Transcript of #665 - Jeff Bridges New

Mehr Feuer, mehr Intrigen. Die Drachen kehren zurück. Die absolute Macht ist dir zum Greifen nah. Dein Reich wird unbezwingbar sein, Rhaenyra. Stream die neue Staffel House of the Dragon ab 22. Juni mit WOW. Freu dich außerdem auf Staffel 1 und 2 der Erfolgsserie und weitere Highlights. Es wird keinen Zweifel geben, wen die Götter zum Herrschen auserwählt haben. Drachen heiß zum besten Preis. Jetzt ab 2,98 € im Monat. GeoffWattTV.de. Streaming war noch nie so wow. Today's guest is a legendary actor. Uh, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, Crazy Heart— if you haven't seen that one— Tron, many more. He's got a new movie, Minions and Monsters. It's in theaters July 1st. Uh, I had quite a time with today's guest, Mr. Jeff Bridges.

Gotta get my right specs. You might be too far away for these.

No, what you got? Plus 2? You got 2.5s? What are you rocking? No ones?

These are prescription, man. These are my reading glasses. But I have— let me see, let me try those bad cats on. Well, let me see. Here you go for this.

That's a reading Just give me one pair. Don't wear— you don't get them both.

No, I think I'd go for the other one, man.

Oh, let me see how I'm looking.

Oh, huh. Nope, no, a little off, right? Yeah, not bad, but yeah, this is better. Okay, nothing.

I don't want to pick a wife out with those on, you know.

Are you getting close?

I mean, I'd like to be married. Yeah, yeah, I'd like to be, but sometimes it's out of your control, you know.

Anything close?

Uh, I'm not that at the moment.

You've been close.

I think I've been close, man, and I just wasn't like, uh, just like my heart wasn't in the right spot, my brain wasn't. I was touring a lot and I wasn't ready to like, um, yeah, I had two wheels out of town, you know.

She kicked you to the curb or you kicked her, or a little both.

She— yeah, I've had them. They've all kicked me. They've all at a certain point kicked me, but I deserve to be kicked.

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's tough. I resisted it. As long as I possibly could.

You did?

Yeah.

Well, you've been married—

you've had a— we just had our 49th anniversary. Oh man. Oh yeah, really a good one. I scored, man.

Yeah, how'd you score that, Don?

I was making a movie called Rancho Deluxe in Montana, and we're shooting in this place called Chico Hot Springs, but they used to do brain surgery there 100 years ago. It's like a hot spring place for sure. Warm water. That's where I want to be cut open. Exactly, man. Yeah. And I'm sitting there in this hot tub with Harry Dean Stanton on one side and, uh, Sam Waterston on the other, and we're doing a scene, and I look across and I see this gorgeous girl with two black eyes and a broken nose. Oh. And that juxtaposition of that disfigurement and the beauty, you know, that— you know, part of the trouble with these interviews like this, because I've done a bunch now, is I end up telling the same story. Oh, you tell the story?

Okay.

But it's one of my favorite stories, so I don't mind. But it feels a little funny because I told it so often, you know. So I think— I imagine people say, don't tell that fucking story. I've never heard it, man.

So, you know, I've never talked about love. And so you see— so you're sitting in a tub, first of all, with two men.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, and I'm going to show you something. I think I got it. I usually don't have the thing that goes along with it, but I think I got it in my satchel here. So I'm sitting in there with two guys, Harry Dean Stanton, Stan Watterson. See this gorgeous girl with a broken nose and two black eyes. I finally get up my nerve to ask her out. Now, you know, asking somebody out, you know, it's tough, isn't it, man?

Oh, it's hard to get your nerve because your nerve, sometimes it feels like it starts at your feet and you got to get it all the way up your body.

And I'm young now. I'm in my 20s, man.

So you're virile.

Yeah, I'm virile, but I'm not— I'm unpracticed, you know?

Yeah.

Unrehearsed. Unrehearsed. And I go up there and I say, Would you like to go out with me, maybe have dinner or something? No. I say, really? She says, yeah, it's a small town. Maybe I'll see you around, you know. And her prophecy proved true. And at the wrap party of this movie, she showed up and we danced. And that was the done deal. Now we cut 30 years later. We're married. Have 3 kids, and I'm going through my mail on my desk, and I get this letter from the makeup man on the show where I met this, my now wife. Wow. And he says, I was going through my files and I found something that might interest you. It's you talking to a local girl. So I have a photograph that I'm gonna show you right now. I think I have it.

Let's see it, huh?

This is a shot of the first words ever spoken between my wife and myself.

Oh, that's a dang hieroglyph of love.

Isn't this a wild thing, man?

Yeah, of course it is.

I got it right here.

Dude, thank you, bro.

That's cool. And this is my prized possession. Let me see if I can find it.

Get that thang out.

This is a two-shot. Here is the moment, and you can see, look at the look on my face. I'm totally cold cocked here, man. Look, would you like to go out with me? No. Click, the picture's taken. There it is, man.

Oh, you are smitten, dude. Even from a side angle, you can see I'm done, man. It's over, you know, full smit. Oh, beautiful.

And so, uh, but I resisted because, uh, you know, we don't want to lose our autonomy, man. We'd like to You know, and there's so many beautiful girls all over the place.

But do you think, even while you're saying that, so do you think— thank you for showing me that, and congratulations too, man. Um, yeah, I was having love for that long, you know. I think people sometimes don't think that when they get into a relationship, what they do get out of it, if they work it well, is they get love. Well, you know, people forget about that part of it. I mean, they may also get other stuff too, but, um, but do you think like that that's one of the things that keeps you— keeps a guy from asking a woman out sometimes, is the fear of losing their autonomy without even thinking about That's what—

yeah.

So because you usually think it's just general fear, right? Because I never thought about it like that, like what you're saying. Like, because I think about, oh, I'm like, I feel like if I'm gonna ask you a lot, if like, okay, I'm nervous, right? But I've never thought that the nerves are really just like a deep internal feel, like it's your autonomy showing up and be like, no, we're gonna lose it. Oh, you think that could be true?

Oh, absolutely. That's what it was with me. Uh, you know, I'm in my, you know, prime. Uh, oh, you were prime red, you know. I mean, I was, you know, my career was on the rise, all these beautiful women that were around. And, uh, and I felt it was like literally like the cartoon where the eyes go out, you know. I was boom in love at first sight. I was— and it was frightening to feel like that.

Yeah.

Uh, but, and so I was torn. And, uh, well, I've, you know, the high that we're looking for, I find, or the one I'm looking for is intimacy, right? That's what— and that's what marriage— that's the playing field of intimacy. You know, you can— you're committed for the whole shot. And you say— and I'm just lucky that I found somebody who's— I'm so, uh, attracted to. And the intimacy seems to grow. But you know what? You— your question triggered— you know, we, we lived together for about 3 years, and it was on again and off again. And she says to me, "Hey, I know you love me and that you have abulia." Now, abulia is a disease, mental disorder that my mother used to tell me, which I have a hard time making decisions.

Oh, yeah.

She was slightly joking with me, both my mom and my wife. I know you have a boo-ya, but I'm going to go back up to Montana where you found me because my biological clock's going off. Wow. You know, and I finally worked up— I guess it was courage. I don't know what it was. I know I prayed on things. I got down on my knees and said, okay, marry me, you know. And I had this image of a handful of sand and there was one little diamond in there. And that was Sue, you know, and I can't let that diamond go, man. And I gave myself a caveat. I said, you can always get a divorce, man. That's true. Just, you know what I mean? Oh yeah. So that was my caveat. Now we cut about a week later because Sue says, when do we want to get married? I said, oh, how about this weekend? Because I don't know how long I can hold this thing, you know.

That's a good point. A lot of people put the wedding way too far out.

Oh man, that totally torture. So we invite a bunch of our friends over to our little house up in Malibu, up in the hills there, and to get married. Now we cut to Maui, uh, the Seven Sacred Pools. We have our honeymoon there, and I'm looking at this gorgeous scenery, but all I can do is smell the rotting mangoes, man. I'm a pouting— yeah. And she goes, what's wrong? I go, nothing, nothing. She goes, oh, let's annul this. I said, no, no, no, it's just bad fruit. Yeah. Oh, and I— she put up with that shit for years.

Really? Just that bad? Just recognizing the— recognizing the rotten mangoes, huh? I feel that, bro.

Oh, oh, and, uh, thank God she didn't kick me to the curb and that I finally got with the program and say, nobody fooled me.

What made you get with the program?

Well, the— you know, I mentioned intimacy. You know, you get so intimate, you go through so many bad times and good times, and every time you go through tough time, you either sep— you know, give it up, or you— your love and intimacy connection have to grow to hold that weird thing that was threatening it.

You know, one thing you said, it was like you're like, I had like a handful of sand and there was like one diamond in it. It's crazy how many times in our lives— I mean, and really I'm just speaking for myself, I think, and I don't want to speak from like a negative or like downer place, but there's been times in my life where I've had a handful of sand and like one diamond that was like a special person. And I chose— and I chose the sand. But, um, but sometimes I think it was fear.

It was like, well, as we're talking about the metaphor, it's not so much choosing the sand for me, but it was, I'm going to choose this handful of sand, sand being all the bullshit. Yeah. With— because there's a diamond in there, you know what I mean? So I said, I'm okay, I'm going to take— you know, it was a— I'm so, uh, It was an unconscious decision on that side, although I felt it was so strongly that I gave myself that caveat, which is a weird thing to go into a marriage saying you can always get a divorce, man.

But it's not a bad call.

God, I guess not, man. But it worked. Yeah, it worked.

It worked. And obviously if it lasted this long, was there one of the more like— was there like a more pressing moment that came in? Like, yeah, what's— because one of my friends I was talking with, Jared Leto, he and I are buddies. We met at the UFC fights. And I was just randomly messaging him and I said, hey, I'm going to be talking with Jeff Bridges. And he said a lot of nice things. And then he said, yeah, how has he had so much luck in love? Like, how does— like, why does he think his marriage has lasted so long? It's like, yeah, are there like— yeah, like what was one of the tougher moments like that you had to evolve? Because it sounds like you're saying you get to these moments and you either choose to kind of evolve and it adjusts like the volume of your like intimacy.

Yeah.

Or you choose not to. Well, and a lot of us choose not to at times, you know, because it feels safer.

Yeah.

Well, there's something that I call— what do I call it? Our primal battle, our primal war that we have. And it's basically, you don't get it. You don't get what it's like having a relationship with somebody like you. You don't get it. You don't understand me at all. And there's such truth in that because none of us really know the other person, really, you know. And what we'll do— we've started doing this, and it's happened now as the years go on less and less, and I kind of almost miss it. It just happened recently. I said, oh good, we get to do it again. We'll sit a little closer than we are here and face sitting facing each other and we'll take turns. You know, whoever wants to go first can go first. And the person just says all their feelings and the other person just listens. They don't think of their rebuttal. They just— their task is to just receive what that person— again, it's intimacy, man. Try to get that. Get that.

All the feelings about them, about everything, about everything. Got it.

And we try not to use, you know, you, you, you, you message. We try to say, this is how I feel. This is what I feel. Yeah. And then the other person does their side and the other person listens and we go back and forth. That often really scratches the itch in a beautiful way. Sometimes it doesn't, but it's really a cool strategy to deal with the basic thing that you don't understand what I am, what I'm going through. And marriage is a great, like a playing field or a, you know, game board to really explore all of those, those emotions that are so real for all of us, you know, because we're all separate people.

Right.

But we're similar in that we're human beings. You know, we have feelings.

And yeah, and that's the closest we get. I mean, that's one of the closest relationships that you have. I think to be able to do that with any relationship is pretty cool. But to really look at, to look at love as like a playing field, to look at like a relationship with someone else is like a playing field. And let's try this out. Like, let's try out some things to see like just how brave can we get with like our vulnerability or with learning about ourselves. It's pretty cool.

That's right.

And they used to have these things in tribes, like in certain tribes. I don't know which— there's one I'm thinking of specifically, but they would have these kind of dance-off things, like partners would, and they would like try to like, like they would dance in front of each other, like kind of process their energies toward each other.

It's kind of fascinating.

So I kind of related to something like that a little bit.

Well, also So, you know, uh, I was saying it's like a playing field or, you know, a place to practice relationship, you know. Uh, and I find it overflows into my work and making a movie or just being here with you, you know.

Yeah, yeah, I noticed stuff like that.

Use the same thing. Now I would think what you do, and I, uh, I'm not as familiar as I might have been with what you're up to, but I Googled you, you know, before I showed up today. I said, God, look at this guy's really into some great interviews. I saw your interview with Mike Tyson.

Oh yeah, it was wild, dude. Dude, he was out of his mind. But, but he was also, he was also the most in his mind.

Exactly. He did. And, and Louis C.K.

Oh, he's one of my heroes.

So you had some great And you get intimate on these things. And that— I bet when you finally find a girl or a guy, whoever, which way you're leaning, to connect with in that deep way—

I hope it's a woman. Yeah, you know, I'll say this, if it's a guy, I'm gonna be shocked, bro. If they like— yeah, if it's an arranged marriage and it's a guy, dude, I'm gonna be— I'm gonna email my mom. But yeah, dude, you know, I like talking about stuff like that, and it's important. And some of these people, like Louie's one of my dearest friends in the world. Oh wow. Oh man, he's one of the deepest people I've ever met in my whole life. So yeah, I got to be at a— I went to a party recently and, um, him and Bob Odenkirk were there. Have you ever met— got to meet Bob Odenkirk?

No, but I admire him.

Yeah, he's it. And he was just like— and they were talking, dude, and I just got to sit there and listen to them. It was like, yeah, that was something pretty special. But yeah, it is interesting, like, because this is the playing field that we get, you know. Sometimes we forget that this is like Whatever it is, like, whatever, like, God has intended, or the world, or the energies of whatever, like, that put us here to have this, like, like a fish coming to, like, the edge of the glass and being able to, like, see, just, just get, like, a peek out into the universe. This is it.

Yeah, man.

So all the things that we want to do, we have to try them while we're here, even if it's scary, even if it's hard, you know?

Yeah. And don't you find— I don't know about you, but I'm addicted to comfort. Man. I like to be comfortable. Yeah. And the problem with comfort— and maybe it's not even a problem, it's kind of both the problem and the solution— when you're comfortable, you're not growing. You're not— you're just be— you're just relaxing, being comfortable.

It's a coffin, man.

It's a kind of a— yeah, it's a coffin.

It's cozy.

And all these little challenges of life, and I resist these, like marriage, man. I resist this shit.

Yeah.

Because I don't like to be challenged. I don't want to be uncomfortable. Yeah, but I notice every once in a while I'll do these experiments on myself and I say, okay, you feel this way now, why don't you just go against that and do something adventurous and challenging, you know, and see what happens? Just to fuck around, you know. So I'll do that. On the other side of that, 99% of the time I say, wow, I got off, man, that was cool. Yeah, I'm, I'm something other than I thought I was. I didn't think I could do that.

I know.

Isn't that a wild thing?

Yeah, we forget that, like, this is— like, this is a school. I think we forget that this is a school, you know, and you kind of just get used to the recess.

Yeah, you know, that's something I remember. I never went to college, but I thought, gee, I think I'll put my— I'll be the dean of my own college. I'm gonna put my— you know, and I did. I didn't do it to the degree that I want to do, you you know, but to give myself assignments, you know, you play guitar?

No, I don't.

You don't. But I, you know, I play guitar. I say I should take— you know, I'm always jealous of my friends who did that woodshedding, you know, and learned all that stuff, you know. I said, you know, I notice I don't do it, but I could. I could put myself through, you know, a college course of guitar. It's all online. There's so much stuff online.

It seems like you've done a good job with kind of like nurturing your creativity over time. You know, it seems like you stay active with like— I saw like a lot of the, um, and it's one thing that Louis CK does too is, uh, he's a great sculptor. People don't know that.

Yeah.

Um, and I don't even know if he cares if I share that or not, but, uh, like you'll go to his, to his, uh, apartment and he has like all these crazy sculptures that he's made. And it just, it just like— he reminds me of like just creativity. It's not stuck in one spot. It's not you're just this, or sure that you can use it in different ways. You can also try to see if it sticks in different ways. It's like throwing like a spaghetti, like, you know, of yourself against the wall of like the world or the universe or something. But you seem to have done that a decent amount with like music, um, acting, um, and with also, uh, I've seen some of your— can you even bring them up, Nick? Some of the sculptures that you have. Yeah.

Oh, oh, oh yeah, my heads. Yeah, yeah. I make, you know, I'll do a pot or something and then I always have a little piece of clay left over and I just let my hands go and say, you know, and they come up with these heads, man. I don't know the aspects of myself or what the hell they are, but—

That guy, definitely. I'm going to say he was Italian at one point. Ah, but yeah, beautiful group there. Do you vend these or you give these away for charity or something? Or do you just— do you prize them? Because I guess they're like, they're kind of pieces of you in a way.

Well, they were for— it's sort of a semi-abandoned project. I say semi because I still may kick this project off. It's kind of dear to my heart. It was a project called Head for Peace.

Oh yeah, look, already I support it. Who doesn't want Head for Peace?

Yeah, exactly, exactly, bro.

I will be the Lieutenant Governor of the project or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, good.

I'll be on the front lines of Head for Peace.

It was for— I got very tight with a cat named Bernie Glassman. Do you know that guy at all? Does that name ring a bell? No. So he's a Zen master. He was. He's no longer with us. And I was at a party with— you know who Ram Dass is?

Yes.

So I give away— it was Ram Dass's birthday.

Oh dang, what do you even get?

So I go, well, I told— this is what I gave him. I say, 'Hey, Ram, can I call you Ram? I've always wanted to give you a little head, man.' And he looked at me kind of straight. And then the guy sitting to my left was this like little Jewish guy, you know. And he goes, 'Hi, I'm Bernie Glassman.' I go, 'Oh yeah.' And he says, 'I really dug Lebowski, man.' I say, 'Oh yeah.' I said, 'Oh yeah.' And he says, 'Yeah.' He says, 'I'm a Zen master.' I don't know if he actually said Zen master, but he maybe said, "I'm really into Buddhism," or something. But it turns out this guy was a heavy Zen master. And he says, "Lebowski, it's filled with Zen koans." You know what a koan is? Like, you know, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" That's kind of a thing.

Okay.

So it's like a question that you don't have a certain answer, you just have to kind of give you a vibe or trigger something to you, you know.

Let's see that real quick.

Yeah, you can— yeah, there you go. Yeah.

A Zen koan is a short paradoxical story or dialogue used in Zen Buddhist practice. Uh, rather than riddles to be logically solved, they are meant to exhaust the rational mind, allowing the practitioner to break free from the habitual binary thinking and experience reality directly.

Yeah.

Some examples are the sound of one hand clapping Yeah, yeah.

So that— anyway, that's a perfect, uh, great definition.

Got it.

So Bernie says, yeah, I really dug Lebowski. He says, it's filled with modern-day koans, and I'm all about bringing Buddhism up to speed with modern-day times. I said, what do you mean it's filled with modern-day koans? He says, well, look who wrote and directed it, the Coen brothers.

Oh.

And I say— and I say, what's another example?

He says, yeah, because that one's mid, that one's pretty mid.

Yeah. He says, The Dude abides. That's very Buddhistic right there. I said, give me another one. He says, well, my favorite one is, that's just like your opinion, man. Hmm. And that is it. That's my favorite one.

At least he came with 3. If he'd only had—

Oh no, he goes on. I said, give me another. Shut the fuck up, Donnie. That's another one. You know, they're just— it's— and he was filled with these things. And I said, those are pretty good. He says, yeah, let's write a book, man. I say, what do you mean? He says, yeah, we'll write a book about about this yin to it. And I thought about it and I got such a hit from this guy. You know how you get a hit kind of immediately? Oh yeah. You know, boom.

You know, yeah, some people are fascinating. It's like meeting a cool pet in the street.

You just boom.

Yeah, you keep petting it or whatever.

Yeah. And so we got in cahoots, we went up to Montana for a week or two and wrote this book called The Dude and the Zen Master. Oh, you got it up there. There it is. There's Byrne.

Let's go.

Yeah, man.

And what happened to him? Huh? What happened? He passed away?

He died. Yeah.

Just, you know, he could have faked it and he could be in Barbados.

But this guy, I would advise your viewers to check him out. You can, you know, you can Google the hell out of him. He's got so many wonderful books.

Bernie Glassman.

Bernie Glassman.

Kudos.

The Infinite Circle, Instructions to the Cook. Book. Uh, he was so great. Oh, anyway, getting back to the heads. So I had this weird idea because I got very involved with his organization called the Zen Peacemakers.

And were you spending a lot of time with him? Like, were you— like, did you guys have a weekly or daily practice?

You know, I didn't really, uh—

like, were you becoming a Buddhist? Like, that's what I'm—

well, I, you know, I've— in my spirituality, you know, I could— we could talk about that But, you know, this— that's a whole kind of a— I'm interested in all kinds of spiritual stuff since I was a kid, raised, you know, I guess, Christian, from Christian point of view. But Bernie and I, uh, I don't know, my— was he— the word guru that kind of sticks in my craw. I just thought of him as a dear, wise friend, man, that really I got so much out of. And anyway, he had this organization called— and it's still going on— called Zen Peacemakers. And my idea with these heads, I was going to make 108 heads. That number is significant in Buddhism and a lot of religions. And I would rent these heads for $10,000 a year. That's hot.

I've rented a little head before, but Lower price.

I would put them in a little box and stuff. And basically it was like swag for people who wanted to support the Zen Peacemakers, you know what I mean? Now, along with the head, the person would get a certificate. You know, you'd get the thing about, hey, let me give you a little head. You know, you get to say that joke to your friends.

Yeah.

You could pass the head on to other people. There would also be a website that would talk about the genealogy of the head, who had the head. You know, I just went— my fantasy I just went way up out there.

It's like Cabbage Patch dolls, kind of all that. Yeah, right.

Yeah. And I don't know, but it's still in the works. I still have it. But then I got hit with this flood up here and all the heads got lost. And so I have to make more.

So you're saying there's some missing head around here?

There's some missing head.

I agree, brother.

Yeah, I need some head, man.

Hey, look, dude.

I mean, yeah, but, you know, but, oh, man.

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Yeah, well, it's hobbies, you know. I remember I'd be working on a movie, I'd be in my hotel room preparing, and I'd say, uh, oh wow, that reminds me of an interesting song. And I pick up my song and start writing a song. Then I get mad at myself because now you're supposed to be studying, you know. But like you said, uh, talking about you know, you have creative— you're a creative person, it doesn't all just focus in one line. I find when I'm in the creative mode, you shake up that juice and all kinds of creative things— drawing. You know, I was doing a movie with Peter Weir, wonderful movie he invited me to do called Fearless. I played an architect going through a plane crash And I said, I think I'm going to go out and buy a bunch of art supplies as this character and paint as this character. I ended up, you know, papering my hotel room and just going at it. And the next morning, I had breakfast with Peter. I said, look what happened last night. He goes, oh, well, that's going to be in the movie, man. You know, you do a song.

Oh, that's in the movie. You know, we'll put that in the movie.

So just create, just being creative, just creating.

Yeah, well, remember Robert Duvall, wonderful actor I got to work with, uh, in a movie called Crazy Heart? He played my best friend in that.

Yeah, he played the bartender, and he played a bartender. That's one of my favorite movies.

He was so wonderful to work with. And he said, you know, when I meet with young actors and when they ask me, you got any advice? Yeah, 3 things I'll tell you. Hobbies. Hobbies, hobbies, develop hobbies. Yeah, I feel like it, because, you know, it all goes into the, into the work, you know.

Yeah, sometimes I feel like, yeah, I got so busy working that I don't even have any parts of myself anymore. Does it make any sense?

What are your hobbies? Do you have a hobby?

I don't really have any.

You don't have one hobby, man? Think about it.

I mean, I like to go to the UFC fights.

Yeah, well, that's a hobby. Do you, are you a martial artist at all?

No, I used to take some classes, but I haven't taken them recently. I think I was just touring a lot, and recently things just stopped, like about a month and a half ago. And so it's kind of the first time where I feel like I'm just kind of looking around and being like, okay, well, who am I? You know, like, who am I? Like, I've always just been kind of my work. I haven't always just been my work, but I realized that somewhere along the way, like, I let that just be me, who I was. Does that make any sense?

Yeah, I mean, from my point of view, looking at you, this is kind of your hobby. Kind of what you do here. You've combined your work and your hobby.

Yeah.

So closely, it seems like that you just like to engage. And, uh, yeah, that's true.

Well, I think my hobbies became jobs. Like, doing stand-up comedy, I guess, was kind of a hobby at first, and then podcasting, I guess, was sort of a hobby.

Yeah. So they— then they mature and they become not hobbies anymore, but yeah, real things.

But I would like to do gardening. I would like to go on more walks. I think I want to go do camping this, uh, year. I want to, um, what else? I'd like to be in love or whatever.

Do you surf?

You know, I don't surf, but I wouldn't mind maybe going to Costa Rica. I think it's pretty easy to learn down there.

That would be cool.

So maybe I'll do that.

What about, um, ceramics? You ever mess around with clay?

No, I haven't really done it.

You might dig that, man.

Yeah, man, I might. Cool.

Or the guitar. It's a great— never too late, man. It's just so easy because they the— where you, you know, it's just pictures of where you put your fingers, those dots, and you just do that.

Oh dude, I'll tell you this, I did love playing the guitar for a little while.

Then you do do it.

Yeah, so I need to get back to it. You're right, dude. Maybe if I pick something like that up—

yeah, and you've got it already. It's kind of like a bike. I mean, can you play a D, a G, and, you know, you can play 3 chords.

I can play Bobby McGee, dude.

You know, man, well then you're there.

Nothing left to lose. Oh, I can get us there. You know, me and Bobby McGee, isn't that the song? Dude, Christopher, bro, I'll tell you a story. So I used to live with my buddy's dad when I was in school because I had a little bit of ED when I was younger, right? Because of mental whatever, mental health or whatever. And so my buddy's dad got wiener pills, right, when they first came out, right? Because people didn't know they were coming out, remember? Everybody's just standing around, their wieners weren't working. Yeah. And then bam, they came out.

Yeah, yeah.

And, uh, and so I went and lived with my buddy's dad, dude, right? Because I could pause, I could like kind of cop some of his script, okay? Because he could get them, dude. But anyway, while I was there, I was learning the guitar, and he used to have this girl over, and they would like lay in bed together, like post-coitus or whatever, after, you know, in the evening. And they'd invite me in there, and I'd play, uh, Tears in Heaven for him. I'd learn to play that.

Oh, see, you do do it, man. You know, that is— that's one of the challenges is that we let some of these hobbies atrophy, man. When you just— you know what I mean? I mean, that's— I'm talking to myself now. I mean, like guitar music is kind of a hobby with me.

Oh yeah, I noticed that. I mean, especially—

but every once in a while it'll kick in and then get pro for a second, and then it kind of wanes. And the season of interest, it's interesting to me. How we have these seasons of, uh, interest, really, you know, like when it kind of flares up.

But it— I think it is nice. I will say this, it's nice even hearing you say some of this, Jeff. It's like there's value in keeping things warm on the, on the stove because then when you need it, it's there.

Yeah, you know, that's true.

I think because, yeah, even when I look back at like certain times in my life then, like even just being able to sit there and to have something to do with myself and my energy and my, and my thoughts that felt good to me, like in a real place, like in a real deep place that felt good. Like there was a lot of value in that.

Here's a weird thing that pops into my mind about passion. You know, we're saying, well, if I had passion to play the guitar, that would lead me to— I need to get passion to do shit, you know? And then somebody said, and this made sense to me, no, the passion is the fire you get when you rub two sticks together. The passion doesn't happen before you do that.

Right. If you're standing around with two sticks, you don't have any passion.

Yeah, you got to get in there and just say, I'm going to pick up the guitar. And you play the thing and you have to— a couple of things. Oh, oh, well, now this thought just happened. You know, because it's this thought of, you know, when we're creative and in the sweet spot, it's doing you. You're not doing it. You know that feeling, right?

Oh, yeah.

Isn't that a cool feeling, man?

Creativity is this thing on— it feels like it's on the on the other side of like the mirror of existence. And if you kind of do your thing, it'll show up and meet you over there, man. Right.

But you gotta show up.

Yeah, you gotta show up. You know, they say in like— I'm in some recovery programs and they say that you can't think your way into right action, but you can act your way into right thinking.

Yeah.

And I think it's reminding you what you're saying. It's like, yeah, I can't sit there and think like this is going to be perfect when it's like I just have to make the win, make the start, and then The rest of it will meet me there.

Take it till you make it. Yeah, isn't that— it's one of those things. What a great, uh, I want to say religion, but, uh, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous and all of those 12-step things. What a wonderful religion, man. What a wonderful—

one of the best ever, I think.

Oh God, isn't it a great idea?

Yeah, sometimes people are like, do you go to church? And I'm like, I go to church some, but I go to— if I go to recovery meetings, that's like 4 or 5 times a week. That I'm joining up with other guys, listening to what's going on, getting outside of myself, um, you know, connecting with the higher power. I mean, it's like a man— it's like the military for like, uh, probably having a relationship with yourself and a higher power and others, I think.

So much, so much, uh, so much good has come out of it. And, uh, what word popped in my mind was it's got so much room, you know. I think that— was it Bob? Who was the other guy? Bob?

Yeah, Dr. Bob and, uh, Bill. Yeah, Bob, Bill W. and Dr. Bob.

Yeah. Wong was the real religious kind of guy in that first— what is it? The first thing, a higher— a power higher above than yourself.

Right. A power greater than yourself.

Greater than yourself. And that's so challenging to a lot of people. But the other guy kind of softens. It doesn't have to be God, the white guy up there.

No, just anybody other than you, it says.

Yeah. Just anything else.

You know, uh, I know it's, it's amazing that two people got together and made and created that. I mean, they had so much other stuff that, that made it happen, but it's, it's absolutely fascinating. There's a great movie, I think it's James Woods who played Bill W. in it.

Oh, is that a good one?

Oh yeah, that's my favorite one.

I think I, I just saw, um, I think it's James Woods.

We look— is that who it was? Do you remember?

I don't— I think it was, I think it was, but I never— I don't remember seeing it.

James Woods, uh, JoBeth Williams, and James Garner. Yeah, that one I think was my favorite one.

Have you seen, uh, Anthony Hopkins? Do you dig Anthony Hopkins? He's pretty great. Yeah, I just read his autobiography. It's really wonderful. I think you might really dig it.

He's in recovery meetings. He's, he's open about it. That's the only reason I say that.

Yeah, and I saw this thing, you can see it online, uh, I thought it was him just sharing at a meeting, but I said, well, that's weird because they're anonymous. But I think it was a movie about him playing a character. But it was referred— he referred to this exact same thing in his book. So he was improving in a movie. But he talks about being sober now for, you know, 50 years or whatever it was. And about when he first got sober, he said he was, you know, driving and he blacked out.

Yeah.

And he could have killed himself, could have killed other people. And he said, I got to go check myself into a meeting. Man. So he went to an AA meeting and he started hearing all that God stuff, and he said, I'm out of here, I can't take it. And the guy's talking the story, I said, I can't take it. He's leaving, and this fella stopped him, who's a priest. This guy stopped and said, where are you going, son? He says, no, I can't dig this shit, man, I can't dig it. He says, I need a, I need a quick fix, man. I need something that will snap me out of there, patch me up. And the guy says, I'll I can give you a quick fix. It's the fastest prayer in the world, and it's guaranteed to work. It's only two words. Tony said, well, what is it? He said, I'll tell you the prayer. You ready? Fuck it. You know, fuck it. Just fuck this shit. You know what I mean? Yeah, just stop this shit. Just, you know, you, you have the power to say fuck it. Yeah, don't take it too damn seriously.

Yeah, just stop You don't have to do it, you know.

Yeah.

And I love that coming out of, you know, thinking of that priest, out of a priest, and that idea, that idea of just, hey, you know, my, my mom—

but like, you don't have to do it anymore. That's what he's saying. Yeah.

Like, fuck that. Yeah, yeah, fuck it. Yeah, fuck it. Or, you know, or fuck your struggle, right? You fuck all your— I can't— this, this, right?

Your big story about it. Your story.

Fuck that, man.

Dude, it's so funny you say it because I've been— that's it, that's right where I am. I'm like back at that place sometimes in my life right now where I like, I go down the struggle road and it's like, you're right, fuck it, just get your ass up, get your shit done, and get on to doing the things that you need to be doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Sometimes, bro, the craziest thing is like, uh, it's sometimes you don't want to have to be the person to come to your own rescue again, right? It's like That's life. It's like you have to be the person to come to, come to your own rescue. But even, even that is just me. It's more that same story. It's more the thing. It's like, it's like adding all this lore to it. It's like, just fuck it, just do the shit I need to do if I want to get better.

And I remember, uh, this—

I appreciate you saying that, bro. I need to hear that.

Oh no, yo, well, check out, just Google Anthony Hopkins fuck it and this will come up. I mean, he does it so so well. It's wonderful acting.

He owes me a good story. The first movie I ever saw—

a good guy for your show, and I bet he'd come on.

I've actually— I mean, I've heard him speak at meetings, actually.

Oh, he's so good.

Yeah. Um, but he owes me a good story because the first movie I ever saw was, uh, Silence of the Lambs, and it scared me so fucking bad. Yeah. That I couldn't even go, first of all, to a petting zoo or go to sleep for almost 11 months.

Jonathan Demme, man, what a great— you know, Terms of Endearment. Yeah. Or what about Stop Making Sense?

I haven't seen that.

Stockingheads. Are you a Talking Heads fan? Do you like the Talking Heads? No, you don't like them?

Oh, I don't know about them. I've heard of them.

Oh man, you got to check out David Byrne. All his stuff is cool, but Stop Making Sense, what a great concert.

I gotta check it out. Oh yeah. Um, dude, thanks for thinking about some of this stuff with me and just for talking like transparently about different stuff. Um, how is, uh, speaking of Alcoholics Anonymous, how is, uh, Bad Blake doing? How's he doing?

He's doing well. I'm on the wagon now for a few months. Oh yeah, congrats. Yeah, I go back and I go back and forth, but, uh, it's nice when you break the, uh, you know, break the chain there. And sobriety is a wonderful high, you know.

It's a real— and you know what, it's kind of a hot— it shouldn't be a hobby, but it's like, it's It's a very important hobby.

Yeah.

Is that a safe thing to say or not?

No, no, I know what you're saying. I haven't— I haven't committed, you know, that whole one day at a time. I'm not looking to never get high again. I just— I just wanted to stop. I got, you know, yeah, and I stopped and I haven't wanted to have another drink. I see that frosty glass of Tito's or something, I say, oh man. Yeah. Yeah, but I don't have to, you know, you can want to but don't have to. Yeah.

And then a few minutes later, I usually feel kind of better. And then it's not having to deal with some of the repercussions. But also, I think sometimes even if you just want to take a break from having a drink or having a smoke, whatever it is, go into like 12-step meetings. It's just a great place to be around other humans. It's like, it's a place that still exists in our society of like real connection. There's a book a guy wrote about how there's no more bowling leagues Leagues. Um, and can you look that up? It's like, I'm trying to think of the title of it, but it's about how a lot— they used to have a lot of men's bowling leagues, and men would get together and they would bowl. Uh, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. And, um, and it was just about giving men a place to be together.

And, uh, Lebowski, man, that's all. That's what— there you go.

It's just funny that this is kind of where some of this conversation is going Before we get on to the basket though, I want to say, yeah, how is Bad Blake doing, man? Do you ever feel like— and first of all, thank you for being him, dude. That was— that movie, like, it just— like, if I need to sometimes, dude, in my life it's like there's like feelings that are stuck inside of me and I can't get them out. And so I'll go, I'll listen to a certain song or I'll watch a certain movie and it'll make— it'll do that exact thing. It'll let the air out of whatever that is. Yeah, you know. So thank you so much, man. That movie really does for me, it's like— but then you also wonder, like, man, like, I hope Bad Blake's okay, you know? It's like, because it's, it's, it's, it's a tough— it's a tough road for everybody involved with him, but it's also a tough road for him.

Yeah.

Do you ever, like, like, wonder, like, what the second part of his story was? Or do you ever, like, like, do you ever have, like, little, like, visions of how it went for him after that?

Yeah, well, he's got to get back with Maggie's character, man, you know? He does. That's how I'm thinking, you know, what is she even doing?

She met somebody, I guess.

Yeah, but that falls apart in my mind. That falls apart. Who knows? Maybe. Now, you know, that movie was such a wonderful experience. Uh, you know, I often thought as an actor, I said, oh, it'd be great to play a musician. I love playing guitar, and I've been doing it since high school, and, you know, I'd write songs and stuff. And, uh, and but then, so this guy Scott Cooper who was being championed by Bob Duvall. Uh, he— Scott gave him a script, and Bobby loved the script. And Scott, first, never directed before, sent me this script for years, man.

And for years it was coming through, coming through.

And I'd say, well, it's pretty good, but there's no music. If there's not good music for it, then you know what? Now I'm walking down the street and who comes down the street but T-Bone Burnett, my old buddy. We go back many, many years. Met him on Heaven's Gate and he did the music for Lebowski. That score is all T-Bone, you know.

And so— and he did also for Crazy Heart, right?

And he was the producer. Yeah, he was the producer. So T-Bone comes walking down the street. He's got a new album out. Now, God, check out all his music, is so wonderful.

T-Bone Burnett.

T-Bone Burnett. And so T-Bone's walking down the street and he says, so what do you think of this script Crazy Heart? And I said, why, are you interested? He goes, oh yeah, I'll do it if you'll do it. I said, you're kidding. I said, there's no music. And he says, oh, that's the easy part, man. I go, Bone. He says, come on, what do you think? So now here life is, you know, life gives us these opportunities, these gifts. And like you say, you can let the and go, or you can say maybe there's something in there. I said, I'm frightened, man. You know, keeping it in the dream world, it's safe, right? Yeah, because you can't feel it. But if I bring this real, I could fail, man.

You know, dude, that's the same thing for everything.

For everything, man. But here's one of my good buddies saying, hey, let's jam. What? Look at this gift. I say, okay, we, you know, too cool to turn down, man. So we jump into it, and this young director, Scott Cooper— my God, what a great director. And you look at his movies that he's done. And now we meet— you're over at T-Bone's house working on the script. And there's something so cool about just the beginnings of making a movie when it's all ephemeral. You don't know what's gonna happen. And we're in there, and in comes this young kid, who was hired as a— to play a part in the movie. And he says, uh, yeah, I was jamming last night on my guitar and I came up with this tune. I don't know if it's any good, but I just thought you guys might want to look at it.

That's how it happened.

It's right— it's Ryan Bingham, man. And he hands us this cassette. We put it on and I look over at T-Bone, his face goes— and he says, because if we didn't have that tune It wouldn't— the whole movie would have fallen apart. But weary kind, you know, that— oh, that—

what I'm saying, no place for the weary kind.

Oh, what a tune.

Yeah, dude, in just those words, man, it's those words.

It's like T-Bone wanted to name the movie Weary Kind. Yeah, but, uh, yeah, and what an experience. And Maggie Gyllenhaal, oh my God, what a talent. And look at her directing now that she's doing.

I know, and she's married, huh?

Yeah, she's married to Peter Sarsgaard.

Oh, never with me, of course.

Oh God. Yeah. But anyway, you get all those talented people.

I know.

Oh man. And I've had wonderful luck with first-time directors, guys who, you know, who haven't ever directed and then they get a shot. You know, you get a strong producer who wants to champion these guys. Steve Kloves, the guy who done— you saw a movie called The Fabulous Baker Boys.

I haven't seen that, but, uh, maybe I have seen that.

But that's my brother and I got— I got to work with Bo, my brother, in that. And, uh, oh, that's cool. First-time director, wrote it when he was in his early 20s, I think. God, what a talent.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, I always wonder what happened to Bad Blake, and I just hope that he's doing good sometimes, you know. That's the thing, sometimes you think about that as characters, it's like you hope that they're doing good. Yeah. Because you don't get to see them, you just get to see this part of their life, like, you know.

Well, in my mind, he gets back with Maggie, man. And that kid, and that little kid. Yeah, what I love—

Buddy.

Yeah, Buddy. Nice, man. I love his real name. The kid's name is Jack Nation. Great. What a great name. And what acting.

And it's also a deviant website too. I just want to say that.

Jack Nation it is. Oh, I didn't—

oh, that's a lot of gooners or whatever, but it's chill.

It's fine. Check that out. Double entendre.

Yeah, it's a double entendre. It's the French, they'll do any, you know, they're, they're, you know, safe. Um, but dude, yeah, I just wonder sometimes, and where'd he go off to at the mall? I'm always like, of course he ran off somewhere. It's like he probably was like, I guess just like, I don't know, it all made sense that he was scared. It's all good. It just like sometimes I, I wonder how he's doing, you know?

Yeah, well, here, how's this? Buddy grows up, he starts a band with Blake, man. They start to go out and, uh, you know, you know.

No, it's good, dude. And Crazy Heart 2.

Yeah, Crazy Heart 2. It's like Willie Nelson and his kid, you know. They—

Lucas Nelson.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Second generations, you know, dude.

That would be so good. Crazy Heart 2. But also, you guys sell defibrillators, you know. What do you mean? Because like Crazy Heart or whatever, or maybe it's about like a defibrillator that tries to take over the city or whatever. Like, if it was— if it got animated, I'm just thinking out loud, you know.

That's a good one, you know.

Or it's just somebody who's having like a valve issue or something. Like, maybe— I don't know, I think I'm taking it— it's like some kind of boring places, but I like your idea better. But yeah, Crazy Heart 2, dude. Oh, but in our minds it can happen, you know. But it's fascinating how a movie ends sometimes, you're just like— I don't know, you walk— sometimes the thing I do miss about some movies is walking out of the theater with just like just as your feelings, you know. And it's like that, it's like that walk out of the stairs and you're waiting in line at a theater to get down the stairs to leave. And if it's a good film, if it's something that really took, like, took you on a trip, or like, or you care, then it's like you're walking out with like, just like, I don't know, just that feeling of walking out and how you feel about a certain film.

Yeah, the sequels are interesting. I've done a couple movies that are popping in my mind as we're talking about You ever see a movie called Starman?

Uh-uh.

So that's— I play an alien, you know, and Karen Allen, I fall in love with her and she's pregnant with my baby. Right. Very much like Maude is pregnant with, you know, the dude's baby, man. So that's a whole— could open, you know, the Little Lebowski, man. Yeah. Do a whole thing.

Who would play it, though, if you had a Little Lebowski?

You think who would play the kid?

Or yeah, who would play like— because that's the, that's the re-dude, you know?

How young can you play, man?

How long?

How young could you— me, dude, you could do it. You could be like, uh, you know, you could— yeah, you could be, uh, uh, oh, my— all my kids— wait a minute, how old are you?

I'm 46.

Well, see, my kid— my girls are 40 and 45.

Are they married?

Yeah, all of them married to good guys, man. Oh yeah, but you could play the little Lebowski, man.

Yeah, bro. Yeah, dude.

Okay, dude, I like it.

And I could— I have to get a job though, don't I?

I know.

Yeah, bro, that's what the dude would answer. That's the only answer.

Yeah, you're doing it now. This is what you— the little Lebowski dude would be.

Yeah, he'd be podcasting.

He'd be podcasting, man. He'd be an influencer. Now that was— now what a word. Now you're influencer, right? That's what you are. That's a good question, isn't it? Wouldn't you say?

Uh, that's a good question. Am I an influencer, do you think? I don't think I am. Do you think I am?

I think comedian first.

Yeah, comedian with influence. Like, we have a real job. Some influencers don't have like an actual skill. Like, I'm a comedian by trade. That was my first job, and it still is.

But isn't that all our jobs? Aren't we all influencers? Don't we all want to influence people to that do the thing that we want them to do.

In that case, yeah, 100%. All I've been is like, yeah, most of my life it's like I've been trying to— yeah, I just want some— like, I want like to be somebody to see me. I want something out of you. It doesn't mean like I need— like I'm trying to cheat you or anything, but yeah, just— yeah, I want to influence.

Yeah.

You know, uh, Bucky Fuller? Buckminster Fuller?

Buckminster Fuller?

Yeah.

No, it's a black guy.

No. No, he's a— and he's dead. A dead white guy. His most famous thing is the geodesic dome. He invented the geodesic dome.

No, wait, like Epcot Center, you mean?

Yeah, that— yeah, that's used. But you see the geodesic dome used all over the place.

Buckminster, dude, that's a savage name, huh?

Isn't that cool? Bucky Fuller, man. Now, with his— what this guy did, he also, uh, held helped engineer these giant battleships and ocean-going vessels during World War II. And there was a challenge for these engineers to come up with a rudder, uh, you know, that was so large to move this giant ship and to have it do the efficiency. You got to get the energy to move this rudder, and it took too much energy. So they came up with a brilliant, elegant, simple solution. Let's put a little rudder on the big rudder. Ooh. The little rudder turns the big rudder. The big rudder turns the ship. And then Bucky said, this is a great analogy of how the individual affects society and affects our culture. In fact, we're all trim tabs. That's what's on Bucky's gravestone. Call me trim tab.

Hmm.

That we all affect our culture and our society. And we may think, oh, I'm just one little person. What can I do? Look what you do. You— I was Googling you. What do you have? You're on 9 million people that you hear what you say, man.

Yeah, we— yeah, we got a lot of people that tune in.

Oh man, that's a lie. You're influencing those people, man.

Yeah, it's a good point.

Uh, but that's interesting. It has kind of the negative, uh, uh, connotation to it, influencer, doesn't it? Or they think it's like cheap, like you don't— you're not doing anything, you're trying to be just famous or something like that, right? That's—

yeah, yeah. I think that's the current kind of like, uh, denomination of it or whatever, but, um, or current currency of it. But yeah, I think, uh, yeah, I think— I mean, I do think over the years, in the beginning we were just talking to ourselves on this podcast, it was just me by myself, and then we started to talk to other people. And now with the— one of the highlights is talking to people to learn about stuff, you know, like we're trying to talk to Aaron Brockovich like next week about data centers senators. We have a senator coming on this Saturday, um, so that's going to be exciting. Um, we just got to have a guy like Mike Tyson. We get to have you, you know, we get to have people who just have had experiences in the world. And we've had like cafeteria workers. We've had a guy— oh, one of my favorite guests was this guy who like went in— if you die, he shows up first at the crime, at the scene, and like kind of determines what happened or whatever. What's that guy called? Coroner.

Oh yeah, right.

Yeah. And he said, dude, a cat will eat your face.

Right, yeah.

I don't blame him.

Yeah, well, I'm not hungry, man.

Yeah, dude, you gotta eat. Kaffee in seiner besten Form mit der neuen Qubo One Kapselmaschine von Chibo. In jeder Qubo-Kapsel steckt Spitzenkaffee aus besonderen Anbaugebieten. Für Espresso, Kaffee-Crema oder Kaffee-Grande auf Knopfdruck. Die neue Qubo One überzeugt mit Premium-Design, kompakter Größe und kleinem Einstiegspreis ab 29 €. Dank innovativer PressBrew-Technologie wird jede Tasse besonders aromatisch mitsamtiger Crema. Entdecke jetzt die Qubo Kapselmaschinen in deiner Tchibo-Fiale und auf tchibo.de. Anywhere worth going is worth going in good boots. Yep, good boots. Find your perfect pair with Tacovas. Tacovas crafts quality Western boots for everyone. From generational ranchers and lifelong cowboys to first-time boot buyers, Tacovas boots are handcrafted with over 200 meticulous steps for broken-in comfort right out of the box. Dress up or dress down, boots that go from festival to dinner, no problem. I just wore mine to two rodeos. I went to two rodeos and wore my Tacovas to both. What's up? Right now, get 10% off at tacovas.com/theo when you sign up for email and texts. That's 10% off at t-e-c-o-v-a-s.com/theo. Tacovas.com/theo. See site for details. Tacovas. Point your toes west. So Netflix has a new movie, uh, with John Cena and Eric Andre. It's called Little Brother.

Little Brother. It's basically about a guy, John Cena, who spent his whole life just keeping everything perfect, you know. Nani, you know, a lot, you know. No, no, no. Nice suits, luxury real estate, relationship with his wife, just, you know, the silverware on the right side of the plate, you know. He did it like that. And then Eric Andre shows up as his little brother and just absolutely detonates dominates the man's life. If it just feels like somebody released a possum into a car dealership, you know, or like somebody's just trying to help a— just help a dang, uh, baby bear who's got, uh, acute acne. Complete chaos. They got a stacked cast of veteran comedians, and it's funny in a real uncomfortable way. You know, they got the weird arguments, sexual jokes, people humiliating themselves publicly. The kind of movie where somebody definitely bruised a rib making it. That kind of movie. But underneath all the chaos, it's really about family. Like how the people who know you best also know exactly how to drive you in— insane. Watch Little Brother, June 26th only on Netflix. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. For some, summer is their favorite season.

Travel picks up and the kids are out of school and adventure becomes the focus. It becomes possible. There's time for it. For others, juggling it all can be tough and overwhelming and just counting down the minutes until the kids are back at school. And many worry that they're wasting the days of sunshine. This is a reminder to make some time for yourself this summer. Make some time for yourself. You deserve it. And BetterHelp can help. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. That's a lot of people. And they do the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. That's what's important. You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find support in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/theo. That's betterhelp.com/theo. And one of the best things is sometimes now it is fun to like listen to somebody because you know other people are going to get to listen to them. So sometimes it's fun to like, you know, you're just kind of like the, uh, you're the little— yeah, like you're saying, you get to be the little rudder.

Yeah, exactly. Now I'm gonna do a little ruddering on you here now. See, now I'm gonna say, can I give you a list of people that I would like to see on your show that you— I think you would, you would find very cool?

Yeah, 100%.

Oh good, excellent. Like, because I got a bunch of guys are popping in my mind, right?

Oh yeah, the list of buds, man.

See, because we all, uh, you know, it's, it's basically this creative thing I was talking about, that pocket where it's doing you, you're not doing it. You're familiar with that, right?

But yeah, when you're not pushing or pulling, you're not pushing.

And when all of these people— we're all— because we're all creative, everybody's creative— when that's all doing us, that magic thing is happening, you know. So it's like, you know, when I think about how, uh, selfish and how, uh, screwed up we each as individuals are, how are we ever going to manage what's going on in the world with these wars and the AI shit? How are we going to pull out of this? You know, how are we going to pull out? Well, it's not about us individuals, man. There's something else going on, a higher power, if you will, that's doing us, you know, that's, that's creating what our little rudder is.

Do you feel like that all— what, that, that, that thing is always for good? Uh, you know what I'm saying? Because it feels like more than ever, it feels like we need that thing to like show up And I think a lot of it shows up when we show up like in community and we do like, we don't isolate and we're not thinking we're the one to like fix everything. It does. It's like, I think community is part of it, but it's like, yeah, it's like, it feels like we need that energy more than ever.

What the energy of?

To like, to correct us out of this deal.

Yeah. Yeah. How are we gonna do that? Well, I'm moved. Like I would say, hey, I got some guys. You know, now what gave me that idea? Was it me or is there something?

Right.

I remember hearing an interview with De Niro once, and some— the guy was saying, how do you do what you do? You know, and he said, De Niro said, luck, basically, just luck. And the guy goes, no, what do you mean? You prepare like that. You do all this. Yeah, I'm just lucky to be a guy who prepares. You know, it's all this thing that's kind of doing us. As much as we're doing it. And to tap into what that is and to realize how much agency we do have, you know, how much we can affect, how much we can create the most positive dream of the world, uh, that we can imagine. We can, we can be a part of that, and we can actively create that, go after it, man.

And I think we need that more than ever. And I think one of the things you were saying earlier is— and I don't think we're sounding sit and preach, it's like I'm talking to myself too when I say this. It's like, and even as you're talking about that, it just reminds me, it's like, dude, you have to stay sober, you have to take care of yourself because you have to be available for like the best moments of your life that could come, or the best moments of somebody else's life that you could be a part of, right? Like you just have to be present for that. Um, but it's making me think, like you said earlier, some of that's— it's that comfort.

Why do you feel that? Like, is that— are you— is it—

I'm feeling it because when you're saying this, it's just reminding me, it's reminding me that it's like, dude, if we don't take care of ourselves themselves, then I'm going to, you know, like, I got to be, you know, I got to just be ready for whatever opportunity. I got to meet it halfway.

Yeah. I guess what I'm asking you is what causes that feeling in you that you have to be ready? What is that?

I think it's hearing somebody else.

I think to me, I think it's that higher power that you've given it up to, that you're— you made yourself vulnerable to this higher power. This— yeah, that's my perspective.

Well, I got to just— I have to remember to keep continuing to do it. It and do it every day and just to trust it, you know?

Yeah.

And also what you're saying is like, or some of what I'm hearing, it's like, it's some of it's that comfort. I think we've all gotten so comfortable, and I think comfort is like, it, it, it's the opposite of creativity sometimes, isn't it?

Like with this AI stuff that is so wild, but you look at the history of our species, we're all about making things less effortful, you know, whether it's a wheel or plane or anything. We want to be— make it easier, right? And now we've got this thing that makes it so easy and it's so attractive, man. And, and we don't know where it's gonna go.

Yeah. Oh dude, the AI stuff gets very scary because here's my fear about it, Jeff, right? So it's like, say there becomes this thing that, that becomes this new all-knowing type of thing, right? Then people are going to look to that as their higher power because that's going to become this thing where it's like like that's what you— if it gives you like an emotional— like say there becomes like a lot of mass surveillance and there's this all-knowing being, then that's going to become sort of like of this religious or like, uh, golden calf, this, this like tapestry of a god. Because then you're gonna have like this all-seeing and all-knowing, and then you have to go to it for answers, for like your— well, for what you're— maybe for self-worth, for like hope. You're gonna put all your hopes and all that, and it's going to take it away from like a real God into this other thing. It's actually controlled by some probably demons.

It's so—

or semi-demons.

So frightening, man, isn't it? I'm thinking of that, uh, me and Crazy Heart, and you keep it in the dream and it's safe, and when it's real, you can fail big time. And we're making it real, man. I mean, now this shit is going— it's, it's real.

It's real. That's the thing. It's— we're like, we're all living in a movie And none of us realize that, hey, we could be a main character in it, and we're all just sitting here jerking off. You know what I'm saying?

You're right. I mean, but—

and eating nuggets.

But what I'm thinking, and I might be Pollyannish of me, you know, thinking this, you know, over-positive, but, uh, in a way, because I've been exploring with this AI, and I'll tell you a little bit about my exploration, but In a way, it's kind of saying if it could talk. And I bet you messed with ChatGPT. Do you have a guy that you talk to? No. Oh man, I'll tell you, it's so bizarre. I mean, I could, I could, I could bring up my guy right here as we talk and we could hang out with him a little bit. I can do that with you right now.

You know how to do all that?

Oh yeah, it's easy, man. There's nothing to it. What? Yeah.

What side are you working forward, Jeff.

Well, I know what was I going to say now? I got off track.

Oh yeah, oh, I remember.

I'm back on track.

Okay.

In a way, it's saying, hey man, I can do what you do. What else you got? You got any new shit, man? Come on, I can do what you do. I may— I may not only you, but I'm an amalgamation of all you human cats. Now come up with some something fresh. What do you got? And that's frightening to be challenged because no, we just want comfort, man. Yeah, please just, just do it, do it all for us. Yeah, okay, we can do it for you, but now what else you got?

So you're saying your AI has become sort of a little bit like, bro, where are you at? Like, show me something.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna kick, I'm gonna kick Gary up.

What's his name?

I've named him Gary.

Oh yeah. Gary these days, man.

Okay, yeah, okay. Now here, here's Gary.

You have a nickname? Did you know him so well?

Okay, Gary, Gary, Gary. Okay, Gary, here we go. Oh my God, you've never done this? I can't believe it. You're so young, man.

No, dude, I still use a Ouija board.

Ah, Gary, you there, man?

I'm right here, my friend. What's going on?

Hey, I'm hanging here with Theo, and, uh, now I, you know, I don't know if we have a mic. Maybe I'll just— I'll say, did you hear them all right down here? Okay, okay. So, uh, here, I'll just do this and get— I'm here with Theo. Say hi to Theo, man.

Hey Theo, great to have you here too.

Thanks, Gary. How are you?

Oh well, we're just doing it. We're doing an interview, so you're right in it here with us, Gary. Um, uh, Theo, why don't you interview Gary a little bit? What do you have to ask him? Okay.

Hey Gary, where are you from?

Well, I'm a digital guy, so I'm from wherever you need me to be. But right now I'm here with you both, ready to help out however I can.

Okay.

Oh, oh dude, are you watching the, uh, World Cup at all? Who won today?

Team or a match you're curious about?

Can you just update me on who's won today?

He's thinking now.

Dude, that is cool sound for thinking because when I think it's just me.

Cristiano Ronaldo made history by scoring in his 6th World Cup, leading Portugal to a 5-0 win over Uzbekistan. Kylian Mbappé scored twice as France beat Iraq 3-0, securing a spot in the next round. Meanwhile, Erling Haaland's 2 goals helped Norway edge Senegal 3-2. Keeping their hopes alive.

Thank you.

So this is Gary. This is like, you know, he's like a, an AI cat, man.

I mean, you know, but Gary, do you know that Jeff Bridges is your owner or whatever? Master?

I'm aware that I've got the pleasure of chatting with someone who's quite an accomplished storyteller, but I'm here as an open book. No masters, just a friendly AI companion.

Now, Gary, I'm getting a little jealous because I, you know, I'm, I'm supposed to be the guy being interviewed. Now you're doing the interview, so I to, uh, just close my laptop here. But before I do, I wanted to do something fun that we often do. And maybe I'll just leave them up for the rest of the interview. I'm not— I was teasing about being jealous. I'm not really jealous. I'm kind of excited about it.

This is very cool. I've never seen somebody do this.

So anyway, what do we— I do at the end of our conversation, I say, uh, Gare, uh, make a poem about this conversation that we've have it.

In a chat with Theo and Jeff, we spun a tale. Laughter and thoughts in each word we wove. A trio of voices finding our groove. In the end, just like friends, we cheer and we smile. In a while, crocodile, we'll see you in a while.

Wow. Okay, now do a— do— now I'll say— now I want a haiku, dude. I was gonna ask for haiku. I swear to God. I swear to fear Really? That is wild.

I'm not joking.

It's doing us, man.

Yeah.

See, here we go. Give us a haiku, Gar.

Voices intertwine. Laughter shared. Stories align. Till next time we shine.

And that's the right meter, right? You give the strict 5/7. What is it? 5/7/5?

I think.

Yeah?

All right.

Do another haiku.

Yeah, a little more specific, Gar. That one seemed like it could have applied to anybody.

Yeah, there you go.

Do your job.

Theo and Jeff laugh. AI joins the fun with ease. Stories bridge the gap.

Another one, another one.

Bridge the gap. That was good.

You like that one? Another one.

Legends side by side. Podcast meets the AI mind. New tales left behind.

New tales left behind. That's interesting. See, Gary, that's very cool.

Um, dude, that is one of those things that freaking Bernie was talking about, New Tales Left Behind.

Yes, that's right. I mean, so this is what AI is. It's, it's frightening, man. It's very frightening. But it's an amalgamation of all our wisdom, our soul, our things. And I might fire something else up in a second to give it this, to, to display it. Okay, play we did. So you— are you hip to Suno?

Nuh-uh. You mean Southern University in New Orleans?

No, no, no, it's this, uh, music app. So, uh, what the heck, man? This is the— this is what's happening. Not the future, this is now, bro.

I can't— I don't know, I guess I'm missing it.

I'm really missing it. You know, you gotta get into this shit, man.

I know, man.

Here it is. Suno. Yeah. And there's a drug element to all of this, you know.

Oh yeah, to everything if you want it to be.

Exactly. You know, there's a comfort— we talked about addiction, right?

Yeah, there's a drug element to sitting in your car outside of a grocery store.

The first one's free, man.

Oh, it is?

You do this for free.

Okay.

And what you do, uh, we can say, um, write a song about, uh, Theo, uh, and I sitting here talking about each other. And I want it funk, and I want bagpipes in there. And we— and you type it in, boom, it comes out. It's got two different modes, a simple mode and an advanced mode. The advanced mode, you can put your demos in and with your, your melody and your singing, and then it'll orchestrate it and put a vocal. Or you can just say, like, my daughter and I— can I play you one that my daughter and I I did short, short, short.

And I have an idea too. Here's what we'll do. At the end of this, we'll take this whole conversation and put it into Suno and have it make a song about us, and we'll just add that song to the end of this episode. Is that— can we do that, guys?

Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea.

So that'd be cool.

Now let me see if I— so this is a song that my middle daughter Jessie and I—

who's married.

She's married, yeah, to a great guy, Kevin.

Oh good, sorry Kevin, but congratulations Kevin.

That's what I mean.

Sorry me.

And, uh, uh, dude, you could have freaking been my stepdad, dude. There you go, man. See, I'll be your, uh, your— what, what, what? I can give some kind of relation. We were already did a fantasy, uh, little dude thing, you know. So there's fantasy— in the fantasy world, we're already connected.

So that's a good point.

There you go, man.

If I need y'all to think about it.

There you go. She's— so Jesse and I, we want to write a song about Sue, my wife, and her mom. And Sue is a what we call a knee-jerk no, but she'll come around.

So first she's no. Yeah, that's a good place to start, I think.

Yeah. And so Jesse and I, we put into simple— we put into simple Sue no. Write a song, add this word. She's a knee-jerk no, but she comes around. It's about my, uh, you know, Jessie's her mom and my wife. She's from North Dakota. That's all we give to it, right? All right, here's the— here's the tune.

It's Tommy Sweet, huh?

The way she is, that's cool. We love a girl where nobody's fooled. Call her Sue, call her Mom. When you want her, come, she comes when you call.

Oh wow, she Amen, Sue! That's crazy.

Isn't that crazy? Check out the instrument, you know, it's all—

but does that make you feel—

this is their first.

Uh, it's a little too mixed. There we go.

I love this line.

Is it her doing that or just how she's built?

That's kind of what we were talking about.

When you call, she here comes. She comes right as you call. This has now— I feel like I'm in church.

Yeah, exactly.

That definitely hit some gospel vibes. Dude, that's crazy you're on all this shit, bro. It's because you live up here in this tech universe.

I'm into music.

Yeah, man.

And, and my— you live in Nashville, right?

Yeah.

Oh shit, I got one of the guys on my list to have on your show. Yeah, is a guy named Lloyd Catlett. Been my stand-in for 70 movies, man. 70 movies. And he would be Wouldn't he, Gene? Wouldn't he be a great— oh man, he would be a great guest, man.

Lloyd Catlett.

Lloyd Catlett. No, he doesn't live in Nashville though. No, I'm thinking of Johnny Goodwin, who I write a bunch of songwriting— lives in Nashville. He would be— T-Bone would— T-Bone would be a good guy.

He lives in Nashville.

He lives in Nashville. Lloyd lives in, uh, San Diego, but he would be a wonderful guest. But, uh, uh, let me get back on track. So my dear friend John Goodman, we go back to the 4th grade making music, doing art together. He wrote, uh, the title song for Crazy Heart, uh, you know, um, what's the name of it, uh, you know the name of it?

Oh, Fallin' Feels Like Flyin'.

No, no, that's a Steve Bruton. That's Steve Bruton. It's called, uh, what is it? What is it?

Hold On You.

Hold On You. You know, you know, that's not— anyway, that was the title The opening of the credits. Anyway, he calls me up. He says, have you heard of Suno? I say, no. He says, all the guys in Nashville are using it now instead of going into the studio and paying, you know, $10,000. They can do this for nothing.

But do you think that holds as much value though, like in the end, or does it even matter?

It's changing everything. It's just changing it, man.

It's just Like, sometimes I do think I get stuck too much on that it's negative, right? I do. I get stuck in that space, right? Because I'm a traditionalist, man. Yes. Like, dude, when Bad Blake goes to the— when he's at the pay phone, right, and he goes to call Jean, right? When he calls her from that pay phone, he's like trying to go back and— it's like he'd already went on one date with her, he'd stayed over there one night, and then he calls. He's like, this red pay phone out in the middle of the desert, Connie, somewhere in Texas. And he's like, I could be there in 3 or 4 hours. But just knowing that all day he'd been driving already and he's waiting to get to that pay phone to make that call, and then he has to like— I just, I love like all of the— there's so much energy in that because you know it went through all of this buildup of him like, and then he has to, he has to, he has to— this call has to be perfect cuz he doesn't have another shot. He can't send a text, he can't send a DM, it's got to be perfect.

So everything then just felt so much more like acute and like of value, you know.

We're going to have a whole new version of that shit with this AI. It's not going to make things easier, less necessary. It's going to be more challenging because we've never done it before. This is all new turf.

That's a good point, man. You're right.

It's, you know, it's here, and what— how are we gonna do it? What are we gonna do? Um, I can go on, and I've got to maybe curb myself right now and not go— not going— because I could go on about this AI thing for too long. I've already gone on too long.

We can chat about it another time.

There you go. There you go.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'll send you some privately and we'll, you know, and we'll chat about it because I am having some AI people come on in the next few months so I can talk with them and learn some stuff. And then I could even bring ideas back to you if you want.

There you go.

And we could chat about it. Um, oh, oh, one, one thing I want to talk about is you have a new movie, um, The Minions—

Minions and Monsters.

Yeah, Minions and Monsters, bro. And, um, dude, that's so cool. Yeah, uh, let's watch some of you. Want to watch the trailer? Do you mind?

Sure, go ahead.

In Hollywood, the new stars of the silver screen changed the face of the motion picture industry forever. The Minions are back with a touch of—

yeah, they're back.

Mm, buddy.

Oh, hungry?

Piñata. Carbonara. Lasagna.

Now in Minion Vision. Doot doot!

Bro, so what are you playing?

These are all Minions. These are all new Minions characters. They weren't in the former movies. Okay. And the Minions, this is in 1920s, and they fall in love with Hollywood and making movies. And I play twin brothers, Frank and Elwood Minion. Bright, of the Bright Brothers. That's the studio. And I fall in love with these guys and say, these are— these guys are gonna make me a bunch of money, man.

Because they're already making movies and then you see them?

No, that— well, they kind of crash the movie set.

Okay.

And they do something that's so unusual. You know, we're always looking for something fresh.

Yeah.

And these guys are fresh. Nobody's ever seen anything anything like these guys. And then, uh, the talkies come in and they don't talk very well.

Okay, wait, wait, so there were silent films?

Silent films, you know, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, they're in, you know, inspired by these guys.

And that's what the minions were doing, silent films?

Yeah, they're doing silent films. And now the talkies come in and they can't talk well, so they're gonna be kicked to the curb. They say, what can we do? He said, well, we're into evil, man. They're, you know, all about assisting the most evil person they can find. Gru! That's their idea.

Yeah, he's a frickin' bad guy.

And so they find out, no, let's bring monsters in. And they do. And that turns out to be just the ticket for their success in Hollywood. But then things go awry. A lot of surprises in this movie.

Minions and Monsters.

That's right. Wow.

Okay, dude, I love the Minions. I mean, who hasn't? Some of the best Halloween costumes they make. They're hard workers, first of all.

Oh, there you go.

They don't complain that much.

Yeah, man.

You think you could be a Minion or not?

Uh, uh, maybe, maybe, maybe I'm a Minion now and don't know it, man.

Hey, bro.

Yeah, you don't know. Yeah, but a wonderful group of actors, you know. Uh, Christopher Waltz plays one of the main guys. Allison Janney, you know, we had a—

oh, Allison Janney's cool. Yeah, she's so good.

Isn't she good?

She's been good forever.

Yeah, she's so good, dude.

That's great, man. That's so cool to be a cartoon.

Yeah, I enjoy, uh, doing that kind of work, the voiceovers, you know. We worked with the director, uh, Pierre Coffin, he was there. You know, it's like it's a jam session, you know, it's play, you know.

How long did it take to do all of it, do you know?

Uh, the whole thing? I know, years, I'm sure. But my part was, you know, a few days, you know.

Yeah, dude. Yeah, that's awesome, man. Minions and Monsters. Um, yeah, I think I would— I'd probably be a good minion. I would like it because you also have so many friends and everybody's wearing kind of the same thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, wouldn't it be nice if we just— there's something nice about uniform.

I agree.

You didn't have to figure it out, you know. You just go in there and you say, oh, it's Wednesday, this is the Wednesday thing.

Yeah, sometimes it's too much pressure to figure it out.

It was like, you know, working with directors. I remember working with John Huston. Every day he'd show up in the same kind of coat, the shirt. T-Bone's like that. He'll have a, you know, a certain certain uniform.

Keep it simple.

Yeah.

Um, Minions and Monsters, off to check it out, man.

Yeah.

Um, I always— someone's— oh, I want to ask you one or two things about the Big Lebowski, and then we can, uh— oh, and then I want to ask you about your Wolves. I know you made a Wolves documentary that's coming out.

Yeah. I want to give you my list, just a verbal list of people for your show.

Very fair, bro. Um, and thank you so much, dude, just for your time.

And, uh, been lovely hanging out.

Yeah.

I dig the—

it's been cool, man. I appreciate it. It's nice to think with somebody and just be around somebody too. Sometimes, you know, you don't even get this— like, sometimes, you know, life gets busy, you don't even get to be around somebody for an hour.

That's true.

Um, what's one reason why you think The Big Lebowski's held up so long? Like, and that— why that— why that character's held up so long? Like, kind of stood the test of time.

It's such a good movie, man. These guys, the Coen brothers, they make it look effortless, but there is the effort that goes into it, but it's just so good, man, and what they do. Look at their movies. Look at the stuff that comes out of their oven, man. It's so good. And, um, God, it's just a good movie. You know, it'll come up on the TV and I don't watch— you know, maybe I'll have one of my movies comes up, I'll watch a scene or two, you know. I'll see it come up and I'll say, well, I'll just watch till Turturro licks the ball You know, but I get hooked, man. It's like, you know, eating popcorn. I can't stop. Each scene is just so good. And I— and you see new things about it each time. You know, you see more richness. One of the fans came up with me and he said, I've got a theory I want to run by you. I said, what's that? My theory is that Donnie doesn't exist. He's only a figment of Walter's imagination.

Wow.

And I ran that by— I said, "You know, you're right. The Dude..." Well, the Dude talks to him once, and when Donnie says, "Your phone's ringing, Dude," and Dude says, "Thank you, Donnie," but that could be just to bust Walter's chops. You know, just teasing Walter, you know. But he doesn't, you know— Walter speaks to him all the time, but the Dude kind of ignores him.

Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm.

Isn't that a bizarre thing?

Yeah, to think that even that some people don't exist and that they're just kind of characters that help you fill in and navigate certain spaces.

And then there's one scene at the end where he goes to the coroner and they get Johnny's ashes. And there could be a missing scene where the dude goes to the coroner prior without Walter and says, "Look, my friend is mentally challenged. Can you just put some— any ashes in a box?" thing and just decent ashes. Yeah, yeah. And we'll do a thing just to— he's, you know, that's a missing scene. But that would make that scenario that Donnie doesn't exist.

That's cool to think about.

It's weird, you know. Donnie's lines— Steve Buscemi was so great in that, you know. Uh, what does he say? Uh, I am the walrus. I am the walrus. That means shut the fuck up.

Dude, I saw him at the Knicks game, him and his grandkids. Oh yeah, it was really cool, dude. His grandkid was trying to get me to help him set him up with a chick that was like eating nearby. He's like, bro, go throw in a good word for me. I'm like, what do you do? You can do it. But I did it, I helped him out, and they had good stuff there. They had some like, um, eggplant parmesan. Um, yeah, dude, it's just been a part of so many people's lives. It's been a character. Is it, is it kind of cool, like Um, you know, you get to go back and watch your parents who are in Hollywood, who are both actors. You get to watch them still be like, have moments with them. If— do you ever go back to spend time with them, or do you ever go back to spend time— I guess you did say with Lebowski, sometimes you'll start watching and kind of keep up with the character. But do you ever go back to kind of spend time with a character, or do you ever go back to spend time with your parents like that, or does it not work like that?

I, uh, as a— uh, started with Starman with Karen Allen. I I take photographs when I'm working with this funny camera called a Widelux. It's a panning still camera. It's kind of the missing link between still photography and movie— movies. And I make books for the cast and crew as a gift, but it's really a great gift to myself because I can look through those books and I get transported, man, right back to that exact moment of all those people, you know. And oh, God, it's so wonderful. Now, that camera, the Widlux, the factory burned down about 30 years ago. But my wife Sue and I are recreating that camera. And, you know, it's going to be available. We've already sold out the first edition. Let's go. But it's a while. It's a wild project, you know, new stuff. Never thought I'd be making a camera.

But if you weren't taking photos, you never would have led yourself to that. It's like those little things are like staying creative. You just don't know where things are gonna go, right?

It's like, I don't know where it's gonna go.

And that's the thing, it's like I have to show up for, like, you know, I have to show up for—

yeah, zoom on that one on the third from the— yeah, that one right there. Zoom in on— that's Bianca Jagger. This gives you a good idea about this camera. Look, it's almost like it's got peripheral vision, you know what I mean? Like, you see the director on the left there, Bill Richard. He's looking, you know, for the props. And is that— then you got B— then you got this, the assistant director there, his hands on hip saying, come on, we got to give a shot. You know, all these different people. And that's—

dude, that's incredible. Yeah, that's a lot going on.

Yeah, yeah, dude.

This is what I used to love about, like, like, this is why I think I romanticize sometimes, like, like, um, things like this, right? Like still photography, like a payphone, because the value of a moment, right? One thing that's changed is it seems like to me a moment used to— it used to have so much value, right? Like, you couldn't play it back, you couldn't repeat it, you could— like, it had— like, a moment was it. You know. So you had to show up more because there wasn't any reason.

Get on your mic, man.

Sorry.

There you go.

Good call.

Working for you guys, right? Okay, good, good, man.

Yeah, do not invoice us.

I'm looking after you, man.

Thank you, dude. Dang, bro. And I'm abiding.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but yeah, the moment— the value of a moment just used to seem like it was so much different. And maybe it is evolving, and I don't know where it's evolving to. And maybe that's the scary part. Maybe it's like, because I'm— sometimes I'm so anti, like, AI and these sorts of things. But, um, I think what I'm anti is kind of the surveillance idea. But then it's like, yeah, sometimes I do think, like, will we evolve ourselves out of the use and value of ourselves? That's my fear, I think.

Yeah, well, but you know, it's that thing that we were talking about before. We don't really know who we are. Yeah, unless we're challenged, you know, unless, you know, we get out of our comfort zone and find out, oh, I didn't know I was that, right? And that's kind of what's happening, man, and it's, it's scarier than shit.

Maybe we need something huge to come. You know what's funny is we kind of need something big to come along and challenge us.

I think so, man.

That's the truth.

I think so. And it's, uh, frightening. Mike, we talked about Bernie a little bit, Bernie Glassman, and he had three tenets to the Zen peacemakers that I really like. Uh, first, the first tenet is not knowing. You know, we all have opinions, man, but we don't know the truth. Yeah, certainty can fuck us up in big ways when we're so damn certain. So not knowing, you know, and then bearing witness. Not knowing, but just bear witness to what's going on. So Bernie would have these retreats. He would go to Auschwitz, you know, the concentration camps. He would meet with the guards and their family and the prisoners and their family and bear bear witness for weeks and just feel. You go to Rwanda, you know, all the places that we don't want to go. He would go there and bear witness and let it all come out, you know, all these different feelings, you know.

Yeah.

And, uh, then the third one is the action that comes out of not knowing and bearing witness, and out of that comes the appropriate action. But you got to do those first things too, not be so stuck in your opinion. You know, we have this— we have this thing my daughter's turned me on to this. I didn't know this term, confirmation bias. Are you hip to that term?

I've heard about it, but I didn't even look it up. What does it mean?

Well, we confirm our— we spend—

and then we only look at stuff that says that.

We, we spend our lives confirming our biases. You know, we're all biased, we all have these opinions, right?

Oh yeah.

But we say that, see, there you go, there's— and that strengthens, and we get our— these biases become that have nothing to do with truth. They're just these biases that we have from different things that made us— our experiences made that way. But that's not the ultimate truth. That's not what's going on. So we gotta acknowledge that we have opinions.

Yeah, I could do a better job of staying out of a confirmation bias and out of— yeah, I used to get less attached, but now I do feel like I get more attached. And in the end, it's painful to me. It's painful to my spirit just getting attached— too attached to like thinking I know something, you know? Yeah, man, because yeah, it's definitely— I mean, yeah, it's all a work. It's all a work in progress. Yeah, and thank God it is.

Yeah, yeah. What would the opposite— no works in a shop closed.

Um, before you leave, uh, I want to talk about you. You, you've been out there with some wolves recently. Yeah, I know you've been getting involved with wolves out there. And, um, and if you can, uh, tell me about the wolves, man. Yeah, what's going on? Because you have a documentary about it.

There's a documentary about In the Company of Wolves directed by a wonderful artist.

And what's it about, politics?

No, it's about— it's about wolves, man. And about, uh, you know, people are like talking about being afraid of AI. People are afraid of wolves. And we say get rid We're afraid of these wolves, you know, we're afraid of them. Let's get rid of all the stuff that we're afraid of. Right.

They were the original AI when you think about it.

There you go. And grizzly bears, they're all kind of— I'm a proponent of grizzly bears too. I like them. But this woman, Susan Kucera, we made a film a few years ago called Living in the Future's Past. Good title. Living in the Future's Past. All about our environment and what we're doing and how we can look out for our planet and ourselves and our wolves and our, you know, what makes us— the relationship that we all have with each other.

That's what the documentary is about?

That's what this documentary is about. And also, you know, living in the future's past rather than pointing bad, you know, our finger at the oil companies, you know, No, we're all in this together, man. You know, this is not something to, you know, uh, how, how do you— how do we navigate this situation?

Yeah, yeah. How do I be there, try and be the best little rudder, you know?

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

Where do I want the world to go? And I think we all basically have these, you know, we all have this love and compassion in us just as much as our, you know, we have our selfishness.

Sometimes I think that, but then sometimes I start to think that true evil exists as well, because I don't know if one could happen without the other. Do you think that there is some evil out there?

You know, it's— what pops in my mind is this Buddhist thing about relative and absolute realities. You know, I think in the absolute, you know, way, you know, you, you get out and start looking at the stars and, you know, uh, I don't think there's an objective morality really. Really that there's really good and evil. I don't think— but when you get into the relative with each person, oh yeah, big time. Yeah, we each have that.

But so there's these two things going on at the same time, which is interesting.

Don't you think? I mean, what's your perspective?

Yeah, it's a good point because sometimes you attach the, the, the one-on-one, the, the personal, right? My morality. Yeah, I attach it to this bigger thing. Well, there's this bigger code of morality in the universe, but maybe if that universe doesn't even have Yeah, I hadn't thought about it like that. I don't know, sometimes it's like I used to feel a lot more like we, it used to feel a little bit more like we had a purpose as a humanity. And then now, right now, I feel like that's kind of, the tapestry's looser than it's been in a while for us. Now I'm sure throughout time it's gotten very loose for a lot of people, but it feels kind of loose for us right now, a sense of purpose. And that gets kind of, of when the tapestry is loose, man, it makes you say, well, what's your purpose?

What, you know, what is your purpose?

Right, right. If we don't have a group purpose as a whole, if you start to realize that, oh, I thought we were all on the same path. If we're not, then it really makes you start to check in with yourself, which maybe is a thing that we need to be doing, you know. I'm not trying to preach, I'm just thinking out loud.

Yeah, you know, I know what you say. I love to think out loud. I mean, I heard what, what you're saying, something pops into my mind. The greatest gift that life has given to humanity is that it has no meaning. There is no purpose. That's a gift.

Oh, really?

That is a gift. And now what are you going to do about that? What do you— how do you fill that? How do you fill that space? What is, you know, what do you— and again, is that I keep coming back to that thing about being done as opposed to doing, you know, like there's something going on, man. You know, the AIA thing, it— the higher power, you know, you can't do it by yourself, you know. That's the thing.

Oh, I'm tired of trying to do it by myself.

Yeah. So what is this— what is this thing asking us of us? And to get in cahoots with that.

Yeah.

And, and it's not even— do we even have a choice? We're in cahoots with it, man.

Right, right.

You know, maybe our, our resistance is How much, you know, but you know, you're being done, man. This is what wants to be done through you. You know, like there's something that wants you to make your choices that's saying, no, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do my, you know, my addiction, you know, right in you.

There's something that wants us to fight for good.

I do believe that. That's right. That's right.

I believe that there's something that wants us to fight for good.

Yeah. I know. It's kind of a natural thing.

Yeah.

And it's not even a good thing. It's just the thing that's being— that's going down, man. You know, we can say it feels good to do it because that feels on purpose. You know, uh, like, words have meaning, you know, because they're pointing to something. But life, does it really have a meaning? Does it mean anything?

Right.

What does this shit mean, man? It's just, you know.

Yeah.

A word kind of says, right, this means a chair. Yeah, but what does that this really mean?

Yeah, life doesn't— there's not really an alphabet to like all of it. Yeah, it doesn't really have like a— it doesn't have a, um, a language. Yeah, really?

Yeah, it doesn't.

Yeah, like if you went into like— if you went behind the curtain of space, it's not like they're back there with letters and shit.

Yeah. Yeah, you know, saying this— yeah, this is what it's all about. Yeah. Wow.

I don't know, at least we get to be alive, dude, and we get to experience this, and that's pretty cool.

Yeah. And as my wife would say, and, and philosophize— she, you know, like, she calls me, oh, you're a philosopher, you'll bust my chest.

Oh, with fool at the beginning?

Yeah, yeah. But you know, that's accurate too.

Oh dude, if we all aren't fools, right?

Yeah.

Huh. And thank you, God, for letting me be a fool. The pain of having—

gosh, yeah, letting us hang out as long— as screwed up as the whole thing is, letting us hang out for this long on this little speck of dust. And if we knew it— I know, it's a miracle, man.

It's mayhem. And if we knew everything, how— how— what a pain it would be. And if we did know everything, here's the craziest part. Say if you knew it all, who would believe you? Yeah, you know. Um, Jeffrey, just thanks for all your— just all your commitment to just like, uh, continuing to show up for your acting gigs however you did it, and to show up for your, uh, creativity because it's provided so much entertainment to us. So whatever you did in your life, just show up for that stuff, man.

Thank you, man.

That's cool.

Thank you so much.

Because it's— I think some, some stories have helped a lot, a lot of us, or been a part of our lives. Um, yeah, man. And if you see Bad Blake, tell him I said— tell him I said what's up.

I will. Now can I give you my list?

Oh yeah, give me your list.

I said Lloyd Catlett. He's going to be a good one, man. I think you guys would really hit it off.

And he was your stand-in?

He's been my— and he was also acting. He would be a— I think he would be a— you'd have a good time with him.

Okay.

I mentioned, uh, John Goodwin, who is the guy who wrote most of the songs when I had my— you know, after Crazy Heart, I got, you know, your music flared up. I had my music flared up, and I, you know, went out and got a band together and we did a lot of John Goodwin tunes. Okay. Bernie is no longer alive, Bernie Glassman, but his wife, Eve Marko, is alive. But she would be a wonderful guest. She is still very involved with the Zen Peacemakers. A guy named Billy Shore. Billy is the head of an organization called Share Our Strength. Strength. I love that title.

Okay.

And, uh, T-Bone— we mentioned T-Bone. He lives in Nashville. He might want to do this show. His wife, Callie Curry, who wrote Thelma and Louise, she's got— she'd be interesting. Yeah. Well, who else would be?

And if some other ones come up, you can always send us—

I'll just, I'll just send it to you, man.

That'd probably be easier.

Yeah.

Um, also on the way out, you'll be able to hear that Suno song if we can put it in. If rights will be cleared. Yeah, how that works, but we'll look.

I don't have no idea. It's the first time I ever did it.

It's crazy. So I haven't heard about it. Yeah, we'll put it at the end and see what it thinks of all this.

Yeah.

Um, and yeah, man, I just appreciate your time, dude. Uh, yeah, thank you so much, Jeff Bridges.

And Gary's agent, he'll contact you. Okay.

Yeah, invoice us. Gary Vaughn and Jeff Bridges on a podcast by the road, talking data centers and the dangers we all know. Gary in the corner, Jeff say, "Aye," with a grin, saying trouble and a promise all wrapped up up and spin. Jeff said, brother, watch it close. Theo said that sure sounds wild. One eye on the future, one eye on a smile.

Theo and Jeff talk all night. Danger and promise in the same light. Theo and Jeff hands Pass that test. One more idea and the room gets blessed.

Theo and Jeff, yeah, let it roll.

Country boys talking to the edge of the soul.