Transcript of Jimmy Kimmel & Molly McNearney

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

It's me.

We have two returning guests, but never together. Good friends of ours, Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearney.

So fun.

Yeah.

I just love them. So glad that they came together. That was a fun, different type of interview.

And it was in the evening. It was a night— very appropriate for a late night show family.

Exactly. BTS, we started around 6:45 PM.

Yeah. Just so you know the exact time in case anyone needs it as an alibi. Uh, Molly, of course, is the head writer and executive producer at Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Jimmy Kimmel is the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live. Please enjoy Jimmy and Molly. He's an Oh, look at this.

You have a duplicate.

That's right. That's right. We're going to ask you guys to award the next best boy.

Oh, nice.

How are you? Did you have fun with Sally?

I did.

I love her.

She's great.

Best.

When I did that Argent photoshoot. Monica did it also.

Oh, yes.

Amazing.

We love her.

But wait, I like who she's curating. So you guys are her models and you guys are very much the behind the scenes ass kickers.

That's what she does.

Kind of like unsung women.

Totally.

Yeah, she has a whole brand for like working women, and she really likes to highlight women who are badass.

Do you invest in this Liquid Death? I wish.

I've been trading stocks on my Charles Schwab account for about a year and 5 months where I actually focus on it, and I'm like so proud of myself. This measly amount of money I've made. Molly, have you been consuming anything and gone to Jimmy and been like, we need to get involved with this?

No.

Have I?

I don't think I know she doesn't. I don't allow her to eat.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, that's bad. Keep myself trim for longevity.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do remember, like, explaining, like, Drybar to you once. You're like, oh, that's a good concept. But we didn't invest in it.

You remember my reaction was I wanted to learn how to blow dry hair so we could save the trip.

I do.

I was like, I feel like I could figure this out.

It's not a super precise device. You're blowing a huge swath of wind at hair.

It's a big franchise. They're teaching these people their way. If they just teach me the way. How hard could it be? Yeah, yeah, that's how I look at everything. How hard could it be?

He does do that sometimes before award shows. He offers to do my hair and makeup, and you never say yes. He did convince his cousin Sal once that he gave haircuts.

I did, yeah.

Well, Dax gives haircuts.

He gave me a haircut on this podcast once, and she hates to admit it, but it was a good—

it was a B+. Oh, it was really good.

Wow, I thought it was an A. I'm just learning it was a B.

B+ is an A+, by the way. Exactly, exactly. That should have been F minus.

It was good.

He's good.

How many heads of hair have you cut?

Hundreds and hundreds.

Really?

To bore you, I detasseled corn between 7th and 8th grade all summer, and I think I made like $800, right? And I spent the money on a Nintendo, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, and then Wahl clippers and scissors. And I came back from this summer of detasseling corn, and before school I was like, who wants a mohawk? And I cut like 6 or 7 kids' hair before the pictures, and it was a big dust-up at Muir Junior High. My mom got called, parents were super upset, but it didn't thwart me. I kept cutting hair, and by the time I was in high school, I was pretty good. Like, I could do fades. Anytime I got my haircut, I was really paying attention, like, what are they doing? Oh, they're cutting like this. Okay, cool. Oh, they're grabbing in these sections.

And no YouTube, there's none of that, you know, guide or anything.

You had 25 minutes at, you know, Sam's to study the barber 3 months, you know, some skills. But what's funny is, so all through my 20s, I cut most of my friends that I hung out with hair because I did a pretty good job and everyone was broke. And I used to do it for like a six-pack or pizza or whatever. So now my thing is I don't really need anything. I love to cut people's hair, but only one time because I want to impress them, and then I never want to deal with it again. So like Kristen's mother was visiting like 3 years ago, and I'm staring at her hair all weekend and starting to drive me crazy. It's like a classic Michigan cut. I'm like, you need some layers, you need some things going on. And she, crazy enough, let me cut her hair. And then she came back on the next visit and she's like, I've never gotten more compliments from a hairdo. And I'm like, oh, that's so great. She goes, I mean, honestly, like maybe 20 people told me. And I was like, oh my God, that's incredible. And she was very much staring at me like, can I get a trim?

Yeah.

And I'm like, I just got the thing I really wanted, which was to blow your mind. I can't cut your hair.

Oh my God, it's so selfish.

I'm just being honest about it. And you wouldn't do it again? Like I would cut your hair, but only one time.

Wow.

And then once you were impressed, there's nothing in it for me.

Get it again.

I got to say, B+.

I shouldn't be shocked because I will say when I first met you, I looked at you and said, this looks like a guy who cuts his own hair.

And I was cutting my own hair and I haven't had my hair cut by a professional in 7 years since I was on a show last.

You're still doing it to yourself?

Yeah. Yeah.

How do you get the back?

So in the back, I generally use a 5 clipper attachment and that one just lives at that level.

There's no layering going on.

Yeah.

Yeah, because it's problematic. But now that I'm growing my hair out, the back is getting really challenging because I am having to cut it with scissors.

Wow.

Yeah, that was way too much about me. Do either of you have a super hidden talent that you like to do one time?

I am completely blown away by this fact, I have to say. You know, it's weird when you know somebody and then you find something out about them. Like Chris Bianco, our friend who's a pizza chef, I've never heard the guy sing two notes in a row. We did karaoke at the lodge last year. He's got a really good voice and belted it out.

He sang a couple songs.

And we were going crazy.

Yeah.

What is this? It's so exciting. But if we're talking out of school, the performance that Jimmy Fallon put on in the full Elvis outfit was about as— Yeah, well, for a private show that you're not getting paid at.

Okay, first of all, he was dressed as Evel Knievel.

Oh, fine line between the jumpsuits.

Yeah, two white jumpsuits.

The best part of that story was that, you know, Jimmy and I fished together that day, and he had no fishing clothes. He had nothing to wear on the water at a fishing lodge. And so I said, all right, well, we got to go to the shop and get you some clothes. And it took like 45 minutes. We got him the clothes, we get him all decked out. And then he comes into the bar fully dressed as Evel Knievel to sing. And I said, you brought this and nothing to fish with?

It was a huge outfit. Took up probably the majority of his suitcase. It was the whole bag.

He's incredible.

The performance was so good that I think we all mid-performance started getting very concerned he was going to have a heart attack or something medical, right?

That's no surprise though. We know that he's a very talented singer and performer. Now, have you seen him make a pizza? Not as professional, not as impressive, right? This is like Chris Bianco. Well, you remember he made that shitty pizza and he made a video of it.

He did. Yeah.

And then I made a— oh, one in response. It was like a rap battle, an old-school rap battle.

Yeah, you won that one. You won that one.

Yeah. But it is weird when people have like some weird talent. I don't have any hidden talents because when you're doing the show every single night, you bring all three of your talents to the forefront.

Yeah, yeah.

If you can play a little bit of drums, you'll be playing the drums. That's right.

But you have the cartooning.

Oh, I've done that on the air. It is hard to be funny though, and to draw at the same time. It's almost impossible.

He's also an incredible cook. He's not messing around.

Yeah, but what are you going to do with that?

Yeah, we'll feed all your friends.

Everybody happy around you.

Yeah.

I have a very weird skill, which is I can remember what women wore to almost everything.

It is really in— wait. Really? Incredible.

Really?

And we just discovered—

It is the most impressive thing I've ever seen anyone do. And what did I say to you last month? I just threw something out there. I said something to the effect of, what did our niece Allison wear to our daughter's baby shower 18 months ago? And she's like, she thought about it for a couple of seconds and she came up with it.

It was like a white linen pant.

And our niece was going wild. Oh my God.

I don't know why I'm not aware of it in the moment, but I don't remember what men wore, but I can remember what women almost wore every day.

There's nothing memorable about what we wear.

Yeah, unless you're Jimmy Fallon and Evil Knievel.

And this, unfortunately, is probably more of a Jimmy question, but maybe it's not. So watching Fallon put on that show last year, it was kind of like a rite of passage. I remember watching him and I was like, this would be so hard for me 5 years ago. He's so much funnier than me and energetic in the life of the— like, he is in the role I filled in my group for years. At that time, I was 50 watching I was like, I think we're finally here where we can let him be spectacular. It has nothing to do with how unspectacular I am. Do you remember getting— I mean, you've always been funny, but you're surrounded by a lot of people. At some point you got to go like, yeah, let Fallon jump on the table.

Never had that inclination in the slightest bit. If I'm at a table with funny people, I'm more than happy to just sit there and listen to it the whole time. Yeah. I think maybe being a talk show host, you need to have that because the goal is for those people to shine.

Yeah.

And to me, it's just a relief when somebody can carry the ball, right? Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? But when there's an audience, when there's a live audience in it, like, you have to get that.

Once in a while we get comedians on and I'm like, oh, we should have them every fucking day.

Makes it easy.

Yeah. They care. They're trying hard to be funny. And you're like, oh, man, what a blessing.

But you still want them Yeah, I'm not as evolved as— their approval. You want them to think you're funny.

If it was a long-form situation like this, yeah, I would certainly want that, whatever. But you know how it is at our show. You have 8 minutes and those are your 8 minutes. If you see me being funny in those 8 minutes, it means I'm just trying to fill in a hole.

It means their 3-minute story was 45 seconds and now we've got some time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny. Are you conscious of that click? Because occasionally we'll have an expert on who is very, very smart, but they've never been in front of camera. They're not going to dole out the info that they have. And I go like, yes, can just give me one of these episodes. I'm just telling random stories, right?

Yeah.

And you feel a little bad about it, but you're like, that's what I got to do right now.

It's funny because online, like, if you get somebody like— sometimes the worst guests are very young and they're very popular. Yeah. And they have a rabid fan base of young people who are very excited to see them. And they walk out there and they don't know what to do. Yeah. And you have to help them and you have to help fill that time and make sure it's not a train wreck. And then your reward is you will go online and be bashed by everyone saying, "You didn't let so-and-so talk." I couldn't agree more.

What I have to resist to comment to those people.

Yeah.

And it's real easy to see, you know, on YouTube, you know, they're right there for you. So that's just something you have to deal with.

It really is a skill. And I know you guys have figured that out. It is a skill for people people to know how to tell a story, and some of the most talented people can't do it.

Yeah, you know what's interesting? Chefs. A lot of chefs, some of them are made for television, some of them are made for broadcasting, and some of them are great chefs and they're just not good at it. You're kind of puzzled. You're just like, oh, this guy's such a great chef, why can't he tell me what's happening?

Yeah, of all the ways to get famous and end up on your show, that one required the least amount probably personality. You say you have the skill set and you're a great manager, probably doesn't mean great talk show. Yeah. When thinking of things we already know— life story, we've done life story. First of all, again, just publicly, what a great episode you had. You had such a spectacular episode. People loved it so much.

They really did.

Yeah, it was a huge, huge—

it was a real bucket list moment for me. You know, I love this podcast so much, constantly texting Monica, everything I love about it. So thank you for having me.

Well, the thing I was thinking about is I've known you guys for a long time. How long have you been together now?

Well, you and I have known each other for 20-something years. 22 years, probably.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you and I have been married for 12. I always forget.

It'll be 13 in July.

We've been married for 13. 13 years together. 3 before that.

So 16 years.

That's a long time.

That's mega.

Yeah.

It's your longest relationship, right?

Oh yeah, sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. By some time, right?

Not by much, but yeah.

Okay. All right.

We made it. Okay. By a year.

We made it.

I don't really know your meet cute story. Imanenka and I really wanted to hear, like—

Oh, I'll tell you.

Yeah, yeah.

How it blurred.

Okay. Well, we knew each other because we worked together, but— Well, I met him a couple of weeks into working at the show. And I went into his office with the executive producer at the time, and he's like, "Oh, I want you to meet my new assistant." I don't think Jimmy even looked up from his desk. And my boss at the time, Daniel, said, "This is Molly. She's my new assistant. She does triathlons." because I was doing triathlons at the time. And Jimmy said, how stupid. And then that was it. Like, that was my first—

he started by Maggie Mew. Yeah, he had just read that book.

Yeah.

No, I really couldn't— I couldn't understand why a human being would do something like subject themselves.

Well, really quick, your first impression of him, other than the fact that he didn't look up and give you eye contact?

Yeah.

Were you like, um, this is like a thing?

No, no, sorry. And not at all, like, not even a little bit. And by the way, same with him with me. Like, I didn't even—

more so.

Yeah, no, I did not look at him that way at all.

Were you intimidated by him?

Yes, for sure I was intimidated by him.

Yep.

But as I got to work with him for years, I really loved this guy. I was like, he is such a good human. He takes such good care of his staff. He's so good to his family. He's just a good human being.

That's what I do. That's how I set the table, you know.

It's a long play.

You really get to know how you treat everyone in your life before the attraction ramps up.

That's what I have to do. Yeah.

So I think—

I don't know how far in, like, I think it was like 8 years into maybe me working there.

And wait, that long?

Yeah, it was a long time.

Oh my God.

And I remember at the time I was one of the head writers, and at one of our writers meetings someone asked— oh, Cousin Sal said, if you only have 5 foods the rest of your life, what are they? And we all went around the table and said them, and I just rattled off. I remember I said pizza and gnocchi, gave me crab claws, BLT, and chocolate chip cookies.

Mm.

It was really quick.

Great list. Yeah, real quick. Good list. And about 6 months later, talk about long play. 6 months later, I go to Jimmy's house. He asks me to come over after work. I had just gotten back from Africa, I think. And he was gonna help me build a classroom over there. I went over to his house and he opens up the door and it smells delicious. And he is like, I've made some things. And it was pizza and gnocchi, crab claws, chocolate chip cookies, and BLT. Oh, that's so good. And he had remembered what my list was. What my favorite foods were, and he made them all.

Now really quick, do you immediately register that as like, oh, he wants to fuck?

Yes.

Yes. And it made me very excited and very nervous.

Wouldn't it have been so weird if that wasn't? I was just like, no, I just, I, I know what I want to know what you like to eat.

I really love food. You were just the most confusing platonic friend anyone ever had.

But I remember thinking, oh no, this is a bad idea. I mean, yeah, he was my boss.

I didn't have that thought.

Yeah, no, yeah, clearly.

Yeah, no, no, the person in power usually doesn't. But I was very nervous about it. I thought it was a terrible idea, and I was very skittish, and I kept telling him, I think this is a bad idea, and he kept saying, it's not a bad idea. And now we've been together.

Yeah, stop talking too much. Listen, eat this meal.

You eat this gnocchi and then you tell me you don't want to do it.

You tell me that. You look me in the eye with a straight face.

All right, blondie.

So are you guys doing some sneaking?

A little bit.

Yeah.

A little bit of sneaking.

For the first few months, we were very, very quiet about it. I was very nervous about it changing, obviously, the work dynamic. And I was in a room full of mostly men, and we had a great thing going on in that room, and I didn't want it to change. But then it did.

If I can defend the men in power for one second, because no one's doing that anymore. It's been like a decade since anyone has taken up a sword to defend the men in power. You would think the man in power would be like, oh, I hope she doesn't just like me because I have power. You're thinking, I don't think she likes me. I don't know if this person likes me. The last thing you're thinking is like, she likes me so much, I hope it's not for my power.

It's funny because that would never occur to me. I always like, oh, if she thinks I'm funny, then maybe she'll like me. It's never about like anything other than that. Right, right, right. I know that my only chance is to be funny.

Now, when it clicks to a guy in power, then we got danger.

Yeah.

Yeah, big time. But I don't know that the friends I've had who've ended up dating coworkers, I don't think they were afraid the person liked them because they had power. I think they were just mostly really nervous and hopeful they liked them.

They're saying the person in power was nervous and hoping the person without power liked them.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, like you'd have to be like, oh, they love me, they like me. I hope it's not for my power. They're not even assuming you like them. Like, you have to start there in some weird way. Does that make sense?

I think it depends on what you look like. I think like when guys are real good looking, it just makes more sense to them.

They're not worried.

That's like societal power, I guess. But more it's once you're dating, then the power is the problem. Can be the problem.

Because then it's like, well, I just kept thinking like statistically this is not going to work out. "and your life doesn't change, but mine does." Yeah. And that's what really freaked me out.

That's what gave me so much comfort.

Absolutely. That was your leverage.

Yeah, but I was really freaked out by it because I had worked really, really hard. I was one of the head writers of the show. I'd been doing that role for about a year and a half.

The thing I most related to is when you were talking about, like, "I don't want it to be— I like being us and them. I want to be in this writers' room and shit on him." Like, that would be the thing I would be afraid to lose.

Yeah, I still shit on him in the writers' room.

More so.

Yeah, much more so.

Sometimes I do find myself overcorrecting a little bit.

Not a little bit. A lot bit.

Yeah. I gotta keep my relationship in there, you know?

Well, I'll tell you right now, Monica will probably cut this out, but she's in this situation where it's a guy that was moving furniture into her house. She's like, "That guy's tall and handsome." Went on a date with him. It didn't work out. Now she can't order any more furniture.

Well, I will be ordering more furniture.

I just will be getting it scheduled.

Is he the only furniture delivery person? He works for—

with my designer. So my designer's like, okay, we're bringing in this. And he came over twice and I was like, that guy's cute.

Stay on the couch.

Yeah, bring more couches.

Drop the couch.

I did make a mistake because I then pursued, which I was very— I was very proud of myself.

Yeah, we're all happy.

Everyone's very proud.

How did you do it? What did you say?

So I reached out to my designer and I said, who is that guy? And she said his name. And I said, do you know if he's single? How old is he? She gave me all the information. He was single. And she said, should I give First she said, do you want to see him again before you decide?

And I was like, very designer, by the way.

What does that mean? Try it on for a week. Sit on it.

Was there a 30% commission?

Exactly.

They call it auditioning a piece when they like have someone try it on. Do you want to audition him? So I said, okay, well, give him my number. And then he texted me immediately.

It was fine, right?

Someone needs to snatch him up and marry him, but it's not going to be me. Yeah. He was just saying that.

Now she's really got to decide how bad she wants the ottoman from the catalog.

Never coming downstairs from upstairs.

Yeah, that's hard.

What if I'm there when he arrives? I'm like, hey, um, yeah, she was— and I start receiving your furniture.

You start dating him.

Yeah, yeah. From your point of view, this is confusing to me but I accept it, which is you slowly were exposed to what a wonderful and generous and thoughtful human he was in your attraction What took you 8 years?

Well, I was dating someone. Okay. I was dating Sarah Silverman, and then we broke up. And then because we broke up, I didn't feel it was— I don't know, it just didn't feel like it would be cool for me to go anywhere to, like, be out or anything.

Okay.

So we would just hang out at the office with a group of about 7 or 8 people every night. And that was really like our social life. So it was like a reality show in some ways, you know? I've not seen Molly.

You're making this sound so romantic. You're like, basically, I couldn't go anywhere, so she was just there.

Yeah.

All the jurors are sequestered. She was the only woman I was allowed to see.

It's like COVID. Like, we were in lockdown.

But we got to know each other in a way that you don't usually get to know people at work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true.

Especially me, because there are like 4 people at work that I talk to every day, and Molly's not one of them. You know, it's like I'm in an office just kind of staring at my computer trying to figure out what we're going to do that night.

Right.

Okay, now that you guys have been working together, and together for 16 years of that, I do wonder— it's almost impossible to have time with your partner when you have kids, considering how demanding both roles are at the show. Do you think you could have been together 16 years if you didn't work together? Would you ever see each other, and would you only see each other in this stressful kid dynamic?

That's a great question.

There are like work weekends where we have to go someplace that we wind up spending a lot of time together and they feel like vacation weekends. And then occasionally we do go on— we don't take long vacations together, but we'll go away for a couple of days and that's always nice.

How often does that happen?

Well, I was gonna say, I think we would have found each other and been together whether we work together or not, but I do think that the job has made us so much closer. I do think that there's kind of like this— I mean, similar to, I imagine, what you guys feel like. You have a common goal every day. We have a shorthand with each other. We have an understanding, especially just like the ups and downs of our life professionally, personally, publicly. I think it has made us so much closer.

We don't have to explain things to each other like, oh, wait till you hear what happened at work today, because we experience it simultaneously.

Yeah. Do you think it's also neutralized what could easily be bad behavior? Like if you were just the host of this talk show and you had a wife who wasn't in the business, it would be easy for you to think like what you're doing is so demanding and important and you would come home and you'd explain to her the pressures and she might be enamored with how much, but you're doing the same thing. So no one gives a fuck that anyone's burnt out, right? Don't you think that's kind of healthy?

Yeah.

Like Kristen's not impressed with what I do. I'm not impressed with what she does. Do you think it's like neutralized how you might have behaved otherwise? Is in a different relationship.

Yeah, I don't know really. I think most people have a pretty hard day, right? I do a lot of stuff.

Too much stuff.

And if anything, the argument we have is Molly says I'm doing too much stuff and can't understand how I'm doing this much stuff. To me, it's just kind of like, well, I have stuff that has to be done, right? So I'm doing it.

Yeah, stuff needs doing.

Where I get frustrated personally is when there's something that I don't want to do some like work that I have to do that's like 2 hours of going through scripts in a very detailed way that is not enjoyable, and I get shit for it that I don't like. It's like, wow, this is— once again I found myself in a lose-lose situation.

Well, you have someone who wants to be with you, you know, that's nice.

But then I go like, yeah, but also, you know, you work at the show too and you know we have to do this stuff.

I do.

So it sometimes I was just like, ah, not only do I have to do this, but she's mad.

Yeah, sure, sure. That's the icing on the cake.

I said to him the other night, the day is so grueling, and like putting on a show every day is so demanding. I don't know if people really understand. It is from 7 in the morning, and to him it's usually like 10 or 11 o'clock at night. He gets home, we put the kids to bed, you know, he reads Harry Potter with them, we have dinner, and then it's back to work for about 2 to 3 hours on his computer prepping the next And the other night we were just like laying in bed and I said, this is my favorite time of the day when it's just quiet. There's no noise. And it's just two of us laying in bed together and we're like really talking and connecting. And it's also crazy that it's just like 10 minutes a day when it's a show day, you know?

And then there was silence and then she heard, "Snore." Well, he is narcoleptic and he falls asleep immediately.

Well, if he's up for it. From— or working from 7 to—

that's my secret talent, is falling right to sleep.

It's so annoying. He falls asleep immediately.

Oh, that's aggravating. So I'm very much you in the relationship. I think Kristen could say no to more things. I envy her sleep.

Yep.

It's interesting because— would you agree— you don't just get angry that they work too much or that they've said yes to many things. I start getting into psychoanalyzing her, and I'm like, what is the big barrier of saying no?

Yes.

Or is it, can you not remember how you felt the last time you said yes to that thing and that you'll be there and you'll hate it and you don't need to do that anymore? So I get overly obsessed with trying to figure out what is going on.

Same. And I think a lot of it is I just say like a yes to all that is a no to us at home. And I know that a lot of it is part of the job and you have to do it, but I start to take it— I wouldn't say personally, but well, yeah, I guess personally I'm like, why do all those people get a piece? Can we have a little bigger piece of the pie? But I also understand the demands of the job better than anybody. It's all the extra stuff. I mean, you know all that.

You're doing one of it right now. And by the way, I just want you to know for the record, I did not ask you guys to come on. He was so nice and offered, and I never would have done it because I know what week we're all having.

I was confused at first. Dax was— I didn't know that. Dax made the mistake of trying to communicate with me as a human being, and I'm not used to that.

I thought we could bond. That this time of year for both of us is really hellish.

I saw it as he needed help. Oh, that's like, yes, we will. You know what, we are very busy, but we will figure it out. And he's like, well, I wasn't asking you.

And then I was in a tricky situation. I was like, I would never ever turn you guys down as guests.

Wait, why are we here? Did you invite us here?

I did.

Yeah, I invited us here. Molly, I just said kind of, hey, checking in. I know this is our most miserable time of year. We share this. Always when we get to Idaho, I'm dead and I can see you guys are dead. So it's just kind of like saying like, hey, how's the grind going?

Yeah.

And I don't know why you interpret that as like—

I'm not sure why I interpreted it either.

Maybe he's asking people to work more than you think he's just saying yes.

No, this is the problem. This is a problem. This is just a human being trying to have a human interaction with a friend, checking in. What a nice thing. But you're so like used to just like the transaction of every day of like yes or no, do I It's the middle of the day.

I was in that mode, you know?

Oh my God. It was a confusing time of day.

Also, this isn't exactly work. The only time we really get to have a long detailed conversation is when I'm here doing this podcast.

Yeah, that is true.

I look at it as a social opportunity.

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You may have picked up on some truth though. We did need this. We do. We're trying to get through the summer, right? We need—

I understand it, and I felt like if I can help that. I can relate to that. You know, you've got to bank some shows exactly in order to go on vacation.

Wait, I need more. Was the intention at all to have him on the show? Tell me the truth.

1,000% zero.

Yeah, no, I know what your schedule is. That wasn't his intent.

I know his schedule.

That's how I read it.

I won't ask you guys to be on when I need you and I know you're free, so the chance I would have asked during y'all's hard We have asked you so many times.

Dax and Kristen always come through when we need a guest.

That is also in my head too. Like, if there's a request of any kind, I must.

Okay, you ready?

Yes.

It's that time of year, dot, dot, dot, doing 6 to 8 a week, trying to get free for the summer. Thought you might be in a similar burnout phase. June 19th, can't get here soon enough.

I see how you read that as he might need some.

I don't.

I was like checking in.

That is a human checking in with another human.

I think it was the it's that time of year part that I was like, okay. Okay, all right, it's that time of year.

I'm in the same boat, but if you need me, I'll make it work. Oh no. Which I responded, ah, that's generous and beautiful. I promise I wasn't fishing, I was just thinking of who could relate to the bottomless content inferno that we won't ever abate.

Why are we here?

And then he wrote, ah, either way, the offer stands. So now it's like, now he's doubled down.

I really want to come over.

I'm going to offend him by not inconveniencing him, man.

It'd be so great if these weren't even on. Like, they just set this all up for us.

That's one of the fun things about being me. Like, on one hand, you know, I don't want to do stuff.

Yeah.

On the other hand, if, for instance, if you had been doing this podcast for a long period of time and never had asked me to be on it, even though if you'd said, you know what, he's so busy, like, I don't want to bother him and ask him to be on it, it would drive me insane.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're so hard to figure out. I think that's why I'm still intrigued with you after 22 years, because I want to know why you're saying yes to everything. Immediate theories jump out at me. Like, one One is you have a hard time saying no. Two is like you think you got to keep your foot fucking slammed to the floorboard to keep, I don't know, the business going, which doesn't seem right.

You are generous.

I'm in the business of asking people to do things for me.

Okay.

Excuse me, what do you mean by that? Like them coming on the show?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like when we have a bit and like, you know, I'm committed to some idea I think is going to be so funny, but it can only be this person. And if they say no, it can be so heartbreaking, you know? And yeah, or if you're in like a tough spot, you're like, somebody got sick and the show's in 3 hours. So for me, there are certain people like Dax, for instance, who I would never say no to ever. And I mean, unless like, you know, I was on the moon or something like that. And then there are other people, you know, who to a lesser extent, like, you know, somebody's been on my show 8 times and then they want me to do their podcast. In my head, the just thing is to do the podcast. That's it.

That's a beautiful way to put it. But if I were your partner, what Kristen would say to me is, they're not doing you favors to be on your show.

I agree.

You have a great fun show that is a great opportunity to promote a project that you're obligated to promote, and there's no better funner place to go do it.

So really, it's not about doing favors, really. It's about being fair, the spirit of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's about knowing what it takes to pull off something like this, that it's hard. And so if you can show up for someone, you will. You do that. If anyone asks you to be on a podcast, you say Oh, I will, but I'm not as busy as Jimmy.

Or as popular, so it doesn't come up as much. But I want a psychological breakthrough here. There's something more going on.

I have a hard time saying no to charity events as well. It's a very, very difficult thing for me, yeah.

Yeah.

That's hard.

I'd also just like to add that I think some of it is guilt, maybe. Like a little bit of guilt. I think Jimmy is still in shock that he is as successful as he is. And I think that he feels very guilty almost about that.

I think it's more I grew up Catholic and I just have an inherent sense of guilt.

Yeah.

About existing in the world and having— listen, if you're gonna really be Catholic, you should have no money. You should have nothing. You should give all of it away. Yeah. Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that's strike one, two and a half just to start off.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

You know, that you gotta come back from. And in general, like, I'm from a family of people who do a lot of things for other people. That's the model. That's what I have seen in my life. When we would go to church at the end end of church, my parents would be folding up all the chairs while everybody else left. Right. So that's just what is ingrained in me.

That is exactly who you are.

That could be motivated by two things. One is, yeah, I don't deserve this, and I'll jinx myself if I'm not always available and ready to show up.

I don't look at it like that. You don't?

No.

It's not like superstitious. Thank you.

Okay, you just passed the most important test.

Yeah, we just talked about this.

We just talked about this. We went to lunch with some friends a few years back, and I'm at this lunch and I'm staring at my male friend's nose, and there are 6 very, very visible huge black hairs growing out of his nose. From across the table, I can see inside— no, no, the outside sprouted from the bulb of the nose, right?

Yeah.

Are you friends with a rhesus monkey?

See it from the other side of the table and catty-corner, right? I was diagonal from friend. And we got in the car and I said to my wife, she hates his fucking guts. That woman is a foot from his face. She sees that and she's like, yeah, I want this motherfucker out there with hair all over his nose. And she goes, yeah, it's kind of crazy. There's no way you would be moving around town with huge hairs growing on your nose.

Let's remind her what's wrong with him.

No. Yeah, he can't see.

Why can't he see it?

He's got a mirror, right?

I wouldn't even want to say, man, this friend is Stevie Wonder. Under— no, no, no, but it is an older man who probably would have to put glasses on to see the hairs in the mirror, and we don't bring our reading glasses to the mirror regularly. This is her job, and it's his job to be minding her. So I say this in the car, and Kristen kind of agrees: guys, they got divorced 3 months later.

Really?

They did!

Oh wow.

So what I just saw you caring for how your partner looks— good job.

Just bought us at least 3 months.

Yeah, I am not making that prediction.

What was it like? Is there some like nose hair version of irreconcilable differences.

If I were him and I was in court, I would say, look, she could see these huge hairs. I was embarrassing myself everywhere, and she wanted me to be.

She could also say in court, he just stopped taking care of himself. He was letting all these hairs grow out of his nose and didn't seem to care enough about it.

Molly, I can't see.

We made that part up.

Who drove home? Was it her or him?

They were staying at the hotel. Oh, that's enough information. And I was hot under the collar when we left that.

Wow. Because she does—

what is she doing?

Why didn't you tell him? See, it's hard to believe you got mad at her before him. I agree.

You are one of the most feminist men that I know, and I'm a little surprised that you were mad at her and not him.

Like, why aren't you like, hey man, he would have felt the same way it was reversed, right?

He doesn't know that he has those hairs. No one would leave the house if they knew about the amount of long hairs growing out the nose.

Yeah.

Okay, and so is your partner not looking at you at all? That's concerning. Like, if Kristen had 5 huge black hairs growing out of her nose, I would see it.

Yeah.

And I would go, hon, I know you're going to a photo shoot, do you want me to grab the tweezers? Because I love her. And you would do the same thing?

Yeah, I would.

This is a good reason to be disappointed.

He could be a very sensitive person. Maybe before she's tried to be like, hey, you have— and he's like, don't stop He's insecure. Stop picking on me.

Don't touch my face.

I had a terrible— I had a terrible experience helping someone with the hair once. I was high school and this girl, Carmen Pastorek, blonde, beautiful, all the guys loved her. They're all around her, she's telling a story, everyone's enamored. And I was like, oh, look at her. But I'm embarrassed for her because she has blonde, blonde hair and one's on her face. As she's mid-story, I reached over and I pulled it and it went— oh, and I'm like, oh! And all of the guys at the same time, and she got beet red. She had like a 9-inch long blonde chin hair. I don't know how she made it out the door not seeing that, but I remember just feeling—

when you pulled the string, did she say something?

I want to be friends. No, I don't think she's gonna be my friend anymore. I felt terrible.

Oh no.

Yeah, because you just thought it was an errant hair.

Yeah, I thought it was an errant hair and I went to and it was connected to the chin.

We have somebody at our show who has a lot of ear hair that I monitor, and I talked to him about it. I was like, that's too much ear hair. Oh good, to take care of that, because once you just stop, then it's, it's like, what happens? You, you become an old man, right?

Yes, yes, yes.

And so I monitor it.

Have the children taken over any of your duties? Because Lincoln, for whatever reason, is so on top of my ears. She examines them all the time. If she finds crust in there, she hates it. She wants me to have clean ears when I leave the house.

Oh, I like that.

So is She ain't taking over any of your duties in that regard.

She yells at me when I put Q-tips in my ears. Okay. Because she knows they're not— they're very interesting children. They're very by the book. We have a friend who litters and smokes, and they are mortified by this. And he loves how mortified they are by it. And so he does it a lot in front of them.

Sure.

He yells at me when I hold my sneezes in, which I do.

Yeah, they both do.

Because I then made the mistake of telling them— and you have to fact-check this— that it kills brains. Themselves, and they now are worried about—

well, now she lets these terrifying karate chop sneezes out. Each one takes like 6 and a half days off of my life.

Like, you get so mad.

You have no idea how mad I get because I keep it in most of the time. It really is like somebody hit you in the back of the head.

I had to let it out because the kids get mad.

They're like, Mom, let it out!

She went from when we—

that's what he always says. No, one I really let one loose and I hear in the other room, "When we started dating, they were so quiet." You were so mad. Like, you felt like I stole you.

They frighten me. They frighten me.

Oh, for God's sake.

They startle me.

We have a friend who has horrific sneezes in the same way. It's like the whole table just jumps up every time. They're hostile. Yeah.

They're hostile.

They do. They feel aggressive.

She's adding to them.

I am not adding.

They're cartoonish.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. I don't want to get into the weeds in it, but there are several funny things that came out out of the cancellation. I wouldn't have thought this— it was not a cancellation, suspension.

My— yes, my, uh, my vacation, whatever.

Yeah, whatever we're calling that now. I found there to be some funny things.

All right, good.

Excited about this.

I didn't know this— there were helicopters all around your house during this?

Yes.

So I didn't know that. That's intense.

Yeah, there were like 15 black SUVs following us home.

Remember when we were crouching in the bushes?

Including the local NBC affiliate, which I found, for whatever reason, that really pissed me off. What the fuck?

We were trying to lose them on the way home from the show.

I learned that in time of war or strife, we would be so dead.

Yeah, we would.

I'm like, here's what we're gonna do. You make a left here, we're gonna get out of the car, you're gonna keep driving, you'll keep going. You know, we're blocked by the houses You keep driving and then send another car to pick us up coming the other way and we'll slip into that car. And they're like, yeah. And I was like, the whole time we realized they know where we live.

Right.

You just look stupid giving them out of cars.

The only photos they got of us are when we were doing that stupid car swap. We're like, let's go to the Trader Joe's parking lot, we'll swap cars.

That's right. We went to Trader Joe's also.

We did. Oh, that was part of the plan.

Yeah.

Trader Joe's.

Oh my God. We have no idea. What we're doing. We're not cut out for this.

Yeah, we did not go to the Britney Spears School of, uh, paparazzi evasion.

That's where you need— you guys needed to switch to motorcycles that week. That would be cool. But it was more intense than I think I gave it credit for. But there are a couple hysterical moments that came out of it when you had to, like, tell the kids. And I'm thinking about something Jane said, and Billy. But Billy was the first, right, to ask, is it the president? Does he have something to do with this? Is he the one who asked that?

I believe it was Jane. We had to explain what was going on because because there were helicopters and noise outside our house, and also they were still in school, and this was becoming a very huge story. We didn't know how big it would be, and we didn't know if the kids were gonna hear about it at school. So we said, "The show has been canceled for a little bit." And Jane said, "Is this Donald Trump's fault?" Okay. And we said, "Yes." Which, again—

Correct.

When you're evaluating all the weird ways our kids are growing up, that's incredibly bizarre.

It really is. I said to Jimmy the other day, I'm like, "What a wild childhood for these kids to know that the president—" United States doesn't like their father. I mean, that's not a great feeling, but it's also kind of funny.

And a feather in your cap.

I don't know if they understand that he's not like a movie villain or a TV, you know, in a way he is. He's like a cartoon character.

Yeah, they're probably having a hard time taking him seriously. It will.

Also, they never had a normal president. For them, it's like, this is what happens with the president. Yeah, these are— president is like interchangeable with Dr. Evil or something. Yeah.

Yeah, but the one that cracked me up is that Jane was really concerned, and I just learned this about her, is she very much thinks she'll be taking over your show.

She does. Yes. She believes it's going to be Jane Kimmel Live.

Yes. So she started crying cuz her show was going away.

Yeah. Which I found annoying and presumptuous. For whatever reason, she's decided, even though she is one of my four children, that she is taking over the show. It was never a conversation even. It was She's like, yeah, well, I will of course run the family business. I love the spirit.

I know if I were your kid, I'd be thinking that for sure. I would almost be like pushing you off.

I think she'd be great. I told Jon Stewart about this. He said, yeah, yeah, my son said the same thing when he was little. He's like, yeah, and then I will be taking over The Daily Show.

And he was like, what's with this Trevor character? Who's he? And then another really funny The funny thing was you had said, I think, to Jane, I hope you know that over time you'll find out that we were on the right side of history. That's really important. And to which she replied, I thought we were on the left.

Yes, she did. She goes, I thought we were on the left. She also offered to sell her LaBoobooz. She immediately cried. She goes, I'll sell all my LaBoobooz. She had 3 LaBoobooz at the time.

Each time something happens, they think we're just going to be bankrupt the next day. They don't seem to understand that I went to play poker with my Groundlings friends from like 30 years ago.

It's like a $10 buy-in poker game. And I went, little did I know, the entire 3 hours I was gone, Lincoln was obsessed with the fact that I'm gonna lose all of our money. And when I got home, she's like, did you lose all of our money? And I'm like, I guess you have a right to fear that I'd be a gambling addict too, but I'm not.

I mean, it's better that than them thinking like you guys have infinite money. Yeah, you want them to be a little anxious about it.

Yeah, maybe not as anxious as they are though. Yeah, there's a fine line, I guess.

Yeah. How long was the window before you knew that you were coming back?

We were suspended on— was it a Tuesday or a Wednesday? I remember it was a Wednesday. Yeah, I think a Wednesday is correct. And we were back on the following Tuesday.

The following Tuesday.

So almost a full week. Yeah, almost a week. Yeah, 3 shows really is was.

Were you at any point going like, ah, okay, I'm retired? Was there any little window where you're like, maybe I need to embrace this and maybe I'm excited for that?

Yeah, I mean, it's funny, it's more immediate than that. It's more like, all right, so I don't have to do a show on Monday, you know? That's kind of how I looked at it. Like, all right, well, the good news is I don't have to work tomorrow. Of course, it turned out to be a much more stressful workday than the usual workday, but it was a little bit of that.

Yeah, it was like, I don't need this, this is such bullshit, I don't need it.

You do deal with that thought? I deal with that thought regularly, not just in an extreme situation.

I deal with that now on a daily basis, I think. Just like, is this why?

Weirdly, I deal with it less now than I used to because now I feel like this show is an outlet for people who are outraged by what's going on, and I feel some responsibility to those So it's not just like, why do I need to get up? And then it's like, well, yeah, there is kind of a reason, a non-financial reason that you need to do this. Nothing we ever did in the past had any consequence. It was just like—

No, he would say something or tweet something maybe. I don't even mean consequence in that way.

I mean consequence like it didn't matter. We had people jumping off a diving board in their bathing suits that we pulled off the street. It had nothing to do with anything that was actually going on in the world.

Not winning a Peabody really for that, probably.

Yeah, no, no. By the way, I noticed today that Peabody's been rolling around in my trunk for like 2 weeks. Oh God, what is this? Can we rent it?

You know, we campaign for it almost every episode. We don't want any award other than the Peabody, and we're not sure how you get one.

Love that for you guys. It sounds great. 15 jurors and they all have to say yes. If one person says no, you don't get it.

It's like joining the Hells Angels. It's got to be unanimous. Yep. Aren't you now on the committee for Peabody? So a guest told us this. They said, I think Kimmel has joined somehow.

If I am, it's news to me. I don't think so.

Well, if you are and if you end up at a meeting, they ask, or they probably don't even ask, you offer to go.

If you want the one that's in my trunk, I would love it.

Yeah, I just want to see what it looks like.

It is pretty cool. And it started in radio. The Peabody started as an award to people in radio.

Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's all there was at the time. It's a broadcasting and film award.

Okay. Did it get tricky at all?

It's stressful on a relationship, no? Yeah, for sure. I think this is a little different because we were in it together.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. In most of the situations we are, yeah.

Yeah, like, it affects my livelihood, my job, my coworkers. So I was right there— Your psyche. —hand in hand with him the whole time. I will say, like, I get to a point of resentment when it is relentless scrutiny or, "Oh, my God, that joke we said yesterday is— everyone's mad at us for it." I resent how much time And it sucks how much energy it takes, the energy. It sucks. But no, I feel like we are lucky and that we really kind of were in the same spot during that.

I let it roll off my back much more than I ever had. The older I get, the less affected I am by that.

I'm much more affected, I think.

Yeah, when I heard you guys talk about it, you said you get more mad. Yeah. Why do you think it's like—

I think I'm not as connected to what people are I also, you know, before I did this job and even before I was on television, I was in a very stressful job as a radio disc jockey, getting fired from town to town to town. And I've become hardened in some ways. Also, like at that time when I lost my job, I was in deep financial trouble. Like I couldn't miss one paycheck. It was a problem if I— and I do, I do try to remember that. I go, okay, if I don't have this job, we're going to be okay. I don't have to worry about that. And I do take some solace and comfort in that.

So there's like little spikes of gratitude within the misery.

Keeping it in perspective, that perspective at that time. Now, yeah, it wasn't the president. You weren't dealing with the most powerful person in the world.

Yeah.

But a much bigger concern is I can't get $20 out of the ATM. PM because I, I have less than that in it. That's a real concern. So yeah, these things that I'm dealing with are big and they get a lot of attention, but getting fired in Tampa, Florida was harder than this.

How about the aspect though? I don't mind at all if I said an opinion and you understood the opinion and you object to it. I can live with that all long. Our weird little dust-up made me mad because we were in trouble for a joke people didn't get. And so you're mad at me for something you've misunderstood, and I find that really fucking uncomfortable. Like, I can't just let that roll off my back.

I feel like I have to explain it and protect it until they accept it. Yeah, yeah. I do believe we're also living in a time where people are deliberately misinterpreting words for either clickbait or attention or just prodding people. Political capital. Yeah, I resent that to.

Yeah, it's hard to live with the notion someone is really angry at you or something they misunderstood.

I don't know why, like, I wish I could shake that off. Misunderstanding, I can deal with that. What really drives me crazy is intentionally perverting your words to suit whatever their narrative is.

Yeah, yeah. But that's a class of person, right? They're coming for you no matter what. Like, that I would put in the category, you know, no matter what I say, you're gonna— but it's just like the average person who heard through the grapevine what the thing was and they don't understand. That irritates me. Some people believe it.

That's the hard— it's like, yeah, that type of person bothers me, especially because I don't do it.

I won't do it. Even when I see Trump say something crazy and he's obviously joking, which he is sometimes. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But he was joking. And they'll be like, oh, yeah, but he was joking. So you have some ethics about what you're going to— I might make a comment about if this joke was presidential or whatever, but I'm not going to to make that a literal statement, right?

Do you have a harder time when it's directed at Kristen or at you?

1,000% worse when it's Kristen. In fact, I never— I don't think I ever engage defending myself online, but if I read something about Kristen, I am fucking at the keyboard. Yep. I won't have it.

I find it really hard because I feel like, you know, that person better than anyone, and you're watching people write their story that is absolutely not who they are. And I feel like I do it all the time with Jimmy too, and it makes me crazy.

You're also married to a very generous, beautiful person, as am I. So my anger is like, how fucking dare you sling mud at her? What have you fucking helped somebody do recently? Like, no one in this country is in a position that they can be on a moral high ground over Kristen, right? And it drives me fucking— I agree. How dare you? This is the most generous fucking person.

That's where it's really, really hard for me. I get really upset. I'm like, you don't know this person.

Same here. When it happens the other way, you want to fight then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't really care about any other principles you had.

Yeah, I don't. Yeah, you become just like kind of an animal protecting a cave. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's funny, it even happens here, but we often are on opposite sides sometimes of a conversation or an issue. But then if it's like when it's your brother, like when somebody else says it, I'm like, no, no, you don't get to say that, right? You are not allowed to say it. Only I can say it.

I want you guys to apologize to me because I'm sorry. Well, I'd prefer you heard it. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't feel as genuine when you don't know what you're—

oh, okay.

Yeah, I can see that you've been with someone for 16 years, you have the right blueprint.

I love the setup to this question. I almost don't even want to hear the statement because it's so exciting. I want to revel in the drama of what it is.

We can switch subjects for a while. Back to it. I'm good at earmarking things. But when all this stuff happened, I'm like, oh boy, I need to send Molly and Jimmy a text. And then I go, the last thing they need is a fucking text from somebody. I'm at home and I'm just like, ah, fuck, I know I don't want to bother them, and also I need them to know that I'm heartbroken they're going through this. You know, I mulled it over for a couple days and then I finally committed to sending it. And that was just really stressful for me.

I cannot apologize enough for that.

Okay, good. You can't really imagine what I would do.

Oh, we're apologizing to you for the stress it caused you.

Yes. I didn't know whether I should text you or not.

Makes total sense.

It's funny because the question itself is puzzling to me because I'm not adding up who has texted me and who hasn't, or who has emailed me and who hasn't. It would be impossible. Yeah, but I would notice if like my dad didn't send me something, you know? Yeah. And I do think that, yeah, waiting like a week or so is good, is a good way to go because it shows that, like, hey, listen, I'm just not trying to add to your thing.

I know. And then the fear kicks in. You're like, maybe he is going like, what does he agree with these people?

Why? I'm gonna be honest with you, that's where I was.

What?

I was there. I was like, wow, we haven't heard from so-and-so or so-and-so. And I think I was spinning out. We in isolation in our home. We were being attacked by the White House and a big part of the country. And I was, after a few days, being like, haven't heard from you. Or not— I'm sorry, I didn't say your name, but it would be a few people. I'm like, wow, haven't heard from them. Like, do they think we should be off the air? Like, I started to think, like, oh, they agree with this decision. He was never there.

I would bring it up. We haven't heard from so-and-so.

He's like, stop it, they don't want to reach out. But I was going there.

But this has been super productive because now we know in the future I will text You. Thanks. Guys, this isn't your last dust-up. I know, so tired.

We have to learn to appreciate when the sailing is smooth.

Cousin Sal said it best the other day. He said writing for this show and being part of the show is like being in the car and you're not drunk, the cop pulls behind you, you know, you start to just drive like, oh, I should be slower and I could get pulled over for a little thing. That's how it feels. Every day.

Yeah, yeah, like there's a cop behind us.

Except I'm still speeding.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you're a little drunk.

Yeah. I always err on the side of sending it, even though it can feel a little selfish, because it is like, I just need them to know that I care or I'm thinking about them. I'm with you. And I recognize it's like, oh, I know they're getting so many, but it's important to me that you know that.

A lot of it is about who it's coming from. You know, sometimes there are people who you just don't know at all. Like, you know, they want to tell their friends that they are free.

Yes, some of the texts came in and you're like, oh, they just want to know what's going on.

People in their lives have said, have you talked to Jimmy? People in my life said that, right? Right. My mom called me. I'm like, what? Yeah, what do I have to give you?

Although I will say I did not respond. I got hundreds and hundreds of texts. I did not respond to any. I would just heart, heart. Yeah, okay. Because I was too scared to— I didn't know what the status was, and I was also afraid, honestly, at that moment. I'm like, are my text messages going to be in court? Like, I don't know going on. And so I just hearted it.

Here's another angle though I will throw at you. Okay. Sometimes when somebody who's famous is going through something, I intentionally will not reach out to them because I don't want them to think— like, because sometimes something's going on with me and I'm like, oh, this is no big deal. And then suddenly it's like I look at my phone and go, oh crap, I guess this is a big deal.

Yeah, I'm gonna out him. Jake Tapper— I learned that we were in a controversy. We were 5 days in. I had no clue.

No way. He never stops reporting the news. I know, even to the people involved.

And I literally wrote back, wait, what are you talking about? And then he's like, oh, sorry. I'm like, yeah, I don't even know what you're talking about because they've been keeping it from me. Yeah, that happens sometimes. Didn't even know.

I go like, oh, jeez, I would never have known about this.

But you text back right away, of course, and you said, you want me to come on your show and talk about it? I'm a little busy, but I could be there in 15 minutes. No, but you wrote back right away. I was like, exactly, this poor guy, he's fucking dealing with this and now he's got to write me back. I shouldn't have sent anything. Okay, lastly, I want to talk about family. I wonder— we addressed it already. What's not fair to say is that our kids are growing up in a very weird situation, because actually they're not. I think people would be surprised about that. Like, it's just the same. You're eating dinner, you're begging them to clean up the room, you got to go to school. It's just real life. But then there's pops of insanity. Yeah. Or it's like someone they worship is walking through the driveway to come talk to Dad. That stuff's kind of weird. And I wondered, do you guys share the same fears? What are the fears?

We do, but also I think we have to accept what reality is. And there's this idea like, I'm gonna create this phony world for them where everything is as it was when I was kid. Even I think back to when I was a kid, I grew up in Las Vegas. It's a strange place to grow up. It wasn't a normal upbringing. Now, most of it was, and I think it's the same with them. Like, most of it is, but then also there's the Strip right near your house, and people are there getting drunk and gambling, and everyone's parents work there, and you're exposed to it. And I just think like that you want to teach them values, and you want to have like a normal normal life and, and give them attention and all those things that are important and make sure they learn their multiplication tables. But you can't be phony and you can't pretend that what's happening is not happening. Yeah, you can't gaslight them. And that's kind of what I think our initial inclination is, like, we gotta let them think everything's exactly the same as if they were growing up in Brooklyn, you know.

I find that I definitely worry about about it, the access they have or the things they get to experience. And then I will say to them like, don't talk about this at school. Yeah, same. And then I'm like, what am I doing? I'm teaching them to lie or to hide or feel shame that they got to meet Olivia Rodrigo. Like, cool, that should be exciting. Yeah. But also I realize like they don't know how cool that is. They genuinely don't. Like, Olivia Rodrigo was on the show and she made an offhanded comment like, I'd love to babysit the sometime. Well, Jane keeps asking, like, when's she gonna babysit? Like, she doesn't know what her hourly rate would be. I think we put so much more value on these things than they do.

The things I worry about also, I'm gonna have to also let it be what it is. So one of the things I observe is like, well, they go to a totally normal fucking school. More than half the kids are free lunch, right? So half the kids that come over to this house, they don't have a swimming pool. I start getting nervous about about like, oh, she has all the leverage. It's not healthy for someone to have all the leverage. Like, it's not healthy to know you're providing the special thing to all the people when you're young. Will she exploit that? Then I've spin out— I'll like observe, like, was she being a little short with her friend? It's like just normal stuff, but I have such a fear that she would not realize, well, a lot of these kids, this is a special experience. That's what stresses me out.

You know what's funny is so many times I've been stressed about this and I've thought we should call Dax and And while I'm learning, you don't have the answers either.

I make decisions.

Yeah, I have no idea. Like parenting already, no one knows what they're doing. I mean, they don't. We're doing the best that we can. Then there's this— yeah, it's like this added element of like now there's fame in there and there's billboards of their dad on the way to school. Like, that's not normal. I don't know how to do it.

I'll be honest. Yeah, it's a little—

I do. I go, hey guys, look, it's me.

Hey, who's this handsome guy?

Look at me over there.

But I also don't think they should carry our— I feel like we do project our own. It's good that we're scared.

I think we have this idea that however we were raised is the way you're supposed to be raised. Yeah. And it's very egomaniacal and a lot of like, look at how I came out. I need them to come out this way. This was the formula that— Yes. But if you think about leverage, you think about like leverage to kids. I think having a beautiful house with the pool pool is not so different from when I would go over my friend Cleto's house and he had a Betamax. You know, it's like, it's just to a kid, exactly, it's different. Leverage could just be you have a pair of Reeboks.

Yes. You know. Yeah. But I was in a situation where it's like, you did hang out with the kid you didn't like in your neighborhood who had a pool because you wanted to go swimming. I was friends with the dude because he had a fucking Odyssey. I wanted to be around this off-road vehicle, you know, be there feeling kind of dirty about it. Those dynamics happen.

It's a part of it. Yeah, it's part of society.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

The most popular kids are not necessarily the ones with famous parents or like rich parents or anything. Yeah, I think personality personality and cool factor is real, whoever your parents are.

That's what I want them to know. You can't ride on this shit. You have to be a rad friend. You have to be funny. You have to be attentive. Like, that's what I want them to know, right? Don't skate on this, right?

I always find myself overexplaining stuff. Like, when they get to experience something through his work, or they get to come to the show, they're like, "This is so cool." I said, "Yes, and your friends' parents also work very hard, and just because they're not on TV doesn't mean their jobs are less meaningful." And Jimmy is just rolling his eyes at me. Like, I go way over the top. I'm like, there are nurses who work just as hard and they can't afford to have a pool in their yard, but that doesn't make them less special.

I'm with you on that. Yeah, it's true though.

Yeah. I think first class is a tricky one though. Yeah. Yeah. Because like going back from first class, that's tough. Yeah. If you're used to—

Your first class was Delta's plus one, remember?

Yeah. The first time I flew first class, I was a 3-year-old's plus one. Awesome. And it was amazing. I was like, I feel like Richard Gere. Yeah, exactly. I feel like I'm her Julia Roberts right now.

Yeah, but what do you do? You go in first class and you put your kids in the—

I know, exactly. You can't.

I've heard of people doing that before.

It seems admirable, but I'm not willing to do it. It's hard enough to get them to sit down in first class. I don't want to be fucking with them in the back of the airplane.

It seems kind of terrible to me. Either we're all in coach or we're all in first class.

We fly Southwest like twice a year just to let them know what's happening. I want to talk about retirement. Retirement. You and I end up always talking about it when we're in Idaho. Yeah, I know, right? I know we're going to talk about it this year too. Time of year. And I guess I want to know, Molly, first, like, what do you think about the notion of retirement?

It definitely appeals to me for the nervous system of the household, but I feel like Jimmy has like a fly rod in one hand and like a torch in the other right now. It's like he deserves to go out there and just be on the river and relax, but I also want him to keep fighting. And I feel this sense of desire to not quit because I think what he's doing is incredibly important right now. And yes, I know we're doing it into a vacuum, but I think it's giving people a feeling of like their voice is heard, and I think it's important. But as his wife, I really would like him to be able to not do this show anymore so he could relax.

But what about you? Yeah, what about you?

Me, I'm good either way. I would be happy to be done with the show, end it in a great way, and do my own next thing. But I do care deeply about that show and the people who work there, and I think the voice is really important right now.

And do you have a fear that if you guys did wrap it up in the most beautiful way and you got it exactly as you wanted, do you have this simmering fear that you'll, 2 years later, you're like, wait, why did we stop doing this thing we love? Is that in the equation? Yeah, I do.

I have Maybe, because I know people who've been in that situation. It's funny, people make a big show of like, I'm done and I'm tired doing this, and then they make a lesser comeback trying to do the same thing. That's always a bummer. And I always look at that and go, oh, is that going to be me?

I know. I do look forward to that moment, like when the kids leave for school and then it's like coffee and open the computer and digesting all the news of the day and like having a purpose with it that I will definitely miss. Read Reading at leisure sounds nice, but I also like reading with a purpose. Like, I'm gonna read this and then figure out the angle on it. I like that feeling, and I will miss that.

Do you have enough hobbies that you think you'll be entertained?

No, and I need to work on that. I started learning piano, trying to learn things, but no, I look forward to that. I do.

He has a lot of hobbies.

I don't know, it's really tricky to evaluate it because part of me is like, I've done show business for a very long time. Like, how long did I need to do show business? A, B, I'm afraid of letting it all go because it, it was so hard to get. And then that is what makes me horny for it because I'm afraid of it. It's how I felt when I was in Detroit and was like, we're going to go to California. We don't know what's out there. Probably failure. We must try this. The actual fear of it is what really motivates. It feels like, oh, there's a challenge in front of me. Can I let go of all this? Can I have a different chapter that has nothing to do with any of this? And feel valuable without being productive. Like, it feels like a lot of life challenges.

Do you ever think to yourself, how would I explain this to me at 25 years old? Just giving up, just letting it go. I know that 25-year-old me would be like, are you crazy? Right? Keep going.

25-year-old me too. But also 25-year-old me was in a blackout 5 days a week, right? I shouldn't— I have no interest.

I wasn't 25-year-old Dax thinks 25-year-old me would have just So excited to work at a place that had a snack table that was free. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that would have been—

or a gas card if they like gave you free fuel or something. Oh my God, any job, 22 cents a mile or something, forget about it.

Yeah. Yeah. How do you feel about retirement? Sorry, I'm not trying to do your job. No, do you mind? I'm just like, I'm curious. Like, he gets asked this a lot, but I feel like it changes.

I mean, it depends on what you mean by retirement. I'm never going to stop doing things. No. So it's just a different scenario. Got the thing on the eyelid. I know, but yeah, my, my makeup coming off.

Yeah, when I eat garlic, my eyebrows start flaking immediately. Is it an allergy you have? Yeah, yeah, interesting. Yeah, it's pretty immediate. Yeah, I just said I'll get red.

I don't know, something got in my eye.

Do you think, Molly, though, that you will do another job? Yes, that makes—

that, like, yeah, hopefully that makes money. That probably makes money.

Molly's always wanted to open a karate studio. Oh my God.

Oh, A lot of us have wanted her to open a karate studio.

That's her. Well, when Dax retires, I'll join you.

She has to learn karate.

Yeah, I'll do that. That part's easy.

Yeah. No, I'm definitely excited to, like, write something and do my next thing, but I also want to ride this as long as we can and then do my own thing.

What if you opened a karate studio to learn karate? Oh, that would be— oh, I like that. That would be like a very novel approach to learning karate. Like, you wanted to have your own mat or whatever. The fuck you having karate?

I like that. Really, all I need is positive affirmation. I need somebody to look at whatever I've done and go, "Oh, that's great." And then I'll be happy.

Jimmy recently painted a sweatshirt for me. You'll see it in Idaho. Hand-painted this sweatshirt. It was how many days of work? Not that many. Several. So modest. But just this beautiful scene of Idaho on a sweatshirt. I love it so much. It's like my prized possession. But he can't—

Can't stop when I get started. He can't stop.

And also like, are your hobbies, are you able to enjoy them or are you sitting there going, I should be doing something that earns money?

Hmm. No, I can enjoy the shit outta my hobbies. If anything, I feel very guilty. I'm not doing some of my hobbies. Like I haven't been to the sand dunes in 2 seasons. That actually makes me mad at myself. Like, why are we here if we have the ability to do this thing? You've always like, that drives me nuts. I'll get critical.

I do sometimes wonder like if you could know this is how much time you have left? Are we wasting it on stuff we shouldn't be doing? Yeah, you know, it's just interesting.

I didn't grow up— again, talk about how we grew up— I never met anyone who had the option to retire. I never met anyone that was fine and took on another challenge and became a different human being. I knew you work until your body quits, and then you go to Florida and you drink, and then you play golf, and then you're dead in like, I don't know, 12 years. You hurt your hip and you're gone.

Yeah, same here. Everyone I know who has or can do that is someone I met in the last 20 years.

Yeah, right. And you don't know if you trust him.

Yeah, there's some guilt with that too. Like, my dad just retired, he's 72, and yeah, to be like, I'm done now at 52, yeah, feels like—

it feels irresponsible, rude, or something. I think people will hate me over that. Do that.

Feels lazy. Yeah, it does. It feels un-American.

It does. Like, I know people will hate me over that if I retire in my 50s. Yeah, but part of me is like, oh, there's this great challenge. I'm afraid to know who I am without being productive and spectacular, and I want to take on that challenge.

I love that.

I don't know how you guys think of legacy. I doubt you think about it. I certainly don't. But I just have to say, your guys's legacy, from the bottom of my heart, it's so unique. There's about 30 kids that come to Idaho every summer. And I promise you, if you ask these kids when they're adults, the best weeks of their entire life, that is this thing you guys created, this environment and this vibe and the way it's put together. And for the 30 adults, are we in the 7th year, 6th year, 7th? Yeah, I think 6. It's getting long. Yeah, it is. Every year we debate it when we're there. I know, we never remember. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, and I have had a spectacular Charmed life, and everyone that goes to this thing has had a spectacular Charmed Life. It is among my favorite weeks of my entire life that you guys have given me and 30 other families, and it's so special. That's a weird art to be able to do that. It's very much your legacy.

It's very kind of you to say, but for us, we feel the same way. So for us, we feel like we're a part of that, and we do it because we love it. We know our kids feel that way, and we do it with our family also. Each year we do the same thing. And we just remember, like, Molly always talks about her time going to Lake Michigan with her family. We never really had anything like that, but those memories are so intense and special and important in your life, I think. And also, just, they mark time in a lot of ways. And so, I'm big on that. I think it's important to have family Christmas Eve and the traditions and to— do it properly because I love watching these kids running wild. They turn into teenagers.

Some of the boys now have muscles. It's so fun. It's like, I love seeing how everyone's growing up. It's so special. We're just so grateful. I don't know that we can relay to you how special it is.

You guys have done a really good job of communicating. You were not as good at texting us after we were canceled. But you've done an amazing job of communicating. That. And it also brings us such joy to do it and to have people who love it. And I think we've curated a really great group of people there, and I, I'm so grateful you guys keep loving it and coming.

I love being around people who are having a lot of fun. Yes. That's why I love going to Las Vegas. And I try to explain to Molly, she's like, what, what was that? Like, look at how much fun everyone's having here. It's infectious, it's contagious, you know. Certain things that you just go like, oh yeah, everybody in that for me going to that fishing lodge, being around everybody. It's just energy that feeds me in some way.

Yeah, I think after the year that we've had, I feel like that is just something we are craving, just being around a bunch of people we love who just are feeling joyful.

You know, I had that observation. We had a friend who was doing a show for us and it was called Flightless Bird, and he's a Kiwi and he's confused by a lot of the American things. So he does this whole episode on Disneyland and Disney adults, and it finishes And I go, but obviously you went to Disneyland for this story, right? And he's like, no, I don't know. We're not putting this fucking story out until we go to Disneyland. So the four of us went to Disneyland, and it was on that trip I realized like, oh, the reason Disneyland is the most incredible place on the planet, aside from the park, which is amazing, is it's the only place you'll ever go in your life where everyone that's there, all present, decided this was gonna be a spectacular day, the best day of their life. And there's there's really no place you can step into where that vibe is like— it goes to hell by 4 PM. All the kids have gotten cranky. Yeah, no one's having that. But man, those first 4 hours at Disneyland, like, everyone here is optimistic and is going to have the best day of their life.

Yeah, nice.

Like a flight to Hawaii is like that too, right? Like everybody, you know, like people have saved up and this is it, and they got the whole week ahead. And there's that moment where you walk into the hotel the other people are walking out and you look at them, you go, you poor bastard. And then I think to myself at that moment, I go, oh, I'm going to be that guy walking out. And then I am that guy walking out. And I think, and I see the people walking in, I'm like, goddamn it, I'm going back to work.

That's the one pleasure you were denied by growing up in Vegas. There's no starker difference between a flight to Vegas and a flight home from Vegas. They're on Spirit Airlines from Detroit where you're in fucking ticket was $115. The ride there, everyone's drinking and having a great time on the ride home. Everyone—

I will tell you what, how I relate to it, how I relate to it is the drive home when the sun is coming up in Las Vegas, when you're headed home after a night and you see people like running and you're like, oh, I just feel like a piece of shit. Yeah, these people are up for the day.

I haven't even gone to bed yet. That was my number one grievance about being a cocaine addict is I was constantly coming home on San Vicente Boulevard in Santa Monica, and the whole town is running in the morning. I'm like, I gotta figure out how to go to sleep. And Saturday's gone. I'll see you guys Sunday evening. Well, I love you two so much.

I'm so lucky. Thank you for letting me invite us here.

This is so fun. You're welcome.

You're welcome for coming on. You don't even need a booker anymore. Just send out— just Just check in on your friends and they'll show up.

I gotta figure out what Brad Pitt's doing more so they're appropriate. Yeah, I love you, Molly and Jimmy, and I'm so grateful that we have you in our life. And thanks for coming in. And everyone watch Jimmy Kimmel Live, and I don't know, whatever thing you're gonna host this year, I guess.

All right, love you guys. Love you.

You guys are the best.

I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong. How was your MP dinner party?

It was, it was good. It was good? Yeah, I made a new recipe, a new chicken item, right? Yeah. So I was listening to a New York Times— no, I'm sorry, a New Yorker podcast. Okay. It's called Critics at Large. I very much like it. Uh-huh.

And You don't like it very much. You very much like it. Correct.

In that order. Yeah. And they are doing some series, and they were talking about cult classics, and she was talking to a cook lady, someone who knows cooking, and they were talking about cult classics, and they said she recommended this cookbook, Zuni Cafe. Okay. What's Zuni Cafe? I guess it's a popular cafe, or was maybe, in San Francisco. Moscow. Okay. And, um, there's a cookbook and she was saying she made one of the recipes, a chicken roast chicken with a bread salad. Bread salad? Stuffing? No, but like, I mean, you could call—

yeah, you could call stuffing bread salad.

Bread salad classically is called panzanella.

Oh my gosh, you know so much about cooking.

I do, I do, I know a lot. I actually thought that the other day.

Did you have a moment? You're like, man, I know a about cooking. Sure.

I mean, this is what happens when you watch so many videos. You don't know you're learning. Yeah, yeah. But then someone will say something and you'll know. Yeah, the answer.

Can you earmark that? Because I want to ask if you made a certain thing recently, but continue. Okay. Okay.

So then, um, it sounded so good to me I couldn't get out of my head. I went to an actual bookstore. They didn't have it.

Really quick, is the Zuni Cafe cookbook from like the '70s or something?

Why is it from a a while ago. No, not, not that long, but like—

you're not sure what decade. Yeah, yeah.

Um, so then I ordered it, the cookbook. Yep. Okay, came right away. You know, this is what's frustrating. I'm trying to support local biz, uh-huh, and like they just don't have what I need.

Yeah, that was the origin of Amazon was books. I know, you know, that, that was what it originally was, rare books.

Well, the irony, you know, it's like I go into— this weekend I go into Barnes Noble to look for a Zuni Cafe cookbook because 'Cause that's at this point a small business. Right. A small bookstore. Anyway, they didn't have it.

Remember when Barnes Noble and Borders were around? People were so mad about those. That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying.

Is it just the, it's just the nature of life evolving?

You know, one of my favorite movies of all time, You've Got Mail. Yeah. That's the whole premise of that movie is that basically Barnes Noble comes in and takes over this little baby bookstore.

Sounds so quaint now. I know. Yeah, yeah.

You know, sometimes the villains become the victims.

And as unimaginable as it is, someday someone will take over Amazon and they'll go, oh, remember Amazon? I wonder how old we'll be when that happens.

Good question. Dead? Probably dead.

Although the breakthroughs in anti-aging, who knows, maybe that'll even be the reason Amazon is replaced.

Right. Interesting. Wow, it's all tied together anyway. Okay, so I couldn't get that out of my head, so I was like, I'm gonna make that. So I did. I made roast chicken. Now this was a dry brine roast chicken. That means it had to sit in the fridge for 24 hours beforehand. Had to really think things through. And then the bread salad had— I had to change up some of the ingredients because I didn't have currants, so I had to use dried cranberries. Yeah. And I used arugula instead of— I forget the other thing I was I was supposed to use lettuce-wise. Um, but it was very good. I also made a peach emporada.

I feel so guilty, but I want to be really honest with you.

You don't know what currants are?

No, I never do it. But you know when I talk about automotive stuff and I see, oh God, she's gone, and you admit to it? Like, you can only do, I don't even know, a sentence of automotive and then you're out to sea. And I went a little out to sea for a second. Yeah, I just wanted to own it. Like, oh, okay, this is what it feels like. Sure. I mean, Okay, so I wonder, maybe like the third ingredient or something, I was just like, I started thinking, it doesn't make your mouth, my road trip to Florida and how it was a tropical storm.

Wow, it doesn't make your mouth water when you're hearing like bread salad and roast chicken and dry brine?

No, especially not the dried brine, even though I, I like, I think it's interesting it's called a dry brine if you're doing chicken, but we call that a dry rub when you're doing steak, you know. Us, us barbecuers. Yeah, sure. Um, and brine for me really just sounds like seawater. No, well, it's salt.

That is the point of it. That's just very interesting because when I hear people talking about food, I get like aroused. Same.

If someone's talking about a new valve train system and an overhead cam that might have reduced— I already left— friction, that it could rev to 9,000 RPMs, I'm like, what, 9,000 RPM?

Yeah, it's interesting. It's really interesting.

The nature of interests, I think. Yeah.

What about peach and tomato, heirloom tomato and burrata? Does that sound nice?

I mean, here's what— did you go? Things taste nice, and when I look at them, I'm very hungry for them, and I'm excited if I'm looking at them. But no, just thinking about a laundry— because all you're doing is walking me through a grocery store right now, which is not stimulating for me.

Well, I actually hate going to the grocery store, so I can't relate to that, and I'm actually offended that you said what I I did was that.

But I feel like what you just said doesn't hold because the thought of those things— aren't you walking through the produce thing going, ooh, oh, given the fact that just hearing the word tomato makes you excited?

You said, well, heirloom tomato, peach, and burrata salad, the whole thing, not necessarily just one ingredient. Um, what I don't like about the grocery store, one, it's freezing in there. I hate it. Way too cold.

My favorite part. Oh, by the way, I love the grocery store. I don't want to paint a picture that— I especially love going to Kroger in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, because it's like the Kroger growing up for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because here grocery stores are limited space, they do what they can. That's right. But man, you go into those Krogers, you could have like 7, 8 people all pushing carts in the aisle next to each other and they wouldn't be bumping into each other. And I get in there and I'm like, let's play. Okay. And it's acres of food. There's so much food.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other thing I don't like about it is that, like, it's too— if you're— it's too vast. Like, there's too much to look at. I get— I don't know where anything is. Decision anxiety. I just don't know where anything. And then sometimes I feel like, should I ask? Or I— and then nothing's made yet. So it's possibility. What's that? But it's not helpful. Like, you know, it's the just the green bean, but but it's not the made— it's not the cooked green beans unless they've got a bar.

I don't like germ-wise. That's not for me. What's our guy here? Lazy Acres. Lazy Acres. Yeah, they've got a medley of yummy different—

Delta to Lazy Acres. And she got— oh, the only— she got so much mashed potatoes. And I said, can you get a little bit of green? She got like one piece of broccoli. So anyway, I was very happy with the dinner. It was a It was a great party menu. Okay, party menu. Okay. Um, people were happy with it. Okay, great. Did it—

was it a moist chicken? Did it come out moist? That's really all I care about because of the dry brine.

Because of that dry brine. And you know what else I had to do? What? Stuff garlic and thyme under the skin. That was—

you had to separate the skin from the meat and—

yeah, I actually don't know if I did that part right. Okay. But, um, it tasted great. Oh, great.

So, well, I wish I would have had a bite. Sounds delish.

I can make it for you. I— you do have to crank that oven to 500. Let's go, floor it. You know, your smoke alarm is gonna go off, as it did for me. It did, it did, even with my new circumstance.

That means you've already had stuff drip at the bottom.

It's just smoky because it's so hot. You sure there's nothing in there burning?

Sure, you just— the paint is smoking or something? No, it's just like it gets so hot, it gets so hot it produces A lot going on. By the way, this is a crazy update. So I went for a walk. I'm trying to do a new thing where I walk after dinner.

Oh wait, what? I'm trying to do that. Can we go together?

Sure, absolutely. I mean, the odds of us having eaten at the same time seem a little, um, let's hope for the best. But yes, yes, yes. Okay, okay. Which, if we're gonna plan it, means you're gonna have to wait till the madness decides when they're eating.

It's fine. Okay, great.

It'll give you a heads up.

Yeah, I've been really— this has been a thing, but I'm scared by myself because the coyotes. Okay.

And I just want to give the virtues of it and what it— why it occurred to me. Now, I've already heard this, right, that exercise, 15 to 20 minutes of exercise after you eat, really helps the spike in your insulin. Yes. And it's just not great to spike your insulin, so, um, your glucose, your insulin, whatever, both. And, uh, The other thing that happened was when we went to Europe, obviously, every time you eat when you're on vacation in Europe, you walk back to your hotel.

It's my favorite part.

It's the best part. And I went hog wild. I ate like a motherfucker. I ate as much as I could every time I ate. Me too. I was exercising in the gym, but also just all the walking. The point is, I came home a little lighter than I left. And I had eaten probably 1.5x what I normally eat, maybe even twice as much.

Definitely me too, and I didn't do any lifting. Okay, yeah.

And you come home kind of— and I was like, it's not just the miles, because if I do walk the miles, I'm like, it really is that I walk after every meal. If you have lunch, you then walk home from the lunch. So tried to do it in Nashville a bit. We were pretty hit or miss, but I did, I did persuade often large groups of people that were visiting to join me on these walks. A lot of quite fun. Yeah. So anyway, I went for a walk two nights ago after I ate a particularly heavy meal. Uh-huh. Like, I gotta do a zip around the neighborhood, and I noticed that the entire street is cut up and that people can't park in front of their houses. And I said to, uh, Chris and I go, man, they just can't get the fucking, uh, sewage pipes right in this neighborhood. Because since we've been here, they've dug up the streets like, I want to say, 4 or 5 times, and always for sewer mains. They can't get the poop out of this neighborhood. Yeah. So I was like, here we go again, this fucking— these damn sewers.

And then today I get a text from our sweet neighbor Jay. It's like, hey bro, someone in a dump truck just smashed into your fence, right? He texted you that? He saw it happen. Okay. And then you sent me a screen grab of someone saying, hey Monica, we just bumped into Dax and Kristen's fence, don't worry, we'll fix it. And then you forwarded it to me, and then I I said to you, why did someone send that to you? Yeah. And you said, because it was—

because it's Bill. It was me, basically. It was me who hit— not me, but my people who hit, right?

And then come to find out all that street cutting up is you. Yes. Did you have to pay for that?

That's the power thing I told you about. Yes.

Oh my God, Monica, I am so sorry.

It's horrifying.

I'm so sorry. It's really bad. What a bummer. Yeah, you're paying for a major, major construction project where they have cut up the street for like a quarter mile, digging a trench, okay, through Laughlin Park to get to Los Feliz Boulevard.

That's what's happening. Oh boy. Um, I guess here's a great place to air an enormous grievance with the city I do love, but my God, this has been a disaster. It should not— we should there's a way to get— okay, basically I only have 100 amps of power for my house. That's not gonna do it. It is definitely not gonna do it. As Bill, um, said, he did— he's— he gave a great analogy. He said you have a Ferrari running on a hamster wheel. Okay, you don't like that analogy?

What is not to like about that? Well, tell me, tell me why that's the same. So there's— because it's—

I have a house house that's this beautiful, nice—

I thought he, I thought he was gonna say you have a Ferrari with a half-gallon fuel tank. That kind of makes sense, which is basically you, you, you're not gonna be able to fuel this vehicle. But now Ferrari Hamster Wheel, it's like it's a, it's a huge hamster wheel. The Ferrari fits.

No, that's the whole point, is it's, it's not— it can't.

Okay, it can't.

Okay, I love Bill. It's a good analogy. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, sorry about Bill. Okay, he's my dad. I'm really So, um, so, you know what is a great analogy?

You have a house that requires probably 250 amps and you only have 100 amps. That's a great analogy.

That's just regular words.

I'm just saying it doesn't even really require an analogy.

Okay, so I have 100 amps and I need more, and there's a much closer, easier way to get it. Should have been a non— this should have been a non-issue. And we went to the city, we said we need to do this, they said no. No.

On what grounds?

Exactly. Okay. Exactly. Okay. And so Bill was back and forth with them forever on this and just, what do you mean no? It's right there. This is crazy. Um, and they said no. And so we have to do this insane— I'm so sorry, but— Oh my God, is this another mean thing about Bill? No. Okay, great.

I kind of would want to sue the city.

Oh, I know. I do kind of. Well, wait till you hear this. Okay. Okay, okay, so now we're doing this crazy construction.

No, guys, it's like when I saw what was going on, I thought for sure LADWP, whatever, water and power, was in charge of this.

Well, oh, he told me yesterday, he said, you know, he looked in— it's a trench, it's a huge open trench outside my house and other people's houses, unfortunately. Um, you know, we have to close that all up, we have to do the whole thing. Yeah. Anyway, he looked down and the city had added their own.

Yes, on the shoulders of your dig.

Oh, you gotta— so he said, he said that he's gonna talk to them, obviously, and he's gonna tell them if that is used by any, anyone else, we need to be compensated for that. So anyway, yes, I'm the one ruining the neighborhood. I hate it. The email, email went out. You He must have missed it. Email went out, um, and by Mike who runs the neighborhood. Yeah, yeah. And he, you know, he had two emails, one when this was starting, two today, because literally a section today, I think maybe for another hour, is completely blocked.

Well, I ran into issues today dropping Delta at school, coming back because of traffic going in the entrance and trying to come by your house to come to my house, and yeah, it was all completely blocked. Off and then I had to go around down. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's just today. It's just for another hour. But anyway, it's a disaster.

And, um, yeah, it sucks. I'm getting a lawyer over this. If they could have let you do it— I know. And then they threw their own pipe down.

I know, it's bad. It's really bad. Okay. Anyway, so, um, yeah, and it's hard. I hate being like this crazy inconvenience for everyone.

And it's like, I wouldn't be sweating that.

This—

these— I've been here for a long time. These, these roads have been dug up a bunch of times, but holy smokes, I had no idea that was your project.

Yeah, I'm so sorry. Wild. Oh, really, really wild.

The amount of money to replace this, this— to run power to fucking Los Feliz Boulevard, you could have gotten something absolutely elaborate or, uh, ornate and beautiful and whatever. More than—

I mean, I could buy another house, a Eventually. Oh man, dude, it's horrible.

That really sucks. I'm sorry.

It just— it extra— it's more of a justice thing than a money thing because I didn't— it didn't need to happen this way. Yeah. And it's—

did you consider— I'd have been like, cool, City of LA, I'll be running a fucking diesel generator in my backyard.

My dad, of course, was like trying to figure out all these ways to get around your own power.

Yeah, be off-grid.

Ultimately 'Finally, this is the way, and I'm gonna have 400.' Yeah, like, was there—

was there— you're gonna have what, 400 amps? Oh God, put my welding shop in your backyard.

Yeah, exactly.

Was there any talk of doing like an insane amount of solar panels and then having a big bank of energy to pull from when the sun's down to offset?

There was the generator, there was the solar panels, there was all of the things.

Ultimately, when that really made sense Um, and because in a weird way, I feel like with the amount of money you've spent to go get power from Los Feliz Boulevard, you could have become completely off-grid.

I know it's hard though, because it's like some— it's not as reliable. There's a million reasons, but it like also very hard to get that from the city too. You have to get all these permits to have solar. And I mean, I think so that— well, I think so because Bill Mara's famously complaining about that nonstop. Yes. So anyway, listen, um, that's what's happening. I've ripped up the entire street. It's also scary, I could fall in. Yeah. Anyway, okay, I have a question.

Oh great, guess what? I love answering questions.

Now this is a dirty question. Oh, those are my favorite kind. Now, when you hear the word cookie in regards to something sexual— someone's pussy— okay, that's what, that's what you hear, right? Yeah, that's what I hear people say.

I've never referred to a vagina as a cookie. I don't like it personally, but I've heard people say their cookie.

Okay. Yeah, because I was, I was with Jess, obviously. For sure. I mean, obviously the story includes him because he's— he thought a cookie was a boob. Oh, he's—

and then he kept saying— he's showing his gayness.

And he said the chips are the areola—

is there— well, that would mean the areola.

It's how many areolas.

Yeah. Also, the only cookie that would make sense is, you know, those shortbread cookies with the Hershey Kiss? Yes, 100%. That would work if that was the only kind of cookie.

I think that's the one he is thinking of in this scenario.

Okay, because chocolate chips, like, what, the areola is so fragmented everywhere? Yes, splashed.

Um, and I said, I said, no, my God, no, it's, it's, I, it's a vagina. Yeah, yeah. And then I was like, wait, it— then I started to get in my head, is it? And because he felt pretty strongly that it was a boob, and he kept saying, no, it's a boob. And why wouldn't them be called cookies? Listen, I, I know. Yeah, yeah, I, I gave a lot of reasons why there's no way it was, but then I got in my head, and then when we looked it up, there really wasn't like that much— yeah, corroboration on either one. And then someone said butt.

Okay, well, someone might call their butt their cookie. Yeah, they might. But like, that's kind of cute. Like, if you're into butt stuff and you're like, show me your— she was— he was in my That's kind of— it's a cute way to— I mean, it definitely, it's destigmatizing. I know, but it's too cute.

Cookie boy. Cookie boys are into anal.

That's a lot of boys.

I think a lot of boys are cookie boys. Anyway, I, I agree that I thought it was, um, a vagina. Yeah. Uh, and I'm glad to hear that was your first thought too. Rob? Yeah, yeah. Oh, he has a question mark.

Rob has this— he's such a patented— yeah, yeah. It's very, it's very specific. Like, I could be blindfold— like, they do this thing to the Formula 1 drivers, it's so impressive. They play audio of just engine noise of the car and they say, what track are you at? And they can tell within like 12 seconds. Oh, turn 6 going into turn 8 at Silverstone.

It's like a song. Yes, yes.

And when I could hear a symphony of noise, and if I heard that, yeah, I would say that's Rob's maybe. Yeah, 100%.

That's Rob kind of wanting to agree but not knowing that if he agrees—

the people pleaser in him.

Yeah, yeah. So what did you think it was? Maybe a boob?

No, I mean, it's a thing you eat. Well, obviously. Why? We took it in a real sexy direction. He's such a rascal. I guess it could be either one then.

Your pants on back there?

I just don't normally associate it with vagina.

Yeah, okay, well, right, it's not my go-to when I hear cookie.

Would you be more inclined to say it was a butt?

No, I mean, I, I would say vagina if it's what body part— if those are the—

if, if you had to pick one. ABC. Yeah, multiple choice. Anyway, okay, well, weigh in, listeners, if you want. Um, if anyone has ever thought it was a it's a boob, stop. Just stop. Yeah, yeah, don't do that. Don't do that.

You think it's a boob? Stop thinking it's a boob.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

Also, okay, wait, speaking of— God, I hate to do this to her because it's just so— she's so sweet and nice. Okay, but this is for Jimmy and Molly. Oh, okay. Yeah, and we could have been a little cleaner. Well, no, I mean, she said in their meet-cute story, which was so cute, you know, in the writer's room they had just— they were going around and saying their 5 favorite foods, and one of hers was chocolate chip cookie. Mine too, by the way. Yeah, um, the actual food. Yeah, right.

Yeah, um, chocolate cookie, does that mean brown girl vagina?

I mean, it does. Chocolate chip. Chocolate chip.

I know I left chip out because then— and there's no such thing as chocolate cookie.

Oreo cookies are chocolate cookies, but then they just have white on the inside.

Okay, let's move on. Let's, let's move on out of respect for the Kimmels. Okay, well Well, listen, has Oreo ever made a pink filling cookie? They have a bazillion flavors. Back to Kroger. This is why one of my great joys is when summertime is Oreo time for us. It's Dairy Queen and Oreo time. And basically each night is either like, are we doing Oreos or are we doing Dairy Queen? Um, so I was— I found myself at Kroger's loading up on Oreos, and by God, are there a lot of flavors now.

I know, I used to be very partial to the spring one. It was before they had all these different kinds. It was like one of their first, and it was like kind of like bluish green, like kind of like a minty color.

Like a refreshing cookie.

Yeah, but it's so tasty.

It was like before you kiss somebody, quickly have one of these cookies.

It wasn't mint flavor, it was just mint color. Oh, okay. Anyway, yeah, they probably do for Valentine's Day. They probably have pink inside.

Oh, oh, see, strawberry Oreos, brown, chocolate, pink. Cookie. Brown girl fucking looks great.

It's a little— yeah, I would love that. Doesn't sponsor us after this, I don't know what they're doing.

I doubt they need to, like, right? Well, it's like the Savannah Bananas. I learned this weekend that they, they've never spent a dollar on marketing. I know, they don't need to. They don't. They put on such a good show that they don't need any marketing.

And their, um, waitlist is 5 years. Yeah, it's crazy.

5 million tickets on the waitlist.

So cool. But I wanted to ask you what your 5—

what your 5 foods are.

Okay, and I'll just caveat, I can't eat these foods, but these are my 5. Okay, the Tropicalia chicken with the super garlicky chimichurri. That meal with the, with the, with the also the farofa, the, the ground Brazilian flour thing, right? It's like a little bit of crunchy. I called it the churri, the slurry, or the, uh, yeah, the slurry. It's gone now, that place is closed. It's gone, and I, I couldn't eat it anymore the last few years it was there of the garlic sitch. Um, then I would probably have to say, um, my spaghetti. I know that's arrogant, but my own spaghetti. Um, macaroni and cheese, Kraft, 2 packets of cheese. Yep. Um, my mom's meatballs that she makes for me for my birthday. Yeah, yeah. And then maybe, maybe Shit on a Shingle slash Dozy Joe's slash Hanky pankies. Wow. Okay, they get called different names all over the place, but right, half spicy Jimmy Dean sausage, half ground beef, high-fat everything, whole block of Velveeta cheese mixed all together, garlic salt on the little tiny rye hors d'oeuvres breads. Yeah, put in the oven.

Yikes. So good. You're 5, go. Wow, you really rattled them. Like, she rattled them. I'm I'm not that good at that. You're not there. Okay. I don't think I'm there.

Okay. Could you put a couple on the list?

I mean, hers were kind of like good 'cause they were not specific. It wasn't like this burger from this restaurant 'cause that really requires a lot from me. So I have to, you know? Yeah. So I think I'll do more her style, which would be like a bolognese. Okay. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

A— Pizza?

No, probably if I had to choose, like, I'm going Bolognese bean and cheese burrito, probably.

Are you fucking kidding me right now?

Get out of here. I love bean and cheese burritos. I'm— wow. Are you upset because you don't know me? Like, is that what you're like?

No, well, I'm about to make criticism that would also expose me as being a very big hypocrite. Because really, macaroni and cheese, what is it? It's noodles and cheese. But it's just like, bean and— what did you say?

Bean? So, I mean, come on, you know bean and cheese burritos.

They're good.

We used to get them, remember, from that place that also closed, I think. Remember, we used to order them a lot.

Oh yeah, it was like a, it was like a truck inside of a store on Sunset called like Cali Burritos or something.

It was so good. So good.

Not as good as California Baja— Baja California Tacos, though. My new—

do they have the bean and cheese burrito?

I haven't had it because they have hard shell tacos, right? Anytime there's hard shell tacos— so you're— you want to— I might— yeah, you need to replace— I might have to swap something out. See? Uh, yeah, see, it's hard.

But anyway, I'm going Bolognese bean and cheese burrito, white slice of bread.

I'm going banana, and I'm going white rice.

No, this is Okay, because hers were crab claws. Crab claws. I wrote— I wrote it down. What did she say? She said— yeah, it's a— okay, it's if you could only have 5 foods for the rest of your life.

I left off ribeye. Go ahead. See?

Okay, if you'd only have 5 foods for the rest of your life. So it's not just like your last meal, right?

It's you're on an island, you're gonna have these 5 items to choose from, you better love them.

Okay, hers was pizza, gnocchi, crab claws, BLT, chocolate chip cookies. Great list, I think. BLT is great.

Sandwich— when you get the perfect BLT.

I'm actually really proud of myself for putting bean and cheese burrito. I'm really proud of myself. Okay, listen. Okay, Bolognese. Yes. Bean and cheese burrito. I'm also going chocolate chip cookie. Okay, um, I'm going, um, soft, hot. Um, I'm going— you have 2 left.

Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger. What am I talking about?

Of course cheeseburger. Cheeseburger.

Oh, I love cheeseburgers. And by the way, I love so many of them. That's what, like, when I'm saying that's a little bit my issue with the bean and cheese burrito. It's like they, they can be fantastic. They can also be microwaved and taste like a Chew Soul. Oh, you've never had a bad one? Okay, that's like saying I've never had bad pizza. That makes sense. Yeah, it's like— but I can name like 65 places I like to eat the hamburger, you know, so dependable. Probably the most dependable offering out there.

Okay, well, that's 4, and I, I reserve the right to add the 5th later on.

Okay, great. Yeah, sleep on it.

But wow, you really went fast and you messed up. So just—

haste makes waste. Now, if I stand by the first 5 though.

Well, you only have 5. I know. Okay, well, if I was like—

even when we said cheeseburger, I can't then think of one of the 5 I mentioned that I'm gonna replace. Really? I'm not gonna remember my spaghetti. Yeah, I'm not getting rid of Hanky Panky Shit on a Shingle, Do-si-dos. Okay, I'm not getting macaroni and cheese, Kraft macaroni and cheese.

I'm never getting rid of— you're not— these aren't necessary. Pizza, I'm never getting I don't think you said— I did. Oh, you did? Okay. I hope I— that's number one. No, you said— you said your mom's meatballs.

Yeah, mom's spaghetti. Throwing up mom's spaghetti.

Said mom's meatballs, your bolognese, macaroni and cheese, like chicken garlic chicken thing.

Oh, from Tropicali. But I said I can't eat it. Yeah, but I just said I would have. It was number one though.

It was number one.

Oh, this was if I can't eat it. Yeah, yeah. And the macaroni. What am I— I'm all scrambled. Okay, you've made mistakes.

I've made a mess. I need you to just think about it because, you know, maybe for your birthday somebody can make all your items. Yeah, because there's no one's gonna have meet cute with you since you're already married, so it has to be for your birthday.

Yeah, and then I'm just asking my wife to make me these 5 elaborate meals. We can all do it. Oh, everyone in the pod? Yeah, bring a— that would be great. If I ever get a terminal diagnosis, I will do that.

Hot. Um, speaking of— hold on, it's too good of a ding ding ding. Okay, okay, I have to put a pin, earmark. Um, the other— one of the other facts is, does holding a sneeze cause death of brain cells?

Is that what Molly thought might happen?

Yes. Okay. Um, it doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't. No, that's— but what does happen is it traps high-pressure air inside your body. It increases your airway pressure up to 24 times normal levels, which can damage your ears, blood vessels, or throat.

Yeah, everything in the the system. Um, are any of the facts that you get to that you just look at and you go, yeah, no, like you don't even look it up? Like for that one, I would just gone, oh, it doesn't damage your brain, let's next one.

No, I, I have integrity, my God, because I don't think I know everything.

What if someone says water boils at 208?

Well, I'd be like, what if in some circumstances it does? I'm gonna look.

Well, at certain elevations that could be okay. Sorry, what if someone says, uh, water on Earth boils at 100°F? You go, nope, nope, don't need to look that up.

Be like, what?

But you just go, no, you just check.

Oh wow, okay.

That's why, that's why I'm good at this. Yeah, yeah, because I'm a know-it-all. I do think I could be wrong about anything.

Yeah, any of us could, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Not for me when water boils or freezes. Like, there's some There's some—

like, I guess if someone said this isn't blue, well, that's very subjective.

There's no such thing as blue.

Oh, let's not do that.

But there isn't. There's just— that's how our three cones combine those wavelengths, so it's not objectively blue. But anyways, okay, what was your earmark? Uh, Savannah bananas. Okay. Yeah, I want to tell you this story because it was such a wonderful time, and it's gonna involve a brag, but I hope you'll be happy for me. Okay, so, okay, so we go to the Savannah Bananas game in Denver, Colorado, and we bring Erica and Ace and Wilder, our friends, some friends, and the two little boys play baseball. Yes. Not only do the two little boys play baseball, one of the little boys also is the most incredible street dancer you've ever seen, right? His, his whole life is baseball and, and hip-hop dancing. Yeah, and he's incredible. He is, and he will not dance for any of us. We just get to see the clips occasionally on Instagram. So we all have to go to the, uh, uh, Colorado Rockies, uh, arena, a stadium, so that, uh, Kristen can learn the song and the dance routine and the whole nine yards. So we've got a couple of hours hanging on the baseball field. It's so neat.

It is, it's so neat. It's such a special feeling to be able to— because you've just looked at it your whole life, so anytime you get to be out there on it, yeah, it just always feels neat. Yeah. I'm playing catch with the girls, my daughters, and Ace and Wildern having a good time. And then a guy comes up, one of the players, and he's got this sweet mustache and a mullet. He looks just like Dana McBride in— Oh, amazing. Yes, he looks awesome. Yeah. I immediately like him as he's walking up and he's smiling really big and he's just like, man, I grew up on Without a Paddle and Zathura. And he just starts— That's awesome. Employee of the Month's my favorite. And he starts doing lines to me and I'm like, oh, this is so lovely.

Yeah. Right?

And then another, and then another guy comes up, and another guy. And Monica, if I didn't have video evidence of this, I wouldn't expect you to believe me, but for the full 2 hours we were there while she was rehearsing, I had an enormous group of these young dudes around me that wanted to meet me. Okay, and they all had their favorite lines and stuff from things I did. It's been a very long time since something like this happened. It was so funny that like, oh, everyone on Kristen's team, like hair and makeup, and, and then on— everyone was like, what's happening with Dax? The whole stadium's over in the— they were filming it. Lincoln was laughing so hard. She's like, what's— why is Dad so popular here right now? It was such a— I got celebrated in a way I never have, and it was so fun. I loved every one of these guys. They were so fun to talk to. It was a sweet, sweet 2 hours.

Now, did you plug this show? Did you say, you know, you guys, if you love me—

I'll tell you one thing that was quite special. So of the 40+ dudes that came up and I talked with and took pictures with and the whole nine, only one guy came up. He was taller than me. Oh, he came up to me and he said, I just want you to know I've been an arm cherry for 6 years. And all the other guys, I shook their hands and stuff. I immediately grabbed this boy and I hugged him for so long, and it was such a connected, beautiful hug. And then when I let go, he goes, oh man, I really needed that. Thank you. I was like, yeah, that's a fucking arm cherry right there.

Listen, how old is he? I think he was 30.

And was he cute? Extremely. I also think he— most of those guys were married. Most of the guys I was meeting were. I'd say the majority of them all had wives, and the majority of them had all gotten married around 23. I kept asking like what age they—

so how much longer do you think he'll be married? Like a year or two?

This guy Monica would be such a catch for you. Ah, DM bro who I hug, he's so handsome and tall. Oh my God, um, if you hear this, please on this episode comment it was me so that I can follow you and figure all this out. He is such a fucking babe.

But do they travel like non-stop?

Yeah, but it would be great for you. Yes, yes, yes. I think they play 60 games a year. Wow. I think they travel from like February, March all the way to October.

Okay.

And so again, it was like, it was fun because I'm, I'm getting to have like, I'm like, God, you guys are like, you know, you're two-thirds of the way through, you've been on the road for a long— you're like, you're in the hotels, and they're like, how's that going? It was very like, oh, it was so— it was such a blast.

That's so fun.

And then of course, watching Kristen do that thing, so fun, was— she's done a lot of impressive things over the years, but this one, and just showing up and, and in a pretty quick time learning that whole thing and all the choreography and the and do the fucking— and I had the Dirty Dancing moment. You saw it, right, where they hoisted her up in the air? I think it's among the most impressive little sequences she's ever had. That's great. And so we were just— we were in the suite that they let us be in, and we're cheering like fucking crazy. And I just— it ends, and it's so impressive. And I said to the girls, like, can you fucking believe that woman's mom, in which they never— you know, no one's impressed with their mom.

Your mom's your mom. Your mom's your dad. Your mom's your dad.

Your dad's your mom. And they both were like, no. Like, they really had a little moment, and it was so sweet.

That's very sweet. It was lovely. Now, another thing that's impressive— karate. You said, what do they have in karate? Their own mat? They don't really have their own mat.

I asked if in karate they have their own mat.

Yeah, it was part of a bigger thing. Um, Molly said so. It was a joke about karate. Okay. And then owning her own karate studio. And then you said, yeah, you just get it because you want your own mat or whatever they have in karate. Oh, okay.

Um, and they don't think I was all over the map in this episode.

Well, they, they don't have their own mats, but they, they use specialized training surfaces called tatami mats or interlocking foam tiles, typically 1-inch thick rather than personal individual mats. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, they're gonna fall and they need a lot of space for that. Oh, one thing I wanted to bring up— I'm reading a book, I have an advanced copy. Oh, fun. Yeah, um, of a book called Switzey. It's by Emma Cline, who wrote The Girls and I think The Guest. Uh, very popular author, and this new book coming has a lot of like buzz around it. I'm about 100 pages in, it's very good, but I have to keep putting it down because the protagonist— I feel fine saying this, um— has dementia. Okay. And you're in his brain. Oh wow. And it is intense, but it's also very— it's like very funny, like it's written with humor, but it sometimes I'm like, oh Oh my God, yeah, it's scary. Using your— losing your faculties. I know. And it— in the book, at one point he goes and takes this cognitive test as part of a physical, and they ask him to remember these 3 words, and like they write them out, and then he can't remember them, basically.

Yeah. And basic— like, since I read that, every 20 minutes I'm trying to remember those words, uh, that you read in the book. Yes.

Now it's become a test for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it's rose apple chair, rose chair apple. I'm pretty sure. Okay. Um, but, uh, it's now like I'm getting kind of OCD about it. OCDP? No. OCD? No. I don't know. I'm getting weird about it.

No, it kind of is OCD because again, OCD is you think you have or are something that is not in alignment with your moral and you're— yeah, so you, you don't have dementia. That's just a fact. We're in a freaking, uh, uh, Alzheimer's study and we know for sure you didn't take the last coffee. Yeah, yeah. So you don't have dementia, but yeah, you think you do. I think that's just hypochondria.

I don't— I do. Okay, hold. I don't think I do. Oh, okay. You just want to make sure you don't. Yes, exactly. I'm just fearful of it. I'm not— I don't— I'm not walking around thinking I have it. I just am like, oh my God, like, that's scary. And I gotta keep— if I don't remember it, what does that mean?

Yeah. Can I say one thing to end the saying? Oh yeah, Savannah Bananas thing. What I'm saying is thank you, guys. That was so sweet. It made me so happy. The boys. Yeah, yeah. I just want to say thank you. Yeah. Um, okay, so back to—

well, did it make you miss being like in, in things?

No, it just at times I'm like, was I in things, right? You know, did anyone see those? Were they for anything? I grew up in an era where you repeated all the lines from Fletch and the lines from all these movies. That was the culture. And then all the lines from Wedding Crashers and all the lines from the Will Ferrell movies. And it's just like, I did this for a long time, and I don't feel like I really had that thing. And then I had a little experience with it, so it just felt like, oh, it did happen. It was one of those, yeah, that really happened. And people really saw that stuff and they liked it and they remembered stuff from it, and it was sweet. That's great. So they gave me a very nice gift. Good. Back to the cognitive thing. Yeah, that's the scariest thing. And as you remember, like, I have never cried from an injury. Like, when I went over the handlebars of the motorcycle, it's like, Nearly every bone above my hips was broken, and I don't care. But the moment in my loop from the concussion when I recognized that I had been on a 3-minute loop for hours— yeah— was the scariest I've ever been on planet Earth.

I know, I know.

I had just enough cognition to go, holy fuck, the rest of my life might be in a 3-minute loop. Yeah, I can't do anything.

It's so bad. And it is— it's so hard to see people you love have dementia. Like, my grandfather had it and he was so brilliant. And then to see, like, someone's brain who worked overtime, like, worked at a capacity none of the rest of us did, to, like, can't get to, like, peeing on, on the floor.

I'm gonna be honest with you. So I know someone who seems to have a little bit of light it, you a little light, light version. Like, I'm just noticing some stuff, right? And it so goes against my stupid stereotype that I shouldn't have. And it's kind of what you're saying about your grandfather. It's like, I thought if you used your brain really intensely, which this person did for sure, yeah, that would safeguard you from that. And I'm seeing that it hasn't. And it— and I hate it.

Yeah, I don't I don't like it. They do say that like crosswords help.

They do say dry brine chicken helps.

They do say cooking and repeating the things you've made.

And the 3 words from the book you read.

Yeah, rose, chair, apple. It's wild to think like, and it's just gratitude like every day that your brain is working, that your body is working. Um, it's, it's, it can, can go quite quickly.

Yeah. Um, so, you know, I'm such a David Sedaris fan that like I couldn't wait to watch our own episode with him. Like, I just wanted to stare at his face a little bit. Yeah. And we got into that. We had had that whole section about him getting his haircut, and I asked him on the road, you know, these barber— you know, how do you choose a barber? And then come to find out he doesn't care at all who cuts his hair. He made that very clear. And I never mentioned in that episode that I cut hair. Oh yeah. So you know that I'm gonna be assisting him at his book reading, um, the next time he's here in Pasadena. And I text him yesterday and said, would you like a haircut before the show? And he said, I would love one. So now I'm gonna cut his hair before the show. And then be his assistant.

Whoa, hold on, my brain is exploding because do you— don't even know, I'm sure you don't remember that that's a crazy ding ding ding Sim. We talk about you cutting hair in this episode with Jimmy and Molly. Oh, we do?

But I just need to tell you, I cannot wait to cut his hair. Are you gonna practice beforehand?

I don't need to practice. I mean, he's your hero.

It's like, no, I cut my own hair is way harder to cut my own hair and it's long and there's layers. We're so different, me and you. We are. Yeah, that's kind of what makes the show. That's all it shows. No, I can't wait. It's a very intimate thing to cut someone's hair. I know. It's like a very nice— they're trusting you. You have sharp scissors. Yes. It's, it's a lovely thing to share with somebody. I can see why hairstylists like being hairstylists. It's an intimate activity. And the person sits there like, they sit real still, and then, you know, you're playing with their hair. You have full control. Yeah. And just, yeah, they're trusting you quite a bit. And they sit like they're behaving, right? They sit real still and you're like, you're, you're just combing their hair and grabbing it. I don't know, it's— I'm so, I'm so excited to be able to play with David's hair and cut it.

Now this brings me to something, because you, you saying it's intimate, which you're right, I've never thought about that, but it is.

I think that's why people tell their barber so much stuff, is it's like already a forced intimate situation. Totally.

But also, you know, you reiterated in this episode, but you've said it many times, you'll only cut someone's hair once.

I'll cut his as many times as— No. Well, Monica, I'd cut my kids' hair as much as they wanted to. Kristen's hair, Aaron's hair, your hair. Oh, there's exceptions?

Yeah. Oh, I didn't know.

Okay, okay, okay. This is more like, I know people, they find out— like, again, that whole scenario is people finding out I cut hair, or me wanting to show them I know how, right? You guys already all know that. There's nothing about that. Okay, that makes me feel a little bit like when I cut your hair, you already know I can cut hair. Yeah, I do.

But okay, but what I was— the point I was trying to make is you only do it once, and then maybe that's kind of like when you used to have sex with people, one-night stands, and I just wanted to impress them and get their approval.

Yeah, for sure. That's what I'm owning up up to in that— in the conversation with Molly and Jimmy. Like, I know this is a gross part of me, but I'm, I'm trying to be open and honest about it. It's vomitus, but it's better. I want them to be impressed with me. Yeah. And then once I have that, I don't want— there's nothing in it for me again. No.

Well, unless I want to be intimate with them. To look at it, that's a— that's one bad thing to say about it, but it could also be that you're afraid that if you do it again, the thing they thought was so great will— won't be as great.

That's not my fear. Oh man, I was trying to give you an out. Thank you. My fear at that point is like, I don't have space for clients. Oh, I don't.

I can't have like 7 people sex with and then bye-bye-bye.

Because I was telling you that it got worn out with all my friends in my 20s when I I was broke. And what got weird is like, I cut Tim's hair. Every haircut Tim Lovestead had for 10 years, I gave him. I cut Scotty's hair. These guys didn't go to a barber for years. And then all of a sudden I had like money and I was busy, and of course they still wanted me to cut their hair, and I still did. But I was also like, I gotta be careful how many more clients I pick up. I don't have time to cut everyone's hair. People need their hair cut all the time, Monica, especially if short hair.

Well, that— yeah, I, I don't know about that.

Yeah, you wouldn't know about that. You can probably do it once every 6 months.

I do like twice a year. Yeah.

Wow. Okay, this was fun. This was great.

Yeah, I love you.

I love you.