Armchair Anonymous: Piercing & Tattoos
Dax and Monica talk to Armcherries! In today's episode, Armcherries tell us about a crazy piercing or tattooing incident. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Yearbook: The Driver
Who was driving the car when Chad’s best friend died? What really happened the night when a student was killed in front of Blake High? Chad goes looking for answers to the questions he’s buried for 20 years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Yearbook: The Perfect School
Chad’s junior year at Blake High School started off like pure magic. Blake was one of those perfect suburban high schools you see on TV and Chad was finally coming into his own. Then a tragedy struck that rocked the school and changed Chad's life forever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Welcome to Yearbook
In the inaugural episode of Yearbook, Dax and Monica sit down with Chad Sanders and they discuss season 1 of Armchair Umbrella's new anthology series. They talk about the working process, the reason they wanted to make the show, and the discomfort that accompanies quaking what you believe to be a solid foundation of identity. They prep the audience for what is to come in the following 7 episodes including self-exploration, death, sex, love, and redemption. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lamorne Morris
Lamorne Morris (New Girl, Woke, Unwanted) is an actor, comedian and podcaster. Lamorne joins the Armchair Expert to discuss growing up on the southside of Chicago, how he knew he wanted to get into comedy at a young age and his relationship with his father. Lamorne and Dax discuss systemic racism, the time he got handcuffed after trying to stop a fight, and the conflicting nature of playing a police officer on tv while also confronting what’s going on in real life. Lamorne talks about auditioning for New Girl 15 times before he finally got the role, his new scripted podcast Unwanted, and Dax opens up about a deep insecurity.
Race to 270: Septoplasty and 2X Neck Girth
We check in three months later with both contestants: Aaron has a girlfriend, septoplasty, lasik and colonoscopy while Charlie’s arms are back to looking huge. Dax & Monica present them with trophies and a framed photo of the baby in the white dress.
Robin Thicke
Robin Thicke is a singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, musician and actor. Robin joins the Armchair Expert to discuss losing his home to the Malibu fires, his time on set of Growing Pains with his dad, and getting his first recording contract at 16 years old. Robin opens up about losing himself after the death of his father, how he was still searching for his dad’s attention and approval, and how important focusing on balance in his life is. Robin discusses what he learned from the commercial flop of his first album and how his partnership with Pharrell started.
Ethan Kross
Ethan Kross (Chatter) is an experimental psychologist, neuroscientist and writer, who specializes in emotion regulation. Ethan joins the Armchair Expert to discuss the usefulness of your inner voice and how to harness it. Ethan explains how important context is when triggering emotions, how negative emotions are just as vital as positive ones, and the ways language can shape our emotional experiences. Ethan discusses how having the ability to feel the way we want all the time could be problematic and tips on how to be in the past and the future without being sucked in the chatter. In the fact check, Dax & Monica discuss the Royals.
Race to 270: Peyronies & Sleeping Aids
Aaron looks great in a beard, Monica tells Charlie that his arms look smaller, and Dax reminisces about a time when he thought he’d never be able to have sex again.
Ben Schwartz
Ben Schwartz (Parks and Recreation, House of Lies, Middleditch and Schwartz) is an actor, comedian, writer, director and producer. Ben joins the armchair expert to discuss starting off in improv comedy, how Eugene Cordero is the funniest person in the world, and dancing with Dax at a pajama birthday party. Ben recounts working as a camp janitor as a minor, the importance of separating his self-worth from the work he does, and his experience going on the Letterman show. Monica divulges her attraction to Ben and the lengths she would go to be near him at his shows and Dax tells him how special his hair thickness is.
Bill Gates Book Talk
Dax and Monica host a conversation with Bill Gates about his new book, How To Avoid A Climate Disaster, for the Chicago Humanities Festival.
George Saunders
George Saunders (A Swim in a Pond in the Rain) is a #1 New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author. George joins the Armchair Expert to discuss the mental phenomena of life, farting in an elevator, and romanticizing everything as a writer. George explains how he learned that being a writer wasn’t about your adventure resume, how to trust your own mind and bless your reactions, and how he finds inspiration by revisiting great works. George discusses how underestimated the role of encouragement is, that self-remonstration is the enemy of art, and how writer’s block is having artificially elevated expectations of yourself.
Race to 270: Receptionist Ring Fingers & 6 Eggs on Top
Dax gets a drug test, Aaron reveals how often he checks out ring fingers, and Charlie discusses how much he plays along with scammers at his gym.
Rupert Grint
Rupert Grint (Harry Potter, Servant, Sick Note) is an English actor known for his role as Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter film series. Rupert joins the Armchair Expert to discuss how different of a role his character on Servant is from anything he’s done before, how he can’t fully detach from Ron Weasley, and what it was like going through puberty on camera. Dax tells Rupert he was obsessed with how handsome he got throughout the films and Rupert talks about buying a hovercraft, ice cream van, and alpacas. Rupert discusses the birth of his daughter during the pandemic and Dax explains why you never fight a redhead.
Race to 270: Autoeroticism & Athletic Greens
Aaron deals with covid symptoms, his perverted dogs, and binges the Wire. Charlie digs into Eggo waffles with peanut butter and syrup, 315-pound back squats, and catches glances of himself in the mirror in the middle of the night.
Amy Poehler
Amy Poehler (Moxie, Parks and Recreation, SNL) is an actress, comedian, writer, producer, and director. Amy joins the Armchair Expert to discuss how much she likes to identify as an outsider that worked her way in, how control is the dream state, and how important it was for Dax to do car stuff in Baby Mama. Dax & Amy bond over having a class warfare chip on their shoulder and how much they both rely on things in the future. Amy discusses the expectation for women to come at success with a sense of humility, how much her mom’s encouragement and dad’s attention affected her confidence, and the time she tried to be a third to Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet.
Chad Sanders
Chad Sanders is the author of the book Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned from Trauma and Triumph. Chad joins the Armchair Expert to discuss his experience at Morehouse College, how isolating code switching can be, and his journey to embracing who he really was while working at Google. Chad explains that race is the operating system of everything, how black people are expected to be bold enough to make a mark but not too bold to get kicked out of the club, and the theoretical liberalism of Silicon Valley.
Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall is a primatologist, anthropologist, and advocate for the environment, animals, and the natural world. Jane joins the Armchair Expert to discuss her journey to studying chimpanzees, how her approach of empathy allowed her to learn how human chimps are and that they have a culture of their own. Jane explains how similar the gender roles are between chimps and humans, her trajectory of going deep into the jungle and coming out a world icon, and how the Jane Goodall Institute has grown to 24 institutes in 24 separate countries. Dax admits that if he met Jane, he would try to groom her.
Nurture vs Nurture: Family #2: Brooke
Dr. Mogel answers the question: Will my children hate me for becoming a cool secret agent? She also teaches us a new word: allomother Make sure to subscribe to weekly episodes, dropping every Tuesday only on the Nurture vs Nurture feed. Just search “Nurture vs Nurture” on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or visit bit.ly/wendymogel.
Erin Meyer
Erin Meyer (The Culture Map, No Rules Rules) is an author and professor at the INSEAD Business School, based in Paris. Erin joins the Armchair Expert to discuss how feedback is interpreted differently in various cultures, who the most direct and confrontational culture is, and how to move beyond stereotypes to understand the more complex issues we are unaware are affecting us. Erin teaches us how we need to build empathy and develop strategies when interacting with people from other cultures, the direct to indirect negative feedback scale, and why Americans are seen as superficial and hypocritical in most European cultures. Erin explains how we express disagreement differently in many parts of the world, how every culture is deferring to authority less than their parents did, and that you need to understand the differences in cultures in order to make the right adjustments.