Joel McHale

Welcome to Armchair Expert, I'm Dak Shepherd. I'm joined by my friend Monica Padman. Hello. Boy, oh boy, do we have a tall guest today?

It's all drink of water. A real tall slurp of water and a muscular slurp at that. Oh, yeah, thick water. Yeah, I don't think people realize when they see Joel McCall on the television set or on a billboard on the side of the road, just how beastly is.

He really is. He's gigantic, right? Not just in his height. He's very broad.

He has a big, small heart, but he's very broad and dense. He's quite muscular and it's really overwhelming in person and intimidating. Yet, despite that, we were able to have a really lovely conversation. I assume you know Joel from the previous show.

He was on soup and he was also on community. He has a new show on Netflix that I just saw just visiting my mom for six days in rather unfortunate circumstances. And I plowed through seven episodes of his show. He did.

Joel McCall show with Joel McCall, which of course is a great title. That's the same. And goddamn is that show watchable. Oh, I was putting him back like Doritos or Orgids did milk.

Yeah, it was. It's really, really funny and moves up quite a clip. And both you and your lovely wife have been on that show. We've both been on that show in fact last Friday.

I filmed a little bit that old era. I'm not even certain when, but throughout the years we've always been social with Joel. We've teamed up on trying to get someone elected to school board superintendent. He's very philanthropic and we get a call from him quite often and he gets a call from us quite often.

And he's a very dependable gentleman. And I really enjoyed talking to him. He was so well read that was not that I didn't expect it, but just holy smokes. You read a lot, you know, do you think the show also could have been called the Joel show?

Yeah, I think that if I had named him and pronounced it, it'd be called the Joel show. So please, please enjoy Joel McCall, my tall robust muscular handsome kind well read guest. He's an object. Remember wait, I'm taking a treat in my house.

In a top Joel McCall welcome to the armchair expert. I can't believe I'm here. Thank you so much for having a correct. I'm going to pop in several knickers because I want to match your energy.

And I know you have a spectacular energy. That is true. But that's from my cooking. Oh, you have cooking talent.

Yes, they dissolve. That was Stevie Ray Von's thing. Do you know that about him? No, he didn't snort it.

He put it in his whiskey. He drank it and everything was going honky dory and then all of a sudden his like stomach brought about. Yeah, yeah, that'll do it. It seemed like a hack though, like a cocaine hack so that your nose would say.

I mean, I was a singer, right? Yeah. And you still are putting cocaine in your body. So but if there is a safe way to do it, then what's the issue?

I wonder if that is true that former cocaine users, if they were heavy cocaine users, typically they have. Well, yes, they have with the deal with the. Uh, no, but they have heart problems. Uh, Coke users?

Yeah. Yeah. So, so, yes. So in fact, I have been to a cardiologist as you know, I'm I know I didn't know you.

You don't know I'm an ex-coic addict. I knew that you were a drinker. Yeah. But if you're a co-catic, I'm a drinker.

I never met you during that time. That was before I was on basic cable. I was not. Well, yeah, I had about a year of having some success and still being an addict.

So how's your heart? Well, so I went to a cardiologist and I guess what can happen. I'm sure there's more extensive damage that can happen, but the circuitry between your brain and your heart can get a little dicey. And how's yours?

Well, I just want to tell everyone what just happened because they won't know that you just flipped off Rob, our producer who's a very kind person. He's from a Chicago suburb. Oh, Naperville. My dad is where Chicago and he said Naperville was just.

Farmland. Now it's a huge town. A much rather high school. It was great high schools.

I don't understand. Have you read Devil in the White City? Yes. Isn't that great?

It is so good. And I would love to. I know that there was like, you know, to come here and play him and all that. I was like, you should really not make it a movie.

You should make it a part series. You're so right. There's very few books that can do two subjects at one. So the book tells two stories that the history of the Chicago World Fair in the 1890s or something.

Right. So the way. Yes, it was called the White City. Yeah, there's still a few of it today.

And it was the World Fair that immediately followed the unveiling of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. So that the stakes were incredibly high that they had to do something spectacular. They didn't know what to do. And at the time, they had about a year to build it.

Right. And they had to deal with Chicago winters. We were like, I don't know how to get through the soil here. Right.

These are the same guys that figured out how to put tall buildings in downtown Chicago. Well, to me, that's the third element of that book, which is so fascinating is that the early architecture of skyscrapers. Yes, because they were born in Chicago. And everyone thought, well, because the ground in Chicago was in part because he had to make this huge foundation to build these huge buildings.

And Chicago did not have the land to secure it. So they figured out how to float these buildings. Yeah. So all the buildings in Chicago literally floating.

But they're just counterbalanced. Also, they're just the fact, you know what I liked about that book too? Well, they would describe the parties they would throw when this affair was going. And they would go like, well, we brought in four elephants and butcher those and then 90 Moroccan soldiers.

And it was crazy. I like the two. It just gives me a ton of gratitude for the time we live in because you don't realize what it was like to live in a city that heated all the buildings with coal and provided light with oil lamps or gas lamps. And a whole city was city.

Everyone was coughing. Everyone had fucking black long. And then the other thing you realize too is that I call him the protagonist in this book. He's a murderer.

He let's go with antagonist. But is any our hero? I guess maybe. No, he was not my hero.

What's wrong with you? That's the camera I'm in here. Wait, what did you read? Did you read the red dahlia?

And go like, gosh, this guy's doing great. I don't know. You know, we learn about him first. So he just kind of I don't know muscle memory.

Tell me he was our hero. But at any rate, he would just show up and assume people's identity. He'd be like, oh, I'm their son. The people who on the pharmacy, I'm their son.

Don't worry about me. And there's no way to prove who you are back now. No. And then he's just killing people.

And then he's writing letters to their family going, hey, move to California. And then there's no way to find out if they move to California because you can't call them. Yeah, you can't even write a letter. It's got to fucking go through Panama and shit.

It'd be a year before. Yeah, it would marry people, take their property or kill them and then have their property and sell that. And will that be a move above if I remember this where he moved above a pharmacy, just as a renter, and then kill both the people on the pharmacy and just assumed ownership of it. Yeah, never like, they're gone.

They're going to go for you. Everyone move to the telephone. Yeah, that's your hero. He's my hero.

He's got a poster behind. Great book though. Great. It really and that author Larsa, last name is Larson from Seattle, Washington.

He's the number of great books. And the fact they can gather that stuff together and put it into a narrative. I'm just like, those people are 150 times smarter than me. Oh, absolutely.

I read this book called the dark matter of the dinosaurs, which is a science book. And I was so bad at science. And I heard the woman interview and I'm like, she might be able to make it. I'm like, it's super amazing.

Yeah. And I read it. And well, I can't read. I just listened to everything.

But she I was like, all these crazy concepts. She broke them down for me. I was like, if only if this was the way I could have accessed something like science. Sure.

Yeah. Well, it's not unlike our job, which is it requires a very bizarre combination of things, right? Yeah. But I'm confused by your job because this house wearing is a piece of shit.

Yeah. What you do all day. Listen, what we're going to get to my house and the fact that you had to wait through months to get up here today. It looks like their house was attacked, you guys.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Wait, no, but I think you're right. And that actors do tend to take.

You would just think, oh, you need to be good at acting. Well, that's not true. You have to kind of be an entrepreneur and you have to be a self starter. There's no like manual how to do it.

And so I'm sure the best actors of all time never ever acted because it required this other weird skill set, which is like self promotion and showing up. Absolutely. Or you could say they realize they're only, I mean, if they're actors, say in the Middle Ages where they just marry bands of actors like, we love to put on a morality tale for you. Do you have some bread and broth for us?

I mean, that's what they do. These play where they would teach you. And but you have the same as minstrels like one. Yeah.

But basically they had to mean or like a court gesture. Mm hmm. Their job was to staying alive each day. Like only pissed the king off to a certain point.

Well, and then this goes back even further. If you want to get into our evolution, which is we have this uncanny capacity to remember stories and tell stories because we didn't have the written word for so long and our culture is what makes us successful as an animal. Right. We've given up so much of our brain space so that we can learn right.

We don't come out of the womb. We can't do a goddamn thing. We got to learn how to do everything. So we have to have a way to convey all this information.

So we have this crazy capacity for stories. So well, you can also make the argument we are using our whole brain because up until just a few thousand years ago, well, not even less than we spend most of our day going, don't die. Oh, yeah. Stay warm.

Have shelter. Avoid the guy with the boils on his face who seems right. So each day was survival and I mean, people cross mountain ranges wearing one blanket. And so every day was a new adventure in living.

Yeah. And we're in a constant state of homeostasis. They say, I mean, our biggest problem is the culture is trying to stay thin. Yeah.

Are you ever driving? Do you drive up to Washington ever? I have many times, right. But with kids, we haven't as much.

Okay. I'm still doing it. I'm a glutton for punishment. So we just drove to Oregon over Christmas, right?

Always when I'm driving through grants pass. I think it is the tall pass between Oregon and California. I think Jesus Christ, man, coming through here in a fucking wagon with no roads. How can they?

How did they do it? I can barely get through. You know, I got the kids in the car, but it's knowing like you're starting to think I'm stupid and irresponsible. I should have flown up.

Why have I put my family in this situation and we have airbags? Yes. I mean, what would you feel like as a dad going, fuck it, man, I'm going to go out to California. You guys are coming with me.

How many times on that trip? You're like, I'm the worst, even being ever. Look what I'm putting my family through. We're going to die.

Yeah. Also, I could find some gold out there or something. Yeah. Or yeah, you think about all of our and well, especially Irish and your Norwegian and Irish, but like fucking look at to you.

Thank you. You really do. So my great grandfather left, he was the Norwegian part of where a bunch of Norwegens live in he left that he went to Ellis Island. His last name was Smidgerbocken.

Oh, great. And then went, they went and they were like, what's your last name? And he's like Jackson. And just think about like, oh, not only I'm leaving where I'm from, I'm leaving my family.

I have no money. Oh, and I don't even want my fucking last name. It's over. I'm starting so new.

And what did he do? He moved to fucking June, Alaska, which at that point, I leave fucking Finland to go to June, Alaska. They had gold and fish and you could start a life and that was when the gold, the companies are running the gold mines there. They would just kill the sheriff.

If I got any trouble for sure, they had the leverage. Yeah. I was just thinking like, my grandfather went to some sort of frontier shootouts and he was like, I'll just go fishing and journal. Is there any like that?

No, that's a plumber. Wouldn't that be great to read his fucking journals of June, Alaska? That's what I'm just like on an Innoet lover at any point or a Nupia lover. Oh, yeah.

No, that's exactly what I jumped to. Well, yeah, yes, he did. I would have invited into an Inglue, I guess is what I'm saying. Well, there's no igloos in June.

In June, you know, you don't know because June, you know it all much further down. It's almost I didn't invite you here for a geography. Well, just because it's the one thing you don't know that. I have to be that smartest person.

June, you know, is way down midway through British Columbia. British Columbia is a province of Canada. Your mother's Canadian is this one. You're a fancy yourself a Canadian.

People are largely aware of it, but I just want to make a personal testament to it. You're a beast. You're a very imposing physical beast. Well, I did forget.

You're one of the few actors in the gym. Yes, you are. You are. So backstory Joel was going to be here at 1030 and I thought around 1010.

What's a gentle way to just remind him? I don't want to accuse you of having forgot, but I thought absolutely you should accuse me because this is a conversation I have with my wife, all daily. But I don't know you well enough to know whether you're, if you're like the rocket Gibraltar, if you're going to, if I can count on you, I don't know that side of you yet. So I thought I'm just going to do a gentle.

It doesn't seem like I'm saying, hey, remember? So how did it come off? Because I think I said, hey, if you get confused, just give me a ring. It came off exactly like this is a very polite way to remind me.

I'm doing this today and not next Friday. But I can't like even on, we have a scheduled spring break and we booked flights. We all that and then Sarah, my, the lovely of super gorgeous. You have no idea how lucky I am.

And she's so wonderfully responsible and an adult. She goes, hey, genius, it says you're going to say an Antonio in the middle of our ring break. And I was like, so I'm going to get into that. Let me get into it.

This is a constant. Do you overcome it? Oh, yeah, it's an actual problem that I need counseling. It's like I'm constantly being electrocuted and I can't open my hand.

Do you, what do you think that stems from? Is it is it codependency or is it like an just an eternal optimism that everything will work out? I think the competitiveness and aggressiveness of the business that we've chosen. When you first are young here and I arrived here when I was 29, which now I look back and I that basically 14 to me.

Did you feel like you were playing catch up because you would have left. Absolutely. And I did. Yes.

And I didn't know the rules. There aren't any rules. You go into it and when it starts working, you're like, right, you just got to keep going and you you fill up the whole thing. We work your ass off and then yeah.

And then last in the last two years, community and the soup and great indoors were all canceled. I mean, community kind of reached its end and we ended the streaming service of Yahoo screen. We went six seasons, but I basically didn't have a job. So I was like, well, let's go hit the stand up.

You know, and I started looking stand up and and my wife was like, you got a ease off. You got a nine to 13 year old and I'm like, right, right, right. Let's go throw the football. Go back in.

Go back in. Go back in. Which is not healthy and because at the end of your life, you're like, yeah, you really entertain those folks in Edmonton at one time. But you could have.

But you weren't there for your kids. Yeah, soccer game. Yeah. But I'll be there from playing football.

I'm also one of the so it's going to be great. Oh, that's a juicy topic. It's flag football. Okay.

There's no head on head. Yeah, but I had seven. Concussion on the school. Well, I'm not an idiot writing a motorcycle right back.

But do you shut the fuck up. Oh, whoa. We're going to fight motorcycle. I'm 43, what are you?

46, 46. Monica is 13 and Rob is 22. Correct. But I think early in my career, I was so hungry because unlike you, I did come here early, but I had 10 years of audition and never got a fucking thing.

So when I had an opportunity, like jump to that plate glass window, you got it. I'll do it. And then I was, you know, but that's not the most appealing personality type to maintain anything for a long time. So I've had to really kind of think about that a lot.

So you probably do the thing where you're like, I'll figure it out later, you know, but right now I'm jumping through this plate glass window. Yes. Yeah. Well, again, what was super helpful is to Mary Kristen who has a completely opposite right?

The train of thought on all topics. And she's been good at gently pointing out like, you know, these fight stories you tell. It's not people's favorite part of you. And I'm like, Oh, really?

That's interesting. Because where I'm from in Michigan, these are good, good stories. These glands. Yeah.

You know, people don't want to feel like they're a run someone who might just get physical with other people. It's not a comforting thought. It's much in my mind. I'm thinking this would be so comforting for everyone to know that I will confront the guy if he comes to the door.

That's the opposite reaction. I want to ask really quick because you said you listened to books and I too listen to books. And do you feel guilty when you admit that you actually listened to that book as opposed to Reddit? Oh, no.

People will shame me by going. You didn't read that book. You listened to it. And then I will say, I'm foreign to Tal then you.

What are you going to do about it? That's nice. That's a good ritual. No, I'll be like, it's worked out.

Do you want to head to the tennis court? I don't. But I now, like for a while, when I started the soup back in 2004, I was so anxious because I can't really read and all I had to do. And I had to read Delipromter.

Well, right. We're both dyslexic. Yeah. I repeated grades.

So my sons are also dyslexic. One is being diagnosed and the doctor goes and she's striving all the symptoms. And I was like, that's what I have. And she goes, oh, I was wondering which one it was because it's past now.

And then I said, they told me I was a slow starter and she just put it in me. What does that even mean? She put her head down and she goes like, not someone. Just call it some kid stupid.

Yeah. That's what it is. It's a euphemism for stupid. Slow starter.

Yeah. And my dad would always, because my dad clearly has dyslexia, he would never really admit it for a long time. But he'd always say like, not bad for white trash from Chicago. Right.

Dad also worked his ass off and did well. Does he jumble a ton of words? Does he like mispronounce people's names and stuff? No, but he can't remember names just like I can.

Yeah, I can. I mean, that's the- You've done a great one. It's just two people. I'm fine.

I did a stand-up show on Columbus last weekend and I have a cousin who lives there. And I texted my mom. I was like, do you know what show Mary's coming to? And she goes, Jane?

Your cousin? The last 46 years? Yeah. She's going to the first show.

Because my mom was a newspaper editor. My dad was very smart to marry somebody who could edit everything. Handle all the reading and writing. And when Audible.com came on where you're like, thank you, Jesus.

Well, I weirdly- You know what's interesting is I did not learn to read the fifth grade, but then I did develop a super passion for reading around like my senior year in high school. And then I just read super slow, but I did learn. I loved reading. I really got into books on tape because of my insomnia.

So I started listening to these McCulloch books, these dance historical books that are so mind-numbing with detail. They would put me to sleep. So now that was about three years ago. So now I've listened to like a hundred books because they just what puts me to sleep.

So you found out you were dyslexic because of your son? Yeah. Well, it was- Everyone knew- But you thought you were a slow starter until- Right. And I kind of took that philosophy.

My whole thing was because I cheated all through high school and college. Well, you did. And I was always like, I'm just going to figure out how to get good grades without having to work because I can't read it. I can't read the material, but I'm just going to cheat and I'll figure it out.

Were you good at math? I was very good at geometry. I ached all that. And strangely, the only science class I ever did well in was physics because it's all spatial stuff.

Right. And visual. So I can go, oh, right, this make. And so I loved physics and geometry.

I panked algebra. But I always figured that my whole thing approached education was how do I figure out the system? And then once I figured that out, then I could be like, oh, right. I would get better grades than I should be getting.

I would imagine though, do you have a crazy memory for auditory stuff, like things you heard, right? You can hear a story and it's fucking bad. Yeah, in college, I took as much history as I could because I love the history and there was a number of lecturers where I could just listen to the lecture. I would get it and then I knew I could just write it down in a test.

But when I would get these, they were like, here's 18 books for you to read. And I'm like, I'm not going to read any of these. I remember classes where they would present the books and I would just drop the class. Oh, you would.

Yeah. But the other guys would go strangely though, like I had to do research where I would they would be like, you cannot use textbooks. You can only use old newspapers. And I had an okay time because there's so many pictures and visual stuff that I can read news, old newspapers very quickly.

Well, what's cool is growing up, we think like, oh, we're fucked, right? Yeah. We're clearly reading. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. In the grades, which is just that we're fucked early on. But you don't realize you are developing the superpower, which is this memory for things you've heard, which then as someone who improves a lot and is off the cuff, like this is your greatest weapon is that you have this crazy database of little clips in your head that you can draw pretty fucking quickly.

Yeah. It's scary when you meet someone like, I don't know, like I'm just when like, like this friend of mine, who has him Drew Hanson and he's in the state legislature and watching Rhodes Scholar Harvard, he's he can read anything at any of the fastest you've ever seen. And he's got the insane memory. And I'm like, Oh, really?

You need to run for president. Yeah. Because you've got everything. But when they read a book, in my experience, they just don't retain nearly as much as probably when you read a book or when I read a book.

Yeah. We're going so fucking slow. Yeah. And when he's just having someone read it to me is yeah, I love it.

It's the I whenever I exercise or drive, I don't listen to music nearly as much as I used to because it's where I'm reading all the books that I should have read. I was like reading all the doc I was asking. Oh, this is the stuff I would never have read. Did you read crime and punishment?

Yeah. Well, the way he can relay what people think is unparalleled. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare.

I read the gambler, which is apparently an anti-Semite, which is we just got here. You're going to have to overlook that Henry Ford as well. You know, but we got the car out of the guy. So a lot of guys like people.

That's a big, big topic that would be worth talking about. But let's do it. Here's my here's my thought. And now there's a lot of movements that basically the results of these movements is people are gone.

They're kind of just put out to Siberia, right? Yeah. And what's interesting is I don't think we ever calculate what what cost are we going to pay now for this? So we're going to punish this person who might have a ton to contribute to society.

Henry Ford, right? The guy is it's despicable. He was an anti-Semite. He was a supporter of Hitler.

This is all bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. But his net result on society is still so positive, right? Right. So but we live now in a culture where if Picasso was among us and we found out Picasso had done something dodgy, we would just get rid of Picasso.

He would be banished, right? He would never be allowed to create anything. And then we then would be denied all that. So it's just an interesting.

I don't know. You could make the argument that so in Michael Jackson's case. Yeah, let's talk about him to court for possible Melissa. He was cleared.

And I think obviously big fans are like he was ruled innocent. Sure. But you could also not in the civil cases though. No.

And yeah, that whole thing about being able to identify marks on his penis. That's that seems like a what do you call it? In a court case, I mean, that feels like open and shut. If you can describe, you know, right?

So you go, yeah, but the music still gets played, obviously. As it again, as it should, because I don't know, I don't know why the world should be punished because he had this terrible aspect to his personality. Why should we all be denied this amazing music that spreads joy and makes everyone dance and is happy? It's just, I know when I listen to him, I'm like, oh boy, you can't enjoy Michael Jackson because he's hard for me to.

I mean, yeah, I mean, that was such a public case. But then you know, you read about John Lennon and Julian Lennon, his older son, has said he would never have kids because he never would ever want them to have the same upbringing that he had. And I was like, oh, that is painful. And did that lower your enjoyment of it?

Well, he does when people go like, isn't he the greatest? And I was like, he's not the greatest father. At least that first round was no good. Right.

But that's my issue. I guess what I'm, at least how I feel like people are saying is, unless someone is entirely perfect across the board, then he's a great thing is no one void. And that's just Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King had orgies that were recorded by the FBI, had those come out in that day.

He probably would have been silenced. Would we have denied ourselves the civil rights? That happened? Yeah, all these tapes were made public a few years ago.

So you could fucking John F. Kennedy, he had sex on the Virgin in the White House pool. That would probably be the White House has a pool. That was my biggest shocker too.

She was making the rounds on like she did a 60 minutes thing. She had been waiting for Jackie O to die to tell her story, but she basically was a virgin and got hit on by him and some staffer and they went to the pool and they had sex in the pool. And you know, that's a dodgy situation. Yeah, that sounds really dodgy.

It does. But all things aren't equal here. I think the level of pain and injustice is different. But let me just ask you, if there's a man that has the cure for cancer in his basement laboratory and he hates everyone and he uses the N word at breakfast, are we going to punish ourselves because he has that side of himself?

It's just to me, it's like the opposite of the utilitarian philosophy where it's like, hey, you're going to have to fucking tolerate some shit if you want the upside of some of these people. That's true. But cancer, which saves people's lives, is different than looking at paintings. I don't think so.

I don't think you can say that the value that Picasso added to world history or that Michael Jackson's added is not commensurate with some scientific breakthroughs. Joel, I think it's the same thing. It's the same sort of theme of somebody who contributes something great to society who's despicable in a big way. Yeah, the point is, can we handle that?

Are we big enough to acknowledge? Yeah, that guy's a fucking scumbag. I got to say, no one plays a violin like him and that's worth having in schools so kids can learn about it. Yeah, I do think now that sort of behavior is hard to hide.

Obviously Ford was open about it, but now it's way harder to keep behavior like JFK's because of having so many, thank God, women reporting in news, that stuff all changed. So now it's going to be different. Yeah, look, I've floated this opinion out loud at parties and people are quick to say like, okay, well, what if it's your daughter who's blank? You know, and I go, yeah, well, that is terrible.

But there's got to be another solution other than guy with cure for cancer, you're inside of the area. How about he's not allowed around women or whatever, any number of practical, pragmatic solutions to this stuff where we still allow the one good thing about the person to be nurtured or supported, you know, and I just it's I think it's tricky. Well, it does get a weird thing. You're like, yes, it's just, oh, but society has benefited from this core thing or hasn't told me that the ozone on the back of it.

And we're slowly breaking ourselves, but yeah, but I think it'd be hard for us to go through history and everyone we hold up if they had lived in the era of Twitter and whatever else. Yeah, I don't think we'd have many people. I'm not rush for you. And then so what would we be left with?

Like our moral superiority that we punished everyone who wasn't perfect. Right. Absolutely. It's a weird, it's a once you get in the weeds of it.

It's very difficult. I want to ask you've been labeled a slow starter. What impact do you think that has had on your, you know, full adult life? No, I decided not to pursue pop music.

No, I always thought I'm going to show them. I thought it and I thought I know what to get around. And so I always was figuring out ways to get around stuff. I mean, I knew I was good at sports.

I knew I loved acting and performing. So I really dove into that and I made school always became secondary. And I knew that I was, I could tell jokes in class and that always did well. But again, what's the chicken and what's the egg because the egg?

I was walking all the way up high. So I developed, I think at least a sharp sense of humor in response to being the fucking dumb-dumb who was being let out of the classroom. So do you think that the day that the spelling bee would come up? Like I'm not going to be able to spell any of these words.

And then, you know, then I'd make it, then it would be fun to make a joke out of it. And I could make people laugh and they would still think I was a dumb kid. But I always excelled in sports. So I knew I had advantages there.

Yeah. And I was really crushing him at least one department. That really gave me like confidence. All yourself the same.

Yeah. But I really was, I didn't ultimately care. It was that it was that thing where I mean, I probably missed out on some good education. But I was thinking like, oh, well, if I can't do it, I don't want it, you know, like it's dumb.

And I did a lot of that. And I went to college. I definitely should have not gone to college. And you went to UW, right?

Yeah. It's a hard school to get into. Right. But my grades were pretty good.

My ass and t-shirts were a disaster. So what I did begin, I think it took me a long time was there was like, this year to go to acting classes and stuff like that. And I realized I was like, oh, I can only use 20 to 30% of this information. I only, I have to take stuff that I can use and throw everything else because it's not useful to me.

Right. So when I began to kind of think for myself and go like, oh, here's how I, I can accomplish this to my certain level of accomplishment that I can do, whether it's like telling jokes or something, that really kind of helped. Oh, I know. I know my skill set here.

And that's what I think I can do. But I think the athlete part is really key. That's a great source of a you fit in with a bunch of guys on teams, assuming. Yeah.

And you learn what you're doing at. Right. You're, yeah, you're, you're excelling. You're better at something than other people.

You're, you're, you're, you know, if you're like, when you do well, it helps. And do you have it all? I have, this is a terrible side of me is I'm a fucking know it all in response to thinking everyone thinks I'm a dumbass. Do you have that?

Um, first of all, knowing you a bit, not too much, but I've never gotten that feeling. I never got the, the, oh, there's the insecure guy that has to prove that he's smart. Oh, good. I've never, I, all I thought was, uh, Dax is one of those kind of, uh, cowboy rogue, smart guy, other sort of a free economics type of alternative.

Can I use that for my bio? Do you? Like, he's got like, he's a motorcycle expert. He can raise cars.

He's clearly smart in ways which, uh, typically smart people or typically seen smart people would run screaming and crying from. So, uh, I've never felt you try to, but I'm sure there was, oh, in my twenties, I think I was insufferable. It was so important to me that you understood I was not a dumbass. And it really, I think I was real tough to be around.

I think people would agree. When did you feel like you became easier to be around? Well, I think, uh, well, getting sober helped. And I also think being around Kristen helped a lot.

And I think just generally getting some fucking self esteem along the way you have like growing, I mean, clearly you were good athlete. You were good at selling the different, like, obviously the motorbike sports. Well, right. So that's, I, you're not dead or completely mangled.

It's amazing. Yeah. I do have a theory that when I will die and then I'll get to heaven and I'll go, uh, oh, finally happen and they'll go, oh, that's so cute. You think this is the first time you died.

You died there in nineteen nine. You died. Like, they could be a fun reveal that like we, we die a bunch of times and then they finally like, whatever. Okay.

What? I don't know. I don't know. You believe you've actually died before?

I don't believe I'm going to have another. Is it happened? I was expecting to die at 62 and then go, Oh, no, no, you did die at 62 and you died at 46 and then you know that motor's like life so that you died. People don't live from it.

You thought you lived and you're like, so you feel like they just keep you around until you learn some lessons in this story. An angel grabs the motorcycle with you. And goes, whoa, buddy boy. Let's just know.

Like, no, they'll show you that. Oh, you were dead. Like you were dead. And then they just woke you up.

Yeah. And they're like, no, you survived this crazy car accident. I look forward to your book. Um, uh, whenever we're talking about like, you know, what we hope our daughters will, will leave the house like whatever.

If we could start one skill, I know you have two, no, no, gorgeous gladiator Viking sons. Well, they're really good looking and I think they'd kill each other, right? If you let them, uh, yeah, yeah, I know that, which is, I think is going to serve them well in life. Yeah.

My brothers and I, we killed each other. Yeah. Same here. But if I had to pitch just a single thing that they left the house with, forget whatever, whatever kind of self motivation we could bestow to them.

I would want them to exercise literally if they did nothing else, they could be horrible awful people. They could be terrible in school. Like it'd be all these things. Forward anti-Semites.

Yeah, but as long as they hit burning crosses in the front yard, uh, no, but if they, if they, if they left the house and they exercise three times a week, I would, I would be most happy about that. And I'll tell you why. Wow. Because this is all relates to you.

Don't worry. So you'll be like, Lincoln, I'm sorry about the six divorces you've had. And, uh, but I know she'll be happy because I do think exercise is a huge source of happiness because, and again, I have nothing to support this theory. I do think for the bulk of time humans lived here, we spent a little, as you were talking about, we spent a big portion of our day being physically active, gathering food or actively hunting and you were rewarded for that work with serotonin.

And now we're all sedentary and we, or we have jobs where we don't do anything physical. Yeah. And that's why you have pandemic, uh, depression in this country. I feel like also in England, several years back, they stopped treating people with mild depression with, uh, pharmaceuticals and they started the NHS or whatever that national health system.

Yeah. They will pay for them to go to a gym three days a week because they've found that that has better results in treating mild depression than pharmaceutical. So you have this, this gift, you work out nonstop, right? I'm working out right now.

I am just flexing down below. You are. Okay. Great.

You have the most powerful kegles in the business they say. So well known for, but you have this, you might, if you have a recognize that this is a gift, you have that like you were in athletics and then you, for whatever reason, you've kept that going. Do you acknowledge that that might be a big building block of your own self esteem and your own happiness? Oh, yeah.

Definitely. And it's, I do find it rather, I mean, cell, there's a selfish part of it obviously because you want to look good and you want to not leave. Yes. And you're like, maybe you could go to a soup kitchen and help out downtown sometime.

Uh, I got hit the gym before you measure this salmon out before I know how do I look? Great. And so it's very kind of narcissistic in that way. But I, but the other side of it is keep moving because most American people are age, not your guys age, but 13 and 22.

Because you guys are getting high school credit. Is that our parent, not our parents, but our parents before, by the time they were our age. I mean, they were, it was, there was enough cigarettes and whiskey and not moving around for the most part. They were like, that was it.

And, uh, no, I, the, as you said, the door from rush, the, all that stuff is, uh, I feel like if I don't exercise then, because clearly you've had periods where you're working too much and you can't write, if you have long way offs of working out and you're well, then cut to me and my trailer doing pushups going, I need to do 200 pushups. Yes. You have a very regimented diet. Well, that's the vanity part.

So Jimmy Kimmel starvation diet. Oh, you're on that one day a week. You fast. Oh, no, I do three to four.

You fast three to four. Today I have an eating. Oh, I won't eat until eight. Oh my God.

How does this not fuck up your metabolism? I feel like this has to work. I have more starvation mode. I have more energy on non-eating days than I do on eating this.

That's no testament to what your metabolism is doing. Oh, I feel like, uh, you're a hummingbird. Uh, no, human beings did not constantly feed themselves. Well, that's very true.

And, uh, we now live in a society where we have access to food all day and all night. And that just was not the case. And I feel bad for us. I watch these nature shows with the girls and you see what a fucking bear will do to get a seal, right?

You kill itself to get a seal and you go, oh, we have that same hard wiring. So I'm very sympathetic to like we're nearly defenseless against that. You know, you see what we'll do to get a piece of meat. Uh, of course we're fucked.

Yeah. Wait, what is the guy? Can you break down diet? It's not really that difficult.

I mean, it's not, I mean, I can break it down. It's just tell us. Tell me days. I do three to four, usually three a week, where I'll have a dinner and then I don't even tell dinner the next day.

Really? And then when the dinner, the dinner is what? It's responsible as well? Well, the thing you never can.