645. Paul Scheer

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week, Jason. Does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. How long gone? A gloomy and windy Thursday afternoon here in New York City. Rand, in front of the show, Jeff Hendrickson at Cafe Andrew Grawl. Things are looking good. How are you, Jason? Beautiful. It's not windy here. It is a little gloomy. I was kind of bummed to come to L.A., and it's like gray and overcast. But otherwise, I'm good. I'm about to adjust the volume on my microphone. Hold on a second. Oh, yeah, that's sounding good. Yeah, I'm good. I got in last night from New York City. Had a late, ate some joy. The restaurant Joy. I forgot about Joy. Joy is banging. It's a good airport meal because there's a lot of healthy brothy soups and vegan noodles and steamed veggies and stuff like that. So you can get a yummy vibe without destroying your body with burger and fries and kind of things. But it was nice to just kind of do the thing where you... time the delivery to arrive at your house when you arrive at the house from the airport it was like it was like 30 seconds that's a sport it's a sport i mean obviously it's a game of chance

There's no way of really knowing how long it's going to take for your food to come and how long it's going to take to drive home from the airport. I've, of course, messed that up several times, and the food has been left, and it usually is there. Yeah, I mean, it's fine for me because I live in a nice neighborhood, and the food just sits there on my doorstep, and nobody would ever bother it. But, you know, for you in New York City, it's so bad. It's different. But, yeah, I mean, it was literally 30 seconds, the food there. So you just come. drop the suitcase off, and you don't even have to reheat the shrimp wontons. Oh, baby. Fantastic, but I'm still kind of drowsy. I'm still a little fucked up. I'm still a little, you know, NYC, man, it's crazy. But I didn't even have time to read your newsletter about Ricky Rubin. What's going on with that? Can you just read it for me? Yeah, I'll just read it for you. I know that's how you like to digest. No, it's not even about, I mean, it is about Rick Rubin to an extent, but it's more about that book and what that book signifies and how there's this new, relatively new line of thinking that like everyone needs to be or should be creative. And I just don't think that's true. And just to be clear, Jason, I'm not bitter about it. I'm just stating facts. Yeah, sometimes people need to hear the cold, hard truth. But, you know, it is sort of a sign of giving up, you know, because you're like, do you want to grow old and make a living doing what you love? Or do you want to just do something that you're pretty good at and life is going to be okay? Like, there's always going to be that. Because everyone's like the secret to happiness and life is, you know, finding a way to get paid and make a living doing what you love. And you should never settle for anything less than that. But you're saying that some of y'all maybe should be settling a little bit. I mean, not even that. It's more just like why do we think – why is all of a sudden that the – it used to be like you wanted a stable job to support your family, and now it's like I want to be freelance so I can use my laptop in Tulum while I edit photos. It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't really make sense. Editing photos in Tulum sounds like a full-on nightmare to a person like me. No, but I mean I'm receiving a lot of – people seem to be – this seems to be resonating with people just because –

Because I think it's like, and I say this, I'm part of the problem. Obviously, I'm in a creative industry for my job, but I don't have any other skills. I can't do anything. I didn't go to college. I dropped out of high school. I have no skills. If I could look at a Bloomberg terminal and make millions of dollars, I wouldn't be fidgeting around with the contacts. Like, what the fuck? Fidgeting around with the contacts. I know what you mean. That's why you see all the rich guys with the Leica. Because it's like, you know, they want to flex. They don't want to fidget. They want to flex. Yeah, that's going to be the new rich dad, poor dad, fidgeting dad and flexing dad. It's a little wordy. It's not rolling off the tongue too well. But I think there could be some correlations of this line of thinking or this phenomenon with sort of the destruction of the college system. Like for the first time in hundreds of years, there's a widespread opinion that going to college is a dumb idea and a bad idea and a useless waste of your money. I don't necessarily think it is, two of us having never attended college whatsoever, but I feel like there are some great social skills that you can learn and networking skills that can be in those very early formative years before your brain has developed that you can get from. a college experience but yeah do you think there's any connection there where it's like yeah why would i go to school and learn how to be you know a boring career person when i could be rick rubin i could walk around my malibu house with no shoes on and tell kanye west that like track nine Could be more celestial and then go fucking – It doesn't feel right. And then go hang out with Steve Bannon. Hey, Kanye, it just doesn't feel right. Vote for Trump. It just doesn't feel right. It's not a vibe. It's not a vibe. Anthony Kiedis. I mean, who would want to do – Hey, Tony, can I call you Tony? But, like, honestly, who would want to – I was on the airplane yesterday watching my cool movies and, you know, eating an edible and having some sun chips.

and everyone around me was just the entire five-and-a-half-hour flight just in these impossibly gargantuan spreadsheets, just these 300-page spreadsheets, and they're just typing and clicking and clacking away, and that's just their life. Well, yeah, but that's also a way. Also, I think we forget that some people do enjoy that. That's the thing. I think that like we don't – not everyone hates what they do just because we don't think it's interesting or we wouldn't want to do it. You know what I mean? That's my whole – I just don't understand. Like I think it's – we've gotten to this point where it's encouraged that everyone can do everything and that's just not true. It's just not true. I can't perform surgery. I couldn't sit through eight years of college to be a lawyer. I just can't do that. There are a lot of people who can't. I couldn't deal with learning to be a plumber. I couldn't do it, but it's a good job. I mean, you can barely be a Virgo, let alone a career. You know what I mean? Yeah, there's nothing there for me. But it's fascinating to me. And that's why I think that Rick Rubin book has taken off and become such a signifier is because it's like, Even if you're not creative and you're striving for it, you can tell people that you're striving for it without having to physically say it, which I think is an important way to signify. Obviously, I think creativity is just a thing that you know or you don't know it's in you or it's not. And I think I've talked about this before, but if somebody who is yearning to become a quote-unquote creative, which is not a job, it's just a thing. But now people who don't know how to be creative call creative people creative as a career path, like I'm a plumber or a windsurfer. If they're always going to be striving towards creativity with books and podcasts and ayahuasca retreats, that's something that their brain is able to wrap around and understand, like, I am doing this thing that is going to have a payoff. I'm investing in my future instead of buying video games or zin or whatever. But if they ever actually become creative, they won't even know that they're creative because they don't know what it is.

It's more safe in their brain to be like, I'm working towards this. And then they're just going to die aspiring to be a creative instead of being creative. I mean, the real answer to all of these questions is always social media. I mean, that's the problem. You know, that's the problem. It's given people an outlet to do everything and anything that they feel compelled to do, which before there used to be. And, you know, now any old Joe Schmo can start a sub stack and try to get his subscribers. Whereas before you had to pitch a story to, you know, an editor and they had to want to do your idea. You know what I mean? And now it's just like everyone can do everything all the time. If I wanted to make a song right now. and put it on the internet, I could do that in 48 hours. It wouldn't be a good song, but I could do it. And that's why... It wouldn't be a good song. You'd probably get a record deal, though, but it wouldn't be a good song. Bro, have you heard about this Tommy Richmond song that's crazy climbing up the charts? It's so mid, and everyone's acting like it's really good. I have not heard it yet. Dude, it's like this big thing. It was bubbling, and then I think it went top 10 on the Billboard, and there was wheat pastings all over New York. It's so mid, but there must be more to it. Who knows? That guy might work at Goldman Sachs during the day. Maybe he's the one success story. There's a lot of mid happening right now in this world, but who's not is our guest today, Chris. Let's introduce him because I think he's hopping on. Yeah, he's pulling up. You guys know Paul Scheer. He's a comedian and actor who's been around for years. He's been on a lot of your favorite shows, The League, as well as one of my favorites, Veep. He has a new book out, Joyful Recollections of Trauma. And we're going to chit-chat with Paul, Jason, if that works for you. It does. Also a fellow podcaster. His podcast, he's got a couple. Which is cool. Happy for him. Good for him. But yeah, I mean, I feel like How Did This Get Made is like a giant podcast. So he's one of those guys that does it all. And, you know, his home was featured in Architectural Digest. So he's sort of, he's really killing it right now. Happy to talk to him. And we're stoked to give Paul Shearer a jingle. I just want to talk to him about VH1, but we'll see if we get to it. We'll pop up that video. Okay, let's go.

This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web, sort of our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, maybe even your parents if they're freaky. And if you're doing anything in the world... writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly, a website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could have everything all in one place. I can have the SEO tools. So those future graduates can find me and, you know, I'm able to accept, quote, unquote, donations for my services that might be gray area. You know what I mean? And then email campaigns. Hey, I got a new, you know, 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. You know, show your investor all of your cool analytics of what's going on. They're going to want to get in early. And we can use Blueprint AI to make your website look as professional. as your competition, if not more. So head to squarespace.com slash howlong for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code howlong to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by a new podcast from The Guardian stateside with Kai and Carter. This is covering a lot of our bases, Jason. It's trying to slow down. The news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world. And I know you particularly have quite a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But how often? Because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot. How many times do they do? Three times a week. And I have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe going to be covering different stuff than we do. That's just a guess. The Guardian is not some billionaire owned. They're not afraid to say what they want to say, brother. Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in what journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at Stateside. But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? Especially when it's not from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen.

erica jane erica jane yes of course legend legend but um i wound up being in a majority of uh like those documentaries about her husband because we were on the show together and they asked her about it and she's like holding my hand i'm almost looking like i'm like her emotional support on that and like you know you're in this erica jane doc and i was like what and then i saw it this is the second time that fucking thing has happened to me the other time was uh for quiet on set I was looking at that Dan Schneider interview, and then all of a sudden on the fifth episode, like the new episode, they slapped that cut from my Twitch show into the fucking doc. I was like, I can't be in these things. Do you guys want me to record it back up here on Audacity, or what do you want? You can if you'd like to, but you sound amazing right now. We usually use the Zoom call, but if you want to do a backup recording. I don't need to do anything. I just want to, if you guys want it. No, no, no. I think we're good. I think this is great. All right, great. What's up, Paul? Thank you for joining us on How Long Gone. We're talking to a motherfucking pro today, which makes our job a lot easier. Oh, my gosh. You know what? We should all be fucking pros. We've been through a pandemic. We've been through actor strikes. We've been through everything. If you don't know how to work a goddamn Zoom, get out. That should be the first thing. If you can't... figure out your camera on a zoom and you call yourself a podcaster you call yourself a guest on a podcast or even a goddamn call yourself a creative yeah get out if you can't figure out some lighting you know daniel day lewis could set up uh some lighting by this point i'm sure can you imagine daniel day lewis with a ring light just kind of you know on zoom doing some reading i i um i i prefer riverside i record on riverside I don't even know if that's a Daniel J. Lewis accent. I just had to change it a little bit. It's close enough. That was good. And that was for the real podcast heads who know about the Riverside broadcasting technology. Not everyone knows about that. I actually am proud to say that I know about Riverside, and I don't know anything. So I feel special that that joke landed with me. I would only do that joke here. Of course. Of course. This is inside the Podcaster Studio. You're in the middle of a sweet book tour, and I've always thought...

Most of it is virtual, but a lot of it is IRL as well. But I've always felt like the idea of writing a book is such a daunting task and so much work and sucks so much out of you. But it's all worth it to go on the classic kind of indie book tour. That sounds so fun to me to have like a dinner in Portland with a bunch of smart people and it's paid for by a publisher. What's that feel like? Yeah, let's walk back. Paid for by a publisher. Um, here's what I'll say. I loved writing this book. It is an, it was an amazing experience. I'm very proud of the book. I think I've broken even, uh, at this point because I'm like, you know, here's the thing. I care about it. I didn't want to like shit out a book. And I know a lot of, I've had a lot of friends who are like, oh yeah, I wrote it in like a month and you know, it's kind of out there and it's done. I'm like, I wanted to do it right. And I think that, you know, after years of touring and going around, like I know. Like how to do like a proper tour, but which is different than what the book publishing world knows how to do. So I. I definitely went all in. I was like, I'm making my own bookmarks, which I got right here, my own bookmark. Oh, that's nice. For the listeners at home, it's a bookmark that is an illustration of Paul and then die cut to the shape of his body. So it really works. It fits in there, and I'm going to hide those out in bookstores. But honestly, it's been so much fun, and I don't understand. I've talked to a few people, and I'm sorry if I'm complaining about a press tour because I'm not. I love it. It's just like. No, no, no. I've talked to a few people who are like – It's what comedians do. Yeah, I don't – they expect me to go out and promote the book. I'm like, you spent so much time writing the book. You've got to go out and promote it. I want people to know about it. It's been – That's half the job. Yeah. That's half the job, whether you like it or not, whether you like it or not. A lot of writer types are not –

into that kind of stuff they want to be in their their little study upstairs finish the book yes get the check and then look out a window for a month and then do it all over again and then people line up to suck their dick but you said you you broke did you really break even by making these these tiny bookmarks where's the advance going queen or what's no no no it's not it's just not the bookmarks uh no you know what it was it's like honestly There are so many things I didn't understand. And like, I think for a first time author, I had a thought that the publishing world is going to be a little bit more elevated than the acting world or the, you know, promoting TV and film. I thought, oh, we're going to, we're going into some high end, get the ass caught out. No, yeah, you're right. It's the opposite. It's like the world is on fire. We don't know who is reading. Do people read? We're afraid. And you go in there. And I think that there are some old school things that are in place. I think COVID kind of messed up stuff because there used to be longer book tours. But it really, it feels to me like you're opening up a movie. It's like it's about the first two weeks and it's about pre-sales and it's about getting out in front of it. And all that sort of stuff is fine. But it does, you have to. put a team together. I'm learning Photoshop. I have subscriptions to Canva and Bizarre. I'm like, I'm cutting videos. I'm buying a DJI Osmo camera. I'm out there. I thought you just get it. I thought you just get on the Southwest flight and go to the Barnes and Noble and kind of do your thing. But you're saying you got to edit video. You got it. You're doing a bunch. You're doing a bunch of stuff. Here's the thing that I've been most passionate about. And maybe it's the dumbest thing, but I've been fighting for this since day one. My book comes out on Memorial Day weekend and or the week before Memorial Day weekend. And I was like, I want to do airport signings. Can you get me to go to every airport we can possibly get to? And I'll be in bookstores in airports. And you would have thought I asked, can I do a book signing on the moon?

Everyone was like, it can't happen. It won't happen. It is not going to happen. Could I do the book signing while I'm pissing into my own mouth nude in the middle of an airport? That was the vibe. So I literally went online, went to the Hudson News website, and cold emailed them. And I was like, hey. Big fan, which I am. Every time I'm in an airport, I'm in a Hudson News. You guys got the best cold water in LaGuardia. When I get a cold water, a pack of Twizzlers, and a magazine with Taylor Swift on it, you are my number one stop. And I basically said, can I sign in your Hudson News stands? And I got this email back like, really? And I was like, yeah. And so I've just like done this on the side. Like, so I'm going to be signing books in LAX and JFK on Memorial Day weekend. I don't know what it will be, but I just thought it would be fun. I was like, I've never seen a live book signing in an airport. But by the way, that's where the most people are going, right? It's brilliant. Yeah, right? No, it's brilliant. People have nothing to do. Whether they know who you are or not, it's like a spectacle. It's like, what the fuck is this guy doing? I'll buy this book for the plane. Because you're just famous enough to where if you're in a Hudson News, most people in LAX or JFK are going to be like, I know that guy. There's something going on over here. I got 45 minutes to kill. I'll buy his fucking book. We'll do a sign. We'll take a photo. Hey, I'm going to get a pack of Twizzlers. I had this guy to sign my book, and let's go. But you're right. Like it's like I just want to I think the fun of it and I think I enjoy it, too, which is like you take so long to work on this stuff. And there's so many times like when you're doing a TV show or stuff where you feel like a studio or network is dropping the ball, not getting it out there. And it's it's fun to have it in your own hands, too. I mean, I don't mind. you know, learning how to do Photoshop. I'm not good at it, but I'm going to try. I'm going to try my best and, you know, make sure that people come out because I am actually proud of it. And I feel like so many other times when you are doing something that you're proud of, you're at the whim of somebody else to tell you where you go and what you can do. So this has kind of been.

freeing on one on one level and then also incredibly daunting you know i like that so the hollywood overlords they kind of tell you where to go when it's time to promote something and the book people are like you figure it out chief yeah i kind of the duality and also the hollywood overlords there's a there's a uh you know there's also like a pecking order too you know so like if you're on a show it's like all right we're gonna give that person watch what happens live that person's gonna go on you know uh colbert split it up right yeah so you know like this it's only it's only me um but uh yeah i mean so i'm having fun it is actually kind of fun and yeah i'm having a blast okay do you have the time to because i i'm the same way as you a little bit like because we do this podcast and other things like i get to do some graphic design stuff and you know design some merch and like other little creative ways and it's fun but i don't have time to do it I want to know how somebody like you finds the time to do all this stuff because I think you're a lot more busy than we are. I got two kids. I got a seven-year-old. I got a 10-year-old. I do carpool three days a week, alternating three days a week every other week. And normally at least two, sometimes three. Yeah, and I guess what it just becomes is like part of the process. I learned early on when I started off in UCB, which is the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. We were doing these shows in an old rundown or converted, I should say, strip club where a lot of people still thought it was a strip club. When they would come in, they would get up like five minutes into a show and leave. Like, oh, you thought you were seeing naked women. You're watching a bunch of guys in Darth Vader masks doing some dumb sketch about stormtroopers. Sounds about right. Aziz didn't even get out of his shirt. I'm out of here. They taught us early on. We were nobodies. We were just doing improv and sketch. You've got to write your own show. You've got to produce your own show. You've got to direct your own show. And if you're not doing any of that, you're working lights for your friend's show. So you started to develop this idea.

creating a title for something was a big deal. It was like a title that will get people's attention. So the shows I did in New York were like shows like burn millionaire burn, which is when who wants to be a millionaire was popular. Then it was like doing blow with George W. Uh, I think we did another show called George Bush is a motherfucker. Like, you know, we had all these titles that if you were like looking in a magazine or in a paper, you'd be like, Whoa, what's that show? Right. And then, and you would hopefully go see it. So that was the first part. But then the other part was, We would just go out into Union Square in New York City and create these scenes. Because if you know anything about New York City, there's tons of guys out in the street with flyers being like, comedy show, comedy show, comedy show. And we knew that wasn't going to work. So we did this. We did bits every single week to kind of get people to our show. And one of the things was we had our friend Owen Burke, who was in our shows, dress up like Santa Claus. And we bought a bunch of wrapping paper. And we would let. people beat him with the wrapping paper for all the gifts they never got for Christmas. Like step right up, hit Santa, tell him what you wanted and you never got. And people would just fucking whap him with the thing because it was a, you know, a wrapping paper roll. It didn't hurt that much. And then we'd give him a flyer. So we would just find ways to get people in like that. Like Danielle Schneider from. Garbage World and Bitch Sesh, she would do a thing where she'd walk across the street and Rob Riggle would whistle at her and she'd start fighting with him and then we'd pull people in and be like, hey, what do you think? And then give people a flyer. We weren't taping. This wasn't like a prank show. It was really just a way to engage people to get a flyer in their hand because we figured if we had an interaction with them that was funny, they would then potentially go see our show. It worked. Yeah. No, I mean, that's a lot more compelling than like a depressed guy in cargo shorts, you know, slapping flyers together and handing you one while you walk by. Or putting a phone in your face and being like, hey, man, how much do you pay for rent? And so that like for me, that has always been like a part of the job. Like you have to always figure out how to do it. And I don't know. You guys know because you're doing the show. It's like.

The other thing, it's like you do these podcasts, you do all this stuff. I do it because I love it. I want to do it. I don't want to sit back and wait for somebody to tell me what I can do and what I can't do. And if you're going to do that, you just got to get the word out. Like, you know, like everyone will tell you you can't do anything until you do it. And then they get excited about it. Like, I mean, that's the funniest thing. It's like I remember no one cared that we had a podcast when we started to have this get made 14 years ago. Like you could. They were like. Great. Well, that's because you guys were early settlers. You know what I mean? Right. You were settling new land. Has it been 14 years? 14 years. We were, like, doing a podcast when people would be like, what's a podcast? And you'd be like, oh, okay. So go into the Apple Store. You know how they have the App Store? Then there's an app called Podcast. You download that. Then you've got to go to this website. And then the feed will be – it was like – So complicated. You're able to put this radio show inside of your iPod. That's how crazy it was. And you could listen to it on the subway. And you listen to it like music. It's like Howard Stern for your iPod Nano. It's so sick. So back then it was just you and Adam Carolla, I guess. Well, you have to give it up for the OGs, right? It was like Marc Maron and Chris Hardwick. Those two really were the... the frontier oh i forgot about fucking i forgot about fucking hardwick oh yeah he was really yeah he was very early nerdist you know they were they were that was the original smart list like selling that thing for a bunch of money and it's true i don't know i i just think he's got it like this is a a tough business like and and i'm not complaining about it just like it's tough but why wait for someone to tell you to do something because by the time that someone like somebody always said like By the time the New York style section has done a profile on what the new style is, it's been done for six months. Like, right. It's like I remember like seeing like, you know, like like maybe like a year after Ashton Kutcher wore a trucker hat. They're like trucker hats. They're in. It's like, you know, so you got to always like know like it's it's just sort of, you know, you have to kind of be ahead of it because once people everyone knows it, then.

It's over. Trust me. As we see smart, let's get another $80 million deal. It feels over for us. I'll say that. It feels very over for us. Look, it's over for everyone. I mean, you know, look, I mean, no, like, but that's the thing. It's like, you're not going to get those Joe. I've been doing this show. We've been doing this show for 14 years. We have amazing audiences that listen to the show. We tour around the country. It's amazing. But if I'm sitting there trying to chase $115 million payday. i'm gonna be miserable like that's like for sure that's just an outlier it's like i remember um like anthony jeselnik i think was was talking about um dating amy schumer at one point because they broke up and then amy like became like the biggest star he's like be like are you jealous are you jealous he's like you can't be jealous it's like you know yeah if you you you pull into your drive when your next door neighbor has like a mercedes like oh i'm a little jealous of that mercedes like but To me, it was like my next-door neighbor pulled in on a rocket ship. I'm like, what is that? I can't even process. I can't be jealous of that. That's not even in my realm of possibility. So I think it's a good way of looking at things too. That's a great way of looking at things, and I wish I could subscribe to that. But I think that How Long Gone is worth $115 million. So that's kind of my – that's an issue that I have to deal with. I give it to you. I give it to you. Hey, look, if I was writing checks, I'd give it to you. if i had it i would well actually that i wanted to ask like over the entire 14 year trajectory of of the of that podcast what what have you learned in terms of like growth and like plateaus and ups and downs and dips like has it been a gradual incline the whole time has it gone down and up i think that the the things that i learned are the things that i tell people about podcasting which people don't always want to hear, but they're like, how do I get a podcast? And, or how do I, you know, how do I do it? Well, first of all, everyone can do it. It's easy, but pick something that you genuinely want to do and that you won't get bored of. And that is not going to be high intensity because you got to do it more like in success.

Like success in podcasting breeds more podcasts. Like, I mean, that's it. Like if you're successful, you keep on doing it even to the smart list world. It's like, right. They got $115 million, which means that every week for the next five years, they have to do a podcast. It wasn't like somebody gave them $150 million and they're like, you know, they got to figure it out. Yeah. That to me is always the important thing. It's like, I love working with Jason Manzoukas and June Diane Raphael. And it's never a burden. It's like, oh, we get to watch a bad movie. We talk about it. And then as far as numbers, I don't get so caught up in it. I look at them. I'm aware of them. You know, we try to learn things from them, but very little because I think now we've been doing it for so long. And I think that what we've really learned is the show has some legs outside of. what we originally thought was just a comedy podcast. I don't think that we thought about this in any bigger way than saying, oh, we want to watch bad movies and talk about them, but it's something that everyone can kind of relate to. So it's sort of this thing where you might not listen to alt comedy podcasts, but you might have heard how did this get made because, oh, we've all seen, you know, Fifty Shades of Grey, you know, and so it's something easily relatable that, you know, it's not a hard entry point. There's no history to the podcast. in a real way that, you know, you go, I can't, where do I start? Well, you got to start at Garbage Pail Kids. You know, that's what people always ask me. I'm like, just start a movie that you've seen, you know, like that's it. And then, you know, and then Unspooled is really interesting because I've been doing that for five years and that I'm looking at stuff. And this is the thing that's been. Interesting about that. I host that with New York Times film critic Amy Nicholson. I have to say New York Times film critic Amy Nicholson before I say Amy Nicholson. How could you not? When you talk to people who are on our Facebook and on our Discord, they're like, you got to do more foreign films. You got to do older movies.

But whenever we do a foreign film, whenever we do an older movie, you watch those things go down. And then if we do like point break, it's like it's like it's like a rocket. And so that's interesting, too, because the people who are giving us verbal feedback, you know, in those forums are not representing our actual audience because you see it in the numbers. You just see in the minute we do anything with subtitles. It's it's a rocket to the bottom, you know, or just it's the lowest rated one. Mm hmm. So you also have to like you got to listen and you have to also trust your own gut. And I'm like, I can we can talk about, you know, a movie like Call Me By Your Name and Dune and we can then, you know, put Carrie in there. But like we but it's kind of more fun if also people know like, oh, yeah, I've seen Carrie. I can listen to this podcast. I think a lot of times with unspooled, people are like, oh, I got to watch this, you know, this Miyazaki movie before I listen. So we're just trying to, you know, I think it's always about balance and. I mean, ultimately, it sounds lame, but it's about the dialogue that you have with the people who are listening. I do feel like the audience is a big part of both of our shows. I want to involve them, make them feel like when we go on the road, we're giving them a show that's special to them. When I'm trying to improve shows, I'm trying to figure out how to make it better at all points, like never give up, because I do think that audiences appreciate it. And you may not see tremendous growth right away, but you see steady. Like we said, we didn't lose any audience during the pandemic, which was really rare. But because I think we had a loyal enough listenership that even though people were trapped in the house and not just listening to it on a commute, they were still finding time to listen to it when they're at home, which was a big deal. Yeah. We all needed to not talk to our husbands and wives. Oh, my gosh. For some part of the day. That was, yeah. I mean, that was an intense time. I think back about that. every relationship that got out of that pandemic and there's a lot that didn't make it so much stronger for it like really like you know very rarely will you ever have that experience with your partner where you can't leave the house um i would say i would say hopefully never again you know hopefully that you know never again yeah hopefully never again yeah yeah i would i would i would say that

Living together during the quarantine and surviving that is sort of like living together through a home remodel. Oh, yeah. Home remodel. That was an intense thing. When we moved into our new house, our kitchen wasn't done. And the only room we could eat in was we had no lights in it. And so we had to eat as quickly as we could before the sun went down. It was like we were in some sort of religious. fervor to get the meal done. We're losing light in this room. We gotta go. Do you live in LA? I do. I live in LA now. Where are you guys? New York? I'm in Glendale. He's in New York. But I brought up the home remodel because I wanted to get into a little architectural digest. Oh my gosh. That has been probably the most... I didn't understand the reach of architectural digest. Oh, bro. Freaks. Freaks. Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How I'm Gone is brought to you by TaskRabbit. Oh, baby, let me tell you something. This is not a joke. I use TaskRabbit a lot because I can't do anything. You need some art hung? TaskRabbit. You need something put together? A cabinet? Got to reach that cheese grater on the top shelf? TaskRabbit. Anything you need, TaskRabbit can take care of it for you. How it works, TaskRabbit connects you with skilled taskers in your area. They can help you move. They can assemble furniture, repairs, yard work, mounting, and more. You can search for a tasker based on cost, skill set, availability, and past client reviews so you know exactly who's showing up and can have confidence that they know what they're doing because taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs. handled 1.5 million moves, and the numbers are just going up, Jason. Yeah, throw a little money at the problem. It's not so expensive, and that job that you really don't want to do is something that another person out in the world is very good at doing and would gladly do it in exchange for a little bit of money. So when life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com

How long taskers book up faster, especially for same-day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code howlong with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince. Jason, the temps are warming up. It's getting hot out there. Summer always changes how I get dressed. I need pieces that feel lighter, more breathable. And they're just easy, but, you know, still put together. I don't want to look like a slob. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. You know, they focus on high-quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Breathable linen and soft organic cottons. Well-made basics, but without the luxury markups. That rare balance where everything feels elevated. but still effortless. Yeah, Chris, linen season is here. I wore a linen blazer to dinner a few nights ago in the warm California sun. But, you know, you got that Italy trip coming up this summer and quality European linen pants and shirts. Upgrade that look starting at just $34. You know, if you get a nice linen suit, a little t-shirt underneath it, some chill shoes, you're looking good, but you're staying cool. The inside of your special areas are nice and dry as you turn up with your besties. So elevate that summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash how long for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, even on a nice holiday now available in Canada. That is Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash how long. That'll get you free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince punto com slash how long. Yeah, it's I'm in that same zone and you forget like, oh, that's like a site that probably a lot of people that we all know follow. And we were in that it was like it might have been. To me, the most reaction I've gotten of anything that I've ever done.

It's not even my career. It's just the most attention I've ever gotten for anything, I should just say. And you've been on the biggest television shows. So Modern Family, it's peak nothing, but a picture of my den is what's taken it. That is it. People want to see my kitchen and den. There's a quality to that kind of peeping Tom, seeing something you feel like you're not supposed to see that just really gets people excited. And I'll tell you this much. I didn't want to do one of those videos. I don't like the videos. I like the videos. The videos are tough. I like the videos as I'm watching them, but I don't want to be that person. Benny Blanco running around his house and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's impossible to look chill and not insane. Because even that Dakota Johnson one where Dakota Johnson is like, here's my limes. I love limes. Limes are great. classic that's a classic one yeah right and it's like uh because she lied about her limes you like you know so to me it's like i yeah i was like oh pictures are perfect you don't need anything i don't need to show you this thing now who is the driving who's the driving force though you or your wife or a publicist i think there were a couple of factors at play because We found this house and it's a brick house. It's in L.A. It's a little bit different looking than other houses here. People always really reacted to that house, you know, or this house that we're in. And we're like, oh, my gosh, I love this house. It's so beautiful. And would ask, are you on Architectural Digest? You know, and as we were designing it, our designers like, oh, we should like it was always like this kind of thing that was. spoken about not like in a way that was like a panic yeah oh that could be that could be an idea that could be an idea and as we were putting the house together and we moved in right before the pandemic like we moved in like that october i think the pandemic started that march you know so we were in a couple months a couple months um but you know because it takes a while to put it all together and we felt like all right now we're ready to do it but the other biggest factor is i'm going to go back to uh my two kids a seven-year-old and ten-year-old

uh who uh make everything disgusting and I love them to pieces but like you know like to get those pictures it was like we got to take down this seven foot tall Kawhi Leonard uh poster that's on the kids well you know there's things that have to happen so like the house looked great the minute we moved in but you know I always say that like with designers and I love our designers she's unbelievable and she's probably one of the only people who got it it was like we have children like so whatever fantasy that this house is like like White carpets, get them out. It's not going to exist. They're just certain things that you just can't do with kids. Or you can do it for a day. It's going to be wrecked. We could do it for a photo and then the crayons start. Did you put your kids up at the chateau for the weekend while you guys got those shots? What did you do to displace the sleeper cell? What we did was we left. We were on vacation. We're like, come in. take these shots and then we came in after that to do like the we're in the house shots but like yeah yeah right but like all the major shots were done when we were not there it was and it was great because you shouldn't be there because it's you know everything's getting moved and tweaked and changed i mean you know there's a lot of things you know Um, but yeah, it was, it was good and not stressful in that way. Leaving, leaving is cool. Congratulations. Yeah. Leaving is cool. It's like, we put my, uh, my first house that we ever bought, uh, we put on sale and, you know, and I never understood this idea of like the people who come to like set it up with not furniture, the furniture that's not yours. Staging, staging as they say in the biz, in the business. So, you know, that was another thing where it was like. And we, you know, somebody came in, they took all the shit out of our house. And then all of a sudden our house was this other thing, right? Like, or like a couple, like a couple of pieces. Like they took our couch and made a, and put a, like a really tiny couch in there. I had a guest for perspective, you know, and it was just like this, you know, so you see the stuff. And it was funny because we were living in that house while, you know, before it went on the, you know, we had to take pictures of that house and then had to have people come over. It was like, so then you were kind of living in this like model unit.

It was just funny. Like, I just love that. I love that world of just like trickery. You know, it's like, and I love our old house and they did a great job. It just was not our style, but it's like, it's almost like let's make this personality list, but also make it aspirational. You should come into this house and be like, Ooh, I could do this, but better. And I like that idea because it's, that's why you would want to buy it. You're like, Oh, I see something that they never saw. No staging. That is exactly what it is. It is. It is the, I think it really works. in a way that like it seems to the to layman's like us like oh this is a little silly but i guess whatever but i think that like the perspective thing you're talking about like it's all about these photos that's how you get people in so if the perspective changes and it makes it look bigger or whatever and that's what we're and you're looking at like we had a big couch because i i love a big couch i want to be on a couch i want to be comfortable on a couch you know couches are for being super comfortable i don't want to be like like when i grew up i grew up in a house that like nothing felt comfortable sure like you know it was like we had a couch but it looked like it was out of like an antique store like i hate i i used to like envy everybody who had like a den oh yeah like there's legos on the floor it's comfortable there's maybe a lazy boy like in the sense that i want to be in this room and you can have a nice other room like in my house it was always like we have the living room which we'll never host anyone in but it's there for show it's like you know put like a little stanchion up there and we're never going to go in there but we're going to vacuum the carpet in a certain way you could see the yeah the vacuum lines on the carpet yes like a like a baseball field yeah it's like that to me was always like you know so i grew up in but that was like every room in my house so i always want that comfort but the couch is big so when they put in a couch it just looks like oh it's got three cushions but it's

Four times smaller than our couch. Makes our living room look way bigger. It doesn't look like it takes up the whole living room. Because I'm not worried about how it takes up the living room. I just want to be comfortable on my couch. Nothing better than a giant fucking couch. Giant flat screen. Coffee table full of nonsense. Dumb magazines. Remotes you don't use. So comfortable. My wife and I argue about this all the time. Because my wife likes to create a house that's like, we don't have a television. And I'm like, June. All we do is watch TV. That's our end of the day wind down thing. And she will fight me tooth and nail. Do not get a big TV. We do not need a big TV. And just the other day, we're in bed. And she turns to me. She's like, we should have gotten a bigger TV for this bedroom. I'm like, I know. You jump out of bed. You're like, I'm not doing this again. I'm not doing this again with you. I think that. This is something that happens in my household as well, and the fix was to get a TV on wheels. So that way it's not in the living room. So if you're doing something, people don't look at – they look at a painting, you know what I mean, instead of the TV. I love that. But then you wheel it out when it's time to veg. What we've done is a slight version of that, which is – We got this beautiful, I would call it like a bar cabinet, right? It has these wood doors that close, but it was like built to be like a bar. We gutted that bar cabinet and it's big enough to fit a TV. So you close those doors and it looks like a really nice, like an armoire. It looks like, it's pretty, you know, like, right? So it fits in the room, but only when you unlatch it. do you get to you know um enjoy it see the tv yeah of course it's a little treat and 90 of the time it's open but when we are we're having people over closing that shit up uh but i will tell you this the tv that i have the most envy towards is so think about like this you're in your bed and then under your bed there's like a track system and it's not that expensive to do it's only like

like a thousand bucks to get this track system you know which is not i mean i'm not that that's not no that's money but our listeners our listeners do pretty well just fyi all right there of course you're you're uh it's fine it's fine the tv comes out flat at the at the bottom of the bed and then goes up like makes a u and so comes up at the foot of the bed and then you're just watching it at the foot of the bed boom you hit a button comes back down off the tracks is like that is so it's never around it's not in your room but it is in your room that's worth that's absolutely worth a thousand dollars yes absolutely that seems like something that should be because you know back in the i would say in like the mid-2000s early 2000s it was popular to have like the wooden end of the bed thing where the tv would raise up from like a box yeah but that's still that still creates more furniture you know exactly this seamless the tv the tv coming up and it's already on and it's already playing sonic 2 as it rises up you don't even have to think about it Can't beat it. Oh, baby. Cannot beat it. Oh, my gosh. Tails right at my feet. Speaking of all the entertainment things that we have to do in your business, all the places you have to go and the things that you have to do, what is the worst one to go to, like a Comic-Con or a Sundance or an Upfronts or all the shit that we have to do? Not we, you. I will tell you this. I love all that stuff. I do because. It's just a spectacle. What I don't love is when you get a call and someone's like, hey, we're doing a corporate retreat and we are going to be having everybody together and we would love to have some comedy come into our corporate retreat. That is a recipe for disaster. I've said yes to this too many times. Well, Paul, Paul, you're bearing the lead. These are high paying. The reason people do this is for money. Right, right. Yes, they are.

But but here's the thing. Are they worth it? Right. Because I'm not I'm not talking about I'm not talking about like Tim Cook is saying perform on my yacht. I'm talking about like, you know, Cisco is having their conference of everyone in the Pacific Northwest, you know, in a conference center, you know, like so. And also weddings. So I remember one of the early gigs that we got doing this and we're doing like sketch and improv. So I'm not a stand up. So it's different, too. But. And this woman had seen our show multiple times. This is Respecto Montalban, this improv group that I had in New York City, which I still perform with many of those people to this day. But she saw it, and she's like, I would love to do this at the rehearsal dinner for my son's wedding. And we're like, okay, this sounds kind of interesting. Like, okay, what do you want us to do? He's like, why don't we do a bit about like a runaway bride? And then, Paul, I saw you once do Dr. Phil, and you be Dr. Phil, and you go around. And again. i was like okay and and it was at a point in my life where they're like we'll pay you 500 bucks each great and you get to eat the food here we go and this is like at that point i was young it was a michelin star restaurant i was like let's fucking do it and we go in there and then we realize that everyone hates this mother-in-law Everyone, like this mother-in-law, she has planned it. And the other side of the family doesn't like her. And now we're doing improv and sketch. I'm walking around. Hi, I'm Dr. Phil. What do you want to tell me? Whatever the fuck I'm doing. And then we're doing this runaway bride sketch, which is also in bad taste because they're getting married the next day. And, you know, it's just like good intentions. without any like real like thought of how is this going to play the reason why you like what you're seeing is because you're in a theater and you're seeing us perform then you're saying hey what it's like it's like saying oh my gosh it's so fun to look at those uh monkeys in the zoo maybe bring those monkeys to my house it doesn't work

It's fun in the zoo because they're being protected. It's safe. That's the environment that the monkey is supposed to be in. You can't take the monkeys out of the zoo. That's a great example. It's backfired millions of times. So this mom, you were destined to fail. This mom could have hired Jerry Seinfeld to do stand-up, and they would have booed it because they hate her, and then you had to perform improv. Yeah, we're doing these bits, right? So I remember I went up to this older guy. You know, and I'm like, what do you want? What advice do you want to give the married couple? And they were like, he grabs the mic out of my hand. But like, actually, he grabs my hand like it is the mic. So now we're connected as one. Right. So he's kind of pulling me down. And you're playing Dr. Phil in this scenario. Dr. Phil. Because you couldn't tell from my accent. And and and he's pulling me down and he goes. I want grandkids. now and i was like all right and and he's like holding it like i'm still and i'm like all right all right get those crankies like you know when i want it and i want it now and it's like now it's weird but it wasn't like fun and there was an anger an underlying anger there you know it's like uh of what was going on and and you know and we're just like trying to wrap it up people are disinterested people don't know what's going on you know and again it's like this is years ago so it's it's not even like at a time when people are doing fun things at weddings where it's like we're gonna learn a crazy dance this is like even before that so people are just Yeah, and it's like, who the fuck are these people? We're in a nice restaurant. We don't need these fucking idiots that aren't even, they're not, like, I don't, are these jokes? What are we seeing? Yeah, sure. We're seeing bits. We're seeing bits. Bits might be unclear to the untrained, you know, what's happening here. Sure. And so, you know, and so I've been in those situations a bunch where it's like, and again, it's easy, quote unquote, easy money. Hey, we'll pay you.

$10,000. All you do is five minutes and that five minutes or that 10 minutes feels like an eternity. It's a lifetime. And, and there's nothing like failing in those moments. Right. And, and whenever you have that opportunity of like easy money, it's never easy. Like I'd rather do something where everyone's on the same page because it's like, Oh, I'm like, you know, oh, well, is there a stage? Well, not really. You know, we'll be doing awards. We're going to show some slides of everybody who did good sales presentations. And then you guys will come out. You always hear the stories of the guys. They're going to go on. They're playing like a playoff football game. And the bartender turns the TV off. So, yes, this guy can do his open mic thing like that kind of energy. And then the other part that I've learned, I learned this early on when I was doing a lot of these corporate gigs. was this thing where whoever is planning it, not unlike this mother-in-law, will go, okay, when you get out there, you've got to talk about Ralph's golf score because Ralph is terrible at golf. Oh, and everyone here is going crazy over that Jersey Mike's. You've got to mention Jersey Mike's. And you've got to talk about Sheila and Brenda and how they are always fighting over the key to the bathroom. So then you come out and you're like, oh my gosh. Sorry, we're late, but we were fighting with Sheila and so-and-so about the bathroom key. Silence. Sure. And then you realize that it's only inside jokes to the person who told you they were inside jokes. And that was a problem. Now, meanwhile, I will say the opposite of that is when I did a USO tour and we were touring around these bases in Afghanistan, we could just make fun of. Whoever was in charge, the sergeant or whatever, you know, the head of the base. And they're like, fuck, yeah, fuck him. Like, it was like, that was easy. I hate him. Anything about the people in charge and the soldiers were like, yeah, fucking yeah. Like, but we also didn't do a lot of research either. It was like, hey, we're going to, like, you know, we're going to do a, remember, like, we came out there, again, with bits and stuff like that. And immediately on those USO tours, we're like, oh.

we're just going to do bits about this base and we're just going to make it everything. Like we did like a dating game segment where we just do like, this is your commanding officer going on dating game. It's like, cause it was like, cause it was, it was like, they don't want to see anything more than like, like they don't need to like hear our esoteric shit. Like let's just be like, we're going to make fun of the people that are here and have fun. And it was great. Get a load of the general, huh guys? It's kind of like when Johnny Cash would perform at the jails and people are just ripping their hair out. He's just being like... He's just doing his normal thing and people are gouging their eyes out in excitement. I'm sure the USO crowds are pretty excited because I think it's one of those things also where if you make the effort, there's a level of respect that they have. It was truly one of the best experiences ever. going on that tour it was frightening as hell too because we happened to be in afghanistan during like the uh the most uh most the most deaths occurred in our time in afghanistan and we were in the northern part it was crazy okay you would never have known it that it was going on but when we got back rob riggle who is you know a former marine was like you know it's interesting my buddies told me we were like in the middle of the shit, but they, but they're like, you know, they're, they're treating you so good. The only thing that I ever, the only thing that I ever realized, which was, uh, it was so funny. We were, we were traveling around these Tomahawk helicopters and, um, and you know, the first couple of times it's exciting. Then it just gets like routine. It's like, Oh, I'm just going to flight to Cleveland. I'm flying to the next base. Yeah. And so you used to start to be relaxed. And I'm, and, and so I'm just like sitting back and I'm, I'm totally asleep. and then all of a sudden i hear it and the machine guns are going off i jump up right and we're away you know and and and i look over and it's like one of the guys that we're on a tour with they just let him start firing the machine gun in because we're just flying over like empty desert and he's like and it's like i never my heart never raced more than shit and it was like oh yeah because he was like okay can i try

Try that. And they're like, yeah, sure. Try it. It was like shooting, shooting into sand. I always wondered how those things come together. Like, does your agent just call you and be like, do you want to go to Afghanistan for an unpaid opportunity? And you do it. Does everyone have to say yes as their duty to the country? I was I jumped at it. Like Rob Riggle was like he was on The Daily Show at that point. He was like, hey, I'm going to go to I want to go there and do these. It was sort of like The Daily Show was sending me. let's all do shows it was truly one of the most fun experiences only because you're right like everyone's psyched that you're there and then you feel this also like i think there's like this difference of seeing stuff on tv and then being there and meeting these soldiers and seeing what they're doing and the sacrifices that they make it's it truly is i've never felt more patriotic i've never felt more thankful i and in many ways I also see what, I'm sorry to get on this soapbox for a second, but I, you know, I see what the USO does for these soldiers and whether it's bringing in talent, whether it's providing internet or video games or chocolate, like the simple pleasures of life in the middle of a war zone. Like, so whenever I do have a, like whenever I try to like raise money for things, I'm like, I want to give it to the USO because it's like, these guys are like, you forget. Like, it's just like the simplicity of just being like, oh, I can answer an email. They set up like that kind of stuff. So and again, and bring in people like us and cooler people than us. Like, you know, you bring in like whatever, you know, Chris Stapleton or whoever, you know, these people go over there and they fucking perform and do these shows. It was truly an awesome, awesome highlight. And the funniest thing, too, is the military does a funny thing. We were there with Horatio Sands. He was one of the people that was with us. At that point, we were still I had no real credits to my name. I think we just had done the first season of Human Giant at that point. And what they tried to do is get the soldiers really pumped for you. So like they flooded every like whatever.

I forget what they call them again, MC. It's basically their bodega, their delis, where they get all their supplies and stuff, with Boat Trip, that Horatio Sands movie with Jerry O'Connell. So every soldier owned or saw Boat Trip and were the biggest fans of Boat Trip. It was like, we've been indoctrinated. You are the biggest star. People were like, sign my Boat Trip DVD to Horatio, wherever he went. I've never seen as many people. talk about boat trip and it was like they did a great job so so horatio horatio peaked over in afghanistan yes he was like i'm the most famous guy in afghanistan that was it it was like but it's like it does it makes you feel like you have this they do it right you know they think you know like we were nobodies you know who cares we were like people like i know you from best week ever of the great with military precision because i if i was uh you or a young horatio or whoever i'm gonna be like Of all the people in America, you want me to go to Afghanistan and entertain them? I am far from a household name. They're not going to know who I am. And then some sergeant's like, we'll take care of it. Don't worry. We're going to make you the biggest, most famous person on that base. And you're like, how? And they're like, we did it. We did it. Here you go. We can do this. And I will say, too, there was always that thing, and not to be sexist in any way. there is a majority of men on these days. I met a bunch of amazing women as well. But when you're going, there's a bunch of dudes with no women. It is also like, you have to work your way out of that hole too. Cause a lot of the times it is like these shows, like they will be like, they also will bring a very attractive woman. And like, it was just like, if you see like, Oh, Scarlett Johansson accompanies, uh, Garth Brooks or whatever, you know, it's like, we're just a bunch of dudes. It's like people are like, can we trade out Riggle for Aubrey Plotz or something? Please bring us somebody to look at that's not another dude. Y'all know any female comedians that could kind of do this thing? This is cool. I'm really good at doing that wolf whistle, and I really want to try it out on a booksome broad. I actually did want to talk about Best Week Ever because I feel like that really –

That was really my I watched a lot of that in my time. Yeah. And it made me feel like I could do what I'm doing now, if that makes sense. Like it was it was like, oh, yeah, you guys were so funny and it was so good. But it was also like, damn, they just I think I could go up there and talk shit about this clip. I think it's I think I could do this. This is what I do with my bros on pot at home. Exactly. Exactly. I think the cool thing about Best Week Ever was. It was before Twitter, right? And it was a place to kind of do like the pop culture cliff notes. And I think what you're saying is 100% right because once Twitter kind of hit, that's what the fun years of Twitter were that. Oh, this happened. Here's a joke on it. Here's this, right? And you're just interacting with the culture. Like this is a great way to be like, oh, if you haven't watched like Survivor or Bachelor where it's just like joking around and doing dumb bits. And as somebody who like me, I love pop culture and I've always loved it. It was like, it was just. It was never hard work. It doesn't feel like work. You just show up. Now, did they send you things and you would know beforehand and write? Yes. Or would you just show up? Okay, okay. In the beginning, it was really fun because you would just get a packet the night before. It's like, all right, we're going to talk about The Bachelor. Here's a clip you can watch. We're going to talk about – and you just go. The pieces would really be dictated by the content. that you brought to it like you know like me or the cool thing about that show was you know in um in relationship to talk soup talk soup is one person one perspective one voice uh we were multiple people so i think what was fun about us was like oh you may not like me but you may like uh you know this other person on the show you know you may not like them but you like me and so you we passed the torch so it wasn't just one voice and then it started to get a little bit more

scripted in the sense of they had a take on it already and you were just there to help bridge the take and that was fine but it was like oh am i just giving you what you want like you know it wasn't like but in the early days it was like i could have a take that could make it into the episode but then they started to make it more like our take is that this episode of survivor is the most blank and we're just going to only do jokes that feed into that just different just a different thing yeah Yeah, like it's so funny. I was thinking about this the other day because the first episode of Best Week Ever aired on the day that J-Lo and Ben broke up. And I remember getting a call that morning. They're like, J-Lo and Ben broke up. You need to come in here. We're going to stop. Red alert. We're going to re-edit the episode. And they were able to lead with that. And that was kind of the fun thing about the show is like they could really react to the latest news. Again, we're past that now culturally. But it was so fun to be able to just like, bam, just get on air with that thing. I think people's minds were blown at 11 o'clock on Friday when they broke up at like. 10 a.m. on Friday. We were already talking about it. Yeah, that's crazy, actually. I didn't even think about that. You're right. We have totally moved past that. Like, we all react to everything immediately, no matter if we know about it or not. Yeah. We don't even have 10 hours to process. The pressure is to perform. No, we're like looking at a picture. We don't even know if it's AI generated. We're like, fuck it. I hate this person. We're done. Well, I guess. You were nice enough to send over a PDF of the book, but I unfortunately didn't get a chance to read it. I wouldn't expect you to. What an ask that would be for me to say to you, hey, by the way, I know you're doing this weekly podcast. You want to just, like, chow down on this book for a second? Hey, look, we don't have a big, you know, like, it feels like Bill Maher's always read the book, but I feel like a producer has told him all the notes. You know what I'm saying? No one's reading the book. Here's what I'm going to tell you. I went, talked to my publisher at one point.

And I was like, let me write the questions that you slip to the people that are going to pretend to read the book, because at least then I will be more versed in what I want to say about it. Did you really do that? Yes, because they were writing the questions. So I was like, yeah, give me the questions that you're writing, because I'd rather write the questions that I want to answer anyway. It'll be better if I do this. When you were on Conan O'Brien's podcast, all the questions he asked you were... written by you well no conan's different okay like because i think that there are people like that actually like there's different levels of things right like there are some people who have read the book some people like you said like bill maher who has uh who has a producer you know like there's all levels there's all levels to it and look as somebody who's also doing interviews too it's like i like i want to have people on my show I don't know if I'm always going to have time to read the book. I may read it. I may read it later. I mean, but I'm also like, I also understand like the importance of just like, Hey, you got to promote your shit. I can't wait for me to be like, let me, let me crack into this. You know, it's, it's not, it's not realistic. So I, but I was like, if anyone wants to ask for those questions, I will have questions for them at the ready that are, you know, I mean, they're not groundbreaking questions, but it was, they're at least questions that you could ask. It doesn't seem like, It gives you a leg up, a slight leg up to be like, so in your book, you mentioned this. I'm like, oh, yeah, I do. And then you go. Paul, there's a lot of awkward celebrity encounters out there in the world, aren't there? Yeah, you know, it's so interesting. I have had a lot of interesting celebrity encounters, and I botched them all. But I think I botched them all because I had one amazing one. with uh christopher walken my parents well my dad and i went on vacation to la when i was a kid and there's this thing called hollywood on location where you would go to beverly hills at like six in the morning go up this like little a walk-up building and in this wood paneled room there are like photos of every celebrity like but they're like like polaroids like our pictures that were out of a camera and uh and they would give you a printout of everything shooting

exterior locations in la on that day with the cast in it so not you know if you're a stalker you hit a jackpot but for 75 bucks you get this sheet that would say okay it's a call sheet yeah michael landon He's shooting Highway to Heaven at this high school. You know, and that's dating myself, obviously, but that's what we got. Like, so we drove out, we saw Michael Lennon, and then we went to the set of Simon and Simon. Then I saw Markie Post from Night Court shooting this thing about sex workers, a funny thing about sex workers. You know, they're bopping around and meeting all these people. And I met, like, David Carradine. I didn't know who David Carradine was, but it was still cool. And that was a time when, like, these uh you know these security guards were like hey you want to go meet a celebrity i'll bring you on yeah i'll help you i got so close yeah it was like hey kid yeah come here so we went to this one set and when we got there we realized oh we messed up because they told us when we got that sheet of paper never go to the uh locations that say int which is an interior location because the chances of seeing a celebrity in an int an interior is low slightly yeah if they're exterior they're gonna have to be out somewhere you'll get to see them and again this is late 80s there's not that much security they are out and about it's like they're no one's you know now it's hard to get closer to us up um so we're like oh no we we're at this you know we're at interior And all of a sudden, this security guard approaches my dad and I. He's like, you want to meet a celebrity? And I was like, yeah. I was like, I met Michael Landon today. I met David Carradine. I met this. He's like, I have the biggest celebrity of all. And I was like, really? He's like, yeah. He's Christopher Walken. And I'm like. And of course I'm like, who? Right. I don't know. Christopher fucking walking is at this point. I'm a young kid. And my dad's like, no, no, that's the bad guy from James Bond. He was in view to a kill. I was like, Ooh, yeah. Max Zorn. I want to meet Max Zorn. And all right. And the guy's like, all right, stay right here. Security guard walks away. We wait a couple of minutes, comes back. Okay. Chris wants to meet you, but no cameras, no parents. Right. And, uh, and.

And, you know, no trigger warning. No trigger warning here. It doesn't go too dark. And, you know, and I look over at my dad. I'm like, I want to do it. And he's like, OK, go. So the security guard like takes me across the street. We walk over to this like warehouse and he opens the door and kind of ushers me inside and then closes the door behind me. And he stays on the outside. Right. So now I'm in this dark warehouse. My dad's across the street, but the door is closed. And then from out of the darkness, I see this man. Now, again, I knew him from View to a Kill. In fifth grade, I wasn't really watching The Deer Hunter. And I see this guy. And this movie, Communion, is about a man who communes with aliens. And I guess in this movie, they were probably shooting the scenes where he's in the alien spaceship because he is... pasty white like to a degree like it's makeup more than usual litter more than usual more than you that's what i'm saying yeah it was that what people like paul he's actually pretty pale guys but you know it was makeup and like these sparkles so he kind of looked like christopher walken meets like edward from twilight and uh and then he's got these like weird contacts and so christopher walken who already has like cuts an imposing figure in a way you know is more imposing you know and i'm like just taking this in on my what the fuck is this? And he goes, you know, and he kind of comes over to me. He's like, Hey, hello, little man. He goes, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I go, I want to be an actor. And he's like, Oh yeah, we're making a movie right here. And I'm like, yeah, I know. And he's like, you believe in aliens? And I go, I don't know what to say. No celebrities engage me this much. Normally they just sign my thing and let me go. And I go, I never made it this far. Yeah. And he's like, you believe in aliens? And I go, uh yeah he goes yeah me too aliens exist and i'm like yeah right you know and uh and again i might just kind of again just pushing my notepad too i'm like you know like you know and i'm like you know i don't even i'm not even saying a word i'm like and then he um he drops to his knees he grabs me by both shoulders is looking in my eyes and he just goes

don't let anyone tell you who you can or cannot be and then like releases me signs this autograph and then walks into the darkness and then the door opens the security guard comes in pulls me back to my dad i don't know what the fuck has happened but i'm walking out with this christopher walken autograph that that's kind of as good as it gets as far as like what could have happened there like he gave you a good piece of advice he signed the paper Did you reach into your back pocket and your wallet was missing? I feel like something went down in there. God damn it. I had $10 back here. You look back, he's giving the security guard a fiber. That's really funny. That's really funny. Oh my gosh. But yeah, I messed it up. I'm a fan. I'm a fanboy. I love... I just love this whole thing. I mean, I'm still a person who slows down. If I see something shooting, I'm like, oh, what's shooting? I'm curious. I'd like to see it. And I'm not embarrassed by that, but I also feel like I don't know how to do a good celebrity interaction because I feel like they always fall flat. And it's because there's nothing more to say. So I've developed now my drive-by. My drive-by is I'll pinpoint you. I'll be looking at you. I'm like, I got it. And I'm going to just be lying in and be like, hey, I just want to say, huge fan, I think you're amazing. And then before amazing's out, I'm already one foot away. You're walking away. Smart. That's the way to do it. I don't need anything from you. I don't need a picture. I don't need an autograph. I just need to tell you, you're cool, and I'm gone. I don't care if you want to talk to me. I'm out. Hit him with the big fan. You walk away. You look back. A little thumbs up as you're walking in the other direction. It's nice. And they're happy. It's nice. It's a nice way to do it. For our listeners at home, that's the way to do it. Yeah, you've got to go in and go out. I'll tell you. I read this book when I was a kid. This is how I was into meeting celebrities I was when I was a kid. It was like this. I've tried to find it. I can't find it. And it drives me crazy because I know it existed. And I'm so mad that I gave it up because it wouldn't be perfect. It was a book called like.

how to meet celebrities. And it was by these two guys. And they were like, we've met the most celebrities. We've done all this sort of stuff. And every chapter was a different celebrity and a picture of them with that celebrity and then tips on what to do. And then it would have like a thermometer and the thermometer would rank the interaction. So it'd be like, okay, these people are. nine out of 10 approachable. These people are, you know, five out of seven. And so it'd be like, okay, if you want to meet, you know, baseball player Reggie Jackson, the best way to meet Reggie Jackson is talk about speedboats because Reggie Jackson loves speedboats. So you go over and you say, hey, Reggie, see this new speedboat? What do you think? And then he'll start talking to you. And their whole thing was never say you're a fan. Approach them with... something that's going to engage them on what they like a fact a little thing that you know they're interested in an anecdote which is also weird because i've had people do similar stuff to me and i'm like who are you what's going on like why are you like it would be weird if someone just came up to me and be like hey man uh like i'm trying to think of what they could you know like it's it's it's too personal any bad movies lately well that at least like that at least is Like known, right? Like Reggie Jackson. Yeah. Like these things are like speedboat thing is a little under the radar under the right. Like that's what it must. They would be like, you know, hey, Paul, TV size, little contentious in the house. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Like what? Yeah. So like something like that would be perfect. And but I always remember that in that book, they had met every celebrity. And and it really like 80 percent were really easy to meet. Like. uh you know 15 were like oh okay and then like a few were like it's trickier but there was one that was like do not approach and it was billy crystal do not approach billy crystal and our whole chapter about under any circumstance you don't yeah it was like it was the mean like all these incredibly he's the black widow yeah a lot of mean shit

about billy crystal i've never met billy crystal but i always saw it so last year i was on vacation and we were at this resort and i saw billy crystal at this resort and i had this panic like literally like wherever that was in the deep well of my subconscious it was like do not approach do not approach and and and the one giant thing that i do have in common with billy crystal is we're both giant clippers fans uh billy crystal clippers fan for a long time and I did have something. And then part of me was like, maybe I should just approach to have the terrible interaction. And I didn't know what to do. And I just chickened out. I felt like it would be a bad one. But I did overhear him. And I heard the best thing. I guess he'd ordered a filet mignon. And he had said, he was like, what's going on with these? They used to be so much bigger. Why are these filet mignons so? thin here they used to be bigger what's going on like he was complaining about the old like why filet mignon has gotten smaller and and that to me was honestly i didn't need to interact with him to hear billy crystal complain about the size but reminisce about when filet mignon was bigger when filet mignon was filet mignon that's my america the size of my gourmet steaks damn that's funny uh all right paul thank you paul we appreciate it thank you so much for talking to us. I appreciate you guys. This is the best. Thank you so much. Thank you. And we'll, yeah, you guys, the book is out now or is the book coming out? Yeah. So the book comes out on May 21st, but you can pre-order it right now. And if you pre-order it, you can get access to my website where I have things like that Christopher Walken autograph and videos that will not be seen anywhere else. And in the audio book, which I also narrate also has a bunch of extras that you can't find anywhere else. So the audio book and the, uh, the book. If you pre-order, just go to my website, sign up, and you'll get extra stuff. But you have a couple more days before that goes away. Or go find him in Hudson News at JFK and LAX. By the way, if you're going to be in Hudson News on JFK on Friday, LAX on Monday. And I'm going to be in New York. I'm going to have a whole book tour. You can check out the book tour. Buy our man a Dasani when you see him. Treat him right. Thank you, Paul. We'll see you soon. Good luck. Appreciate it, Paul.

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