Transcript of Mom's Car: Erick Richardson

Hello, and welcome to Mom's Car. Today, Aaron and I have our mutual friend Eric Richardson on. Eric and I met maybe 12 years ago, and I hated him at first, and then I fell deeply in love with him because he might be the most honest man in America. He's funny and so sweet, and so generous, and so kind, and absolutely crazy. Please enjoy Mom's Car. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like you know, to check your phones in your pocket before leaving the house. Checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Savings vary subject to terms, conditions, and availability, Allstate, North America, insurance, co-and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. Except. That's a big one.

Two more money and we made all the week.

Are you on a roll, Eric, right now in the stock market?

Well, the stock market's down a lot the last few days, so I don't know if I'm on a roll.

Okay, let's do a quick intro of Eric Richardson. Anyone who listens to Armchair hears Eric talked about, bro, would you agree, probably you're the most talked about non-employee of the show?

Yeah, I guess we talk about a lot of stuff.

Yes, you come up nonstop. You are an ex-lawyer with maybe the most improbable route to being a partner in the law firm. It's one of my favorite stories, really. Here we are. We're right here. What's the name? Oh, Sure. Hollywood wraps and Grill. So just so you know, protocols, Aaron runs in. And gets it. And I deliver the food. So we split the duties evenly. You were unlikely to go to law school, yeah.

No, I was unlikely to go to law school because I graduated 646. I had 648 at Westlink High School at the bottom of my class. I was the third worst.

Oh, no.

I had a D minus average. Oh, my God.

They let you graduate with that?

I think they wanted to make people graduate. I mean, you really only need a D in a class.

What were you telling yourself while you were getting those grades? Like, well, fuck it. I don't care because you had a moving business. You just think you were going to cobble together a living?

I thought it was going to be an entrepreneur or something. And then I realized reality at some point. Well, in high school, I think I'm I'm fucked. It doesn't really matter if you've got a C average or a D average or a B average.

Right. You're either doing good or who cares. Yeah, or who gives your shit. How long out of high school before you decided to go to college?

I went right after. I guess I figured out I didn't have anything else to do. And then I was getting bad grades my first semester in junior college. That's when I got stuck at them on that catamaran. Oh, right.

Which you told on on.

I'm sharing on share anonymous. Yeah. I was out there and I was talking to God, and I said, If you let me out of this, I will do something with my life if I can get saved.

So then when you returned to shore, what did that mean? Actually studying really hard?

Yeah, I just started applying myself and started studying because I was like, I've been a piece of shit my whole life.

Did you have a story that you couldn't do good in school? And then all of a sudden, you just started saying you could do good in school. Did you have a story of why you didn't do good in school? Or was it just that you didn't care?

That's a good question. I don't know. I think I like being the class clown and getting dead baby pigs and throwing them over the quad and being that guy. Right. But yes, I just started applying myself.

Then you go from junior college to what college?

Then I went to USC.

That feels hard at a junior college. You must have had a really good grade point.

Well, that's what you did.

Yeah. I would say it without batting myself on the back. I do think it's hard.

I got into UCLA, too, but my dad-Oh, you did?

. Oh, my God, Eric, you kept that in your vest.

But I was doing business, and my dad was going to pay for it.

And it's a million times cheaper than USC.

Yeah, but he said, You got to go there for the business connections.

The networking. But that's true.

It did end up being true because after I went to law school, I didn't have good grades in law school, but I went to an interview at a law firm in Westwood, and the partner there at the time was like, Well, you don't have great grades. You just worked at this small plaintiff's law firm for a couple of years. But you went to USC, so I'm the big Trojan, so I'm going to give you a shot. Wow. So that didn't make a big difference.

This was the guy you ended up buying the firm off? Yeah. Oh, that makes a little more sense. I don't think I knew the USC part.

Yeah.

So then you bought this guy out of his firm eventually, right? He wanted to retire.

Well, unfortunately, he got cancer and died two years after I started.

And it was really-And he was a sweetheart, right? He was like a mentor? Yeah.

He had four kids. He was probably 46 or something. He was young.

Can you imagine giving someone... What were you, 24 when you came out of law school? Giving some kid who was shit great.

So I know.

A chance. Very sweet. Then he became rich. How long did it A couple of years.

It was funny because nobody else at that law firm wanted to buy the firm from him.

How many attorneys were there?

There was six or seven, I think, at the time. And he taught me a way to make money as an attorney. Not a lot of people did, but he would take stock in companies.

As part of his compensation.

So I kept doing that. And then we ended up growing it to, I don't know, 30 attorneys.

30 attorneys. It's hard to imagine you managing 30 employees.

Yeah, I was definitely not a good manager. I had a partner named Niemish who managed the day-to-day stuff. As you know, I still had a drug problem at the time.

Right. What's the time frame from starting there until you're taking a million dollar honeymoon with Molly?

Very quickly, right? Yeah, it was four or five years.

Four or five years? And how steady was it? What were you making first year?

When I first got hired, he paid me 60 grand a year.

Okay, so year one, 60 grand.

Then it probably We're learning his lawyer history.

I hope you read on camera how improbable this story is. It's like when you hear a story about Aaron and I and you're like, Wait, are you guys bad people?

Yeah. I don't see how you made it out of Detroit.

Okay, so 60 grand the first year.

I kept doubling probably for a couple of years.

Okay, so 120, then 240 by year three.

Then by year five, I was making a lot. Millions? Yeah.

Like five million a year?

In a good year.

I'm going to reverse engineering because Because I know the stories from this era and how you were living, buying a Ford GT, buying a Ferrari, running from the police, lawyers, three-month honeymoon. You have to have a lot of money to do that.

I think what we did is we got lucky on a couple... That was before 2008. It was like 2005, 2006, 2007. The stock market was cranking, and we represented a lot of small companies, and we take stock in them. And some of them just did really well in that time period.

Do you remember your biggest payout?

No, I'd be guessing.

Are you embarrassed to say it or because you know numbers. This is a good story. It's a loser with a D minus grade point average graduating who figured it out. This is like as good as it gets. This is like a Manhattan in the 1930s story. Yeah, don't be embarrassed.

Is You're just becoming an attorney, though. It's not like I became a movie star.

Surgeon.

It's not like I started one of the biggest podcasts in the world.

Come on now.

Being a thug from Detroit.

No, I think it's more impressive what you did. You're not going to tell me how much money you made.

Millions of dollars a year.

And easy come, easy go, right? You really had no problem just spending the shit out of it. Or did you? Wrestle with, I should be saving, or did it just seem endless? I've got a formula, and this is going to work forever.

It did seem a little bit because I was I was young still. I was in my early 30s or not even 30. It seemed like it was an early 30s.

Imagine early 30s, whatever number you want to tell us.

It's big.

It's a big number. And being a drug addict?

Yeah, that's where it got bad.

You would have just been able to buy drugs without giving a flying fuck. It would be immaterial what any of the drugs cost.

Yeah, I was too scared to buy them directly from anybody, though. So I had one of the attorneys who worked for me.

You had a lot of intermediaries.

Intermediaries, like three intermediaries.

A dream. Out of laziness or fear of going to jail?

Fear of talking to a drug dealer. Because you get this barred for that, probably.

Okay.

Yeah, fear of losing what you just got yourself into.

Fear of guns. I did get my felony invading arrest during that time. So that's interesting, Eric, because I'll speak for me, but I'm pretty certain it's the same for Aaron. The danger of it was part of the fuel for it, because I think both of us were endlessly trying to prove we were fearless, so you'd be afraid of us and not hurt us. And the notion of just walking into a neighborhood in downtown Detroit and finding crack and finding a pipe, and the whole nine It was weirdly part of the narrative we were crafting that we were like, fearless. It was sexy. I don't know. Did you feel that way?

I liked it as much as the-The drugs?

Yeah. Because it's scary. Everyone's got a gun that you're talking to. They're all young dudes. You got to be a little cocky. You can't go down there and be terrified, or they'll just take your money. So this whole bravado you got to have, but not too much where they then just kick your heads or kill because you deserve it. Joking with them right away was part of the appeal for me.

I loved having a bag of Coke in my pocket and being at a business meeting with a bunch of lawyers. When I was young like that, it seemed funny. It doesn't really seem funny anymore now that I got family and whatnot, but it seemed so ridiculous that I had this whole dark side.

Yeah, because you're always telling a story about yourself in your head, right? You're like, Oh, yeah, they don't know. I'm a bad boy. I might be an attorney. I'm crazy.

I'm crazy.

I'm crazy as I ship my pants once a week in meetings.

I have my 30 pair of underwear in my cabinet that my secretary would buy me monthly.

Yeah, and you were really good at surrounding yourself with moms, right? A lot of moms that worked for you. Even if they were or weren't real moms. They were very nurturing. Everyone wants to nurture you. I want to nurture you. You definitely have that attractive quality where you want to take care of Eric and nurture him.

Thank you. I guess that's probably why He married me, too.

You notice a trend with Dax and his friends? This guy's been nurturing me for a fucking long time, man.

I guess there's no wonder I wanted kids. I was trying to have them since twelve years old. When I met you, you'd already sold the firm?

Yeah. In 2008, with the great financial crisis, it became less lucrative to be an attorney. And that's when I got a really bad drug problem, is because then I was financially stressed out. For like, 2008, 2009, 2010. My second time in rehab was about 2012, I think.

Oh, wow. It's been 13 years now since we've been?

Yeah.

Oh, my God. So you sold it because you were like, I can't be sober and have this. You fucking hated it?

Yeah, I hated it. First of all, it was all hourly, and I'm just not a good manager of people. You got to be a dick to be a good manager. I'm just not very good at telling people what to do. I brought in a lot of clients, so you have to have a good personality and you have to be on. And so the way I would get on was, finally, I would figure out if I snorted a bunch of Ritalin, I would have a lot of energy and be able to talk intensely.

I want to be on the other side of that business meeting. Have you ever thought about going public? We're going to be public in nine days. Yes, I'll take 12% equity, but you will be flying.

Yeah, I was that type of attorney. One of my ways of getting clients is I would, twice a year, I would send a letter to every public company in the United States. So I'd send like, I don't know, 6,000 letters out. Oh, my goodness. And I'd say, I'm your attorney. These are the rates.

I'm your attorney.

You need to change your offer.

The clock has started.

I'll take stock. So I did have that high energy.

And of this 6,000 submissions, what was the conversion rate?

If I got six clients or five clients, it would be great. But that's great.

Yeah, no, it was great. Yeah, boy, you really did do the work.

At least when I was doing it, there's no securities firm who would lower themselves to such a degree to send out letters to CEOs to give them his clients.

But you were laughing all the way to a three-month honeymoon.

I mean, even my partner, Niemish, at the time, he's like, You sure you want to do this?

Felt desperate and slow-read.

Yeah, the more clients we get, the better.

Don't take offense to this. You would have been an incredible personal injuries attorney, but you landed in securities.

Right, which everybody's super conservative. So I was the guy who's like, I'm just going to go over the top. And then I annoy a lot of people, but a lot of people love me.

Did you take the three-month honeymoon when you were still part of the firm? Yeah. So your partner was like, Okay, cool.

Maybe they were happy to get rid of me. But you do something like that, I think if you plan it way ahead, I'm going to be gone for three months. So let's figure this out. And I probably didn't take a sour or something. I probably made it fair. Okay.

Now, the other fascinating thing about you that I always tell people, and in fact, if I'm telling a story about you and I'm not seeing that they're registering Eric, I always go, My friend went to Tortises. And they go, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't ever make it through a description of you without explaining how you came to own 11 giant Tortises. It's only six now. We're down to six. But it started at 11, right?

I think it started at 10. And four of them have passed.

Their fight is over. Their fight is over. Their Bel Air fight is over. Just tell everyone why you got those tortuses.

We had moved into our house and we had some area at the bottom of the hill, and a tortoise guy somehow got in contact with I don't even remember how I found them.

You were using drugs.

I was using drugs, and that's why I ended up with 10 of them, because I wouldn't have done that. Nor would I have landscaped my entire backyard, an acre of it, and put it in trees in a little vineyard.

This to describe your property. If someone blindfolded you and took you to this property and took the blindfold out and just said, Guess whose house this is? You go, Walt Disney's? It feels like you've made Epcot or something.

That's how I tried to do it where it was like different areas had different feelings. There's that rainforest area, and there's the avocado area.

Just like this.

Sure, yeah. Walking from zone to zone.

So this guy comes over to the house and he's like, Hey, man, I got these tortues. They're rare.

They're rearing to go. They're rearing to go.

I thought you were going to say that.

They're ready for ownership.

They can't wait. They were endangered, I think. I'm like, Well, these are cool. I don't know. They were about as big as your hand, maybe a little bit bigger than your hand. And he said, If you take 10 of them, I'll give them to you for 1,200 bucks each. And he wanted 2,000 each or something. And then he said, And if you buy them when they start having babies, I'll pay you $1,000 for each baby. And so I'm thinking, Well, I can maybe have a tortoise farm and have these tortresses and then sell the babies.

Now, can I ask a dumb question? Weren't all 10 of these from the same litter?

I don't think so.

He mixed in match. Because how are they going to breed if they're all siblings?

Right. I think they were... I don't know. We I didn't get into that. The guy was trying to scan.

That nitty-gritty of it all.

I think I just got excited about the idea of a tortoise farm. So I bought them.

And they lay a lot of eggs, right? Each turtle could be dumping 10 eggs at a grand a pop.

Yeah, I think they might only have four eggs each.

A lifetime.

The problem is, the major problem became, and I only learned this after I bought the tortises, but they don't start breeding until they're 30 years old. So that became a problem.

Yeah, that's a lot of maintenance waiting around. How many years ago did you buy these? Some of them are 300 pounds.

More than 300. I remember you had 350 for the bigger ones. Bought them in 2008.

They're 17 years old?

17 years old. They're not old enough to have babies yet. A little.

Oh, my God. Thirteen years, and you'll be fucking rolling in that. You can keep them alive. At this rate, you'll probably be down there a couple.

But I definitely have several hundred thousand dollars in these organs.

Their food is 1,500 dollars a month. And you bought them because you had read that sailors used to stop by the Galapagos and put them in the boat so that they would have a thousand pounds of fresh meat in case they were shipwrecked?

Right. They're not Galapagos tortises, though, because those are actually illegal to own. They're called Aldobra tortises, and those are from the Seychelles. But it's the same thing as the Seychelles are a group of islands that the sailors would go to and take these tortises. You can't really bring a cow on a boat, so you would bring and you'd have fresh meat.

You can bring a cow, and then you'd have to bring another boat of hay behind it. Right. Then you'd be like, bails of hay. A little tiny boat.

It's not the weight so much. It's the area the hay takes up.

I love that your guys' humor. It's always like, somehow you guys think of the most ridiculous thing possible, and then you picture it in your head, and it's really fun.

Well, I think that's our gift, is we're picturing the same thing miraculously. I think that's like what, 35 years together. This morning, we were eating breakfast. We have long had a product. We've told you about it. We want to have a product called Bob's Paper towel. And it's way thicker and stronger than normal paper towel. And it's mostly for workmen to keep in their truck in case they have to pee. You can just pee into the paper towel. It's super absorbent. This started when we would wrap Dax's trash can in Big Brown.

We're driving. We're like, If you only could wrap the trash can to pee in there, so you didn't have to pee in a bottle, you could just pee right into the trash can. Then we thought, Bob's paper towel would absorb that. It always would be real dehydrated. So the pee would stink. It would be real gold.

Like yellow motor oil coming out. 156. Is this me? Not yet. Bob's Paper towel evolved into Bob Roberts' Paper towel today. Bill Roberts. Bill Roberts. Sorry. Bill Roberts' Paper towel. And then we were saying he stands by the product so much. He puts his home address on every roll of Bill Roberts' paper towel. And then we said, If I'm not available, please call my wife Linda. And then it became Bill and Linda, Robert It's extra thick paper towel with their home address and their phone number. Both of their phone numbers?

And why does it have their phone numbers on it?

In case you have any questions about the product. They're so confident in the product. Yeah, they stand by it.

It's like, if you have any problem, here's our address and phone number.

Here's our address and phone number. They know damn well, sure no one's going to call or stop by because the product's so fucking robust.

No one's going to get a tear through that paper towel.

And we were picturing the commercial as a man standing in front of the toilet, but for some reason he'd prefer to pee in Phil and Linda's Robert's back to the paper towel. And then about six men in a urinal all peeing in paper towel.

We figured by the end, you don't even need a sink in your house or plumbing at all, really. Because you're being in there, you're cleaning your plates off.

If you have a half a carap of coffee that's leftover, just pour it on the Bob's paper towel and put it in the trash. Eventually, you can remove your sink and have more space for Bill and Lindsay.

We have more counter space for paper towel storage.

Anyways, we were laughing so hard inside this restaurant. There's only one other woman inside. And she was young, and I think I'm judgmental of young people sometimes. It looked like she was emo and was upset just to be alive. And then I thought, she must be so annoyed with us laughing. And we were leaning, and she said, Oh, my God, you two, thank you for all that laughter.

She said, I needed that this morning.

Yeah. And I go, Oh, my God, our wives feel much differently. It's so nice to hear that you liked us losing our shit in an empty restaurant. Bill and Linda Roberts.

I'd love to know if she made any sense out of what we're talking about.

By the way, guys, this delivery was a fucking blessing. We've been in the car for a half hour.

Yeah. So do we know if that number, that $16, is with Tiff or without tip? Or have you figured that out yet?

It's with tip.

It's with tip. That's with tip?

Yeah. I can't even explain that. We might have to talk to ChatGPT.

We're in Sunland. This is where I get my car's work done.

I mean, this is only 20 minutes, right? That's a step.

Yeah, it's pretty great.

Bill and Linda Roberts. Paper towel. Extra thick paper towel. Extra absorbent paper towel.

For urinating and everything.

You had Mike's Hard Coffee where you had to buy a barrel of it? Yes.

It was You have to own a truck to buy Mike's coffee.

They don't want you to borrow a truck. If you have to borrow a truck, you really shouldn't be drinking Mike's coffee.

You have to own a truck and have two friends.

You get a 12% discount if it's a work truck. And the coffee's not good, but it works the same as good coffee. It's the flow of it.

It doesn't taste great.

No, but the caffeine is there. It'll get you. Because we were saying we hate having to go get coffee. Running out of coffee is what this product really addresses. It's the last coffee you'll ever buy.

So you got to store it outside, of course, because it's a 50-gallant drive.

It's a barrel of coffee.

You got to make sure it's covered well during weather.

Over the years, there's going to be rust.

Then you got to climb in there after it's halfway done.

We make no guarantee. No. Everything is sold as is.

Yeah, you're on your own.

Mike's coffee.

When you leave, You got to bring your own toaster or your own tie down.

At your own tarp.

By the way, we keep forgetting to do it, but we can put on there that I pick up liquor.

That's what we really want to do. Because we want to show up to a party, a bunch of people waiting for all that booze, and then they're, of course, going to meet you at the door, unlike most people who just say, Leave at door.

No, they have to. Liquor has to because you have the idea.

Well, someone in this business had a hankering for something all the way out in Los Feliz.

Yeah, and they paid tough dollars for a fucking sandwich.

Meet at the door.

Nobody gave a shit.

It wasn't like a famous restaurant? You're like, Oh, my God, I got to get-No, yeah. Terry's the-It looks like they just opened. Maybe it's his brother.

So much shit going on there.

Tattoo on his neck, huh?

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, you You went right for it.

That's going big.

You went big or went home. Yeah, I got it.

I don't know. I don't know. This is a fluid here. Okay. I'm sorry. Are we guys in the middle of something?

No, we're talking about your neck tattoo. And he said, Oh, it's real big.

Is it? What I'm bummed.

I said you went big.

You went big, sorry.

Yeah, I mean, that's aggressive.

I feel like it should be bigger. I can't see it. I guess I think it's perfect. It's plenty big. It's a perfect. It's a perfect.

There's something about neck tattoos where... Don't change a thing. I don't know, subconsciously, you go, That guy could kill you. Obviously, you're very nice. But if I, like a random person-Well, then when you ask them what it means, then you're like, Oh, this guy's cool. Yeah, yeah, yes.

January second, Capricorn. That's wimpy.

Definitely cool.

Yeah. You believe in astrology? No. Only so far as it makes me the same as my friend. I just like to see in Capricorn, actually. You can keep the rest of the word.

At that point, it's like a Disney tattoo.

Yeah, in Escalation, I'm sure, neck is still before face. When you meet someone with face tattoos, it's hard not to think like, this person has nothing to lose. They've decided, I don't need to get hired. I got a whole another story going on. Even I get a little scared. But I do think these younger kids, you've got like Post Malone. That guy seems super sweet.

He's the sweetest, right?

And then Teddy Swims. He's got all the face tattoos, and he's a sweet boy.

I mean, I'm from West LA, so I never knew anybody with tattoos before I met you guys.

None of your friends in high school have tattoos?

None. And none of my friends I can think of in West LA have a tattoo. Really? Wow.

Because I also feel like it's something that 45-year-old dads are like, I always wanted one, and my son was going to get one, so we decided to get these matching Tasmanian devils.

Always with the Tasmanian devil. Everyone with the Taz.

Can we do a moral dumb founding question with Eric? That feels fun because Eric has very... Well, fuck, I almost feel like Eric should make one up, but maybe you'll think of one because your pastime in social settings is to ask really hard questions. You even ruined a double date once.

Yes, with the, Which kid would you pick to die? Question. Everybody has an answer, but most people won't answer them.

I know you say that everyone has an answer, but I don't know that I do.

Well, I think what it does, and the question is, if you were in a creek, a dam broke, and both your kids were there, and you can only save one.

It's a tough one to answer.

If answered, best to do privately.

Everybody has one in their head, but that's why it's fun to ask it at dinner party.

Well, you asked it, and it caused an actual fight between the man and wife, right? You regreted that a little bit?

Yeah, my wife wasn't too happy.

Okay, this one's fun. What I perceive as fun.

This one's a good time.

Cannibalism consent. A man One volunteers to have a part of his body, his foot, amputated and then eaten by a willing participant. Both parties consent, and no one is harmed beyond what they agreed to. Is this morally wrong?

Do you guys remember that 15 years ago when the Internet was still semi-new, where this woman, her fantasy was to be raped and killed by a man. And then the man, six states over, they were communicating and they worked out this agreement, and then he was in route to it. Somehow he got arrested. Oh, wow. But people were like, what's the rules there?

Because there was consent.

The person wants to be murdered.

Raped and murdered? Yeah.

I don't think you can rape and murder somebody.

No, I mean, even with consent.

That doesn't fall into the assisted suicide.

Right? I mean, what's the line?

Assistant suicide is still murder, right, in California?

Is it still? I know Oregon, it's not. Everyone's been loosening their laws on that.

Why did the person want their foot eaten? Just because? Just because.

He likes the idea of someone eating his foot.

Yeah, they both like the idea. One guy wants to eat a foot and the other guy wants to chop his foot off and let the guy eat it.

Also, it doesn't say the gender of the eater, but we are all-Of course, we are, right? Because men are sick.

There's something really wrong with us.

Yeah, I picture two men right away. Two disgusting men.

One who gets off on having his foot eaten and the other guy.

The thought of eating someone's foot.

It's just all bone. It's insane. Yeah, you couldn't pick a fucking-If that question said, Slice off a piece of your ass cheek? Yeah.

A foot, though.

Bony foot.

Oh, God. In a man's foot? Jesus.

Jesus Christ. That man's yellow, calloused, gross toenails. A little barbecue sauce. You'd have to smoke it for sure to get that meat. What little meat's on there tenderized. Stay tuned for more Mom's Car. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. It reminds me of all those times when checking first really pays off, like that time I didn't check the weather before planning a backyard barbecue. Rooky mistake. Or how about when you're about to head out on a road trip and you know to check your tire pressure first? It's those little check first moments that save us from bigger headaches later. I mean, think about it. You always check if you have your wallet before sitting down at a restaurant, right? Or make sure you've got your keys before closing the front door? These are just smart moves we all make. Checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Savings vary subject to terms, conditions, and availability, Allstate North American Insurance Co and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. Get almost anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.

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That makes me think of another similar moral question is, could Bill Gates have a game show where he gave people $20 million to cut off their hand? And everybody was consenting and their whole life was changed from cutting off the hand? It would make a good show.

I don't know about a good show, but people would watch the show. It make a hit show, but I don't know if it's a good show.

I guess I was thinking, is that illegal? Nobody else is cutting off the hand. The guy who's getting paid is cutting off his own hand, and he's just getting paid for that.

I would love to watch that show.

Well, there's two questions, right? I guess there's a legal question. Could you structure that arrangement in a way that's legal? There's a moral question. I'd say that, morally, it's wrong to want to see someone cut off their hand or foot and suffer because you have the means to make that attempting situation. That feels morally repugnant to me. To desire that, no?

It does, but I'm sure there's some showrunner who would make the show if they can make money. And like Aaron said, people would watch it.

So when we prepped Cars together, which we did for 14 years, and I'm talking thousands and thousands thousands of cars. On every car show for the Longlead show, we would ship 120 cars to Wisconsin, and we would prep all 120 every night, and we would towel off all 120 every morning for 12 days straight. So just even in that week, we would prep 1,300 cars. Wow. Sixteen hours a day, you're fucking prepping cars. We're all teenagers or young 20s, and you're bored out of your mind. And we just play endless scenario games like this. And one was how much to punch in the face. Right. As hard as you could. Yeah, okay. It's mostly all guys that we worked with. We're going through everyone's answer. My cousin was really cheap. I was like, Oh. It was a little bit telling, I think, of how you felt about your mom.

You could share the money with your mom afterwards.

Well, okay. So initially, I had said-This is when you guys didn't have money?

We were broke.

We were working 100 hours a week to make $1,000 a week. Right, right, right. And initially, I was like, I couldn't punch my mom in the face as hard as I could for any amount of money. I just couldn't do it, even if I intellectually wanted to.

She would be mad at you because of that.

That's what I figured out later is at some point, if I told my mom, Hey, you're going to be proud of me. I turned down $10 million to punch you in the face. She might go, Well, fuck. I would way rather get punched in the face-Working my ass off. Than work for the next 20 years to make that amount of money. She might be mad at me. Yeah. So then it became another layer was like, Do they know why you're doing it? Are they in on it?

How does that change everything? You had to keep it a secret.

At least all the way through the punching and then the ride to the hospital.

It's a secret. It's a secret.

Good news when she makes a lot of us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good news, Mom, you're rich.

Now, that's a show.

Yeah. And we played these games. Every single scenario you could think of. There's an older guy we worked with. His hygiene was really rough. I was like, How much to eat his ass?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll ask my kids.

How much to kiss him?

Yeah, make out with him. You just discover really funny things. Straight guys might prefer to blow him than to make out with him. All right? Some counterintuitive things would pop up. Who?

Your dad?

Oh, no, but that came. That always came in that point, too. Right, right, right, right, right, of course. No, just this guy we worked with who had bad hygiene. Oh, got it.

It was way older than us. Oh, yes. So you'd rather... Okay.

It was like, how much to get butt-fucked by him? How much to butt-fuck him? How much to blow him? How much to make out with him? And sometimes you're like, wait a minute. It caused you way more to make out with him than to butt-fuck him? That's weird. Let's think about that. Okay, so I'll go first with this foot thing. This isn't very hard for me. This is fine. Same. I don't care if someone wants to cut their foot off and then another guy wants to eat it.

But you wouldn't be okay with that if the guy was getting paid to get his foot cut off?

Because I think you're exploiting someone in a vulnerable situation. I think anytime you're leveraging money over someone who's very desperate, morally, that's wrong. There's no disenfranchized person in the story. Let's say it's a well to do, man, he's not going to make any money off of getting his foot cut off.

He just likes the thought of somebody eating.

He loves that idea. And then the guy who wants to eat the foot, he's not financially compromised at all either.

Yeah, I guess it's morally okay.

Because if When you take your thing about Bill Gates, it's an easy argument for you to persuade yourself because you're saying $20 million, and that's very life-changing, right? But then take that to what was happening in real life on YouTube, which is offering two bums $20 to fight each other and get hurt. It's gruesome and terrible, and whatever asshole gave them $20 is a piece of shit.

I guess I was thinking from the legality of it and the fact that it could be a successful show, but morely, they would be bad.

A successful show. I'm not a first to foremost.

You should be a TV executive.

That should be your third career. Another question I'll ask parents who have a newly born baby. It's a black and white question where some parents say, Oh, absolutely. And some are like, Why would you even ask that question? But with the new baby in their arms, I asked, Would you cut off their little toe for $10 million right now? Would you just take it off with some pro-nutures or a knife? And you have to do it yourself. Most people will do it for $10 million. Really? I would say 60% of the people will do it for $10 million. And then 40% of the people think it's a horrible, horrible question.

I would absolutely say no, but I think I would have said yes at some point in my life, right.

Maybe 100 million is a better question, a better number, because then they're set forever. They don't need to worry about money.

Well, you have to ask yourself, when this kid turns 18 and I tell them, Hey, guess what? I had an opportunity to cut off your pinky toe, and you'd have $100 right now. Aren't you glad I didn't cut off your pinky toe? And if they go, why would you do that? I guess that's what you're trying to imagine, that they would be grateful you made that decision for them. But what if they were Mark Zuckerberg and he's sitting around and he's like, Oh, my God, my fucking parents cut my toe off. I have $180 billion. I didn't even need that money. I could make my own money. And they thought I was going to be such a loser. They cut my toe off.

When you have a toe cut off, you're going to adapt, but you're going to not be able to fucking do things. I mean, that's what That's a tough fucking question.

I wonder if you'd be better off losing a pinky than a pinky toe.

You could pick. I would love to not have a toe for $100 million.

You'd be delighted to go get this. Or even right now, what would you sell a toe for right now?

Oh, I'd sell a toe. I mean, the market's been horrible the last month.

Very unstable. We don't know what's happening with the tariffs.

With these tariffs and stuff. I would cut off my little toe for 10 million.

Okay. I'd cut mine off for a million.

I'd probably give it for five.

I don't think you really need your little toe. I immediately have no fun to play this game with anymore. No, I don't even ask you these questions. You hate me now.

Yeah, well, I don't hate you, but it does-I understand your frustration.

But for me, it's like an emotional growth thing. It's like, well, how much money do I need? Why would I not do anything I don't want to do for more money?

I think where you can also get with the baby one is that we all know people who have a lot of money and they're unhappy. So you may well be making your kid miserable by giving them $100 million, $50 million, whatever it is.

Yes. Because you almost can't have them growing up knowing they have $100 million or they want to try to do anything. For much of their life, they would just want to know why they don't have a toe. And you'd probably have to say you have a birth effect. And they're like, That's a very clean birth effect. You can see where the toe used to be. And then at some age, you go, Good news, you have a million dollars, and then just keep dolling it out, keep surprising them. And then on their 30th, where they, Actually, you have $10 million.

Yeah, you'd have to give them most of it later in life, I guess. But then they might be mad the way that you decided to split it up. What if the trauma of you cutting the toe off with a knife or whatever? What if they become a drug addict and then you convince yourself that it was because of the trauma that-Yeah, you're the kid without a toe.

Everyone knows you don't have a toe.

You subconsciously might remember the panic of having your toe cut off.

Actually, I take that back. I would not take a million for my toe right now. My My one big pleasure in life is playing Bingo ball lately.

Oh, come on. You can play.

I'm sure I could learn, but I'm 50. I got to adapt to not having a toe now.

It's a miracle that I'm actually exercising.

You might be better off with your fourth toe cut off, right? Instead of your pinky toe for balance.

That is the sad part about money, and we all grew up fucking craving money like crazy, is I think a lot of people, sadly, are in a position that they would sell their legs. And then you think, Oh, I'm going to have money and I'll be happy. But then you realize like, Oh, no, no. The only thing that makes you happy is plain pickleball. It doesn't really matter how much money you have. It's still the only activity that gives you any joy, and you got rid of it for money.

Yeah, I was thinking for a billion dollars, would I make it so I just didn't taste anything? For the rest of my life?

Can you get a toe so much back?

It seems like I would, but then I'm like, Well, then you wouldn't have any- Buy a toe for that money?

Yeah. Someone else's leg.

The story keeps going.

The only ones that are available is a small Asian woman's legs. You got to explain that every time you're on vacation. But you're right. What's the point of having money if you go on vacation? The only thing you and I do on vacation is talk about what we're going to have for lunch.

Yeah, and drink Diet Coke because it tastes good.

Oh, yeah. Can you imagine not give me no fuck that it was Diet Coke? You just start drinking Diet Pepsi all the time. Yeah. Like, I have a Diet Coke. Oh, we only have Diet Pepsi. It doesn't matter to me. I don't even want to be alive if I don't care which one I'm getting. Let's do a reader one.

Okay. I couldn't even wait to tell Dax this morning. I couldn't stop thinking about it. This is from a listener, Jelis. Hi, Dax and Aaron. One of many hilarious struggles I have faced as a mother. My 16-year-old son, who has a moderate intellectual disability, has decided that toilet paper just isn't cutting it anymore. Instead, he's embraced a towel-only routine for his bathroom needs. Here's the kicker. After his unconventional wiping method, he meticulously hangs up the towel back on the rack as if nothing unusual happened. The first wake-up call came when I reached for a towel to dry my face and was greeted by an unmistakable surprise.

Imagine my shock when I realized our towels were now an unwitting canvas for his new system.

The struggle has turned our home into a blend of frustration and unexpected comedy. But don't worry, we have managed to save one towel and have it hidden away for guests when they visit. Help. Sincerely.

That's it. We're going to have a solution.

She signs it. Sincerely, just a mom trying to avoid pink eye.

Jelise. You know what I like about it immediately is people are so delicate around situations. But when you have a kid who's moderately mentally impaired, You got no choice but you just think it's funny. That's what I like about it. You imagine this life where you're dealing with this thing, and then you be sad all the time and feel bad. Life boogie's on, and you're like, Oh, fucking Mike, guess what his new thing is? He's wiping his hands with the towels.

I think maybe this is how our Bill and Linda Roberts paper towel story started back up this morning. Because we were talking about this. What he really needs is Bill and Linda Roberts. Okay, we got one here.

From a place we eat at all the time. I know. For the win.

Are we going to answer the question?

We are.

He's going to grab the food and then we'll debate it. We'll debate a solution.

Because I got an answer.

Oh, great.

She needs a lot of help. If you do have three phones going at the same time, you'd accept one while you're driving. You might be able to get it down pretty well.

I think that's why sometimes it's really late. They're juggling like six or seven hours. Okay, so the sun is wiping with towels. Yeah. Okay, Eric, you said you already have an answer.

I think it's That's probably okay, but you just have to have some rules around it where you can only use this towel on the rack in the bathroom, so it's not all the towels.

You just always have a shitty towel hanging in there.

You just always have a shit towel there. Look how close this was. Oh, my God.

This is about as embarrassing as I've done it when I order from five guys at Ryan's house, which is directly across the street. And I'm expecting the delivery guy to go, You lazy motherfucker. God, are you fucking lazy?

This was like 1,200 feet. Truly?

Yeah. Less than a quarter of a mile.

He's shooting you some messages there, too.

Oh, he's already got some messages.

He's got a gate code, it looked like.

Okay.

Oh, my gosh. This guy must be important.

Apartment number, gate code. Okay, great.

I would say, Eric, this is the hardest part of the job is once you get on the scene trying to find their fucking apartment. Okay, hold the conversation for me. Yes, okay.

Maybe he parked in front of their garage door.

In there? In that garage door. Okay. What? Okay, let me just drop this off. I'll be right back.

Let me go deliver this first.

The bastard. That ended up taking a minute.

Did you guys already solve it? No. Okay, you paused it. I'm reading a lot between the lines, but it sounds a bit like he's very specific. Like he wants to use every towel. Right. You know what I'm saying? I'm trying to read between the lines of what parameters could you put that are going to work with his disposition. Could you say that's your shit towel?

And it's only one toilet.

I was more thinking start real small. Well, first of all, I think you guys got to roll with whatever's happening with this kid, right? Right. I don't know if you're going to win.

People used to watch Diapers. I mean, this is similar.

I'm guessing if she used the one on her face, I'm guessing there's one bathroom.

True. And it's hand towels. She wouldn't have used a full body towel to wipe her face off after she washed her face, right? My thought was, would it be okay for her to say to him, carry on, keep wiping, enjoy? You got to leave him on the ground. Or a little hamper for his poop towel. Like a poop towel hamper. Which makes sense.

Yeah. And those can go in a separate wash than the regular clothes.

So you weren't washing them together. Well, that's an interesting thought. Do you think they need to be washed separately? I mean, I guess- Does poop have to I think, okay, I'm going to tell you, our dog, Dan, was throwing up.

So we're cleaning up his throwup, and she goes, Just put that in the utility sink next to the washer because I already have poop underwear and poop everything, soaking in there. And I was like, Eew.

What happened, honey?

I think people soak the poop.

Okay. No, you didn't soak the poop.

No, this happened because there was a little kid.

Let's just be a bit She had a showered herself in poop. This is from a visiting child, right?

But you don't let it soak first? You don't put a bunch of poop in the washer?

In the YTS. In with the YTS. I guess I'm fine with that.

We all poop in our I have pants all the time.

Well, occasionally. That's what I'm saying. When I have an accident, I clean my underpanties out. First in the toilet. I dip them in and out of the toilet. You throw them right away. That's probably most sanitary. Do you ever do that? You wash them in the toilet. And the toilet Not when it's dirty. You flush the toilet, clean water, swish-swish, and then into the sink, maybe. Then I do a little sink, then in the hamper, and then I'm not too worried.

Yeah, I've only done the sink.

That's good. Toilet water, why not? Yeah, why not? I'm already dealing with poopy underwear.

I buy new underwear anyway, so all my underwear is 10 years old, so it's a good excuse to throw the underwear away.

That's interesting because you buy a lot of clothes.

I don't. I still got that pangaea stuff we bought during COVID. A lot of my clothes. I buy a lot of shoes.

I guess maybe that's what I'm thinking of, is you buy a lot of shoes. I guess that's true for myself as well.

Yeah, I need some clothes. I've been riding the same clothes for a minute.

I had to have a talk with myself last year where I was like, You have some responsibility to have new You're on TV. You can't just quit. Because that's what I wanted to do. It's just like, Yeah, wear whatever I bought for the rest of my life until it wears out. I just look at Kristen, I'm like, Look how much effort she puts into it. It just felt lazy that I'm in the public eye and I'm making no effort to have good style.

Well, you got the shirt Brad Pitt gave you. Is that this one?

Yeah, it's actually this exactly. And you got a couple of those now. You bought me one for my birthday, which was so generous.

I mean, those are nice.

Incredibly nice. I like them. What keeps me from buying clothes is I'm intimidated that I I don't know what I like. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, Oh, I want to get new stuff, but I'm not sure what I like. Then I just have some brands that I trust, and then I just buy whatever they sell.

Actually, Kristen has picked out a lot of my clothes because I'm like, Well, if she says it is good, then it's good.

Yes, she's a very good barometer. Fashion person. Fashion person.

Or Monica does, too.

Ruth has picked up. I mean, I only have a couple of pairs of pants, but she wants to always buy me more, and I say, No, I have two. Why would I need three?

Now, here's what I don't understand about you. Why don't you wear Levi's? Or do you? Because you have the legs and ass for Levi's. I have been singularly working out for six years on my legs and ass in hopes I could wear Levi's and they look good. I'm just finally there because nothing's cooler than Levi's. Why?

Because it fills out.

Yeah, I guess I need Levi's. I think these are-I mean, these look great.

I've not thought your pants aren't good.

She told me now, these are too big. I can't have skin tight.

No. Also, I think the trend went the other way. I think my pants are too tight now. Everyone's wearing enormous pants. This is what's so crazy is when Aaron and I were in high school, we wore size 53-inch pants. We would go to Meyers and get these cheap blue jeans, cut the bottoms off, and you had a big belt, and you wore 53-inch pants with three XLs champion sweatshirts, and I loved it, and I felt great in it. So comfortable. When this style came back, I was imagining myself in it, and I'm like, I don't have the confidence. It looks insane. I can't do it. It's just weird that I was able to do it, and now I'm not. Now everyone, now Monica is funk rock.

Can we just post pictures of ourselves?

Put our old face on top of it.

What do you mean 53 pants? 53-inch weight.

Why does this car?

They wouldn't stay on your belt.

No, you just belt them up.

You crunch them, fold them over and belt them.

That's all we wore from senior year to probably 20 years old. These shoes we called hobos, you got at Myers as well.

They were like a couple of dollars.

Yeah, eight bucks for a pair of shoes. I remember when I got to California, that was still my style.

People were like, Bro.

What's going on here?

That's what all the teenagers, like Lily's friends, the boys have. Their butt crack hangs out.

Yeah. I should be like, oh, great. It's back. I should have embraced it. I'm slow. I was two years late on wearing skinny jeans, and then I wore them years longer than I should have. But the reason I'm pitching Levi's is once you commit to Levi's, it's over. This style has been cool since the '50s.

501?

Yeah, that's what I have. Buttonfly. I'll tell you the ones I get. Okay. I would love a new pair of Levi's. Your haunches might be a little too big, and they're super reasonably priced, and you can't destroy them. They're actually the best shoes. Sure. This episode was brought to you by Levi's Ross and Company.

Do you know the thing about why it's buttons and rivets?

No. Do you know this, Eric? I feel like you would know this.

Something to do with mining?

Yeah. They wanted miners to be able to repair the pants while they were out in the field. They were out mining with no women anywhere near, and they all had rivet guns. So they could repair the pants with rivets. Themselves? Yeah.

Are those 501 jeans?

They are, yeah. And I can't get out of them. I'm day 11 in these. Eric, I love you. Thanks for joining us. I love you guys.

Thanks for having me.

I could have did this all day.

Oh, my God. I know. I wish this was a two banger. We could have done this forever. Well, maybe you'll come on again. Yeah. You'll be popular demand, I'm sure.

Dex told me when I got sober, when I was trying to figure it out and be at home, when I stopped coming to LA as often, he's like, You have to find your Eric. He's like, It's a necessity. You have to find your Eric in Detroit.

I think it's just baggage from being a kid in a class. Even though in AA, I got to take it seriously, I still need to be in the back of the classroom a little bit. I need one person I could be like, oh.

Yeah, you could talk about everything.

All right. Love you.

Love you, guys.