Transcript of Best of Monday 2024

Wndri Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcast, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Sheppard. I'm joined by Mrs. Mouse. This is the end of the Year, Best of Mondays episode. Exciting. We pulled together 10 of our favorites. It's hard. It's really hard. I don't love best because there were so many we loved. Yes. It's more just like, these are the ones that happen to make it of the many we loved. Here's some highlights. Here's some highlights. So please enjoy Best of Mondays. From Wondery, I'm Raza Jeffrey. And in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the case file on Monse Klubin, the spy who gave London its Christmas tree. If you stand in London's Trivago Square at Christmas, you'll see a towering, sparkling tree. What you won't see is the story behind it. The story of Monse Klubin, 007 author, Ian Fleming, and a secret mission to Norway. This is how wartime espionage gave Britain's capital city a much cherished, festive tradition. Follow the Spy Who on the Wondery app or wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can binge full season of The Spy Who gave London its Christmas tree early and ad-free with WNDYRI Plus.

I'm Colin Murray. And I'm Enes James. And if you thought we'd already covered the wildest sporting stories on everything to play for, well, think again. Yes, we're bringing you weekly bonus episodes where we dive into the sporting stories that really connect to at least one of us. So expect brilliant sporting stories and also tangents that nobody asked for. That's right. The things that we were reading about when we were very young that we've continued to read about, the stuff that really motivates at least 50% of this partnership. If you want more laughs, stories, and more of us going on script, be sure to follow everything to play for wherever you get your podcast. Are yours going to be all about Wales? Yes. He's an armchase, man. From 7:05 Live with Bradley Cooper. Our birthdays are a month apart. Oh, our sobriety birthday. Sorry. Yes. I always mix that up. They were like five days apart. Yeah, our birthdays. Our birthdays are three days apart. Yeah. Both born deaf. Just a reminder. What are the ways in that- We'll think we're ugly. I know. I can't. We're trying to get all the approval in the world.

If everyone could line up neatly and just walk up to us and say, you're good, and then turn to the left. But then don't forget, you got to come back and say it again in 10 minutes. I probably won't believe it. 30 seconds after you left, it'll feel obligatory. You're just rotating lines. In fact, if you could write it out, it'd be easier for me to... You have that. You're an approval junkie. Honestly, I think I've grown a lot in the last three years. That's great. Was there an impetus for that? Yeah, getting older and realizing there are certain parts of me that I have really needed serious work about intimacy with people, women, specifically, being in a real healthy relationship. And also because I'm a father and I'm like, I just want to the least amount of damage that I could do to my daughter, please let me work on myself. It's all just getting older and people dying in mortality. Time's accelerating. That's the currency. That's it. Nothing but time. And I think being at a place where I felt like I was willing to go to those places. And a dear friend turned me on to this incredible therapist that changed my life and really Realizing the problem was I had no self-esteem.

I think that when I came on before we talked about this, which was years ago now, I think it was not recent. It wasn't. It was at least two years ago. What would you have been promoting? You would have been promoting- I don't think it was- The Guillermo movie. It was. Oh, so it wasn't that long ago. Yeah. When was that? 2021. 2021? November 2021. It was Thanksgiving. I thought it was two years. Two years, two months. I thought it was more than that. Okay. Yeah, we're okay. A lot of that. Everything's okay. It does feel like a long time ago. I was maybe a year into at that point. Self-esteem, and it all stemmed from, I don't know if you feel this, but creating a narrative about my upbringing that wasn't really my upbringing. I was starting it all on a false premise. Interesting. I'm from Philly. I thought I was a beautiful kid, and they thought it was a girl and a chip on my shoulder and loving parents. That's actually not exactly the situation. If you're starting it out, and also Dax and I connected earlier on about our childhood to a huge degree in our relationships to our fathers and all this stuff.

Our Our mothers. Of course, our mothers. We're like our mother's husbands. Yes. And we are the golden child that was going to be minimally president. But I guess that was part of my false narrative to a degree, too. Was that all it was or was there more? I'm writing this memoir. It doesn't need to be published. I'm writing it so I can get that version that I'm so afraid to lose out of my head. It'll be there. If I ever want to revisit it, it'll exist. That's my action of letting it go. Wow. There's the story I I've been telling for my whole life, and now we're going to just set that over there. And maybe my dad was a beautiful guy, and maybe he was a loving human. Well, and also physically nurturing. A hugger and a kisser. Who got that in the '80s? All this new information that's coming in that's like, meh. My mom, I love her to death. She's also not the angel she was in my story. That's right. Nor should she be. And that's my fault. It's not fair to her. It's not his responsibility. Yeah, I have no resentment over it.

It's just like, wow, I had a really clean story. I used not even knowing it, because that's how the behavior... I just found myself adrift. And starting with the real foundation. Which, again, let's be honest, is just another one. Yes. I might reject the notion that there's a real one. There's all this data. It's just infinite data of your childhood. Well, it's all a story we're telling ourselves. Exactly. That's for sure. And what one serves you in a feeling state, at least, I can tell when I'm more present when I'm not as a human being in my life. When I started to do this work of reevaluating the foundation of my life and trying to look at it with a more critical eye on honesty and reflecting on true memory, I found that the benefit is I'm much more present in my life. I don't need the things I thought I needed to fill up whatever hole I had. And all of a sudden, I'm willing to be more expressive, creative, present, giving, boundreed. Yeah. To me, yes, it's another story, but it felt like, boy, it's way closer to something honest because the benefits are practical.

Does that It totally makes sense. For me, I guess the thing I try to be critical of is the story is immaterial. Is the story serving to either excuse my character defects, justify me getting the things I want, or somehow setting up a situation where you'll be even more impressed by me because you know the story. If the story has these self-serving gross motives, which most of my story does, I'm trying to self-aggrandize myself and see I'm like a victim and a victor at the same time. When I recognize that that's actually the purpose of the story, I think that's more what I'm currently honed in on. I could also tell that I had the luckiest childhood that anyone's ever had. There's enough data points for me to point these. But relatively speaking, we're already in the stratosphere on that benchmark. But what's the goal? Why are we doing this? The goal for me was I want to be able to be more of service to people in my life and then me also. I wanted to stop living in my head so much, really, so that I could be present I wanted to love myself in a real way.

Then through that, all of a sudden, boundaries just came up that I could never create in relationships. What did those look like? My relationship with my mother completely changed. Boundaryless, yeah. My relationship to friendships. My daughter. Your bedroom is your bed, your bedroom. It's your bedroom, your shitder, your mother. Exactly. Three dogs. Does she respect the bound? Does she like that there are- Here's the thing that occurs, and I don't know if you have felt this with your mother, but it all just effortlessly falls into place because the bottom line is, I'm finally an adult. Yeah. Do I fall back into adolescent and childlike feelings and behaviors? Absolutely. But my baseline as an adult, whereas before, my baseline was adolescence. When I was in a good space, I could live in the adult world for a little bit, but that wasn't my norm. Well, and Bradley, that's why work is so appealing to us is that you have all the evidence of adulthood through work. Because grownups work. Yeah, and grownups execute. And talk about there's boundaries. You're walking into a systematic, very clear-There's a start time and a high time. Hierarchy and everything. I definitely have escaped in work before.

Yeah, because it feels like a very adult thing. Yeah, and being a parent is a very adult thing, too. From 707 with Goldie Hawn. Do you know Esther Porel? Do you know that therapist? Yeah. She has this really cool, maybe Maybe it's not proprietary to her, but she deals a lot with people who have had infidelity. A point she makes, which I think is so profound, is quite often you think your partner cheated on you with another person because they liked that person. But in truth, they missed a version of themselves that that person allows them to access. I find that so much more compassionate and relatable. That's actually more about, I miss a version of me. This person gives me that version of me. It's not really about this person. It's true. I mean, it takes two. You really do figure out where your identity is. What I didn't like at that point was marriage because people fuse. And fusion is very bad because once you start losing yourself and engage in someone This is everything and become too dependent. When you have a single identity between the two of you. Exactly. Then there's a loss of respect, there's expectation.

Then a lot of people actually shift mentally when they feel tied up. I always said, if I'm in a cage and I'm a bird and you leave the door open, I'll probably never fly out. Right. Or if I take a little zip around, I'll probably return to the cage. No, does that mean? I'll come back. I'll come back. Yes. If you close the door to the cage, my feathers will be gone, and I won't look like a bird anymore, and I wouldn't survive. So we have to find out who we are and fly with it. Well, I did think one thing I was listening to, A, and I love this about you, and now we're to the point where I think the yin and yang is really fascinating. And again, I am in a yin and yang. I am very much the curt, and she's very much like you. I identify deeply with this campaign. Oh, yeah? Yes. Of course. I think every dude I meet is going to try to rob my wallet, and I'm about to strike. She thinks every dude we meet is going to cure cancer. That's the difference between us.

It materializes everywhere. But you talk so openly about how many things you end up going through over the course on Valentine's Day, 41 years. 41. That was our first date. And it could have been our first kiss. I don't know. Who knows what all happened on that Valentine's Day in 1981. We're back in the '70s now. We're back in the '80s. I was thinking, and A, I just like that you're so honest about that. There's phases and there's twists and turns, and you both are in stages. I was thinking when I was hearing you talk about it, I almost would guess if you guys had gotten married, you actually wouldn't be together now. Probably not. That in some of the phases, you would have had to sever that thing and then coming back together or finding peace would have been a whole other weird thing because it's all been framed differently. I almost can imagine that you wouldn't have made it 41 years if you had gotten married. Ultimately, when you look back on it, I've never asked that question myself because what I like is waking up in the morning, and I've said this many times and actually making a choice to be with someone.

But as we go in repartnerships, there's time when you don't want to be with them. It's normal. People would say, Oh, we are in love with the most loving relationship, and everything he does is the greatest thing. I feel blessed to be with I'm so blessed every day. I'm thinking, no, I love you. I know that you're living in a fantasy world now. That's not fair. I mean, certainly people have good relationships, but it's the friction also that makes it interesting. Otherwise, it could be quite boring. The idea is to be able to establish what you want in your life. I got a wild guy here. Let's be honest about who you picked and who he picked. Yes, I picked him. Yeah, he's a wild dude. I like that guy. We don't agree on certain things. He was tougher than me as a parent. I got, Why did you do that? But we have a very, very strong family because of it. That was one of the things that gave us things to talk about. But I think that if we were married, there probably could have been times when you go, Oh, come on, I'm done.

How many times? Yes. Because you're married and you go, Can I live this way for the rest of my life, which I've already signed up for. No, I don't want to live this way for the rest of my life. That's why I think it could have potentially ended. It is absolutely possible. The only thing I could say is that I met, meet still a lot of men. Nobody came up to who he is. This is an outside guess. We interview a lot of powerful women, and there seems to be a pretty common pattern where men are very attracted to the powerful woman. They're dazzled by the powerful woman. Then once they're a partner with the powerful woman, they then want her to now end that. That's true. A lot of women who are successful, I have such great sympathy for because they either have to get a fucking golden retriever who's not challenging, isn't rewarding, isn't going to really be a partner building shit that's just going along for the ride, or an equal that's going to get jealous of the attention they receive and the money they make. Unfortunately, I think for women as successful as you, it's such a narrow field of men that's an equal, yet is confident enough to let you shine.

That's my guess of why Kurt has been in the picture for 41 years. This motherfucker somehow has a confidence that he is not threatened by your shine. Right. He's not. From 728 with Maya Rudolf. Probably so many of these men that you've been comedically involved with were in love with you. How did you manage all that? First of all, thank you for this question because no one has ever asked me this, and you're making me feel really good. It definitely happened. But Maya, you're so beautiful, and you're so talented. It's crazy. I should have come here a long time ago. No one has ever said this to me in my entire life. I don't know I don't know what to answer. In Groundlings, I had a boyfriend. Okay, for how long? Most of it, and then he dumped me. I had passed up so much comedy dom for this guy. Comedy Dong. I feel like between Groundlings and Saturday Night Live, having a boyfriend, I missed out on so much Comedy Dong. Yeah. Which isn't legendarily great Dong. No, it's not. It's actually known to be pretty bad Dong. It's dark. Dark. Coaked up Dong.

Yeah, it's a twisted, twisted dung. We're not talking about esthetics. No. Emotionally, emotional. Emotionally twisted dongs. Heavy use of substances, sloppy. I dodged so many bullets in that respect. But the other thing is comedians, and most thespians, have such a fun flirt. You get to have that, especially with these dudes that feel like your brother. But yeah, I wish I'd gotten a lot more- That mediocre. It would have been fun to reflect. On that flaccid dog. But that's why you had boyfriends. That answers that. I had moved back to LA with my college boyfriend. I also think you might not know that guys like you is my hunch, too. That is something I know about myself. Right. A little bit of Monica-isms. Oh, you're I'm oblivious to that. I do have that because I've noticed in life, I'll say something, I'll say, Yeah, he likes you. You're like, What? I didn't know that. Right. Same over here. Why do you think that is? Because I find that fascinating about myself. My own personal theory is that I'm also a little bit a boy because of my upbringing. I grew up with my brother and my dad.

After my mom passed, I was seven. So the majority of my childhood home was my dad and my brother. And my brother's older, and he was super funny. So I just wanted to be like my brother growing up. Right, of course. And so I'm a little bit of a dude DNA-wise. So that's, yeah, your story, I think. Monica has a story, too. I do. But mine's reality. So it's not cool to call it a story. That was great. Well, yeah, I grew up in God, how many times- She's never heard it. You can cut it out. I feel like self-conscious. I grew up in Georgia, all white. The boys didn't like me. Same experience, by the way. Yeah. I had a hunch. And by the way, all of it's built on a single... Well, I don't want to diminish it. It is built largely on one very profound experience. Well, that was the culmination. Okay, it wasn't. There were lots of things that were telling me, Uh-oh, being brown isn't so great in this environment. Then it culminated in sixth grade, and this boy said he couldn't date me because my parents worked at Dairy Queen, which they don't.

But Indians worked at the Dairy Queen or ran the Dairy Queen, I guess. Owned. Owned, probably. Franchized. We own this Dairy Queen. Okay, Dairy Queen. Exactly. In retrospect, they were very successful. But he liked her. He said, I want to, but I can't because her parents work at Dairy Queen. Then that got back to me, and then I was like, Oh, I see. So they can't. It's not that they don't want to. It's just, okay, this thing me has made it actually impossible for love. Then that really, really detoured the rest of my life. Wow. I think that we have a very similar experience. I grew up here in Los Angeles. I was the only mixed kid, let alone only Brown, girl in my class. We're talking '80s. At the birthday parties, girls would French-braed each other's hair, and I was like, check, please. No one's getting their fingers through this. Then there were those cute little barrettes in the '80s that people would put little lanyard, pretty Like, strings in. Those didn't fit in my hair. Or like, when I went to Mary Wigmore's boy/girl swim party, I had short hair and it was very curly.

And Xander was like, go under the water. And so I'd go under the water and he was like, do it again. And I do it again. He goes, your hair looks like a Orange. And I'm 51 years old and it still hurts. And then he was also the kid that was like, hey, will you talk to Mary for me? It was always about my friend Mary. A hundred %. Who's like, beautiful, wonderful, funny. Great with kids. Good dancer. All true. Great with kids. Great. When you said detour, what I heard was the choice to detour for ourselves. We made that choice. We were like, I'm going over here to protect myself. Yes. Absolutely. And I only mean story because that was sixth grade. I know. You know? I know. And so there was a lot of time after that. I can only assume this in back data because I've been around her all the time for eight years, and I see a lot of guys like her and guys come to the show and hold up signs and people hit on her in front of me and I can see and she can't. I'm just saying that once that changes your point of view, it does become really hard to come back from that.

Yeah, it does. I think the quintessential ingredient in that story, which makes it heartbreaking, is he liked you and you liked him. And the friend was like, why don't you ask her, you guys like each other. That's really gnarly that you were told that. Yes. So then, yes, the story makes a ton of sense, which is, well, even if they like me, they're not going to. So I'm just turning off the whole thing because it's just going to be painful and hurtful, and I'm going to protect myself. Anyways, I just think I know you miss it a lot, and I had a hunch, maybe you missed it a lot. You are very astute. And I also didn't realize, because now that I've had four children and my body has become something I don't recognize, I look back at my young self in those grounding states, and I was like, wow, I was so cute. Oh, my God. You were so hot. My boobs were so cute. So perky. So perky. I had the best boobs. I had the best little bod, and I didn't know it. You would have blown her right off the hill at Spring's due to unleash those suckers.

If those suckers came out to play at Barton Springs. They would have shut down the whole park. Everyone out of the water. Out of the water. Oh my God. What's it called? This is also what happens. I'm not going to remember words. What's it called when the sun is blocked and you have to look through a sun? Eclipse. Thanks. We're coming up on one, by the way. Really? It's right around the corner. Yeah, it's about to happen. Somehow you are getting even by doing that now. I'm just going to smear her name through the whole thing. The other The thing is I don't know if I know how to recognize people hitting on me. I genuinely don't think I'm that aware. I don't know what it looks like when you said you saw it happening for Monica. Did she not see it? No, we fight about it. I'll go, Oh, that guy was hitting on you. And she'll go, No, he wasn't. He was saying blank. And then it's a fight. She's never gone, Oh, really? I also think you're wrong a lot. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart.

But when the spotlight turns off, Fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lanie Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry, but things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club murder early and ad free right now by joining Wendery Plus. Hello, ladies and gerbs, boys and girls. The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tiz the Grinch holiday podcast. After last year, he's learned a thing or two about hosting, and he's ready to rant against Christmas cheer and roast his celebrity guests like chestnuts on an open fire. You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Ham, Brittany Brosky, and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's a lot to love about the insufferable holiday season.

But that's not all. Somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa, and everybody thinks the Grinch is responsible. It's a real Whoville whodunit. Can Cindy Lou and Max help clear the Grinch's name? Grab your hot Coco and cozy slivers to find out. Follow Tiz the Grinch holiday podcast on the WNDYRI app or wherever you get your podcasts. Unlock weekly Christmas mystery bonus content and listen to every episode ad free by joining WNDYRI Plus in the WNDYRI app, Spotify or Apple podcasts. Hello, ladies and jerbs, boys and girls. The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tiz the Grinch holiday podcast. After last year, he's learned a thing or two about hosting, and he's ready to rant against Christmas cheer and roast his celebrity guests like chestnuts on an open fire. You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Ham, Brittany Brosky, and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's a lot to love about the insufferable holiday season. But that's not all. Somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa, and everybody thinks the Grinch is responsible. It's a real Whoville whodunit.

Can Cindy Lou and Max help clear the Grinch's name? Grab your hot Coco and cozy slivers to find out. Follow Tis the Ranch holiday podcast on the WNDYRI app or wherever you get your podcasts. Unlock weekly Christmas mystery bonus content and listen to every episode ad free by joining WNDYRI Plus in the WNDYRI app, Spotify or Apple podcasts. Behind the closed doors of government offices and military compounds, there are hidden stories and buried secrets from the darkest corners of history, from covert experiments pushing the boundaries of science to operations so secretive they were barely whispered about. Each week on redacted, declassified mysteries, we pull back the curtain on these hidden histories, 100% true and verifiable stories that expose the shadowy underbelly of power. Consider Operation Paper Club, where former Nazi scientists were brought to America after World War II, not as prisoners, but as assets to advance US intelligence during the Cold War. These are just old conspiracy theories. They're thoroughly investigated accounts that reveal the uncomfortable truths still shaping our world today. The stories are real. The secrets are shocking. Follow redacted Declassified mysteries with me, Luke LaMana, on the WNDRI app or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen ad-free, join WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app. Up. Or you think something... Okay. I know the ways of love. I don't know how much I can keep in of the story I'm about to say. We had someone on this show who was flirting with me. I was like, Yeah, he's flirting, but I know he's not so interested. I know. We left, and Dax was like, He's going to ask you out. And I was like, I mean, maybe, whatever. And did Letterman call you? Yeah. Actually, yeah. But at two in the morning. That's okay. It's time. He can get away with- He's probably just waking up. Actually, it's super flattering. It's the first thing he wanted to do. He can do whatever he wants. He was flirty. He's the best. He was amazing. He's the fucking greatest of all time. He really is. Continue. Okay, so he didn't, right? Hold on. This went nowhere. I actually was mad at you when it went nowhere. Hold on a second. He asked for her number. Okay, that sounds very clear. When we were taking pictures outside, he asked for her number. And Dax's. Both of And then I walked him out and he said, Monica's so cool.

That means? Yeah, he's telling me, Hey, Monica's so cool. How long have you guys known each other? He wants to know more about Monica. So questions equal- Interest. Okay. I agree. I'm not there yet. Then he text her after the episode came out. Now, he has ghosted her. He has ghosted her. What did he say in the text? That's not what happened. Was he like, You up? Me and Letterman are just hanging. That would have been more clear. I would have liked that. It wasn't clear. No. And that's also not what happened. He texted right after we recorded and said, Hey, I got you, or something. I'm sorry? I know. That's like new slang. I'm learning it, too. What does it mean? Like, I got your number. That's flirty to me. He has ghosted her for sure. But there's another thing going on, which is there's also a reality of the world. This guy is very popular right now. He's traveling all around, and a lot of girls like him. He probably likes several girls. And so, yeah, he probably has his hands full, and he ghosted Monica. But I still maintain he liked her, and he did reach out to her, and he did ask for her number.

To say that this young dude with every option in the world is a great pursuer of things, I'm not making that argument. He probably is distracted by all kinds of hot comedie dong right now. So much comedie dong. I know, but like- Listen, I've never been anywhere in my life and then randomly met someone and then decided to get their number and then text them because I want to be friends with a stranger. He liked you. I also don't think I've ever pursued anyone myself, so I don't know how it works. I can only imagine it can be painful when you pursue people and they don't reciprocate. So maybe his move is not so cool, but he tried. Then I texted him and then I was flirting. And then there was a full- Did you say you up? That's what everyone says. That's the go-to. That's the go-to. It's the only text, actually. There's one button now on younger people's phone, and it's just one button that says, You up. Great idea. I texted him and I was flirty, and then there was no response. He goes to. Gross. I was mad at you first because So that was the easy target.

And then I really was honest with myself, and I was like, Man, this is why I don't do this. No, Monica. Yes, you put yourself out there. That's not the right lesson. Yeah, because I know it's... Listen, stop. Okay. It's like, he likes you. That was me protecting myself. And then I was like, You know what? No, I am going to text him. I am going to flirt. And then full ghosting was like, Oh, yeah, this is why you don't do this. I totally get it. I've been ghosted in that way as well, and it makes you feel Oh, no good deed goes unpunished. Why did I fucking open a sliver of my heart? I wasn't going to. I was being smart. Yeah, you went against what you thought was right. But again, there is a reality that this person has been out of town virtually since we met him, and he's being nominated for everything. And there are a lot of girls, I'm sure, in his sphere. Whatever. You say I'm busy. All that's not good, but it does not say that he didn't actually like it. Oh, he liked you? Yes. It's clear to me.

But I will say, I don't think it's the last text you'll ever get from him. Well, it might be the last text he ever gets from me. This episode is brought to you by Lauty Mio. Lauty Mio. Anyway, we really got derailed. I disagree. That was good rail. I think you're right. I love that you've thought about it. That makes me love you more because I know as my friend, you see me. So that makes me feel really good. I'm also in good company because it's such a similar experience. I was in a small group of kids growing up and felt so ugly duckling vibes. I'm going I can also say it was compounded by you're in LA at Crossroads. Some of the white people that are relative to you are princesses on planet Earth. It's not even just like you're rumaging around my hometown in Michigan. It's pretty extreme. I had a similar thing of the boy I loved my whole childhood. The elementary school that I went to, we were a small group of kids, it was 25 kids, and I was in love with Dax. You know him? My breath went away because I heard you were in love with Dax.

I know. First came out. I I told you, you're the only other Dax I've ever known. That's the only Dax other than him I've ever heard of. Dax was the love of my life, and he did not love me back. All my friends do. I loved him. I loved him. I loved him. He was fucking huge. And he had this big blonde John Bullcut. He's super hot now. He's grown out of his bullcut. But he's very handsome, married man. In the old days, he was the love of my life. I just knew that that was my person. We were really good friends, and then junior high, great friends I was like, It's about to happen. He's about to go down. Nothing happened. Then he left school, but then he came back as a senior. I think he had the nerve to tell me at our 30th high school reunion, I was in love with you. I was like, You know what, bitch? First of all, that doesn't count now. Exactly. Do you even believe him? I don't. I do. I don't believe him. Why didn't he tell me then? You guys, both of you. It's easy for him to say now.

Thank you. You guys are the smartest and dumbest fucking people I've ever met. Monica, can Can you look at my end and go, of course, anyone be in love with her? Duh. A hundred %. Then my end, can you look at Monica and go like, of course. I know, but it doesn't penetrate. It's true. Did you have a thing that I've figured out I have in therapy, which is I seek specifically white male approval so much because that was who was rejecting me all the time. Oh, God. I have to think about that one. I just threw my hands in there. It was like, it was a gospel. It just like, that's I have a shiver down my spine. I'm trying to think. I mean, yes and no, because I feel like I've also worked out some things. I also have, well, my dad's Jewish. I guess he looks white. My dad is a superhuman great guy. He's the best guy in the world, so I don't have bad dad stuff. It's really interesting. There's a type of white guy that I know I'm invisible to. Interesting. It's like a fraddy guy. They can't see me.

I don't register for them. They don't know what to make of me. There's just some opaqueness in the air. They don't get it, and they don't want to get it. It doesn't compute. And I do find that very fascinating. Yeah. God, again, I'm not sure I believe you entirely, but I think probably 80%. There's no way to know. There isn't. I'd have to be around you in some blowhard jock to see. You're triggering a slight memory of being single. By the way, I've only had three boyfriends. You've not really been single much in your life. No, but that's the thing. They're just long relationships. I haven't been like, ding to ding. Or anything like that. Don't know where this dong ends and that one begins. I mean, it's endless dung. Same time. But I do remember being in a bar once on the west side. Maybe I was in Venice, and my hair was... I started relaxing it when I was at SNL, but before it was my natural curves. It's very thick, natural curly hair. It's quite beautiful. I've seen many photos, and you used to be at the Groundings with that. At the Groundings, yeah.

Once I got to SNL and couldn't get out of the wigs, we had to reroute, and then I just never got out of the route. I'm going to get there one day. I look forward to it. Thank you. You, too. But I was going to say I met a guy at a bar, and he was like, Hey, Wild Oh, my God. I remember being like, Oh, that's what you see. You're so right to be upset. Also, you got to consider the source sometimes. It's like you're giving these dumb 20-year-old people that are drunk some wisdom they don't have. I know, but they're running the world at the time. That guy's like, Are you swinging him for the fences. Thank you. I agree with that. Let me just say, you're assuming he really thinks that. Then I'm going on the walk up to you. He's like, he's running through ideas. I'm going to say, Hey, sexy mama. No, hey, chicky mama. Oh, Wild Woman. Again, butthole is tight. It's like... Totally tight. You just don't even know what he was cycling through before he laid in. Wild woman. That's a zero. You lose. Yes. From 736 with Bobby Lee.

Now, Dax, why four years ago? I've always wanted to ask you, did you go out? There's a long version or short version. I'll try to do a medium version. I had broken my arm. I had a prescription for Vicodin, and Kristen handed them out to me, and I decided I would not take those when I traveled back to Detroit because I was going to see my dad, who was dying of cancer, and she wouldn't be there to administer the Vicodin. So while I was with my dad and he had all these Percasets, I said, you know what? I have a prescription for Vicodin at home. I'm going to take some of these Percasets. Makes sense. That was eight years into being sober. I had a total meltdown. Kristin ended up coming to Detroit and surprising me. Did he pass? Two months later, he did. But again, here's the thing where when I read about you and your dad in your recent relapse, it's like, I would have told you I'm handling that whole experience fine. I'm flying home once a week to deal with his thing. The room is full of AA people. I would tell you that it wasn't really having an impact on me, but I did that thing.

And no one will like this. My dad and I did sit in his living room looking out over the lake, and we were both on Percaset, and we're both sober. I don't hate that I had that moment with my dad. I'd never party with my dad, but we were both just sitting there enjoying the thing. Next day, I'm overwhelming overwhelmed with guilt and fear. Oh, my God, I've relapsed. I'm going to have to reset my day. Kristin comes in. I confess to her what I did. I took this and I wasn't prescribed that and blah, blah, blah. And she's like, Look, it's fine. You're here. I have that prescription. You're not going to do it again. And you keep it moving. And I was like, Okay, And I kept it moving. But that was almost like when those owls that the falconer flies, they're only supposed to eat the food from the trainer. If they catch a mouse one time, danger. They're going to want to hunt again. Because I had that experience and really was fine, and opiates were never really my thing, Over the years, I break a lot of stuff. And when I would use opiates, I was tricky.

She would administer them, but I also would maybe not take them at night so I could save up, and in the morning, I could take three times the dosage. We're in a very gray area sporadically for several years. I certainly don't think I need to come in and say I need a new date, but I'm also being a little tricky when I have them prescribed. Then in rapid order, I break my hand all the bones across it. I get all these pins in it. I get surgery. Wait, why are you breaking your arms or your hands? What the fuck is going on? I'm in a motorcycle racing off road stuff. Stop doing that. No. Okay, we're going Monday. All right. So I get all these pins, and then I get a pretty healthy dose of real good opiates for a while, almost immediately after I shatter my shoulder, my ribs, my thing on a motorcycle. Now I have multiple surgeries. Now I'm on a lot of opiates. What was very misleading about the opiates compared to the other stuff is like, if I drink, you will know in one second. Because the second I'm drunk, I'm going to get coke.

When I get coke, I do it for three days. There's no version where I don't do it for three days. There'd be no hiding. In the most conventional sense, it's unmanageable. This was very weird. I'm on opiates. I'm still doing the podcast. I'm still very responsive and present with my family. I'm going, this is weird. This isn't very unmanageable. This is fine. Other than I know you have to keep upping your dosage because you get used to it so quickly. I'm not dumb. I know that that's an issue. At this point in your mind, did you know you relapsed? I think I still I had plausible deniability at that point. I wasn't ready to accept that. It was when I started buying them illegally. I was like, okay, now we're definitely doing something. And then that lasted for a couple of months. And then I decided I have to quit, and I started to try to do it on my own. And then I was visibly going through detoxes, and then I copped to the whole thing. Wow. It's just a sneaky sucker, huh? So when I relapsed after 17 years, I was doing my friend Sam Tripoli's show at the Main Room, and his show is sponsored by a weed company.

I have 17 years of sobriety. You already fucked up on Mad TV, you got sober again, and now you have 17 years again. Yes, I did 13 and then 17. For me, it's always, I just stop going to meetings and stop calling my sponsor. This is years because you think you can do it. I have time, 15, 16 years. That's a long time. Don't even think about this stuff. Yeah. I'm sitting there and this guy that owns this weed company goes, Hey, we have a package when people do the show. I go, I'm sober. He's like, Oh, cool. But I have a CPD thing. I go, What's a CPD thing? I don't know what it is. What do you stand for? He goes, This oil has 1% THC in it. Just to activate the CPD. Right. But if you just do the dosage, you're not going to feel it. So I drink the whole thing. Yes, of course. I got buzzed. I went back next week because my stomach hurt because you're not supposed to drink the oil. That's all oil. So my stomach really was in pain. I go, Hey, do you have one that's 50%?

It started getting better. Then I started getting 99% THC, 1% CPD. Obviously, I had relapsed, and it was just that easy. Did you know at that point when it was 99%? I think when I drink that whole bottle for that 1%, I knew. There's something really strange about this. I think a lot of people who have relapsed will relate this, you're distracted at first with the thought of just making sure no one knows. You forget that you didn't ever get sober for anyone else. You got sober because you were miserable. But at some point in sobriety, I started telling myself this thought, well, if no one knows, and I'm focused on them, and then again, deciding to ignore, well, I know, and I can't really live that way. First thought is, can I get away with it? But you ignore the fact that you know. The problem is the eight years of real sobriety you had, that never goes away. So that's in your mind and your heart. You know now. Yeah. I was sad and missed that purity I felt. That first eight years, there was nothing on my report card that you could have said was tricky.

Then Then I had several years of just that was in the back of my mind. I still only had them when they were prescribed to me. All these other ways I would justify it, but it never had that super clean feeling that those first eight years had. There are moments in pure sobriety that it's just the most joyous I've ever been. I know. When you have those days, you're like, Why don't I recognize I am so much happier this way? Yeah, I know. The freedom and also your belief that everything's going to work out. You're not looking into the future and going, What if this happens? If this happens? You're just really in the present moment, just like, I'm here. I'm free, and I have peace. Those occasions are rare, but I never had them throughout my whole life. When you go like, I don't need anything to feel okay is the most miraculous feeling you can have. It's amazing. Because you really, for so much of your life, you're convinced you can't feel okay without something. Especially growing up, going through all the experiences, I was never taught these tools and this way of living.

There was no internet. I'm just in this violent house of chaos, Arriving. From 748 with Babers, a. K. A. Amy Poehler. This was going to be one of my questions in much later, but I feel like every time I do bump into you, you and I are on a similar self-exploration path, or maybe you'll bring up something you've been mulling around and I'll think, oh, yeah, that's really fun to think about. I'm going to try that. I was wondering, we have our story, and our story explains why we are the way we are. It's so comforting, right? I can see you rolling around in it, proloking in the story. And then this disruptive thing happens where you have children. And one of my two children's, Lincoln, she has all the shit I have without any of the reasons I gave myself for being this way. And I'm more and more having to maybe consider like, oh, no, man, it was all genetics. The story is just something you've put on top of it. And I'm just curious if you've had that experience with kids and if it's poked holes at all in your story. Big time.

Some of it is watching codependency, what it looks like for them and realizing, right, I did that. I still do that. Seeing that and then having a kid that is really different than you. That's also a big one. If they're an island, you're a wave thing. But deeper than the kid thing, if you're getting older and you're doing any work on yourself, there just becomes an end of act two moment. And an embarrassment, right? It's so embarrassing. All these, I always, I never, I'm this person. It's so gross because it's not really true or even really true anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe it's just an old story. And then you got to start practicing your backhand, basically. What is your backhand, the thing that you Can, do you just don't do it as much or as often? Do you want to practice that in act three? But it's so funny you say that on my way here, I was thinking, I wonder what version of myself will show up in this interview. Oh, that's fun. I wanted to be the authentic version, but I was nervous because I could bring a different version if I wanted to.

Well, you have one that produces great results. This was another one of my highlighted words I just wanted to talk about was performative. Yes, dude. As a concept. Let me back up. You're in therapy, I imagine? Yes, I'm in group therapy and individual. Oh, my goodness. And guess what's coming back?Couples therapy.Guess what, motherfucker.What? I know. She was sitting right where you're sitting five days ago. So I'm so obsessed with couples therapy that I do a fake podcast where I play a couple's therapist named Dr. Sheila. Question mark. The question mark. Thank you, Dex, due to legal reasons. And I'm obsessed. And you are, too. Why do you think we are? Why are we obsessed with couples therapy? Well, I'm obsessed with all of it. I love Orn. I love anyone that does a good job at anything. So she's good. Her hair and her ability to just look and not talk is It's crazy. It just pulls out the thing in the other person that they don't even know. It's so under the surface. All of a sudden this recluse is crying and opening. It's unbelievable. Then also I'm obsessed with why is she doing it?

Oh, we get into that one. Okay, can't wait to hear. Then the couples, I'm like, Thank you for your service. Truly. And not in a million years, babies. For me? No way. That's too much. Yes. You and I, this is where we diverge a little bit. We do have different comfort levels with that aspect. We do. And I guess probably my explanation, my story is AA for 20 years. I got so used to fucking strangers are there, and I'm talking about shitting the bed in an orgy, and we move on, and I live. I'm I'm looking on, this is going to sound so cheesy, this connection, but this is why I'm like, I'm going to do TikTok this year because I know this is cheesy. I know you referenced TikTok in an interview. I love TikTok. But the connection, really, it's bigger than that, which is how do you allow yourself to be seen? You have to allow yourself be seen or known. Sometimes as I get older, I realize, am I truly known? It's like a deep ache. You want to be known? So it's like, how much do you give away? Who can you do it with and to?

You want to be known. You don't want to feel lonely. Yeah. Babe, is your emotional about being known? I can relate. Is part of it to be known, but also to know yourself? Or do you feel like you 100% know yourself? It's more that I feel sad for the parts of me that didn't allow myself to be out there and be known, which is why a couple of therapy is so fascinating to me. It's this combination of... And therapy in general, being tender and being known, and then also setting good boundaries and taking care of yourself. It's deep stuff. I just love it. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. From 763, Kehuy Kwan. This is an impossible gap because really, within four years, you go from a refugee camp to starring in the biggest movie of the year with the biggest movie star by the biggest director of all time. This is really not a possible experience. How do we get from newly into the States to getting in that movie? It's pretty insane. I was just being a kid going to school, and one day this group of people came to my elementary school and they had an open call.

What? This is a dream. If I were you, I would actually think, this can't be reality. You're definitely in a simulation. Okay, so you didn't... Were you like a glass clowny a little bit? I wasn't. In fact, I wasn't even the one that was auditioning. It was my little brother. His teacher thought he was perfect. Sometimes, even to this day, I wonder why I was chosen and at him because I think he's so much more talented than me. And he's funny. He makes me laugh all the time. So he was more of a ham than I was. And so he was auditioning for the casting director, and I was just behind the camera, coaching him what to do. I was telling him, If you do this, do that, and telling him what expression he should be doing. And I was just shouting out directions. You're directing him. They should have hired you to direct it. And the casting director saw me, and I was speaking to my brother in Chinese and Cantones. He saw something in me. And many years later, I reunited with our casting director, and he told me that they had a hard time finding the perfect kid to play short round.

In fact, they went to London, to Hong Kong, Singapore, everywhere where there was a bigger Chinese community. Because back then, Chinatown, Los Angeles was really small, and they didn't think they would find who they were looking for there. So they went everywhere except Chinatown, Los Angeles. Oh, wow. And they were about to give up, and they said, Why don't we just give it one last try? It's obvious how desperate they were that they were going to random elementary schools. Exactly. That's not the normal casting. Yeah, exactly. Especially for a movie of this size. Oh, my God. This is unreal. Okay, so you're barking orders at your brother, which is hysterical. I can see why she or he would have seen, Oh, this is what we need. This is a little guy who's running the show. Yeah, dynamic. In short, round was a total survivor. I was precocious. Yes. You then audition. Then I audition. They gave me the sites, and I could barely speak English at all. Just very little. And then my reading comprehension was even worse. Of course. So I was saying the lines and really messing it up, saying Like, indie. Like, trying to even understand what I was saying.

I'm not even saying the lines. I'm reading the lines. You're just making a series of sounds. Exactly. And he saw something in there. And he says, Key, why don't you put that away and let's just talk. Who's he? Mike Fenton. He cast ET, The Goonies. Oh, this guy's a genius. Yeah, so big casting director. In fact, he told me, you was later when we reunited again. He said that after I left that room, he called Steven Spielberg and says, We don't have to look any further. We found your kid. Oh. And this was before. I just got chills. I auditioned for Spielberg or Lucas. Oh my God. What are your parents thinking right now? They had no clue what was going on, and they could barely speak in English when they answer that phone. The first Indiana Jones had come out. We haven't seen it. But you knew about it, right? No, we didn't know. I mean, don't forget, we were living in Chinatown. We were very insulated by this small Chinese community. So we've never seen Star Wars. We've never seen Riders of the Lost Ark. Jaws? No. Back then, we had a really small 13-inch black and white television.

We couldn't afford to go to the movies. We didn't even have a car. That's why when they call and they said, We want you to come to Burback and audition, my mom said, We don't have any means to get there. We're out. Yeah. Then we sent you a driver. Guys, this is not... I know. I'm trying to imagine what the fuck your parents... They're having the same grapple with reality, too. It's like, What is my life? These people are calling to bring my child with a driver? I mean, they must have just been trying to compute what the fuck was going on. Maybe even also scared. Yeah. Are we getting taken advantage of? We didn't think much of it. They didn't think I would land the Of course. It was like, Oh, they want to see him? Well, sure. We'll take him. We didn't know it was going to be a sequel to one of the biggest movies of all time. Thank God, actually. It's great you didn't know. Because you would have maybe felt a lot of pressure if you knew who Spielberg was. That's why when I walked into the room, it was this bunch of guys with a mustache and a beard.

I didn't know their names. I didn't know any of their work at that time. I didn't know that I was meeting and talking to three of the most successful people. Of all time. Of All the time. Yeah. Yeah. And written by Lawrence Cazan. Oh, my gosh. Impossible. One of the greatest writers of all time. Okay, so you go in there and clearly you charm them in that audition. Where was it filmed? It was filmed in Sri Lanka. So after my audition for Steven and George in Harrison, a few weeks later, I was on a flight. Again, my second time being on a flight to Sri Lanka. The first time I was on a flight was from Hong Kong to LA. I was in economy. And all of a sudden, I'm flying first class with my mom to Sri Lanka. And you're 12? And I was 12, yeah. They're serving you Coca-colas and nuts and all this. Sundae. What's mom thinking? How's mom explaining this to you? Because you're probably looking at her like, how is this happening? She doesn't know, but she's got to give you an answer. I think she was just really happy for me and proud.

My parents gave up so much. In fact, when we got to the US, my parents were heavily in debt because they just didn't have enough money to get all of us out. So they were borrowing money from their friends. So when we got here, they were working really hard to try to pay off that debt. And that's why they put their 12-year-old kid to work. It must have been an insane amount of money relative to what they were making by working. Here's what So what was so great about Lucas and Spielberg. I was 12 years old. We didn't have an agent or a manager. We didn't have anybody to look after us. No lawyer. So whatever contract they gave us to sign at that time, we just signed it. Yeah, of course. But little did we know. Not only did they give me a really generous salary, but they also made me a profit participant. No. They gave you a point of the movie? Yeah. I was able to share in the success of the movie. That's why when the movie came out and became one of the biggest movies in 1984, not long after that, I got a check in the mail, and that check was so nice that I was able to help my parents pay off the debt.

We were renting a little house in Chinatown, and I was able to use that money to buy a house in Mono Park, where my parents and all my siblings can live a bit more comfortable. Again, the range of luck you have. You've got the worst luck and the greatest luck all within the span of four years. I think that's what makes it a great life. Not only that, when the movie came out, our world premiere was in London, attended by Princess Diana and Prince Charles at that time, who is King Charles now. But going from a refugee camp, and I'm standing in line with Spielberg and Lucas and shaking hands with Princess Diana. They should make a movie about your life. I want to watch this movie. I want to see a little boy experience all this. I love this. That makes me love Steven Spielberg. They were so generous. Lucas had done that, too, with the Star Wars cast. He gave them a percentage of their- But there's A 12-year-old boy. They could have easily been like, meh. But everyone in Star Wars was also a no-name actor, and he gave them some of the toy rights.

That is so rare. You have to fight for it. Oh, my God. For anything. To be a profit participant. No, you got to say no and walk away five or six times. It was on their own accord. It was out of their generosity. Okay, so again, you have no awareness of who Harrison Ford is either at this point. No. You arrive in Sri Lanka and you start working with him immediately? Yes. Is he intimidating? He is a very big man with a husky voice. No, he was not. He wasn't. He was so friendly. And playful? And playful and humble and kind. I would always play with him. Yeah. And he would make me laugh. All of us were staying in a hotel in Sri Lanka. Every day after we lapped. I would see Harrison swim in the hotel swimming pool, and I would always be on the side watching him go back and forth doing laps. One day he asked me, he says, Key, come on in and join me. And I go, I can't. I don't know how to swim. He What? Come here. And he taught me. He taught me how to swim.

He taught me how to swim. Keith, this is bonkers. This is the best story I've ever heard. This is so special. I know you know it because you reflect on it a lot and you give a lot of gratitude vocally. But how wonderful. I guess I have such distrust of anything good that I would have had a hard time that whole experience accepting it was real. I would keep waiting to almost wake up. As a kid, you don't really know how special that is. Of course. To me, I thought, this is how movie making is. From now on, every movie that I make is going to be like this. The star will teach me how to swim. Then you would walk on these big scales beautiful set. You get treated really well. You have 200 days to shoot. I thought every movie was like, and then very quickly, I realized, oh, wow, it doesn't always work like that. It's crazy how good you are in the movie having never done it. I I really think it's because of Steven's direction. He's so good with kids. He would tell me specifically how to say my lines, and he would give me directions where if I just follow that, then I can do what he wants.

He was just the kindest. There was never any screaming on set. There was always laughter. We can always goof around. Even though we were shooting on film, it was expensive to shoot on film. You have to process all of that. We were constantly making jokes, doing take after take after take and I would hear his laughter behind the monitor, and that's what it was like. So it was fun. You liked acting. Because of that experience, that's the reason why I fell in love with acting. I remember we were shooting in London, L Street Studios, and that's where we built all those stages. I didn't even know this because I hadn't seen Star Wars, but I knew later on, one day, Carrie Fisher came to visit. I remember goofing around with her on set, Mark Hamel. Oh, they must have all loved you. I think they were all there for Harrison Ford. From 798 with Halle Berry. I do want to clear up something. This has plagued Billy Bob and I since we did that movie. We had this very explicit love scene. There's an urban legend that we really were fucking. I've heard it. And it's just not true.

I believe you. I've perpetuated that. Can I tell you that? Yeah, Dax. I know. I'm so sorry. Oh, my, you mother fucker. I've heard it, too. Do you know the other one? What's the other one? Angel Heart, Mickey Rourke, and Lisa Bonet. Lisa Bonet. I've heard that, too. Okay, great. Now, if we take you out of it, can we take you out of it for one second? No, because I'm in it. Okay. I cannot take me I'm going to take you out of it. We're going to take you out of it for one second. Against the rules. Here's why those things are so sticky and enjoyable, because the love of my life was Lisa Bonet. She is the number one most beautiful human to ever walk on planet Earth. Mickey Rourke was the stud of all studs. If you were a white dude, that's about as good as it got. You looked at him in nine and a half weeks in Diner. He was so fucking cool. So I'm seeing this dude I would love to be. He's with this woman that's the most beautiful of all time. And you're like, They really fucked here.

Like, yes, I'm so happy for both of them, the two hottest people did it. But how are you going to do that with people? I have no idea. Cameras rolling. I don't know. That's even heightens the craziness. I know. But you've heard it, too. I've heard it, too. And it's secretly driven me mad all these years. Okay, well, I'm glad we cleared it up. I've heard many rumors, yes. Have you heard that I've said it? When it comes up, I'll tell the alleged one. Have you said it? Well, I've said the alleged one, just like I said the alleged Angelheart, which you heard. Okay, well, now you can say. I'm aware of that. I'll say, You know what, guys? I've got proof. That one, unfortunately, is not true. That guy with the sexiest eyes in the world and the other most beautiful person in the world didn't actually have sex. That didn't happen. I didn't date Spike Lee or Eddie Murphy. Can I just clear that up? Oh, those are rumors, too? Those are rumors, too. I don't know those ones. That must be so annoying. It Is that every time you do a project and you're doing these incredible roles and incredible work, and the rumors that come out are always about who you're fucking or who you're dating.

You can't just be a good actor and you can't just make that shit look real. Yeah, that sucks. You had to really be doing it. Well, interesting. Okay. Let's hear it. Come on. I don't even know what I was basing it on. It looked so real. It had to be real. I just want to be clear. Okay, so what were you basing it on? Just rumor? Just that would be awesome. I'd be happy for both of you. That's it. That's what you wanted to have that happen. Yes, I would be so happy for Lisa Bonet and Mickey Rourke if that really happened. But would you have been happy for me and Billy Bob? Yes. Really? You had a wife. She would have had to have signed off. I know Angie, and she ain't signing off on that shit. Yeah, you're right. She's pretty cool, but yeah, that's a bit- She ain't signing off on that. I'm a girl's girl. I'll do a lot of things, but I'm not going to sleep with your man. Although in her blood era, she was a little more wild. Things were wild. Yeah, but they were wearing blood. That didn't mean, okay, go have sex with someone.

You're right. You're right. They were like... You're right. In fact, it's the opposite. I have not been objectified, so I really can't, probably. But I'm trying to imagine if there was a rumor about me in one of my stars that had actual sex in a scene, how I would feel about it. As a woman, you would feel so violated. There was some wrestler dude. I can't even remember his name right now. Never met the guy, and he's talking about he had sex with me. People really believed this. Very fucked It is. You feel violated when people dare to just... It's an ownership. Yeah. I don't like that at all, for the record. I very much apologize for any time I did bring up, allegedly, this is part of the Lord. Sorry. I've been married enough times. You don't need to add on Where the bliss is good now. There's things to me that have not happened. Just pick from the ones that are there. Why I stopped doing print entirely, interviews, because I did an interview in Playboy magazine. You have to know, I was so excited about that. I had read all the Playboy magazine interviews.

They were my favorite. Anytime you really wanted to get to know somebody, it was in there. They asked me, and I was so excited. In real life, the interviewer said, You've been linked to several famous ladies. What's the magic something Let's just say that. I can't even remember the particulars. I go on to try to give an answer that doesn't make me seem like a fucking douchebag. It comes out in the question in print says, You've been linked to a lot of famous ladies. List three people that he did not list in his question. I had not even met these three people. But if you go to this website, who's dated who? It says, I dated these people. I've never met the people. So now I'm like, these fucking women think I was asked that and didn't immediately correct him and go, no, I've never even met those people. Oh, they hate you. Of course they should. Where's your integrity? You can't add names. That was so shady. I'm never doing that again. I I didn't do interviews for 10 years for this reason. I was so tired of the same star-cross beauty articles wanting to always make me seem like I'm playing the victim or talking about my bad marriages.

I was not. But that's what everybody wanted to talk to me about, which is why when I came here and I thought, Oh, two hours, because you sit down with these people, you talk about so many things, but they extrapolate the story they want to tell about you, and they have the power as the editor and chief of their magazine-We'll go through the filter of their your own person. And what they want to spin about you. The story they already had in their head about you, whether you fit into it or not. And what they think is sellable. Is sellable. And I got hip to that, and I just said, no more. This doesn't service me. It services them. I think that's why this is the antidote to that. It's you. And I'll go anywhere and speak in my own voice. I'm happy to. Me too. So you can hear my inflection. You hear if I'm joking, you hear if it's in jest, you hear if I'm mad. And then ask me anything. I'm saying it's great that Steven The Gal has a reggae album, but my voice is telling you I don't really think it's great.

They did a print on the call. Exactly. I hope it was clear. I don't think that's a great move. The Isaac podcast have revolutionized everything and has given us back our power. I agree. In the same way social media for all of itsisms and als, it has killed paparazzi. And you and I were unified on that. Oh, I'm going to throw one thing in the mix right now. You and I were almost in a movie together. Really? What movie? What was this? Well, you were almost in Wanted. I was. And I was almost in Wanted. Really? I almost got the James McAvoy role. He had fallen out, and they started meeting people. And I met Timor, that interesting Russian dude, which I assume you met him, too. And Angie had fallen out, or maybe you were, who I'd ever order. There could have been a version of Wanted with you and I. That would have been amazing. Yes. I think James McAvoy is much better than I am, but just for the record. But can you imagine that would be freaky if we had been in Wanted? That was a very successful film. I know.

My friend Mark Platt produced that. I was like, Mark, you should have given me that. Yeah. Just give me that. Ben's father. Give me that. Give me stuff. Yes, Ben. We love that. I do, too. Oh, my God, I grew up with them. I invested in Wicked, so that's how far back I go with it. No way. Good for you. Yes, great. You're right. You're fucking late. One of the smartest things I ever freaking did. Well, you already know it. You fucking won the Academy Award for it, but boy, I love Monster's Ball. You're so I'm impossibly great in it. I'm going to bring up catwoman, woman, woman, only for a single reason, which is, I think this is the most gangster move ever. You catwoman. Why can't I say woman? That's right, because there are many of us. That's right. There's catwoman. There's catwoman. It's a Freudian slip. You do Catwoman. You win a Razzie, and you go accept it, and you bring with you in your hand your Oscar. Oh, hell, yeah. I did not know this. And you hold the Razzie in one hand and the Oscar in the other. And I'm like, That's cooler than you having fucked Billy Bob Thornt as a legend.

I was like, Oh, my God. That is fucking so cool. That's life, right? Do you have to work your way up to that decision, or you immediately know, Fuck it, I'm going to go do this? I immediately knew that. It's so cool. I also had a fundamental knowing that when I won that Oscar, it didn't mean I was the best. It meant I won. Because what is the best performance? Again, it's subjective. So it just meant I won. And I knew when they tried to give me the Razzia, it didn't mean I was the worst. It just meant I won that fucking thing. Yeah. Yeah. Because I know that. I thought, if you can go and accept an accolade, then you must be of the same character and substance to go accept something when they're telling you, okay, it sucked balls. You must be able to be the same person. It's It's always. It's so confident and attractive. It is. It's so cool. It's so classy. It was so fun to get up there and make jokes. I wrote my whole speech, and I was ready to cry. What was the speech was better, the Oscar speech with the Razz speech?

I hope you were laughing. You laughing, you're like, Fuck, I got to... I put way more energy in my Erazzie speech. The Oscar speech, I didn't even write a speech. I didn't think I was going to win. I thought Sissy Spasick was going to win because back in those days, whoever won the Golden Globe pretty much always won the Oscar, and she won the Golden Globe. So I pretty much knew after that, Okay, this was a fun ride. I got nominated. Sorry, Dee Dee. I didn't do it for you. But now I'm sisters with you in this. Right. Either way, there would have been a connection. Yeah. Were you the first Black actor to win a Razzi? They don't write that. Probably. What did you got? I was the first one to bring their Oscar, that's for sure. Yeah. Somewhere there was a first in meant. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. From 771 with Jack Black. Okay, so who breaks out the blotter or the devil's dander first? I was I was introduced to LSD. I guess I was maybe 14 or maybe 13. It was a friend of mine. I'm not looking for a name.

I'm just curious. Were you hanging with a 26-year-old dude that was a tradesman? He was older. I did look up to him like a big brother figure. I had a thing where I wanted a father figure, even though I had a great dad, but I wanted the dark dad. I wanted the one that was going to show me the ways of the dark side. This guy filled in that role. We did Acid, and I remember that night laughing as hard as I'd ever laughed and having this strange feeling of being whole for the first time. And suddenly this big, dark, mysterious universe that I didn't know how I fit into, it all felt right. Laughing till I cried and having a weird spiritual experience. But then it led to the darkest day or night of my life where it wouldn't stop and it stopped being fun. And it was so bad that I was locked in this insane brain prison where all I could see was chess pieces going off into infinity, playing a game with myself. And I had this terror that I was never going to break free of it. And it was like, as good as that first hour and a half was, it wasn't worth it.

And thank God I made it through the night. I don't think I slept a minute. Once the thought enters your mind, this may be permanent. The second you have that, you're fucking cooked for hours. You're like, oh, shit. You're remembering stories you heard growing up of like, you know Mike Benner? I saw him at the gas station. He's been tripping for four years. You have this one story and you're like, oh, wow, this is happening to me. I'm going to be him. So you stopped doing it after that? I might have done it again after that. Sure. Why? Of course. I was like, I think I got some bad acid. That's what I heard. Sometimes you get the bad one. There was a few hallucinogenic experiences, mushrooms and acid. But Coke, now that's a sexy Well, I was just down to clown with anything that my big bro or my crew of heavy metal maniacs were into at the time. It wasn't a gang, but it was like a brotherhood. There was some coke. When you first take it, there's an initial rush and a feeling. It's similar in that a doorway opens in your brain and you're like, I fucking get it now.

And I have a lot of brilliant things to say really fast. And you go for hours and hours and you say some things where you're talking about love and you're talking about connections and you're talking about things in the future that you're going to do. And it's in retrospect, so embarrassing. It is. Thank God there was no recording, but it actually would have been nice if someone had recorded it just to play back as a cautionary tale of how ridiculous you can sound. I witnessed myself a single time I had been recorded by my girlfriend, and it's a bummer. I think that might be the lowest feeling I've had is looking at my face and going, how I thought I was coming across versus what I'm seeing now. What a gap. But I would say the thing I liked about it most is I'm not optimistic. I'm very pessimistic. Couple of toots of that stuff, and I'm like, you know what? Everything is going to work out. I got spiritual I like talking about God and stuff that I don't usually talk about and I don't really feel a connection to. I'm definitely leaning atheist.

But for some reason, once I get all cooked up or whatever the drug may be. There's a version that brings on a nice side of yourself, which is like, I'm so interested in whoever I'm talking to. Someone will be telling me that their father was a firefighter, and I'm like, wait a minute. And this is sincere. I'm like, oh, my God. So your dad was like, a firefighter? Yeah. And I'm in it. This guy's dad was a hero. Tell me more. And I want to know about the movie of their life where their hero dad was- You already want that. You don't need- Imagine it's squared. It gives you a brief energy that lets you delve deeper than normally would with other people. Maybe that's why Freud supposedly used it a lot in sessions so that they could go deeper than they usually would about themselves and about the nooks and crannies of their personality. Was the move to Crosword's Crosword? Crosswords. We should open a competing school across the street called Crosswords. But were your parents sensing, we need to put him somewhere else and get him out of this crew? Yeah, but in the midst of all of that turmoil and darkness, there was someone from the crew, this This dude was into this person who we had all met when we got on a bus and went to the arcade in Westwood.

It was called Westworld, back when arcades were a thing. Play your favorite tabletop video games. We met these girls and we both fell for the same girl, and he called Dibbs or whatever. I was like, Dibbs? Dibbs. Then I started a romance on the side, and he didn't know. Then when he found out, he wanted to kill me. Then he did beat the shit out of me. It wasn't over yet. There was going to be some more ass-caking. My parents just noticed that shit was going sideways, and they were like, We got to get you the fuck out of there. And I was like, Yeah, I agree. I don't want to be here anymore. Were you so relieved because you maybe wouldn't have sent up the white flag. I don't know what would have happened there. So I went to this little tiny school called Poseidon that was on Pico between Bundy and Barrington. It's not there anymore. It was a school with a lot of kids that had been kicked out of their schools from all over the city, and it was a last chance school. Yeah, it was the island of broken toys.

Yeah. Misfit Island. But it had some great teachers in it. There was a theater teacher named Deb Devine, who I latched on to, and she taught us all improvisation games and Viola Spolen games and got us all thinking about telling stories. It was like theater therapy. You could work out some of your demons by playing roles and just coming off the top of your head with shit you're going to say to the other person in the scene. It was amazing. She is still a great theater force in Los Angeles. She's got a theater called 21st Street Theater here in downtown LA. She has outreach programs to kids all over the city who come and learn theater. She's an awesome lady. That's so cool. Yeah. There was also a therapist in the school. There's only 20 kids in the school, but the therapist was a bodybuilder also. Oh, wonderful. Because sometimes he would have to defend himself. There's some rough characters in this school. Wow. Mix messages. Were there smoking breaks built in? I'm being sincere. There was smoking. And there was kids going in to see him and talk to him. And I was like, what's going on in there?

Because there were some kids that it was compulsory. They had to go talk to the therapist a certain amount of times a week. And I was not in that group I was jealous. I was like, I want to talk to the muscle building therapist. I talked to him just on the side. I was like, how do you get into there? It's like, you can come in if you want. You want to set an appointment? I was like, yeah. And I went in there. I just wanted to see what was going on in here. We got to talking. Then it only took me about a minute before I started spilling my guts about how I had stolen money from my mom and all the shit that I was carrying around, how guilty I was for doing drugs. The drugs, but mainly the betrayal of my mom, who just was an unconditional love for me. She didn't know that I had stolen money to get the drugs. And I just balled my eyes out. I cried so hard, and it felt so good because I grew up with a Jewish upbringing, and I learned a lot of my value system there, but I didn't have confessional.

And there was something about just sitting there with this therapist and just confessing my sins or whatever you want to call it, my guilt, that felt so cleansing. Your shame. Yes. I saw him for the next year once a week, and it was a major turning point for me. Yeah, that's really lucky. From 786 with Vince Vawn. You guys did couples retreat, and I was there just hanging for the whole six weeks. We were friendly to each other, but In my mind, we took a flight during the press tour, and you and I were the only people that didn't fall asleep. We were flying to Australia. I remember it. We're chatting, chatting, chatting, and it's fine. We're both awake. Then at some point, I talk about being in the learning disabled room. I feel like I saw a whole new version of you come online, and you and I just really got into what it was like to get called out of the classroom and go down to that room. My favorite movie, as I saw as a kid, because I thought that was me, was One Flea Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Oh, sure, sure, sure.

Did you You loved that movie? Yeah, loved. I was funny. I got along with people. Kids really followed me. I wasn't going in the most popular crowd, although I got along really well with them, too. But I'm going to play Dungeons and Dragons. I'm going to wrestle, and I got along with people. But when I went to that class, I had to... Well, they labeled this stuff. It's a longer conversation. I'm not in agreeance with the journey that the government and everyone's taken with how we handle it because I think everyone just learns differently, and no one's going to line up right next to each other. You could probably label and distinct how we so differently. I had an interesting journey later in life with that. But as it pertained to my childhood experience, when you're younger, they want to have you tested. So you go to a psychiatrist when you're five. And I remember thinking, they're going to take me from my family. That's what I think is at stake. I'm like, oh, I get it. If I get these questions wrong- You're going to juvie. I don't know where I'm going, but maybe I was in first grade, so I was six at the oldest.

But I remember thinking, this is really some high stakes because if I don't know the answers or I mess this up, I'm going away. I'm leaving my My parents never explained. They said, everything's fine. The school wants to run some tests for how you act in class. I'm like, all right. So I remember, maybe this pertains to what we're talking about. So I'm a fucking six-year-old answering questions as if it was the law, as if I wrote the book on it. Where does paper come from? And my point of view would be, well, we all know trees. The trees is where paper comes from, and that's what they do with that. So I wasn't just answering it. I was answering it like I was fooling them that that was the right answer. And they go, Is that it? Then says, The trees, I go in the machines, then they do the machines. The guy had polio who was interviewing me. His hand was like this. Well, when I was four, I put my hand in an electric can opener. I was watching my mom. I put my finger in. I pull it down and it's just blood everywhere.

I have a split in my nail on my right-hand that I still have, which is just dead skin. It didn't grow back, right? Hold on a second. Are you guys doing a matchy? Do you see how that's splitting right there? Yeah. That varies in how split it goes down. See, mine's a beautiful dead skin. Yeah, yours is hardcore. Yeah, mine's hardcore, right? When you're young, kids will go, Now that's going to be a problem with me because that's not happening today. Anyway, that was a gift for me as my life went on at the time. I hated it, but it really gave me a lot of empathy for that feeling of being attacked or persecuted for having something different that's not a choice. So I remember connecting with this guy where I'm staring at and I go to him, Don't feel bad about your hand. I have this, too. And I reached out. That's so sweet. I showed him my finger and he looked at me. And you were six? I was six because they were driving me from the suburbs, Buffalo Grove, to the city to see this guy. At the time, they were just saying, Is he hyperactive?

I guess I was borderline hyperactive for whatever that meant for a six-year-old in class who was fucking living on sugar.Pop tarts. Pop tarts, frosted franks for breakfast. I guess I had a hard time this thing a joke in sitting still. But anyway. Were you also way too big? No, I was tall, younger, and then I evened out, and then I got bigger. But I just remember at that point, that was what launched it, where at first they said maybe he would be good to take a Riddland. My parents, thankfully, I think I did one and I didn't react well, but my dad, and I think my mom said it, too, they're like, my kid's not going through life doped up, which is a great thing because you have to learn how to process stuff. And so the answer became I would go to a class, but not like these other kids. I I didn't live in the class. I was in general pop regular school, but I would get one period a week to go. I had a speech therapist, and then I'd have to go to this class. So when I go to this class, I figured it out.

It was really good for me because as I got older, then I would be in fourth grade, and there's a bunch of kids playing Candyland. I'm like, What the fuck is everyone playing Candyland for? That's a game you play at five. Game's a joke. And I first was harsh on these kids because I was distancing myself. I'm like, I'm not one of these But there was a girl that was super tall. She didn't talk, but it reminded me of Chief. I figured out as a kid, I was like, Well, no wonder she's not talking. She stands out so much. She's so tall. She's going to be invisible. She's got bad posture that she just didn't want to stick out anymore. There was nothing wrong with her. She just wasn't comfortable. Then there was the kid who was more rural than all of us. But his family was agriculture, so he had flannels and work boots and shit. I started to figure out a lot of these kids, it could have been emotional or just social cues weren't there, but they were great kids. If you had a friendship with those kids, it meant something. So I became super protective, and I started including them in recess games, and I was so confident.

So Okay, getting in a fight or verbally getting in stuff. I was like, no, fucking Megan's playing kickball. She's on my team. Here we go. And so I started to have that. So it was a gift because I knew that feeling. The difference was if you have some level of confidence or self-belief, despite the obvious information, you really can go super far and really accomplish a lot because you have to be really resilient and work really hard. But the poor kids that don't have support from a parent or don't have any belief can get absolutely devastated. Oh, ruined. I would imagine through different interviews and even the notion that you had loved the Stephen King book you loved as a kid. Rage. Yeah. I saw kids get literally destroyed. There's no going past what happened to them in junior high and high school through bullying and the horror that could be. I just saw kids get fucking ground up and destroyed and had so much sympathy for them. It broke my heart. It was all around. We also had someone who spoke faith over us, where some of these kids, they'll go to the parents and say, Well, I think we all know Larry has a hard time focusing.

If they're wearing a name tag that says expert, and you're dealing with parents' especially back then where there's not a lot of information. Yeah, they're scared. Then they're going to go along with these recommendations. I still see it today where there's parents who go along with recommendations that are terrible recommendations just because they're the popular idea of the time. And that kid then is believed to have not skills, but it's always that way. That could be athletics, that could be music. Usually what you find is the person that has some obstacle that's going to, for whatever reason, be resilient and come up with a psychotic program program is the one that can break through and have better mastery in self-awareness because you have to earn that, I think, by overcoming that. Sometimes when it's real easy, they're not forced to do that. And so when that finally happens in life, they don't necessarily have those resources because they just haven't been in that position. That's a tremendous amount of empathy for a six-year-old. Most kids looked around and they were like, Yikes, that's bad, but I have to protect myself. At that age, we're all just trying to survive elementary school and middle school trying to get through it.

To bring people in is very rare. I was raised with that. My mom would be like, Hey, someone's new in school. It would be pretty neat if you brought them to the lunch table. It was just in the water in my house that way. That's lovely. I just was part of who I was. But I also think you hit it on the head earlier, which is you were giving people what you wanted. Was there an inciting incident other than that experience, which is profound? I belong there. I couldn't read. I didn't learn to read till fifth grade, right? I have dyslexia. In those hieroglyphics, it's really nuts what that looks like to me. I got over it. It's fine. And I agree. I'm glad I had the whole journey. And then figuring out I was good at some things was like, what a gust of wind in the sales. Oh, my God, I'm good at math. Oh, my God, I'm not fucking stupid. I thought I wasn't stupid. When I'm talking to dudes on the playground, I'm verbally advanced. Why is it I'm so stupid here? That's a terrible feeling. I'm on the playground, I'm so confused.

Did you feel stupid or you knew you were bright? Well, I felt like as soon as you sat in that desk and they started writing on the chalkboard, I'm like, I'm out to sea, and it's compounding daily. Now we're another step down the path. At some point, I threw in the towel. I'm like, Yeah, I'm not going to get this. I just have to act like I'm paying attention. That's similar to how I was answering those questions. Yes. You took on a survival mode. You were acting like you were overly on top of what the teacher wanted. Isn't that crazy? Then at the same time, you really needed to say, I'm confused here. Yeah, and then Dax, and there was someone holding a slip, and then I'd leave the classroom, and then I'd go to that room with everyone. Did you ever have the experience where you knew there was a progress report coming home. You could hear the moment when a parent received it, you could hear their reaction of how angry they were that there was a progress report. Do you remember the sound of your parents' feet when they came in from work walking and you knew there was an issue that was about to be addressed.

I got blessed in that my mom, luckily for me, thought I was a genius. She's like, Yeah, I don't know what to say about this report card, but I know this kid's a genius. So she didn't sweat me. We were fortunate to have belief in us. Yes, yes, yes, And the kids that didn't, they started to believe the worst of themselves. Yeah, and they get destroyed. From 696 with Heidi Klum. Okay, you've talked too much about it, but I just have a specific question about it, and that is Halloween. So do you already know this about Heidi, that she goes so hard for Halloween? Probably harder than anyone in the world. What rock have you been on? I know. It's so embarrassing. God. We can still hang out, right? It'll be part of the fun of the reality show. No, not before you have a little look at me when I was a rain worm, okay? Okay, great. A rain worm? Yes. Listen. Please look at my rain worm. Okay. Look at me when I was 95 years old. That's also one of my favorite. I turned 40 and people were like, wow, so you were like 40, really old now.

You should stop modeling. And then I was like, dang, I guess they're right. And then that got me thinking about, I'm going to make myself really old. And that was amazing. It took 13, 14 hours to make me that old because every part of my skin that was exposed, they had to age. I hate to say this. There will be some listeners that, like Monica, haven't seen the Halloween costumes. I learned of it today. Monica, whatever you're imagining. I Can't wait. You have to times it by 10. So she went as whatever she called it a rain worm. It looks like a fucking intestine. No, a rain worm. No, it looked like a rain worm. A rain worm. Okay. Like a real proper rain worm that you see when it's raining and they come out of the ground and they're out there. Or like the lower GI. That is also what a worm looks like. She is in this nine-foot long fucking-I'm going to look it up right. It looks like an intestine. Her face is gone. There's no face. She's gone. Her eyes are poking through. My face was glued onto the walls of it.

My hands were tied down to the side of my body. When I would fall over, I couldn't get up. So I said to my husband, please, when I fall over and I'm landing on my face, don't leave me on my face because it's loud. People are like, Heidi, over here. Heidi, fall over here. Look over So when I'm down, when I'm down, and I'm on my face. But by the way, they wouldn't even know if you were looking over there. I don't want to suffocate. She's gone in this costume, Monica. You can't see her. Do you see it? When I tell you that this costume is as complicated as the job of the hut costume in Star Wars, it's that level of prosthetic and insanity. Look at her face. Try to find her face. This is incredible. Now that we know what you're doing, so we know that the one costume is going as '95, and you looked like, you're saying a rain worm, I think it happens to look like intestines. Do you think that looks like intestines? I do, because I thought you were saying ring worm. That's like an intestinal disease, and it could be that, too.

Yeah. But it's a rain worm. That makes me very sad. No, it's great. I thought it was very clearly a rain worm. No one says rain worm. What is it? You would just say worm, right? You're talking about the worm that is just in the grass. But there's so many different worms. There certainly are. No, there are worms that come out when it rains. Yes. I think in America, we don't have that. I think in America, we don't have that. No, normal worms. We would just say worm. Normal worms, they come up. If we wanted to talk about a different worm- It's not a maggot. Right, but we would say maggot. No, a maggot is not coming out of the ground. A maggot is in food. I know that. What I'm telling you is no one would call a maggot a worm. You don't need to differentiate worm. Then you don't say maggot worm. That's what I'm trying to- Oh, my God. The light bulb, did you see it? It went on. It took me a minute. Here, it's just warm. I love this. That's standard, what you were. But I like that. You can call it a rain worm if you want.

It's very cute that you're doing it. I thought you always had to specify, like with pasta, it's like greeny. This old version of you is crazy. Now that we've been brought up to speed about these Halloween costumes, my question is, many, many women on Halloween like to-Dress as a nurse. Well, they like to express a sexiness that they don't otherwise get to do in real life. And I think it's very telling that you went as a, forgive me, an intestine and a '95s woman. And my question is, do you think it's because you've had your fill of being sexy and that now it's like, let's go be a rain worm? For me, it's more creative. I'm a creative person, so I also don't want to do costumes that I have seen. So I try to really think outside of the box. You did. You're doing great. You're doing great. Last year, I was like, okay, this worm I know was so epic that I was like, how am I going to top this worm? Then I thought I have to do something with multiple people. I became a peacock where I'm just the face in the front body of the peacock and I have 10 people who were the eyes of the feather in the rest of the body, and I'm climbing on this, and we did this whole beautiful dance until I then become this peacock to just give people something else again, where they're like, Oh, my God, that's cool, or I want people to have an emotion when they see that.

And I love also when girls want to be a sexy nurse and they feel like they can't do this in their normal life. And then that gives them the freedom, the okay to try something that they normally don't feel comfortable in. I feel like I'm always doing the sexy nurse without being the nurse. If I go to a party or walking down the catwalk somewhere. Kristen does the same thing. Kristin is so celebrated for being beautiful that she does things that are so gross that only she would really be comfortable doing. She'll wear a bald cap and she looks insane, or she has a bathing suit that looks like a man's hairy chest, and it's so gross. It is. Yeah, I like that. But she also said that about her wedding because they got married at the courthouse, and she wore just a cute outfit. It. And people ask, Oh, you didn't want to get dressed up? And she was like, I get to do that a lot for my job. So this got to be a different thing. Yeah. But it's more like art for me. I feel like I'm a life sculpture. One year, for example, I wanted people to see what it entails.

I know I always do little videos that I put up there. But one year I was putting myself in a window in Manhattan, and I started at eight o'clock in the morning, and I had all the artists around me gluing all the stuff on. And I'm sitting right by the window and people could walk by this window all day long. It's like performance all day. All day. All day. They could come by and they could see what happens. Five, six hours later, I was still sitting there. They were gluing stuff on me because I wanted people to see how this all happens. It's like a sculpture at the end. Then they just rip it all off. It's just for one night, and then it's gone. Well, what I like is this reinforces the point you made a few minutes ago, which is you just pursue stuff because you pursue them. Sometimes they generate money, sometimes they don't. This is obviously a humongous expense for you to do this, and you're not going to get any money back from doing that. I never have. But you get joy out of it. I do. And you always have something to talk about on talk show in a pinch.

All you got to do is flash that fucking picture and you got like six minutes right there. But I never knew in the beginning how it would grow into that. Over 20 years now, I've been doing this maybe 23 years. When do you start planning? Now. Good question. Now. And do you go to a specific party every year? I make it every year. Oh, it's your party. It's my party. And she has Questlove DJ. Questlove is there every year. I love Quest. Amazing. This is so fun. It It is. But when I first came to New York, I didn't feel like there was a party where people are dressing up. You would go to a party and they put a little red clown nose on their nose, and then it's like, I'm a clown. And I'm like, no, you're not. It just was so boring. I was always like, where is the magic? Why is no one giving it some? So then I was like, I'm going to take that over. I'm going to do this. And as the host, I thought, I have to really show people how far you can push your imagination.

And I feel like literally every your people who are coming, their costumes also are getting better and better. People are also planning months in advance already. You're inspiring them. People are beaming me and they're like, oh, my God, I'm coming to the party and I'm already like, you just wait when you see what I'm doing. I What if it's this party, no one can move, no one's arm's work. People are falling down staircases. No, my husband. Just a shit show. My husband was a gigantic egg because... This is like a Black Mirror episode in a way. No, my husband was like, what am I going to be if you were a peacock? And I was like, well, we're literally sitting at the dinner table and I have this chandelier that has all these eggs hanging off of it. They're real eggs all from Easter. We always blow eggs out. You poke holes on either side and you blow all the stuff through and then you paint them and then we put them on strings. And so we have 50 eggs probably on this thing. And I'm looking at these eggs. I'm like, I think it should be an egg.

It should be the Peacock's egg. And I know that a Peacock is a male and shouldn't have eggs, but- That's fine. Who is counting eggs? We can play tell roles. No one there is going to be a ornithology biologist and call you out on this. That's right. So he ran around like a gigantic egg. Follow Armchair Expert on the WNDYRI app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wundri. Com/survey.