Transcript of Grant Achatz (award-winning chef) New

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert Experts on Expert. I'm Dax Shepard.

Who are you?

Lily Padman.

That's me.

Today we have a legendary chef on, Grant Achatz. He is the restaurateur who owns Alinea and has won numerous accolades and is one of Wobby Wob's biggest crushes.

It's true. And he's— Alinea, for people who don't know, is basically the United States America's Best Restaurant.

It had been many years in a row. Yeah, it's an incredible place, uh, and he's an incredible chef with an incredible story. Oh man. Yeah, um, yeah, what, what could be the worst thing that could happen to a chef? And that's what happened. Please enjoy Grant Achatz. I don't know if you know this. Are you so savvy that you know the gold in the Boston matches the trunks almost identical?

Well, I mean—

Especially in the back.

I thought—

Did you clock that?

Yeah, of course.

Okay, God, you really know what you're doing. How much thought did you put into this?

My outfit? Yeah, outfit. I put none.

Yeah, okay, okay.

Well, it's great.

You've surrendered that to someone else?

Yeah, I'm in my swimsuit.

Rob, do you know where the sprays are in my house? If I don't have the nicotine spray, I can't continue.

He can't function.

I understand.

Have you ever been a nicotine addict?

Never.

Oh my God, that seems hard to imagine. We're both Michiganders. Yeah, almost the same age. Yeah, I think you're maybe 8 months older than me.

Is that right?

Thank God.

Yeah, you were in Milford.

Milford, Highland, Dearborn, Detroit. Okay, you're St. Clair. Yeah, not St. Clair Shores.

Not— everybody gets that wrong.

Yes, big difference.

Huge difference.

Yes, you would think, Monica, right?

St. Clair, St. Clair Shores.

What could be the difference.

Yes.

This is like Macon, Macon County. That happened to be used in Georgia. Yeah. Yeah.

So walk me through St. Clair. I'm pretty sure it's similar to Milford conceptually.

Smaller.

3,000?

Yeah, probably now more than that. But back then, no fast food restaurant. That's how small we were. Agricultural town.

How many stoplights?

Two.

And did you go to like— did they have St. Clair High School?

Yeah, just one high school.

How many kids were in there, do you know?

In my graduating class, probably not more than 100. Oh, really? It was really small.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And you drove a fucking GTO in high school?

Yeah, yeah.

Come on. What, a '70?

A '70, yeah.

Tell me about that car.

When I was 14, my father said, what kind of car do you want when you turn 16? And I just said a fast one, right? As you would.

Yeah.

And I love muscle cars. In my head, I was like, oh, he's going to buy me a muscle car, right?

Right, right.

It didn't turn out like that, for the better. So he went out and found a GTO that was in boxes. It was off the frame. I mean, it was a mess, right?

Someone had started a restoration and bailed.

$1,400 is what we paid for it.

Oh, nice.

Wow. And for 2 years, we took it all apart and built it all back up.

How did your dad have that kind of mechanical prowess?

I mean, I think a lot of it was just, again, that small town Michigan manliness, right?

Yeah.

A man had to know how to turn a wrench.

Right. And then we bought the manual. Pontiac puts out all of those old cars. They have manuals on literally how to put them together.

Right, right, right.

So here we are, like, reading through that and buying the tools.

And I can't believe it ran, to be honest with you.

Honestly, me neither.

And were you the king of your high school with that sweet ride? Because in Michigan, if you drove a rad car, it really meant something.

That was a symbol.

Yes. I had a Mustang GT that I bought similarly for $1,800. And yeah, I think that elevated me a few notches.

I think so. I wasn't very cool.

No, I saw a picture of you. You've got your tight rolled jeans. You've got a fucking gorgeous schlong. Short front, long in back.

So that I should have kept that because that's in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be down to your ankles by now. It's called a schlong. That's one of the names for it. Short in front, long in back.

That's tough.

Pick your poison with that. Exactly. What kind of dude were you in high school?

Super shy. Did not apply myself unless it was with my hands or some sort of art. I thought I was going to be an architect. Never drank, never smoked. Tight, tight group of 5 guys. That was it.

So Mom and Dad owned more than one restaurant?

Only one at a time.

One at a time.

Yeah, but it was a family diner. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, 7 days a week.

And like, how many tables are inside this place?

It probably held 150 people.

Because I was doing the math when I heard you say the town was 3,000 at that time. And I was like, man, even if 10% of the community ate at your restaurant, I'm trying to do the finances of it, right?

It was the place that Everybody gathered. Every morning they would come in and sit at the same table. They didn't even have to order.

Oh, that's the best.

And that was a really formative time.

What is funny though, when you're in a small town, like assuredly your peers thought you guys were loaded.

Oh yeah.

Because when you're a kid and someone's parent owns a business in town, you just think they're rich. You have no idea what the finances are.

I was an only child. They spoiled me. Oh wow.

Yeah.

So yeah, the car. Right, right.

Did you have dirt bikes?

Four-wheelers. Four-wheelers!

You son of a bitch.

Yeah. I grew up on dirt bikes, and I made the transition when I was, like, 12.

I'm so grateful I had that childhood.

Are you? Oh, yeah. I wouldn't be close to who I am today without that.

Yeah, even thinking about what I've learned about how seasonal your preparation is and how you think about oak leaves burning in particular. Your obsession with figuring out how to get that smell into food, I wonder, is that us? Does everyone have that nostalgia for burning leaves?

And it was interesting. When we were working on those concepts, I would be like, "Hey, where did you grow up?" And if they were in Texas, there's no leaves, right? Or it wasn't prevalent. Some people live in California where it's mostly evergreen. So how do you find that touchstone that is able to really make people go back in time? Yeah. That's a very powerful thing.

Yeah, it really, really is. It really is. Almost the most powerful thing Yeah. Had you not gone away to— again, I love the acronyms because CIA, Culinary Institute of America, but wasn't there ICE too? International Cooking Institute?

Yeah.

All bad. It's all bad.

They need a rebrand big time.

It's so funny.

It is funny.

Had you not gone to CIA, did you have any other— No, it was—

I had no backup.

Okay. No backup. No other interests.

Academically, I was terrible in high school, so It wasn't like I was going to a university like all my friends, right? I was like, this is it. But I really loved it.

Do you think you had any advantage having minimally cooked at the diner?

For sure.

What kind of advantages did you arrive with? Like some mechanical ability or knife skills?

Yeah, there was knife skills. There was honestly a lot of the grit.

Oh, uh-huh.

A lot of the stress, a lot of that environment. It's intense and you have to figure it out.

Your domain is where I probably am the most ignorant, so forgive me when I make a bunch of dumb observations, but I'd also imagine you have a relationship with heat. Like, I cook enough that I know over time I look at that flame, I know what that flame is going to give me. I know what kind of time I want something on there. If I want to be golden, I would imagine to you also have a pretty good relationship with heat.

Yeah. So a lot of the modernist technique is sous vide.

Uh-huh. And so for people who don't know sous vide—

You're putting food in a bag, essentially, and placing that in a water bath. But you have to have the water at the right temperature. So I'm pretty good at just putting my finger in there and knowing what temperature it is. Uh-huh.

Yeah, you can do that.

That's cool.

My wife always teases me, but I can taste salt. And know how many grams I have. Ah, yeah, muscle memory.

Yeah, yeah, just doing something over and over again for 40 years or whatever. What at CIA was the most challenging? What was the deficit you had that you were like, oh boy, I'm having a hard time with this?

Probably back then it was my false sense of ability.

A little arrogance, maybe?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, because a lot of the people that start there have never worked before.

Oh wow.

I was young, I was only 19 years old, arrogant. And I was like, "Mwah, I'm better than all these people." Yeah. That held me back a little bit. I learned that lesson fast, though.

It kind of takes that personality a little bit, though. I know.

I agree. There's a certain—

Confidence.

Confidence. And you put yourself out there, too. The cooking I'm doing now.

Yeah.

You know, you're a bit vulnerable. Vulnerable. Yeah.

Yeah, you're trying to get that perfect ratio of arrogance that can foolishly make you try something maybe you shouldn't try.

Yeah.

It's a real balancing act.

For me, I was so young, and most of the students were over 21, so they would go party on the weekends. Yeah. And I would just read Cliff Books.

Oh, okay.

Uh-huh. And I think that was a very fortunate thing for me too. I was really focused. So that was the foundation.

I would have been like, "Oh, I'm in New York. I have this now degree. I will go down to New York City." That seems like the natural trajectory. Why did you choose to go to Chicago and not go to New York?

So originally, I went back to a hotel in Grand Rapids, the Amway, and the chef that was running the hotel, he became a mentor. And upon graduation, he was like, "Come back for a couple months, and we'll find a spot for you in Europe." and go apprentice over there and learn and blah, blah. So I went back to Grand Rapids and it never worked out. So then I just went on a big search. I wanted to work for the best chef at the best restaurant, and that was it. That's all that mattered.

Which at the time was Charlie Trotter.

Yeah.

Okay.

So talk about the kind of legacy of Charlie Trotter in Chicago.

Yeah.

This would have been what, '90?

'90—

I have it written down. I can tell you. He had a 25-year run of kind of being The Big Dog. The Big Dog.

Yeah.

Yeah, so how'd you get that job?

I wrote him a letter with my hand several times until finally he called me.

Oh, no kidding.

And I went down there for a tryout. I was still in Grand Rapids. I remember I wanted to eat at the restaurant before I tried out because I wanted to see what type of ingredients they had. I wanted to look at the plateware. And again, I was 21.

Wow.

I had this giant, hilariously over-baggy, like, JCPenney suits on. I worked there for 3 days, and it was a tryout. And they offered me the job. So I moved down.

Okay, so I want to talk about the culture of Charlie Trotter, and then we'll compare it to Keller, 'cause I think this is kind of fascinating. Both work. Let's talk about the massive difference. So what was the vibe at Charlie Trotter?

Fathers was intense in a way that wasn't in the service of what we were doing.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. And I felt like it was getting in the way a bit. Charlie was a master manipulator. Oh. He'd slip right inside of your head and just pull strings. It was unbelievable.

Yeah, what for? Like, power?

Maybe.

Yeah.

If you're generous, I think it's like, look, for whatever reason, that was his technique, and for whatever reason, the results were the results. So once you have the results you want, you're not likely to go re-engineer your approach. And probably he worked in kitchens where he picked up these little things along the way.

I mean, we do what we see. Yeah. Yeah. And until you can break that cycle— I never saw him cook. Which, you know, hey, again, he was successful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the formula worked for him. It was odd to me.

Yeah, yeah.

You said he was like a conductor, not a musician.

Right. A conductor from afar. But the food was amazing and the talent was amazing. In a lot of ways, it showed me what I didn't want to do, how I didn't want to manage. But at the same time, I was so young. And that restaurant was so good, it was hard to not go, "This is the way to do it." Of course.

Yeah, yeah. The proof is in the pudding.

But that's how the cycle happens, I think. Right.

Exactly.

How had he designed that incredible menu, or did he have help? Or if he wasn't really cooking, how did he come up with that aspect of it?

He was super intelligent. He went out and ate and then assimilated all— you know, brought all that in and then sort of moved the puzzle pieces around a bit.

So he, like, was a curator of—

Yeah.

Other great dishes.

Flavors and, you know, techniques. And then he would have us execute it.

Explain how he'd yell at you. I found this to be really fascinating.

He would not yell at the person. He would yell at either the person directly next to you or the person that was supposed to be supervising you. I remember the first time it happened. It is a double— hit because he's yelling. He's making it very clear that you did something wrong, so now you're at fault. But he's dressing down the person next to you, so now you feel bad for them.

Oh my God, it's like torturing a loved one. It's psychological. Yeah.

Whoa, that is wild.

Come on over.

The time you had some extra basil on your cutting board, it was a very sharp person that knew how to draw a metaphor, an analogy, and just pin it right in you. At one point, I was chipping out some basil, and I had more than I needed. Not by a lot, but by, you know, a little bit. And I wiped it off my cutting board into the trash can, and he happened to see it. And he walked over, and he was very soft-spoken, very polite. He was like, chef, Do you happen to have your wallet with you? And I'm like, as a matter of fact, I do, which is very unusual to have it in the kitchen.

Yeah.

So I get it out and he goes, have you any money in there? And I'm like, yes. He goes, pull it out for me. So I pull it out. I had a 5 and a 1. Oh no. And he picked it up. He looked at it, threw it in the trash.

Yeah.

He goes, you're stealing from me. So I just stole from you. Yeah, that's what you just did to me. Again, all of this hard knocks at the time was, like, tough.

Yeah.

Yeah. But lesson learned.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And by the way, I always think, in my experience, the very first movie I did happened to be the hardest movie I ever did in my life. It was, like, in another country. We were in cold water half the time. It was so much. And I was like, oh, wow, this is movies, man. It's on. It's been way easier ever since. And I'm like, oh, that's the way to do it.

Yeah, that's like having an abusive stepdad, and then you have a nice stepdad, and it's like, yeah.

Hey, like, I am so happy.

It's Barton, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. It's like, you shouldn't have had an abusive stepdad.

Right. The funny part of that is I didn't touch that money. When he walked away, it stayed right there.

Wow.

Oh, really? Because I'm like, if I reach that in there, what if he sees me?

Yeah, it feels like a test.

Yeah.

Like the second part of his psychological war was like, do you pick it up out of the trash?

Oh my God. I thought he was going to cut it up like the baseball.

That would have been— that would have been—

He would have chopped it really fast, and you're like, oh, shit, he can't.

Yeah, right.

So you're there for a year?

Not even.

Not even a year?

Yeah, it was short.

And how did you get yourself over to French Laundry? And tell me, because I wasn't aware of that at all in '95, how big was French Laundry already?

Not that big. So Chef Keller took it over in '94, so it only opened a couple of years under him. After I left Trotter's, I went to Europe. And back then, France was where it was at. It moved down to Spain and other places, but then it was France. So I'm like, okay, we'll go to the Holy Land of food. And very disappointed. Every meal I had was not good. Oh! So now I'm really lost. Yeah. I'm like, if Trotter's was the pinnacle and that didn't work, I'm gonna go try to find it elsewhere. And that didn't work. I came home and I was a bit lost. And I once again researched a bunch of restaurants and found the French Laundry and was like, okay, it's in Napa. Worst case scenario, maybe I'll make wine. There's a lot of restaurants there. And wrote him a letter similarly. He called me up and he was like, you're either batshit crazy or you're going to be really good. And I landed there.

By the way, you can be both. You can't be both.

You can't be both. Landed there and walked in the kitchen the first day, and there he was mopping the floor.

Oh, wow.

It felt so familiar because of my mother and father's restaurant. My dad would mop the floor.

Yeah. Yeah.

You see the trash is full, you take it out.

Yeah.

Doesn't matter who you are on the pecking order.

Yeah. And it felt magical. Everything about it.

We just blew by one thing. Point that I'm having a hard time grasping or relating to, which is at 20 years old, the fact that you went to France and you tried the food and you're like, it's not very good. I wouldn't fucking know. Like, I liked White Castle and Lafayette Coney Island.

But you were tasting food all the time.

Well, that's my question is like, yeah, what order is it? Do you think it's just because you are getting so meticulous about all the ingredients and understanding what it's creating, that that in turn changes your own palate. It's just interesting at that age to be able to even discern the difference between great and good food.

I think part of it is here, but a lot of it is here.

Okay, in your heart.

Yeah, and the way a meal makes you feel. Even at that age, you knew when something was special. And that was another thing, like that cliché, stuffy French restaurant. I didn't want that. So all of that was filed away, and 20 years after that became my ethos.

The structure of a kitchen lends itself to abuse in a lot of ways, right? My stereotypical notion of some of these kitchens that had gone awry, it's like this main chef is like a god.

Yeah.

And all the formalities to reinforce how powerful they are, how subservient you are.

I mean, that whole system was based on the military hierarchy system. Oh, okay.

That's where it comes from?

Yeah. Historically, that never works out well.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah. There is that toxicity that ran rampant in the years past. Now the whole industry is going through a lot of reform, a lot of change.

Well, internet came along, and your behavior is no longer that anonymous. The sanctity of that little kitchen is permeable.

That's the good part. You can't get away with this kind of thing.

I certainly have acted out in my earlier days, especially.

Yeah.

It's hard to find that separation of pursuit of profession and the standard and being a human.

Yeah, it's hard.

It sounds bizarre.

No, no.

No.

I also think it's the pressure. Someone sat down The thing has to be not just perfect, it has to be perfect in 13 minutes or whatever the window of time is.

Right.

Yeah, it's a very stressful job.

When I opened Louie's, I was 30. That's pretty young.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's pretty young to be in charge of 100 people, even more so if you're the owner or a co-owner. So there's a lot of that entrepreneurial stuff that I never thought about. It was all about the food. And my business partner handled most of it, but it was still there. So sometimes the pressure for her popped up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, never physically. Just a little bit of yelling here and there. Sure.

Well, the fact that you named one of your boys Keller lets me know how you feel about him. But you arrived with one skill set, and then you left with a completely different one. What did you pick up there, and what were they doing that was novel? Just tell people, that's a very traditional French cuisine, yeah?

The French Laundry food, I would say, would be modern French. What does that mean? Threw away a lot of the— rules of French cooking and utilizing a little bit of the American humor in food for the first time. Like, I remember the very first time I ate there, they put the oysters and pearls down in front of me, and I started laughing.

Yeah.

When they gave the description, and I was eating with my father, it was right before I was about to start, and he goes, "Why are you laughing?" You know, we're in this fine dining restaurant, right? And I go, "Oysters and pearls, man. That's hilarious." Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's delicious.

Yeah.

And that was the first time that I was like, "Oh, this can be fun. This can be emotional. This can play ball." Personality. And so, that really resonated with me. But Thomas's integrity, his willingness to not compromise, it was unprecedented. The fact that he was there, the first one in, the last one out, I was there at the right time to find that role model that really set the tone for my whole life. I give him a lot of credit for my ability to push through cancer. Sure, I learned so much to be a chef, but a lot of life lessons.

Yeah, like maybe the chef part wasn't the most important.

Probably not.

Yeah. But did he have an overarching theory about how he cooked? That you began to understand? And what was that? Like, what was his North Star?

If you're really into food, if you study it, it's your passion, you can look at a chef's food and understand the architecture of it and the way that certain chefs season the food. They push with acid, they're liberal with salt, They're cognizant of texture so that you're able to understand the architecture and their aesthetic, the ingredients that they always have in their back pocket. And a lot of that with him was this emotional aspect of seasoning the food. So the oysters and pearls, the cornet that looks like an ice cream cone, coffee and donuts. Like, there's all of this sort of of other stuff. And so, if somebody read me a description of a dish, I would probably be able to tell you who created it.

Wow. Oh, no kidding?

And visually, for sure.

They have an aesthetic.

Yeah.

And they have a way that they communicate.

It's like writing.

There is a lot of storytelling.

Yeah.

Was there anything about the service there that you also clocked? You were like, "Oh, this thing works really well." They were very approachable.

They were the opposite of France. You know, it felt like you were in somebody's home having a dinner party. It felt very comfortable and warm.

This is the only one of these restaurants I've actually eaten at.

Okay.

Probably 15 years ago, my wife and I were about to become vegan on January 1st. We were going to try to be vegan, and it was like right before Christmas. And I'm like, maybe we should stop at that restaurant on our drive and let it rip before we go vegan.

One more time.

Yeah.

The reservation we got was like 9:30.

At night. Yeah, we went there and we ate till midnight.

Yeah.

And there were so many special things that happened. Our one experience there, there was this man eating next to us and he looked sweet. So we started chatting with him and he told us that he and his wife had always come there and that she had died like 10 years before from cancer and that every year on their anniversary, he comes and has this meal.

That's sweet.

Yeah. I was like, oh man, this is really so special. And there's just so many things that were— and I'm uncouth, so a lot of this was new to me. Like, even I got the truffle option and the man comes out with this mahogany box in white gloves. And I said to Kristen, oh, I think he's going to murder someone for us. Like, I'm waiting to see a pistol get pulled out of this box, right? Then they educate you on truffles and I'm like, how much is that one worth? Oh, that's like a $2,000. Wow, they're that much? Yeah. And I'm like, where do you buy? It's like a guy comes door to door. So it was a life event. Whatever the food was, it was phenomenal. I love things I hate, like oysters and pearls. I don't like any of those things. Yeah, I was just eating things all the time. I'm like, no, I know I don't like this. This place immediately built this trust where I was trying things I don't like, and everything was fantastic. It's on par with going to Disneyland. Like, you should do it in your life. Yeah, it was like a real life experience, right?

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And then we took that a step further. As with most professions or arts, any protégé always wants to surpass the mentor.

Yeah, of course. To impress them, you want to hear, like, "You did it, man." Right.

Yeah, pat on the back.

So when I was at the French Laundry, Thomas knew that I was not going to work there forever, and the style of food that I wanted to do was not of his. And so at some point, he was like, "Hey, there's this restaurant in Spain called El Bulli. I feel like it's right in your wheelhouse." So he arranged a stage there, and after I saw what was happening there, I was like, I have to go do my own thing.

You'd remember this place because José Andrés also went there. That's like what woke up his mind as well. It's kind of north of Barcelona, right on the coast. It's not like in a populated area, right? It's just kind of in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah.

So yeah, when you left French Laundry, you were the sous chef, which I didn't even know what this meant. You were the second in charge under Thomas. So when you go there, and I know you hate this word, but other people know it and I need you to explain it to everyone, but molecular gastronomy.

Molecular gastronomy.

So I know you don't like it, but what is the theory behind it?

So at some point in the late '90s, it became popular to utilize equipment from other disciplines. The medical industry was a big one— centrifuges and rotary evaporators.

Yeah, how's a rotary evaporator work? I hear you talk about this a lot.

So you have a liquid or a puree that you pull under vacuum So now you're able to boil that liquid at a very low temperature. Okay. So you're not having all of the aromas blow off and stuff like that.

That makes so much sense.

So it boils, it condensates, and then what drips is the essence of whatever you had in there.

So you've, like, extracted the essence without destroying it with heat.

Right.

Whoa. That's so fascinating, right? Because this is applying what we know about water boiling at different temperatures at different ATMs, right? Like at elevation, it boils at 209 or whatever the hell it is. So if there's not one ATM, then it boils at low heat. That's genius.

I remember my first time being in Aspen trying to boil eggs, and I'm doing it in front of my business partner, whom I had only known like a month.

Okay.

His whole family was there, and he's like, chef, why don't you make us some breakfast? I'm like, no problem. And it was a That's a big problem.

Oh no!

Oh no!

So embarrassing. Spade and hard-boiling it.

That's funny.

Yeah, so there was that. So at that restaurant, I guess the other thing I learned researching you is that what it really also broke open for you is that, oh, the sky's the limit. We're not locked into French. We're not locked in— like, this journey of what food could be, we're not nearly at the end of it. No.

In fact, the opposite. It was like— If you didn't explore this, you would be doing the industry a disservice. Because I felt like for the first time there was full permission to express yourself or push outside of the box.

Invent stuff.

Yeah. And so then it was game on. Once I came home from there, shortly after I left, different filmmakers who have Ronnie Fishin' and Evanston.

Oh, this was Trio.

Yeah, no budget. We were paying the chefs $20,000 a year.

Jeez Louise.

Wow. This was 2001.

Wow.

Do they get tipped out by the house? Is there any other— That's it?

That was it. Fuck that. I know, it was bad. There was 5 or 6 of us in there. We were the Rugrats. Yeah. You know, we had nothing. But that really pushed creativity.

Yeah, 'cause you got credited rightly so, for really elevating Trio and putting it in a standing it wasn't in. This was interesting to me. Of course I know the Michelin star thing, which is already ironic because it's a tire company, but I didn't realize mobile stars were also a thing. I don't know if they still are.

Are they?

They're the same for hotels.

For hotels?

Yeah.

So mobile gas station, Monica.

Oh my God.

Yeah, I mean, it is unbelievable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you got Like 5 Mobil stars? Some amount of Mobil stars.

Yeah, lots of Mobil stars.

Couldn't get the Chevron star or the Shell star.

Right, no shells.

What's the highest amount of stars for that?

5.

Okay.

So yeah, we were moving. And then 9/11 happened 3 months after I was there. So we're doing all this wacky food, taking big swings. And it was working. But then the whole country just stopped. Pulled way back. And I remember I was just a chef. I had no ownership in this at all. And I went to the owner. I'm like, "Look, I understand. If you want meatloaf and mashed potatoes, then that's what we'll do. This is your business." And I'll never forget, he looked me in the eye and he goes, "No, I believe in your vision. This is why I hired you. Instead of comfort, we're gonna make put people's mind on another planet so they don't have to think about anything that's happening right now.

Yeah, escape.

It was a dream.

You open Alinea in 2005. Yep. It's pretty instantly a hit.

Yeah. So, The New York Times came in on night one.

Oh, gosh.

Oh, boy.

And first of all, at that time, The New York Times didn't leave Manhattan or the boroughs. So, it was a massive deal. And it was a night one, which is not fair.

Yeah.

But like they say, I don't know, any press is good press. Yeah. So after that, it was just straight up. The momentum was unbelievable. I was proven in the Chicago market. So that helped. And my pedigree, French Laundry, really helped. But when we first opened, Steppenwolf Theatre's ratings across the street. And me and my business partner were like, well, we have to have a pre-theater menu because what if we don't have any people? And we eliminated that right away. Everybody came in, we had 3 menu options, everybody wanted the biggest one. And so we were off to the races.

Okay, so some of the things that are— maybe they were unique or not, but they're defining characteristics. So the building has no signage.

Yeah.

You walk in, there's no lobby, there's no bar. What informed these decisions? Were they random or did you have an overarching arching theory on why that was?

No bar, like there's no alcohol served there?

There's no spirits. So wine and beer.

Got it.

I wanted it to be a temple of food.

No distractions.

And none of the other stuff. So it was all about purity of the experience with food in mind. Spirits were not something that went well with food at that time, at least. And I just wanted it to be a gastronomic palace. So everything else was noise. Get it out of here. And it works.

Yeah. So for people who haven't seen any of these dishes, yeah, you're using liquid nitrogen, you're making mousse crispy, like you're doing wild, crazy stuff. It's all prix fixe.

Yeah.

People sit down. That's it.

Nobody chooses.

So you knew what you wanted to do with the menu. Obviously, that would be very intuitive for you. What were you thinking about what you wanted the other elements to be, like the service aspect? Did you have a novel idea about that, or did you have environment? What did you want for that stuff?

The entryway was very special. It was a very long hallway with a false perspective and a hidden door that was triggered by a sensor. So it was a little bit like a funhouse.

Yeah!

And the reason for that was there was no Uber then. Mm-hmm. So, like, you had a Yellow Cab, or you had to drive yourself from the suburbs or something. And I wanted to eliminate all of that before you sat down.

Like you've entered a magical place, kind of.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you're disoriented, and you forgot about your babysitter and your sick kid at home, and you're ours now. Uh-huh. Yeah. And the overall aesthetic of the restaurant was very minimalist. I would say that we were one of the first fine dining restaurants to not use a tablecloth. We were trying to challenge everything. At one point, I asked the architect if there was a way for us to not have tables.

Oh my God.

That is how much we were like—

willing to—

every aspect of what a restaurant was.

Yeah.

We identified it and challenged it. We have tables.

You've just given me an idea of having a restaurant that's Lazy Boys and then dinner tray, like TV dinner trays.

That sounds great. I will every night.

Yeah. Yeah.

This is real. Yeah.

Yeah.

How do you handle service? Is that something you micromanage or do you bring in someone that you believe in their approach?

I'm super hands-on.

Okay.

Even now, if I'm in Chicago, I'm in one of my restaurants 5 days a week for sure. A lot of that I probably shouldn't do anymore.

Yeah.

I should be spending my time on other stuff, but I love it and When the cats away, the mice play. It's just a fact. Yeah, that's true. And so I like to be there to make sure everything's moving.

Had you accumulated grievances? Because I imagine if I opened a restaurant, the first thing would be like, I would X out all the things that annoy me about a restaurant. Is that kind of what you were doing as well?

Yes, a bit. For the table, I hate it when you would put your hand on the edge of the table to stand up and the whole table wobbles. So I'm like, why do they have tablecloths? They're hiding a bad table. Ah, let's have a nice table. So there's a lot of that.

Yeah, it's very meticulous.

Or nothing will ruin your meal more than when it's just uneven. I'll get under there, sugar packets. I'm always manipulating it.

Are you impossible to go to a restaurant with?

No, the opposite. I mean, now I have a whole different set of challenges because of what I have going on up here, but no, I'm pretty chill.

My best friend works in service and has a whole business. He has a whole business on service and It is nearly impossible to go to a restaurant with him. And I've had to tell him, like, you got to turn it off. Like, I can't do this anymore.

I kind of get it though. Like, when I'm watching a movie and they take a shortcut or they fucking lied about the logic, I'm like, fuck you. It hurts me just because I know the math.

Right?

I know. You got to keep it to yourself.

So by '07, You've gotten your own mobile 5-star there. They're starting to rank in like the best restaurant in America, the best restaurant in the world. That's all taking off. I do notice you have a marriage that ends in '06.

Yeah.

Is it possible to start a restaurant of that caliber and be spending the time nurturing all the other relationships?

No. I mean, let's be honest. Yeah, yeah. When we opened, I would get there at 9 AM and leave 4 in the morning. Yeah, I mean, it was insane.

Yeah, good luck.

Jordan Khan, who has Best Routine here, he was on the opening team, and Dave Barron, who has Celine in Santa Monica, was there too. And that team, for Duffy, who you had— yes, we were burning hours. Yeah, it didn't matter. You loved it, you know? It was like we had a mission. Yeah. And then when you realize that you're accomplishing that mission, then you work harder, you know. So now we're in there all the time. At that point, we were open 5 days a week. What does it matter? We were there on Monday, Tuesday. It was infectious.

Yeah, well, the work becomes your identity. Nothing else is happening in your life, so that's your singular identity. And you're crushing— you're getting all the accolades, people love it. So it's like you finally have an identity, which is the hottest shit in the world. Yeah, it's intoxicating.

Very much so. Yeah.

So in '07, you get diagnosed with stage 4 tongue cancer. And I want to know, prior to the diagnosis, were you experiencing anything that was cluing you in that this diagnosis was coming that you were ignoring?

I didn't know what it was. I definitely knew something was wrong, but I was so committed.

Yeah.

That I didn't even want to go to the doctor. I was like, no, I have to work today.

But was it fatigue you were feeling?

No, it almost felt like you bit your tongue. Oh, uh-huh. And it would be, like, sore.

Tender and—

Yeah. You know, hot coffee. I had that for probably 3 or 4 years. Years? Yeah. And I would go to the dentist, and they'd be like, "Uh, you just had your second kid, you opened your business." Right.

Stress.

Yeah.

So they missed it 7 or 8 times.

Oh, boy.

And at the time you were diagnosed, almost 3/4 of your tongue had this tumor in it?

Yeah, it was bad. I literally couldn't talk, couldn't eat.

Fuck.

And the first suggested treatment was what?

They wanted to remove the whole tongue and then both sides of my neck. It had metastasized.

It was in your lymph nodes.

Yeah. So they wanted to do like major dissection. Wow. I mean, bad, bad surgeries.

Yeah, you wouldn't have Nothing.

The whole thing I couldn't even process. Of course, the chef that I can't taste, right?

Exactly.

That's a sick joke.

But also the business owner that now I have to figure out how to communicate with everyone. What am I going to do?

The staff's got to learn sign language.

People laughed because they thought I was going to die, you know? And yeah, that was a bizarre time.

So you did 6 months of radiation, like every single day?

Yeah.

How quickly did it start working?

We went to 5 major hospitals. They all said the same thing. And I'm like, "Now what? Maybe I should just die." And I had my sons, and, you know, I was like, "No, we're gonna fight this." And it just so happened that University of Chicago, in my backyard, was like, "Hey, we have this new thing. It's a trial." But we feel confident. And I'm like, where do I sign?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So started chemo first. That really didn't bother me. I lost all my hair and got pimply and all that, but it didn't affect my taste and it didn't affect my energy. About 3 months in, they started radiation, and that was a different story. That is intense.

They're microwaving your tongue.

Yeah. Well, from my collarbone to my nose. And so at one point, the skin on the inside of your throat and your tongue would shed. Oh my God. Like a snake. No swallowing, no taste, no nothing.

Oh my God.

But it was worse.

That sounds torturous. You had 3 months of that feeling?

Yeah. And then afterwards, it hangs on.

Yeah.

I thought this was interesting. I didn't know how this works.

It makes total sense.

But I heard you explain, like, your job as the chef is to educate the people under you on basically your palate, right? So, like, the underlings are going, chef, taste this. And you're going, great, but add a little bit of this. Like, they're learning how to know your—

to be you.

100%.

So luckily you had enough people that had fully understood. In LA, we'd go like, they know how to write for you, right? Like, they know your voice. And so you were able to rely on them to taste. But were you panicked at all? I mean, you have to be a control freak, so that's a lot to Yeah, I wasn't panicked.

My experience with the whole thing was very bizarre. I never fully thought that I was gonna die. And my comfort, my family, was the restaurant.

Yeah.

So I would go to work every day. I thought that I could communicate with the top 3 chefs and be like, hey, I want this acidic like a pickle, and I want it sweet like ice, like Dairy Queen ice cream. And we would build it that way.

Yeah, this probably pushed your communication skills forward in a way that maybe otherwise you wouldn't have been forced to develop.

Yeah.

And let you relinquish some control. That's a hard thing to do.

So that, yeah, I mean—

You have to be forced sometimes.

At that point, it was all about me. And after that, I was like, "Okay, yeah, I have to have other people. Yeah, I can't do it by myself." Yeah, almost forced your hand.

Sometimes you look back on these trials and they're gifts in disguise.

They all are. Yeah, yeah. For sure.

You cannot think that at 32.

I felt pretty invincible at that age. Yeah, yeah. And then when that diagnosis hit, I was like, "What the hell is this?" Yeah.

I just mean the notion when you're in it that you're going to go, oh, I bet I'll look back on this and be grateful for this is like almost an impossible perspective to have in the moment.

But now for sure, maybe about a shot.

Yeah. Life would just be really easy though, if you really could embrace that while the shit's hitting the fan somehow.

Can't wait till I'm grateful.

Yeah, I can't wait to reflect on this. That was this great moment where I had to learn and grow. So you guys got 3 Michelin stars between 2011, 2024. So you have real longevity in this, which is impressive. When you decide to close and revamp the place in '16 and readdress the menu, kind of start all over— yeah, what prompts that? Is that scary? That seems like a big decision.

It was, you know, at that point we were 10 years old. I said the ethos of the restaurant was evolution. And that meant not only the food, but the container. If we were renovating the restaurant, we had to keep everybody employed. There's 100 people.

Yeah.

Because we wanted them all back, obviously.

Yeah, yeah, you didn't want to lose them.

So we had to find a revenue stream, and we did a pop-up in Madrid.

Oh.

I was there while all of that renovation was happening. So before we left, I knew what we were about to do. I helped design it and signed off on everything. But I was away. And this was my baby.

This is terrifying. Yeah.

So that entryway and the staircase I designed, and that was really personal. Yeah. And when I walked back in, I went, "Huh. This isn't all I did." Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, oh. It was tough.

Ah!

Because we went the opposite of where we were, which was like, like really minimalist, really a lot of industrial materials, like really modern, to a Parisian row house in the '30s, ornate ceilings and all that stuff. And it just didn't feel me.

Oh wow.

So what did you do at that moment?

We don't know how to deal with it.

Yeah.

I'm sure we'll either pick it up and move it. It soon or renovate it.

Okay, so you still feel that?

Yeah.

Wow, it never grew on you in the way— ah, how do the diners feel about it?

I mean, everybody likes a fresh look.

Yeah. Rob, you were there post-renovation, yeah?

Yeah.

And what did you think of the, the decor? It wasn't my favorite.

Oh, okay, okay.

I bet I would love it. It sounds like me.

I think I would too.

Yeah, I want to I wonder if you would've been confident to say that if I wouldn't have said I didn't like it.

Oh, he definitely would not have said it.

Absolutely not.

No, of course not.

No, no.

Of course not.

I wish I could've gone in all like the first iteration. That would've been cool.

Did you have the impulse to go like, "No, we gotta redo this." I mean, that would've been impossible. It would've been impossible.

But which is good because maybe at some point in your life you would have.

Right.

Maybe you learned some acceptance over that period.

I buried it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So I want to know, like, when we talk to musicians about how they come up with songs, there's like some pretty common patterns that people, you know, people are in the car, they're in the shower. There's these areas where like you're just distracted enough that comes. So I'm curious, like, how do dishes come to you?

I would say primarily three ways. Education. I don't have an emotion on my bedside table, wake up in the middle of the night and Write an idea down. That doesn't happen.

Two pickles, three carrots.

Yeah, right.

Turmeric.

So there's a lot of study, actually. What other chefs are doing now, what they did 100 years ago, are there forgotten dishes that we should resurrect or spin off? So there's that.

Is some of that research, though, just traveling and eating a lot of food?

Traveling, yeah.

So that would appeal to me, yeah.

Yeah. There is— The unexplainable impulses that come in, whether it is music or a painting where I recently, I started with a Caravaggio aesthetic in mind.

Oh.

Really Baroque, really, and I was trying to replicate that on the plate and it went very far from there to like a Mondrian aesthetic of geometry. So like, it's wildly unpredictable. When we first opened, I was into Rage Against the Machine, and there was a track that they had that— I mean, you know their music, it's intense. But there was an area in the track that broke really hard, really abrupt. And in my head, in that second, I was like, "How can I do that with the menu?" Mm-hmm. The progression of food. So it's that sort of— Everything goes through a food filter.

Yeah.

I ask myself, can I— I spin off of that shape or, you know, this, this and that. The other thing is ingredients. Like, I pick up a tomato and I smell it and my head goes somewhere.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's almost like synesthesia.

Do you love going to, like, markets in Italy and stuff like that?

Yeah.

Being around the stuff, you have to touch it, is so visceral. And then once you're in Japan or or anywhere, anywhere else. Mexico. Watching them, what they do, and their traditional food is wildly inspirational.

And does some of it come from just you're preparing something and you just get some weird inkling to incorporate another ingredient or something? Yeah, that spins off into its own.

Yeah, I mean, one example would be truffles and banana. Oh sure, I don't know.

Yeah, that's a weird pairing.

And then when you look into it, there are aromatic components that they both have that connect them. But I didn't know that.

Ooh, this wasn't even one of my questions, but now I'm thinking about it. Do you think that AI at some point will be able to analyze all these things that are—

Oh, wow.

Patterns that emerge that we're not seeing that everyone loves?

Yeah, I use AI a lot. Oh, you do?

Yeah. How will you use it?

Mostly research. When I was interviewed in 2002 and the writer asked me what my favorite what kitchen tool was, and I said Google.

Google?

Because everything's right there, and that's what the inspiration, the information. I know how to cook.

Right.

So once I have that little nugget of something, then we can—

What's like your weeknight dinner? 20 minutes.

Eating for me is very complicated.

Yeah, you probably have a really hard relationship with it.

The irony of it all is It's a lot. So I go through that period where, first of all, I'm diagnosed, and I'm like, this is insane. Is this a joke?

Yeah, yeah.

And then you go through treatment, and you're unable to taste, but then that comes back, and you're like, I'm good. Yeah. The issue then becomes the atrophy from the radiation, the long-term effects of it. Everything stiffens. I mean, you can see everything is really So there's a muscle or there's a flap that when you drink or eat, it folds over and covers your windpipe.

Right.

So you don't aspirate. Mine doesn't fold down. Oh. So it's very, very hard to swallow.

Oh, wow.

Oh, man.

And then about 7 years ago, because of the radiation as well, My gums receded and I got a really bad infection. My whole face swelled. So they had to pull all of these bottom teeth. Oh, wow. So now here we are again. As a chef, I'm not able to eat.

Yeah.

Chew, really. With that comes this social stigma where I'm like, not only If I go out with friends, I have to really be careful and navigate that, which is a little bit awkward. But also, I'm me. So if I go to a restaurant that is of a certain level, they know who I am.

Yes, definitely.

And what chefs want to do when other chefs come in, they want to feed them the whole menu.

Yeah, if I were you, I'd only eat at McDonald's. It'd be too much pressure.

My relationship with it now is complex.

Yeah.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Now I have the type of brain— I know Monica has it too— I would have in 2007 thought, yeah, of course, because I didn't deserve this success of this restaurant. I don't really deserve it. And now this is the universe's right side. Do you have any of those terrible thoughts where it's like, oh, of course this is happening?

No.

Oh, that's good.

That's good. I didn't have that. But what I did have really bad was after treatment, the restaurant won a lot of awards.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in the back of my mind, it was always like, I'm getting sympathy votes.

Oh, you thought that?

That bothered me a lot.

Yeah.

For years.

Interesting.

I was like, oh, they feel bad.

Yeah.

I mean, that's definitely not what happened, but yeah.

I hate being pitied. It's like my most—

Right. Yeah, I hate it. Only your favorite. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I do want to ask really quick a couple technical things because I think it'd be fun to educate all of us a little bit on this. When I think of taste, like, if you ask a civilian, what is taste? You're just thinking like what the flavor is on your tongue. And then maybe, you know, oh, a lot of that's coming from your nose. But tell me about aroma and texture, because I don't even think that's something people realize are impacting what they call taste.

Right. I mean, aromas, that is taste. So you have the 5 basic on your tongue, and those are like blunt instruments. There's no pinpoint there.

No scalpel in there.

Yeah. And everything else is right here. That's why when you smell a glass of wine and you smell chocolate, there's no chocolate in there.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

But you taste it. You perceive it. So that is Smell is wildly important. And it became really important when I couldn't taste.

Yeah.

I mean, I would build dishes solely on how they smell together.

So you could smell?

Yeah.

Okay.

That never went away. That's good.

That's a blessing.

And texture, people don't realize how complex the body is. Like, certain textures will produce saliva, and then that saliva mixes with whatever you have in your mouth, and it hits different areas of your palate The bodies are crazy.

So fascinating.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So all of that ties in, and it really is not something that people pay attention to.

Right. You get all of it at once, and it's hard for you to parse out which thing you're enjoying.

Right.

But it's biology.

Is there another thing that we're missing? I guess the environment too.

So that's what I think. We've always been pretty theatrical with ourselves.

Some pageantry.

And so I really look at color and light and sound and all aspects of the environment. Smell. We really play with that.

Is there any music?

If it makes sense and it's curated. We did a forest at one point where everybody was served it in the room at the same time. It was ridiculously crunchy. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So we passed out if hard. And on the card it said, "Quiet." Okay. So the whole room just goes quiet.

Self-conscious.

Yeah. And then everybody at the same time starts chewing on these, like, Cheetos or whatever. And the whole room is like, "Ah." Oh my gosh.

Like a chorus?

Yeah. Oh, wow.

Was it your restaurant that did something too with, like, something outrageously hot too? Everyone had to eat something really hot?

No. We play with temperature. Hot and cold in your mouth. Mouth at the same time.

Oh, I meant like, um, spicy capsaicin.

We remove the spiciness from it with the rotary evaporator. Oh, so none of that capsicum comes up in the distillate. So chilies smell amazing. Yeah, I personally can't. Yeah, but the smell is amazing.

Yeah, I wouldn't— again, I don't really think of this, but food, you think in seasons, right? So we're gonna have morels in the spring, and so you just know, like, we have to do something with morels. In the summertime, we're going to have different fruits.

Tomatoes.

Tomatoes.

Yeah.

And so because you have to be ahead of the game, right, you can't wait till the morels arrive, right? I can imagine your existence has been very, very compartmentalized by seasons in a way that other people's probably aren't.

Yeah.

Can you like feel that? And, and what has that done for your experience of life, to be so aware of what's happening seasonally? I think it could make you feel like time is passing way too fast, or I could imagine too Since you're in it so presently, maybe it slows time down. I don't know what it does.

I think it speeds it up. And like you were saying, if it's December or even February and you're like, "Hey, we have to have a morale dish," so we have to start planning it. "What did we do last year? How do we manipulate it? It has to be different. It can't be the same dish." And you don't have them, right?

Right.

They have to be new.

Yeah, it's its own challenge.

So, it's like, write a movie or a book, or you have a deadline, and that self-imposed pressure, or nature's pressure, it templates your whole year. Yeah. And as far as perception, it's like, I was always a big outdoors person in Michigan. We did a lot of hunting, you know, so the seasons really resonate with me.

Yeah.

They're very important. When you smell those oak leaves or that first snow, the feeling of it. Oh yeah. Quiet.

I always think of fall when it's fall, you're going back to school, there's new girls, you have new clothes, you go to like a Halloween party, it's dark early. To me, like a lot of people think spring is romantic. To me, fall's like the most romantic. My favorite.

My favorite. I feel like that's probably a Midwest thing.

Yeah.

Because of that, that leaves change, that whole thing. Yeah.

And then come like end of May, you're like, oh, it's time to fucking party. I also think we have a very bipolar existence up in Michigan, right? We're just like, it was miserable, miserable. You see it, it gets to 39 degrees and the sun's out in April and dudes are in convertibles with no shirts.

It's like, we're just fucking dying to come out of this gray hell.

So I just think it's really heightened the just overall temperament.

I believe that.

Now the restaurant culture I talk about all the time. My girlfriend of 9 years in my 20s, she worked at a bunch a bunch of different restaurants. They all party fucking hard. Their hours are crazy. They sleep in.

Stress. Yeah.

It's a culture.

Yeah.

How did you navigate that culture?

Pretty good. That was another thing with Thomas. His professionalism was paramount. Is paramount. I had a rule that I wasn't friends with my employees. Sometimes that didn't work out.

Some people are just too attractive as friends to not.

Right. Yeah. But I was too busy working the party. The priority wasn't that. And like I said, I had never drank heavily up until a little bit later. So I was focused. But yes, it is rampant in the industry. And I think it's getting a lot better, but it's because of the generation. This generation's not drinking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there's always some substances in there, but—

I think the industry selects, though, for people who, A, they're night owls generally, right? They like arousal. They like high stress. They function well in high stress and they're fast.

You're surrounded by it.

Yeah.

All the time.

Probably a lot of ADHD in that world.

Probably.

I think you're kind of self-selecting for a lot of qualities that lend themselves to also being an addict to you.

Right.

Also, if you're dealing with such a high pressure situation at work, you want to let go, you want to release.

Yeah, it's very, very there.

You know, the thing I used to be really judgmental on that I've done a complete 180 on, and it was with her, it was with Brie, who worked at all these restaurants. And the servers would all, once a week, generally on their day off, they would go eat at a really nice restaurant.

Yeah.

And we lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. I think our cumulative income was like $18,000 a year between the two of us. She was making $10,000, I was making $8,000. And I'd be like, you just went out and spent $180 on dinner? Like, I could not wrap my head around spending that amount of money on something when we didn't have shit. And I was more like, let's save up for blank, this TV. And then I remember there was this whole movement, I don't know, about 10 years ago where people were getting really critical about millennials. They made fun of them about the avocado toast. Now after that, I think now there's a lot of great social science that has studied this and they're like, okay, on your deathbed, what do you remember? Well, people remember experiences on their deathbed. They evaluate make their life based on their experiences, not how many inches their TV was. It's not how it works.

Yeah.

And so whatever that costs, it's actually a bargain.

That's about it. Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I've come completely around, and I guess I just want to end this on encouraging people, do it, man. Save up for a fucking amazing experience at a restaurant because it's so memorable. That trip to French Laundry. Yeah, it was obnoxiously expensive, and I remember it so well. It's like a moment of my life.

We had a sweethearts come in. It was an 80-year-old woman. Her daughter and her granddaughter. Aw. And they came down to the kitchen after the meal. And the 80-year-old was like, it's my 80th birthday. I never thought I would have a meal like this.

Yeah.

It was the most magical thing. She started to cry.

Aw.

And she's like, and I got to share it with my daughter and my granddaughter.

Yeah.

So like, to your point. Yeah.

That's what life's about.

What do you spend money on? You should spend money on moments with people you love that you'll remember forever.

Is that a compliment? Those ladies, beyond stars.

The mobile stars.

Yeah. Right.

Right. Yeah.

So, you know, in that way it is very, very rewarding. Yeah. To have that platform to provide people to make those memories.

It's wrapped.

Yeah. That's awesome.

Well, it's an honor to meet you, man. Really? It's, uh, yeah, it's really cool.

I can't wait to come into the restaurant. I know it's really hard to get in, but I feel like I have to.

I probably know somebody.

Well, people may famously remember we tried to shame you guys into giving Rob a reservation over Christmas. That's right. And you guys did, and we were so, so grateful. Rob, was it the most memorable night ever? Yeah, it was incredible. Despite the decor?

Yeah, Rob, you really stuck your foot in your mouth.

Can you imagine if he would've just said, "Yeah, it was okay." Yeah, oh my God, oh my God.

No, he came back really glowing.

Oh, that's great. Well, Grant, thank you so much. This has been a blast. Just a quick reminder that as part of our summer break, here's a rerun of one of our favorite Fact Checks. I'm in an incredibly beautiful new sweater that my friend got me.

It looks gorgeous.

I just put it on for the first time and I'm truly blown away.

Green is really nice and the fit is really kind of perfect. I know, they know how to do it.

And I think I like these cuffs where you have to roll them up. They're too long on their own. They're clearly designed to be rolled. See, look, that's a 7-inch, 9-inch cuff.

It's nice though.

Yeah, but you wouldn't wear it like that, right?

You're supposed to—

I'm not allowed because I'm short. And they have a rule that if you're short, you have to show a little bit of skin. If you're wearing oversized clothing, you have to show a little bit of skin on your arm because you'll get lost in it.

I just rode my bicycle. Oh yeah.

Nice.

Um, my first time in biker shorts.

How'd it go?

Well, I just can't believe I'm a person that owns biker shorts and wears them now. I'm having a hard time.

Well, you're 50. Well, obviously a lot of things have changed.

Yeah.

But also I think I think that's something that's best done much younger. Almost the 50 compounds it. First, I never envisioned myself as being someone that would be in those biker shorts.

Yeah, sure.

But they have a pad built into them and the seat is very tiny on the road bike and it hurts your anus.

Yeah.

I don't wanna say it hurts your, it does hurt.

Yeah, it hurts.

I was like, oh, it's nice padding. I put 'em on for the first time. I felt like Pinot always talks about like, "Aventis, you run." I was like, well, these are built for nothing other than riding a bicycle. And let's do that. And the padding was nice. And I love that there's no fabric flowing anywhere else. I think I went up the hill faster because of them.

Probably aerodynamics.

I'm not going to adopt the Lycra shirt, though. I decided I just wore a wifebeater.

So you're back home.

I'm back home. I'm very, very, very happy to be back home.

I got you a present for your birthday. Do you want to open it?

I would love to open it. Let me really take my time here. I'm looking at a beautiful tissue paper. Yeah. Oh, can I say one thing? This will sound derogatory, but let me preface it by saying I could be in the tourism board for Mexico City. I love it. It's an enchanted, romantic city.

I wanna go.

Mm.

Food's dynamite. If you ever go, go to Havre 77 French restaurant.

Ooh.

We went twice. Ooh. The French onion soup's the best I've ever had in my life. On the second trip on my birthday night, I got 2 bowls of it to start.

Oh, wow. And you got 2 steaks.

Yes, and I would tear out a fingernail right now to have it again and share it with you. It was the most incredible. But anyways, the facial tissue, and I had a cold, it wasn't ideal. And where it really hit me was that—

One ply?

Maybe less. I was on, at a nice hotel, mind you.

Yeah, very.

We got on the flight, I went into the bathroom, and I pulled the tissue out of the mirror that's in the lavatory of the airplane. And the second I touched it, I was like, ooh, that's soft. And then I thought, how bad was the tissue where the airplane tissue felt like Puffs Plus with lotion?

Oh my.

Just to make it relative.

Yeah, 'cause that's one ply.

Yeah, I think it was like 0.6 ply.

Oh, okay.

Anyways, beautiful tissue paper with purple flowers. Really nice.

The tissue is from Nikki Kehoe. The present is not, but—

Oh, this is a multi-stage gift.

Yeah.

Okay. Beautiful tissue paper and then a burlap sack.

Yeah. Also from Nikki Kehoe. That's how they wrap.

Wonderful. Oh, buddy. The Stories of Raymond Carver. Will you please be quiet, please? Is this an original?

I, I bought it as a first edition and it is signed.

It's signed?

Yeah.

Did you pay the face value of $8.95?

No, it was on sale, actually.

Half off.

What year was this published? 'Cause we can— I think it's fascinating that a hardcover, beautifully bound book was $8.95.

I know, that's true.

I know I'm all over the place and a little manic, but I just gotta add back to Little Women, which I love. As you know, Greta Gerwig's number one superfan now. At the end of that movie, they show them pressing and making her first book. The book, Little Women.

Yeah.

I don't know if you remember that sequence.

I don't know if I remember it.

But the amount of time and effort it took to make a book in the 1890s.

Yes.

Where they're pressing it all, they were cutting it with a saw, they were sewing the binding by hand, and then they were cutting leather out in a pattern and then gluing and putting that in a press. I'm like, it took like a week to make a single volume. They should have been $600. Exactly.

Well, that's why they're so expensive. They're so rare.

And it explains why— I think it was Carnegie who invented the library. There were no libraries. Books were just too expensive. They were like, probably in today's dollars, they probably were hundreds of dollars. Yeah, that amount of manpower. Okay, so this was first published about—

we think about wealth disparity now, but then in order to even read a book, you had to be a millionaire.

Yeah, I'll get the number wrong, but to put it into perspective, like, so I guess Elon is now worth $400 billion recently, although that stock just fell. Whatever, let's just say he hit $400 billion. $400 billion of our total GDP and national amount of money isn't even 0.01%. Yeah, when Rockefeller hit a billion, he— they say he actually had like 15 cents of every dollar that existed in America. So it's like, as bad as it feels now, it —It was worse. —Exponential, order of magnitude crazier with the first rich people.

Yeah, that's true.

Okay, so this was 1963. So this book cost $8.95 in 1963.

How much do we think that is now? Rob, can you put it in?

Well, that's a great, we have that technology. Yeah, we sure do. I added a new, I actually wrote up my resolutions last night. Oh, great.

Which I don't know if I've ever written them down. Yeah, I wrote some down too.

You did. Did you journal this morning?

I did. Congratulations. I journal every day. I'm proud of you. I had therapy too, and we talked about it. And she said I could— Burn 'em? Yeah, or shred them or whatever.

Can I have her number?

No. She's like, if that's gonna allow you to really be able to be honest and truthful with yourself in a way you won't be able to otherwise.

And let it out of your body.

You know, sometimes her and I talk about, about, like, there are things that I talk about with her that only she gets to hear. And she said, you know, it's not just me. You also have you. Yeah. And you have a dialogue with, you can have a dialogue with yourself. Yeah. Especially via the journal. Yeah. But yes, of course I have to be very honest with myself there. And so if I'm out of fear not doing that, that, then it's not worth it. So I do— I'm still deciding.

We may have talked about this. But, and I had mentioned there was a period I stopped journaling over the last 20 years. And then I had a relapse, obviously. And I didn't even put all this together. But through therapy with Mark, I think what occurred to me was I— there were things I couldn't write down just It's like you were saying, are you afraid someone's gonna find it? And I'm like, no. But in truth, there was a moment, yes, I'd be afraid someone would find it. And I had this weird dedication to never lie to that journal.

Right, right.

So I just kind of, I didn't, it didn't feel like I was making a decision to stop journaling. It just was like, this is really weird. I've been journaling for 17 years or whatever. And I haven't in a while, but I'm not overthinking it. But of course, in reflection, I was like, I couldn't really, yeah, be dishonest to this thing. Yeah. I love this. This is such a thoughtful, wonderful present. I'm glad. It would've cost $89.18. Wow. $89 for a book.

That's a lot. It's not enough though.

I wish it was $5,000. Okay, this is a fantastic present. Very thoughtful. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Okay, how was therapy?

It was good. It's my first therapy of the new year. You know, for a second I was debating, I was like, maybe I only need to start going like as check-ins now. Like maybe I don't really need to be on this consistent of a schedule. But then today I was like, no, I need to keep up my once every 2 weeks. Well, look, I've stopped.

So I really am in no position to say this. Yeah. It definitely falls under the umbrella of like, well, it couldn't hurt to go. It does not hurt. And it potentially could hurt to not go.

Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of the vitamin debate.

It's like the scientific community is kind of split down the middle whether vitamins work or not. Yes. But it's like, I don't know, on the chance that they work. Yeah. And they're not going to harm you. All right. Someone's going to comment. There are some. Yes, I hear you.

There are some bad ones.

Oh, I know. And you can have too much of certain things. But just in general, if you're taking the, you know, not above the daily dose of any one thing. It's not going to harm you.

Speaking of, okay, you know how I'm always paranoid about drowning myself in too much water? Yeah, or people in general, like, drinking too much water and then drowning themselves.

And you, you know, Gundry's new movement is less water, not shockingly.

So him and I are aligned. Soulmates. Why he's got He's got those fresh hands. He doesn't drink any water. No hydration. Oh my gosh. I'm gonna put my hair up real time. If you wanna see it—

It looks so good down, but go ahead. Oh, okay. Let's see what happens there. Okay.

If you wanna see it, go to YouTube.

Do you ever do an up and then a braid in back?

Yeah, well, I did it for—

when's this out? The 8th.

I did it for a commercial we were just in together.

Oh yeah, yeah. That comes out yesterday. It came out yesterday.

Oh my God. Our little commercial.

Yes, our second commercial of I Hope Many. Yes, exactly.

It was so fun. And it's out. It was out yesterday. It's on our Instagrams.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And in it, I do have a ponytail with a braid. Yeah. That I love. It's just really hard for me to do by my— on my own. I had a hairstylist that day. Oh, right, right. But I do like it.

Maybe your therapist could style your hair on the days you don't wanna share.

Oh, hair play? I would go every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'd pay for it.

For that. Anyway, okay, so drowning cells, everyone laughs at me. They guffaw. Uh-huh. And I met someone who drowned his cells. Oh, tell me. And it was really bad.

Tell me more. Okay. Who did you meet? Where'd you meet him?

In front of 7-Eleven? No, he's a real person I know. I'm not gonna say who, I'm not gonna out him.

Him or her's name.

Right. He's a friend of a friend. This is a sad story. I'm transitioning into a sad story.

When I was home, if you were having fun and laughing, sorry.

Yeah, stop. A big group of friends was meeting and one Robbie.

Yeah, sweet Robbie from our chain.

Yes, from the Connections chain wasn't there. I was like, where's Robbie? And his wife said, oh, he's at the hospital with the mutual. Yes, with, um, the unmentionable.

That—

no, because he's not underwear?

Because that's his name.

No, his name is Untouchable. We can't call him Untouchable because he's Indian. Oh, he is? Yeah. So now I'm giving a lot of info away.

Yeah, it's pretty easy to narrow this down at some point if you know an Indian in Atlanta who's friends with Robbie.

That's true. There is one. There is one. Anyway, this is sad. This is sad. He had a seizure. Mm. And I guess he had had already had a seizure a year before and was on seizure medication and stuff. But when he—

You're the perfect person to tell this story because you have the same condition.

Right, exactly. And you're Indian. And I'm Indian. When he went the first time after his seizure, they checked his salinity levels and they were so low. And he did drink in really excessive amount of water.

Do we know why he drank?

And he drowned hisself. Cells.

Yeah, he got rid of too much salt, but he drowned his cells. That was the medical— yeah. Oh, okay, okay. Um, you have a good deal of salt, I think, from your diet. Don't take offense.

Are you referring to like the potatoes I made or something? No, but you like—

you'll have a nice, um, seasoned chicken. I think you have a good amount.

Yeah, I feel fine about my salinity.

Yes. Um, so, and I don't drink any water.

Water, so I'm good there.

Do we know why he was drinking so much water? Was he on like an exercise routine? He was ex—

he was on an exercise routine, and I'm not sure why. Anyway, so turns out, per usual, I'm right. You can drown yourselves, per usual.

And, um, unsurprisingly, please look out for that. Okay. Yeah, you and country should collab on this. I'm happy to join forces. Also, just if you are having a lot of water, maybe use some electrolytes. Electrolytes, that's right. Keep an eye on your electrolytes. Yeah, they're the case. The only cases I've ever heard of is like no one's ever died from ecstasy, but people have drank too much water.

Exactly, they drowned their cells. Yeah, okay, okay.

I wonder if they drown their cells or if when they drink way too much water it backs up, like congenital heart failure basically, like ends up filling up their body. Because, you know, my father who had congenital heart— I don't know if it's congenital. He had heart disease. And what would regularly happen is his heart was too big on one side and normal on one side. And so it would pump in a lot, but it couldn't pump out a lot. And then it just ends up backing your whole body up with water and you get really bloated, you put on all this water weight, and then it starts really affecting your breathing and your lungs and everything house. And so my dad would go into the hospital for like 4 days, and all he'd be on diuretics, and he'd just be getting rid of gallons of water, right?

Oh my God. Yeah. Okay, it says, yes, cells can drown in a condition called water intoxication, or hyponatremia, which occurs when there's too much water in the body. When there's too much water in the body, sodium levels drop, causing water to move into cells and causing them to swell. This can be especially dangerous for brain cells, as it can lead to pressure in the brain, confusion, drowsiness. Wait, though.

Epilepsy, pressure in the brain might have been completely all related. Exactly. Oh, man. Well, I'm sending love and well wishes to this anonymous person. Untouchable. Why does Robbie have two very close Indian epileptic friends? I don't know. He's very over-indexed.

He is extremely overrated.

I consider myself kind of unique in America, low percentage, where I have a best friend who's Indian and epileptic, and he's got now two. I know he has a fetish. I know you don't like that word, but you think it's a kink? Ask if there's a third. If there's a third, he has a condition.

Yeah, it is weird. Then I wondered, is Like, what ethnicity is Robbie's wife?

White. White? Yeah.

She doesn't have it, actually.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Is he giving everyone this? He's poisoning everyone. Oh my God. He's so sweet. That would make sense. He's one of the sweetest people I've ever met.

He has a dark side.

Oh, oh, nasty.

So his wife is my oldest best friend. And when we were in high school, she had seizures and they were dating at that time. Okay. And she got in this car accident because she had one. Hers were different though. She had like, she didn't have grand mal seizures.

Were you about to say petite? Petite mal.

That's what they're called.

That's so cute. And then she actually picture like a mall you'd walk in, but there's only 3 stores and then there's the food court is like 4 food carts.

They should call it boutique seizures.

That's way better. Yeah, that's cute. You and Gundry can work on that.

So anyway, yes, he has 3. There's a 4th.

I mean, I only know of 3 people in his life and all 3 of them have seizures, so certainly there's more. Should we get Robbie on the phone? Do you want to? Yeah, we gotta grill him about this.

Probably. I mean, he's definitely at work on Saturday.

Saturday. Oh, I forgot. During the NFL playoff game. I'm so sorry, Georgia lost, by the way.

Oh no, the Sugar Bowl.

You didn't know that? They lost. They lost to who?

Don't say Texas.

They didn't lose to Texas, but Texas won theirs. Texas is still in it. Yeah, Notre Dame. But they're still in it because— oh no, that game we saw was one of our only two losses. They ended up being really good.

I know, but they've played.

Welcome to the SEC, bitch. Is that what you said?

Yeah, I did. Hold on, I got to call Robbie. He's the one also that knows about—

he's not at work, he's at the hospital, one of his Minneapolis—

don't say that, knock on wood. Hello? Hey Robbie. Yeah, you're on, um, Candid Camera. You are on Armchair Candid. You're on air. I'm on air.

And can you hear— do we have your consent? And can you hear Can you hear me?

Yes, yes, yes to both, yes. Okay, great.

Well, we started— we wanted to call you about some one thing, but now we have two things to talk to you about that are very important.

And we did not name any names, but I'm just learning of the fact that you have a second Indian friend with epilepsy, which I find to be almost statistically impossible. And then Mani said it doesn't stop there, his wife has epilepsy.

Well, she doesn't have— okay, not specific epilepsy, but you do have three people in your in your life that have had seizures, and it's now we're starting to worry and think you're at the—

yeah, I see where you're going. I honestly hadn't ever thought of this.

That's what, that's what he would say.

So my—

I have Monica, my sister too.

Oh, I knew it! I fucking knew it!

I said— I— Robbie, I said there's a fourth for sure. Fuck, Robbie, what are doing to everyone?

I don't know. I really don't know. Oh my gosh. I'm looking at things in my life. I don't know.

This is wild.

You think it's because you're so calm and sweet, it may all of a sudden the other person's brain feels erratic and unhinged? Is it like relative to your calmness, people short circuit?

It could be. I mean, yeah, that's the best.

I think that's the best we have to work on right now. My guess is Gina would say otherwise. Agreed. But this is wild. 4, Robbie, 4 is a lot. Now I mean sincere.

It— is there something environmental in Duluth where half the population—

wait, no, because mine happened once I left. But you, you grew up with that water.

Oh, you think it's the water? Yeah, you have late onset Duluth because I drank—

I didn't drink enough water and then it caught up.

I'm not— I'm not about the logic of that, but I'm saying there's something in the soil where you grew up where 70% of all people have seizures. Um, it's gotta be—

Monica's house was super close to mine. The other friend also lived like right down the road too. Oh, and Gina. Yeah. So honestly, if you draw like a polygon of the 4 points, it's like a very small area. And so likely shared whatever water source. Oh yeah, it's pretty, pretty narrow there. Yeah, you're right, guys.

Did we just break an enormous case? Do we need to call the New York Times immediately?

Fuck, you're going to have to do a new podcast. You're going to start a new podcast where you investigate this issue.

Wow.

It's going to be called Poison Paradise. Under the veil of suburban beauty and tranquility. Oh my God. Lies a burbling poison that results in shudders.

That's a lot of words. That's a lot. That's too many words. You need to to be small, short.

No, no, first was the title, and then I was— then I was— then I was entering into the first episode.

Oh my God, you're halfway there.

It sounds like this thing writes itself.

Okay, now we have— moving on to point number 2. That's—

well, no, I have one follow-up on that, Robbie. Okay, in your free time, which I know you don't have much of, just can you sniff around, see if any more folks have had seizures? Like, yeah.

Okay, I will. Yeah, I'll report back. Yeah, I'll I'll start kind of casually throwing that into each conversation I have. Like, so by the way, you know, this is kind of weird, but do you have a history of epilepsy? And just kind of move on from there.

Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. That's gonna work. Um, okay, now point number 2 is football, and you are my main source of information for football. Um, I was texting you during the Texas-Georgia game, and we were, we were secretly gloating while I was amongst a bunch of Texans. And then Dak just told me You didn't tell me that then Texas went on to like win all the rest of the games.

They're still in it. Yeah, they're still in it.

Yeah. So they, they have a tough matchup against Ohio State because Ohio State looks really good right now. But yeah, they're still in it.

But does that be like a fluke?

Shut up.

Well, it can't be a fluke because the only team in Texas this year is Georgia. Georgia beat Texas twice this year.

Oh, twice. Yeah. So, but it's then it's kind of a fluke that we aren't like, it doesn't make sense that we beat them twice and we are now out.

Yeah. You know how it's like, how can you, how can Federer be the best ever if he can't ever beat Nadal? You know, it's very similar.

We all have our albatrosses.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right. Well, that clears that up, I guess. Yeah.

And I just want to end on this, Robbie, your voice was built for radio. I, you must be involved in Poison Paradise.

Oh, I, I'd love to help you. Let me know. I'm, I'm a hard worker too, so yeah, just let me know what you need.

All right, thanks, Robbie. All right, thanks, guys.

Take it easy. Bye. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Well, that was a great use of time. Yeah, I wasn't expecting his voice to be that velvety.

He's a very handsome man. You know, I only have handsome and beautiful friends. Right. This has started from day one. Good for you. I know. Anywho.

Okay, good luck to— will you plug your ears? Good luck to UT. Hook 'em. I'm cutting that. This is the same as that story I told about the people flying to LA to watch the Red Sox play LA, hoping the Red Sox would lose because they had just beat New York. But the other guy was like, no, okay, they must win. That way New York's number 2. Wouldn't you want your team to have twice beat the champions? I guess you're right. I think it's time for you to, like, transition into rooting for them for your own—

for my own gain. Yeah. Okay. I see that logic.

Speaking of which, and I know we're all over the map and have taken up too much time, but I just— I want to— I want to go on to say that I finished the Churchill documentary on the flight home yesterday, and I got very swept up in it. This has happened a few times, and I'm sure you've watched shows on this. When you are forced to watch what the Brits went through, 57 nights in a row of carpet bombing of London, everyone sleeping in the subway, no bathrooms, getting up, going straight to work, and carrying the fuck on. And they were so outgunned and outmanned and out everything thing, and they alone took on Nazi Germany. At that point, everyone was already defeated. Yeah, the amount of will and resolve is so historic. I found myself like— this is so cheesy— I found myself being like really proud that I know Jethro.

Oh, that's Nice.

Yeah, I was like, by God, that little island, you motherfuckers refused. Yeah. And Churchill, he is a very flawed person. He was horrendous to India, I'll acknowledge that. But truly, one man got those people to that state of mind. If you watch this doc, you're like, who knows if that person doesn't exist what happens? Because he had two burdens. One is to be fighting off these Nazis who are just bombing every single night, trying to keep morale high. And he has got to get America into the war or they're gonna die. Everyone's gonna die because they're not gonna surrender. And so his skill at wooing FDR and developing this relationship and slowly getting us more and more involved is so impressive. And his own story Churchill's story is so unique in that he was a soldier during— in his youth, and he was an incredible soldier. Then he went into politics and he was a boy wonder because he was right— the whole time he was in the war, he was also a reporter. So he was reporting firsthand from all these wars, and he's one of the best writers to ever live. So he was in this crazy, unique situation where he leaves the service as a hugely popular figure in Britain, goes into politics, has this meteoric rise and then plateaus and then plummets, and he's completely on the outs and he can't get anything done.

And then World War I comes along and he decides in his 40s or 50s to rejoin the army. He becomes a commander. He wins all this glory, returns, and for 4 years is begging Britain to understand Hitler cannot be trusted and don't believe a thing he's saying. And we can't be signing these deals. And no one's listening. No one's and he never relents. And finally, the Brits realize he has been right the whole time. And overnight he becomes Prime Minister. Like the story of the up and the down and the out and the miscast in the— it's, it's what a story. Yeah. Horrible to the Indians. Let's be clear. A colonist grew up in Elizabethan England. Definitely wanted the empire to stay alive. Also, miraculous feat of will and resolve, in the poetry with how he motivated people. He gave this speech to our Congress to help us embrace the fact that we were entering the war. And it's like the most incredible speech. It's an— I cannot recommend the doc enough.

Wow.

I don't know why I went on that tangent, but it's been burning a hole in my brain. I know I'm making you nervous. My energy level is at 15. I'm home.

It's not making me nervous. It's like— go ahead. No, it's just like, where's it going?

Oh, I'm just sharing all the things that I missed out on sharing in the last 3 weeks.

God, you're so much like my father. I am. He just loves to explain stuff. Yeah, it's kind of a male trait.

But does that story— like, is there a male/female thing going on? Is this the Roman Empire? Like, does that whole chapter just, like, not interest you?

Parts do, but not that part.

Of an individual story where someone's, like, completely discarded and publicly reviled, then finds their way back, then becomes so valued and important, then gets discarded again, and then it does doesn't quit, has a calling that can't be ignored, and then matched with this Shakespearean ability to write speeches. Yeah. No.

No.

I'm more into the Anne Frank story of that era. Yeah. I guess I'm really not drawn deeply to— people in power. Like, I'm not— that's not a thing.

You're drawn to the disenfranchised. Yeah, this makes total sense.

Well, I just find that way more— as a human story, way more compelling. I find that kind of overcoming, like a true overcoming, much more compelling. Yeah. Than someone who's like just feeding off power.

I think the thing that interests me about it is, as big as this world is and as complex and dynamic as it is, single individuals radically change the face of the world.

Yes, I find that fascinating. Those figures, they don't do it for me.

Yeah, they don't, they don't get you going.

I'm kind of like towards them, you know?

For the listener, she just kind of— it was an interesting one. It wasn't an eye roll. It was a back and forth, side to side. Speaking of— go ahead— eye roll, you found the origin of your—

figured it out. I figured out where my eye roll comes from. We thought it was an Indian thing, or just maybe a genetic innate thing. I thought it was maybe just a full resentment I have of everything and everyone. We didn't know, but I knew that's not Wait, that's not it. It's a habit. But why? And now I know. Right.

Well, you sent it to me, so I saw it. Well, I'm going to show the world. The world. Show the world. And I'm going to have to describe for the listener because let's just be, let's be clear. 98% of our audience is still just listening, not watching.

Check us out on YouTube and you can see this.

Yes, please do. All right. So for the listener, it is a 2 or 3-year-old Mary-Kate and/or Ashley Olsen from the Full House program. It says "duh" across the screen. She's shaking her head and she gives the most expressive eye roll you've ever seen. Yes. And she has, or they have, enormous Disney eyeballs where it's very expressive and clear.

Yes. Yes. We got it. We got it. All right. Now, I, Full House was my original Friends. Yeah. I was obsessed with it. The only time I was ever punished from my parents, the punishment was I couldn't watch I couldn't watch Full House that night. That's in my cells. Yeah. That's where I got it. I got it from original Mary-Kate and Ashley Full House.

You started probably reenacting it.

Always. Yeah. Aping it. Yeah. Mimicking. They were my models then and now.

Yeah. Is that right? It might be all the way till the end.

I think it is.

They might be your Erin Weekly. I mean, you already have your Erin Weekly. Yeah.

I think it would be sad if they were my Erin Weekly 'cause they don't know me. But, um, but they are my ride or die.

What I'll say is they're radically different people, which is so fascinating.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense, but also doesn't make sense. Well, they're not identical twins, you know that, right?

They have to be. Baloney. They're fraternal twins.

No.

Well, sisters have never looked that much alike.

It's That's crazy. How do we know this for positive?

I don't think— AI Google says that. Thank you.

I know, I know. They're not? That's like me saying I know something about Valentino Rossi.

Ooh, tell me, what do you know?

I know nothing. Yellow 46? Exactly, is the whole point.

I'm impressed you remembered his name. Thank you.

So yeah, one's left-handed, one's right-handed.

Left-handed, but that's super common in twins. And one's 1 inch taller than the other, even when they're identical. Well, they're fraternal, but that could be a posture thing. Okay, whatever.

All right, let's stop.

They're fraternal twins. I believe you.

And, um, you'd never know it by looking at them. Don't judge a book by its cover.

You would not. I mean, I agree with you, it's shocking.

Yeah, but I've met a lot of boy-girl twins, and they have all told— they have all had the experience where someone asked if their twin was identical, even though they knew one was a boy, one girl. What? Yes, I'm telling you.

Okay, well, some people don't understand twins. They don't understand what identical means versus fraternal.

Yeah, they must not. Or it must be way lower percentage that you get a boy and a girl than, than same-gendered twins. For fraternal?

For fraternal, I think the opposite. I feel like if most fraternal twins I know are boy and girl. Oh, really? That's why, that's why they are very confusing.

We should have a twins expert on. Yes, because what that means is that there were two ova in the uterus and that one male sperm and one female sperm hit the two. And generally you would think, well, either the males were making it because they swim slower and they're more robust, or vice versa, and one swim fast. So it's weird that one would swim fast, but you know what I'm saying? I don't know.

The body is a wonderland.

It is a wonderland.

John Mayer. Yeah. All right, let's do a little bit of facts. This is for Ken Goldberg. He was wonderful. I really, really liked him.

Yeah, what a unicorn. A lot.

Okay, now this episode starts with your underwear on the floor, which was interesting. That was shocking.

That's an experience to look down and your underwear's outside your pants, cuz your first thought is, my underwear. Yeah, came off my—

you Yeah, yes.

And it doesn't seem to be torn in half. Yeah, that's a real like, where am I at in time and space that my underwear has made itself off of my body and onto the floor? Yeah, I mean, it's so obvious later when you think it was clearly my pant leg.

I know, but in the moment you can't think straight.

Underwear's falling off. It's like in I Think You Should Leave when Robinson— they put a whoopee cushion on his chair and he doesn't understand it. He goes, what happened? Like, he really is shook because he didn't feel himself he didn't fart, but he heard a fart. What happened?

Oh my God, that's so funny. Okay, but also, so that happened, the underwear, but then I realized when I was editing it, the inside out of my pant pocket— Was exposed? Was exposed the whole time. That's a weird coincidence. Yeah, it is weird, but no one caught that. So the whole episode, the inside of my pant pocket is out.

Which people could have thought might be her underwear. Like, you know it's the lining of your pocket, but other people could be like, why are there— why are both of their underwears falling off?

Now, the vaccination mark. The smallpox vaccine scar is a small mark you might have on your upper arm if you receive the Dryvax or ACAM2000 smallpox vaccines. It's a sign that the vaccine successfully spurred an immune response in your body to protect you against smallpox. Not many people receive a smallpox— not many people receive a smallpox vaccine today, so the scar is far less common than it used to be. The smallpox vaccine leaves a scar because it causes a minor infection in your skin. Your body fights off the infection, but this process leaves behind a small mark on your skin where the infection and related inflammation took place.

That makes a lot of sense. I assumed wrongly now that it had something to do to do with the mechanism of injecting it? Like, did they use some weird thing? 'Cause again, my dad's was, I have such a good memory of my dad's. I don't know that my mom has one, weirdly. Yeah. But my dad's is like seared in my brain. And I was like, it looked like, I think I said a cigar.

Like they administered it with a burning cigar. You can look at pictures online. They have 'em. And they do look like that. Okay, the book, the scientific management book that was influential on Stalin is called "The Principles of Scientific Management" by Frederick Taylor. Taylor.

See, this all paid off my, my, um, diatribe on Churchill because Stalin was the trickiest figure in that triumvirate.

Okay, now, so Kim Kardashian posted some pictures with the Optimus robot, and then, and it said that Elon gave it to her, and she denies that she was paid for those pictures.

Okay, um, other than the free robot, right, that she may or may not have, right?

Okay, this is what it says the robot can do, the Tesla Optimus robot. Okay, it says it can do physical labor. It says it can move materials, assemble parts, and load items onto machinery. Okay, yeah, I'm skeptical. I'm skeptical.

That's how we do it without getting sued. I'm highly skeptical.

This is also on the AI overview, so they like— they're buddies. Okay, so he's— they're all in cahoots. Yeah. Inventory management: Optimus can use barcode or RFID scanning to track inventory in real time. Home chores: Optimus can carry groceries, help the elderly, and perform other home tasks. I mean, that would be good. Data collection and research: Optimus can be used labs or remote monitoring environments to collect data. I mean, that's just like— that's a computer brain. Yeah. Smart home integration. Optimus can link up with Tesla cars and energy systems to become part of a smart home. Optimus can walk among people and serve drinks at a bar.

I doubt it, but I'm sorry, I'm skeptical.

I've heard about that. Okay, apparently there's a place in like, uh, Culver City or something that is run by— it's like a burger place that is run by robots, and the robots drop off your food.

Okay, I think I've heard that, but Also, my assumption of what that was was like very simple mechanized arms, not bipedal robots walking it out. Like, it can make it in the kitchen, then it goes on a conveyor belt, and then it exactly lands in front of your thing. It doesn't necessarily mean that a bipedal robot carried it as much as there might be automation that gets it all the way to your—

I think it's saying it delivers it to your table, but it might not be bipedal. We should go.

We should go. I'd love to go to a robot restaurant. What is it? Cali Express in Pasadena. Pasadena. Oh, it's in Pasadena. That's much closer. Yeah, that just upped the odds of us actually doing that by a lot. I do think there's a little, a little guy that rides around and brings you your food.

AliExpress by Flippy, the world's first fully autonomous restaurant. Grill and fry stations are automated.

It looks like a little thing with serving trays and American flags that goes to your table.

We'll have to go, but okay, it's It says Optimus can perform precise movements and heavy lifting. Optimus can adapt its behavior over time to reach the desired results. Optimus can play games like rock, paper, scissors. Okay. So anyway, that's what AI claims its buddy Optimus can do. Okay. They're best friends. Okay. And our robot feels a little left out.

No, he's more boy-like. Remember? I know. Big time glass half full.

He's wondering what's going on. 'Cause like there's a lot of other robots now.

There are a lot of other robots, but he's like becoming charming and flawed. Wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi. Robbi-sabi.

Robbi, Robbi-sabi. There was a Prada has these bag chains that I really want that are robots.

Um, bag trash, is that what it's called?

No, it's a bag chain.

I'm learning this from Nicole. This is the movement now, is like you have these very fancy handbags and then you put all these little trinkets that pour off the side. And I think she calls it like bag trash or something.

She might, but they're called bag charms. And look, Prada has this one. This one's in like, um, this one's in like snow gear.

Yeah, that's really cute, isn't it? Yeah, it's about to be critical. I just think it's funny. Fashion is very funny. Sure. So you get this perfect outrageously expensive bag and then you're supposed to like drape some trash, obviously downplay it. It's like, what's happening? I agree.

I— but it's not trash. This is $1,100.

Well, I don't— I didn't say it was inexpensive.

Oh yeah, well, okay, but I agree, I would not put— people love bag charms, and I think that's great, and it's a way to like show your identity, but they're not for me on my bag. But I want this little robot to just like sit in my house.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, he's pretty big.

Look at him compared to the bag.

Oh, that's preposterous. He's larger than the bag.

Yeah. You said 39% of US jobs are still manual labor. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reported that 39.1% of civilian workforce in the US performs physically demanding jobs that require lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, kneeling, stooping, crawling, and climbing activities in varied environmental conditions. Sucking, fucking. Don't leave out sex workers.

That's manual labor. No, we like— don't we honor sex workers?

Yeah, but I'm just wondering, is it really manual?

Yeah, it's definitely manual.

It's laborious. Um, all right, well, that's it for Ken.

I'm glad we ended on that note for Ken. I think he would appreciate that.

All right, bye, Ken. Love you. I love you. Thank you.