To Schultz's credit, you go to his show. I haven't been to it, but I've seen it on the online.

He's got lights. He's a gangster. He comes out to hip hop. It's a vibe. Produced. Yes, it's produced.

Put some thought into this shit. I just want to give the people their money's worth. Now that I think about it, it wasn't Philadelphia.

You had just had a beautiful Philly cheese steak. A little too much. You're up on that ladder. You're like, Oh, this is what I'm doing. Shouldn't have got peppers. None of that.

None of that bullshit. Rocky That's where I went prior to the show. Did you?

Took a knee. Say a couple of prayers.

Took homage.

That must have been so surreal, though.

It was surreal. But the whole thing now, to your point in regards to, Hey, is this sustainable? When do you put the tickets in for Madison Square in the Garden, and they tell you one show is 30% sold. You know what I'm saying? That's always a fear in the back of your head.

Well, look, I think, and we've been talking about this ad nauseam, probably makes the listeners so sick of it, but what is A very interesting and very privileged experience is to go from trying to get something and then trying to hold on to something. It's a very precarious and weird mental space. Building is you get it. Yeah, let's sell those shows out. Okay, great. If we do this third, we could do an arena. Now it just switches to like, Okay, now I don't want to lose it. But I don't have a game plan on how to not lose it. I have a game plan how to build.

Yeah, it could be compared to you build a beautiful house, right? But then there's stuff going to go wrong with the house. Are you going to leave the grass grow? Are you going to let the gutters rust? You got to maintain it, right? So if you pay attention to it and you nurture it for your podcast, I'm sure you pine over. I don't know, maybe you don't, but just listen to you say that, Okay, we had this guest and we had a dip. Are we going to come back next week? Where are we in the rankings?

How do we keep this at the level?

I love this. I want to keep this, but I don't have any experience. I have 29 years of experience trying to build shit.

So now that it's built.

Yeah, exactly. It's an interesting transition. And I have a sense if we don't navigate it correctly and with a lot of thoughtfulness, we will lose it.

So is it harder to build or maintain?

Thus far, harder mentally to maintain. Mentally.

I think the truth is it's harder to build and gain success. I mean, that's what most people would tell you. 99.9% of people who don't have the thing would say that. But it's just a weird position to be in where you got there-You love what you have. You like it. Then it's like, Oh, fuck. I don't want it to go away. It could at any moment. It's scary.

This stuff's all gross to talk about out loud, but I like that we're doing it.

I thought the building was the best part of it. Going back to Gotham Comedy Club and taking pictures with the fans outside and signing DVDs and like, Oh, you're from this? I wasn't even thinking about, Are these people going to come back next time?

You were taking it for what it was in the moment? Yeah.

I wish I had that same mentality to maintain it. It seems to be a lot more stressful now than it was 10 years ago, right? Yeah. But you would think it would be- But is that just revisionist history?

It's hard to really think back to how it felt then because I'm sure it was stressful then, too. I think we forget some of that.

I agree with you, but also I have said many times in here, the highlight for me was the Sunday Company at the Groundings. The fact that I went out on stage on Sunday nights and the place was sold out and I was doing the fucking thing I had to California to do, and people were laughing, and people wanted to meet me in the lobby afterwards, that was incomprehensible.

But again, you were an alcoholic who was worried that you were failing all the time. You are deciding to take that piece out when you recall Well, and that's all I'm saying.

You were smoking crack in Ghost Town in Venice also, by the way.

I mean, it's a fair... We just remember things with the very- You were fucking strangers hoping that would make you feel good.

Yeah, you were.

But I I agree with you. There's something to the process of building that's very fulfilling.

There is. Maybe there's another way to look at it, too. A weird analogy would be, I'm sitting on a beach over Christmas at a hotel I have no business being at, and it's the dream, and I'm there, and I did it. I'm looking around, and I cannot help but notice, my trips to the holiday in Express, people were having much more fun because they still had all this stuff they could look forward to. They could sit there and they could dream of this, and maybe this time we'll do... The people I was looking around, I was like, They all got here. We're here. There's no place left. And this isn't that much fun. And now, not only is it not that much fun, I've robbed myself of hope and daydreaming in a weird way because this is it. And there's some weird sadness. It made me think, of course, Elon Musk and Bezos are going to Mars. It's literally the only thing left they can't do.

Yeah, that's a good point.

If you and I are sitting at the hotel pool and we go, Wouldn't it be titties to have an island and some offshore a race boats? We don't have that. We're going to have to do some tricks to get that. We can fantasize about you and I, Miami vice style on a race. It could be a whole thing. If Elon and Bezos are sitting there and they're like, We should get... Yeah, in two hours, we could have that.

But you know what? Are those things They're not that fun. Yeah, but if you're at the hotel, right? You're looking around going, no one else is having fun. But if you're there with your family and your kids and you're having a blast, what else matters, right?

It doesn't matter. I had a great trip, but I just could feel it.

There is a, Oh, we have to act a certain way now. Everybody's quiet, and then you go up to somebody and no one's doing cannonballs like they're doing at the Radisson Inn on Beltline.

No one's swimsuit failed them. Everyone's got a pretty new suit.

But a fight could break out at the Holiday Inn Express. It's exciting. You can get accidentally stabbed. All right. So you take the no fun five-star hotel and stuff.

He's including the the stabbing is the fun part. You like that. You want that.

I would have loved it if there was a stabbing at the Four Seasons in Mexico. I would have been first on the scene. Okay, really quick. We already touched on it. I want to know, do you have gratitude for this? A lot of the stuff you're now getting to do at 50 is the stuff a lot of standups would have been doing at 29. I think there's a lot of good that comes with that, and there's probably some shit I'm not thinking about that's challenging about that. But now you got a sitcom. Now you're in movies. You got to make a movie where De Niro played your fucking dad. In some weird way, I'd imagine it's a blessing. I've even had a blessing that it didn't happen for me until 29. If I wasn't punked at 21, I would have been dead. There's no question. You start on this other chapter in your entertainment life already having kids, having some foundation, having all this stuff. What is your thoughts about getting all these dreams later?

I couldn't have done what I'm doing now as far as the bookie or being in movies when I was 25, 30, I didn't have the confidence. Now I'm confident. I could go up to Chuck Lorrey now and go, I'm not feeling it. Maybe when I was 29, I would have not said anything. I don't want to rock the boat. I'm just happy to be here. Over the years, it's given me confidence to speak up for myself and trust my instincts. Sometimes I would have great instincts but wouldn't react on them because I felt like, Oh, that's not what they want. It took me a little bit to learn that. Now I'm 50 and I'm getting an opportunity to be on a TV show. You're right. Friends and Seinfeld mid-30s got this opportunity. Ray Romano. I needed those years to build my confidence.

By the way, it explains potentially why the collaboration wasn't fun at Second City, which is you were likely to get gobbled up.

You're right. It took me a while. I needed to go out there and earn my confidence. Meeting my wife 15 years ago, having a family later on in life, there's some pros and cons to that. I often look at my I look at my kids age and go, I got a six-year-old and a four-year-old. I'm 50, right? Yeah. My dad was 50 when I moved out to California. Sometimes I compare the life I had growing up and the life I'm living now and wishing, Oh, man, I really like my childhood. I wish my kids could have that same experience, but they don't. So how do you adjust to that? I'm able to do that now at 50, and I wouldn't be able to do that if I had kids at 30.

Yes, I'm sure you and I wrestle with the same thing, which is I need them to grow up the way I did. It scares me. No, it should. I don't want my kids to assume that they will have a swimming pool at their house.

I think you want already because you know that. There's some people that get the kid to swimming pool and they don't let them know, Hey, not everybody's got it. Every party you go to, they're going to have what we have. That doesn't make those people any less than us. Beat it into their heads.

But circling back to Santa, because we should keep talking about that.

All roads lead back to Santa.

That's what I actually think is the most problematic thing about Santa, is that if everyone- This is good. Yeah. If Santa's real, why are kids that don't have as much money getting fewer presents and cheaper presents?

Why did Santa bring me ponies and you Jordans? Exactly.

You know what?

You're like, I already said. The Santa thing?

I think we've covered it, that you have some valid arguments.

I just said another one I'm piling on.

Just trying to keep the dream alive over at the Manescalc.

Yeah, trying to explain to your daughter why Santa spent $6,000 on her Christmas.

Yeah, and then that boy got- Two scratchers. For a comedy bit, I like that whole mindset.

But I don't think any other kid other than yours can figure this out. Some kids are just, You got what? I got this. They don't equate, except for your kids. Your kids on another level when it comes to this. You got a book?

Cool. I got a Power Wheel.

What book did you get? What book did you get? Naughty and nice and stuff. It's like, I guess I was naughty. I guess he was just naughty. He got a book.

Yeah, and really, he's just poor. Mike got a fucking book. I don't know what he did this year, but I do know this. Santa brought him a book.

Guys, listen, I don't know what Santa ever did to you. Will you please?

Will you flush this out? I hope to God I see you do stand up one day and somehow this is all flushed out.

This is in.

There's something there. Yeah, incorporate. Something's here. Something's sticky about this, isn't there?

That argument, I will make the complete opposite of my argument because I'm going to make you guys look like the enemy.

Okay, sure.

You have to. You're the hero of your stand-up routine.

And then the audience is going to go, Yeah, those people.

Can you believe? Hollywood.

No.

The last thing I want to get your opinion on, at the risk of I getting a little heated here. Oh, no. You have to be observant. As someone who watched stand-up like crazy as a kid, then got into comedy, did sketch comedy, tracked everything that happened on Serient Live, tracked everything that was it. I've been following it. We're at an interesting point in comedy. I think probably Bill Bur and Shapel being the vanguard of it, coupled with this movement of wokeness and a pushback to wokeness, comedy is seeming more and more relevant at this moment. Do you feel that?

I think people are turning to comedy for the unfiltered truth of it all.

The original thing comedy did, which was bring truth to power or to challenge the status quo or to disrupt. Even the jester, its inception was this goof ball that would go in front of the king and have the ability to make fun of the king and no one else could. But he was so funny at doing it that they were able to bring truth to power. I can't help but observe that there's this big swell of America going, we need you all's voice right now.

Oh, yeah. I think people getting offended, whatnot, are just a very small group of people. I'm speaking from my own experience when I go on the road, I'm seeing it firsthand that the jokes that seem to hit the hardest are the jokes that tend to push back against. It's not even pushing back. It's like you used to just make fun of everything. But then now all of a sudden, we have these parameters of what you can and cannot joke about. I don't do a lot of jokes that are cultural. Mine's like family. I went to Universal Studios with my kids. I just feel like people are dying to laugh at the absurdities of life.

Yeah. And all of us that are here. Yeah.

I don't feel like it's a big as a problem as it might be presented.

It is misleading by virtue of where you live. We live here. I'm ultra-aware of all the stuff, but then, yeah, I'm down somewhere else and I'm like, Oh, right. That's not even a thing here. No one's even talking about this.

Definitely misleading. Even on this podcast, I'm sure you're like, Should we air that one? That could be a cancelable offense.

Yeah.

Before it was just like, oh, that was funny. Now all of a sudden you got to be a little bit more cautious about what you put out there.

If I'm being fair, a lot of the comedy was just mean and superior. There was a spirit to some of it. This pendulum swung all these different ways, but I do think it's landed with a handful of people I really like right now. The intention's right, the spirit's right, the heart's right, and we're going to fucking laugh at every one of our neighbors together because that's what we do. I think it evolved. I'll watch some of the stuff, I'm like, I'm glad that's gone. That was mean.

Yeah, I mean, there is mean-spirited comedy, and you could feel it almost. It's a gut. But you don't go online and, Hey, it's just a mean thing. It's like, All right, that was mean. All right, maybe that's mean.

I'm going to see this person again. Wasn't that funny? Yeah.

But I've always looked at it as, Hey, I'm making fun of life in general and all of us, and we all could laugh together about being 50 and wearing Jordans or whatever it might be. I just feel like we got to just loosen up a little bit. That's all.

Yeah. I also think the comedians are letting us know, Hey, we can also have some fun again. We've got a lot of correction to do. But also, hey, this is a pretty fun place, planet Earth. This country, flawed as it is, pretty great one. It's okay to have some fun still. We can laugh and have a good time. We don't have to be crying all the time.

Why was this a point of contention between you two? You said, Oh, we're probably going to get in an argument.

Well, just yesterday, we were debating one of these comedians and navigating the very legitimate fact that it's different for Monica than it is for me.

My issue sometimes with certain comedy, I don't think it's the comedian. I think generally the comedian is smart and has a fun take and a funny take, depending. But if they do, I worry about the people in the audience who don't get that it's making fun of all of us. They hear the eyes joke.

I sent her the Shultz thing. Asian eyes joke. He's in Taiwan. This is why it works for me. The audience is thousands of Taiwanese.

When you said that, I was like, Are you sure they're in Taiwan?

There was a lot of people. No, he's in Taiwan. He said, Listen, I'm here in Taiwan, and you realize if you guys get invaded by China, it's going to be us and the Australians.

Also, that was so funny. I'm not saying he's not being funny, but when he makes the joke about open up your eyes, if the Taiwanese people are laughing, great. It's the white person who is racist who laughs. They're like, See, they do have closed their eyes. Don't open, see? It's that that I feel is a line to toe.

That person, regardless of what the comedian says, is going to probably hear that from-They already think it.

That was my exact retort was simply, that joke didn't make that person that way. That person was that way, and they're in search of all kinds of reasons to continue to think that way. Yeah. It's like my defensive stern. If we even take it out of any wokeness and just go back to the '90s and go like, Yeah, A lot of people weren't in on the joke. I think that person's not in on any joke they hear, or they're just out there trying to gather some arsenal of shitty things to say to other people. I don't know how we account for those people. I don't know that's our responsibility to.

I get what you're saying. You're saying, Oh, you're fueling the audience.

It can. I mean, obviously, I come here with a much different perspective on those jokes. Plenty of jokes have been used against me in life that when I see it on stage, I can't laugh at it when it was used to punch me.

I do recognize Monica in junior high where the only Indian person on TV is a boo, and then every kid in school is calling you a boo and stuff. Like, yeah, that fucking blows.

I do a joke about Indians being smart, right? Generally, engineers and what have you.

It's a good generalization, yeah.

Safe one.

It's pretty safe. Well, even people get bent out of shape. Even me mentioning- That they over index in engineering. Well, in school, Indians were the smartest kids in the school, them and the Japanese. That's the way it was. Nimesha Patel was the smartest kid in my class. When I make reference to that, I get sometimes, Indians do other things other than engineering.

Okay, but there's people are going to- It's crazy.

It's crazy. What are we going to do? I agree with you.

That's not offensive, though. But people will find offense anywhere. I agree. I get sometimes annoyed here because I don't want to get lumped in with that person. I'm not that person. But I am a person. If you say like, shit, not you, but something about brown skin being shit-colored, for one, I just don't think it's smart comedy. Like, there's just a lot of bad comedy.

Yeah, well, most people suck at stand-up. That's not smart.

And then those were actual things used against these minority groups. Being smart wasn't.

What you just said, the shit colors. It's not funny. It's mean-spirited. That type of stuff, you don't laugh at it.

But some people laugh at it.

People are going talk that way. It's a shame. You don't like to see it. It hurts. I get it. I'm just saying I wouldn't concentrate on it.

I don't think I actually do.

She doesn't. Now I feel bad. It's the only way I get roped in in these conversations. My apologies. I don't mean to position you and I on opposite ends of any spectrum. Cut it out. Yeah, get it all. Snip, snipp, snipp, snipp, keep it clean. Anywho, I guess in summation, I just think it's a really interesting moment in comedy.

I think it's the best time to be a comedian, to be honest with you. People, more now than ever, need to laugh. That's why you see a lot of people selling out arenas and theaters. Comedy is flourishing.

Yeah, so there's a good question. You first sold out The Garden four nights in a row in 2019, and so we're five years beyond that. When you were doing it, it was a novelty. I think there's a really clean parallel between this show and that, which is we've been doing it for six and a half years. In the last three years, a whole bunch of folks entered the fray. A lot of people getting millions of downloads. Does it scare you or encourage you? I can see it going either way.

It makes me question my relevance, my popularity, where am I in this whole thing?

Am I ascending or descending?

Yeah, we'll see. I got a big tour coming up in July, and we'll see how the tickets sell in the hot markets. They're great. Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, New York City, Toronto, But if you go to Norfolk, Virginia, we're going to have to get on the horse and start selling tickets. It's all stressful. You look at the blue dots. I don't know if you guys do blue dots on Ticketmaster. You don't look at blue dots?

Tell me how blue dots work.

So when you go and you're doing a theater to see how you're doing, you go on Ticketmaster and there's a map of the seats. And blue dots are seats that are not sold. Not sold. Actually, John Mayer and I have talked about this. He's a blue dot guy. You go in to see how your tickets are selling. And if you see a sea of blue dots, your hair starts falling out on the keyboard. Right, sure. So Kevin Hart comes out. He's doing theaters for his next theater. This guy's an arena act going to theaters now. I'm thinking, he is Kevin Hart, the biggest comedian in the world. He's doing What the hell am I doing in North Fort, Virginia, trying to sell out an arena?

Yeah, it's really heady.

Yeah. To hop on the hamster wheel and start sprinting.

That's why in 2025, I'm going to retire and just- You heard it here. School events. I'm going to see my kids gala.

Fundraisers. Oh, you must be the first up.

Oh, yeah. No. You must get called six times a week. I'm doing the gala in three weeks.

So your current tour that people can buy tickets to is Ain't It Right Tour. You're going to be in LA, August 17th. Where are you at in LA?

At this new Intuit Dome. Bruno Mars opens it up Thursday and Friday, and I come in Saturday. I took a tour to Dome.

Where's it at?

It's right next to Sofi. Oh, it is?

State of the art.Gorgeous.Gorgeous..

I mean, it's designed for basketball. It's going to be home to Los Angeles Clippers. Steve Ballmer owns not only the team, but the building. He took me through a tour.

He's a rad dude.

Yeah. Have you met him?

Yeah. He's from Michigan.

He's a big person personality. He took me through the bathrooms. No mirrors in the bathroom. He don't want people looking at themselves because it takes away from cheering for the team. Oh, wow. The whole objective of this stadium is to keep people in their seats. The concession stands all face recognition. You don't have to take out a wallet or anything like that.

The toilet seats have spikes on them, so no one wants to sit too long.

No toilets.

It's a pretty spectacular place, so I'm looking forward to playing it.

How many cities will you do on the Ain't It Right tour?

I think it's 94 shows over the course of nine months. It's my biggest tour ever.

What does that work out to? Two a week-ish?

It's one week on, one week off, maybe two weeks on, two weeks off. So, generally speaking, I'll go out for about three or four nights, come home, and then maybe have a week off. It's not like I'm going to be on a bus for nine months like Motley Crue in the '80s.

You can borrow it. Do you want me to drive? You do some shows then?

Can you drive me to Intuitome? Of course.

Parking might be rough. Do you see the size of it? But I'll figure it out. I see this thing. When we walk out.

I pulled in, I was looking at the dirt buggy.

Well, Sebastian, I'm so glad I finally got to meet you. Yeah, man. I think you're spectacular. I love everything I've seen you do. It's so good. I'm so happy for you. Also, what is a rad story for it to all come together.

Yeah, really cool.

After just fucking battling.

Four Seasons.

Four Seasons, brother.

What's the craziest thing you ever saw waiting tables there?

I like to see what the celebrities tipped. Shaq would come in Sunday by himself sometimes, come up in one of those cars that has a convertible, like 1950s car, order a fruit plate. What? With a coffee. It felt like I was serving a giant. I had to bring out big spoon.

Serving spoon.

Serving spoon, yeah. You just leave $100 under the plate every time. No check, no nothing. Just very generous. That's amazing. Sean Penn would come in as a regular and be a little trepidacious about waiting on just because- You're scared. Scared.

Who knows? It is a funeral.

For me, coming from the northwest suburbs of Chicago in 1998, next thing you know, I'm waiting on Nicole Kidman. It was exciting.

I would have loved that. Did you have to police yourself about putting on too good of a show for him. He must have wanted their approval. I would have been tap dancing every time I brought the fruit plate.

The only guy I was like that with was Jerry Seinfeld because I felt like he gave me the energy to be a little bit more open because-A little more extra? Yeah, Four Seasons This was very, don't say anything. This is not casting. But with Jerry, I goof around with him, and we had a good exchange. He actually remembered it.

I was going to say because you're in his movie now that's coming out.

Yeah, I'm on Frosted. I did Comedians in Cars with him, and I told him that I worked there. He goes, I remember you there. How cool. Yeah, it was a great place to work for seven years.

Do you feel like you're in that party? The comedian party? I mean, getting to do comedians.

In cars, yeah. It's like almost a Johnny Carson getting called over to the couch Exactly. I feel like I'm in that comedy community with standups. Yeah, I feel like I'm in the game. I feel like I'm in that club.

You are. You deserve that feeling.

Well, thank you.

Where do people go to get tickets?

Sebastionlive. Com is where you get your tickets for the tour. It Ain't Right starting July 11th in Norfolk, Virginia.

The before mentioned Norfolk, Virginia.

A lot of blue dots.

Let's clear out those blue dots.

Red state blue dots. Well, Sebastian, this is awesome, man. Great meeting you.

I appreciate you having me on.

Take care. Stick around for the fact check. Because they're human, they make lots of mistakes.

Update.

Okay.

And behind the curtain. We recorded Thursday's fact check yesterday.

Yes. Because- We normally have a bigger gap.

Yeah. But a lot's happened in the last 24 hours.

Yes, we're not out of material, as luck I would have it.

Exactly. The peel has started to really kick in. Now we have actual peeling.

Yes, but again, and you likely won't believe me, you can't see it from across the room at all. I could only see it when we were standing in the very harsh sunlight on the stairs when you first came and said, Oh, no, it's begun. Because this is like a really sick... The universe was really... I don't know what lesson it's trying to teach you.

That I don't deserve love.

The day that the peeling started, and this is a very broad Easter egg, but two of them are the handsomest guests we've ever had in one day.

We had two very handsome men.

Men guests.

In the attic today. I knew that I saw it. Well, first of all, the second guess was added to the calendar later than I knew.

The original decision.

Yeah. Anyway, I saw on the calendar what this week looked like, and I had to do the emoji that you hate.

You had to say whatever.

Yeah, I had to say whatever. Like, this is my life. This is me.

Does the emojis stick their tongue out? Because when you do that emoji, you also stick your tongue out.

I'm not sure if that's part of the emoji. She doesn't, but she wants to. But yeah, it's probably good for me. Well, two things. One, neither of these men are eligible.

They're both eligible.

Is he married?

Neither of them are married.

I thought he was married. Talked his wife multiple times. They're both divorced. Oh, my God.

I guess it's good you're finding out now they were eligible.

Can you just text him and tell him about my face?

I was really, really on the fence. I was like, I know this person well enough and trust this person. I almost want to just get it out for you. Hey, Monies, she had a peel and you're gorgeous. But I was like, in the past, whenever I wade into that area, I generally choose wrong. So I was like, I'm just going to... If she wants to do it... But I did feel like for the second guest- Me too. For the second guest- So you would have liked that.

I would have. And I thought, Oh, I'm just going to say- Let's just get it out in the open. Yeah, but then I was like, I don't need to take up-time to talk about my face.

Oh, I see. You saw it as a growth opportunity. Yeah.

I just don't need to take time out to talk about myself. And then what? He's going to be like, Oh, it's fine. What's he going to say? It is good for me to just say, I look bad. Hold on. Be careful about language. It's okay.

How about you don't look your best? Because even you not looking your best, it looks Good. I don't think we can cosign on you look bad. You're not at your optimum looks because your skin is peeling.

Yeah, well, because my skin is peeling off.

That's right. You're molting.

I'm molting. As my witch says, this is what creatures do. It's It's very natural. It's so natural. And I am getting excited.

You are. That's good.

I'm getting excited about it to come off and have baby skin.

Also, there's just something about knowing when you're at the bottom of something and things are only going to get better. Exactly. It's nice. It's almost the definition of depression, where you think the future is going to be worse than the present. This is like, well, it can't get worse. It's like forces you to not have depression.

The problem is with depression, you don't think that. That's true. You don't have any optimism. Speaking of... Yeah.

Oh, should I not say? So sorry. I was holding a lot of my yawns in because it's been a long day. I don't want you to think of, do not read any of this as disinterest. Okay. Maximum interest level.

I've gone up on my medication.

Right.

I did go up on my medication. I have mentioned on here before that I've been keeping an eye on my depression. Yeah.

I think we all been tracking that.

Oh, God. In the comments?

No, not at all. But you have been vocal about it several times over the last two months. I have. Yeah.

And so I was keeping an eye on it. And at a point, I decided that it was important for me to adjust slightly.

This is a boy. We're in a real pattern, which is similar to me trying to figure out whether I should say to our guests, Hey, Monica had a peel. Let's just talk about that. And similar, and of course, I have this with Kristen as well. When you have a friend who has depression and is medicated, and you notice they're struggling for a really long period of time, I'm trying to decide whether it's my place to suggest like, Hey, do you want to look at your dosage? Yeah. Yeah. I'm very supportive, and I'm very grateful that that was your conclusion because I had several times wanted to suggest that.

Because I- Well, you care.

I care. I know. And I have a friend who's suffering, and I think unduly and not fairly. If you had shit collapsing around you and stuff, and there were a lot of things, then obviously that would make sense. But this felt like undue suffering.

So what I feel is that there was some thing I went through earlier in the year, beginning of the year. And what I feel like happened is I got shaken. And And when all the pieces went back into place, one piece did not go back into place fully. The puzzle piece is like halfway in. Some jagged edges. But it's not clicked in. But the medication has helped just snap it back into place. It doesn't mean I'm happy. It doesn't mean it fixed any of the problem. It doesn't feel I can't handle it.

Insurmountable. Right. To me, that's what from the outside, it seems like. It's like we're all going to have challenges, and we're all going to have to struggle. But depression can make it that you are unable to take up the fight in the way that you need to.

Exactly. I definitely understand your position. I would struggle, too. Yeah, it's really tricky. It's hard to know. I can't promise you. I can't promise you if you had said it- That it would have been met with-well received.

Yeah, it's a very, very tricky thing because you're already depressed. And now I'm basically saying, I know you're depressed. Yeah.

But also this is a little tricky because I said it, right? I'm like, I'm keeping an eye on this. I know I'm not fully where I should be, but I think it'll pass. I'm being pretty vocal about that, which I think makes it actually easier for you to say something.

In a way, you're inviting me into the conversation.

Yeah. But depending on when you said it, I might not have been able to hear it. I might have. I don't know. And I will say Calleigh told me.

Good.

And I was like, Yeah, I have to. Okay, good. I was texting with her. Oh, it was when I was home for Mother's Day. I texted her, Happy Mother's Day. Her first Mother's Day. So exciting.

Inaugural.

Yes. And she asked how the show was. She asked about me, and I was like, Yeah. And to me, what I was saying was pretty-innane.

Let's see if- Let's see what I said. You got a geological record of it?

Yeah. Yeah, it does.

It is pretty- Is it a little different.

It's pretty tired.

Is your memory a little different than what the- I said- Archeological record is showing?

I said, Happy Mother's Day, two exclamation points. Hope you got your two second hug. She had said that was what she wanted for Mother's Day. It was like a hug from her child longer than two seconds.

Yeah, her baby boy.

She said, It came close to at least two seconds. And I said, Good job, her baby's name. And then she said, How was your event? I said, It was really fun. Glad I did it. I was dreading it a little. And then she She said, Yay, do one in LA, please. And then I said, I've been dreading a lot these days. There we go.

A little cry for- And she said, I'm sorry.

And I said, It's fine. And then she said, A lot of events like that or just a lot of different things. And I said, Just a little anxious, I guess. It'll pass. And then she said, Have you talked to your psychiatrist about it? Yeah.

I guess that's the safest way to say it. Because you're not actually saying, I think you need to do X, Y, It's just like, Hey, have you- Totally.

And her and I, I've done that for her.

If another alcoholic says something to me, it's a little different. I know. It's helpful if you yourself have experience with it.

I know, which I don't like because I want to be able to hear it from everyone, and I should be able to. I want you to be able to hear it from people who aren't just in your club. Because it affects everybody. Both of these things do. But there There is something about her that I just have so much gratitude, and I've been thinking about it for a bit. And I think you have this with Aaron. I believe... There is no agenda ever Will you- With her.

Yeah. You have total trust, an unconditional love, and no judgment.

Both ways.

Exactly. And that's Aaron and I. Aaron can tell me anything. Yeah. And he knows there won't be an ounce of judgment. Yeah. I must be like, Oh, yeah, I feel for you. I know.

Yeah. It's more than not having judgment because I do feel I'm fairly blessed with that in many relationships. I don't know. I don't know how to explain it because I don't even think it's... I was telling one person about this and they were like, Yeah, sisters. I was like, It's not even that. It's something else. I just know in my cells that she only wants the best for me. There's no other goal.

Yep. And you just said the word that I most identify with Aaron, which is somewhere along the way, I have infused him into my body. It's not an exaggeration. He's in my DNA.

Yeah, I know. It's very special. Oh, my God.

I'm so lucky.

I'm so lucky, too.

So shout out, Aaron and- Calleigh.

Calleigh.

Good job, guys. Yeah, good job. I can only hope they feel that way about us. Me, too.

I sure hope they do. I do, too.

I think my young son does.

I think Calleigh does, too. She's not my son, but- But she is my daughter. Yeah. No, she's not. That's another... We don't have that either. I would say almost every other relationship in my life, there's a tiny bit of that. Someone's playing a little bit of a role at some. I don't know. I don't know. I don't.

Yeah, Aaron and I is interesting because I think on the surface, you go like, Oh, that's a lopsided-I don't think that, by the way. Yeah, but he and I have this weird understanding of what that means, which is very mutually lovely for both of us in a way that no one's in a lesser role or a power dynamic. It's just I live to care for that boy.

I know. It's so sweet. That's why each relationship is so specific and so different. I'm very grateful for her and that friendship. And I have other ones that I'm as grateful for, but they're different. Like, even Kristen and I have a very, I think, interesting, for a long time, like maternal Huh? Baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dynamic. And it would switch around because I was also working for her, and so I was taking care of a lot of her.

Yeah, you were her mom sometimes.

And she was very maternal towards me. And that was very symbiotic. That worked really well. They can take all these shapes. They do. It's just funny. I mean, being fully honest, I think, and I won't speak for her, but I feel that part of when I left that position, that was hard for us.

You had to redefine. Exactly.

We were in such a clicked in dynamic that didn't exist anymore when we were not working together.

Yeah, that's really common just in general. Even on Parenthood, you go to set and I'm Adam's little brother, and I am. And then we hang out and go for a hike, and it's like, I'm not Adam's little brother. I'm a peer. Yeah. And so I think it's common for people to have different relationships in different contexts. And some people manage those well, and some don't. I've had friendships where it's the dynamic changed dramatically, and we didn't do well with it.

Right, exactly. You have to work at it, and maybe sometimes it's easier than others.

Yeah. Or Joy and I, we're at work and we're married. Right. And then we go get some grilled, Brazilian chicken, and clearly we're not married. We're bros.

That part of acting is very-It's funny. Odd. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, very odd. It's funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very odd.

Anyhow. Well, the results are in. I'm per the comment section, and I'm weirdly delighted to report this. I don't know why, but many people said they do go straight to the fact check. That's lovely. It's very common. I like that. You do. I don't like it in I don't want the guests to not be heard, but I like it.

Well, we love you guys out there who love the fact check. Yeah, it's very flattering. It is extremely flattering. Anyhow, very far behind the curtain today. Almost in my underwear draw at this point. Well, because my face is peeling off, so I'm very vulnerable- Yeah, the new baby U is coming out. I'm not supposed to pick. Yeah, it must be. It's really hard.

You got to get a fidget toy.

I did pick one piece off. Oh, fuck.

I would have done the same thing. I can't be judgmental. But you need fidget toy for this duration. How many days do we think the molting takes place?

I think it's moving at a rapid pace. Okay. I think by the next time I see you, I'll look like a baby.

A baby, okay. Will you wear that dress from that?

Yeah.

You should get a full size version of that dress made. You can afford it.

You can hire someone. If Mary Kay and Ashley make it, I'll buy it. You'll wear it. I'll wear it. Speaking of Peter, I'm still watching 6 feet Under. Okay, you got- Still Loving It.

Got back in.

I did realize something.

Since we've spoken?

Yes, since last night or yesterday.

There's been an update.

Because I watched a couple of episodes last night. And I realized, I think I had started it at some point in my life before. And I remembered why it stopped. Too much death? Not specifically too much death in the actual show. But the cold open is a death. There's a death every episode.

It's how we meet the corpse.

Exactly. It's how we meet the corpse. And it's, to me, incredible storytelling to me. I think it's so fun and funny.

It's a weird procedure.

And sometimes they're funny and sometimes they're horrific. Like there was a Sids. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. And then I remembered, oh, yeah, I think I stopped because all I could see walking through the world while I was watching it was ways I could die.

You have had always a healthy fear of death?

I wouldn't say healthy, but- Oh, right.

An unhealthy fear of death.

Probably.

Boy, are you and I on opposite ends of that spectrum? It's just comical.

I know.

I mean, I just don't I never think about it. I'm not afraid of it at all.

It's not that I'm afraid of dying. I'm actually not. I die, die. I don't know. I don't want someone to leave my universe. Yeah. And so that's all I could see is how How vulnerable everyone is all the time, which is scary to me. But I'm getting better at it.

But I'll have these dark fears play out when we're all together, the family on a flight, let's say. Yeah. And even when I have that terrible thought, I go right to like, what an experience we had together. And we're all going to shut the light switch off at the same time.

Well, that's different.

Okay.

Because I agree. If we're I'm not going out at the same time, I'm not scared of that.

Yeah, it goes straight to the gratitude of like, by God, I met these people. God, I met these people.

But it's about them leaving you while you're alive. Yeah, that's exactly. That's like an unspeakable. We can't think about it or talk about it.

Oh, my God. I finally understand Vladimir.

Yeah. He who shall not be named.

Yeah, just recklessly. Oh, and right now, Kristen got sent a script. It's like a modern retelling of Macbeth. Oh, she literally will not say it. She will not say She's such a theater girl. I know. It's so real to her.

I thought it was only in the theater.

I did, too, but it's in our bathroom as well. And I'm like, wow, we're really not going to... And I'm saying it, and she does not like when I say it. If she You are a knock on work- You shouldn't say it if she doesn't want you to. No, it's preposterous because I think the filling for it is the Scottish play.

Scottish play, yeah.

Which is preposterous. We're saying the same thing. What are we saying?

I like it in the context of the theater because It's a family-like thing. It's a community.

There's probably someone in a movie theater that is running out of the room right now because they heard it out loud. They're allowed to hear it. I don't think they are. Yes, they are. It's insane.

Yes, they are.

Then she had to bring up the hat on the bed. She's like, But that's real? I'm like, Well, that is real. That's the difference.

Oh, my God. I agree with her. If you have yours, she gets to have hers. It is really funny.

She'll go like, Well, in this telling of the Scottish play, I would play the Scottish play or whatever. Oh, really? I don't know.

How is she going to do press if she takes this on?

Well, this would be great. I hope she does it just to see her try to promote this movie without saying... By the way, a lot of people probably don't know. I would have never known this if I hadn't married a theater person, but you're not allowed to say Macbeth in a theater. Yes, that's right. It's bad luck. Because apparently there's been some legendary, like some sandbags fell on people or something like that.

Yeah, there's just like, it's theater lore.

What is it? So the actor playing Lady Macbeth... Oh, jeez, Rob, you just made it worse. Lady Macbeth unexpectedly died in the first show, and then an actor stabbed King Duncan with a dagger instead of the prop knife, killing him on stage. This is in the 1600s or something, 1500s?

Yeah, I guess so. It just has bad juju. Everyone knows it.

Also, there was a dude playing Macbeth. Let's just also acknowledge that.

Well, right.

You know girls weren't allowed to be on stage. So you got a guy playing the Scottish play.

Okay, listen. I- You don't like to say it? No, I won't say it in a theater, no. You won't?

That's where you draw the line.

Yes, because I also grew up in that world, but I don't think it's a thing to not say it outside.

Well, it is for her. That's so cute. It's like, I guess, Baltimore. Do you say Baltimore?

Yeah. Okay. I'm not going to right now, but- You don't love it, okay. No, I say Baltimore.

I'm not giving him the power. I wonder if we should have some submersion therapy, the three of us, where we'll get in a room, we'll put all the hats on the bed. We'll start chanting, Macbeth. Oh, God. We'll say Baltimore, Macbeth.

We should do this in a theater.

Yeah, we should put a bed in a theater.

To really do it.

What are you going to do about Terrence Posner? How do we make this the most sacrilegious?

No, I'm not. Mine's going to be more of a not knocking on wood.

No, it's got to be a theater in Hogwarts. Okay. With a bed on the stage, covered in hats, and we'll chant.

But I'm like Harry. I say it.

Oh, Harry says it.

Yeah, because Harry doesn't want to give him the power, and I don't either. That's my point.

Although not with the hats on the bed.

I don't think it's really your point.

I don't think so either. I just jumped onto yours.

Yeah, but we could do a no wood insight and then just horrible... Someone's saying horrible- Yeah, I can just talk about death nonstop. Yeah. Okay. I don't want us to do this. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

It's also funny to that I can do the knocking for you. Yeah, I can. That's also a weird rule in all this. But I mean, all the rules are completely arbitrary, so it does make sense at the same time.

Oh, boy. Brains.

Brains.

Okay, but anyway, the Peter thing, ding, ding, ding, because on this episode, you're talking about first season of Parenthood, and you said 18 or 20 episodes. Season one had 13 episodes.

True. We were midseason. I think I meant season two. Season two, we had a weird number. We never did 24.

Season two, you had 22.

Oh, we did? Mm-hmm. That's a big order on a one-hour drama.

It is. And then 18, season three. That's when I was thinking of season three. 4, 15. You guys were all over the map.

It was a mess. You never knew how many pages you were going to get.

22, season five. What? What were they doing? And then 13, season 6.

What a mess. Well, the guests we had on one of the before mentioned gorgeous men that were on earlier, they were on a show that's gone on for years. And I was really trying to imagine what What would have happened if Parenthood went on for 20 years?

Yeah, what would have... You would have left, probably.

I know. That's weird.

So it was perfect. That's why Mike has said that about the good place. He called it. And for that reason, this is done. And I think it's really smart.

I know because it was so pleasurable. So why would I ever want to walk away? But at the same time, I want to try a bunch of different things in life. So I don't know.

And you want the integrity of the show. You want it to be good.

Well, let's assume, though, that it's just always good. Twenty Seasons? Well, Seinfeld never got bad. Seinfeld was great the whole ride. How many Seasons? Nine.

And Friends never got bad.

What was that? Ten.

There you go. But 10 is the most.

60 Minutes is still great. They're on episode Kabillion.

Okay, I don't think that's the same. That doesn't count? No.

It's always sunny in Philadelphia. I don't know what season they're on. That's true. They're on 18, something crazy. All right. It's still great. So For which one's show? Always Sunny, 16. Okay, yeah. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, you got to assume that Parenthood stayed great. And then it would be really... I don't envy these people have to make that decision. Yeah.

What? Nothing. I was just thinking about my skin. Okay, sure. Flaking.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I almost said, how much would it cost for both of you guys to eat some of the skin?

Okay, you go first, Rob.

But then I didn't, but now I am.

I think it's a really good... I think it's an important question. Okay. How big is the chunk? Oh, that's- Let's go dime size. No, that's too big.

That's so much. Too big? That's way too big. I mean, like a booger size.

Wait, match head? Can I eat it with something else?

Match head.

The head of a match. A fiery match.

Sure. The head of a match.

Can I eat it with something else? No.

You got a raw dog. Yeah.

No sides, no salt, no garnishing. Probably like 25 grand.

Okay. That's a lot. It is.

It's pricey.

That's a big number.

You have to be very perverse to be willing to pay that to watch someone eat their skin.

Okay, now, well, I want to hear your answer, but what about your own? Your own skin?

Not that much. Five dollars. This is also the party thing where it'd probably be lower if-If it was real money. If it was real money. If I pulled out 15 grand in a stack of cash right now, you eat her whole face. I'm pretty certain of it.

Okay, what about you?

I'll be doing it for free.

Yeah. We're besties. That's really why I wanted to ask Because I'll probably have to cut this. This is so perverted. Okay. This is so nasty.

Oh, great.

When I pulled the tiny piece off earlier, it's so tiny. It's like...

Yeah. Who would notice?

I looked at it on my finger, and they're what I At a moment- Where you're going to eat it. I was like, I want to eat this. I didn't. I didn't. But I wanted to see what it felt like in between my two two.

Well, here's what I think we could all relate to. I think where the line is for people- Don't tell I'm not a more attractive guests that I said that.

I won't.

But I think eating... There's all these rungs of this, okay? Everyone's eating a booger or two. We accept that. Now, I had a lover who would eat their dander. Yes. Yes. For me, that was too much, but I wasn't judgmental. In fact, I love that she did it because I'm like, this is so unique and weird.

It is unique because I don't even understand it.

She'd be scratching. She'd have a scab on her head from dandruff, and then she would pull her finger away, and then she would see, I guess, a scab or something in her. People are getting sick. And then I would notice that she was just chilling with her front teeth. And I'd go, you're eating your head, you're eating your scalp. But it made me love her more. I like that. Wasn't it a listened to one? Because if she did it, it'd be fine. No, it's not anyone famous. Then it's hot. I don't think it's okay. People would pay for the money to see. Okay, so that one, obviously, I think you almost have a unanimous group saying they wouldn't eat their dander. I Okay. Now, what I will chew on all the time is when you get a callus on your thing and you bite that off with your... It's already in your teeth, and it's so... You can feel the fingerprint of it. You can feel the ridges of it. And I will chew on a big chunk of skin from, not a blister, but a callus. And I love it. And I'll chew on that all day, and I don't care.

I don't swallow it, but if I swallow it, I wouldn't care.

Yeah. I mean, I do that with the skin around my finger. Do you ever do just chew on the skin? Sure.

You get a little from the cuticle, and then you get it in between your teeth and you move it around. But then there were other kids in school that would eat their scabs. Now, I would never do that.

That part is like...

Did you see that, though?

No, I knew about scab eaters.

Yeah, I think that's more common than we would...

Yes. But I thought that was like Pica.

I don't think so.

Do you think your lover maybe had Pica a little bit? No. Or like 5 %? Sure.

I guess everything's a spectrum we've learned. We I've learned one thing.

But what I'm saying about my face is similar to the Dander. It's not that different.

Well, that's my point. It's all skin off of your body. Exactly. But we draw these arbitrary lines. One's disgusting. I think we all eat calluses, right?

I don't because I don't have any. The cuticle skin. Yeah, cuticle skin. Do you? It's fair game. Okay, you do. So most of all of us do. I think so. Although I try not to do this because my mom probably wouldn't like that I'm saying this, but she used to do it a lot when she was a kid.

So she monitored you a lot? No.

Her nail-Oh, yeah, we're a mess. Still is completely fucked up.

Yeah, I feel really bad for people that have that as a nervous habit. I had so many of them, but that wasn't one of them. This brings us perfectly to this That's the thing I need to address because there was several people in the comments that were upset about my portrayal of OCD when we were interviewing Camila.

Okay.

Because I was saying, having an obsessive mind is also a gift. Yeah. And we had also been talking about OCD. So I think people... Well, they had two complaints. One is that they don't believe I know what OCD is, and they want us to have an expert. I reached out to one. There's a popular one, so I invited one on the show. I like that. Yeah, happy to do that. Secondly, they didn't like the notion that I was making it sound like some a blessing, B-O-C-D. Many people wrote, It's a horrendous condition that I have, and there's nothing good about it. And so I hear them and I respect them. I can't relate to that reaction, to be honest. If I'm listening to someone on a podcast say that they're an alcoholic when they're not, I don't care at all. I don't think they're making light of my condition.

But can I Can I push back a tiny bit? What you can relate to is JD Vance, who wrote about having a hillbilly life and who you believe did not. And that did bother you.

That did bother me. That's a good pushback. The reason I feel entitled to it is I have technically OCD. I had crazy tics, and I was plagued by them. I certainly had OCD. I don't have it now, clearly. So in a weird way, I do feel entitled to identify with that because I did spend eight years of my life completely riddled with all this behavior I did not want to do. And now, yes, I guess now I'm playing it fast and loose with the fact that I also attribute whatever little personality was that person who was thinking that obsessively about things. I have come to think that that is me and I like it. The same way I like that I'm an addict. I like that I'm an addict. Now, someone's struggling right now in their first hour of trying to quit something, and they're like, there's nothing I have something to like about being an addict. And that's fine. But that's not my experience. I have gratitude for it.

You're just speaking for you.

Yeah. I apologize if anyone felt demeaned or trivialized, minimized.

I agree. I will also say I have an obsessive brain. I don't have OCD, but I do have obsessive thoughts. That's part of what we're just talking about. The death, the you see it ever, intrusive thoughts. I have all of that. Right.

And it's a big old spectrum.

It's a big spectrum. It used to be much worse for me. But there are parts of my personality that are connected to that obsessive nature that I am very grateful for.

And I don't expect everyone to be grateful for the things they have.

No. Everyone can make their own decisions about what they're grateful for and what they're not.

I'm only speaking for me at all times, but I know it gets... Complicated. It gets complicated. I like molesting jokes a lot. There are a lot of survivors that hate that, and they'll tell me I can't laugh at that. And I got a little offended by that, which is like, you can't actually tell me how I'm supposed to feel about this experience I had. Right. You get to decide how you feel about it, and I get to decide how I feel about it, I'm not going to change who I am because we don't feel the same way.

You're not going to feel worse because other people want you to feel worse. That's how you break it down. Okay, I have some facts.

Updates or facts?

I have both. Okay, great. In this episode, you say- Who is this? It's for Sebastian. People already know.

They always know, but I don't always know. Not if they skipped ahead.

Oh, you're right. They didn't even look.

That'd be incredible. It could be Brad Pitt.

Oh, my God. If Brad Pitt got added to the schedule after I had had appeal- What would you do? I would really, honest to God, ask you if we could reschedule it. I really would. Okay.

And then now let's play it all out. Yeah. No, that's the only day he's ever going to have available. Would you then decide to not come? No. Okay.

I care, unfortunately, more about this job than I do about- Your looks.

Yeah. You just do full glam or something.

Hire someone. No, you can't. You're not allowed to put anything on it.

You would if it was Brad Pitt. You're not allowed to, but you would. I don't think it would work.

That's the problem. If it was just color, you could glam, but because it's actual flakes, there's not much you can do.

It'd be more like taping a mudding job on drywall. They'd have to fill in the separation from the-I guess maybe I would.

Just wear a mask.

A COVID mask. That or the Seawood shit. Doesn't she wear like...

She has in the past. Does she wear-Oh, does she wear a-She has in the past. A fuck clob or whatever that's? There's a hip-Yeah, that's fun.

It's like a fashion thing.

There's a fashion mask.

I could try that. Erin, The other day, Aaron's been driving Uber, and he answered a call in downtown Detroit. He dropped someone off in down Detroit. So another call came in, and he went to this address, and a fucking dude in a full ski mask got in the car. And only Aaron, who's not afraid of anything, he's like, Yeah, this dude with a full ski mask gets in the car. And it's a voice memo, and I'm thinking, I would never let someone get in a car with me. And he just drove Oh my God. He drove him and the guy was going to work.

To burgle?

No. Like, had a real job, went into his job and wears a face mask. And I saw a guy in the park the other day wearing a full face mask. So I think there's like some quadrant of fashion has people in ski masks. Yeah, so you'd be fine.

I would probably call my witch. I would say, A work thing has come up.

Emergency.

Yeah, this is an emergency. What do I do? She hopefully would have a tip or two.

Spell or something?

Yeah. Well, yeah.

Some frog legs and some nude eyes.

No, I'm not. I'm feeling a little anxious about calling her witch. Okay.

You don't think she would like that? The dark arts.

I think she would think it was Volde. I don't want it to get back to her because I will die without her. Anyway, I would do that, and I would show up. You'd get through it. I'd get through it, but I would be so sad, and I would want you to do everything in your power to make sure I didn't have to experience that.

Right. What could I do? Keep distracting him every time he looks at you. Hey, Brad.

No, I wanted him to look at me. This is the problem. He's going to catch 22. Yes. Okay.

Will there look there's a chance to, what if I didn't look vascular that day? Stop. Impossible.

E bar.

That's what you were saying stop for it.

No, I was saying stop, as in don't make that equivalency because that's not even close. You know what I would do? I would ask you to do? What? Get a peel.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God. So when he sat down, I'm almost so sorry. We had an acid leak in here. Yeah. We act like there was some workplace. We're eating each other's skin. Money's changing hands.

Yeah, exactly. How do we get on this? I totally forget. Anywho.

He's never going to come on now that he hears.

That I had a peel?

No, that we're all going to have peels in eating each other's skin and stuff.

I think it sounds fun.

You're a little memorable. Okay.

I checked with Anna because we bring up Santa in this episode, and you said in Venezuela, they say that- No Santa because no snow. No. I was pretty sure you were wrong about that because it's mainly Baby Jesus. But I checked with Anna, and she said, I've heard it before in the way that a parent is trying to lie. Of course. Where the kids see Santa on TV, and they ask, and then they'd say, Oh, there's no snow.

We don't have snow. It's such a simple answer. Yeah.

Yeah, this is where the lies- But they also have Baby Jesus. Baby Jesus brings the presents and stuff.

Yeah, very generous. This baby. Yeah, very generous baby.

Yeah.

Good baby.

Okay, you didn't know about this guy. His name is Joe Lepuma, and he has a show called Sneaker Shopping. It's a YouTube show, and it's really good.

I've seen- You watch it? You had seen it before?

Yeah. And he has people on They talk sneaks? Yeah. And then they pick out sneakers and stuff. It's pretty cool.

Yeah, that's a good idea for a show.

So anywho, cool show. Check it out. Check it out. I recommend the Ben and Matt one, obviously.

Oh, so that's a slam dunk cross promotion for Air.

That is what it was for.

That's why you had seen it. Yeah.

Okay. Now, there was a big debate over how much the Air Jordan was when it came out.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. Air Jordan 1. Designer, Peter Moore, released 1985.

Wow. Long before I was in the market for them.

Original price, $65.

I don't doubt that.

You said 100.

I'm talking fours.

Oh, he had said 50. Maybe that was the confusion.

Because I had to talk mine down. It certainly was probably part of that.

Okay. The fours, 1989 was the release. Original price, $110.

There we go. I had to get 10 takes off that price tag for my mom to buy them for me.

Fives were $125. These are original prices. Threes were $100.

Maybe he was talking about threes.

He said $50. So he must have been talking about the original.

And he was $15 short. Yeah. But he and I are the same age. So he was 10 getting these shoes? Probably. That's wild. Although, funny enough, I went to my cousin's birthday party last night.

Oh.

Yeah. At a Chinese restaurant in Sherman Oaks. My uncle Randy's in town. Fun. Yeah, it was great. Jason's birthday. And my cousin Jamie was there. They're two and four years younger than me. So I was their older cousin. It was so fun. I would go over to my uncle Randy's house. They had a ton of toys. They had it good. My uncle really doted on those boys. And I'm looking at pictures of them as little kids at this birthday party. I'm just blown away with how cute they were. Un unbelievably cute.

We're looking at pictures. Okay, sorry.

My uncle Randy brought a bunch of photo albums to the dinner. Got it.

But they're adults now?

Yeah. Jason was turning 44.

Okay.

And Jamie's 47, which very much tripped me out.

And they're both boys.

Boys. Yeah, because Jamie's a misleading name. Could go either way. But I'm looking at these pictures, and I already knew Jamie had it good because he had a very enviable Garbage Pal Kids collection. That was the currency of the day when I was a kid. You wanted certain ones, and you had to buy a ton of packs to get these really coveted ones. And he had them all. He had the full sink.

Were they rich?

No, my uncle worked in the union for the baker's union. He did end up becoming the president of it. But they lived in a modest house, but they had all the shit. They had the great cereal. They had a cool stereo system. They had good stuff. All this is saying, I'm looking at these pictures. And I realized fucking eight-year-old Jamie had Jordan 1s on. Fuck. And I was like, You had Jordans when we were a little kid? I didn't even notice that. And Randy was like, Yeah, I had to get them Jordans. Oh my God. She was like, eight years only in $65 shoes.

Wow.

My uncle Randy is so fucking sweet. He brought with him because he's visiting from Michigan, and he brought photo albums, which were so fun to look at. And then he brought a poem he wrote about his boys when they were little, called Two Beautiful Boys, and he read it.

Oh my God.

It was so sweet. And then he cold cocked me, and he pulled out a letter I wrote him when I was 25, thanking him for being such a great uncle. Wow, that's so sweet. And how I lived daily haunted by the fact that I didn't tell my Papa Bob how much he meant to me. And then I didn't want to make that mistake again. That's sweet.

Do you remember doing it?

Vaguely. It's funny because I still have the same urge. I I really want Uncle Randy to know what a great uncle he was and how fun he was and involved. And I was like, relieved. I did do that when I was 25, but I weirdly still feel like I haven't and I need to more.

Was it because you don't feel like you talk about him enough?

What do you mean? I bear his name. My middle name, Randall.

I know, but you never talk about him.

I guess I don't.

But he was- I didn't know you felt that way about him.

Oh, my God. I love him, Monica. He and my aunt Sue, they were so fun. They were younger than my parents. He drove a Corvette. He had a motorcycle. He took me for a ride on his street motorcycle. He had this kick-ass sound system in the basement. And the first time I ever heard Erotic City by Prince, Which was never on the radio, and nor was it on one of the LPs. It was a backside of a 45, and he had that. Every time we were at his house, he'd dance party in the basement, and we would listen to Erotic City.

So he was your dad's brother?

Yeah, younger brother. And he was a good time, Charlie. And he and my mom were really great friends because my mom was younger than my dad by one year, and then Randy was one year younger than her. So in high school, they were friends, and they had tons of great times together. But yeah, he was just... He took us to the drive-in all the time. Wow. It's a beautiful man.

I'm glad you said it finally.

I know. All right. That's my two cents on Uncle Randy.

In this episode, you said incongruous.

Yeah, I always do.

Just saying.

I don't say incongruous.

I know. I'm just saying you said it. In last episode, we talk about the words you say all the time, and one was that. And then in this episode, you say it.

Right away. Delivered immediately on that promise.

Exactly.

I don't think I said over indexing on that one.

I have 33 minutes left.

So I have some time.

There's a chance. Okay. When was the Easter Bunny invented? I'm going to talk about what history. Com says because that's very trusted, even though it's not in the work. According to some sources, the Easter Bunny first arrived in America in the 1700s with German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania and transported their tradition of an egg laying hair called Oosterhaus, or Oosterhaus. That is cute. Their children made nests in which this creature could lay its colored eggs. So that's how it started. Eventually, the custom spread across the United States, and the fabled rabbit's Easter morning delivery is expanded to include chocolate and other types of candy and gifts, while decorated baskets replaced nests. Additionally, children often left out carrots for the bunny in case he got hungry from all of his hopping.

Why don't we eat some of the chocolate he was carrying. Well, he- He's the last guy I'm worried about being hungry. He's moving around tons of food. No, he's...

He doesn't want to eat the kid's chocolate. He's very nice.

Sure there's enough for him and us. I don't think bunnies can eat chocolate. They're like dogs. They'll die if they eat chocolate. Really? You're guessing. Probably.

Oh, my God. Okay, now I'm on Wikipedia.

Okay.

The Easter Bunny, also called the Easter Rabbit or Easter hair, is a folkloric figure and symbol of... I just realized that that's something Wina would do, is put hair and mean bunny.

Yeah.

Just keep your eyes out for that.

Yeah. Chocolate is dangerous to rabbits.

Okay. That's good to know. Folkloric figure and symbol of Easter depicted as a rabbit, sometimes dressed with clothes, bringing Easter eggs. Originating among German Lutherans, the Easter hair originally played the role of a judge evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the season of Easter tide. I knew it. Similar to the Naughty or Nice list made by Santa Claus. As part of the legend, the creature carries colored eggs in its basket, as well as candy, and sometimes toys to the homes of children. As such, the Easter Bunny again shows similarities to Santa in Christmas by bringing gifts to children on the night before a holiday. The custom was first mentioned in Georg Frank von Frankennaus, diávóch paszalvas.

It sounded like you went into Polish there a little bit.

Transited to About Easter eggs in 1682, referring to a German tradition of an Easter hare bringing eggs for the children. So that was the original thing we talked about.

Do we know when it became a nationally accepted, where everyone, non-Christians and Christians alike, are celebrating it?

I mean, that's like same with Christmas. Just over time, it becomes nondenominational. I mean, my parents never did Easter. That was something they could not get on board with.

It's fair.

I don't miss it. But you can't miss what you don't know. I said that. Interesting. I don't know. I coined that. Okay. That's my phrase.

People began to celebrate it. It wasn't until after the Civil War. They began to celebrate Easter. Maybe a bit of a healing. Maybe.

Yeah. But I don't think that probably still wasn't non-Christians for a while. Now, it's just everyone.

It was led by Presbyterians, apparently.

Yeah, they're Christians.

Yeah, they sure are. Big time. Some of our best. I love Sebastian.

Yeah, he was cool.

Yeah. All right. Love you. Love you.