Transcript of Walton Goggins

Wndri Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcast, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Leslie Stahl.

Oh my gosh.

She comes up occasionally. Back in the old days, she would pop up a lot.

That is high praise.

Very high praise. I love Leslie Stahl.

Yeah, she's great.

She He's a firecracker. Okay, long time coming. Number one current obsession as an actor, gone on three years now, probably, Walton Goggins. Walton Goggins, Gogel Glasses, Uncle Baby Billy's Bible Bunkers. This guy's an alliteration wet dream. Yes. I love Walton Goggins.

I mean, he's an incredible actor, but he was also a beautiful person.

Such an interesting, colorful person. There should be a award for just best across the board actor. It's not on a single project, and it's best dramatic, best comedy, whatever. There's just best actor, and I think Walton would be the shoe in.

I agree.

Because there's nobody doing comedy better, and there's nobody doing drama better. That's right. Fall Out, Justified, Righteous Gemstones, Vice Principles, The Hateful 8. He stole The Hateful 8, which is hard to do. That's a hell of a cast. Season 3 of The White Lotus. It wasn't enough he was in my favorite comedy the Righteous Gemstones, or that he was in my favorite action show, The Fallout. Now he had to join my favorite dramedy, White Lotus.

He hits all the genres. What a dick.

Also, Walton Goggins, Gogel Glasses. Learn more at goggensgoggels. Com.

You'll hear us in the goggles at the top of the show.

Yeah, we'll be fully, if you're watching, we're adorned in the Goggens' Gogle Glasses. Yeah, we are. Okay, now, this is a big merch update.

Yes, huge update.

So we were unable to do our own Our merch. We have to do our merch through Amazon Wundry. We have asked them if we can just do it while we're getting that sorted. We have a one-month window where we've got a bunch of really cool, well-thought-out merch. You can go to www. Armcherexpertpod. Com. Bunch of cool designs. A lot of things that were on the limited edition sweatshirts are not making their way to T-shirts.

With some additional designs and some sweats. It's a really cool little collection. Yes.

And this is not calculated into a pressure cooker, but it will be about a month long that we're allowed to do this.

I mean, there's a chance we might be able to continue. We don't know yet. We don't know. Just letting you guys know it's up.

We know we have the month, so order now There'll be a delay because we have to make it all and ship it. So if you need it overnight, that's probably not going to happen. It's a presale. It's a presale. But go there and order all the stuff you want, and then it'll get to you at some time. Go to www. Arbiturial. Com. Get your merch. Get your merch. Please enjoy Walton Daugans. Coggle glasses. I'm Efa Hersch. I'm Peter Frankerpern. And in our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, Chingis Khan, best known for his brutal campaigns. He was accused of causing millions of deaths, but he also gave his followers religious freedom and education. So is there more to his story than violence and bloodshed? I suspect that there might be, Peter. And since violence and bloodshed is basically all I ever learned about Genghis Khan growing up, I'm actually really curious to find out what lies behind the legend. I can promise you are in for a treat because the Mongols were capable of exceptional acts of brutality. But all the stuff in the positive column either is never talked about or gets brushed to one side.

So I'm really grateful to have the chance to speak up for Mongol history.

Follow Legacy Now wherever you get your podcasts.

Or binge entire season's early and ad free on on WNDYRI+. I'm Raza Djafri, and in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Vitault Pilecki, the spy who infiltrated Auschwitz. Resistance fighter, Vitault Poletsky has heard dark rumors about an internment camp on his home soil of Poland. Hoping to expose its cruelty to the world, he leaves his family behind and deliberately gets himself imprisoned. The camp is called Auschwitz. A hellish place where the unimaginable becomes routine. Poletsky is determined he needs to organize the prisoners, build a resistance, and get the truth out. Except when the world hears about the horrors of the camp, nobody comes to the rescue. In the end, it's just him alone, with only one decision to make, accept death or escape. Follow the Spy Who on the WNDYRI app or wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who Infiltrated Auschwitz early and ad-free with WNDYRI Plus. Hey, wait a minute. Is there a guest? Go ahead.

I think we have the star of the show. I'm just a guest star.

Monty, you want to slide yours? Sure. I put them there for you.

Yes, I would.

I figured we could start in them. Oh, my. He brought you specifically blue. Honey, sit on the couch for half a second. You're not even mic, but pop your- Can you push this product? This bitch can move product.

Pickleball, skydiving, wear it on the boat, scuba diving.

You ever cut onions in these bad boys?

Oh, I've cut onions in them.

Oh, I can't wait to cut onions in these.

Nothing is no penetration. That will be very Yeah, they're comfortable.

This feels like we're having an interview on a chairlift on the way up the mountain. It does. Which happens. You're sitting on that chairlift for minutes and minutes, and you have them talking about some stuff.

I feel like this is such a good product for you. You know how sometimes people have brands I feel like I don't get the A to B? This is an A.

Why does Tom Cruise have lawn care equipment?

Exactly.

It makes me sense.

But this is perfect.

But does he have lawn- No. But does he? Does he? Well, buy it?

Top Gun mower.

Say the name out loud. Walton Goggins' Gogel glasses.

I mean, that's as close as you can get to Uncle Baby Billy's Bible Bunkers. Yeah.

There's some similarities there.

It's a bit of a nod, isn't it? Yeah, it's just a nod. It's so good.

Just a little thing. It worked out for Baby Billy, maybe it'll work out for me. I'm a good athlete. I'm not a great athlete at all. But really, the thing that I got out of playing sports more than anything else was I just love the equipment, man. I just love putting on the football pads. I love the gloves. I love pep rally. Let me ask, wearing them right now, do Do you think that you would go for a pickleball shot that you might otherwise not go for since you have a strap on your head? Hunter P.

I feel very cool in these.

Honey, if you walk straight out of here and get in my Z-Wagon and drive the stick shift like your Mario fucking Andretti because of those, I won't be shocked at all. I've never driven a stick.

That's right.

We live 15 minutes from a ski resort where we are now in the Hudson Valley. This isn't like Aspen, Colorado, but it's got a vibe. It's a super cool place. I dropped my kid off at school Like any good dad, I'll go skiing.

Like most American dads.

Yeah, like 10 runs, and then I'll have a beer. Oh, what a place. I'll sit outside and there's a fire pit out there, and then go home and take a nap and sober up everyone, I promise, and go pick I got my kid. But one particular day, I was sitting out and it's cold, and I got these goggles on, whatever the Oakley cool glasses are. Just sitting there having a beer. I said, I never want to take these glasses off. Sure. Where are we all when it comes to reading glasses? Do you need them? Do you not need them? And go. Year and a half ago, my eyes died.

I don't know what happened, but it was overnight. Now I'm at a one, I guess, is my prescription. I don't think they're very strong, but when my kids put them on, they make quite a bit of fun.

Will they get a headache? Instantly.

I do have to wear them a lot.

With my wife, who's older than I am, just a couple of years, baby, I'm so sorry.

Shout out and apologies.

I wasn't going to say two years and two days. November eighth, she's a Scorpio. I won't say the year, baby. You couldn't even see me wink, can you? Because you don't really know what's going on in my thoughts. But she said, It's coming for you. And I said, I don't think so. And then literally, she said, It'll happen overnight. And it did. And then the next night, you know.

Blind.

Laid down to read and blind.

Your representatives, your publicist, I bet in their best case scenario, they hoped we would talk about these glasses for 30 seconds. Yeah, I'm guessing that was about it. When they're most optimistic state, they're like, I pray they bring them up, and I hope they do 30 seconds on them. We've done legit a good 15.

We've done 15 minutes on It's time to talk about your life.

Don't get it. Come get out of your hair. You guys have fun.

It's so good to see you. I want to tell you, sincerely, 850 guests, she's asked to come meet, I think, four people, where she said, What time are you recording? I'm going to make sure I'm not doing anything. I must meet this person in your 104.

Well, we've worked together. We've worked together. Oupsy. Ready to go, Dax. Fucking not only did we work together. Sorry, baby. So sorry.

But Dax's point stands, people are in and out of this yard all the I'm people that I know, people that I don't know, people that I respect, people that I'm fans of. And I've come in to say hi to maybe four or five people, and you were definitely one of them because... How do you even say it? You're number one.

Yeah, I have the evidence. I have on this show numerous times said, You are my number one. You come up a lot.

I got to put these all before I get emotional.

They're great to mask public crying, too. We left that out. There isn't anyone I've ever seen that is apex drama and apex comedy the way you are. It seems impossible, to be honest. To go from Righteous to Fall Out in one year, it's staggering.

The fact that you were in that disgusting mask on Fall Out, and every woman in America was still like, I want that sexy radiation cowboy in my bedroom once a week. You got the rhythm. We love you. I'm glad I got to see you.

It's really interesting.

You don't really have the body of a beer drinker. When you said that, I was like, I don't He's one of these guys, though.

We're going to get into it. He's one of these charmed. Those are yours.

They're yours.

And yours look great as a hairband.

Yeah, I love it as a hairband. Very exciting.

Names, and then we'll just move on to something else. The white ones are Cumulonimbus, which is a cloud formation? Yes, they are. I think they're the coolest. It's like, fuck, he's rocking some white goggles glasses with a red, white, and blue band.

It's confidence.

It's very cool. Then we have a noir pair, a black pair called Mama's Skillet, named after my Mama's Skillet.

Okay, we're going to pin in Mama's Skillet.

These are tortuga. You got to have a tortuga shell, man.

What is the word tortuga? Where does it come from?

It means black and brown pattern.

Oh, okay. It's not like- No, it's a turtle. It's a type of turtle. It's a turtle.

I think it's in Spanish. It's a turtle, yeah. It's Spanish. Oh, in Spanish? Yes. Then we have limoncello, which is yellow. Then we have the color that you're wearing, which is, guess what? Blue.

Wow. Decided to go real for just one.

Just regular on blue.

That's so cool. Which is comical because if any color deserved an additive before it, it would be blue. There's so many kinds, but you're like, no, there's only one blue, and this is it.

You're thinking differently.

Oh, he just picked up some questions. Okay, here we go.

We're going to get serious now. Okay, let's get so serious. Yeah, you get it. I love you so much. I have been wanting this to happen for very long. I was working with Rob Cordry for a period, who I adore. Then I found out you guys are close and you would vacation together in Europe, which sounds exactly what I'd imagine you do.

Hey. Always.

So elegant. Maybe I want to jump to one thing to then come back to where you're from, because I was watching an interview with you and you were discussing having been offered Justified to be in the pilot. You were going to die in Justified, and that was going to be it. You read it and you turned it down twice for a very specific reason. I want you to tell me why, because I really liked it.

I'm a huge I'm a Delmore Leonard fan, for one thing, but I felt that it was so one-dimensional because I can afford not to do this anymore.

For much of your early career, all of us, we got to play what they offer us.

Absolutely. I mean, if you're Italian and you're from New York, chances are you're going You're going to shoot somebody. Yeah, absolutely. You're going to be eating some fucking pasta.

You're going to eat some pasta, you're going to dig a hole in the desert. Absolutely. You're going to smile while you're doing it.

But we all look for boxes to fit in when we're starting out. It just so happened to be at that point in my life that I'd gotten out of a number of those boxes. This was one box that I just felt like I can't perpetuate this stereotype and sell out my culture anymore. From an outsider's perspective, a lot of different cultures in America, they're reducible to one impersonation. It's like, okay, well, if I can speak a little like this, and I come down here, I'm from the south. What does that even fucking mean? I mean, the south represents a third of this country. Each region and each state and each part of every state is very unique. Like the state of New York. The state of New York isn't just New Yorkers. I live in the state of New York now.

Two dramatically different cultures, actually. You live in both. Dramatically, yeah. Manhattan and Hudson Valley. That's right.

But it just felt like I was at a place in my life where I just was unwilling to do that.

To participate in the perpetuation of this. Yeah.

I think everybody, at some point, whenever you can step out, you don't need the money. Morally, you just don't think that it's right, and you don't want to feel shame whenever you're visiting those places, that you're just another part of the problem. This is where the conversation ends, and I wanted it to be where the conversation began. On the third conversation we had, after I had turned it down twice, and I say that I'm not proud of it. There's no ego involved in that whatsoever because I'm such a huge fan of Tim Olafence and Michael Dinner, who was directing it and wrote a good bit of it by Graham Yost, who wrote the pilot. On the third time, I said, Okay, I'll do it. Two things. I'm the smartest person in the room, always. After I say this very long speech in the pilot-It was crazy racist rant. That's right. That you say this one line, which is, I know you don't believe half the things that you're saying. You just need an audience. I just a version of that line for him to see through that, which is true.

It's crazy having watched it not knowing that story and how important that weird detail was because it also built this rapport with you two, which makes it so much more compelling. You have a past, and that little line that you were wanting to not perpetuate ends up also being this other layer.

What also allows the audience to come into the experience. No one has tolerance for intolerance. Really, I don't. It just gave the audience the opportunity to to experience this person and really to go forward. I ask for those things not with a six-year contract. This was just the pilot and die. We'll do this thing and just give me that, and then I can sleep better at night.

You know, you're so fucking incredible. After they tested it, every single person is like, Well, no, he can't die.

Yeah, it just adds a third dimension to a person.

We had a guest that so beautifully articulated this. Do you know the author, Barbara King Solver, by chance? She wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book last year, Demon Copperhead. Oh, yeah. Okay. The most beautiful book. I read it. My whole family is from Kentucky. She said in that book, she was trying to explain how it feels to be in the South, especially in Appalachia. She described it as, We're in the bathroom stall in high school. We hear the popular kids making fun of us. We get these TV shows. We get these songs. We can hear you. It's so fucking offensive and hurtful, and you don't even care. I just had a whole renewed compassion for one of the great stereotypes that persist.

In some ways, I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this, but it's permissible in urban culture, certainly on both coasts.

It's low hanging fruit. It's always there.

You can always go to it and you can always get a laugh from your constituents, and they're a part of it. They're also in the audience.

It's hurtful. You were born in Birmingham, Alabama, but you grew up in Georgia, where Monica grew up as well.

I'm from Georgia. I know you're talking about Kentucky, but I'm from Georgia. A little peach. That's right. A little peach. Etl? Yeah, Duluth. Where in Georgia?

We lived in a fucking trailer in Birmingham, Alabama. First year of my life, my mom's sister's lived. It was like, I don't know, five or six people. My parents got divorced pretty early. What age? Three, maybe two and a half. But my earliest memories are with my mom in Decatur, Georgia, which is right downtown. It's very cool now. There's so many great places in Atlanta now. So many cities in America had this This whole new generation just come in and give me some third wave coffee and fucking some great sourdough bread. What's coming next? Mediterranean food. Fantastic.

But Lithia, do you know Lithia?

Lithia Springs. We moved out, which is West Side. My mom and I lived in in Decatur, three years. One of my earliest memories, I couldn't have been more than four. I have a lot of memories from that house that we lived in, this duplex. But one is one of the scariest memories of my childhood, of my life, really. My mom's bedroom was in the front, my bedroom was in the back. She She was a young woman. She was a beautiful woman. She had a super cool boyfriend, and I slept in my bed alone.

You were the only child at that point?

Only child. I went to sleep. My little twin bed was right up against the wall. My upper torso was next to the wall. From my knees down, it was in front of a window. Just as I was about to fall asleep, there was a light in the backyard, and I had whatever the fucking house came with, these shades that were pulled down, an opaque shade, so you could see through it. Just as I was falling asleep, I saw someone crawl in front of my window because it was a roof right outside of his two stories. I don't know if it was a man or a woman.

I have no idea. I think we can assume it's a man if I'm betting on this.

Or a woman escaping. It was a man.

He was on his knees and he was just sitting there perfectly outlined in my window, his whole body. I couldn't scream. Yeah. He had his hands on the window and he was trying to see if it would open. Then eventually, he just went past the window. As soon as he was out of sight, I got my voice back, and I started screaming.

Did mom's boyfriend run to the scene?

I don't know if he was there that night. That's the end of that memory. I remember my mom coming in or something, but it was terrifying. Then we moved out to Lithia Springs when I was five years old. We found an It was a 1950s farmhouse, and it was two bedrooms. You had to walk through my room to get to the bathroom, and it was fucking cold. In the winter, I was like, Well, I'm going to go to sleep with this glass of water on the edge of my bed, and I know I'm going to wake up and it's going to be frozen.

Yeah, Look, there's no more water in my glass, mama.

Get me out of here.

What the fuck is wrong with us? Were there stepdads in the mix?

I did not have a stepdad. My mom never got remarried, but she had some boyfriends, and I loved all of them. You did. Some of them were a little hard, and a couple of them were younger than they probably should have been.

Good for her. Yeah.

My mom's so fucking hot.

Oh, my God. We need a picture of your mom.

My mom's so fucking cool.

Yeah, who do you get your swagger from? Because I have been lucky enough to see photos of your dad, and Monica, I can't wait to describe his father to you, but you showed some pictures on Seth Meyers of him. He is a one of a fucking kind.

He texted me a photo yesterday. Dad, if you ever see this, I can't believe you made this fucking coffee mug. But it was a picture of me in these glasses as a part of the campaign, and he made himself a coffee mug. He's a narcissist, my dad. Yeah, yeah. Clinical. Sure. He knows it, don't your dad?

He's listening because you're talking about it.

But he literally sent me this thing. He said, Congratulations. He loves me, and I love him. It has this logo fucking all over the bottom of it. Then at the top that's facing out where people would be seeing it is a picture of me in these glasses, and underneath it in big letters, there is no him without me.

No, no, no. That's what it says on the mug.

On the fucking mug, man.

Yes, perfect. I could almost guess that caption. My father, and I wonder if you have this, as I got famous, he loved telling people. I wanted to take in how proud he was of me, and he was deeply proud of me. But I couldn't trust that it wasn't maybe more about him getting attention.

Of course, man. You're an extension of him.

Which makes more sense now that I have kids. You're right. There is a very tiny line between you. But can you relate to that?

I had a lifetime of that. We're not the only people that had this experience. My father was married six times, but one was annulled.

Okay, well, we'll still count it.

I'm going to count that.

A shotgun annulment. The running joke in my household was inevitably everybody has a bumper sticker that says, Honk if you've ever been married to Sandy Goggins. Fucking who hasn't he married? But my mom never remarried. She had some wonderful men come through. Then we had a cast of characters in my life. It was this way station for people. My mom was the most sane of her three sisters who were and are insane clinically, but it was really colorful, and I was raised by real steel magnolias.

You got to meet characters, it sounds like.

Not only I get to meet them, they fucking lived with us.

Yeah, they raised you. Upon reflection, though, are you grateful for it?

Oh, I'm so grateful for it. Whenever you would meet someone, even someone who was relatively authentic, even someone who was just a farmer across the street, Kermit and his wife. Everyone in my life was eccentric. I mean, except for the Hearst family. My neighbors, Holly and David, were my best friends, and Ken and Carol. Oh, perfect. My mom and dad, they actually They fed me regularly. They had a bed that I could always sleep in, and they would actually take me to practice, but they would also pick me up.

They were dependable.

Yeah, they were about as good as Americans can get. They were just wonderful people. But God, I'm glad that I wasn't raised solely by them. I just absolutely love lunatics. I love crazy people, but just enough crazy. I don't see enough people seeking out those conversations or taking the time with people like that. Am I wrong that?

You think people dismiss- I think that excentricity, if the conversation can't be had in about three minutes, if you're only checking one of the 10 boxes required for me to have a conversation, I'm not fucking having it.

Because people are busy and there's a phone. Do you think that's true or no?

Gosh, I think it's complicated because I also think because of social media, people also lean deeply into their excentricity, almost in an inauthentic way.

In a performative way.

It's performative. So The authenticity has gotten very complicated and public and confusing.

You are interfacing with people that have either real or faux excentricities, and you are engaging with them in that platform. I didn't even think about that.

Well, also, you can get that itch scratch, which is you can go watch someone that's batshit nuts on Instagram. Whereas when we were kids, Kristen don't hear me say this all the time. It's like, we're at an airport, and I just lock on to somebody, and I'll say out loud, got to find out what this guy's up to. I'll go check. People catch my eye all the time, and I'm dying find out what's cracking, what's going on outside at this airport. What kid were you in school?

I was alone a lot as a kid. Single mom, babysitter's houses. I felt like I spent most of my life waiting to be picked up. At times, I felt like an inconvenience, even though that wasn't their intention. I remember seeing the Bridges of Madison County and Burbank whenever that movie came out in their early '90s, and then calling my mom from a pay phone in the lobby, walking out, apologizing for being bored. But not just like, I'm so sorry, I held you back from doing some of these things, and she still had a fucking great life.

It sounds like it's some younger suitors.

Yeah, but she was like, No, son, you are the gift. You are it. But at the time, I didn't feel that. In school, I think I was popular, kind. I think I could charm people. I always felt different. I always knew that I'm not going to be here forever. I had a lot of friends, my senior superlative, even though I didn't win it, but I was the first runner up for most friendliest. I thought it would be best dressed. They took that out that year because poor kids, they don't have the same opportunity. I'm poor, motherfucker. But I figured it out. But I figured it out. I got a job.

I work at Richie's. I got this $2 scar with this $3 shirt. You see this shit? Oh, Richie's.

I bought this shit. But I was a great student. Oh, no kidding. I had no structure in my life. I don't think I slept in the same bed for more than seven days straight until I was 15. I had to generate my own structure. It helped me. It served me my entire life because, okay, well, I got to harder than everybody in this room.

Well, it makes you a self starter because no one's going to start it for you.

That's right. I remember writing a poem that was the class assignment, and so I picked it about divorce. I came to turn it in and she gave it back to me. It was like an F. I said, I'm so sorry. I think this is pretty good. She said, It's great, but you didn't write it. I said, What?

It's the ultimate compliment.

It's like, Yes, I did. I'm like, That guy. It's from my heart. I just showed you my heart and your shit on it.

It was my inside. It called me a fraud.

Then my mom came to school, No, it was him. It all worked out.

I've never wanted to read a poem in my entire life until right now. I'm dying to read the seven-grade poem.

Do you know it? Do you know it by heart? No, I remember a couple of raps I wrote in high school. We'll give it to that later.

Okay, so you went to Southern Georgia University for a year and a half?

Georgia Southern?

Georgia Southern.

Did you go to- I went to Georgia. You went to UGA. I did. Good old last day.

She, too, was a great student.

You're from Georgia, man.

I know I am. I sure am. We got in a big fight about it because I went to the Texas game with Dax.

Why are you a big Texas- Longhorn?

No, he's not.

I'm a big Austin fan.

Yeah, I'm a big Austin fan. It's a great city, man.

Well, they were playing Georgia, and I refused. And we were the guests. We were guests of some Texas- Of McConaher.

Oh, yeah, of course. He was fucking religious. We got a hook them.

No, we don't.

Do you wear a Georgia hat?

I wore a Bulldog shirt and a red sweater.

Were you on the field?

No, we were in the box, but surrounded by a bunch of orange, and I was like, Absolutely not.

Yeah, She was so mad that I wanted the Longhorn swim. It put our friendship to the task. It really did. We barely navigated that one.

We don't have to talk about it now, but I want to know the history of this friendship.

Oh, yeah. It's an odd pair.

We're best friends. We fight nonstop. We think about the world so differently so often. It works.

Big time. Circling back a little bit, I do think we are very volatile, and I think that's somewhat of a result of his upbringing and potentially mine. When we were talking about chaos and relationships, do you seek that out? I think we subconsciously seek it out.

You mean conflict with each other or do you think in your own lives?

If I'm being honest, I think that's part of the draw. There's something always that could blow up.

Yeah, That's right. And part of the attraction to this- I think so.

Yeah. I crave novelty. I crave a challenge. I crave being engaged. Because she's so smart and has such a strong point of view, and it's so often different from mine, it's very ripe for very engaged, very heartfelt debate. And we love each other, so we would like to have the same opinion. So the stakes are high. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, that makes for a great show. It's been going on for seven years.

It's been going on a long time.

We have to really navigate it quite often. But I think that's the best relationship. I agree with you. I could never be with a fan. I have friends. I know people who are very successful, and then they get a very beautiful person who's just along for the ride, and they're a fan. I would be so bored out of my mind. My wife is hard as a motherfucker.

Yeah, super smart, super talented.

Very driven, very ambitious, going to get her away. I need that.

I have that in my life. My wife is more often than not the smartest person in any room that I walk in, for sure. She's a fucking intellectual baller. She understands the world in a very nuanced, complex way and is able to walk with kings.

Yeah, and you got to have your shit straight before you enter into a with her. She makes you, I'm presuming, the very best version of yourself.

Well, I mean, I don't know, or the worst version, too. The thing that I say often is I'm Zen 99% of the time, and she says, Well, it's the 1% where you should be fucking Zen, man. It's the 1% when you're challenged to that place, and that's your lesson. I said, Or maybe it's fucking not my lesson. But that's that thing. I mean, I think I'm cool. I'm cool. I'm cool to, Hey, man, fuck you. I'm not cool. That level of volatility is present in my work, and maybe you feel that way in your work. That is the same with my wife and all of my friends. I look for that in other people.

I need 10% crazy in the mix. Absolutely. Monica is 26% crazy, and I'm 35% crazy.

I would go up a little bit on that.

Is Christine crazy?

That's a great question.

Less and less.

Less and less and less. Both of us, by the way, have gotten way milder It can exist so much easier. It's 17 years, you're 19 years?

20. We've been married for that long, but we met on a blind date 20 years ago, January 11th.

The volume comes down on a lot of stuff.

It has, and we've gone through a lot, and every relationship, ups and downs and peaks and valleys. But there's this thing that has eluded us for so long, and we see it coming. It's like, Oh, I fucking know exactly how this is going to go down. I don't want to, Okay, let's step off this train right now. There's an right here, man. You could just turn around. Oh, she's not letting you leave. Oh, you're not letting her. Oh, hey, you know what? Now we're doing it. Fucking, I'm out, man. The little switch clips. I'm fucking out of here.

And a little burst of euphoria comes comes, we go, Oh, I'm going to burn the house down. There we go. That's right. It's a little bit intoxicating.

It is intoxicating. But you know who in my family doesn't have any of that is our child. He is so calm and so wise and so so measured and extremely passionate, a deep, deep, deep thinker.

What could be more fun? Yeah. Okay, here's the limb I wanted to go out on. Okay, let's go out on that. But I was just curious, given the similar background. Is it hard for you when someone's in a bad mood? My things with my wife are generally, and I have this with Monica, too. I have this with everyone in my life. If someone's in a really bad mood, I have this unreasonable desire to fix that for them and to regulate them. If I can't do it, I'm very uncomfortable.

Because you spend a lifetime doing that, regulating other people's.

Well, that was my guess. I'm wondering, single mom, it's like, normally dad would be in charge of that. If mom's got an emotional issue, she never fit that Rocks, right?

She never fit that stereotype. Smoked a lot of weed, had a really good time, very passionate woman, loved to have sex.

Mine, too. My mom's an admitted love addict.

Yeah, absolutely. Started studying Hermhanz Yogananda and Joel Goldsmith and the Yarancha and the I am and went on this spiritual journey. Started when I was about 10 or 11 years old and had me reading all of those texts, so much so that I just missed out on the classics because I felt like it was a waste of time. If you weren't doing something that was expanding your consciousness, then why would you do it? I didn't realize until I was in a car with some friends that I had made in LA when I first moved out here, coming back from San Diego and hearing these people talk about Hemingway and Somerset Mom and Faulkner. They had the opportunity to be in school. They had a college education. Hearing them cross-reference these authors and how it was applicable to cinema or a song that they were listening to. I just was in the back seat I wasn't saying anything. I was just listening to all of this, and I just thought, I want that in my life. To circle back to what you said, I had to please a lot of people. I had to please my father.

I wasn't around him that much, but when I was, I desperately had to do that. That's not our problem. Early in my life, my problem was profound insecurity based on poverty and not having those things to the point where in high school or middle school, a girlfriend's parents were coming to pick me up, and I would give them an address that wasn't my address. Right before they I was supposed to get me, I said, Okay, Mom, I got to go. My mom had no structure, no boundaries, no boundaries whatsoever. My mom was like, I trust you. I would just slip out of the house and I would go to Ken and Carol's house with the nicer home and just hide in the ditch or out by their bushes. I would see the headlights pulling in. I would just run out in the driveway. I was like, Okay. Then the lights would come on. I was like, Oh, they're fine. Bye, Mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Poverty is humiliating when you're young like that.

You just don't fit in. We never filled up our gas tank, ever. I never remember my mom or an aunt or one of these crazy people I was with No one had the money to put more than three to five bucks in your gas tank. I had a lot of that. It's like a chip on your shoulder, but it's not. Then you allow for judging until it gets to a certain point, and then you react to that judging. It's like, Well, wait a minute. I'm as good as you. I had a lot of that shit early on, especially in relationships. I was left a lot, like a lot of people, abandonment issues, and just thinking everyone leaves, everyone's going to leave, so please don't love me, or love me and please don't let me go. Yeah. I think that's a journey for a lot of people in my own journey, in my own spiritual walk, which is a part of this whole experience of the White Lotus, falling in love with yourself. God damn, if you can get to that point where you're okay with you, even though once you find it, it will very quickly disappear.

Yeah, it's transient. Absolutely.

Once you have that realization and once you have a degree of self-love, at least this is what my experience was, that also came with real boundaries. I've gotten better about this is no man's land right now. We're okay, but this is not okay with me. I'm not poor anymore, but I don't think that ever fully leaves you.

I'd wrestle a lot with... I hated rich people. If they were a bad guy in the world, it was rich people because I felt less than around them. I didn't like how I felt. It was none of their fault. I I now know that, but I had this chip on my shoulder. Then trying to come to terms with the reality of, Oh, I'm one of those people. That's a little discombobliating.

There's shame around that.

Yeah, you feel survivor's guilt. It's complicated.

The thing that I had and something you brought up earlier and experiencing it in the back of this car came out from San Diego. My envy wasn't around the acquisition of things, even though I just wish we had some fucking heat. You know what I mean? These are just bare minimums.

The water would stay liquid. Full tank of gas.

Yes, I wish we had some yogurt.

Wish I didn't have to cut off half of this block of cheese to get to the good cheese.

That's exactly right. But it was time to think. I was jealous and envious of these people went to college and they were fucking in college. Even I don't know they worked or whatever, but they had an opportunity to just sit and learn or read and then go talk about things that they had just learned. I never had the space to do that. I would have been good at it. I left school after a year and a half.

We do forget. We take for granted that going to school and being able to be there and think critically is a privilege.

It is a privilege.

We just do it. We think we have to do it. We go, we try to get through it, and it should be rethought of.

Or just a daily reminder of this is a privilege, it's not a right. And what do you do with the time that you have at the microphone? What is it that you want to say? While I didn't have that in college, I have been able to, even without money, give myself those opportunities through travel and being alone, giving myself permission to be on the road for a very long period of time understanding culture. I've talked about this in other interviews, so this isn't revelatory. But in addition to that, I feel that way about work. I feel that way about the time I am now afforded to give myself to live in my imagination in preparation to start a job and to stay in that world over the course of telling that story. So I feel like I have that now. That's my education. That's time to ask those existential questions or listen to that music this person would listen to or watch those movies that are applicable to this experience.

To just indulge your imagination. Yeah, that's right. You have time and space. Exactly. To fucking indulge this part of your brain. That's so special.

And I don't take that for granted.

I'm with you. Yeah. I'm never interested in why someone wanted to become an actor, but with you, I am. How do we go from that tiny town in a year and a half in college? When do you go, I'm going to be a performer?

I feel like I was always a performer. I was raised around some very performative people, interesting, funny people. They were great storytellers. Yeah.

If you're going to take up-time at the dinner table, it better fucking land.

Yeah, and even if you couldn't, because there were five stories going at once, do you know what I mean? But more often than not, people would pass the baton in my household. It wasn't a lot of talking over each other. It was depending on the level of inebriation, how fucking short or how long the story is. These were very eccentric people. When it was my turn to talk, it was like little Walt. That was the great love of the women and my family. I knew that that, again, was a privilege and not a right to be given the microphone around this group of really great storytellers. I would tell my storytelling asshole. I think that was always a part of it, but I really stumbled into it.

When you moved to LA, did you move here specifically to try to act?

I did. I wanted a great experience. I got an American Express in college my freshman year. As soon as I got there, God damn, I got mail? Who knows I'm going to school here?

How you guys know? What's happening? One gag is?

I got a mailbox? It was four or five pieces of mail. The first thing that I opened was an offer to join American Express. With this offer in 1989, were two round trip tickets for $99 east of the Mississippi or $199 west of the Mississippi. Oh, wow. Plane tickets for $1,000 from Atlanta to fucking Los Angeles in 1989. They were not cheap. I just saw it and I thought, this experience is over. I want to do my year in the school. I'm never going to spend a dollar on this card. I'll just have it. Then I'm going to use both of these vouchers. That's exactly what I did a year later.

Who went with you?

Nobody. I went on my own.

Because you had two vouchers.

Yeah. Oh, because I had two. Yeah, I didn't know. No, I used both of them. My dad came with me when I drove across country because he wanted to get his eyes on the big- The big city.

I wish you could have seen this photo. His dad is adorned head to toe in black leather, turquoise on every single finger. He has photos of himself People do ask him for photos everywhere he goes. He's a very interesting person. He's visiting Walton in New York, and people are asking for photos, and he's, Oh, well, I have one signed. He has signed photos of himself. He has signed photos of Walton that he has signed.

Oh, my. You need to make a mug with his picture of that, and it needs to say, There's no this without me. Because that's all so true.

And that's the end of the interview. Tip for tat. The ride really, so I'm going to blow through a couple because I want to get to three things. The Shield is the first from the outside. It seems like you're now in the big leaks. You have a steady paycheck. You're one of the seasoned regulars. Is that the big?

Yeah, I think so. I moved here when I was 19. I had $300 in my pocket, and I lived the way that I lived and worked how I worked. Then what gave me permission not to feel like I needed to work anymore, even though I did for a little while afterwards, was The Apostle with Robert DuVall. That was the, wow, okay, that's my hero. Even though I was working, I think I made $21,000 over three months for the next karate kid. For me, that was a lot of money.

Well, clearly, from 19 to 30, you are when you get on the shield.

29, yeah.

You make it work. You're on Beverly Hills, 90210.

Yeah, I did a fair amount of films, but then I felt like Shanghai Noon was going to be the thing. Oh, yeah. I had a pretty big role in Born Identity that ultimately they decided to go with Gabriel Mann instead, and they just offered me another thing. People didn't know what the fuck to do with me. No one was paying attention, and I had some extraordinary experiences on location over that first 10 years. And then The Shield happened, yeah, when I was 29, and nobody knew that it was going to be what it became.

Eighty-six episodes or something?

E86, yeah.

Okay, so I think this is so fascinating. You had audition for Eastbound and Down, and you didn't get it.

No.

The feedback was-David Gordon Green, who was a friend of mine from the independent film circuit.

I just called and said, Danny absolutely loves you, but just it might be a little too dangerous for what we're doing. It's a little too... Chaotic? Not even chaotic. It's just a little scary. I said to Danny, Look, man, I think you need somebody to go toe to toe with you. You know what I'm saying? Something like that. Then we have some friends in common. Leslie Bibb actually had a New Year's Eve party, and Danny and David were there, and I was there. She's one of my best friends with Sam. Then that was the beginning of the conversation.

I remember watching an interview with Todd Phillips, and I thought he said the coolest thing. He said, For me, comedy that is good has to be very dangerous. Oh, interesting. Or it's not comedy to me. If you look at his work, you're like, Oh, yeah, it's high stakes. Everything's a little scary. You look at the hangover, any of these, they go wild. When they're going to jump a van, they're going to jump a fucking van.

Yeah, there are real stakes.

Then you get to come in and do vice principles.

They offered it, and I was doing the Hateful 8. We were in Colorado, and I read it, and he talked about it at this party. I read it and thought, Okay, this I know what to do it. I just did that, and it was three lines into it where I think he was like, okay.

You're outrageously good in that. I couldn't believe the story of Hateful 8. If you would just indulge me and Monica, I think the audition for Hateful 8 is one of my favorite audition stories I've heard.

If it's the story that I think you're talking about, that was for Django.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, but you get Hateful 8.

Which led to the Hateful 8. I'm sorry. No, that's easy. I can't believe you know what you fucking know, honestly.

But it starts with the Call to Rodriguez.

I get this script like everybody else in town, and I read it on the plane to New York and stand with a friend. It's one of the best things I've ever read in my life. He's only made nine. So it's the repeat cast. It's the golden ticket. It's a very small group of people. I just feel that way about Mike White and the White Lotus. There are a number of filmmakers that have that stable of actors. And if you can get in that, Christopher Guest, I mean, unbelievable. But Quentin is probably by far the in my book. But I read it and I was like, I don't have to get this. I just want to fucking read these words in front of this man. I called Robert Rodriguez, who's a friend of mine, and they're obviously really good friends. I said, Man, I've never asked you for anything. Could you please text Quentin for me and just say that I have this guy I'd like to read? Ten minutes later, he texted back the text from Quentin, which was, I love Goggins. I love his work. It was like, fuck. Okay, well, then that's it.

Did you print it out and frame it? It's just that. It's just that. Unbelievable.

That's enough. It's more than I wanted.

Yeah, we I'd ever expect. It's always nice to live your life as if you should be surprised if anyone has seen any fucking thing you've done.

But to be seen by a hero just feels really crazy.

And then liked. Yeah, that's right. Not to see, but liked and appreciated.

Then it just happened to coincide with a really good friend of Quentin's was one of my wife's dear friends. She called and she said, I just read this script and you got to be in this movie, man. You're in this thing. You're one of these guys. Yeah. She said, Let's dinner with Quentin. I'm the guy that's like, No, I don't want to do that. I don't ask anyone for anyone.

To seem opportunistic is gross.

I'm not that fucking guy. Out of his dinner, talk about everything but the script until the very end. I said, I think this is what you're saying and how I felt a thousand people have probably said. He said, Well, I want you to come in and just pick a few roles. I did. Started reading them, and there it was. He was like, That's fucking great, man. I'll be speaking to you. I said, Well, I'm not leaving. I didn't come here just to read these three I don't give a fuck if I get this job, man. I just want to read your words in front of you. I want to read all of these roles.

I want to read Leo. I want to read Sam. I use Kurt Russell.

I was like, I just want to read this shit. He's like, Really? And he said, Okay, let's do it. Then he read everyone else in the scenes.

You did the whole movie, basically.

We worked for an hour, hour and a half. We did a lot. How fucking big seminal scenes. Just the unadulterated enthusiasm and love for what he puts out in the world and his words. At the end of it, it was like, fucking really good to see you, man. Can't wait for the next time.

This will cross my mind on my deathbed. Thank you.

Thank you, man. Oh, how cool. Then you get the call. A couple of months went by. It's like, okay, buddy, come down to New Orleans and play with us.

What if you were like, I can't. I don't want it. I just came to just do that one thing. I don't really want to be in the movie. It was weird.

You can't top what happened.

But thanks. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

I imagine you deal with this. The characters are so fucking different. I may have seen vice principals, but if I don't follow show business, I don't realize that's the guy from Hateful 8. They're so different. If I fell in love with Uncle Baby Billy, I'm not putting that together with the shield. It's almost probably a bit of an Achilles, which is, I think you deserve to be the biggest star in the world, but I think the work is so unique and different. I don't know people are connecting the dots because now I'm a hyper fan, and I didn't even think, oh, right, I got to go and watch. I went and watched Justified. I had never seen it, but I'm like, I'll go for Goggans. God damn, he's great in that again. But I watched Hateful 8 a couple of months ago in a sea of the most talented people. That's the performance in the movie. It's incredible. I can't believe you went from a smaller role in Django and then got called to the big leads and did what you did in that movie. It's fucking nuts, dude. Thank you, man. Oh, my God.

It's so impressive. I'm so happy for you that you got to go into Tarantino's world and have them trust you with that much and then to fucking score a countdown after a countdown.

Well, look, maybe you feel this way. A lot of people in this business and outside of this business listen to your podcast. I think for so many of us coming up, we're from a different generation, but the barriers to entry, the gatekeepers to this experience, it's like every day, you're not even trying to fucking get to base camp one on Mount Everest. You're just trying to get up that hill that you're going to fall down. Yeah, that's right. You're just ready to get a flight to the airport, Nepal.

At that point, it's as far as you could have gone if you feel like I do about Tarantino.

It's exactly how I feel. But whenever you see someone that's been around for a long time, like Rockwell or Cruda, even Garret Dillehunt, all of these fucking people that have been around for a really long time, and we've been around for a long time, and you just see consistently good work over a long time, and it's like, Oh, wow. Pedro, Pascal has been doing great work for such a long time. It's like, Wow, okay, there's one for the good guys. Yes. There is no limit on their staying power.

They're inoculated by talent.

And wisdom and choices And so the guys I'm also a fan of, I won't name any names, but we know them, the people that if you were an envious person, which I'm really not, except other people's careers, I really don't look in other lanes. But the people in my 20s for a moment was like, Fuck, I wish I could But I wouldn't trade my walk for those three years. And I think a lot of you probably wouldn't either. I've been walking the road that I've been walking for a very long time.

I would argue it's preferred. I agree. When you're young, if you come out and you drop right into the World Series, it's It's hard to appreciate, it's hard to conceptualize, it's hard to integrate. It's hard to process. It's hard to stay.

It's hard to stay.

To just keep walking in the back door and then you leave and you're like, Who was that guy? It's so preferred for your life story, your own narrative self. It's such the way to do it.

Yeah, I think so. You don't remember this, but very first time I met you, it was nothing more of like, Hey, but it was really just me across the room, silently thinking like, Fuck you. Fuck this fucking guy. Why? What is the true story? Because it was for an audition, and it was just the two of us in this room. I walked in and I looked at you and you were sitting behind this desk, and it was like a room with chairs. They had us waiting it. Maybe it was a second callback or something. I don't know. But I walked in and was like, Oh, this fucking guy. I just felt like it ain't my day. Oh, wow.

What? I don't know this.

Well, it was for- I'm so scared. No, Employee of the Month. Oh, my God. With Dane. Dane. Dane came in. I don't know if you knew him. I don't remember, but there was some interaction that it was just this easy, Oh, these guys. That is so funny.

I'm like, That's impossible to believe this story.

I don't remember where it was, but I remember the room, and I remember where you were sitting. No way. Then seeing the movie when it came out, I was like, Wow, you know what? Yeah, it was his for sure.

That's an ego boost for you.

Should be. Yeah. If I were you, I would hate me. No. Yes. I'm like, What this motherfucker was on, punked? I just felt like, no. I was just like, you know what?

You walk in one and it's like, well, you know what? I'm still going to have fun. And I did.

I want to see the version of the movie with you. I don't know, man. Oh, my God. That's crazy. That just blew my mind. Okay, last thing before White Lotus is, of course, Righteous Gemstones. Uncle Baby Billy. Yeah. Again, I see all your shit out of order. So I first saw Righteous, and I was like, who the fuck is this guy putting Uncle Baby Billy in Chris Leonard just obsessed with the show. I'm writing emails to Danny, who I barely know, but I have to tell him after every episode. The pilot of that, I'm like, Did Scorsese fucking direct this pilot? This is a comedy. Look at these shots. We fall so in love with you. Or he was in vice principals, we learned. We go back, I watch vice principals just because I'm now on my Walton Goggins train. I'm like, Oh, my God, he needs this and this. I don't really have a question.

We just finished the fourth season. It's really good. I can't tell you anything that it's about, but the first episode of season for, and I'm going to go on record as saying this, as a piece of writing, if I had read that in The Atlantic, I think the motherfucker would be nominated for a Pulitzer. Wow. Really what he's saying at this stage of his exploration in that world. Everybody obviously has a great arc and a great story. But Baby Billy will have this summer 2025 fucking hit. I'm going to tell you right now, whatever you're wearing right now, come June or whatever, when you're bathed in suit, you will be singing this fucking song. I promise.

Oh my God.

It's good, you all. I can't win. It says a lot about a lot. It's cool.

I guess my one question about vice principals and righteous. Is if you had to guess at a percentage, what percentage is you guys ripping and what percentage is on the page? It feels impossibly organic.

98% is on the page.

No No shit.

He's so brilliant.

That's some writing.

Edi Patterson. She can let a rep. She can do fucking anything. Adam can fucking do that. Mikaela Watkins can do that. Cordry. That's not my thing, but I understand where the story is, and I understand, okay, these are five or six tangents that I can go down, turn yourself over to that and see where that takes you. But he realized that about me very early on, that it's the words on the page that is liberating to me. Then we carried that into Righteous Gemstones. I think I'll work with him for the rest of my life.

If there was a career to Mv, it'd be yours because you're in the Tarantino stuff. But I would say of the television shows, my favorite comedy is definitely Righteous Gemstones. I think my favorite big, huge action thing is Fall Out. I love that show. Thanks, man. Then my very favorite, both of ours, social commentary, charactery deliciousness is White Lotus. You're in the three shows that are my favorite. The two previous seasons have been so good. I think we all had so much anxiety when season 2 came around because I'm like, How on earth? That hotel manager in season 1, who's going to pick up that slack? Then it delivered.

They did it.

His social commentary and what he's able to tackle, which I feel like you're not allowed to, and he does perfectly. Just the notion last season, you have these two couples, and these two are cheap, they're shitty, and this is the good one. Then as you're playing with it, you're like, Well, I'm not sure which one I'd rather be a part of.

That's right.

Oh, here's the perfect guy. He says all the right things. Why isn't she horny for him? We got to deal with that. That's a real thing. It's so brave and awesome.

It is. No one writes an existential crisis the way that he does. Wealth gives him permission, I think, to parody these people and to make them real simultaneously because these situations do happen to people outside of this very specific economic section of society that he explores. This is his words, not mine. If first season was about money, the second season was about sex, this season is about It was everything that I had hoped it would be. There are so many things that happen over the course of this experience that I'm not at liberty to really talk about.

Tough project to promote, actually.

Yeah, it is with a lot of projects, but that one in particular, I think they do actually kill you. It was a body floating somewhere. But I felt like I had my own Apocalypse now that I was willered in a boat going upstream to meet Captain Kurtz, which was also me.

Because of the real life or the story Because of the story that I was telling. Does it help that you're in Thailand for six months living at the actual hotel you're working in?

Yeah, living at the hotel. Sometimes the hotel was completely bought out, so it was just us. Then other times, they weren't able to do that. So you're literally checking in as an actor next to guests that are actually there on vacation.

You're like, peaking at the hotel pool going like, Oh, wow, that's that character.

Yeah. It's a weird fourth wall being broken.

Yeah, but I've seen two episodes, and it's really fucking good.

Oh, I cannot wait.

It's similar, but it's different. I can't say that my journey in this world, it's something that hasn't been seen or explored by Mike in other seasons, but everyone just kills it.

Is it hard being there, though, for six months?

No, fuck, yeah, man. I mean, I haven't been home 11 days this year. In success, it becomes harder. That's the thing I don't think people realize.

Because you're having to turn down now really great opportunities.

I mean, you're just away from home for a long time. It's lonely. Yeah. I don't think people I anticipate that. It's like, Oh, my God, I'm getting all these opportunities. It's incredible. But at the end of the day, you go back to a house or your hotel room and you're alone, which I'm good at. If I'm having a problem with it, I know other people are. Everyone went through their own crisis over the course of this experience.

Which is maybe helpful for the project.

It's a story that can induce that experience. Certainly for me, the way that I approach this way of storytelling, it was a fucking incredible experience. It had everything in it, soup to nuts. I can't wait for you to see it, and I can't wait to hear what you think about when you do see it.

Oh, yeah. I'm so excited.

Maybe we'll come back on at the end of this thing.

When you get the call to join that cast.

It was interesting because they were doing season two, and I didn't know Mike, but we had friends in common, like we all do at this point. I remember my agent saying, Well, you should write a letter to Mike. It's like, No, man, I ain't that guy. I ain't doing that. They didn't tell me that conversations were even happening or that it was close. Then out here, we were doing early press for fallout. Went out to dinner with my agents, which I hadn't seen in a while, and they said, Listen, congratulations. I said, For what? Then they said, Mike wants you to do White Lotus Season 3. I just started fucking bawling. Started shaking at the table. Really? Because I felt like it's a world I could help him tell his story. Do you know what I mean? You were still for a white Lotus. You really were. I suppose I would have felt that way if any other show or movie you're excited about or filmmaker, but it's when you understand, like Quentin, I felt like I know how to tell his story. I felt that way with Mike and a few of the filmmakers that I've gotten an opportunity to work with over the course of my career.

This is one of them that I walked outside and called my wife.

That's amazing. My last question to land the plane is, I also follow you on Instagram. I also know Cordri goes with you to Greece or Italy. You guys will do a proper summer in another country. It seems like you're putting as much effort into your actual life being as artistic as your life.

Absolutely.

I'd imagine some people might think that just happens, but I imagine you got to actually approach your life just like you do a role. Wow.

Never had anyone say that. Yeah, I think that it's with intention. It just happens to be a very long stretch. We sold our home in Los Angeles, and we moved across the country, and we bit off maybe a little bit more than we could chew. That's like, okay, I got to go to work, even though I've never really done anything just for the money or that I'm not proud of or that I didn't want to do. But I got offered a movie right when the strikes were being talked about. I had this trip planned, and they said, We'll offer you this amount of money. And I said, Thank you, but no, thank you. And they said, Okay, what about this amount of money? And I said, Thank you, but no, thank you. They said, What would it take? I said, There is no amount of money. I'm sorry. And your listeners or other actors may say, Fuck that guy. You know what? I hadn't seen my kid in a long time, and I had seen my friends. And that fucking time with my kid, it means more to me than anything. We're going to do that again this year with intention, whatever you can My mom did it in Panama City Beach, Florida, in a fucking tent.

That is time, and it's far too precious at this stage of the game. It is something that you can never get back. I have shame and remorse and regret about the time that I have been away, like anyone does with their children. It's with intention, and we're going to live the fuck out of life. Strap yourself in.

Strap yourself in. Buckle the fuck up. Let's all- End on this. Strap in. Let's strap in.

Thank you so much, GoDaddy Aero.

All right, you got a Super Bowl commercial. Let's just add that. Hey, man.

This is going to come out after. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's the whole partnership.

Go back and watch it on YouTube.

Yeah, check it out. Goggens Goggels has a Super Bowl commercial. Well-deserved. Godaddy Aero. And hopefully people will be watching the commercial. God, you look great.

He looks so That looks so good.

You know what? If you could imagine every day just feeling like a pre-ski.

I love it. I'm going to wear them out.

What I'm thinking, Monica, is our long-standing debate about whether or not I could fly an airplane if the pilot went down. Sure. You with those goggles on. You think I could do? I'm not sure who should be flying the airplane, you or me. Oh, shit.

That is quite the compliment.

You look like a professional in any field with those guys. Hey, what an honor, man.

I'm so glad this finally- What an honor for us.

We've been trying to get you in for years.

Thank you. You're so generous of yourselves and so giving of your time and such great listeners.

Thank you. What a pleasure, man. Just loving you from afar. The fact that we're sitting together is such a blast for me. I adore you, Walton. This has been my blast. Thank you.

What What a joy. What a joy.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare. Behind the closed doors of government offices and military compounds, there are hidden stories and buried secrets from the darkest corners of history, from covert experiments pushing the boundaries of science to operations so secretive they were barely whispered about. Each week on redacted, declassified mysteries, we pull back the curtain on these hidden histories 100% true and verifiable stories that expose the shadowy underbelly of power. Consider Operation Paper Club, where former Nazi scientists were brought to America after World War II, not as prisoners, but as assets to advance US intelligence during the Cold War. These aren't just old conspiracy theories. They're thoroughly investigated accounts that reveal the uncomfortable truths still shaping our world today. The stories are real. The secrets are shocking. Follow redacted, De Identified mysteries on the WNDRI app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to redact it early and ad free right now on WNDRI Plus.

At 24, I lost my narrative, or rather, it was stolen from me. And the Monica Lewinsky that my friends and family knew was usurped by false narratives, callous jokes, and politics. I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. Something you possess is lost or stolen, and ultimately, you triumph in finding it again. I think listeners can expect me to be chatting with folks, both recognizable and unrecognizable names, about the way that people have navigated roads to triumph. My hope is that people will finish an episode of Reclaiming and feel like they filled their tank up. They connected with the people that I'm talking to and leave with maybe some nuggets that help them feel a little more hopeful. Follow Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky on the WNDRI app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Reclaiming early and ad-free right now by joining WNDYRI Plus in the WNDYRI app or on Apple podcasts. Have you ever gotten a message out of the blue? Maybe you ignore them, or maybe you end up in conversations Maybe they tell you about an amazing offer. I can really show you how to make some money.

And maybe that gets you into a lot of trouble. But this isn't a story about people like you, the people receiving these messages. This is a story about the people behind the messages on the other end of the line, thousands of them working in a micro-city built for scammers. From WNDYRI, the makers of Dr. Death and Kill List comes Scam Factory, a new series about survival at the expense of others. Follow Scam Factory on the WNDRI app or wherever you get your podcast. You can listen to Scam Factory early and ad-free right now by joining WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcasts. Have you ever gotten a message out of the blue? Maybe you ignore them, or maybe you end up in conversation. Maybe they tell you about an amazing offer. I can really show you how to make some money. And maybe that gets you into a lot of trouble. But this isn't a story about people like you, the people receiving these messages. This is a story about the people behind the messages on the other end of the line, thousands of them working in a micro-city built for scammers.

From WNDRI, the makers of Dr. Death and Kill List, comes Scam Factory, a news series about survival at the expense of others. Follow Scam Factory on the WNDRI app or wherever you get your podcast. You can listen to Scam Factory early and ad-free right now by joining WNDRI+ in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcast.

He's an arm care expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's got to let them have the facts.

Oh, look at our trophy.

Look at our trophy.

That's a cool trophy. Very Space Age.

Yeah, it's meant to be hung. Okay. It has this at the bottom. I guess it looks like a quotation above someone's head. It does. I'm holding up a square armchair Expert with the ex-Shepard. Spotify, 500 million streams. Plaque, we were awarded. Gold status, I was told. A trophy. Gold status. I need to start this fact check by saying my most deepest thank you. I've never been more grateful than last night. I was asked to be one of Bill's 10 or 11 stops on his book tour.

Yeah, awesome.

And it was at a live event, The Carmer. I don't know, some beautiful theater.

Where? In San Francisco. Oh, nice. Yes. Sorry if you already said that.

No, I don't think I did. Okay. For the listener, I didn't say that. Okay. It's not our show, right? Yeah. It's not handheld mics. I can't go out and I had a time and warm everything up and then bring Bill out. There's a whole thing. It's their show. There'll be a video and another woman introduce us for a while, and then we sit down, I'm in the wrong side. Suffice to say, it just wasn't like one of our shows.

Sure.

I guess they gave me about a ton. I'm not going to exaggerate. Maybe like 20% nerves.

Of course, it's different.

I don't know if it's all people there to see Bill Gates, and they're learning who I and they don't understand I'm going to have a sense of humor, whatever. All this to say, soon as we sat down, I said, Are there any armcherries here? And Moni, the whole place was armcherries. That's so sweet. And I immediately felt so comfortable and confident and relaxed.

That's awesome.

And I was so grateful. I couldn't believe how grateful I was. I was like, Fucking armcherries, show up.

They love them. They really do show up.

Yeah. And I I had my whole family.

Yes, your original family. The OF. Yeah. Your sister, your brother, and your mom.

That's right. The original crew. The original four.

The FAB four. Was that lovely?

It was lovely. Yeah. And they got to meet Bill for a while. Yeah. My brother has been obsessed with Bill since he was a kid. Really? Oh, yeah. Because my brother was very into computers. I didn't know that.

Yes.

Oh, how special. Obsessed I've been obsessed with Bill Gates his whole life.

Okay.

Even when I was talking to him before the event, I was saying like, Oh, my God, you got to read the book. It's so funny. There are so many funny stories in this book about him being 13 and showing up places with a briefcase and business suits on and making products. The whole thing is so... It sounds like a cartoon. Yeah. Then he was like, Oh, yeah. My favorite thing is that his mom said, What are you doing in here in his bedroom? And he said, I'm thinking you should try it. I Oh, my God. My brother just knew all this stuff I had just learned in the book that he somehow had already known. Anywho, they got to chat for quite a long time. It was a very special experience for my brother. That's great. It was sweet. Then yesterday, we gave it to San Francisco straight up the hiney. In four hours, we saw that whole city, Monica. We saw Alcatraz, we saw the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge. We We went through Chinatown. We went through North Beach. We went to Lombard Street. We got on the trolley and rode the full loop of the trolley hanging out the side, Monica.

Is that something you do with your original family? Because I don't think you do that with your current family.

No. My brother had never been to San Francisco, shockingly. But so, yeah, seeing Alcatraz and all that stuff, the Golden Gate Bridge, all very exciting. Trolley, Rice and Roni, the San Francisco tree.

Full house, ding, ding, ding, Olson. Lombard Street.

Do you know Lombard Street?

I don't know.

It's the one that's really twisty that goes down extremely steep. When my brother and I were children, there was a show called You Can't Do This on Television. No, that's Nickelodian. It was called That's Incredible. Doug Demolkis, the Wheelie King, rode a dirt bike, a wheelie down Lombard Street. Oh. Never putting it down, rode over cars on a wheelie. Oh, that sounds bad. It was a very memorable seminal moment on television for us. And so to be on Lombard where our hero Doug DeMocas had done that sweet wheelie. And then some armcherries were in a 1960s VW microbus coming down Lombard Street and started hollering out the window.

Sometimes people shout out the window and their arm cherries. This happens. And I just want to say to anyone who does that to me, which has happened a few times, don't think I'm a bitch if- You get shook a little bit. Yeah, or my first reaction is really Twist, eye rolly? Not eye-rolly. Don't- Don't hurt me. Yeah, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. Don't hurt me, please. I'm small. Or I look scared and angry. That's just my reaction as a woman.

But then you let it in.

But then they say, I'm listening, or I listen, or I'm not, whatever. And then I...

I stopped listening.

I don't like it anymore. What happened? He yelled up. Should have never done video. Yeah, recently, a guy did that. He honked. And then I looked over with a mean face, and then he pointed. He was listening at that moment. He raised the volume. That was exciting.

But I'm also sorry. I got scared. When you just pointed, it looked like he was pointing at his crotch, but it was obvious it was the dashboard.

An armchair would never do that.

I know he wanted, but I'm saying it was clear that he was pointing to his stereo. Yeah. Okay, great. Because when you just did it, it wasn't clear.

Okay. All Okay, anyway, so go on. Lombards Street.

Continue on Lombards Street, Chinatown, little Italy, Alcatraz. That fucking trolley made us so happy. The cable car. Because that's really-Classical. Classic. I just said the cable card.

The cable card. I didn't read.

I just think it's not there's a cable running under the street. It is not. That they put in in 1870. Still going. That's just going in a circle. Also had some great meals. Really great meals.

San Francisco has great cuisine.

Oh, my goodness. In fact, one of these places, if you're there, I insist you go called Cavalier. It's done up. It's a bar restaurant tavern, and it's done as an English hunting lodge in the decor was... Decor really works for me.

For everyone. It does work for everyone, right? There's a reason esthetics are important. I guess I should admit something really gross.

Okay.

Distasteful? Yeah, just bad. But since we are honest here, when you started your back check about wanting to say thank you, I thought you were saying thank you to me.

Oh, I can thank you as well.

Because I thought where the story was going was that- It's so much easier together.

Yeah. I mean, that's true. That's totally true. I should have said that. I'm sad I didn't say that. No. Yeah, I always walk out with you. Yeah. So Well, to two, I mean, if we eat a big turd together, it'll be together.

Right. I thought maybe that's what was coming. And then I thought, oh, it's not... Maybe it's a different thank you also to me because...

Because what was the second reason. I'll probably agree with it, too.

Because you were gone, and you, as you said, you took your sweet sister who runs this household, keeps it in check. Yes. And Kristen was at a table read yesterday. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but- I think it came out. Yeah, it's been announced. For the show? Yeah, season two.

A Bill inquired about it.

Because he's a dad. He's a I had.

I tried to explain that to him. He didn't understand that. That that's why he liked it.

It's hard to explain that to people. But anyway, so she was at a table read. So she was at Fox. She was far away, and Anna was with her. And Lincoln had a tummy ache.

Oh, no.

So did you have to rescue her? So I went to pick her up. Was that your first time at that school? Yes. Isn't it beautiful? First of all, it's beautiful. We won't say what it is, even though you probably already have on here. I haven't. But it's beautiful. But I was lost. It's big.

It's like a mini UCLA.

There's a campus. And I was lost, and I kept having to ask like, teens.

But they're so confident. I think the first thing is you're like, wow, there's a really pretty campus. That quickly pales in comparison to how palpable the confidence is of all those gals running around. They're living out loud.

But yeah, so I kept having to ask all these teens. One teen really was like, the middle school is over there. She was mad at me. Gross. Middle school, yeah. And I was like, I'm cool. I have a podcast. Do you listen to podcasts? I must have stopped three different people, and I could not figure it out. But I eventually I never got her. She's still there. Did she get home? And then she picked me up.

She grabbed, swung by on her motorcycle and grabbed me because I was lost.

But it was so cute. And she said, Oh, I thought you would be in San Francisco. Or whatever. I thought you'd be with dad. And I said, Oh, no, it's just dad. She was like, He kicked you out? Jesus. And I said, No, that's not really how it works.

No benefit I'm in the doubt. She went straight tight, kicked you out. She did.

I said, Yeah, you should punch him. I didn't want to tell her that her appendix might explode, and that's what was maybe going on. Yeah, sure. That was your first, though. That was my instinct. I stuck around in case it didn't explode.

It didn't. It didn't. She have a poop and then feel better. Probably.

I didn't ask. I'll find out tonight.

Okay. That was my first question.

She was involved about the poops.

Did you get that thing out? Did you get it? I have one really special moment. Before When we did this show, they said, We want to do a viral video with them. And I was like, Of course. So we played this game. Heads up. And then what's funny is it was tests on things from the book, but they put in Catcher in the Rye, which wasn't in the book. But he said something, and then I got it. It was on my head. And he goes, Was that in the book? And I go, I don't think that was in the book. Is that one of your favorite books? And he goes, Oh, yeah. And I go, Oh, it's my absolute favorite the book. Then we're like, we talk for two seconds, and I go, Is that why you named your daughter Phoebe? And he goes, Yeah. Oh, cute. I go, I, from the second I read that book, I was like, If I have a daughter, it's going to be Phoebe. It felt very connected. I really liked it. I had the same exact... Kedams and I had that bonding moment, too. I think a handful of men have named their daughter as Phoebe because they fell in love with that character.

You know you didn't do that, right?

Is that not my first born's name?

I'm so sorry to tell you. I'm so sorry.

Yeah. Well, that's because we thought we were a boy, if you recall. Sure.

You know you have another- Delta could have ended up being a Phoebe. She would have been such a good Phoebe.

Yes, she would have.

That name really would have worked for her.

It would. Although Delta really works pretty good for her, too. Of course. I can't imagine.

Yeah. Maybe if I have one, I'll name it Phoebe.

That's a ding, ding, ding. People have been pointing out in the that my new over-indexing is Delta, which is 100% true. Not Delta, my daughter. The distance between two things. The gap. When I talk about I'll say Delta, and people are really noticing it, and guilty as charged. Okay. I love it. It's very efficient. It is. Instead of saying the difference between or gap between.

Yeah, actually, I guess you do do that.

I do it a lot. I really got it from Formula One. They use Delta a lot in Formula One. What did you do while I was gone? Other than get lost at Lincoln School.

On campus. There's just something about being at school. Yeah. I like it. I went to In-N-Out this weekend. You did?

Yeah. You got animal-style fries and a what?

A single? No, I got...

I'm going to blow my nose. Okay. Sorry.

That's Okay.

Have you blown today? I've lost some progress. Oh, all right. It hasn't returned to the insanity, but it's also... Okay.

Did you slip up on your trip?

With blowing? Yeah. Probably. Hotel rooms. Well, I bring tissues over to the bed every night to have them ready. Then when they're there, then I got to use them. But I can't risk that I will make it without blowing my nose and have to get up. There's a lot of stuff to consider. I know.

Did anything else interesting happen? Oh, my God, Super Bowl.

Oh, die. That would be crazy. What was your favorite commercial?

The Nike women's commercial.

That was I love that. I love that. Playing Led Zeppelin.

I bought the shirt.

Oh, God. That was a very cool commercial. That was probably the best. But, man, I love Willem DeFoe.

I do. I do, too. I mean, he's just- With Catherine O'Hara. I know. That was a good pairing.

But he's just- A friend of the pod.

Go check out his episode.

He's so unique. What a gift he is.

He is. He's a blessing. I love him.

I loved that.

He's a blessing. He is. Yeah, that was good.

He's like an NL West Anderson movie, even if he's in a commercial.

That was great. I couldn't hear all of them.

Yeah, I didn't see most of them. I started at an hour and a half late.

Oh, you did?

I did. Wow. Yeah. And then fast forwarded through everything to catch up.

Okay.

Not needing to catch up as it turned out because nothing changed.

Yeah, but the only thing I cared about really delivered, which was the halftime show.

Oh, the halftime show.

Oh, my God.

I loved it, but I definitely thought his mic was too low. I was having the hardest time hearing him, the first four songs.

Well, we couldn't hear, but it was-It was a bad mix. It was the TV, no, because when I watched it on YouTube, I could hear everything. Oh, really? Yeah, you should watch it on YouTube.

I wonder if YouTube, they cleaned that up a bit. Oh, maybe. But on the broadcast, I was like, his vocals need to be way up. Just barely hearing the words.

You should watch it on YouTube. Yeah. I thought it was so good and so well done and so smart as he is, all of those things. I don't know. I just thought it was so powerful. I loved it. There's all these... I love hidden things.

Okay. What were some of the Hyde's? I love clues. What was in there?

Well, did you realize you probably... These probably aren't clues. They're probably obvious, but it was a PlayStation because the whole thing is the game. He's playing this game with Drake all So when Samuel Jackson is out there, it's- I thought he was incredible.

He was incredible.

Uncle Sam.

Oh, my God. He was so incredible. That's a hard lift. He's got to pop in and out. Perfect timing. I know. Finish before he's got to start. That was complicated. Yeah. And he was great.

He was perfect.

But yeah. He was almost more Kendall Lamar than Kendrick Lamar. No, don't say it. No.

Oh, my God. No.

Sam Jackson is like the original Kendrick Lamar. Well, he's- I'm sure that's why he was there.

Yeah. He, of course, is iconic.

They have the same vibe and spirit.

Yeah. But just the message- No tap dancing. Yeah, exactly. We're not playing this game. Yeah, that was great. Serena Serena. Yeah. You didn't see that? You have to rewatch that. Serena. Williams. She sang? She came out and it was crib dancing.

Oh, I didn't see that.

I thought you were saying the female singer was Serena. No, that's Sizza. She's huge.

I was like, I think you got close, but I don't think it's Serena. I know what I'm talking about. I know. You know more than I do. For sure. I didn't see Serena crib walking.

You definitely need to rewatch.

I had it very loud, and I got goosebumps many times, several times.

When it's the American flag and he's standing in the middle of it and all of the dancers in the arrangement are Black. Just so powerful.

It was really power and power.

It was. It really was. I love him. I want him to come on this show so badly.

Yes, me too. I had to get brought up to speed by Tim Lovestead.

About the beef?

About the beef.

I told you a little bit about the beef.

I know about the pedophile part. I know about the lawsuits. I didn't even know that he called Drake a colonizer. I didn't know that whole aspect.

That's in the song, yeah.

Yeah, and that Drake had called him, accused him of making slave music.

Did you know that part? No, but I know Drake. So I guess there was this huge weekend.

And Drake is rich, I heard.

Drake is rich.

Drake grew up rich, I heard.

Oh, yeah. He's from Canada. You know, You know, Drake is- I have zero opinion on Drake.

I just want to say that a lot. Me, too. I have zero feelings.

I have zero feelings about Drake, except apparently, and there's a daily on this. Oh, there is? Okay. Drake likes these beefs. He starts them. It's part of- They're good for business. Sure. But this one really got out from under it. Got out of his hand. And Kendrick isn't really ever the type to get involved these types of things. He's like, which Drake also calls out. He's involved with this few beefs. You think you're so... You beefs. Kendrick? Yeah.

He's also in a beef with Andrew Schultz.

Oh. Did you not see that? Interesting. Oh, yeah. Really?

And Andrew did not at all kowtow. He just went straight to war with them.

What does that beef?

This is crazy. We'll have to watch all the videos. He has a line about, Don't let a white comedian make fun of our women or something. It's believed that he's referencing Andrew. Andrew then comes out and says he's just not terribly worried about Kendrick. Then his attack back is like, Oh, here's the dude you've supported who have raped women and who have beaten women. I don't think I'm your dude. That was his pushback. Yeah, got saucy. I thought, Boy, Andrew, you're pissing That's so stupid of him. A very diehard fan base. But yeah, he's got at least those two going. But back to Drake.

Yeah, okay. But in the hip hop world, he doesn't really do this because he is... Drake says it, too. You think you're so great. You think you're this poet, which he is. Anywho, Drake is rich and very popular and blends He's not straight up hip hop.

All right.

He's more poppy mixed with hip hop. Exactly.

Club music.

Yeah. People think he's a phony.

I found myself with that tension of loving a good Fuck You song, and then knowing the better part of myself doesn't like this.

Yeah, me too. In this case, I don't care. You went for it.

I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm getting charged up by this. Yes. And obviously, that's not my aim in life is to be pumped someone else is telling another person to fuck off. Me either. Effectively.

Well, okay, I agree.

Unless there's a huge class distinction, of course, then I do enjoy. But regardless.

I am with you. I don't enjoy A beef. A diss track or a beef. I've never been into a beef before.

Right. This is your first beef.

This is my first foray into beefs.

In the world of beefs.

But now that I listen to the Daily, and I know how much... So it was this big weekend, I guess, where they were like back and forth. They kept putting out songs in retaliation to one another. At the end, in the audience, after the halftime show, it says, Game Over. Because he won. Right. And he He did win. That song, that his diss track, won five Grammys. Right. Sorry, I feel bad. I actually do feel bad for Drake, but he did start it.

I don't even know who started it.

He started it, according to the Daily.

Okay. All right. I'm nervous. I don't want to be on either side of it.

Why?

Because I don't ever want to join a team when half the other people hate the team. I don't want to be on a team that's hated by half of people. It's not my desire in life.

I know.

If I care deeply about this feud between Drake and Kendrick, I might, but I don't care at all. These are very rich, talented dudes. I don't think there's an oppressed person in this.

Well, I think, yeah. I mean, they did come from very different backgrounds. It'd be like you who came from a certain background, you probably feel like you have more of an entitlement to talk about that and rap about that than somebody who didn't experience it.

But again, I don't even know enough about Drake. Is he rapping about The hood?

He raps about Don't Bling.

Okay. Since we're talking about pop culture, which we rarely do, and I tend to, for whatever reason, be allergic to. Do you know the Kanye thing?

Yes.

Step One was arriving at the He's uninvited with the wife who was then naked. That was event number one. Then he paid for his own Super Bowl commercial.

Yes. Which directed people to go to his website. To go to easy.

Com. Yeah. If you to easy. Com, there was a single item for sale, and it was a shirt with a swastika on it. I mean, this is absolutely mad as conceivable.

This is horrible.

I dine to know.

It's so bad.

I'm dying to hear his thought process. I'm just dying to understand how he got himself to a point where he paid for a Super Bowl commercial.

He hates Jewish people. He says it. We don't have to read through the lines. The fact that that's not illegal. Although now, I guess there's talk about the NFL maybe suing him because when he did the commercial, that wasn't up. He had real items on his site until the next day, he changed it. So I guess there is some conversation about him being sued for that, but I don't know.

What I want to know- He's so embarrassing. What I want know, to be clear, is the same thing I wanted to talk to Roseanne about. He knows this is a very damaging move.

I don't know what he knows.

It's like passing a point of no return.

It's been like that, though. He keeps doing stuff like this.

They're escalating in severity. It wasn't previously, to my knowledge, selling swastika shirts.

No, but he was saying openly he hates Jewish people. He's getting close to being a neo-nazNazi.

Close. He's a neo. Okay, right.

He is 100 %.

He's a black neo-nazi. Yes, he is. How does a rational, at one time, seemingly savvy and rational person end up here? Other than just the obvious Bipolar.

Yeah, he is bipolar. But yes, as I was reading something today, for people who are like, Well, he's bipolar, which he is, 95 % of bipolar people aren't hate-filled. They're not using it to hurt people.

If you found out Hitler was bipolar, you wouldn't go like, Oh, okay.

Oh, that makes sense.

I have a whole theory I'm not entitled to have about Roseanne, which is I think the racism aside, it was racist. I acknowledge it. But that's just one of many historic things she has done at the height of her popularity to really alienate everyone and test whether they love her. The famous- Well, that's you deciding and test what?

That's you being very introspective and saying you think it's because deep down she's testing whether they love her.

Yeah, I think when she sang the national anthem intentionally poorly and annoyingly, and she pissed everyone off, and it's like the patriotism flared up, and she's brilliant. She's too smart to not know that wasn't a good move. Then I wonder, what What story is she confirming by doing this thing? How could she, as smart as she was, convince herself that I'm going to do this? I think it's this, you don't believe all these people that love you really love you, and then your brain comes up with this bizarre test of that to find out, to confirm you're right, basically. But no one really loves you. They love this fake version of you they see on TV or hear on music. I have to believe that's going on with Kanye.

I don't You don't think so. I appreciate that you really give people... I don't think you're giving him the benefit of the doubt, but I think- I think a bunch of things have gone terribly wrong in his life.

That he's the author of No Question.

Yeah. He creates chaos. And I think you, and probably many people, feel like there's an empathetic reason behind that?

Well, I just think there's a reason other than that Kanye West was born evil, and now we're seeing it, and he hit it for 40 years.

But you don't think anyone's born evil, and I don't either. But I think people become. I do think there are people in this world who become irredeemable. They become so driven to chaos and destruction. Yeah.

I'm not making an argument that he should be redeemed?

No, I would hope, yeah, no.

I'm not making an argument that people who have committed crimes should not go sit in prison, but I am working with an assumption that something happened to them that now resulted in this I think there are serial killers, and I think there's narcissists, and I think there's sociopaths who enjoy, and there are sadists who like to hurt things. I know those people exist, but I think a lot of non mental pathology people do really weird stuff that I'm quite curious why they would ruin their lives in this way. This is a person who's ruined their life.

Oh, yeah. But over and over. It's not He keeps doing it. He keeps causing harm.

Does it seem like a tragedy to you? Because it seems like a tragedy to me.

It seems like a waste to me, but I don't think of it as a tragedy. I think what he's doing to people Well, I think, causing this fear and instability. And across the board, even when he goes up and steals a thing from Taylor, it's mean, it's bad. I'm also of the belief that a lot of that type, specifically, thrives off oxygen. And so I don't really want to give him any ever. I think he's disgusting, and I don't want to talk about him, really. I mean, this is a fine conversation, but everyone's, of course, posting about it. There was another shirt made in retaliation, which I think is awesome. That is what he wants. He wants chaos. He wants a reaction. He wants people to be scared and be angry. I don't want to play. Right. Like, bye. Just go away.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare.

Do you think he's sold any?

I don't know. Well, it's gone now. Oh, it is? Yeah, Shopify took it down.

Okay. Let's just say it's a historic public meltdown for the ages. This is one of the most bizarre things.

Yeah, Yeah, but it's not that bizarre because it's been such a long... He's been escalating to this for so long.

I mean, there was a period where he was just writing incredible music. A long time ago. He came up with some of the greatest Jay Z songs with him. There was some period where he was just a volcano of incredible creativity.

He was. But we also don't know who he was back then.

No. When I watched the doc about him before he got really crazy, what I saw is a guy who had some very deep social challenges his whole life. I think he's been very atypical as a person. I think so, too. You know what part of the problem is, I can admit, I so can't relate to hating Jewish people. It seems like the dumbest thing to me. It's so cuckoo that I wonder, how does one get themselves there?

I hear you, and that's me, too. I'm like, I don't even understand this. But six million of them were killed because someone didn't like them. One person who created such a massive revolution that 6 million of them were killed. So it sounds cuckoo. And then that is also a reality we're living in.

I acknowledge it's a huge history of it. Even before they killed them, they weren't allowed to participate in most of the economy.

Yeah.

I think- They've been very poorly treated for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Yeah, there's an underestimation of making a group the scapegoat of a problem and how really bad that can get.

When you have poor white people living in the same city with poor Black people and poor Latinos, we see the lack of resources in the competition that's definitely going to file onto these in-group. It's quite predictable. It's a bunch of people in scarcity, blaming one another for their scarcity makes a lot of sense. I'm not even sure where you're interacting in that circle. You're not thinking Jewish people have taken your jobs. You're not thinking all these other things that perpetuate that inner-city poor stereotyping and racism. It's just like they're not going to jail a lot. I'm not even sure.

They control the media. There's There's narratives. I mean, they're ridiculous, but there are narratives that get built about. That's why I'm so allergic to any stereotype, whether it's good or bad, because you don't know. About the good ones. No, because it's a... I like the good ones. As soon as you start doing massive It's delivery.

Indians have really great hair.

No, only me. Yeah. I've been not really paying on purpose much attention to what has going on in the world. It does feel a little your response. I'm trying to figure out the line of complete ignoring and keeping my sanity. I haven't really found it yet, so I'm not partaking at all. But, yeah, things make your way to you, and it is scary. I mean, it's just... And then to circle back to a little bit is, oh, my God, it's so crazy. He put this T-shirt up It's not that crazy because permission has been granted by our most elite in charge to say whatever the fuck you want to say, to do whatever the fuck you want to do. Elon is doing a Hael Hitler. That was at our United States inauguration. So I'm just saying it's not out of nowhere that someone crazy like that is going to feel like, Well, now is the time I can put my T-shirt up. Okay, well, speaking of stereotypes, Walton.

Walton Goggins.

Shout out to Georgia Southern, a school near where I grew up.

How far? 60 miles?

Oh, I don't know about miles.

Probably further because Atlanta is really in the middle. If it's called Southern, it's got to be closer to Florida, no?

No, it's in- It's in the Atlanta area?

It's in the Atlanta Georgia?

Well, it's in Georgia.

Right, but is it in Southern Georgia? Yeah. Okay. Closer to Florida.

I guess- I would imagine. I guess I've never thought of it as closer to Florida, but yeah. That's to the south of you. Let's find out how far it is from my parents house. Great. I'm going to use maps for that. Okay, good. Okay. It's 3 hours and 28 minutes.

Okay, so more than 60 miles. 150, 160, 180.

Yeah, it's 231 10 miles.

Whoa, that's very far.

From my parents.

From your parents. So it must really be on that border.

It's here. It's here. And that's Savannah on the Coast there.

Okay, so it's a bit east and south from Atlanta. But yeah, it's pretty close to Jacksonville. Yeah, not too far. Not too bad. Not too far. You could be there for a lunch appointment if you had to. Oh, wow. Get some fresh oranges.

I had a lot of friends who went there.

You guys would drive to Disney World, obviously, right? You're very close.

Yeah, we would. 8 hours. Were we about 6 hours?

Okay. At the speed your father drove?

It was 8 hours. I could do it in five. Let me put it in.

Disney World.

6 hours, 55 minutes. Okay. 472 miles. Okay.

I'm sure you guys had to stop. I know what it's like.

Yeah, we had to stop.

We had to stop-We couldn't go more than 60 damn miles this summer in Europe.

Okay. Tortuga. Yes. Spanish word for turtle.

That's a great word.

It is. His earliest memories are in Decatur. My mom worked at Decatur Federal Bank. I think. For how long? That was one of her first jobs.

Okay. How long she'd serve? I thank her for her service, too.

Me, too. I don't know. Okay. Okay. An annulment.

Yes. How does an annulment work?

Okay. An annulment is a legal ruling that ends a marriage by declaring it invalid. It makes the marriage null and void as if it never happened. Here are the criteria: fraud, if one spouse tricked the other into marriage, coercion, if one spouse was forced into the marriage.

Okay.

Mental incapacity. That's really bad.

That's hard to prove.

That's ding, ding, ding. Kanye's wife.

Oh, okay.

They could get an annulment. If one spouse was not mentally capable of marrying, physical inability if one spouse is unable to consummate the marriage.

This is interesting. You were against this, and I was for this. I know.

I'm against it.

Because if someone marries you and they can't perform sex with you, you needed to say that ahead of time because you can't just surprise someone and say, guess what? Sex won't be a part of this marriage. You can go, well, then that's obviously the understanding was there would be sex. Sex.

But what if you are married, you're having sex, and then- It's been consummated. Yeah, it has been consummated. Yeah. Is consummated just the first time? Yeah. Oh. So it's not like then in two months- It's like you get married, and a year later, you still haven't had sex. Well, what if you have sex, and then you stop being able to? Some men have that issue.

Right.

So then can you annul after a year and a half?

It sounds like consummated is a very operative word. Okay. Yeah. It sounds like never had sex.

Okay.

That's fair. You need to tell someone up front about that.

What if you don't know? What if you've had sex with other people, and then for some reason with this person, you just can't perform?

You should get your marriage annulled and find a partner you can have sex with. That's my suggestion there for both parties. What about if someone- There was fraud. Fraud was listed in the divorce In the annulment with Kenny Chesney- Renee Zellinger. And Renee Zellinger.

But what happened?

I know. That's the great curiosity. What was fraudulent about what he was promising.

Or her.

I think she related fraud, if memory serves me.

Okay.

This has been a very...

G gossipy.

Extra, extra Inside Hollywood edition.

Yeah. Incest, if the marriage between people who are too closely related by blood. I agree with that one.

Cousins, though?

I agree.

Wait, you don't think cousins can get married? No. Oh, you don't. That one's very loozy-goozy. What? We had an expert on that had a whole chapter about incest and has gone through the world. It's very rare for a culture to have forbid cousins to get married. It's very common everywhere. No. Cousins?

You mean like second and third and fourth?

I don't want to marry any of my cousins. Right. But I can also imagine never even meeting your cousin.

I haven't met someone of mine, but I don't want to marry them.

What if you met them in there? You meet them for the first time at 37, and they're gorgeous.

Great.

Let's get married.

Great. Meet me at the chat. No, that's so...

This is a Jonathan night thing.

Cyclopses.

No. So that's a little exaggerated. Not between siblings, but...

It still can... When it's too close, it's not good.

Yeah, but it- That's science. This was a part of the chapter.

The book you can't remember?

I want to say it might have been Paul Bloom the last time I read his thing. I think it's been a little exaggerated, the genetic risk of cousins. I'm not... I don't want to be with my cousins, but I don't think I care if other cousins are together. Really? I don't think I do. I have to make myself care. I I don't.

I guess people can do what they want.

I mean, it's very common throughout the world. Someone's preferred.

No, it's not. Yeah, a lot of places it's preferred. No, it's not. Okay. Bigomy, if one spouse was already married to someone else, that feels fair. Yeah, that feels fair. Bigomy is the only one we can come together on. You and I? Yeah. No, mental incapacity, right? And physical? Yeah, we don't.

And coercion. And coercion and rot. What one, don't we? It's just consummation.

Insust. And consummation. And consummation because... Oh, consummation is physical. Yeah. I know. I'm on the fence about that one.

I can't believe you're on the fence about that. Why get married? Be friends.

What if you're in... Because love is not just... Love is more than sex and friends.

No, sexual love is romantic love, and you get married, and then you have friendships that are loving and supportive. You could be roommates It's great. But entering into the romantic bond of marriage with no attraction to the person or interest in it being sexual with them, I think is a deal breaker. It's a total deal breaker. Now, hold on. I want to be very clear. If you're asexual, I honor that. You said to the person, I'm asexual. I don't ever want to have sex. Great. That person is like, Cool, I don't either. Go crazy.

But you really need to declare that.

That can't be a surprise.

Okay. I want to pivot this a a little bit. You put sexual love and romantic love in the same bucket. You call that the same bucket, right? Those are synonymous, yes. For you, those are synonymous. Yes. That's interesting.

Oh, is it?

Yeah.

You think that's a novel?

I think there are three buckets. I think there's sexual attraction, romantic love, and then friendship love.

Why would romantic love be different than the sexual bucket? Who would you be romantically in love with that you didn't want to have sex with? You would just be in love with them as a friend.

No. I think maybe this is gendered, but I think for a lot of women, not me because I'm not married, but I could see this. I could see over time being less sexually-I mean, this happens in every marriage, right? You become less sexually-attracted to your marriage partner, but you're still romantically in love with them. You love them in a way you don't love your friends.

Yes, but you had a sexual relationship that has slowed down, as opposed to you were never intending to have a sexual relationship, and sex was never going to be a part of this.

I know. I guess I'm just saying, to me, they're three buckets. Loving someone romantically or loving a partner apart from sex is a different love and care and then a love for a friend. For me, for you, no. This is interesting.

Yeah, I think I'm either I want a romantic love with a woman or I want a friendship love with them. There's no third bucket for me. And considering love, sure, there's people I would love to have sex with that I would not want to hang out with, which is gendered, generally speaking. But Yeah, there's no one that I would want a romantic relationship with that I wouldn't want to have sex with. Wouldn't happen. Right. Then they would just be a friend. And I wouldn't marry them.

Yeah.

You want to marry a friend. No. And have no sex. No, I did not. And not justify an annulment if they asked for it.

I did not say that. I didn't say that. I just think romantic romantic love is different than sexual attraction. Obviously, you want both in your husband's or wife.

Romantic love is wanting to kiss the person's lips.

Yeah, that's fun.

Yeah, that's the same thing as sexual attraction. But- Those aren't different things to me. But over time- There's no one I want to kiss really bad, but then don't want to have sex with. If I want to kiss them and I love But over time in the...

Not to get too personal, but every time you kiss Kristen, you want to have sex with her? No. It's an intimacy.

No, but I would like to have sex with Kristen.

Yeah.

Right. If I didn't want to have sex with her, that would be an issue.

But if you didn't want to have sex, let's say, now, after so many years, you stopped really wanting to have sex with her, but you would How do you love her romantically in a way that is different than how you love your friends.

Yeah, I think comparing something 20 years out in week one, no one's getting a marriage annulled after 20 years. I'm talking you marry someone as it is revealed to you they have no intention to have a sexual relationship with you, I think you're definitely entitled to get out of that marriage.

No problem. Yeah, I guess I agree.

It's false advertisement.

Well, also it's on you. Why you asked about their sexual appetites before you married them?

Well, I think you have said, I can't wait to be married. I can't wait for our first night. I'm sure. Then that's fraud. And then the person didn't go, There's not going to be a first night, just so you know, because I don't want to have sex with you because I'm not romantically attracted to you at all.

What if they want to really bab it? They just can't.

Meaning they can get an erection?

Yeah.

Again, if you are not able to ever get an erection and have sex with your wife, then I think your wife's entitled to be with someone who can. I am sorry. It's already a bummer for you. It shouldn't also be a bummer for that person.

Okay, what if a couple was waiting to have sex until they got married? And then they both were really horny. He could get it up. Yeah, everything is working. She could get it in. Yeah. But then on the night of the wedding, his dick gets cut off by a stranger. A robber comes in and he starts attacking and the robber cuts his dick off and leaves.

It's still not fraud because you didn't false advertise. Right. You just someone cut your dick off. Yeah. Someone cuts my dick off. I'm still going to put a lot of energy into making sure Kristen is still having lots of sexual experiences.

But not sexual intercourse.

With my penis? No, because it's gone.

That's called consummate.

Okay, so it's on the actual day of the wedding. Yeah. I mean, that's quite complicated, and I don't know if we have a single case of that ever happening. Okay, well. But if that happened, that would be up to the girl to decide if she wanted to never have sex the rest of her life. Or if she decided she does want to have sex, then what arrangement could they work out where she could still have sex and they could still be married?

Do you think most men would allow her to have sex?

No, most men are very jealous and terrified.

I know. That's the thing. They would not allow her to go have sex with other people. I would for sure.

I would almost insist on it. She probably might want to. She'd be like, Can you Will. Yeah, I know. It would probably be a thing. You can't go your whole life. It's not your fault that my dick got caught off at the ceremony. Right.

Yeah. Little did you know she hired that robber.

Oh, my God. Because she was asexual the whole time.

All right.

But again, someone asexual is going to be upset. I'm not judging you. I'm not talking about you. Two asexual people want to get married and have a non-sex marriage.

That's great. Or an asexual person with a sexual person. If that sexual person decides it's fine.

Yeah. Good luck to them.

That's up to them. Everyone gets to make their own- Yeah, but everyone's got to be honest. Unless it's incest.

You just got to be honest.

Everyone has to be honest. Yeah.

If you're not honest, I think you're a bad person. You should be able to get out of that.

Sure. I understand that. I also just think it's stupid. Annulment, to me, isn't less than a divorce. Just get a divorce.

Well, but it is in that there's no splitting of communal property. It just never happened. There's no much of legal fees. There's no support.

But it says the marriage records remain on file.

Yeah, but you no longer have to say, I was married and divorced because you weren't.

Now, that, to me, is fraudulent. If I married someone and then later, and I found out that they had an annulment, they didn't tell me.

All I'm saying is you're not a divorcee.

Who cares? To me, it's the same thing. If I married a divorcee or someone who got an annulment, the same If they had an annulment.

But I definitely see why if someone coerced you into any, you shouldn't have to go get a divorce and have that be your ex-husband and all these things. No, I think it should be like it never happened.

Interesting. You're very religious now.

I am very early. In his name we pray under his eye.

Under his eye. All right. That was it. Yeah, that's it.

Okay.

Okay.

God, I don't want you to get an annulment, but it's very fun.

Why?

Well, just because we just talked about it. I'm wondering what avenue-I don't want to have to go through any of these. What avenue are you going to pursue?

That is so mean.

Because you have a menu of options. I want this annulled.

Which one is-Let's hope it's not incest. It's so sad.

All right.

Love you. All right, bye.

Love you.

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